or just create a generic one if there isn't variation in the bumps on the original picture.
The problem with a generic bump map is that it's not going to line up with the brush strokes of the actual painting. It's not like we're only talking about the surface of canvas here, which is going to have a rather uniform and consistent texture throughout a particular painting and even throughout different paintings. Each painting is going to have a totally unique "bump map" based on the brush work of the artist. Using a generic bump map is going to completely throw everything off.
I'd like to see this as well. Drivers have been using sims for awhile now to practice and to get familiar with tracks, but I think very few of the big names actually compete openly, and regularly, with sims like iRacing (Earnhardt is the only one I know of). Some F1 teams use either advanced versions of publicly available sims such as rFactor (using heavily customized rFactor Pro setups) in their sims, or similar such setups, but they're not competing against others online. Would be fun to put a real F1 driver up against some sim racers in an online race against each other. Even if for no other reason than to see how the F1 driver's lap times compare to their real world lap times at the same course with the same car.
A while ago I damaged the radial nerve in my left arm, making my left hand almost completely useless. I'm right handed, so using Photoshop wasn't much of a problem, but was slightly more time consuming (not being able to quickly hotkey with the left hand, and having to constantly either use the icons, or take my hand away from the tablet to press the keyboard keys). Trying to do 3D on the other hand (no pun intended), was just a complete bitch because of this. I mostly use modo, Maya, and Mudbox and a few other apps, and I'm so dependent on hotkeys for an efficient workflow that I essentially gave up on 3D for those 3 months my left hand was "broken". On the plus side, I got a lot of digital painting, and traditional drawing done (though even traditional drawing was kind of a PITA because I couldn't easily hold/rotate/move my sketchbook with my left hand).
Take a walk around a city sometime and you'll see plenty of loonies holding the sides of their heads, talking back to the voices they 'hear' inside their mind. I'm guessing schizophrenia manifested itself the same way back then as it does now.
You actually hit on a good point. Schizophrenia manifested itself the same way back then as it does now...and in the future. So clearly, she's a schizophrenic..... FROM THE FUTURE!
I think that ADHD does exist, but I also think you have a somewhat valid point hidden in your sarcasm/trolling/whatever.
When I was in elementary school, I was consistently not paying attention, goofing off, and slacking on homework. When I did do my homework though, it was a breeze and always got good grades on homework. Same with tests, I always did well on tests, despite apparently never trying. Fortunately my teachers recognized that instead of having some sort of problem paying attention, they realized I was just bored by the subject material and not being challenged. They tried remedying the situation by putting me in some special classes for "gifted" kids. I think those were more geared towards keeping us bored kids occupied more than anything though. But they did have the benefit of letting us kids kind of guide our learning. We'd get to choose what we wanted to learn about, and the teachers would help us. They were basically teaching us to teach ourselves.
Anyway, fast forward to middle school, and high school, and it was a similar story. I wasn't as bored in school, since we had greater freedom in middle school, and especially in high school, to choose what classes we took. I still however, was at risk of failing a few required classes because I didn't put the time or effort into doing homework and such. I started putting in the bare minimum amount of work necessary, and it showed in my grades. My GPA was basically around 3 because I had a bunch of Cs and even a D here and there. Those were the classes I had no interest in, but had to take anyway. The classes I took that did interest me however, were all classes that I received As in. To give you an example, one of the classes I took that initially interested me was "Computer Programming". When I soon learned that it was just programming in BASIC, I started losing interest very quickly. My grades suffered because homework was the biggest factor in grading for that class. I aced the tests, but I still only pulled off a D in this class. Meanwhile, at home, I was teaching myself C++. Fortunately, in some of my classes though, the teachers recognized I was bored with the subject matter, and would even turn a blind eye to missing homework so long as I was doing well on tests, and not disrupting the classroom.
I have no doubt that if this happened to me today, I would be diagnosed as having ADHD or ADD or something, and be placed on medication.
Back to your "point", I think a big problem is the way we're teaching our kids. School is not a normal situation for kids on a basic level in my opinion. I mean think about it, we're taking kids and forcing them to sit at a desk for 6-7 hours a day. While they need to learn a lot of things taught in school, the way they're taught is all to often, quite frankly, boring. Try and get a kid to sit still at home for 6-7 hours doing something boring (even if it's watching TV shows they have no interest) and you'll probably see a lot of similar behavior. I think we need to work on how we're teaching our children. And this is one area where I think computers and technology can really have a huge benefit. We need to exploit technology to better serve our children's learning. Make learning fun. Give them access to resources beyond the specific subject matter that's being taught.
Physical fitness isn't the biggest stumbling block for Nascar drivers to get into F1. Sure, some of them are sorta "pudgy", but if necessary, and desired, they have the resources to get fit enough for F1.
Good drivers, no matter what series they race in, can usually handle other types of cars reasonably well. The problem is they lack the experience to make up those last few tenths to actually be competitive. Jeff Gordon and Juan Pablo Montoya did a publicity thing back in 2003 (I think), where they swapped cars with each other. Gordon was a few seconds (or maybe even less, again, I forget) of Montoya's time in the F1 car. That itself is impressive, but learning the ins and outs of driving an F1 car takes time and there is no replacement for seat time. Also, he did it on a closed track in a private session. Learning to drive a car is one thing, learning to race in a car is a whole different story, and again, there is no replacement for seat time.
Gordon did mention that his neck, shoulders, and arms took a beating, but he has the resources and motivation to get in shape in no time I'm sure.
When it comes to experience, the most common career path these days for F1 drivers seems to be starting out in karting at a very young age, then working your way up series like Formula Renault, Formula Three, etc, then up to GP2 and finally F1. That means they might have spent 8 or so years in karts, and then maybe another 6 or so years in actual open wheel cars. All in road racing. Of course, there are exceptions, but generally they come from having lots of road racing backgrounds.
Cool stuff. I'd like to get into rally driving myself, but have neither the time nor the funds really. That, and I'm sure I have way more confidence in my driving ability than I actually possess:) . I have thought about getting into karting (for fun, not thinking of turning racing into a profession by any means), or autocrossing, or some other such racing in the next couple couple years.
For now though, I just get my fix with simracing. rFactor, GTR series, and now that we've talked about rallying, I may have to dig out my Richard Burns Rally disc to install it. Have you tried any sim racing at all? More specifically, rally sim racing? Richard Burns Rally seems to be the best option out there for rallying in terms of realism and being challenging, but I'm always up for trying something new. I think soon I'm gonna pick up iRacing as well, and then grab a proper wheel and pedal setup. I'm just using a 5 year old Logitech Momo wheel at the moment, and I'd like something with an actual clutch pedal and H pattern gear shifter (with the paddles as well, for use in cars that actually use them in real life)
Back to the subject of necks though, I'm hazy on the specifics, but I remember when someone asked Jensen Button back about 4-5 years ago about the physical fitness aspects of F1. He said something along the lines of his neck's circumference having grown something like 3-4 inches from training in order to build up the muscles in his neck and such. (again, I'm hazy on the specifics, but you get the idea) There was also a video on youtube floating around various F1 forums and such of Alonso cracking nuts using his neck. That kind of cracked me up.
Not only that, but driving a car, especially a Formula 1 car, is an extremely demanding activity. Racing in the comfort of your house, sitting on a couch, is nothing compared to sitting in the cockpit of a car, with temps that can exceed 100+ in your nomex racing suit, while dealing with up to 5 lateral g. Not to mention the fact that all the while you're not just driving the car like you do in the GT series, but you have to be in communication with your race engineers and look after your tires, your brakes, the engine, fuel consumption, basically everything.
This isn't really a privacy violation until they violate our privacy by publishing it
I dunno. Isn't that kind of like saying "sneaking a peak at your sister's diary isn't a violation of privacy until you share the diary with others"?
I guess it is a bit different, what with the information Google is collecting being broadcast and all, but hopefully my analogy gets the point across that I'm trying to make. That is, that the simple act of gathering information can be a breach of privacy, regardless if it is shared or not. Another bad analogy might be me stealing someone's private data off their computer. Whether or not I publish that information does not matter - well, I guess if I did share that information it would be a greater violation of privacy, but even if I didn't share it, the initial violation still took place.
Again, I fully understand that is sort of a different case, and I'm not even fully sure where I stand on it to be honest.
Uh, no. No team is running KERS in 2010. KERS is not banned in 2010 (regulations still allow it, but it is neither banned, nor required), but the FOTA (Formula One Teams Association) teams have agreed to not use KERS in 2010. All of the teams so far are members of FOTA, which means unless one of them breaks ranks, we won't see KERS on the grid in 2010.
http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/a-rumour-explained/
As this post's title says, it doesn't give much more info. Essentially it just adds the information that the flywheel system is derived from the Williams F1 Team's KERS (kinetic energy recovery system).
...because one of the primary reasons for remote start up is to warm up your car in cold conditions, thereby making it easier to scrape ice off one's windshield?
Just out of curiosity, what is the best way to really remove data from a hard drive? Well, I guess maybe incinerating the whole thing, but I'm talking more along the lines of something "simple" for the average user. It's not really a big concern, but my brother is starting a company, and it got me thinking on security, for things like their accounting, employee and customer info and things along those lines. Now, they're not dealing with trade or governmental secrets or anything like that, and the company will be more in the service industry, but I was still thinking about security, and this story made me think about a few things when it comes to deleting data.
If I understand things correctly, normally when you delete a file, it isn't actually removed from the HD, but rather the parts of the disk containing the deleted the files are marked as available, then overwritten when the time comes. So short of a format that actually writes all 0's (or whatever), is there a way to actually delete a file, and have the bits actually overwritten, either with random bits or all 0's or 1's (or what have you)? Basically, something easy for the average user, so if they merely need to delete a few files, and want to make absolutely sure that the data is relatively safely destroyed.
And another "noobish" question: When you do actually delete something, and then overwrite the bits, is there any "residual data" left "underneath" the newly written data? Hard to explain, but I guess the best analogy would be to picture when you use a pencil, and you make a mistake and erase part of it, and then overwrite it, and you can often still partially see the erased pencil markings. Given the right tools and resources, is it possible for someone to recover this kind of data?
(And for what it is worth, I'm referring to standard hard drives, as opposed to solid state drives.
Using a mouse today isn't exactly clumsy in terms of 3D modeling. In fact, I'd venture a guess that today's software + input methods is a lot less clumsy than all those dials.. I'm a modeler (and texture artist/sometimes generalist) by trade, and it's pretty damn efficient and easy - and in no way clumsy. I think I'd much rather use a mouse and keyboard (and tablet for sculpting) than all those dials and knobs. The mouse gives you a central control tool, and the keyboard can let you quickly and easily apply tools, modifiers, etc, for how and what the mouse is used for. (Or of course, you can use the mouse to click on an icon instead of using hotkeys).
Yep, even the Romans knew this. Their pila (javelins made of a wooden shaft with an iron tip extending out) were designed so that when they struck the ground (or a shield), the iron tip would bend and prevent the pilum from being picked up and hurled back at the Roman lines. Quite ingenious really, as this also meant that if the tip pierced a shield, and bent, it could be rather hard to remove, thus making the shield rather unwieldy, which could also make it rather hard for the soldier to charge the Roman lines with a shield with a long wooden shaft sticking out towards the ground.
Yeah, Vista was good enough to last an entire evening before I had to go back to XP instead. The pre-installed image crashed and crashed then crashed some more.
At least something good came out of the Vista train wreck. Microsoft realized they had to do some proper work, and ended up with Win7. By the looks of it, an actually decent OS. I could make do without all the DRM chugging through its innards, wasting cycles, but as usual it'll only really affect a few people (and no pirates), so it's not that critical.
Disclaimer: This is purely anecdotal evidence based on my experience, and so I understand everyone is different.
I've been using Vista since I built this machine about ~10 months ago. Not a single problem. It has been absolutely rock solid in terms of stability. I reboot only to install updates and such, so my uptime is measured in days, weeks, and at times, months. I never experienced the typical Windows rot I got with XP. I use this computer for 3D and other graphics work, as well as a little bit of gaming here and there. It's often pushed "to the max" in terms of resources, lots of large files being loaded into memory, lots of heavy processing, etc. Everything from stuff that stresses more say, memory and the GPU (3D viewports in modo, Maya, etc, previewing stuff in Photoshop, and all that), to stuff that is more CPU intensive such as rendering and image adjustments in PS. Again, no Window rot. I've even benchmarked renders after a fresh reboot, and after uptimes of 30+ days just to see. Also, and this is totally based on my non scientific observation, I haven't noticed any slow down/rot when it comes to using the OS and apps in general.
As for performance, it flies on this machine, but I understand that my system has a bit more power than a standard user would have (well, it is 10 months old, but still no slouch, i7 920, 12gb RAM, tho my video card is a weak link, a Radeon 4850 1gb card, but that doesn't really affect Vista's performance, more so 3D stuffs). Anyway, every app I use is fast and responsive. Some benchmark tests in modo show a 5x increase in rendering speed on average, and that was still with a 32 bit app. Photoshop handles everything I throw at it without trouble. Again, I know that's more due to the hardware than the OS, but the OS isn't hindering me at all. Naturally, a more efficient OS would be even faster, but I don't think I'd actually notice it that much. Even if I had a wider variety of apps that had Linux clients, and Linux could indeed make more efficient use of my system's resources, I don't think it'd be worth it to have to dual boot in and out of Linux just to use a specific app for a slight, probably barely perceptible increase in performance. That's not to say that MS gets a pass for bloat though, of which I don't doubt Vista has. Again, maybe due to my system that I don't really notice much bloat, but I have to think that Vista isn't quite as bloated as the most rabid anti-MS zealots would have you believe.
Anyway, I'll still upgrade to Win7 soon, just because everyone I know who liked Vista likes 7 even more. And even those who didn't like Vista still seem to like 7. Everyone is pretty much telling me that 7 takes all the best of Vista, and either keeps it or improves upon on it, and it tosses out a lot of the garbage from Vista. Anyway, all that said, I still think people rag on Vista just because it's the "cool" thing to do. And yes, it has teething problems, and MS shouldn't be excused for rushing it out the door, but even people who hated and had trouble with the early Vista OS have told me that it's currently a different beast in terms of fixing all those problems that plagued it early on. I'm sure there's still a few problems with it, but I haven't really encountered any. Even though I prefaced this comment with "this is just my experience", I still have to believe that a lot of the Vista hate is just carried over from earlier on, and because it's the cool thing to do. I have
And honestly, it's so much better than the music in your sig. "Girls say they like my complexion - I got it from your descendants, god bless them" That doesn't even make any fucking sense. Or maybe it does, but how does that work? Your offspring and future generations develop time travel to go back in time and give you a better complexion?
"The two economists examined birth-certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 52 million children born between 1989 and 2001, which represents virtually all of the births in the U.S. during those years. The same pattern kept turning up: The percentage of children born to unwed mothers, teenage mothers and mothers who hadn't completed high school kept peaking in January every year. Over the 13-year period, for example, 13.2% of January births were to teen mothers, compared with 12% in May -- a small but statistically significant difference, they say."
So it seems they used data from babies born in the US. On the other hand, the article also says: "Other researchers have suggested other reasons for season-of-birth differences. Maybe vitamin D was playing a role, for example, because children born in the winter were getting less sunshine in early life" - which if this were true, would apply to babies born in winter for both hemispheres.
Yeah, the Civil War only became a war to "free the blacks" after support for the war was wavering. Lincoln saw an opportunity to take the "moral high ground" and used it as a way to try and boost support for the war. As you said, the North wanted control, and as the war dragged on, people started questioning whether it was worth it. Lincoln then tried turning it into a war to free the slaves to garner more public support, and to re-purpose the war with a more worthy and lofty cause. While slavery was part of the issue for the start of the war, the South seceded because they wanted more say over the way things were run, which while that included slavery, it wasn't the main or only cause.
As for the economic collapse theory, like I said, I have no idea if it could have worked. I think you're absolutely correct about them not grovelling and coming back to the union though. I obviously wasn't alive at the time, so I can't say, but it does seem the North underestimated the South's resolve and stubbornness. I think that as you say, they might have lived out a life as an "underdeveloped country" for awhile, but I'd have to imagine that after awhile, they'd rebuild their infrastructure to better support their country.
Probably the most offensive flag in existence is the Union Jack. It represents quite a few years of oppression (the Nazi flag just 4 years).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the Nazi flag have been flown for 12 years, from 1933 to 1945? (Or rather, wouldn't it have been the national flag for those 12 years, though having been around longer, since the inception of the Nazi party?)
One of my teachers proposed an interesting theory, something I hadn't really thought of much till now. Now, he was actually relaying what he had come across as sort of a "what if" scenario as an alternative to war, and I was also absent from school for the first half of our Civil War studies with a bout of mono. Furthermore, this was 16-17 years ago when I was in 5th grade, so I may be a bit fuzzy on it as well.
He suggested that had the North not gone to war with the CSA, they would have still initiated a blockade of the South. The North would have then "offered" to buy the CSA's goods at drastically reduced prices, as they would not have the ability to sell to anyone else. We already saw how one of the contributing factors to the South losing was that they simply couldn't sell enough of their goods such as cotton, while Europe was in need of grain supplies from the North. I believe that even when Britain was in need of cotton, they simply looked to either Egypt or maybe it was India for their cotton. I also recall reading that the blockade caused prices of cotton and other goods to skyrocket, which made finding other sources an economic necessity in addition to being a political necessity. Other nations were also afraid of defying the blockade, as the USA threatened war with any country who recognized the CSA as an independent country. Anyway, the ultimate goal would have been to basically cause an economic collapse of the South, in an attempt to get them to rejoin the Union.
Whether or not this is true, or would have been a viable option, I have no idea. I'm fascinated by the Civil War, but most of my study has revolved around battles themselves. I should really look into the greater scheme of things though, for which I ask if you can suggest any recommended reading on the subject matter?
You joke, but the red eye remover tool was essential in gathering this image. You see, this is actually an image taken of a carbon atom in someone's eye. The guys over at CSI first used the red eye remover tool, and then they used "image enhance" 65,403 times to generate this image.
Yeah, something seems amiss here. I also installed Win 2K Pro on at least 10 different occasions, on both higher end hardware and also older, lower end hardware, and never had had any trouble. No boot disks, no excessively long installs, no trouble at all.
As you hinted at, the killing may or may not be painless, it's the part before the killing that's obviously cruel. Part of that is because it's physically painful to be packed in so tightly you can't move, covered in infections, etc. However being an animal in a factory farm is probably also terrifying on a more abstract level, even if you can't feel physical pain.
I remember reading an article a few years ago about the design of slaughterhouses. Apparently, it seems that recently some places have been trying to reduce the amount of stress experienced by the animals as they make their way through the "factory floor" on the way to the chopping block. I think one of the leading researchers was actually doing it for more compassionate (reducing the mental stress of the animals) reasons, and that the companies', though I could be TOTALLY wrong on this, were doing it for better quality meat. Something about the hormones and other chemicals released by the cows when they're under stress leads to meat that isn't as tasty as cows that are killed under less mentally straining conditions. Maybe someone can elaborate on this, and either confirm or correct this, as I don't remember if I read it in the actual article, or if I'm just remembering anecdotal evidence from hunters who have said that say, the meat of deer, tastes better when the animal dies quickly.
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or just create a generic one if there isn't variation in the bumps on the original picture.
The problem with a generic bump map is that it's not going to line up with the brush strokes of the actual painting. It's not like we're only talking about the surface of canvas here, which is going to have a rather uniform and consistent texture throughout a particular painting and even throughout different paintings. Each painting is going to have a totally unique "bump map" based on the brush work of the artist. Using a generic bump map is going to completely throw everything off.
I'd like to see this as well. Drivers have been using sims for awhile now to practice and to get familiar with tracks, but I think very few of the big names actually compete openly, and regularly, with sims like iRacing (Earnhardt is the only one I know of). Some F1 teams use either advanced versions of publicly available sims such as rFactor (using heavily customized rFactor Pro setups) in their sims, or similar such setups, but they're not competing against others online. Would be fun to put a real F1 driver up against some sim racers in an online race against each other. Even if for no other reason than to see how the F1 driver's lap times compare to their real world lap times at the same course with the same car.
A while ago I damaged the radial nerve in my left arm, making my left hand almost completely useless. I'm right handed, so using Photoshop wasn't much of a problem, but was slightly more time consuming (not being able to quickly hotkey with the left hand, and having to constantly either use the icons, or take my hand away from the tablet to press the keyboard keys). Trying to do 3D on the other hand (no pun intended), was just a complete bitch because of this. I mostly use modo, Maya, and Mudbox and a few other apps, and I'm so dependent on hotkeys for an efficient workflow that I essentially gave up on 3D for those 3 months my left hand was "broken". On the plus side, I got a lot of digital painting, and traditional drawing done (though even traditional drawing was kind of a PITA because I couldn't easily hold/rotate/move my sketchbook with my left hand).
Take a walk around a city sometime and you'll see plenty of loonies holding the sides of their heads, talking back to the voices they 'hear' inside their mind. I'm guessing schizophrenia manifested itself the same way back then as it does now.
You actually hit on a good point. Schizophrenia manifested itself the same way back then as it does now...and in the future. So clearly, she's a schizophrenic..... FROM THE FUTURE!
I think that ADHD does exist, but I also think you have a somewhat valid point hidden in your sarcasm/trolling/whatever.
When I was in elementary school, I was consistently not paying attention, goofing off, and slacking on homework. When I did do my homework though, it was a breeze and always got good grades on homework. Same with tests, I always did well on tests, despite apparently never trying. Fortunately my teachers recognized that instead of having some sort of problem paying attention, they realized I was just bored by the subject material and not being challenged. They tried remedying the situation by putting me in some special classes for "gifted" kids. I think those were more geared towards keeping us bored kids occupied more than anything though. But they did have the benefit of letting us kids kind of guide our learning. We'd get to choose what we wanted to learn about, and the teachers would help us. They were basically teaching us to teach ourselves.
Anyway, fast forward to middle school, and high school, and it was a similar story. I wasn't as bored in school, since we had greater freedom in middle school, and especially in high school, to choose what classes we took. I still however, was at risk of failing a few required classes because I didn't put the time or effort into doing homework and such. I started putting in the bare minimum amount of work necessary, and it showed in my grades. My GPA was basically around 3 because I had a bunch of Cs and even a D here and there. Those were the classes I had no interest in, but had to take anyway. The classes I took that did interest me however, were all classes that I received As in. To give you an example, one of the classes I took that initially interested me was "Computer Programming". When I soon learned that it was just programming in BASIC, I started losing interest very quickly. My grades suffered because homework was the biggest factor in grading for that class. I aced the tests, but I still only pulled off a D in this class. Meanwhile, at home, I was teaching myself C++. Fortunately, in some of my classes though, the teachers recognized I was bored with the subject matter, and would even turn a blind eye to missing homework so long as I was doing well on tests, and not disrupting the classroom.
I have no doubt that if this happened to me today, I would be diagnosed as having ADHD or ADD or something, and be placed on medication.
Back to your "point", I think a big problem is the way we're teaching our kids. School is not a normal situation for kids on a basic level in my opinion. I mean think about it, we're taking kids and forcing them to sit at a desk for 6-7 hours a day. While they need to learn a lot of things taught in school, the way they're taught is all to often, quite frankly, boring. Try and get a kid to sit still at home for 6-7 hours doing something boring (even if it's watching TV shows they have no interest) and you'll probably see a lot of similar behavior. I think we need to work on how we're teaching our children. And this is one area where I think computers and technology can really have a huge benefit. We need to exploit technology to better serve our children's learning. Make learning fun. Give them access to resources beyond the specific subject matter that's being taught.
Okay, enough rambling.
I know you're being sarcastic and all, but...
Physical fitness isn't the biggest stumbling block for Nascar drivers to get into F1. Sure, some of them are sorta "pudgy", but if necessary, and desired, they have the resources to get fit enough for F1.
Good drivers, no matter what series they race in, can usually handle other types of cars reasonably well. The problem is they lack the experience to make up those last few tenths to actually be competitive. Jeff Gordon and Juan Pablo Montoya did a publicity thing back in 2003 (I think), where they swapped cars with each other. Gordon was a few seconds (or maybe even less, again, I forget) of Montoya's time in the F1 car. That itself is impressive, but learning the ins and outs of driving an F1 car takes time and there is no replacement for seat time. Also, he did it on a closed track in a private session. Learning to drive a car is one thing, learning to race in a car is a whole different story, and again, there is no replacement for seat time.
Gordon did mention that his neck, shoulders, and arms took a beating, but he has the resources and motivation to get in shape in no time I'm sure.
When it comes to experience, the most common career path these days for F1 drivers seems to be starting out in karting at a very young age, then working your way up series like Formula Renault, Formula Three, etc, then up to GP2 and finally F1. That means they might have spent 8 or so years in karts, and then maybe another 6 or so years in actual open wheel cars. All in road racing. Of course, there are exceptions, but generally they come from having lots of road racing backgrounds.
Cool stuff. I'd like to get into rally driving myself, but have neither the time nor the funds really. That, and I'm sure I have way more confidence in my driving ability than I actually possess :) . I have thought about getting into karting (for fun, not thinking of turning racing into a profession by any means), or autocrossing, or some other such racing in the next couple couple years.
For now though, I just get my fix with simracing. rFactor, GTR series, and now that we've talked about rallying, I may have to dig out my Richard Burns Rally disc to install it. Have you tried any sim racing at all? More specifically, rally sim racing? Richard Burns Rally seems to be the best option out there for rallying in terms of realism and being challenging, but I'm always up for trying something new. I think soon I'm gonna pick up iRacing as well, and then grab a proper wheel and pedal setup. I'm just using a 5 year old Logitech Momo wheel at the moment, and I'd like something with an actual clutch pedal and H pattern gear shifter (with the paddles as well, for use in cars that actually use them in real life)
Back to the subject of necks though, I'm hazy on the specifics, but I remember when someone asked Jensen Button back about 4-5 years ago about the physical fitness aspects of F1. He said something along the lines of his neck's circumference having grown something like 3-4 inches from training in order to build up the muscles in his neck and such. (again, I'm hazy on the specifics, but you get the idea) There was also a video on youtube floating around various F1 forums and such of Alonso cracking nuts using his neck. That kind of cracked me up.
Not only that, but driving a car, especially a Formula 1 car, is an extremely demanding activity. Racing in the comfort of your house, sitting on a couch, is nothing compared to sitting in the cockpit of a car, with temps that can exceed 100+ in your nomex racing suit, while dealing with up to 5 lateral g. Not to mention the fact that all the while you're not just driving the car like you do in the GT series, but you have to be in communication with your race engineers and look after your tires, your brakes, the engine, fuel consumption, basically everything.
The teams go WAY beyond the GT series. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrQS_Y8o0ZA The simulators are usually proprietary custom made rigs.
This isn't really a privacy violation until they violate our privacy by publishing it
I dunno. Isn't that kind of like saying "sneaking a peak at your sister's diary isn't a violation of privacy until you share the diary with others"? I guess it is a bit different, what with the information Google is collecting being broadcast and all, but hopefully my analogy gets the point across that I'm trying to make. That is, that the simple act of gathering information can be a breach of privacy, regardless if it is shared or not. Another bad analogy might be me stealing someone's private data off their computer. Whether or not I publish that information does not matter - well, I guess if I did share that information it would be a greater violation of privacy, but even if I didn't share it, the initial violation still took place. Again, I fully understand that is sort of a different case, and I'm not even fully sure where I stand on it to be honest.
Uh, no. No team is running KERS in 2010. KERS is not banned in 2010 (regulations still allow it, but it is neither banned, nor required), but the FOTA (Formula One Teams Association) teams have agreed to not use KERS in 2010. All of the teams so far are members of FOTA, which means unless one of them breaks ranks, we won't see KERS on the grid in 2010.
http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/a-rumour-explained/ As this post's title says, it doesn't give much more info. Essentially it just adds the information that the flywheel system is derived from the Williams F1 Team's KERS (kinetic energy recovery system).
...because one of the primary reasons for remote start up is to warm up your car in cold conditions, thereby making it easier to scrape ice off one's windshield?
Just out of curiosity, what is the best way to really remove data from a hard drive? Well, I guess maybe incinerating the whole thing, but I'm talking more along the lines of something "simple" for the average user. It's not really a big concern, but my brother is starting a company, and it got me thinking on security, for things like their accounting, employee and customer info and things along those lines. Now, they're not dealing with trade or governmental secrets or anything like that, and the company will be more in the service industry, but I was still thinking about security, and this story made me think about a few things when it comes to deleting data.
If I understand things correctly, normally when you delete a file, it isn't actually removed from the HD, but rather the parts of the disk containing the deleted the files are marked as available, then overwritten when the time comes. So short of a format that actually writes all 0's (or whatever), is there a way to actually delete a file, and have the bits actually overwritten, either with random bits or all 0's or 1's (or what have you)? Basically, something easy for the average user, so if they merely need to delete a few files, and want to make absolutely sure that the data is relatively safely destroyed.
And another "noobish" question: When you do actually delete something, and then overwrite the bits, is there any "residual data" left "underneath" the newly written data? Hard to explain, but I guess the best analogy would be to picture when you use a pencil, and you make a mistake and erase part of it, and then overwrite it, and you can often still partially see the erased pencil markings. Given the right tools and resources, is it possible for someone to recover this kind of data?
(And for what it is worth, I'm referring to standard hard drives, as opposed to solid state drives.
Using a mouse today isn't exactly clumsy in terms of 3D modeling. In fact, I'd venture a guess that today's software + input methods is a lot less clumsy than all those dials.. I'm a modeler (and texture artist/sometimes generalist) by trade, and it's pretty damn efficient and easy - and in no way clumsy. I think I'd much rather use a mouse and keyboard (and tablet for sculpting) than all those dials and knobs. The mouse gives you a central control tool, and the keyboard can let you quickly and easily apply tools, modifiers, etc, for how and what the mouse is used for. (Or of course, you can use the mouse to click on an icon instead of using hotkeys).
Yep, even the Romans knew this. Their pila (javelins made of a wooden shaft with an iron tip extending out) were designed so that when they struck the ground (or a shield), the iron tip would bend and prevent the pilum from being picked up and hurled back at the Roman lines. Quite ingenious really, as this also meant that if the tip pierced a shield, and bent, it could be rather hard to remove, thus making the shield rather unwieldy, which could also make it rather hard for the soldier to charge the Roman lines with a shield with a long wooden shaft sticking out towards the ground.
Yeah, Vista was good enough to last an entire evening before I had to go back to XP instead. The pre-installed image crashed and crashed then crashed some more.
At least something good came out of the Vista train wreck. Microsoft realized they had to do some proper work, and ended up with Win7. By the looks of it, an actually decent OS. I could make do without all the DRM chugging through its innards, wasting cycles, but as usual it'll only really affect a few people (and no pirates), so it's not that critical.
Disclaimer: This is purely anecdotal evidence based on my experience, and so I understand everyone is different.
I've been using Vista since I built this machine about ~10 months ago. Not a single problem. It has been absolutely rock solid in terms of stability. I reboot only to install updates and such, so my uptime is measured in days, weeks, and at times, months. I never experienced the typical Windows rot I got with XP. I use this computer for 3D and other graphics work, as well as a little bit of gaming here and there. It's often pushed "to the max" in terms of resources, lots of large files being loaded into memory, lots of heavy processing, etc. Everything from stuff that stresses more say, memory and the GPU (3D viewports in modo, Maya, etc, previewing stuff in Photoshop, and all that), to stuff that is more CPU intensive such as rendering and image adjustments in PS. Again, no Window rot. I've even benchmarked renders after a fresh reboot, and after uptimes of 30+ days just to see. Also, and this is totally based on my non scientific observation, I haven't noticed any slow down/rot when it comes to using the OS and apps in general.
As for performance, it flies on this machine, but I understand that my system has a bit more power than a standard user would have (well, it is 10 months old, but still no slouch, i7 920, 12gb RAM, tho my video card is a weak link, a Radeon 4850 1gb card, but that doesn't really affect Vista's performance, more so 3D stuffs). Anyway, every app I use is fast and responsive. Some benchmark tests in modo show a 5x increase in rendering speed on average, and that was still with a 32 bit app. Photoshop handles everything I throw at it without trouble. Again, I know that's more due to the hardware than the OS, but the OS isn't hindering me at all. Naturally, a more efficient OS would be even faster, but I don't think I'd actually notice it that much. Even if I had a wider variety of apps that had Linux clients, and Linux could indeed make more efficient use of my system's resources, I don't think it'd be worth it to have to dual boot in and out of Linux just to use a specific app for a slight, probably barely perceptible increase in performance. That's not to say that MS gets a pass for bloat though, of which I don't doubt Vista has. Again, maybe due to my system that I don't really notice much bloat, but I have to think that Vista isn't quite as bloated as the most rabid anti-MS zealots would have you believe.
Anyway, I'll still upgrade to Win7 soon, just because everyone I know who liked Vista likes 7 even more. And even those who didn't like Vista still seem to like 7. Everyone is pretty much telling me that 7 takes all the best of Vista, and either keeps it or improves upon on it, and it tosses out a lot of the garbage from Vista. Anyway, all that said, I still think people rag on Vista just because it's the "cool" thing to do. And yes, it has teething problems, and MS shouldn't be excused for rushing it out the door, but even people who hated and had trouble with the early Vista OS have told me that it's currently a different beast in terms of fixing all those problems that plagued it early on. I'm sure there's still a few problems with it, but I haven't really encountered any. Even though I prefaced this comment with "this is just my experience", I still have to believe that a lot of the Vista hate is just carried over from earlier on, and because it's the cool thing to do. I have
And honestly, it's so much better than the music in your sig. "Girls say they like my complexion - I got it from your descendants, god bless them" That doesn't even make any fucking sense. Or maybe it does, but how does that work? Your offspring and future generations develop time travel to go back in time and give you a better complexion?
The article does say:
"The two economists examined birth-certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 52 million children born between 1989 and 2001, which represents virtually all of the births in the U.S. during those years. The same pattern kept turning up: The percentage of children born to unwed mothers, teenage mothers and mothers who hadn't completed high school kept peaking in January every year. Over the 13-year period, for example, 13.2% of January births were to teen mothers, compared with 12% in May -- a small but statistically significant difference, they say."
So it seems they used data from babies born in the US. On the other hand, the article also says: "Other researchers have suggested other reasons for season-of-birth differences. Maybe vitamin D was playing a role, for example, because children born in the winter were getting less sunshine in early life" - which if this were true, would apply to babies born in winter for both hemispheres.
Yeah, the Civil War only became a war to "free the blacks" after support for the war was wavering. Lincoln saw an opportunity to take the "moral high ground" and used it as a way to try and boost support for the war. As you said, the North wanted control, and as the war dragged on, people started questioning whether it was worth it. Lincoln then tried turning it into a war to free the slaves to garner more public support, and to re-purpose the war with a more worthy and lofty cause. While slavery was part of the issue for the start of the war, the South seceded because they wanted more say over the way things were run, which while that included slavery, it wasn't the main or only cause.
As for the economic collapse theory, like I said, I have no idea if it could have worked. I think you're absolutely correct about them not grovelling and coming back to the union though. I obviously wasn't alive at the time, so I can't say, but it does seem the North underestimated the South's resolve and stubbornness. I think that as you say, they might have lived out a life as an "underdeveloped country" for awhile, but I'd have to imagine that after awhile, they'd rebuild their infrastructure to better support their country.
Probably the most offensive flag in existence is the Union Jack. It represents quite a few years of oppression (the Nazi flag just 4 years).
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the Nazi flag have been flown for 12 years, from 1933 to 1945? (Or rather, wouldn't it have been the national flag for those 12 years, though having been around longer, since the inception of the Nazi party?)
One of my teachers proposed an interesting theory, something I hadn't really thought of much till now. Now, he was actually relaying what he had come across as sort of a "what if" scenario as an alternative to war, and I was also absent from school for the first half of our Civil War studies with a bout of mono. Furthermore, this was 16-17 years ago when I was in 5th grade, so I may be a bit fuzzy on it as well.
He suggested that had the North not gone to war with the CSA, they would have still initiated a blockade of the South. The North would have then "offered" to buy the CSA's goods at drastically reduced prices, as they would not have the ability to sell to anyone else. We already saw how one of the contributing factors to the South losing was that they simply couldn't sell enough of their goods such as cotton, while Europe was in need of grain supplies from the North. I believe that even when Britain was in need of cotton, they simply looked to either Egypt or maybe it was India for their cotton. I also recall reading that the blockade caused prices of cotton and other goods to skyrocket, which made finding other sources an economic necessity in addition to being a political necessity. Other nations were also afraid of defying the blockade, as the USA threatened war with any country who recognized the CSA as an independent country. Anyway, the ultimate goal would have been to basically cause an economic collapse of the South, in an attempt to get them to rejoin the Union.
Whether or not this is true, or would have been a viable option, I have no idea. I'm fascinated by the Civil War, but most of my study has revolved around battles themselves. I should really look into the greater scheme of things though, for which I ask if you can suggest any recommended reading on the subject matter?
You joke, but the red eye remover tool was essential in gathering this image. You see, this is actually an image taken of a carbon atom in someone's eye. The guys over at CSI first used the red eye remover tool, and then they used "image enhance" 65,403 times to generate this image.
Yeah, something seems amiss here. I also installed Win 2K Pro on at least 10 different occasions, on both higher end hardware and also older, lower end hardware, and never had had any trouble. No boot disks, no excessively long installs, no trouble at all.
As you hinted at, the killing may or may not be painless, it's the part before the killing that's obviously cruel. Part of that is because it's physically painful to be packed in so tightly you can't move, covered in infections, etc. However being an animal in a factory farm is probably also terrifying on a more abstract level, even if you can't feel physical pain.
I remember reading an article a few years ago about the design of slaughterhouses. Apparently, it seems that recently some places have been trying to reduce the amount of stress experienced by the animals as they make their way through the "factory floor" on the way to the chopping block. I think one of the leading researchers was actually doing it for more compassionate (reducing the mental stress of the animals) reasons, and that the companies', though I could be TOTALLY wrong on this, were doing it for better quality meat. Something about the hormones and other chemicals released by the cows when they're under stress leads to meat that isn't as tasty as cows that are killed under less mentally straining conditions. Maybe someone can elaborate on this, and either confirm or correct this, as I don't remember if I read it in the actual article, or if I'm just remembering anecdotal evidence from hunters who have said that say, the meat of deer, tastes better when the animal dies quickly.