Is anybody able to dumb-it-down by about 7 notches so I can understand it:p
I'll have a go:)
A 1D FFT is used to convert a set of data values into a series of sine waves, which when added together, form the original set of data. The input is an 1D array of values. The output is a 1D array of complex numbers (real and imaginary planes), which represent wavelengths from The phase is the starting angle of the sine wave, and can be calculated from taking the inverse-tangent (atan2) of the real and imaginary amplitudes. If there are N samples, then the frequencies range from 0 to N/2 (Nyquist information theory). DC=0 is used to represent a signal with no known wavelength ie. a constant value.
The 2D FFT is used to convert an image into its component sine waves. Similar to the 1D FFT, the input is a 2D grid of values, and the output is a 2D grid of complex numbers. Each grid cell represents the amplitude and phase of a sine-wave travelling in the direction of that point to the centre of the grid. For visualisation purposes, the output of the 2D FFT is rearranged so that the low frequencies are at the centre of the grid (width/2,height/2). The Inverse-FFT is the reverse of this process. Using the FFT in this way, various image process techniques can be applied. By removing (masking out) various circular rings of the image, high, low and medium pass filters can be applied; a high pass filter removes low frequency noise, allowing fine detail to be viewed. A low pass filter removes high frequency noise (useful for removing banding caused during scanning newspaper photographs).
While ordinary cameras only take an image at the focal point of the lens, this camera takes two additional images slightly in front of, and behind the focal point (+/- 5 microns). Applying the FFT/Inverse FFT allows for the phase information to be calculated for any image. The image processing flow-chart gives an idea of what is going on.
There are three input images I-5, I0 and I+5, whic are the distances from the focal point. For maximum accuracy, the difference between image I-5 and I+5 are calculated, and scaled. This is converted into frequency space by a Forward-FFT, masked by precalculated filters (high pass filter to remove low-frequencies and make fine detail visible) and Inverse FFT. The resulting image is divided by the normal image, and the low-frequencies are removed again.
and most pages used ZX81-style graphics (huge "pixels":-) which reduced the content possibilities even more. Oh, it was free too:-)
It always amazed me to see how much they could do with those glyph blocks. Maps of the UK, Europe, the world for weather, traffic and airport news, even Snoopy. Undoubtably,ASCII art at it's finest. And they could manage to compress entire news stories into 400 characters or less, while still maintaining the reading level.
Your mission, if you decide to accept it, is to catalogue 80,000 hours worth of pixel colours in movies and video so it can be searched by location, actors, presenters, producer, camera operator, sound operator, objects, clothes, sky, clouds, landmarks, time, direction, events, astronomical, geological, geopolitical events, age and anything else that a producer may want on a whim at 5.30pm, 30 minutes prior to presenting the evening news.
It's obvious from the article that they have their own research programmers (they have their own R&D department. I used to see adverts for inhouse graphics programmers).
They also sponsor quite a bit of university research projects. Probably the most important just now is virtual studios and automatic classification of video clips (automatically convert a video stream into a text description).
Do a google search on the Horseshoe Crab, which isn't actually a crab, but a 350 million year old ancestor of spiders. It's blood is actually based on copper rather than iron (hemocyanin) and contains a enzyme called limulus amoebocyte lysate (LAL) which is used to test all pharmaceutical products for bacteria. No-one yet has been able to create this enzyme synthetically, which means that these critters have to be harvested for their blood (around $15000 per vial).
4. A state-of-the-art alien detector that tells you how far away the aliens are to the nearest nanometer, but won't tell you if they are above or below you.
Obviously designed by Microsoft. Or open source, but the open source solution is meant to mimic Microsoft's.
That would be release 1.0. Release 2.0 fixes this problem, comes with a built in camera, and allows you to send and receive E-mail with attachments, but will take 60 seconds to boot up, and the batteries will only last for half as long.
Sorry, but I fail to see how any bill (Gates or proposed legislation) that advocates in favor of either open or closed source is a good thing. Legislators ought to stick their noses somewhere else then making technology decisions.
Local government suppliers like to lock their customers in through custom configurations of application software, in particular database software. For starters, the agreed contract will always be kept "confidential", and be stuffed full of more buzzwords than a buzzword dictionary. Next, they'll keep the database formats proprietary, thus forcing the customers to either renew their software licenses, or pay for an entirely new database software to be installed (which of course causes inconvenience for customers, as the data has to be reented manually) credits aren't paid, and debts aren't collected).
Having open-source software prevents the data formats from being kept proprietary, thus making it easier for customers to switch providers.
...How to build your own personal reusable spacecraft using only an old washing up liquid bottle, some sellotape, a couple of lemons and a box of bicarbonate of soda.
If that proves too difficult, I'll settle for a flying car.
Going by all the Hollywood movies I have seen, you never go into hand-to-tentacle combat in space space unless you have:
1. A spacesuit with a large illuminated helmet with headcam so the aliens know where to shoot.
2. A large rifle with infinite rounds of ammunition with and grenade thrower and flame thrower, and laser pointer that shows everyone where you are. Glow sticks are optional.
3. A dodgy radio communications system that will alway pack up when you go into a washroom or are within 5 metres of an large alien with sharp teeth.
4. A state-of-the-art alien detector that tells you how far away the aliens are to the nearest nanometer, but won't tell you if they are above or below you.
5. An android with reflexes faster than a laser-rifle, and an IQ to match your PC's clock speed, but who has decided to contemplate the meaning of life and become a buddhist monk instead.
This is actually how the free market SHOULD work! There is a need for a service and you have an ability and so do others...
Yes, but people need a minimum amount of money in order to buy food, water and rent. Take into account saving for kid's college fees, deposit on a mortgage, pension, health-care, and the minimum wage barely goes anywhere.
I had friends who were once looking to rent a flat down in London. They searched the local papers for places to rent, and the only location within their price range was a room in a house shared with four other professional couples. They arrived at the property and were shocked to find out that the landlord had undersold the advertised rent, and was actually auctioning off each room individually.
I worked for a network products company that had this happen with one of their legacy products that was being sold to a foreign customer just before the open source community came up with an equivalent version.
Because of this, our team leaders were more interested in getting their milestone completion bonuses than getting the bugs out of the system (who cares, we're all going onto new projects, even if not at this company).
Every two weeks we had a milestone for a particular module. Regardless of the state of that module, at the end of that milestone, we just moved onto the next task on our list. All bugs were scheduled to be fixed at the end of the implementation phase. Of course at the end of the implementation phase, everyone did a runner. Team leaders, contractors, application programmers, everyone! I was the last one out - it was fun having an entire corner of an open-plane office block to myself for a week or two, then I wandered off as well. All the machines were still there, but all the people were gone. Like the place had been visited by "Neutron Jack".
Our newspapers regularly like to have front page headlines like "Chancellor raids nine billion pounds from company pension schemes". In this sense it means 9 thousand million pounds. At the same time we frequently have news reports from the USA, especially with regard to budget deficits in states like California.
Some faculty have suggested that in acknowledgment of Mr. Gates' profound influence on the computer software industry, the building should be painted bright blue."
But they failed to mention that the follow lines will be embossed in Silver using four foot high letters. This will be allow the message to be seen across the campus as well as from the air. A fatal exception 03 hase occurred at 00020:C000DEFE in VxD VMM(01) + 00010E36. The current application will be terminated.
* Press any key to terminate the current application. * Press CTRL+ALT+DEL again to restart your computer. You will lose any unsaved information in all applications.
I always find the best remedy for motion sickness in boats and light planes is still: - get some fresh air - look at the horizon - (if safe/possible) take the wheel/yoke
The main cause of motion sickness is the conflict of information from the inner ear (motion balance) and vision (motion of surroundings). Inside a ferry with no windows, everything appears stationary, but your inner ear tells you that you are moving. Looking at the horizon helps your brain synchronize the two sets of data, fresh air helps increase the oxygen going to your brain, and taking the whell/yoke also gives you motion feedback, also helping synchronize the two sets of input.
VR headsets in the past did give people "simulator sickness" as the update rates were rather slow (~7 frames second/0.5 second change rate). I experienced this myself with the "Virtuality" systems, which had a rate 500,000 triangle second. With today's PC's (and even laptops) the refresh and process rates are much faster. I believe the new handheld consoles have tilt mechanisms built in (for racing/flight simulation games).
In other news, the Visa corporation has trademarked the term "Visa Versa" for their new credit card account. With every transaction made using this card, a donation is made to the "National Spelling Association" who will strictly defend the right to read correctly spelled comments.
Who can forget the greeting of the Advocacy: TO LIFE IMMORTAL!
To keep the budget down they just created one video of the aliens in alien shaped spacesuits standing around in a circle and wobbling about a bit, and the script would be dubbed over at a later date.
Slashdot Mirror
Looks like 'network' the dog is going to have some competition from 'spit' the dog'. Good choice in name.
Is anybody able to dumb-it-down by about 7 notches so I can understand it :p
:)
I'll have a go
A 1D FFT is used to convert a set of data values into a series of sine waves, which when added together, form the original set of data. The input is an 1D array of values. The output is a 1D array of complex numbers (real and imaginary planes), which represent wavelengths from The phase is the starting angle of the sine wave, and can be calculated from taking the inverse-tangent (atan2) of the real and imaginary amplitudes. If there are N samples, then the frequencies range from 0 to N/2 (Nyquist information theory). DC=0 is used to represent a signal with no known wavelength ie. a constant value.
The 2D FFT is used to convert an image into its component sine waves. Similar to the 1D FFT, the input is a 2D grid of values, and the output is a 2D grid of complex numbers. Each grid cell represents the amplitude and phase of a sine-wave travelling in the direction of that point to the centre of the grid. For visualisation purposes, the output of the 2D FFT is rearranged so that the low frequencies are at the centre of the grid (width/2,height/2). The Inverse-FFT is the reverse of this process. Using the FFT in this way, various image process techniques can be applied. By removing (masking out) various circular rings of the image, high, low and medium pass filters can be applied; a high pass filter removes low frequency noise, allowing fine detail to be viewed. A low pass filter removes high frequency noise (useful for removing banding caused during scanning newspaper photographs).
While ordinary cameras only take an image at the focal point of the lens, this camera takes two additional images slightly in front of, and behind the focal point (+/- 5 microns). Applying the FFT/Inverse FFT allows for the phase information to be calculated for any image. The image processing flow-chart gives an idea of what is going on.
There are three input images I-5, I0 and I+5, whic are the distances from the focal point. For maximum accuracy, the difference between image I-5 and I+5 are calculated, and scaled. This is converted into frequency space by a Forward-FFT, masked by precalculated filters (high pass filter to remove low-frequencies and make fine detail visible) and Inverse FFT. The resulting image is divided by the normal image, and the low-frequencies are removed again.
and most pages used ZX81-style graphics (huge "pixels" :-) which reduced the content possibilities even more. Oh, it was free too :-)
It always amazed me to see how much they could do with those glyph blocks. Maps of the UK, Europe, the world for weather, traffic and airport news, even Snoopy. Undoubtably,ASCII art at it's finest. And they could manage to compress entire news stories into 400 characters or less, while still maintaining the reading level.
That's the easy bit :)
Your mission, if you decide to accept it, is to catalogue 80,000 hours worth of pixel colours in movies and video so it can be searched by location, actors, presenters, producer, camera operator, sound operator, objects, clothes, sky, clouds, landmarks, time, direction, events, astronomical, geological, geopolitical events, age and anything else that a producer may want on a whim at 5.30pm, 30 minutes prior to presenting the evening news.
I always thought being able to drive one of these landmaster vehicles would be cool.
It's obvious from the article that they have their own research programmers (they have their own R&D department. I used to see adverts for inhouse graphics programmers).
They also sponsor quite a bit of university research projects. Probably the most important just now is virtual studios and automatic classification of video clips (automatically convert a video stream into a text description).
Do a google search on the Horseshoe Crab, which isn't actually a crab, but a 350 million year old ancestor of spiders. It's blood is actually based on copper rather than iron (hemocyanin) and contains a enzyme called limulus amoebocyte lysate (LAL) which is used to test all pharmaceutical products for bacteria. No-one yet has been able to create this enzyme synthetically, which means that these critters have to be harvested for their blood (around $15000 per vial).
BAN THE WHALES
SAVE THE BOMB
4. A state-of-the-art alien detector that tells you how far away the aliens are to the nearest nanometer, but won't tell you if they are above or below you.
Obviously designed by Microsoft. Or open source, but the open source solution is meant to mimic Microsoft's.
That would be release 1.0. Release 2.0 fixes this problem, comes with a built in camera, and allows you to send and receive E-mail with attachments, but will take 60 seconds to boot up, and the batteries will only last for half as long.
If it is the bomb that Duke has found, the question now is what, if anything, should be done with it?"
.... you don't want this baby try to prove it's own existance.
Put an inflatable air bag underneath, and inflate it s-l-ow-l-y
Sorry, but I fail to see how any bill (Gates or proposed legislation) that advocates in favor of either open or closed source is a good thing. Legislators ought to stick their noses somewhere else then making technology decisions.
Local government suppliers like to lock their customers in through custom configurations of application software, in particular database software. For starters, the agreed contract will always be kept "confidential", and be stuffed full of more buzzwords than a buzzword dictionary. Next, they'll keep the database formats proprietary, thus forcing the customers to either renew their software licenses, or pay for an entirely new database software to be installed (which of course causes inconvenience for customers, as the data has to be reented manually) credits aren't paid, and debts aren't collected).
Having open-source software prevents the data formats from being kept proprietary, thus making it easier for customers to switch providers.
We've got plenty of Earth orbiting telescopes. It's just for all but one of them, there's a rather large rocky planet in the way.
...How to build your own personal reusable spacecraft using only an old washing up liquid bottle, some sellotape, a couple of lemons and a box of bicarbonate of soda.
If that proves too difficult, I'll settle for a flying car.
Going by all the Hollywood movies I have seen, you never go into hand-to-tentacle combat in space space unless you have:
1. A spacesuit with a large illuminated helmet with headcam so the aliens know where to shoot.
2. A large rifle with infinite rounds of ammunition with and grenade thrower and flame thrower, and laser pointer that shows everyone where you are. Glow sticks are optional.
3. A dodgy radio communications system that will alway pack up when you go into a washroom or are within 5 metres of an large alien with sharp teeth.
4. A state-of-the-art alien detector that tells you how far away the aliens are to the nearest nanometer, but won't tell you if they are
above or below you.
5. An android with reflexes faster than a laser-rifle, and an IQ to match your PC's clock speed, but who has decided to contemplate the meaning of life and become a buddhist monk instead.
This is actually how the free market SHOULD work! There is a need for a service and you have an ability and so do others...
Yes, but people need a minimum amount of money in order to buy food, water and rent. Take into account saving for kid's college fees, deposit on a mortgage, pension, health-care, and the minimum wage barely goes anywhere.
I had friends who were once looking to rent a flat down in London. They searched the local papers for places to rent, and the only location within their price range was a room in a house shared with four other professional couples. They arrived at the property and were shocked to find out that the landlord had undersold the advertised rent, and was actually auctioning off each room individually.
so we buried hundreds of feet of coax cable underground between multiple apartments.
For a moment, I though that read
"so we buried coax cable hundreds of feet underground between multiple apartments."
I know some people like to make sure their slashdot access is available at all times, but that seemed rather extreme.
I worked for a network products company that had this happen with one of their legacy products that was being sold to a foreign customer just before the open source community came up with an equivalent version.
Because of this, our team leaders were more interested in getting their milestone completion bonuses than getting the bugs out of the system (who cares, we're all going onto new projects, even if not at this company).
Every two weeks we had a milestone for a particular module. Regardless of the state of that module, at the end of that milestone, we just moved onto the next task on our list. All bugs were scheduled to be fixed at the end of the implementation phase. Of course at the end of the implementation phase, everyone did a runner. Team leaders, contractors, application programmers, everyone! I was the last one out - it was fun having an entire corner of an open-plane office block to myself for a week or two, then I wandered off as well. All the machines were still there, but all the people were gone. Like the place had been visited by "Neutron Jack".
Got the company several million though.
Our newspapers regularly like to have front page headlines like "Chancellor raids nine billion pounds from company pension schemes". In this sense it means 9 thousand million pounds. At the same time we frequently have news reports from the USA, especially with regard to budget deficits in states like California.
Billion billion is a perfectly valid number. Or would you rather they say 6.0 × 10^18?
Whenever I see or hear the word "billion" the first thing I ask is that US billion or British billion?
"six times ten raised to the power of eighteen" seems much more clear and precise.
You could model robots after sheep. That would make the question of "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" a bit more complex.
Would the question then become "Do android sheep dream of electricity?"
Some faculty have suggested that in acknowledgment of Mr. Gates' profound influence on the computer software industry, the building should be painted bright blue."
But they failed to mention that the follow lines will be embossed in Silver using four foot high letters.
This will be allow the message to be seen across the campus as well as from the air.
A fatal exception 03 hase occurred at 00020:C000DEFE in VxD VMM(01) + 00010E36. The current application will be terminated.
* Press any key to terminate the current application.
* Press CTRL+ALT+DEL again to restart your computer. You will lose any unsaved information in all applications.
Press any key to continue
how beer helps police harmful free radicals in blood, The London Free Press also has an article."
beer, Police, free radicals, blood, London Free Press?
All the standard ingredients for another protest day in London.
I always find the best remedy for motion sickness in boats and light planes is still:
- get some fresh air
- look at the horizon
- (if safe/possible) take the wheel/yoke
The main cause of motion sickness is the conflict of information from the inner ear (motion balance) and vision (motion of surroundings). Inside a ferry with no windows, everything appears stationary, but your inner ear tells you that you are moving. Looking at the horizon helps your brain synchronize the two sets of data, fresh air helps increase the oxygen going to your brain, and taking the whell/yoke also gives you motion feedback, also helping synchronize the two sets of input.
VR headsets in the past did give people "simulator sickness" as the update rates were rather slow (~7 frames second/0.5 second change rate). I experienced this myself with the "Virtuality" systems, which had a rate 500,000 triangle second. With today's PC's (and even laptops) the refresh and process rates are much faster. I believe the new handheld consoles have tilt mechanisms built in (for racing/flight simulation games).
In other news, the Visa corporation has trademarked the term "Visa Versa" for their new credit card account. With every transaction made using this card, a donation is made to the "National Spelling Association" who will strictly defend the right to read correctly spelled comments.
I loved that show, cheesy as it was
Here's another link with an episode guide
Who can forget the greeting of the Advocacy: TO LIFE IMMORTAL!
To keep the budget down they just created one video of the aliens in alien shaped spacesuits standing around in a circle and wobbling about a bit, and the script would be dubbed over at a later date.