Would it be possible to economically do this with still cameras(preferrably film vs. digital)? Are there already products that do that? It would be cool to be able to record a depth 'image' with my photograps for later editing...
Couldn't you take the image streams, do the red/blue-shift thing based on the depth stream (or better yet, disneyland-style polarization, if you've got the playback gear), and there you go, 3D-porn:)
The way I see it is analogous to television. Imagine that tv station WABC was rebroadcasting WXYZ's copyrighted content without their consent, taking out WXYZ's commericials and sticking in their own. This situation is no different. You've got a stream of information available on a publically accessible medium, which is being retransmitted by another entity. Try and tell me that this is not a violation of the law.
The major distinction here, IMHO, is that a link or img tag on ABC does not involve ABC retransmitting XYZ's data, merely referring ABC's viewers to request information from XYZ. Furthermore, XYZ is still in control of what data they send, since they can, iirc, use referrer tags to determine that they've been linked from ABC and react appropriately (like the way tripod doesn't allow image views outside the context of their pages.)
The first ammendment disallows the US federal government from passing laws which restrict free speach. [...]
If it relys on case law or statute law originating from somewhere else (e.g. a state legislature) then there is no issue (on 1st ammendment grounds.)
The 14th Amendment states that "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States..." which, at the least, puts the same constitutional restrictions on states as the federal government.
I suppose you could interpret the "enforce" part as a state enforcing a contract that violates the Constitution, but then, IANAL.
Also, the laws in question may distinguish between employee/employer or business/business NDAs and someone attempting to put a restriction on journilists in the general public.
(in most states of the US) You don't need permission to buy software you bought, just as you don't need permission to read a book you purchase or listen to a CD you buy. The law says you have those rights (and more) just by buying the product, unless a different system is agreed to before the sale.
The sheet of paper that says "This product is licenced, not sold" (which you don't see until after the sale is complete, i might add) may or may not change that, but if you haven't agreed to it, or the product has no EULA, you're free to go.
IANAL, but i've read the appropriate parts of the UCC...
The creationist argument is "well how do you explain X". Scientist goes away for a few years, comes back and says, "this is how I explain X". Creationinst says, "well ok, but then how do you explain Y?"
Isn't that how science is supposed to work? Each answer just leads to more questions...
Or is there just a point where you say, "Well, we have a complete theory of evolution now, I suppose we move on to chemistry now..."
But if you ask the Biblical creationist to explain "how did Noah fit all those animals on the ark", they accuse you of questioning their religion and refuse to answer.
You haven't been around biblical literalists enough if you really believe that... It's just that the explanations tend to get increasingly bizarre...
Agreed, but the number of changes required to get from verion 1 to version 2 increases (I would speculate exponentially) with the complexity of the system.
I don't think it's quite as bad as exponential, like most fault-tolerant systems, the human body is very modular.
Lets suppose that I would have a better chance of surviving with an eye at the back of my head. Such a mutation simply would not happen within one generation, it requires to many patches.
This leaves the fundemental problem of what happens to the generations in between for whom the changes are not beneficial. According to survival of the fittest, they do not survive. Then how do complicated changes happen?
A horse may be born with a pair of stubby wings. The horse can't fly, but as long as the wings don't lessen the horse's chances at survival and reproduction the wings don't do that horse any harm. Mutations and adaptations don't have to be advantageous; they can be neutral, or even disadvantageous if they are offset by other factors.
But a horse with little stubby wings would be at a disadvangage, it's that much more weight/muscle whatever that their body has to produce and carry around that doesn't do anything... It is my understanding that that is why humans, for example, don't have tails; even though it would slightly improve our balance, it's mostly just excess mass, and a tail-less human would be lighter and faster and need less food, and therefore more likely to survive.
Try to get on a mathematics degree at a good university and mention in your interview that you don't believe 1+1=2. Try to get on a physics degree and let them know you don't believe gravity exists.
You never had to learn anything you didn't believe in college? Hell, most of the stuff in Physics class isn't real or even correct anyway (i.e. Newtonian Physics), it's just useful. Creationists should be welcome in biology courses, I don't recall any final exams requiring my to proclaim my belief in the subject matter so much as my understanding of it.
That's a Good Thing; Science isn't a belief system.
Now lets apply the theory of macro evolution to computer science. Lets take the code for Linux 0.93 as a starting point. Write a small piece of code that introduces random changes in the code.
If the code refuses to compile, undo the change and compile again. A compiled piece of code "survives" if it does better than the previous generation: ie. crashes less, runs faster etc. I know that this is a bit simplified but I think that the central argument is there, after a billion of such generations we would not have a great operating system. Simply said, evolution does not scale.
Evolution doesn't scale, but it doesn't need to; it parallelizes. Once you have a pseudo-organism that can replicate itself effectively enough to grow (that is, if some large percentage of new offspring do not survive, the species still has a stable or growing population), then random mutation can try almost every possible simple 'patch' at the same time.
You can get from anywhere to an improved system as long as the number of changes required to get from version 1 to version 2 can be tested in the time available; with enough space/resources, you don't lose any time to testing the failure cases.
I really don't understand why search engines don't just have two entry boxes: One for what the user DOES want, one for what they DON'T. The average user could understand that better than "+bob -dole".
Doom was a 2D polygon world, with z-values for each floor and ceiling, to make height differences.
Lots of similar games added layers of polygons to make a room-over-room effect.
Quake, OTOH, had a game world made of 3D polyhedra, so any layout that didn't use too many triangles could be created. Quake II added somewhat more general movement of world brushes (rotation, maybe more, i don't remember)
You could, you could..
Do you know the differences between theory and pratice?
In theory you're right, in pratice do you know a Java compiler which produce native code which is as fast as C++, without any memory increase?
No? Then your point means nothing.
Have you priced RAM lately? I'd gladly buy twice as much memory for my box if i could run programs that didn't suffer from buffer overflows and stupid memory management bugs.
The only thing that would make developing an FPS in java difficult is, afaik, the lack of a good 3d library.
Everyone seems to forget that using a gun in a plane is a very bad idea.
I've noticed the reverse, everyone keeps repeating that it's a bad idea without making it clear why. I mean, what happens, the gun (maybe) puts a hole in the plane, which will (eventually) depressurize the plane, forcing the pilots to bring the plane down to a reasonable altitude (15,000 ft?) and make an emergency landing... Which is, I imagine, exactly what they were going to do anyway if there's trouble on the plane.
Or maybe there's something I'm missing, and firing a gun on a plane would cause a certain crash, which, of course, is not exactly the worst-case scenario.
Obviously, some secrets are worth keeping: for example, the code for the President's briefcase that launches the nukes is something best kept off Slashdot, or the open-source intelligence listserv.
Slashdot Mirror
Would it be possible to economically do this with still cameras(preferrably film vs. digital)? Are there already products that do that? It would be cool to be able to record a depth 'image' with my photograps for later editing...
--
Benjamin Coates
There's at least one short (the scene, of course) John Holmes scene in 3D floating out there, in the awful 3D porn "Lollipop Girls in Hard Candy".
:)
I doubt anyone will believe this, but it is the only porn movie I have ever gone to see, I swear I'm not part of the dirty raincoat brigade.
--
Benjamin Coates
Sorry, no 3D-porn.
:)
Couldn't you take the image streams, do the red/blue-shift thing based on the depth stream (or better yet, disneyland-style polarization, if you've got the playback gear), and there you go, 3D-porn
--
Benjamin Coates
It's about as easy to fake a referrer as it is to fake a useragent string
For the browser, it's easy. I don't think it's easy for the linking site. (could be wrong, though)
--
Benjamin Coates
The way I see it is analogous to television. Imagine that tv station WABC was rebroadcasting WXYZ's copyrighted content without their consent, taking out WXYZ's commericials and sticking in their own. This situation is no different. You've got a stream of information available on a publically accessible medium, which is being retransmitted by another entity. Try and tell me that this is not a violation of the law.
The major distinction here, IMHO, is that a link or img tag on ABC does not involve ABC retransmitting XYZ's data, merely referring ABC's viewers to request information from XYZ. Furthermore, XYZ is still in control of what data they send, since they can, iirc, use referrer tags to determine that they've been linked from ABC and react appropriately (like the way tripod doesn't allow image views outside the context of their pages.)
--
Benjamin Coates
The first ammendment disallows the US federal government from passing laws which restrict free speach.
[...]
If it relys on case law or statute law originating from somewhere else (e.g. a state legislature) then there is no issue (on 1st ammendment grounds.)
The 14th Amendment states that "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States..." which, at the least, puts the same constitutional restrictions on states as the federal government.
I suppose you could interpret the "enforce" part as a state enforcing a contract that violates the Constitution, but then, IANAL.
--
Benjamin Coates
NDAs are real contracts, signed by both parties.
This is not.
Also, the laws in question may distinguish between employee/employer or business/business NDAs and someone attempting to put a restriction on journilists in the general public.
--
Benjamin Coates
(in most states of the US) You don't need permission to buy software you bought, just as you don't need permission to read a book you purchase or listen to a CD you buy. The law says you have those rights (and more) just by buying the product, unless a different system is agreed to before the sale.
The sheet of paper that says "This product is licenced, not sold" (which you don't see until after the sale is complete, i might add) may or may not change that, but if you haven't agreed to it, or the product has no EULA, you're free to go.
IANAL, but i've read the appropriate parts of the UCC...
--
Benjamin Coates
The creationist argument is "well how do you explain X". Scientist goes away for a few years, comes back and says, "this is how I explain X". Creationinst says, "well ok, but then how do you explain Y?"
Isn't that how science is supposed to work? Each answer just leads to more questions...
Or is there just a point where you say, "Well, we have a complete theory of evolution now, I suppose we move on to chemistry now..."
But if you ask the Biblical creationist to explain "how did Noah fit all those animals on the ark", they accuse you of questioning their religion and refuse to answer.
You haven't been around biblical literalists enough if you really believe that... It's just that the explanations tend to get increasingly bizarre...
--
Benjamin Coates
I think you summarized the situation nicely.
(Creationist != Christian, there are many more religions which believe in creation.)
Not to mention many (most, i would figure) Christians who do not believe in Creationism.
--
Benjamin Coates
Agreed, but the number of changes required to get from verion 1 to version 2 increases (I would speculate exponentially) with the complexity of the system.
:)
I don't think it's quite as bad as exponential, like most fault-tolerant systems, the human body is very modular.
Lets suppose that I would have a better chance of surviving with an eye at the back of my head. Such a mutation simply would not happen within one generation, it requires to many patches.
This leaves the fundemental problem of what happens to the generations in between for whom the changes are not beneficial. According to survival of the fittest, they do not survive. Then how do complicated changes happen?
I believe they happen over in the Irreducible Complexity Thread.
--
Benjamin Coates
We ignored creationism for decades, and it became a powerful enough force to start rewriting our grade school science textbooks.
The obvious problem here is that school curricula are being decided by consensus.
The hand that rocks the cradle and all...
--
Benjamin Coates
There isn't much successful reproduction in prison.
--
Benjamin Coates
A horse may be born with a pair of stubby wings. The horse can't fly, but as long as the wings don't lessen the horse's chances at survival and reproduction the wings don't do that horse any harm. Mutations and adaptations don't have to be advantageous; they can be neutral, or even disadvantageous if they are offset by other factors.
But a horse with little stubby wings would be at a disadvangage, it's that much more weight/muscle whatever that their body has to produce and carry around that doesn't do anything... It is my understanding that that is why humans, for example, don't have tails; even though it would slightly improve our balance, it's mostly just excess mass, and a tail-less human would be lighter and faster and need less food, and therefore more likely to survive.
--
Benjamin Coates
Try to get on a mathematics degree at a good university and mention in your interview that you don't believe 1+1=2. Try to get on a physics degree and let them know you don't believe gravity exists.
You never had to learn anything you didn't believe in college? Hell, most of the stuff in Physics class isn't real or even correct anyway (i.e. Newtonian Physics), it's just useful. Creationists should be welcome in biology courses, I don't recall any final exams requiring my to proclaim my belief in the subject matter so much as my understanding of it.
That's a Good Thing; Science isn't a belief system.
--
Benjamin Coates
Now lets apply the theory of macro evolution to computer science. Lets take the code for Linux 0.93 as a starting point. Write a small piece of code that introduces random changes in the code.
If the code refuses to compile, undo the change and compile again. A compiled piece of code "survives" if it does better than the previous generation: ie. crashes less, runs faster etc. I know that this is a bit simplified but I think that the central argument is there, after a billion of such generations we would not have a great operating system. Simply said, evolution does not scale.
Evolution doesn't scale, but it doesn't need to; it parallelizes. Once you have a pseudo-organism that can replicate itself effectively enough to grow (that is, if some large percentage of new offspring do not survive, the species still has a stable or growing population), then random mutation can try almost every possible simple 'patch' at the same time.
You can get from anywhere to an improved system as long as the number of changes required to get from version 1 to version 2 can be tested in the time available; with enough space/resources, you don't lose any time to testing the failure cases.
--
Benjamin Coates
The TOOT does this to AltaVista.
--
Benjamin Coates
I really don't understand why search engines don't just have two entry boxes: One for what the user DOES want, one for what they DON'T. The average user could understand that better than "+bob -dole".
http://www.google.com/advanced_search
--
Benjamin Coates
At least two
Doom was a 2D polygon world, with z-values for each floor and ceiling, to make height differences.
Lots of similar games added layers of polygons to make a room-over-room effect.
Quake, OTOH, had a game world made of 3D polyhedra, so any layout that didn't use too many triangles could be created. Quake II added somewhat more general movement of world brushes (rotation, maybe more, i don't remember)
--
Benjamin Coates
You could, you could..
Do you know the differences between theory and pratice?
In theory you're right, in pratice do you know a Java compiler which produce native code which is as fast as C++, without any memory increase?
No? Then your point means nothing.
Have you priced RAM lately? I'd gladly buy twice as much memory for my box if i could run programs that didn't suffer from buffer overflows and stupid memory management bugs.
The only thing that would make developing an FPS in java difficult is, afaik, the lack of a good 3d library.
Well, that and the lack of good java programmers.
--
Benjamin Coates
... could use some help the last I heard.
--
Benjamin Coates
Everyone seems to forget that using a gun in a plane is a very bad idea.
I've noticed the reverse, everyone keeps repeating that it's a bad idea without making it clear why. I mean, what happens, the gun (maybe) puts a hole in the plane, which will (eventually) depressurize the plane, forcing the pilots to bring the plane down to a reasonable altitude (15,000 ft?) and make an emergency landing... Which is, I imagine, exactly what they were going to do anyway if there's trouble on the plane.
Or maybe there's something I'm missing, and firing a gun on a plane would cause a certain crash, which, of course, is not exactly the worst-case scenario.
--
Benjamin Coates
Obviously, some secrets are worth keeping: for example, the code for the President's briefcase that launches the nukes is something best kept off Slashdot, or the open-source intelligence listserv.
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