It's an account of how they put together the data stored on the plate on Voyager, which aside from the plaque everyone knows, contained a gold record with bitmap-encoded pictures documenting the earth. The book goes over each picture and the rationale behind choosing it. It is absolutely fascinating; they thought very hard about how to represent the earth, starting with a few pictures on math and number systems and then going on to pictures to be decoded properly, and on the surface was information on how to read the record. Check the book out.
So wait, how do I get moderated 'redundant' when I was the first non-troll post? As I've said before, I think I really don't understand the 'redundant' moderation.
You jest. But where is the HL2 porn? It's a good physics engine, I'm told, and has realistic people. Or what about all these other photorealistic games I see ads for?
C'mon, adult industry, use a tenth of the creativity you use in titling your movies and find a way to make a business model for this.
Earthquake insurance in California is very expensive and hard to get. For some reason, insurers don't like the thought of a million people suddenly needing to replace the main joists* in their houses. And so they set the premiums extremely high or refuse to offer coverage altogether.
We spent a long time playing with this. I teamed up with a couple friends and we managed to get the whole thing alphabetized, and it's interesting to try to communicate when there's no way to identify yourself except by moving letters in recognizable ways.
I agree with you in general, but keep in mind that there's a difference between "X and Y are larger problems, let's focus on them first," (e.g. 'how can you buy DVDs with children starving in Africa!?') and "It's not worth the effort to focus on this problem, period (so let's focus on X and Y)," which I think is more this situation -- that is, a solution in search of a problem.
Instead of 'rating' they should offer you two movies and ask 'which do you prefer'. This is a much better way to do it -- you'll notice that all the movies average out to a 'B' rating. It's extremely difficult, for me at least, to rate movies on a simple absolute scale. I tried the Yahoo one, but then realized that I was just rating the vast majority of movies "decently good". Yet I can almost always tell you which of two movies I prefer.
I took them up to the breaking strength of steel assuming closer to the mass of lead, as closely as I could work out the equations (I'm no mechanical engineer, I just had to make rough approximations based on tensile strength and a rough distribution of stress). Still no good. I really wanted this idea to work, but in the end I couldn't do it.
(Note, if you want to work it out yourself and maybe find a better answer: you would actually be using a sphere instead of a 'wheel', because the outer shell has to rotate freely (it's a massively powerful gyroscope), and thus you might as well use up the extra space in the casing)
ALL the time. When sitting plugged in to nothing. When sitting dormant. Nothing plugged in. There is no way to make the battery not generate heat. That is totally different than any current battery.
What I care about is high resolution. I've gotten used to tiled windows now that I run at 1600x1200, and I don't want to go down from here. I can get a CRT that does this for $100. Can I get an LCD? I haven't checked in a bit but I'm pretty sure the answer is no.
I'd also make the switch to dual monitors if it were an option, but I think that dual 1024x768 LCDs would also suck, price-wise.
When I say "Only a small fraction of autistic children are able to lead productive lives" I was referring to the end of the spectrum down past Asperger's, low-functioning autism, which is what a test would most likely be aimed at.
Just want to note -- I have a lot of experience with autism and specifically Asperger's. And before it gets too involved, I want to mention this:
The argument "in doing this, you might stop the next genius from existing", whether applied to medication or abortion, is not simply the last word. It is something to take into consideration.
The parents who have to raise the child are the ones making these decisions. It's true, "he just might be the next Einstein", but it's much more likely that his parents will go through their lives not being able to speak to him, having him attack you for no reason, and not being able to see him ever live on his own.
Asperger's, a mild variety of autism, is a mixed bag. It breaks my heart to see my cousin's family torn apart by their son's inability to control himself, and he's relatively high-functioning. A test for autism would be a tremendous boon for parents facing the prospect of raising a child who will be forever locked away from them, and they from him. High-minded ideals about future genuises are not what they want to hear.
Summary: Serious autism is terrible. Only a small fraction of autistic children are able to lead productive lives. Borderline cases like [famous person here] are extremely high-functioning, if in the spectrum at all, and probably wouldn't fall under any test in the near future.
I know, I was joking. "Downloading Linux distributions" has become a clichéd example of legitimate uses of large file transfer protocols like Bittorrent -- whenever they announce some crackdown on LFTPs in general trying to attack movie piracy, dozens of people jump in and say "What about downloading Linux distributions!?"
Slashdot Mirror
Read this:
5 315367/qid=1119278072/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl 14/002-9620787-0418454?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/034
It's an account of how they put together the data stored on the plate on Voyager, which aside from the plaque everyone knows, contained a gold record with bitmap-encoded pictures documenting the earth. The book goes over each picture and the rationale behind choosing it. It is absolutely fascinating; they thought very hard about how to represent the earth, starting with a few pictures on math and number systems and then going on to pictures to be decoded properly, and on the surface was information on how to read the record. Check the book out.
So wait, how do I get moderated 'redundant' when I was the first non-troll post? As I've said before, I think I really don't understand the 'redundant' moderation.
wanna go to a bar or something?
Obvious jokes:
Will the credit card numbers be searchable? (possibly including a wry link to the Google search for visa-format numbers that's so startling)
Well, I'm sure there'll be SOME aspect of my life Google doesn't know everything about.
Obvious theme of discussion:
Evil plot for world domination or Google just bringing helpful service?
Obvious joking twist on discussion of Google's evilness:
Well, even if they . . . whatever. I don't even care anymore. My life is a sham.
We need a simple, polite word for "fyi, you missed the humor in the gp post."
though if you go back and read it with a different viewpoint, it's really hard to see it.
You jest. But where is the HL2 porn? It's a good physics engine, I'm told, and has realistic people. Or what about all these other photorealistic games I see ads for?
C'mon, adult industry, use a tenth of the creativity you use in titling your movies and find a way to make a business model for this.
And wanna see a ridiculous number of ads? Try "boxes". Apparently a popular word.
I remember when I could search for "slaves" and get an eBay ad. Buy and sell slaves on eBay, huh?
(It might have been some similar word and not "slaves", but I think it was.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_insurance
Earthquake insurance in California is very expensive and hard to get. For some reason, insurers don't like the thought of a million people suddenly needing to replace the main joists* in their houses. And so they set the premiums extremely high or refuse to offer coverage altogether.
* I have no idea what a "joist" is.
And another advantage -- I've heard that on VHS, hay banda.
What does 'redundant' mean, anyway? Does it mean that it's the same as something you've posted, or someone else?
Anarchic, anonymous flash applet:
Someone keeps stealing my letters!
We spent a long time playing with this. I teamed up with a couple friends and we managed to get the whole thing alphabetized, and it's interesting to try to communicate when there's no way to identify yourself except by moving letters in recognizable ways.
With diagnosis codes that specific, I bet you've got some other amusing ones. "Blood loss due to penetration of chest by lightbulb," etc.
I agree with you in general, but keep in mind that there's a difference between "X and Y are larger problems, let's focus on them first," (e.g. 'how can you buy DVDs with children starving in Africa!?') and "It's not worth the effort to focus on this problem, period (so let's focus on X and Y)," which I think is more this situation -- that is, a solution in search of a problem.
Instead of 'rating' they should offer you two movies and ask 'which do you prefer'. This is a much better way to do it -- you'll notice that all the movies average out to a 'B' rating. It's extremely difficult, for me at least, to rate movies on a simple absolute scale. I tried the Yahoo one, but then realized that I was just rating the vast majority of movies "decently good". Yet I can almost always tell you which of two movies I prefer.
I took them up to the breaking strength of steel assuming closer to the mass of lead, as closely as I could work out the equations (I'm no mechanical engineer, I just had to make rough approximations based on tensile strength and a rough distribution of stress). Still no good. I really wanted this idea to work, but in the end I couldn't do it.
(Note, if you want to work it out yourself and maybe find a better answer: you would actually be using a sphere instead of a 'wheel', because the outer shell has to rotate freely (it's a massively powerful gyroscope), and thus you might as well use up the extra space in the casing)
I did some work on that. You can't store as much energy in a spinning wheel as you can in a laptop battery of similar size. Sadly.
Read. The words. Think about. The words.
ALL the time. When sitting plugged in to nothing. When sitting dormant. Nothing plugged in. There is no way to make the battery not generate heat. That is totally different than any current battery.
What I care about is high resolution. I've gotten used to tiled windows now that I run at 1600x1200, and I don't want to go down from here. I can get a CRT that does this for $100. Can I get an LCD? I haven't checked in a bit but I'm pretty sure the answer is no.
I'd also make the switch to dual monitors if it were an option, but I think that dual 1024x768 LCDs would also suck, price-wise.
Any advice, anyone?
Also contains a full-featured PSP emulator.
Can you patent plot elements in books?
When I say "Only a small fraction of autistic children are able to lead productive lives" I was referring to the end of the spectrum down past Asperger's, low-functioning autism, which is what a test would most likely be aimed at.
Just want to note -- I have a lot of experience with autism and specifically Asperger's. And before it gets too involved, I want to mention this:
The argument "in doing this, you might stop the next genius from existing", whether applied to medication or abortion, is not simply the last word. It is something to take into consideration.
The parents who have to raise the child are the ones making these decisions. It's true, "he just might be the next Einstein", but it's much more likely that his parents will go through their lives not being able to speak to him, having him attack you for no reason, and not being able to see him ever live on his own.
Asperger's, a mild variety of autism, is a mixed bag. It breaks my heart to see my cousin's family torn apart by their son's inability to control himself, and he's relatively high-functioning. A test for autism would be a tremendous boon for parents facing the prospect of raising a child who will be forever locked away from them, and they from him. High-minded ideals about future genuises are not what they want to hear.
Summary: Serious autism is terrible. Only a small fraction of autistic children are able to lead productive lives. Borderline cases like [famous person here] are extremely high-functioning, if in the spectrum at all, and probably wouldn't fall under any test in the near future.
mod parent "+1 made me spray drink out my nose"
I know, I was joking. "Downloading Linux distributions" has become a clichéd example of legitimate uses of large file transfer protocols like Bittorrent -- whenever they announce some crackdown on LFTPs in general trying to attack movie piracy, dozens of people jump in and say "What about downloading Linux distributions!?"