Yes, but it is the blazing speed with which it delivers those garbage search results that keeps me coming back. The lack of advertising clutter was a drawing factor in the early days (the clutter seems to be getting worse, however). My previous search engine (hotbot) was simply too slow.
I saw a special weather string on my recent trip to the caribbean. The device is mounted so that the weather string hangs vertically. If the string is wet, that means it's raining. If the string is hanging on an angle, that means it's windy. If the string is horizontal, that means it's really windy. If the string is gone, that means it's a hurricane.
Well, either the unit is built into the can, or it is in the beverage itself. If it is in the can, you don't have to worry (once you wipe down the can). If it is in the beverage, then they've got you.
There are some things like skycover and accurately representing highly variable conditions that an automated weather station simply can't do.
Couldn't skycover be done with a webcam pointing up, possibly with a fisheye lens to grab the entire "dome" of the sky? The image could be sent to a central office, and interpreted by trained personnel there. What other observations need a human presence?
Operation Take-over-Hollywood-and-thus-take-over-their-minds is in full swing. Let them think that Americans invented air conditioning, microwave ovens, microcomputers, etc. Let them think they rule. When the Manifest Destiny comes about, it will be North America under the Maple Leaf, not under the Stars and Stripes. Mwaa-ha-ha! Mwaa-ha-ha-ha! [/me puts pinky to lip]
Who gave you the mandate to try to bring democracy to other contries in the first place? Maybe if the US stopped mucking around with other contries' governments, the rest of the world wouldn't hate them so much.
Exploration is rarely ever profitable, in and of itself. Exploitation is. If you profit enough from exploitation, you can fund exploration. The catch is, it's hard to know what is available for exploitation, until you explore.
Most of what mankind has done is space has been on the exploration end of the spectrum. The only profitably exploitable part of space we have found is in placing communications satellites, and telemetry statellites in orbit. Until we can exploit the resources in space at a cheaper cost than exploiting the same resources on earth, we will not have a working space program.
Drive around your neighbourhood, and count how many satellite dishes you see. The space business has been turning a profit since the first communications satellites went up.
Re:America needs to rethink some priorities
on
NASA's New Space Wheels
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Just a couple of points to consider: "60's" style rockets are cheap to operate. They also actually have enough thrust to lift themselves plus a cargo against earth's gravitational pull, unlike an ion engine.
NASA is falling behind because they are going for glitz and glamour, instead of economy and reliability. Back in the Apollo era, glamour and the prestige of being first was what the space race was all about. These days, the space race is about business and economy: GPS, satellite TV, weather monitoring, etc. NASA is running the wrong race, and the shuttle was a bold step in the wrong direction. It costs ten times as much per kilo to launch a cargo on the shuttle, as it does on the ESA.
Lots of movies and shows use archive footage and clever compositing techniques to either put the put the current actor into the archived scene, or put an archived actor into a current scene. For example, the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations", where the DS-9 crew go back into the past and interact with Kirk and the gang. The interaction shots require just the right archive footage. It is impossible, using this technique, to create actions and dialogs that didn't already exist.
What I'm talking about is creating a 3D digital model of the actor. That model could then be animated for whatever action or dialog is required. Perhaps a better way of explaining it is - create a digital actor, then give it a "skin" based on a real actor.
If you think it's bad now, wait until they start reverse rendering actors and scenes from old movies. (By reverse rendering, I mean taking a series of images, and creating a 3d digital representation of an actor. That 3d representation could then be animated to generate new scenes.) Imagine all new Hogan's Heroes fan episodes, or Gilligan's Island episodes. Same actors, just digitized, and animated. Imagine some of the Star Trek novels done up as movies. It may not be that far off.
They were brought along, or more accurately, they are created from a supply of xenon that is brought along. The energy used to ionize the xenon and accelerate the ions comes from the solar panels.
Um... Ion drives require propellant, just like any other rocket. That propellant comes from earth. The only difference is that the power used to drive the propellant comes from solar power, rather than a chemical reaction. The power is free, the propellant is not.
Yes. The TV shows are there to draw an audience for the commercials. Broadcasters are not in the business of providing entertainment. They are in the business of selling audience share to advertisers. Just follow the money.
No, that can't be it, because on the weekends the roads are all jam-packed with McDonald's eating slobs driving gas-guzzling SUVs in three hour long traffic jams on their way to the cottage and back.
if you produce a media product, you can use whatever copy protection you want.
Interesting argument. However, how am I to know that the material is copy protected? How do I know that the copy protection software isn't full of spyware, and adware? Is there a warning label?
This whole copyright question is getting tiresome. It is becoming more and more apparent that copyrights on digital content are unenforcable. It costs nothing to copy stuff. It costs nothing to send it all over the world. Copy protection? For every copy protection scheme, there will be a cypherpunk who cracks it. Besides, the more copy protection you heap on top of the content, the less legitimate devices will be able to play the content.
The philosophy of linux and unix-like OSs is to have small programs that do single tasks well, and link them together to do complex tasks. Changing how a program at the beginning of the chain can have profound implications to the rest of the chain, whereas changes to the end of a chain have little impact at all. Writing a file manager/browser application doesn't interfere with any other software. It is an application running on top of the OS. The filesystem, however is a fundamental part of the operating system. Writing a filesystem has the potential to break hundreds of programs, or even render the machine unusable.
Slashdot Mirror
Does that mean that the DVD will not be region coded?
Yes, but it is the blazing speed with which it delivers those garbage search results that keeps me coming back. The lack of advertising clutter was a drawing factor in the early days (the clutter seems to be getting worse, however). My previous search engine (hotbot) was simply too slow.
It would have been, but somebody owns the patent on a "method for automatically adding withdrawn patents to a list".
Rain won't destroy a computer, unless it is powered on. Bring it inside, let it dry, and away you go!
Well, given that the alternative is to buy *BOTH* a $2000 PC AND a $150 toy, I'd rather just spend the $2000.
I saw a special weather string on my recent trip to the caribbean. The device is mounted so that the weather string hangs vertically. If the string is wet, that means it's raining. If the string is hanging on an angle, that means it's windy. If the string is horizontal, that means it's really windy. If the string is gone, that means it's a hurricane.
Well, either the unit is built into the can, or it is in the beverage itself. If it is in the can, you don't have to worry (once you wipe down the can). If it is in the beverage, then they've got you.
There are some things like skycover and accurately representing highly variable conditions that an automated weather station simply can't do.
Couldn't skycover be done with a webcam pointing up, possibly with a fisheye lens to grab the entire "dome" of the sky? The image could be sent to a central office, and interpreted by trained personnel there. What other observations need a human presence?
What are those sneaky canucks up to?
s is in full swing. Let them think that Americans invented air conditioning, microwave ovens, microcomputers, etc. Let them think they rule. When the Manifest Destiny comes about, it will be North America under the Maple Leaf, not under the Stars and Stripes. Mwaa-ha-ha! Mwaa-ha-ha-ha! [/me puts pinky to lip]
Operation Take-over-Hollywood-and-thus-take-over-their-mind
Who gave you the mandate to try to bring democracy to other contries in the first place? Maybe if the US stopped mucking around with other contries' governments, the rest of the world wouldn't hate them so much.
Exploration is rarely ever profitable, in and of itself. Exploitation is. If you profit enough from exploitation, you can fund exploration. The catch is, it's hard to know what is available for exploitation, until you explore.
Most of what mankind has done is space has been on the exploration end of the spectrum. The only profitably exploitable part of space we have found is in placing communications satellites, and telemetry statellites in orbit. Until we can exploit the resources in space at a cheaper cost than exploiting the same resources on earth, we will not have a working space program.
Drive around your neighbourhood, and count how many satellite dishes you see. The space business has been turning a profit since the first communications satellites went up.
Just a couple of points to consider: "60's" style rockets are cheap to operate. They also actually have enough thrust to lift themselves plus a cargo against earth's gravitational pull, unlike an ion engine.
NASA is falling behind because they are going for glitz and glamour, instead of economy and reliability. Back in the Apollo era, glamour and the prestige of being first was what the space race was all about. These days, the space race is about business and economy: GPS, satellite TV, weather monitoring, etc. NASA is running the wrong race, and the shuttle was a bold step in the wrong direction. It costs ten times as much per kilo to launch a cargo on the shuttle, as it does on the ESA.
Lots of movies and shows use archive footage and clever compositing techniques to either put the put the current actor into the archived scene, or put an archived actor into a current scene. For example, the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations", where the DS-9 crew go back into the past and interact with Kirk and the gang. The interaction shots require just the right archive footage. It is impossible, using this technique, to create actions and dialogs that didn't already exist.
What I'm talking about is creating a 3D digital model of the actor. That model could then be animated for whatever action or dialog is required. Perhaps a better way of explaining it is - create a digital actor, then give it a "skin" based on a real actor.
If you think it's bad now, wait until they start reverse rendering actors and scenes from old movies. (By reverse rendering, I mean taking a series of images, and creating a 3d digital representation of an actor. That 3d representation could then be animated to generate new scenes.) Imagine all new Hogan's Heroes fan episodes, or Gilligan's Island episodes. Same actors, just digitized, and animated. Imagine some of the Star Trek novels done up as movies. It may not be that far off.
They were brought along, or more accurately, they are created from a supply of xenon that is brought along. The energy used to ionize the xenon and accelerate the ions comes from the solar panels.
Um... Ion drives require propellant, just like any other rocket. That propellant comes from earth. The only difference is that the power used to drive the propellant comes from solar power, rather than a chemical reaction. The power is free, the propellant is not.
Yes. The TV shows are there to draw an audience for the commercials. Broadcasters are not in the business of providing entertainment. They are in the business of selling audience share to advertisers. Just follow the money.
No, that can't be it, because on the weekends the roads are all jam-packed with McDonald's eating slobs driving gas-guzzling SUVs in three hour long traffic jams on their way to the cottage and back.
How about a seven day weekend.
if you produce a media product, you can use whatever copy protection you want.
Interesting argument. However, how am I to know that the material is copy protected? How do I know that the copy protection software isn't full of spyware, and adware? Is there a warning label?
This whole copyright question is getting tiresome. It is becoming more and more apparent that copyrights on digital content are unenforcable. It costs nothing to copy stuff. It costs nothing to send it all over the world. Copy protection? For every copy protection scheme, there will be a cypherpunk who cracks it. Besides, the more copy protection you heap on top of the content, the less legitimate devices will be able to play the content.
I'm fairly sure that would result in an "obstructing justice" charge against the ISP.
That would be true only if people suspected that SCO had some justification and a chance to win their suit.
Unfortunately, most suits (and most of the unwashed masses) will probably think the opposite: There is justification, that's why they're suing.
The philosophy of linux and unix-like OSs is to have small programs that do single tasks well, and link them together to do complex tasks. Changing how a program at the beginning of the chain can have profound implications to the rest of the chain, whereas changes to the end of a chain have little impact at all. Writing a file manager/browser application doesn't interfere with any other software. It is an application running on top of the OS. The filesystem, however is a fundamental part of the operating system. Writing a filesystem has the potential to break hundreds of programs, or even render the machine unusable.