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User: AlastairMurray

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Comments · 67

  1. Multiple Mics Can Separate Conversations on Ask Slashdot: Effective, Reasonably Priced Conferencing Speech-to-Text? · · Score: 1

    I've not noticed anyone else mention using multiple microphones, but with two microphones spaced a few metres apart a computer can separate out two people talking over each other due to speed-of-sound differences (i.e. conversation A reaches mic 1 then mic 2, conversation B reaches mic 2 then mic 1).

    I've seen two people talking separated using two microphones, I don't think you need more microphones for more people. This is a common machine learning demo (how I've seen it), but it is just signal processing really (i.e. no machine learning required).

    I'm not aware of any products integrating this however, but I've never had the need to look. Is there such a thing as a bluetooth microphone for iPhone/Android? Like a headset but without the speaker. If you're a programmer maybe you could write an app that separates out different audio "streams" and then send each to existing voice recognition APIs.

  2. Re:Very impressive on Headlights That See Through Rain and Snow · · Score: 1

    Another downside/unintended consequence may be that people might drive at dry road speeds despite heavy rain or snow. Not being able to see far ahead definitely makes me slow down instinctively, risks such as increased stopping distance, black ice or hydroplaning/aquaplaning all need to considered consciously.

  3. Not Magical on Headlights That See Through Rain and Snow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    to make possible a whole host of 'magical' (like Arthur C. Clarke predicted) applications

    He didn't predict that at some arbitrary point in the future technology would have the appearance of being magical, he didn't make a prediction at all in this regard. His statement "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." (presumably) means "Any sufficiently advanced technology relative to the observer's baseline is indistinguishable from magic.", but that isn't as catchy.

    If you could show someone from the 1700's an iPhone it would be "indistinguishable from magic" to them. If an alien race were to zip into orbit tomorrow at faster than light speed it would be "indistinguishable from magic" to us as we don't have any idea how that can be achieved, or even if it is possible. The technology described in the article is impressive but clearly distinguishable from magic, the article describes how it works.

  4. Interesting Maths on 7,000 Irish e-Voting Machines To Be Scrapped · · Score: 2

    all 7,000 will now be scrapped for €70,000 (just over nine Euros each).

    I suppose €10 is just over €9.

  5. Re:Nothing here on Amazon Denies Reports That Airport Scanners Ruin Kindle's e-Ink · · Score: 1

    Further anecdotal evidence: The only time my Kindle has ever crashed was sometime before/during/after a 9 hour flight. I didn't try to use it during the flight but used it earlier in the day, so it could of been either the x-ray or the flight (or coincidence) that crashed it. It was a hard crash that required plugging it into a computer to reset it; just holding the power-switch did nothing.

    For the record: it was Kindle3 (non-3G) in an official leather book-style case (the one without the light) and the wireless was off (I always leave it off for battery reasons).

  6. Re:Wow. Those are realistic. on Get Your Own Action Figure (In Japan) · · Score: 3, Informative

    I didn't see how much they cost

    Article says the cost is 138000 yen (~1750 USD). So not cheap!

  7. Re:w00t on (Useful) Stupid Unix Tricks? · · Score: 1

    1) ungzip and untar on GNU and non-GNU systems
    tar xf filename.tar | gzip -dc -

    I assume you meant:
    gzip -dc filename.tar.gz | tar xf -

    But the following does the same in a simpler way:
    tar xzf filename.tar.gz

  8. Brilliant typo on Microsoft Wants OLPC System to Run Windows XP · · Score: 1

    "priacy is bad"

    That is a brilliant typo, could be either "piracy" or "privacy". Though, confusingly, it isn't present in the parent post.

  9. Re:Not going to get what they want on High School Students Forced To Declare A Major · · Score: 1

    You have listed things that children should know by the time they leave high-school, and I agree with the list (though I would maybe add that they should know the basic principles and beliefs of all major religions). However, something missing from your post isn't something that the graduates should "know", but something they should be able to do: think rationally. It isn't something that people are just born being able to do, it needs to be developed.

  10. Re:May fools? on Jack Thompson Sues Microsoft · · Score: 1

    You envy insanity?

    He envies obsession.

  11. Re:Hmm... on UK Teachers Say Censor The Internet · · Score: 1

    (Which of course could be the very irony you referred to, oops.)

  12. Re:Hmm... on UK Teachers Say Censor The Internet · · Score: 1

    Sounds a little like you want to censor those who call for censorship...

  13. Re:Link lists? on Advanced Data Structures? · · Score: 1

    It has been years since I actually looked at the code, but certainly back in the 2.4.x days the Linux kernel scheduler made use of linked lists (along side some clever pointer arithmetic that made for interesting reading.)

  14. Doesn't say much on Nokia's Wibree Takes on Bluetooth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    From the summary:

    "What does this say about Bluetooth, considering Nokia is a member of the Bluetooth Promoters group?"

    It says that Bluetooth is years old and now some that is (possibly) better has come along, nothing more.

  15. The quote at the bottom of the discussion page... on A Visual Walkthrough of New Features in Vim 7.0 · · Score: 1

    The quote at the bottom of the discussion page when I loaded was:

    "When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. -- Larry Wall in the perl man page"

    Seemed oddly relevant.

  16. Skynet on Oak Ridge Lab Supercomputer Doubles Performance · · Score: 1

    So this public computer is now processing at 54 Teraflops? In the Terminator series didn't Skynet take over the world when it reached 60?

    I for one welcome our new supercomputer overlords.

  17. Re:This just in... nerds hate everything. on PlayStation 3 Manufacturing Not Started Yet? · · Score: 1
    I think the internet has made it impossible for some people to like anything.

    I don't like that notion.

  18. Re:What will make KDE the perfect desktop... on KDE 3.5.4 Released · · Score: 3, Informative

    Seeing as you say you will be "emerging it today" I will presume you are using Gentoo, in which case you can use the modular packages instead of the monolithic ones. Just chose the select apps you want to install and leave the rest. Of course, the hard part is knowing which apps to install but going with basic desktop + what you can think of and then adding things as you realise you need/want them. See here for more information, it is a little old but probably still accurate.

  19. Re:I don't know about anyone else... on The Top 100 Games of the 21st Century · · Score: 0

    Well with game quality going much the same way as Hollywood films it isn't an entirely unreasonable thing to assume that every game made in the rest of the century will worse than those already released.

  20. Re:They're already screwing up. on DVD Format War Already Over? · · Score: 0
    AC wrote:
    A customer there said "oh yeah it's much more detailed, you can see the gilm grain".

    What they were most likely seeing was DCT-noise introduced by compression, it is often visible if you look closely at flat areas in compressed video. Both in DVD quality and HD video. In HD video a lot of it can be introduced by film-grain, the grain shouldn't be clearly visible but can introduce a small amount of noise across otherwise flat colour. This is harder to compress and thus can result in noise.

  21. Buy a NintendoDS? on Forget Expensive Video Cards · · Score: 0

    An alternative would be to buy a Nintendo DS and a handful of games you like the look of (maybe some final fantasy and GBA zelda games?). Alot easier to whip out during a free moment.

  22. Re:Obvious Dupe on 10 Things Apple Did To Make Mac OS X Faster · · Score: 0

    I thought I had read this before, almost 2 years old as well.

  23. Socrates on Humans Hard-wired for Geometry · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Plato wrote about an incident where Socrates demonstrated a knowledge of geometry in an uneducated boy over 2000 years ago, this isn't exactly an entirely new discovery. See here for a description.

  24. Re:Great Solution on Court Rules Ellison Must Donate $100M to Charity · · Score: 0

    Or just increase the size of the settlement so that after 25% is fed back to him he is left with a net loss of $100 million.

  25. Re:in other news.... on OpenOffice.Org in a Corporate Environment? · · Score: 0
    In other news, expect a slashdot article in a month stating that "I got fired for installing OO 2.0 on our corp. network".
    So "Noone ever got fired for buying IBM" has become "Noone ever got fired for buying MS."