The aggregator of television guide content is in an interesting business... and problem. Yes, it is costly to get guide data, and they need to recoup their losses. Screen scraping free guide websites bypass the ads, which is, of course, how those websites pay for their work.
But there are so many potential uses for free guide content in an easily transformable format. Besides VCRs or PVRs that can find programs for you, what about websites dedicated to finding your favorite shows, or a simple PDA app that alerts you when it finds out that your favorite movie is due to air? So where is the data? Who would provide it?
Well, with a standard format (or this ) for such data, I believe the producers of that content (or, rather, the distributors... the networks themselves) could provide that data. It's obviously in their best interests for that data to be accurate, and as freely and widely available as possible. They want people to find their shows. Combine it with a simple automated lookup-table translation of network names to your local cable station numbers, and you're set. Of course, something like this could put guide aggregator businesses out-of-business, and I really doubt it will ever happen... But it probably should!
Re:We can finally get the Heart of Gold affect
on
Blacker Than Black
·
· Score: 1
Wasn't that Hotblack Desiato's stuntship and not the Heart of Gold?
Assuming you have a regular TV setup and a Nielsen box, you could still walk out of the room during commercials to get something to eat or drink or go to the bathroom. I imagine this was quite rampant and might explain why the # of commercials in any given break tends to be a little more random than it used to be. I predict this randomness will get worse in the future in an effort to prevent people from leaving during commercial breaks (afraid to miss the show when it comes back on).
At any rate, if you have a TiVo, Nielsen currently has no good way to work with such a device. See my other posting in this thread (titled "Ratings and TiVo") for further info.
Even more problematic is that ratings systems (the way networks determine how many people saw a show and its commercials and how much they can therefore charge in the future for commercial time) cannot currently effectively deal with the TiVo:
If you tape a show and watch it months later, how does it count? The ratings have already been published!
If you fast-forward through commercials while watching a program right after it actually aired, should it count?
While these aren't huge problems today, as more people get PVRs the problems will become larger. Neilsen has spent time investigating VCRs in the past and are working with TiVo right now to address these issues in the future.
If the police or agents or whoever performed the enhancement without access to any prints-on-file with which to compare (in a "blind" study), then it would seem to me to have more validity if the final processing turns out to match a real print.
If the officer was holding a real print of the suspect and simply performing filters on the bad print until it looked sort of similar, then that's no good.
Although saving a few million people isn't any decent fraction of the world population, how is that number insufficient for it to maintain itself? Surely the human population on the Earth was once only a few million people, no?
Such "passive" reflections would be far too weak (plus you'd have to make a variety of assumptions about the "geography" of that solar system since you wouldn't be getting direct perpendicular reflections from the star). You'd need to do something akin to active radar (i.e. we'd have to shoot a high intensity beam of radio waves at the target). Targetting may not be a big issue at that distance since it's likely when the radio waves reached their destination they'd spread to the size of the target solar system or beyond. But, the amount of energy remaining at the target would be low (what, inverse R-squared, or something?) and any amount that got reflected back would be even smaller. Plus, you'd have to account for the fact that you've changed position considerably between the time you originated the signal and the time you received the echo. You'd also only get echos that bounced in the direction the Earth would be at years later - you wouldn't get the echos that bounced directly back.
Hm, ok. Then my next question is: if all you were interested in was the picture on the CD, and no data at all (say for a really cool coaster), could you write firmware for a regular CD-R burner that did something similar?
So what would a bit-by-bit copied disc look like? Would the images be distorted, but recognizable?
If a regular CD burner could only do a single level of albedo, it seems to me you could still write a driver or firmware to do this, as long as the image used something like half-toning.
So if I understand correctly, it can only use unused space on the disk to write this information, and it isn't included in the TOC. If I read the CD bit-by-bit, does this show up as garbage data? It sounds like this isn't a special laser or anything, just burning bits on the CD in specific spots.
So if I do a bit-by-bit copy of a CD burned with an image on another computer using a CD burner with no such capability to create images on its own, will it also copy the image?
Or am I completely wrong here? If I'm correct, it sounds like with the properly written drivers (or possibly firmware), you might be able to make other burners do this...
Completely agree. What is needed isn't a device for tracking teenagers (which, as noted elsewhere, wouldn't work anyway) but for finding lost kids in the mall or at the park.
I love the idea of a simple short-range wireless device (doesn't have to be GPS, could work indoors, etc).
This would make it similar to the "leash" you sometimes see parents have on young kids, except it isn't demeaning to the child.
There is, of course, a mirror on the moon that was placed there by Apollo astronauts. It is used to measure the distance to the moon very accurately via laser.
However, we HAVE bounced signals off of other heavenly bodies, as well. Radar maps were made of Venus from the Earth... very poor resolution, of course. These maps were later much improved by the Venus-orbiting Magellan spacecraft.
An airship need not be rounded like a balloon. All it needs is for the total weight of the combined structure and lighter-than-air gas to be less than (or equal to) the total weight of displaced air. If you can accomplish this with a rigid structure, great. Even if you need a flexible membrane structure that will have rounded corners, you can still stick small pieces of material on the outside of those corners to make them angular if you need to, say for stealth technology.
Slashdot Mirror
Check out the Indie Game Jam for some truly unique game concepts.
The first thing they need to do is shoot down Sedna so that our textbooks don't need to be changed.
No Soviet "successes" at Mars until 1971. See here for further details.
The Mariner series of spacecraft went to Mars around that time period. I can't find a successful one in 1966, though. Here's the list:
The aggregator of television guide content is in an interesting business... and problem. Yes, it is costly to get guide data, and they need to recoup their losses. Screen scraping free guide websites bypass the ads, which is, of course, how those websites pay for their work.
But there are so many potential uses for free guide content in an easily transformable format. Besides VCRs or PVRs that can find programs for you, what about websites dedicated to finding your favorite shows, or a simple PDA app that alerts you when it finds out that your favorite movie is due to air? So where is the data? Who would provide it?
Well, with a standard format (or this ) for such data, I believe the producers of that content (or, rather, the distributors... the networks themselves) could provide that data. It's obviously in their best interests for that data to be accurate, and as freely and widely available as possible. They want people to find their shows. Combine it with a simple automated lookup-table translation of network names to your local cable station numbers, and you're set. Of course, something like this could put guide aggregator businesses out-of-business, and I really doubt it will ever happen... But it probably should!
Wasn't that Hotblack Desiato's stuntship and not the Heart of Gold?
Ah, an even better link... click on PHOTOS AND REELS for video...
Lightcraft Technologies
You are probably talking about lightcraft. Gotta love Google.
Actually, Nero Wolfe leaves his home quite often.
And since this is Slashdot, we may as well mention the cancellation of the Nero Wolfe TV series and the (assuredly doomed) efforts to save it.
Having read Kiln People a while back, I'd say Nero Wolfe would have loved the technology... no more arguing with Archie!
Assuming you have a regular TV setup and a Nielsen box, you could still walk out of the room during commercials to get something to eat or drink or go to the bathroom. I imagine this was quite rampant and might explain why the # of commercials in any given break tends to be a little more random than it used to be. I predict this randomness will get worse in the future in an effort to prevent people from leaving during commercial breaks (afraid to miss the show when it comes back on).
At any rate, if you have a TiVo, Nielsen currently has no good way to work with such a device. See my other posting in this thread (titled "Ratings and TiVo") for further info.
Even more problematic is that ratings systems (the way networks determine how many people saw a show and its commercials and how much they can therefore charge in the future for commercial time) cannot currently effectively deal with the TiVo:
If you tape a show and watch it months later, how does it count? The ratings have already been published!
If you fast-forward through commercials while watching a program right after it actually aired, should it count?
While these aren't huge problems today, as more people get PVRs the problems will become larger. Neilsen has spent time investigating VCRs in the past and are working with TiVo right now to address these issues in the future.
If the officer was holding a real print of the suspect and simply performing filters on the bad print until it looked sort of similar, then that's no good.
After that, it's over, ending in a helluva cliffhanger.
No Farscape for you!
Although saving a few million people isn't any decent fraction of the world population, how is that number insufficient for it to maintain itself? Surely the human population on the Earth was once only a few million people, no?
To measure distance.
See: Apollo 11 Laser Ranging Retroreflector Experiment
Such "passive" reflections would be far too weak (plus you'd have to make a variety of assumptions about the "geography" of that solar system since you wouldn't be getting direct perpendicular reflections from the star). You'd need to do something akin to active radar (i.e. we'd have to shoot a high intensity beam of radio waves at the target). Targetting may not be a big issue at that distance since it's likely when the radio waves reached their destination they'd spread to the size of the target solar system or beyond. But, the amount of energy remaining at the target would be low (what, inverse R-squared, or something?) and any amount that got reflected back would be even smaller. Plus, you'd have to account for the fact that you've changed position considerably between the time you originated the signal and the time you received the echo. You'd also only get echos that bounced in the direction the Earth would be at years later - you wouldn't get the echos that bounced directly back.
Hm, ok. Then my next question is: if all you were interested in was the picture on the CD, and no data at all (say for a really cool coaster), could you write firmware for a regular CD-R burner that did something similar?
So what would a bit-by-bit copied disc look like? Would the images be distorted, but recognizable?
If a regular CD burner could only do a single level of albedo, it seems to me you could still write a driver or firmware to do this, as long as the image used something like half-toning.
If you want to store video on a CD-R, what about VCD, or for that matter, MiniDVD? These are at least digital formats!
So if I understand correctly, it can only use unused space on the disk to write this information, and it isn't included in the TOC. If I read the CD bit-by-bit, does this show up as garbage data? It sounds like this isn't a special laser or anything, just burning bits on the CD in specific spots.
So if I do a bit-by-bit copy of a CD burned with an image on another computer using a CD burner with no such capability to create images on its own, will it also copy the image?
Or am I completely wrong here? If I'm correct, it sounds like with the properly written drivers (or possibly firmware), you might be able to make other burners do this...
I believe that is a PAPER TOWEL dispenser. Not toilet paper.
Completely agree. What is needed isn't a device for tracking teenagers (which, as noted elsewhere, wouldn't work anyway) but for finding lost kids in the mall or at the park.
I love the idea of a simple short-range wireless device (doesn't have to be GPS, could work indoors, etc).
This would make it similar to the "leash" you sometimes see parents have on young kids, except it isn't demeaning to the child.
Not to mention that it only delays any such message by a few minutes. Venus ain't that far away!
There is, of course, a mirror on the moon that was placed there by Apollo astronauts. It is used to measure the distance to the moon very accurately via laser.
However, we HAVE bounced signals off of other heavenly bodies, as well. Radar maps were made of Venus from the Earth... very poor resolution, of course. These maps were later much improved by the Venus-orbiting Magellan spacecraft.
An airship need not be rounded like a balloon. All it needs is for the total weight of the combined structure and lighter-than-air gas to be less than (or equal to) the total weight of displaced air. If you can accomplish this with a rigid structure, great. Even if you need a flexible membrane structure that will have rounded corners, you can still stick small pieces of material on the outside of those corners to make them angular if you need to, say for stealth technology.