RewardTV has been doing exactly this since 2001. You get points for taking quizzes on the previous night's shows, but you get lots of bonus points for answering questions about certain commercials that ran during the show (to make sure you watched them) and for giving feedback on the commercials and the show.
Once you have the points, as the Microsoft Patent suggests, you can use them at special auctions, to buy gift certificates to places like Amazon, and to enter contests.
As far as I know, they aren't owned by Microsoft (yet).
Most modern Disney animatronics are hydraulic, not pneumatic. The only exception I know of is the hanging Indy in the Indiana Jones ride, which had to be pneumatic so it wouldn't drip hydraulic fluid on people if it leaked.
The show isn't launched from inside the park. It is launched from a perminant rack (the "black forest") behind Toon Town. Toon Town is closed when they begin to insert the shells, just in case one accidently detonates, and reopens after after they check for undetonated shells.
Low level shells are also launched from the Fantasyland buildings flanking the castle, and from the "9 line" behind It's a Small World.
The phones only have a 320x240 display (same as a PocketPC, but smaller), not 640x480.
Still, I have to admit, that high a resolution on such a small screen look absolutely gorgeous.
Yes, American companies produced electric cars, but once Bush removed the mandate that 10 percent of cars sold must be electric by 2003, all that work stopped. In fact, companies like GM not only stopped producing electric cars, but ordered all 1,100 fully functional EV1s destroyed. The only ones that were spared from the crusher were stripped of all electronic componants and donated to museums.
Well, not quite, but it's nice to see that someone knows about what we were doing.
There have been at least two expeditions to the Arizona desert by NASA people to study dust devils, both run out of the University of Arizona. I had the opportunity to spend a month in the Arizona desert gathering data on the second trip.
I wouldn't say that NASA is particularly concerned about dust devils -- due to the lower gravity, dust devils on mars would be much weaker than those on earth, even if they are larger. Even on earth, dust devils post little threat. Some of the ones we studied were over 2 miles tall, and you could walk right through them with absolutely no danger. While the original trip was sponsored by the HEDS (Human Exploration and Developement of Space) funded Matador experiment to see if the dust devils posed any danger to human exploration, the primary concerns were over static electricity and dust getting into space suits.
What NASA is really interested in is how dust affect the geology of the planet. In the absense of water or strong winds, dust devils may in fact be the primary erosive force on Mars. During the first half of the 20th century, astronomers noticed that Mars changed color depending on the season, and this led them to beleive that there was rich vegetation on Mars. When the first orbiters and lander arrived, we learned that this wasn't quite true, but we still had no other solution. Now, scientists believe that is was dust devils, which are a seasonal occurance, that were actually reconfiguring the landscape of the planet. We have actually seen pictures of light colored planes that are crisscrossed by dark dust devil trails.
The problem is that very little is known about dust devils on Earth. I only know of one scientific paper published on the subject. While some of the work we did was trying to find out the proerties of dust devils, especially the electrostatic properties, to help create an accurate model for their formation on Mars, this was not really why we were there. The primary goal of the NASA researchers was to study the dust devils on earth in order to learn how to study them on Mars. We were mainly out there to test a set of instruments planned for Matador (including some far out stuff, like using a special UV camera to detect sparks caused by static electricity).
Nowhere in the constitution does it say we have the right to "life, liberty, the persuit of happiness, and driving large metal objects down government built roads and highways."
Sure, if you buy a car and never drive it off of your own property, you are free to do whatever you want with it, including disabling the interlock. It is when you go onto public roads that laws take effect.
The same argument is used to allow random breathalizer tests without a warrent. Sure, you can refuse to take the test, and there is no criminal penalty, but you will lose your license (since submitting to tests when requested is a condition of holding a license).
W:ET is perhaps the only modern FPS that I know of that is:
a) absolutly free
b) available for windows and linux
c) open source
If you are interested, you can download the source from SplashDamage. There is even an SDK available for modding the game.
Yes, like any other FPS, it will take you a few hours of play to get used to it, and each map will take a few rounds to learn, but it is a heck of a game.
I tried it, but I was only able to get 3 or 4 skips (although the fact that it was 115 degrees out and I was suffering from heatstroke might've had something to do with it).
Okay, where do I start:
First of all, the current NASA reference mission (which I believe has a price tag in the $80-$100 range, but I am not sure) is not cheaper because they have cut corners, it is cheaper because it is, quite frankly, a much more clever solution than the one they came up with for Bush I.
Second, Polar Lander had nothing to do with unit confusion. It was Mars Climate Orbiter that you are thinking of, which the media has tagged as being lost due to the confusion of units (that was the most appealing of the cases due to the fact that it makes NASA really stupid -- the real reason the orbiter was lost was that it was built by Lockheed based on designes for satellites in Low Earth Orbit, and never went through the testing necessary to uncover flaws that came up on an interplanetary journey). Polar Lander was lost due to a software bug, which read the shockloads of the lander legs opening as confirmation that the lander had landed, and shut off the descent engine. There is no evidence that it landed intact. This bug could've been easily avoided if proper testing procedures had been followed, but the budget and time constraints didn't allow that.
Your comments about a rover lag bring up an interesting point. For rather little money (say under $10 billion), we could toss some large boosters into space and send a few ISS modules (which already include radiation protection) into orbit around mars. From there, we could have astronauts control rovers on the surface in real-time, and do almost as much as real astronauts on the surface could do. Of couse, politicians would never go for this plan ("what's the point of going if we don't land?"), but realistically, it makes the most sense.
This brings up the question of why Fax machines are still used anymore. Any slightly experienced computer user can easily send a color JPEG scan of a document via email in about the same time it would take to send a fax.
For the technophobes, why isn't there some type of terminal that emulates faxing though email? It could either connect to an office ethernet or dial into an ISP at 56k, and send a scanned document as a color JPEG to any email address (which would probably be faster than traditional faxes, which send uncompressed TIFFs at 14.4kbps). If the recipient doesn't have a computer, the machine could function as a email to paper gateway, collecting and printing from a cheap POP3 email account.
Am I missing something? Does old-fashoned faxing have a place in the modern society?
There was a story about this in the New York Times on December 18th. Really, when Slashdot can't even beat dead tree news sources for stories like this, something is seriously wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
Once you have the points, as the Microsoft Patent suggests, you can use them at special auctions, to buy gift certificates to places like Amazon, and to enter contests.
As far as I know, they aren't owned by Microsoft (yet).Most modern Disney animatronics are hydraulic, not pneumatic. The only exception I know of is the hanging Indy in the Indiana Jones ride, which had to be pneumatic so it wouldn't drip hydraulic fluid on people if it leaked.
The show isn't launched from inside the park. It is launched from a perminant rack (the "black forest") behind Toon Town. Toon Town is closed when they begin to insert the shells, just in case one accidently detonates, and reopens after after they check for undetonated shells. Low level shells are also launched from the Fantasyland buildings flanking the castle, and from the "9 line" behind It's a Small World.
Ahh, but that 4x zoom is a digital zoom, which is worthless. You can get better results by enlarging and cropping in Photoshop.
The phones only have a 320x240 display (same as a PocketPC, but smaller), not 640x480. Still, I have to admit, that high a resolution on such a small screen look absolutely gorgeous.
It is similar, although everything is on a larger scale (robot size, number of teams, size of events, etc.).
Autonomous Mode is the first 15 seconds, not the first 10.
Yes, American companies produced electric cars, but once Bush removed the mandate that 10 percent of cars sold must be electric by 2003, all that work stopped. In fact, companies like GM not only stopped producing electric cars, but ordered all 1,100 fully functional EV1s destroyed. The only ones that were spared from the crusher were stripped of all electronic componants and donated to museums.
There have been at least two expeditions to the Arizona desert by NASA people to study dust devils, both run out of the University of Arizona. I had the opportunity to spend a month in the Arizona desert gathering data on the second trip.
I wouldn't say that NASA is particularly concerned about dust devils -- due to the lower gravity, dust devils on mars would be much weaker than those on earth, even if they are larger. Even on earth, dust devils post little threat. Some of the ones we studied were over 2 miles tall, and you could walk right through them with absolutely no danger. While the original trip was sponsored by the HEDS (Human Exploration and Developement of Space) funded Matador experiment to see if the dust devils posed any danger to human exploration, the primary concerns were over static electricity and dust getting into space suits.
What NASA is really interested in is how dust affect the geology of the planet. In the absense of water or strong winds, dust devils may in fact be the primary erosive force on Mars. During the first half of the 20th century, astronomers noticed that Mars changed color depending on the season, and this led them to beleive that there was rich vegetation on Mars. When the first orbiters and lander arrived, we learned that this wasn't quite true, but we still had no other solution. Now, scientists believe that is was dust devils, which are a seasonal occurance, that were actually reconfiguring the landscape of the planet. We have actually seen pictures of light colored planes that are crisscrossed by dark dust devil trails.
The problem is that very little is known about dust devils on Earth. I only know of one scientific paper published on the subject. While some of the work we did was trying to find out the proerties of dust devils, especially the electrostatic properties, to help create an accurate model for their formation on Mars, this was not really why we were there. The primary goal of the NASA researchers was to study the dust devils on earth in order to learn how to study them on Mars. We were mainly out there to test a set of instruments planned for Matador (including some far out stuff, like using a special UV camera to detect sparks caused by static electricity).
If anyone is interested, there is an article on the first trip at:a .html 0 5/29_dust.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-atmosphere-01
and the second trip at:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2002/
I managed to download an HDTV version of Hatchery this past week. What was wrong with it? What web forums are you referring to?
That's a northern thing.
Sure, if you buy a car and never drive it off of your own property, you are free to do whatever you want with it, including disabling the interlock. It is when you go onto public roads that laws take effect.
The same argument is used to allow random breathalizer tests without a warrent. Sure, you can refuse to take the test, and there is no criminal penalty, but you will lose your license (since submitting to tests when requested is a condition of holding a license).
Especially if they get something like Cingular's FastForward, so incoming calls don't come out of their minutes.
W:ET is perhaps the only modern FPS that I know of that is: a) absolutly free b) available for windows and linux c) open source If you are interested, you can download the source from SplashDamage. There is even an SDK available for modding the game. Yes, like any other FPS, it will take you a few hours of play to get used to it, and each map will take a few rounds to learn, but it is a heck of a game.
Actually, it would be prior art only if you had the web address robb.freeserve.co.uk and the email address robb@freeserve.co.uk
Because the linux watch is a is a prototype that will not be marketed and the PalmOS watch is vaporware.
Trust me on this one.
I tried it, but I was only able to get 3 or 4 skips (although the fact that it was 115 degrees out and I was suffering from heatstroke might've had something to do with it).
Okay, where do I start: First of all, the current NASA reference mission (which I believe has a price tag in the $80-$100 range, but I am not sure) is not cheaper because they have cut corners, it is cheaper because it is, quite frankly, a much more clever solution than the one they came up with for Bush I. Second, Polar Lander had nothing to do with unit confusion. It was Mars Climate Orbiter that you are thinking of, which the media has tagged as being lost due to the confusion of units (that was the most appealing of the cases due to the fact that it makes NASA really stupid -- the real reason the orbiter was lost was that it was built by Lockheed based on designes for satellites in Low Earth Orbit, and never went through the testing necessary to uncover flaws that came up on an interplanetary journey). Polar Lander was lost due to a software bug, which read the shockloads of the lander legs opening as confirmation that the lander had landed, and shut off the descent engine. There is no evidence that it landed intact. This bug could've been easily avoided if proper testing procedures had been followed, but the budget and time constraints didn't allow that. Your comments about a rover lag bring up an interesting point. For rather little money (say under $10 billion), we could toss some large boosters into space and send a few ISS modules (which already include radiation protection) into orbit around mars. From there, we could have astronauts control rovers on the surface in real-time, and do almost as much as real astronauts on the surface could do. Of couse, politicians would never go for this plan ("what's the point of going if we don't land?"), but realistically, it makes the most sense.
I do have to point out that his name is Zubrin, not Zurbin, but otherwise, you have covered it quite nicely.
This brings up the question of why Fax machines are still used anymore. Any slightly experienced computer user can easily send a color JPEG scan of a document via email in about the same time it would take to send a fax. For the technophobes, why isn't there some type of terminal that emulates faxing though email? It could either connect to an office ethernet or dial into an ISP at 56k, and send a scanned document as a color JPEG to any email address (which would probably be faster than traditional faxes, which send uncompressed TIFFs at 14.4kbps). If the recipient doesn't have a computer, the machine could function as a email to paper gateway, collecting and printing from a cheap POP3 email account. Am I missing something? Does old-fashoned faxing have a place in the modern society?
More medium-res images are available at the JPL press site.
Hi-res images (that aren't just screencaps from NASATV stitched together) are starting to appear on the NASA press site. The first is here.
There was a story about this in the New York Times on December 18th. Really, when Slashdot can't even beat dead tree news sources for stories like this, something is seriously wrong.
Hmm, missed it while waiting for the darn 20 second limit to expire.