I used to work at wawa, and I can't even tell you how many people used to complain about how the touch screen ordering system was oh so complicated. The entire thing was self-explanatory.
If it was really self-explanatory, then they wouldn't have a problem with it, now would they? Unfortunately, what might seem self-explanatory in hindsight to the developer, or to someone like yourself that's around it 8 hours a day, can be completely baffling to someone that's never seen it before.
Take, for example, all those web sites with Flash navigation that force you to poke around with your mouse, trying to guess where where the menu is. The developers that created those atrocities thought they were 'self-explanatory' too ; the rest of us want to beat the developers with a stick.
It's like asking how your business is affected by all the people the don't buy the newspapers in which you've placed an ad.
"My business is plummeting, and it's all the fault of those people that don't want to buy my product!"
Cuz you likely can't. To do so would require a microscope on alot of WiFi cards and even then it you likely won't come close enough. The fingerprint is possible because of minor variations in the signal that is caused by variations in the caps and resistors used. You don't really think they can create a 0% tolerance cap do you?? The tolerances on caps and resistors can be 0.05%...that is still not 0%. A 0% tolerance cap or resistor is not possible. Spoofing a RF fingerprint is practically impossible with today's technology.
They don't need to be 0%, because the equipment doing the fingerprint testing can't differentiate these signals to 0%. The signals are analog radio waves, whether they encode digital information or not. They're filled with noise & other disturbances just like any radio signal in our modern noisy world. Where do you think the false negatives came from?
Monetary value and living expenses are also quite different in China, so there's really no comparison there..
But not for long....
From today's Los Angeles Times, soon workers in China will reap the benefits of our glorious HMO medical care system, thanks to companies here in the US with double-plus-good names like 'Sunnylife Global', for which they're billed $375 per annum, plus copayments.
Turn on your radio and wait for a commercial. Then call these fine folks at (203)255-7840, hold your phone up to the radio, and let them appreciate some of the "helpful messages" that pollute our world. Repeat, say, 20 times a day.
The first computer that I actually owned? A hand wire-wrapped S100 board from college, sporting a 1MHz 8080, 1KB static RAM, 1KB EPROM, and a 40mA current loop serial port. A bare-bones monitor program took up almost every byte of the EPROM. I still have the assembly language programs that I wrote for it, if only I could read them off the 8" floppies that were used by the development system.
My father worked for Westinghouse for about 30 years, starting in 1953. They were a major manufacturer of both small and large household appliances (right up there with Maytag or Frigidare), not to mention light bulbs, TV's and many many other products. They invested heavily in basic research, something you don't see so much of these days. They stopped making small appliances in the early 70's or so, and large appliances went away about 10 years after that.
But yes, George Westinghouse did get his start in Pittsburgh inventing air brakes for the railroads.
However, I doubt they'll sell many of these. The only places I can think of that would benefit from this are supercomputing institutes, but they often build their own redudant RAID systems and/or NAS systems.
That's funny, I was saying almost the same thing about Terabyte storage not many years ago. Now I wish I had a full terabyte of space at home to store music, pictures, videos, etc.
The ones who attract the largest crowds are either celebrities (fair enough),...
Why do you also not have a problem with celebrities being used to draw people to the booths? Some B-list actor is no more relevant to the products being sold than some chick in hot pants is. They're placed there for only one reason, to make people gawk and hopefully notice the products being pitched. While you're at it, how about regulating the rampant appearance of celebrities in public; the world would truly be a better place if you did.
Now it would be nice if we can get Nikon out of the 35mm frame mindset when designing future SLR gear.
Ask any professional photographer; the collection of lenses is a bigger investment than the camera body. Newer Nikon digital camera bodies, for example, are designed to accept many of the existing Nikon lenses. These lenses were all optimized for a 35mm film frame, so it only makes sense to use a digital image sensor of roughly the same dimensions. Photographers can make thew jump to digital without throwing away their expensive collection of lenses. This also allows them to use their existing experience when selecting lenses, e.g.... this is a long shot, I'll probably need my 150mm lens for this one.
Aside from these considerations, does it really matter what the physical size of the sensor is?
Hispace have recently launched a new range of CD-Rs aimed at digital photographers. These disks use 24 caret gold to help add stability to the disks. As a result, they come with a 100 year warranty.
This is just marketing fluff. I'm betting that whatever amount of gold they add is about as effective as those gold plated power cords sold to gullible audiophiles. Hispace probably won't be in business five years from now, let alone in 90 years when your grandchildren discover that the disks aren't as durable as claimed and they try to get their dollar back.
If you did use an icepick in the manner described in the parent, you couldn't do very many cards at once; there would be quite obvious damage around the hole, as the icepick would be significantly bigger than the chad hole. And the wrong shape (round vs. rectangular).
Not at all. Here in my part of Los Angeles County, most of the elections in recent memory have been done using punch cards. The votes are cast using a metal stylus; nothing more than a metal rod about 1/16" in diameter. It's guided through a template that makes sure you're punching the correct rectangular hole in the voting card. It wouldn't require a rectangular punch to remove a rectangular chad; a piece of coat hanger wire would easily do the trick on a stack of 100 cards.
Why should I? Based on your thinking why should I be nice to anyone unless it serves my own self-interest. Why should I follow the rule of law, etc? Why shouldn't I just become a totally self-centered anarchist--kill or be killed? Survival of the fittest and all that, right? Where in evolutionary theory does it tell me that I have to or even necessarily should be 'nice' to anyone? Just because you want me to and it might make your life better?
Imagine two civilizations. One is more or less cooperative, there is strife and people have to struggle to survive, but in general they have laws and don't attack each other without a very good reason. They live by the golden rule, even when it's not always in their own best interest. The other civilization, on the other hand, is completely anarchistic; every person will kill their neighbor at the drop of a hat to take their food. The only penalty for doing so it that they may kill you first while you're sleeping and take your food.
Which civilization do you think will survive the longest?
If you renounce all religion for the sake of science, then when you die there is either nothing or hell waiting for you. If you believe then there is either nothing or heaven waiting for you.
Huh??
Where did you come with the idea that there are only two possible outcomes in both those cases? I could just as easily state that renouncing religion will result in either nothing or eternal paradise, while accepting religion will result in either nothing or eternal damnation.
Oh wait, I forgot, religion and actual logic don't mix.
And imagine me walking to the nearest competitor that will not annoy me with real life pop-up adds
Most people I know hate those video monitors that are placed above the checkout conveyer, playing nothing but advertisements. They'be been around for a while now, and every store around here has them. There is no longer a competitor to go to that doesn't have them.
Same goes for those memberhsip cards that expect you to give up personal infirmation in exchange for the store not charging you 50% more than the going rate for a loaf of bread. Every store has those now as well.
Once this type of packaging exists, it will be in all stores, everywhere, whether you like it not.
I'd like someone to invent small wind generation units, that people can mount on their roof, and it would provide power to "vampire devices" so that your TV, VCR, and other remote controlled devices can have power, but not use anything from the power grid until they are turned on.
Until the wind stops. Then your VCR starts blinking 12:00
This format might be interesting for cinemas and such, but it's not significant to HDTV at all.
Not even for cinemas. I saw a digital screening of The Incredibles last year. Projected by a Christie DLP projector (IIRC), the playback source was simply a Panasonic D5 VTR. That's 1920 x 1080 at 24 frames per second, minimal compression. The image was perfect, at least when compared to any normal film projection; no film weave, no dirt or scratches, and no discernable pixels from my seat in the middle of the theater. Would twice the resolution have made a noticable difference? Hardly.
As the car you're driving gets older and older, it starts to need more maintenance. This maintenance costs money that could instead be used to purchase a new car that only needs the occasional oil change. Do you immediately buy the new car? Probably not, since the old one's already paid for and it gets you to work & back just fine. At some point however, your mechanic will tell you that you've dropped your Johnson joint and you'll need new muffler bearings soon, to the tune of $2000. Only then is it time to dump the old bucket and pay big bucks for a newer model that gets better gas mileage, plus it's got a fax machine and microwave in the front seat.
The CIA/FBI doesn't need to keep the information in a database, they have the manufacturers & retailers to do that for them. If they find a printed paper that's of "interest", they contact the manufacturer of the printer. The manufacturer knows which retailer the printer was sold to. The retailer, not wanting to question on their patriotism, rolls over & hands them your credit card information. Presto, you've vanished to behind barbed wire on some Carribean island.
As an engineer, I'll put this in engineering terms; O'Reilly books have a high signal to noise ratio. The amount of useful information that they contain per inch of shelf space is equaled by no other publisher, period.
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If it was really self-explanatory, then they wouldn't have a problem with it, now would they? Unfortunately, what might seem self-explanatory in hindsight to the developer, or to someone like yourself that's around it 8 hours a day, can be completely baffling to someone that's never seen it before. Take, for example, all those web sites with Flash navigation that force you to poke around with your mouse, trying to guess where where the menu is. The developers that created those atrocities thought they were 'self-explanatory' too ; the rest of us want to beat the developers with a stick.
"Only a moron wouldn't cast his vote for Monty Burns"
It's like asking how your business is affected by all the people the don't buy the newspapers in which you've placed an ad. "My business is plummeting, and it's all the fault of those people that don't want to buy my product!"
They don't need to be 0%, because the equipment doing the fingerprint testing can't differentiate these signals to 0%. The signals are analog radio waves, whether they encode digital information or not. They're filled with noise & other disturbances just like any radio signal in our modern noisy world. Where do you think the false negatives came from?
But not for long.... From today's Los Angeles Times, soon workers in China will reap the benefits of our glorious HMO medical care system, thanks to companies here in the US with double-plus-good names like 'Sunnylife Global', for which they're billed $375 per annum, plus copayments.
Turn on your radio and wait for a commercial. Then call these fine folks at (203)255-7840, hold your phone up to the radio, and let them appreciate some of the "helpful messages" that pollute our world. Repeat, say, 20 times a day.
The first computer that I actually owned? A hand wire-wrapped S100 board from college, sporting a 1MHz 8080, 1KB static RAM, 1KB EPROM, and a 40mA current loop serial port. A bare-bones monitor program took up almost every byte of the EPROM. I still have the assembly language programs that I wrote for it, if only I could read them off the 8" floppies that were used by the development system.
Hank Hill is going to star in his own video game?
My father worked for Westinghouse for about 30 years, starting in 1953. They were a major manufacturer of both small and large household appliances (right up there with Maytag or Frigidare), not to mention light bulbs, TV's and many many other products. They invested heavily in basic research, something you don't see so much of these days. They stopped making small appliances in the early 70's or so, and large appliances went away about 10 years after that. But yes, George Westinghouse did get his start in Pittsburgh inventing air brakes for the railroads.
That's funny, I was saying almost the same thing about Terabyte storage not many years ago. Now I wish I had a full terabyte of space at home to store music, pictures, videos, etc.
Why do you also not have a problem with celebrities being used to draw people to the booths? Some B-list actor is no more relevant to the products being sold than some chick in hot pants is. They're placed there for only one reason, to make people gawk and hopefully notice the products being pitched. While you're at it, how about regulating the rampant appearance of celebrities in public; the world would truly be a better place if you did.
Ask any professional photographer; the collection of lenses is a bigger investment than the camera body. Newer Nikon digital camera bodies, for example, are designed to accept many of the existing Nikon lenses. These lenses were all optimized for a 35mm film frame, so it only makes sense to use a digital image sensor of roughly the same dimensions. Photographers can make thew jump to digital without throwing away their expensive collection of lenses. This also allows them to use their existing experience when selecting lenses, e.g.... this is a long shot, I'll probably need my 150mm lens for this one.
Aside from these considerations, does it really matter what the physical size of the sensor is?
This is just marketing fluff. I'm betting that whatever amount of gold they add is about as effective as those gold plated power cords sold to gullible audiophiles. Hispace probably won't be in business five years from now, let alone in 90 years when your grandchildren discover that the disks aren't as durable as claimed and they try to get their dollar back.
Maybe he has, and you just don't know about it. Otherwise, they wouldn't be anonymous.
Not at all. Here in my part of Los Angeles County, most of the elections in recent memory have been done using punch cards. The votes are cast using a metal stylus; nothing more than a metal rod about 1/16" in diameter. It's guided through a template that makes sure you're punching the correct rectangular hole in the voting card. It wouldn't require a rectangular punch to remove a rectangular chad; a piece of coat hanger wire would easily do the trick on a stack of 100 cards.
Imagine two civilizations. One is more or less cooperative, there is strife and people have to struggle to survive, but in general they have laws and don't attack each other without a very good reason. They live by the golden rule, even when it's not always in their own best interest.
The other civilization, on the other hand, is completely anarchistic; every person will kill their neighbor at the drop of a hat to take their food. The only penalty for doing so it that they may kill you first while you're sleeping and take your food.
Which civilization do you think will survive the longest?
Huh?? Where did you come with the idea that there are only two possible outcomes in both those cases? I could just as easily state that renouncing religion will result in either nothing or eternal paradise, while accepting religion will result in either nothing or eternal damnation. Oh wait, I forgot, religion and actual logic don't mix.
Most people I know hate those video monitors that are placed above the checkout conveyer, playing nothing but advertisements. They'be been around for a while now, and every store around here has them. There is no longer a competitor to go to that doesn't have them.
Same goes for those memberhsip cards that expect you to give up personal infirmation in exchange for the store not charging you 50% more than the going rate for a loaf of bread. Every store has those now as well.
Once this type of packaging exists, it will be in all stores, everywhere, whether you like it not.
No, Santa Clause comes first. He's better than God, because he gives presents.
Until the wind stops. Then your VCR starts blinking 12:00
Not even for cinemas. I saw a digital screening of The Incredibles last year. Projected by a Christie DLP projector (IIRC), the playback source was simply a Panasonic D5 VTR. That's 1920 x 1080 at 24 frames per second, minimal compression. The image was perfect, at least when compared to any normal film projection; no film weave, no dirt or scratches, and no discernable pixels from my seat in the middle of the theater. Would twice the resolution have made a noticable difference? Hardly.
As the car you're driving gets older and older, it starts to need more maintenance. This maintenance costs money that could instead be used to purchase a new car that only needs the occasional oil change. Do you immediately buy the new car? Probably not, since the old one's already paid for and it gets you to work & back just fine. At some point however, your mechanic will tell you that you've dropped your Johnson joint and you'll need new muffler bearings soon, to the tune of $2000. Only then is it time to dump the old bucket and pay big bucks for a newer model that gets better gas mileage, plus it's got a fax machine and microwave in the front seat.
The CIA/FBI doesn't need to keep the information in a database, they have the manufacturers & retailers to do that for them. If they find a printed paper that's of "interest", they contact the manufacturer of the printer. The manufacturer knows which retailer the printer was sold to. The retailer, not wanting to question on their patriotism, rolls over & hands them your credit card information. Presto, you've vanished to behind barbed wire on some Carribean island.
As an engineer, I'll put this in engineering terms; O'Reilly books have a high signal to noise ratio. The amount of useful information that they contain per inch of shelf space is equaled by no other publisher, period.
What, you were hoping to keep one of these babies in your swimming pool?