"The industry says OGG won't be supported on portables until OGG is in wider use -- but OGG won't be in wider use until portables support it. It's a challenge."
Is this a good example of the old addage "Which came first, the chicken or the OGG?"
Okay, I am not really sure what you are saying, but it is time for a bit of clarification.
"Power" has a unique definition in optics. More specifically it is known as radiant power (aka "radiant flux"), and describes the electromagnetic energy (radiant energy) per unit time. This may be photons per second, or what not. Now "brightness" (aka luminance) is the radiance modified by the eye's response, i.e. what we can see. Finally, "radiance" is radiant power per unit area (like a LCD pixel), per solid angle (some two dimensional angle).
Therefore putting a lens in front of a point source increases the brightness by reducing the solid angle the light is being emitted into.
I am going through a secret clearance now. All my friends that are were on the form as contacts (character references, confirmation of living in a certain place at a certain time, etc) were contacted. My schools were contacted. Now they ask for financial records because someone that is doing porely in the financial area is a likely security problem because they have a weekness (a need that a "bad guy" can satisfy).
What it is is a circular building (see this link for the concept) that has a TV or projection systems such that the image is around the outside of the building. In the case of this article (I am assuming, as I cannot read German) is that the thing being projected is another EU city. In fact, this is a "teleconferencing" system, so there can be interaction. There is sound, etc...
A run down of the technology (sparce as it is) is:
66m2, 360 panoramic digital screen
20 mega pixels - five times HDTV resolution
high resolution video projection
built-in high-performance graphic system supporting text, video and 3-D visualization
digital audio, featuring Hypersound(C),
a revolutionary directional sound technology
Keeping a FreeBSD system up to date is not simple, but it is easy and efficient and if it breaks it's able to be quickly fixed.
umm... what? I read this and I think to myself "Arn't easy and simple synonyms?"
EASY:Capable of being accomplished or acquired with ease; posing no difficulty
SIMPLE:Having or composed of only one thing, element, or part
Not exactly alike, but they are synonyms. Maybe it is saying that keeping FreeBSD up to date is not simple, but FreeBSD is efficient? Or maybe understanding how to keep FreeBSD up to date is difficult, but actually doing it is easy?
here here. up2dateis a great tool. I am running the 7.3 version that has no notification, but I receive the security updates via email. There are only two downsides:
As far as I know, I can not automate it. If I just wanted to make every security update to my computer that came out, I would like to click a button where it connects to the server every week or so to DL and install patches (and maybe sends an email to me when done saying what it did). If I am a sysadmin (which I am not), I would love to run this on 200 machines simulatneously without being at each machine and clicking next three times.
If I update a package via an RPM but not via the RH site (say KDE), it doesn't know that I have updated. It keeps pitching me KDE 3.0.5, when I have 3.1.X. I don't really know how it works, but I can simply type
rpm -qa kde*
and figure out what version of kde I am running. Can't up2date?
I will cut-n-paste right out of the first page of the article when I answer "967 people responded to the Reader Question".
what was the demographic
I will cut-n-paste right out of the article again "...we solicit responses on InternetWeek.com and in the newsletter"
what messues where taken to ensure that the results are not scewed
Again cut-n-paste "The Reader Question is by no means scientific...QuickPolls are the Internet journalism equivalent of man-in-the-street interviews and call-in talk radio."
..instead of a wrist-mounted little GPS device that shows "you are here"...
I can tape a piece of paper to my wrist that has "you are here" written on it, and it will always be right! That paper doesn't even have to be e-textile-based.
How many channels could you carry in this format over existing cable infrastructure systems? 3, 4?
Does this mean they would only show the 3 or 4 shows that were good? No. They would probably have 2 or 3 channels of home shopping network, and one of football...
Okay, admittedly, I thought a pocket dictionary worked like my kdict on my computer (i.e. maybe wifi to the internet... i don't know). But anyway... let us use your example.
I agree that 50 mW of power is probably high if a palm pilot uses ~ 200 mW of power. But lets use that number as you suggest.
According to this BBC article, a single cell phone caused enough instrument panel craziness and communications interference. The direct quote is:
He heard the interference in his headphones, and at the same time his automatic landing system was showing anomalous behaviour.
This pilot was in the landing process, and did not trust the automatic landing system. I understand that this could just be overreacting, and "anomalous behavior" might not be detrimental to plane operation. I am however taking the word of the article that it is "bad", however even if you don't believe it is bad, it gives the pilots enough reason to mistrust the equipment, this is bad in and of itself (how will a pilot know if the equipment is malfunctioning or is it electronic equipment?).
I swear I am getting somewhere. According to
this cell phone for dummies tutorial, it says the the average cell phone puts off 3W signals (3000 mW) (into 4pi steradians), just as you are proposing the palm pilot emitts 50 mW. That means 60 people using a Palm Pilot could cause enough interference to make equipment malfunction. Now if you take your typical Delta plane, it seems that the number of seats is about 150 for continental, and about 225 for intercontinental flights. If about 1/3rd of the people (continental) or 1/4th (intercontinental) are using a palm pilot, this is enough to cause significant interference, and enough for something like "the stick-shaker in the cockpit, a warning signal that the plane is about to stall, started to operate." (again from the BBC article). It is still not worth it to me.
I suppose it is a technicality, but they were designed to be open(ed), that is why there were those screws on the box (usually phillips-head, part of your standard hacking so-called "toolbox", right next to your now anti-DMCA "wire-cutters".
But they were not intented to be open by the consumer (hense that sticker that says "warrantee void is seal broken" over the part that comes off after you use that phillips-head screw driver). And they swear it is a saftey issue (maybe falling under patriot act?) because there are those evil capacitors under there.
Do you really think that this is a relevant comparison to using a portable dictionary on an airplane?
Yes, when you have 100 people all using cell phones and my life dependes on it (and "extremely small RF signals" is probably bad wording). Look... I am all for well thoughtout ways for things to work, and I am against irrational fear, but when we deal with things such as 100's of peoples' lives in a single blow, cautious is the way to go. More research has to be done, and that is what is happening.
In light of "not knowing" yet how significant these effects are, I would put the question back to you: Do you really think that using a portable dictionary on an airplane is really important enough to risk your life and the lives of the 100 or so people around you?
It has been explained many times in other comments in this article. The problem is RF interference. This is primarily in communication with ground controllers.
I will give you two cases where this happens on the ground:
I know the/. crowd is elite, but have you ever tried to use a desktop computer near a TV with an antenna? This is especially significant when you have a poorly shielded case (think home-build computer) and a weak TV signal. The TV gets sort of fuzzy, maybe can no longer pick up a signal all together. Now imagine 100 computers in the same cenario. Bad, it that TV signal is actually something that keeps you alive.
I used to work at a company that made optical modulators (actually modulated semiconductor optical amplifiers). Well what they did wasn't important, but they dealt with high-frequency RF and/or low-frequency microwave signals, in which they characterized electrical signal reflections off the devices. You couldn't even have a cell-phone on in this room because it would significantly mess up the measured RF/MF fields.
Yes, part of it is economics. But if it were all economics, you wouldn't have to turn off your laptops when taking off and landing.
Great-Silly Putty Roof-Drop Video
on
Homemade Silly Putty
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I have been waiting for a chance to post this like I found several years ago. Ever wonder what happens when you drop 50 lbs of silly putty (from Dow chemical) off a 6th(?) floor parking garage? Well you too can find out at Silly Putty Physics Experiment. Complete with medium and large video (actually the video is about all there is to the thing). Just like McDonalds and Starbucks, there is no "small".
You should also note that you can take $2000 off your adjusted gross income on your 2003 taxes, and many states provide addtional incentives.
An interesting story here in Arizona. A few years ago, there was legislation to provide incentives to people for buying alternative fuel vehicles. The problem, as with most legislation is that there are loopholes. The big problem in this case was that the loopholes were ginormous. As noted here, a check was written for buying an alternative fuel vehicle, or retrofitting a gasoline-based vehicle with an alternative fuel engine. It turns out the value of this check was not capped by the amount a person paid in taxes, meaning you could make money, and then sell your car. Not a bad deal
In the first few months of this offer, the state of Arizona expected about 300 takers to the deal. Instead, there were 2,471, enough to royally screw the state budget. whoops...
Here Here. I had an pseudo-unofficial employer (college co-op) who never asked my SSN. But I did have money coming out of my checks for social security payments, etc. It turns out they made up my SSN, which caused me great grief trying to change it.
Me calling IRS
ME:A SSN was reported incorrectly, and I would like to change it to the right SSN IRS:Yes sir, what is your SSN? ME:My real SSN, or the SSN you have for me? IRS:Ummm... the one you want to change ME:XXX.XX.XXX IRS:Well you need to change your SSN with the social-security office. Our computers will update from their computers. ME:Okay.
Me calling Social Security Office
ME:A SSN was reported incorrectly, and I would like to change it to the right SSN SSO:Yes sir, what is your SSN? ME:My real SSN, or the SSN you have for me? SSO:Ummm... the one you want to change ME:XXX.XX.XXX SSO:Well you need to change your SSN with the IRS first. ME:They told me to change with you first. Then their computers would update with your computers SSO:They are lying. Their computers don't talk to our computers, and our records are primarily paper. ME:...
They're not just listening to it and saying "Yup sounds different."
You are right. They are using quality equipment to monitor the modified plane, and then monitor a control plane, and then saying "Yep sounds different."
During the experiment, the modified F-5E aircraft flew through a test range at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., at supersonic speeds. NASA and industry sensors on the ground and in Dryden's F-15B measured the shape and magnitude of the sonic boom. Shortly thereafter, an unmodified F-5E flew through the same airspace. Comparison of the data confirmed the modified shape of the test aircraft altered the sonic boom as expected. Repeated tests verified these results.
While I fully appreciate the necessity of a control for an experiment, the way the article reads does not give me much faith that there was a significant difference. Maybe it is just poor wording. A shmo like me would have prefered to read "a 3 dB reduction in amplitude" or "half as loud" or something other than "Comparison of the data confirmed the modified shape of the test aircraft altered the sonic boom as expected."
Forget preserving energy better. This is good for two reasons:
1.) Military people can have fast jest (read "attack planes") that don't alert the person on the ground (read "those who aren't killed by the bomb that will be dropped on them") as to whether there is a jet above them.
2.) One of the biggest problems with commercial super-sonic airlines is that people didn't want them flying over their house (the major reason such flights were primarily only over the Atlantic Ocean). If the sonic boom didn't exist, presumably people wouldn't be as adverse to such a situation.
That being said, the article doesn't indicate that the sonic boom is gone, it indicates the sonic boom is not as loud. In fact, the article states that they had to compare a "traditional" sonic boom to the "new" sonic boom to verify that there was a change... It seems a big step, but not to the finish line.
This is not Badlands.
This is not The Blair Witch Project.
This is not Deliverance.
THIS IS NOT A LOVE SONG.
A film by Bille Eltringham
Synopsis
Spike and Heaton are the unlikeliest pair: two loners who have found each other. Taciturn, competent, unreadable, Heaton is someone we
are instinctively afraid of. In contrast, his side-kick Spike is manic, child-like, unstoppable: someone we are instinctively afraid for. But when Spike commits a terrible crime, Heaton decides to stand by him - an act of astonishing, almost foolhardy loyalty. There begins a chase across a vast Northern landscape of moors, rivers and dark woods, the increasingly exhausted fugitives being hunted not by the police but by a posse of farmers intent on revenge. As exhaustion and hunger take
hold, Heaton injures his leg and the roles are reversed. Suddenly Heaton needs Spike's loyalty. But as the farmers close in, Spike is forced to
decide whether to stand by his wounded friend or run for the safety of the city. No ordinary chase film, This is not a Love Song is a love
story trapped inside the body of a thriller.
With a fervent desire to break the increasingly uncreative strictures of traditional film making, every stage of This is not a Love Song was
approached afresh. Cast before it was written, workshopped with the actors and filmed in only two weeks on a tiny budget, the film champions
DV not as film's cheap cousin but as a format with its own unique beauty.
A Footprint Films production in association with Strange Dog in association with The Film Council (UK) & Longfellow Productions (UK)
Crew
Directed by Bille Eltringham
Produced by Mark Blaney
Written by Simon Beaufoy
Executive Producers
Kate Ogborn, Simon Beaufoy, Paul Trijbits
Director of Photography Robbie Ryan
Designer Jon Henson
Production Manager Helen Walker
Editor Ewa J. Lind
Casting Director Victoria Beattie
Sound Recordist Rupert Ivey
Original Music Adrian Johnston
Sound Editor Graham Headicar
Cast
Spike - Michael Colgan
Heaton - Kenny Glenaan
Bellamy - David Bradley
Filmed on location over 12 days,
July 2001, near Aberfoyle & Glasgow, Scotland.
Festivals to date include:
Rotterdam, Edinburgh, London, Hoff,
American Film Institute, Dinard, Belfast...
Slashdot Mirror
Is this a good example of the old addage "Which came first, the chicken or the OGG?"
"Power" has a unique definition in optics. More specifically it is known as radiant power (aka "radiant flux"), and describes the electromagnetic energy (radiant energy) per unit time. This may be photons per second, or what not. Now "brightness" (aka luminance) is the radiance modified by the eye's response, i.e. what we can see. Finally, "radiance" is radiant power per unit area (like a LCD pixel), per solid angle (some two dimensional angle).
Therefore putting a lens in front of a point source increases the brightness by reducing the solid angle the light is being emitted into.
I am going through a secret clearance now. All my friends that are were on the form as contacts (character references, confirmation of living in a certain place at a certain time, etc) were contacted. My schools were contacted. Now they ask for financial records because someone that is doing porely in the financial area is a likely security problem because they have a weekness (a need that a "bad guy" can satisfy).
of the evil-doer, and it is the RIAA, who shakes his bony fist and exclaims, "darn you meddling computer scientists!"
A run down of the technology (sparce as it is) is:
- 66m2, 360 panoramic digital screen
- 20 mega pixels - five times HDTV resolution
high resolution video projection
- built-in high-performance graphic system supporting text, video and 3-D visualization
- digital audio, featuring Hypersound(C),
a revolutionary directional sound technology
It sounds cute. It is meant to bolster "pan-European identity"- EASY:Capable of being accomplished or acquired with ease; posing no difficulty
- SIMPLE:Having or composed of only one thing, element, or part
Not exactly alike, but they are synonyms. Maybe it is saying that keeping FreeBSD up to date is not simple, but FreeBSD is efficient? Or maybe understanding how to keep FreeBSD up to date is difficult, but actually doing it is easy?Oh I wish I had mod points today.
I agree that 50 mW of power is probably high if a palm pilot uses ~ 200 mW of power. But lets use that number as you suggest.
According to this BBC article, a single cell phone caused enough instrument panel craziness and communications interference. The direct quote is:
This pilot was in the landing process, and did not trust the automatic landing system. I understand that this could just be overreacting, and "anomalous behavior" might not be detrimental to plane operation. I am however taking the word of the article that it is "bad", however even if you don't believe it is bad, it gives the pilots enough reason to mistrust the equipment, this is bad in and of itself (how will a pilot know if the equipment is malfunctioning or is it electronic equipment?).I swear I am getting somewhere. According to this cell phone for dummies tutorial, it says the the average cell phone puts off 3W signals (3000 mW) (into 4pi steradians), just as you are proposing the palm pilot emitts 50 mW. That means 60 people using a Palm Pilot could cause enough interference to make equipment malfunction. Now if you take your typical Delta plane, it seems that the number of seats is about 150 for continental, and about 225 for intercontinental flights. If about 1/3rd of the people (continental) or 1/4th (intercontinental) are using a palm pilot, this is enough to cause significant interference, and enough for something like "the stick-shaker in the cockpit, a warning signal that the plane is about to stall, started to operate." (again from the BBC article). It is still not worth it to me.
I suppose it is a technicality, but they were designed to be open(ed), that is why there were those screws on the box (usually phillips-head, part of your standard hacking so-called "toolbox", right next to your now anti-DMCA "wire-cutters".
But they were not intented to be open by the consumer (hense that sticker that says "warrantee void is seal broken" over the part that comes off after you use that phillips-head screw driver). And they swear it is a saftey issue (maybe falling under patriot act?) because there are those evil capacitors under there.
In light of "not knowing" yet how significant these effects are, I would put the question back to you: Do you really think that using a portable dictionary on an airplane is really important enough to risk your life and the lives of the 100 or so people around you?
It has been explained many times in other comments in this article. The problem is RF interference. This is primarily in communication with ground controllers.
I will give you two cases where this happens on the ground:
- I know the
/. crowd is elite, but have you ever tried to use a desktop computer near a TV with an antenna? This is especially significant when you have a poorly shielded case (think home-build computer) and a weak TV signal. The TV gets sort of fuzzy, maybe can no longer pick up a signal all together. Now imagine 100 computers in the same cenario. Bad, it that TV signal is actually something that keeps you alive.
- I used to work at a company that made optical modulators (actually modulated semiconductor optical amplifiers). Well what they did wasn't important, but they dealt with high-frequency RF and/or low-frequency microwave signals, in which they characterized electrical signal reflections off the devices. You couldn't even have a cell-phone on in this room because it would significantly mess up the measured RF/MF fields.
Yes, part of it is economics. But if it were all economics, you wouldn't have to turn off your laptops when taking off and landing.I have been waiting for a chance to post this like I found several years ago. Ever wonder what happens when you drop 50 lbs of silly putty (from Dow chemical) off a 6th(?) floor parking garage? Well you too can find out at Silly Putty Physics Experiment. Complete with medium and large video (actually the video is about all there is to the thing). Just like McDonalds and Starbucks, there is no "small".
If I only had mod points...
An interesting story here in Arizona. A few years ago, there was legislation to provide incentives to people for buying alternative fuel vehicles. The problem, as with most legislation is that there are loopholes. The big problem in this case was that the loopholes were ginormous. As noted here, a check was written for buying an alternative fuel vehicle, or retrofitting a gasoline-based vehicle with an alternative fuel engine. It turns out the value of this check was not capped by the amount a person paid in taxes, meaning you could make money, and then sell your car. Not a bad deal
In the first few months of this offer, the state of Arizona expected about 300 takers to the deal. Instead, there were 2,471, enough to royally screw the state budget. whoops...
Me calling IRS
ME:A SSN was reported incorrectly, and I would like to change it to the right SSNIRS:Yes sir, what is your SSN?
ME:My real SSN, or the SSN you have for me?
IRS:Ummm... the one you want to change
ME:XXX.XX.XXX
IRS:Well you need to change your SSN with the social-security office. Our computers will update from their computers.
ME:Okay.
Me calling Social Security Office
ME:A SSN was reported incorrectly, and I would like to change it to the right SSNSSO:Yes sir, what is your SSN?
ME:My real SSN, or the SSN you have for me?
SSO:Ummm... the one you want to change
ME:XXX.XX.XXX
SSO:Well you need to change your SSN with the IRS first.
ME:They told me to change with you first. Then their computers would update with your computers
SSO:They are lying. Their computers don't talk to our computers, and our records are primarily paper.
ME:...
While I fully appreciate the necessity of a control for an experiment, the way the article reads does not give me much faith that there was a significant difference. Maybe it is just poor wording. A shmo like me would have prefered to read "a 3 dB reduction in amplitude" or "half as loud" or something other than "Comparison of the data confirmed the modified shape of the test aircraft altered the sonic boom as expected."
1.) Military people can have fast jest (read "attack planes") that don't alert the person on the ground (read "those who aren't killed by the bomb that will be dropped on them") as to whether there is a jet above them.
2.) One of the biggest problems with commercial super-sonic airlines is that people didn't want them flying over their house (the major reason such flights were primarily only over the Atlantic Ocean). If the sonic boom didn't exist, presumably people wouldn't be as adverse to such a situation.
That being said, the article doesn't indicate that the sonic boom is gone, it indicates the sonic boom is not as loud. In fact, the article states that they had to compare a "traditional" sonic boom to the "new" sonic boom to verify that there was a change... It seems a big step, but not to the finish line.