or rather, if 1% is the standard error of the mean, and (e.g.) the mean observed value is 100, we can be 68% certain that the true value is between 99 and 101-- one standard error. We can be 95% certain that the value is between 98 and 102-- two standard errors. And 99.7% certain that the value is between 97 and 103-- three standard errors. The article wasn't clear on whether the probe measures within 1% of the theorized value or whether it has a 1% standard error for measuring the observed value:-/
Welcome to psql 7.3.6-RH, the PostgreSQL interactive terminal.
world_arms=# SELECT countries.shortform, count(wmd.serialno) as total_wmds from countries, wmd where countries.idx = wmd.owner order by total_wmds desc;
shortform | total_wmds
United States of America 354,757 Russian Federation 241,095 United Kingdom 17,120 France 2,043 China 2,021 India 346 Pakistan 299 Israel 170 ... Iraq 0
world_arms=# \q
$ mail president@whitehouse.gov -s "You're full of shit"
You lied to the American public and the world about Iraq's WMD capability to justify an invasion you had been planning since before you took office. Furthermore you seem to have no problem with our country leading the world in inventory of WMDs. I'd like to personally call you an asshole. That is all.
.
Thou shalt not kill. No exceptions given, not even for self-defense.
A passage cited by every pacifist, or by any person against a particular war (when it suits him). That no exceptions were given in that commandment implies a false dichotomy of "kill and go to hell" or "don't kill and not go to hell." I disagree. The "murder" translation of that commandment is probably a better one, else how could God endorse a war by the Israelites in self-defense?
Evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
- Dark Helmet, Spaceballs
I wish it were possible to not study war. Of course I would prefer it if everyone went about his business (his because it's usually the male population) without feeling the need to dominate other people or extract money from them or capture them as human slaves. As one of the militia leaders said in Black Hawk Down, "there will always be killing. This is how things are in _our_ world." The main benefit of having a highly trained fighting force is that you can strongly motivate people not to misbehave, especially if you are the world's "911" service, set on a hair trigger to attack and destroy anyone who launches a first strike of WMDs against another country. I know it's a rosy view but it beats the alternative I think. Yeah, I know that something should have been done about Rwanda. Don't forget that there is an African Union and there are neighboring African states that are supposed to send troops into areas like Rwanda, as was done with Liberia last year. Hopefully Darfur will motivate them more than Rwanda did.
In any case, "We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us." (unknown, attrib. to George Orwell). I for one hope that our forces remain the best in the world and that the new administration has a more globally conscious intervention policy.
One aspect of marketing/advertising/design is ergonomics and human factors, which helps advertisers structure their materials in the most logical fashion for the way people process information. Just look at any cover of Cosmopolitan and you'll see the end result of years of studies of the scanning people do when they see a document. Important elements seem to jump out at you without you even realizing it, and if you have time you can read the smaller text under each element to find out more. Cosmo, ironically, probably has one of the best-designed magazine covers. Color, layout, subject matter ("SEX" or related words are the lead/top priority item on every cover) and other design elements are used to great effect. The end result is that you look at the magazine, your eye traverses multiple times across the impossibly beautiful woman whose style (if you're a woman) you want to emulate and you then want to buy it, or you don't want to buy it because you don't really read Cosmo. This is why they sell them in checkout lines-- they're an impulse item for non-subscribers. Same thing with Maxim, Playboy, and other glossy magazines.
Compare a well-designed magazine cover like Cosmo with an ugly or poorly designed cover like TV Guide or Hot Rod magazine and you'll see who has the best understanding of human factors. Cosmo is pleasant to look at, "Guns" magazine really isn't, even if you are an enthusiast.
I for one welcome our new human factor-embracing overlords-- as long as they don't beam ads into my head.
Truth to be told, any sports car will trigger my buy-button, but can I afford to buy it?
"Thanks to our low introductory APR, you can!"
"Thought you couldn't own a Benz? Think again!"
"Let BMW Certified Preowned vehicles find you the car of your dreams...at a practical price!"
This is a science-- note that in the radio ads they never tell you what the APR is unless it's "zero percent" or close to it. They make you want the item with positive images and thoughts and they defer the "bad news" as long as possible until the very end of the transaction, after you've decided you want the item so even if you know you probably can't afford it, someone will "work with you" (with you, not on you, lol) to establish a sense of rapport that will make you think you're getting a good deal. Even if you back out, there's some hapless sucker who won't. Despite decades of study and improved learning techniques, human nature hasn't changed all that much.
In my school job, I decided to try a triple monitor setup because there are a lot of CRTs just lying around unused after the acquisition of flat panels. Ultimately I settled on my assigned flat panel and two 17 inch trinitron CRTs.
My main screen has always been the flat panel. At first I tried using one of the extra monitors for my email and IM client, and using the other as a preview window so I could have vim open in fullscreen mode on the flat panel and see my changes in the web browser on the extra monitor. After a few months of usage I'm pretty sure that I would prefer a single widescreen flat panel over my current setup. For one thing, I don't get so many emails and IMs that I can justify having an entire display devoted to it and running all the time. I end up using the preview monitor a lot less now that I have tabbed browsing in Firefox. Also, looking from the flat panel to the CRT is sort of a painful transition because of the differences in sharpness, brightness, and contrast.
At home I wouldn't mind having dual LCDs: my current 17" flat panel for studio/development work plus a 15 inch for browser windows, palettes, IM, and email (or DVDs) would be a great combination. As the parent post says, energy use is a concern. I doubt that radiation levels are that much worse with two displays than one but it can't be great for your eyes to have to constantly switch between the two. The flat panels are certainly easier on the eyes and probably consume less power to boot.
If I had to do it over and I had the cash I would have bought a single SGI 1600SW or Apple 23 inch cinema display for the ultimate single monitor setup. At work I still have the triple setup but I leave the CRTs off most of the time and turn them on when I get an IM and every so often to check email, or when I actually need them to preview in a browser. It seems to be a pretty good compromise.
In the brussels car fair they did the test by driving the SMART car against a concrete wall at 60 kmph, the doors opened without problems and the passenger-cage was perfectly intact.
I think the problem isn't so much that the car was undamaged as the fact that the occupant(s) in the front seat have to absorb the energy that the car doesn't, so they get thrown against the safety harness at slightly less than 60 kph and continue into the airbag. I am afraid of what I would look like after crashing a smart car in such a manner. Did they do the test with dummies or an empty car? Personally I'd go with the Honda Insight or a Mini before one of these. It does seem like a great car for high schoolers though. Not too large so they learn to watch out.
And it's not going to go any farther. On an average day, you're lucky to receive about 200 watts/m2 of sun power. The rest of the energy (about 1.3kw/m2) is lost to diffusion and blockage by the atmosphere.
Homeowners could install home solar arrays to make hydrogen there and then refuel their cars at home. Combined with hydrogen fueling stations and the car's own solar array, this system doesn't seem unreasonable. One problem would be finding all that parking space outdoors in dense urban areas for cars with such a system, thus the advantages of using your home system or a commercial fueling station. Of course, in the suburbs in Arizona this isn't a problem.
Re:I Am Not Being Shifted, I Am Being Forced
on
The Long Tail
·
· Score: 1
that is a great analogy. the more i think about it the better it works.
Re:I Am Not Being Shifted, I Am Being Forced
on
The Long Tail
·
· Score: 1
This is where the indie industry is coming to the rescue with their niche titles. Its why your Napolean Dynamites are doing so well while main stream stuff is struggling to stay in theatres for any length of time. Its why Donnie Darko has such an underground following where as Armegeddon is considered loud crap by many.
Could it also be that while Bay/Bruckheimer are off doing the minimum necessary to ensure a blockbuster according to their marketing studies and formulae, the person making a movie like Mad Max or Mad Max 2 with a really low budget really cared about the themes and characters in the film, and because of that ended up created somewhat or far superior films that coincidentally (or not?) had higher profit to cost ratios?
Also, I noticed that there appears to be room for two movies of the same formula that closely follow one another:
Deep Impact and Armageddon
Mission to Mars and Red Planet
The Truman Show and EDtv
Collateral and ??? (coming soon?;-)
it's not really fair to put Truman Show and Collateral in there but I see them as great original films that had or will have copycats sort of like About Schmidt and Punch Drunk Love.
the seriousness of the situation is perhaps expressed best in an old Guns N' Roses song. Listen to it, it's very powerful.
[snip] Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before
Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before
My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars
Tom Clancy envisioned a visible light "stun gun" apparatus used in Debt of Honor that was used for among other things temporarily blinding airline pilots, which Clark and Chavez used to take out two Japanese early warning aircraft. Apparently it is based on a real weapon; See here.
In addition, Jabba obviously knows that Han just killed Greedo (who, incidentally, missed Han from about 2 feet away) but all he does is say "and why did you have to fry poor Greedo?" instead of breaking Solo's legs like a real gangster. I was disappointed.
The solution is to hide the material deep underground with no markers. When the civilization is advanced enough, it will have detectors that can discover the radioactivity and then they'll be prepared to deal with it. Until then, it would be better not to mark the location.
sorry folks, they deleted the torrent from the public tracker (theppn.com) for whatever reason and I'm sorry to say my home webserver isn't up for a slashdotting;-)
Slashdot Mirror
So they can act influential ;-). try here for starters!
or rather, if 1% is the standard error of the mean, and (e.g.) the mean observed value is 100, we can be 68% certain that the true value is between 99 and 101-- one standard error. We can be 95% certain that the value is between 98 and 102-- two standard errors. And 99.7% certain that the value is between 97 and 103-- three standard errors. The article wasn't clear on whether the probe measures within 1% of the theorized value or whether it has a 1% standard error for measuring the observed value :-/
You lied to the American public and the world about Iraq's WMD capability to justify an invasion you had been planning since before you took office. Furthermore you seem to have no problem with our country leading the world in inventory of WMDs. I'd like to personally call you an asshole. That is all.
.
Thou shalt not kill. No exceptions given, not even for self-defense.
A passage cited by every pacifist, or by any person against a particular war (when it suits him). That no exceptions were given in that commandment implies a false dichotomy of "kill and go to hell" or "don't kill and not go to hell." I disagree. The "murder" translation of that commandment is probably a better one, else how could God endorse a war by the Israelites in self-defense?
Evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
- Dark Helmet, Spaceballs
I wish it were possible to not study war. Of course I would prefer it if everyone went about his business (his because it's usually the male population) without feeling the need to dominate other people or extract money from them or capture them as human slaves. As one of the militia leaders said in Black Hawk Down, "there will always be killing. This is how things are in _our_ world." The main benefit of having a highly trained fighting force is that you can strongly motivate people not to misbehave, especially if you are the world's "911" service, set on a hair trigger to attack and destroy anyone who launches a first strike of WMDs against another country. I know it's a rosy view but it beats the alternative I think. Yeah, I know that something should have been done about Rwanda. Don't forget that there is an African Union and there are neighboring African states that are supposed to send troops into areas like Rwanda, as was done with Liberia last year. Hopefully Darfur will motivate them more than Rwanda did.
In any case, "We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us." (unknown, attrib. to George Orwell). I for one hope that our forces remain the best in the world and that the new administration has a more globally conscious intervention policy.
I guess some day we will fall for scams our kids think are stupid. I think that's destiny for every parent ;-)
One aspect of marketing/advertising/design is ergonomics and human factors, which helps advertisers structure their materials in the most logical fashion for the way people process information. Just look at any cover of Cosmopolitan and you'll see the end result of years of studies of the scanning people do when they see a document. Important elements seem to jump out at you without you even realizing it, and if you have time you can read the smaller text under each element to find out more. Cosmo, ironically, probably has one of the best-designed magazine covers. Color, layout, subject matter ("SEX" or related words are the lead/top priority item on every cover) and other design elements are used to great effect. The end result is that you look at the magazine, your eye traverses multiple times across the impossibly beautiful woman whose style (if you're a woman) you want to emulate and you then want to buy it, or you don't want to buy it because you don't really read Cosmo. This is why they sell them in checkout lines-- they're an impulse item for non-subscribers. Same thing with Maxim, Playboy, and other glossy magazines.
Compare a well-designed magazine cover like Cosmo with an ugly or poorly designed cover like TV Guide or Hot Rod magazine and you'll see who has the best understanding of human factors. Cosmo is pleasant to look at, "Guns" magazine really isn't, even if you are an enthusiast.
I for one welcome our new human factor-embracing overlords-- as long as they don't beam ads into my head.
Truth to be told, any sports car will trigger my buy-button, but can I afford to buy it?
"Thanks to our low introductory APR, you can!"
"Thought you couldn't own a Benz? Think again!"
"Let BMW Certified Preowned vehicles find you the car of your dreams...at a practical price!"
This is a science-- note that in the radio ads they never tell you what the APR is unless it's "zero percent" or close to it. They make you want the item with positive images and thoughts and they defer the "bad news" as long as possible until the very end of the transaction, after you've decided you want the item so even if you know you probably can't afford it, someone will "work with you" (with you, not on you, lol) to establish a sense of rapport that will make you think you're getting a good deal. Even if you back out, there's some hapless sucker who won't. Despite decades of study and improved learning techniques, human nature hasn't changed all that much.
In my school job, I decided to try a triple monitor setup because there are a lot of CRTs just lying around unused after the acquisition of flat panels. Ultimately I settled on my assigned flat panel and two 17 inch trinitron CRTs.
My main screen has always been the flat panel. At first I tried using one of the extra monitors for my email and IM client, and using the other as a preview window so I could have vim open in fullscreen mode on the flat panel and see my changes in the web browser on the extra monitor. After a few months of usage I'm pretty sure that I would prefer a single widescreen flat panel over my current setup. For one thing, I don't get so many emails and IMs that I can justify having an entire display devoted to it and running all the time. I end up using the preview monitor a lot less now that I have tabbed browsing in Firefox. Also, looking from the flat panel to the CRT is sort of a painful transition because of the differences in sharpness, brightness, and contrast.
At home I wouldn't mind having dual LCDs: my current 17" flat panel for studio/development work plus a 15 inch for browser windows, palettes, IM, and email (or DVDs) would be a great combination. As the parent post says, energy use is a concern. I doubt that radiation levels are that much worse with two displays than one but it can't be great for your eyes to have to constantly switch between the two. The flat panels are certainly easier on the eyes and probably consume less power to boot.
If I had to do it over and I had the cash I would have bought a single SGI 1600SW or Apple 23 inch cinema display for the ultimate single monitor setup. At work I still have the triple setup but I leave the CRTs off most of the time and turn them on when I get an IM and every so often to check email, or when I actually need them to preview in a browser. It seems to be a pretty good compromise.
Try Mach 20...
Mach 25 for the space shuttle
Mach 36 for a capsule
see here
In the brussels car fair they did the test by driving the SMART car against a concrete wall at 60 kmph, the doors opened without problems and the passenger-cage was perfectly intact.
I think the problem isn't so much that the car was undamaged as the fact that the occupant(s) in the front seat have to absorb the energy that the car doesn't, so they get thrown against the safety harness at slightly less than 60 kph and continue into the airbag. I am afraid of what I would look like after crashing a smart car in such a manner. Did they do the test with dummies or an empty car? Personally I'd go with the Honda Insight or a Mini before one of these. It does seem like a great car for high schoolers though. Not too large so they learn to watch out.
And it's not going to go any farther. On an average day, you're lucky to receive about 200 watts/m2 of sun power. The rest of the energy (about 1.3kw/m2) is lost to diffusion and blockage by the atmosphere.
Homeowners could install home solar arrays to make hydrogen there and then refuel their cars at home. Combined with hydrogen fueling stations and the car's own solar array, this system doesn't seem unreasonable. One problem would be finding all that parking space outdoors in dense urban areas for cars with such a system, thus the advantages of using your home system or a commercial fueling station. Of course, in the suburbs in Arizona this isn't a problem.
that is a great analogy. the more i think about it the better it works.
This is where the indie industry is coming to the rescue with their niche titles. Its why your Napolean Dynamites are doing so well while main stream stuff is struggling to stay in theatres for any length of time. Its why Donnie Darko has such an underground following where as Armegeddon is considered loud crap by many.
;-)
Could it also be that while Bay/Bruckheimer are off doing the minimum necessary to ensure a blockbuster according to their marketing studies and formulae, the person making a movie like Mad Max or Mad Max 2 with a really low budget really cared about the themes and characters in the film, and because of that ended up created somewhat or far superior films that coincidentally (or not?) had higher profit to cost ratios?
Also, I noticed that there appears to be room for two movies of the same formula that closely follow one another:
Deep Impact and Armageddon
Mission to Mars and Red Planet
The Truman Show and EDtv
Collateral and ??? (coming soon?
it's not really fair to put Truman Show and Collateral in there but I see them as great original films that had or will have copycats sort of like About Schmidt and Punch Drunk Love.
"The power of the sun...IN THE PALM OF MY HAND!"
-- Dr. Octavius. and they say movies don't predict the future.
I now have the perfect excuse to justify being a "tits and ass man:" Baby I can't help it, it's evolution and it's hardwired into my brain!
;-)
I like booty more than breasts. Does that make me a lower form of life?
As I've said, that's the only problem with democracy: it's unstable. You take good care of it, or you lose it.
there's a corollary; no one stays at the top forever.
the seriousness of the situation is perhaps expressed best in an old Guns N' Roses song. Listen to it, it's very powerful.
[snip]
Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before
Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before
My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars
[snip]
Inaccessible, oh well. Is it on IIS? ;-)
The idea reminds of Microsoft Wife, a joke that made the rounds years ago.
Tom Clancy envisioned a visible light "stun gun" apparatus used in Debt of Honor that was used for among other things temporarily blinding airline pilots, which Clark and Chavez used to take out two Japanese early warning aircraft. Apparently it is based on a real weapon; See here.
In addition, Jabba obviously knows that Han just killed Greedo (who, incidentally, missed Han from about 2 feet away) but all he does is say "and why did you have to fry poor Greedo?" instead of breaking Solo's legs like a real gangster. I was disappointed.
The solution is to hide the material deep underground with no markers. When the civilization is advanced enough, it will have detectors that can discover the radioactivity and then they'll be prepared to deal with it. Until then, it would be better not to mark the location.
sorry folks, they deleted the torrent from the public tracker (theppn.com) for whatever reason and I'm sorry to say my home webserver isn't up for a slashdotting ;-)
Alternate url: http://1kawa.theppn.org/downloadtorrent.php?id=173 68&name=TWL360x208.mov.torrent
http://63.197.76.221/TWL360x208.mov.torrent