small price to pay to protect an investment that at this point runs into the billions.
We have a second launch facility in mothball condition at Vandenberg... not the greatest of options but we need not build from the ground up to continue on to a return to flight. However the Vandenberg facility does not allow easy access to ISS.
Leaving the shuttles at Kennedy is tragic, silly and I hope to god unavoidable due to the state the shuttles are in for re-fit. However it amazes me that there are not constant ready to go plans to evacuate the orbiters in the event of a hurricane that exceeds the facilities design limitations.
THe buildings can be re-built relatively easily. The infrastructure to re-build the orbiters no longer exists.
I do not really disagree with anything you are saying.
My only real point is that the claims were declared junk science without proper experimentation to unequivically state they were false claims. No matter how you slice it or dice it on P&F's actions one way or another the discrediting of the claim without sufficient testing is reprehensible.
True the burden of proof is not on the scientific world at large regarding extravegant unconventional claims. However as the keepers of scientific knowledge the burden is upon them to speak only that which they KNOW. Not that which they assume. Many assumed P&F 1) did not posses the knowledge due to the fact they were making claims in an area outside their field 2) that the idea of table top fusion was absurd 3) their circumvention of proper protocol could only be because they were trying to hide something. Due to these assumptions the claims were not properly investigated by the scientific community at large. They were studied in secret and any ascociated with efforts that did come to light were often as not ridiculed as crackpots.
You say the system works more than it dosn't. I say where there is smoke there is fire. If there is one case of mishandled discovery I say the odds are there are more. The unique case is by far the most rare. The very fact that two otherwise well respected scientists decided to take the unconventional road to getting the word on their experiment out to me seems an indication not that the system works but that they forsaw difficulties and decided to try and avoid them.
After all the history of scientific discovery is not one of established theory and protocol gracefully accepting revision but instead one of upheaval and arguments. Established theory and its adherrants fight tooth and nail to maintain their status. Always have and probably always will.
and yet others did have success repeating the original experiment while others had difficulty.
SO since not EVERYONE was reporting the same results the theory is tossed out as crackpot because it wasn't possible anyway?
P & F made mistakes certainly but don't absolve the system of sussing out new ideas of all fault. It is a system that is inherrently biased against anything unexplained and/or at odds with accepted theory. P & F to some extent created a self fullfilling prophesy by going against the grain with their anouncement. However, the knee jerk out of hand dismissal of their claims without sufficient experimental evidence (or in otherwords, what the established scientists were complaining about P & F NOT doing in the first place) is completely unacceptable. In the end they answered shoddy work with shoddy work and perhaps jepordized a very important discovery in the process.
We could be 15 years into accepted serious study of this phenomenon isntead of just realizing the idea might have some merit.
You seem to be missing one critical point about the adjustments... they happen on the fly.
Your not choosing this stuff while driving, the car is handling it for you.
Theoretically this means the car changes LESS during the driving experience not more from the drivers perspective as the system would be designed to maintain a desireable range of performance. You like push/understeer whatever the system does its best to maintain what you are most comfortable with. Which means LESS driving adjustment not more.
You don't have to know what the system is doing differently, you have to know its limits just the same as you do with a mechanical system. Only this system is adaptive vrs Re-active and that means it can maintain its expected level of performance under a wider range of conditions than a purely re-active system.
Think of it this way.. instead of deciding on a compromise setup that handles the majority of the track best you now have a system capable of tuning itself for optimal performance over every INCH of the track.
To some degree I agree with that last comment about technology replacing the driver. However the over regulation of racing is causing racing to cease to be a testbed arena for new technology that it has been traditionally as it becomes incresaingly more about getting more out of the same or intentionally limited tech rather than pushing the envelope. Thats great for competition but horrible for advances.
I would like to see the emergence of a new racing scene with less regulation and more emphasis on TRYING to find that new edge that gives the unfair advantage. Have limitations for safety reasons, not for limiting technological advances.
in one of the 75 HP configurations weiging in at 80 pounds driving a DC generator with essentially a bigger battery/capacitor pack where the capacitors handle the heavy loads and acceleration. The motor provides LD sustained crusing capacity and keeps a minimal battery pack charaged up for a sustained power expenditure ( like climbing a mountain ).
Figure a battery pack would need to be able to sustain say 50kw ( in addition to the motor energy generation) for 5-10 minutes without going under 50% charge. Capacitors capable of sustainting max for 1-2 minutes similar to this device. Not that you would accelerate this long but that would allow for numerous stop and go cycles before you could deplete the charge.. esspecially with regenetarive breaking.
You eliminate the transmission and transaxel. Might be able to break even on weight and your connections (exception of steering most likely) becomes cabling rather than mechanical linkages.
Toss in the magnetic suspension from the other story on here and you could make a very interesting car.
I agree for the most part, however that only solves the short haul problem.
Flying cars solve the long haul problem.
I imagine major population center would have a bubble for air traffic. IE say minimum altitude of 5000 feet withen 10 miles of the center or some such when not in landing pattern for approved landing zones.
You could have landing zones served by rail lines forming a comprehensive transportation solution.
Perhaps the flying car could also utilize this network ?? Perhaps not, dual use vehicles generally don't do anything well. Though I have long wondered if you could create a interchangeable cab concept.
You know GM's skateboard fuel cell idea where you can change bodies ? Well there is nothing to say you would have to connect the body to a skateboard with wheels... could just as easily be a platform with wings. The body would simply be the control module. If you could createa feasible design that could cover multiple control situations and could be easily swapped without heavy machinery then It might work.
Other guy hit it pretty good , but to put it another way. How much space do you have to work with on a road. How much 200-1000 feet off the ground? Road coverage or 'driveable' surface is less than 10% of a population center, probably more like 1%.. and sub fractions of that would mark your options for specific directions. Once you clear the tallest object in your path altitude wise you have 100% of the space available to you and in 3 dimensions rather than just 1.
The place you have any form of 'air congestion' currently is limited to high concentration takeoff and landing zones... IE major airport hubs. Even so, when is the last time you could see more than 10 planes at once from any vantage point be in flying into Hartsfield, Laguardia, LAX or on the ground around these areas? How about the last time you saw 10 cars being driven withen 100 feet of you?
You would however have to figure out something for high population zones. VTOL car capacity would make Jetson like options work but traditional takeoff and landing runs could proove a problem in the more congested population centers just from the amount of space needed for enough landing zones to avoid landing congestion.
In particular things like major sporting events, lots and lots and lots of people trying reach the same location. Major business centers etc...
Might not remain the common case. Computers are going from one per houshold to multiple per household.
If you had a default network setup that could utilize wireless networking for KVM then you could beat the price point of multiple systems for a power home with a single system that could serve all users instead of one box for each person.
Say a default 2-4 processor system and a desktop cube with CD/DVD burner and KVM inputs/ USB etc... and a wireless connection with the server.
If you can make it plug and play then it could catch on fairly easy I might imagine.
Only real practicality issues in my book is satisfying gamers in the family simultaneously and useability. Can't require real knowledge to set up and use... that seems to have prooven the case over and over again in the home market.
Your thinking in terms of top of the line current technology.
I am talking about what was used to make films and the quality 15-20 years ago.
Your telling me you couldn't make a higher quality picture than Woodward & Berstien with modern home/semi proffesional cameras and some patience ? You think a movie of similar quality and as gripping a story line wouldn't be a success today?
Not every movie is a CGI marathon. And like I said Blockbusters may retain a niche. But the budget for smaller drama films centered around actors and dialog has not exploded in the same way as big budget special effects extravaganzas. Those films are very top heavy for the actors pay.
Does it still cost alot of money for steady cam shots and camera man union rates ??? Hell yes. But the gap between that and what you can put together with 10 grand in cameras and some dedication has closed a great deal.
A home production dosn't have all the capacity of a major budget film of today obviously. However it does have more capacity than full budget Hollywood films of the past, and the gap is getting narrower not wider for the physical camera work.
How many bars are open 24 hours a day ? Or more importantly how many are closed at least 8 hours a day ?
How many might be willing to let someone in during off hours ?
How many would let you do it for free or a small nominal fee/ trade for small tasks being performed ?
I imagine the answer is more than none though finding them might be a bitch. I suggest the yellow pages and alot of phone calls and trips to try and get to know owners. Hell work in a likely spot where you know you can get to know the owner. Talk to waitreses and barkeeps about the boss man and find a likely spot.
I understand the desire to make it look great. But instead of struggling to do something you know your not well equiped to do why not figure out a way to make this weakness a strength ? If you can make it a success with limitations to then imagine what that says to someone about what you could do with better resources. In other words, find a way to work with what you do have and then perhaps that will lead to working with what you want to have.
Whats so odd about the idea students might choose to listen to lectures over and over again ?
They read over lecture notes over and over and over again, they even read other peoples lecture notes in case they think they missed something. If you have the option to actually listen to the source of your notes to double check them and help with learning the material better then why wouldn't you?
This is not a suggestion that they will listen to them to relax or instead of music. This becomes a hell of a study aide and overall educational resource.
Granted I am talking about reasonably good students at least somewhat dedicated to learning. But That consists of most of the students on the path to graduation.
In addition now if you miss class and someone has the lecture on IPOD you can now have a peer to peer sharing of all class lectures taking place on campus and the collective storage of a freshman class equiped with at a minimum an IPOD. Most of who are determined to get the best grades with the least amount of work.
If you throw in decent mpeg 4 video recording you then concievably have fricken TIVO for college classes at Duke.
Its genius. And the best part is Students will be self motivated to do it. I could easily see a group of friends creating a designated person for each class to record.. then if they put it on a p2p system viola, whole campus or more importantly everyone that takes that class has access to it.
Throw in wireless on board P2P in an IPOD form factor also accessible by laptops etc... and you have a very interesting development.
Additionally is DUKE going to place restirctions on sharing lectures to the outside world? Theoretically someone motivated to learn with access to p2p could now purchase books ( or even use open source textbooks where available ) and follow along with class lectures etc from p2p sources. Throw in an open accesible blog with collaborative study discussions and viola, open source free ( as in beer ) audit education from one of the more elite private institutions in the US.
P.C. over produced crap by and large. but given the presence of huge amounts of money ( paid by audiences ) the benifit of the doubt rather than saying they are starving hostages held in thrall by the media mogules controls over what they are allowed to view..... ie if there is only crap then people will enjoy crap and greatly appreciate less smelly crap even though its still crap.
Most actors, good bad or indifferent wait tables or work odd jobs.
The ones that get to do nothing but acting and buy huge mansions in Beverly hills are the exception. Not the rule. And there is no assurance that these are even the best actors. I'd say your assurance these day is that they are the best looking people that have some acting ability. Not the same as saying they are the best actors.
As for how companies can make money promoting the best actors. Simple. They have to provide a service that the public wants and is willing to pay to have provided better than it can do for itself. Some of what they do will still be viable. Set up a web site as a major source of new material with a stamp of approval with a good image rep for having good stuff. Get the hits and make your money from ads, or perhaps people paying you to host your stuff. Hell google essentially gives away gargantuan amounts of bandwidth and makes money doing it. Why couldn't a movie house?
Are you suggesting the only way for them to make money is the way they do it now?
Perhaps there will remain a niche for the blockbuster but hell these days a few thousand bucks will put on your desk the equipment you once needed a studio and production crew to do.
Music passed the point where a home studio can produce a quality production recording a while back.
Movies are not that far behind.
Before you say people will not do something for nothing you need to think about it. Open source is all about people doing something that they want to do without any immediate reward in place.
granted the signal to noise ratio will be worse with general people producing but with something like moderation communities the good stuff will get noticed, recognised and spread around.
Production companies perhaps have life left. Finding and promoting talent... real talent... could be a money making proposition. However they can't remain based on income from physical based media distribution, it is absurd... absolutly absurd in an age that becomes more digital with each passing day.
check it compared to per passanger for the car as well... most times in those examples they go by one person in a car vrs 400 in a single plane. If the car numbers are for a single person then your factor of four becomes four people in a car.
Theory is baisicly your not sensitive enough to input so you are constantly in search mode for something to stimulate you. In the worst cases you create your own stimulation. Distraction during conversation is because it fails grasp your attention... it never gets above your thresh hold.
By providing a stimulant ( Ritalin, Caffine etc... ) your upping your sensitivity to input and the net effect in most cases is actually longer attention span because something does not have to be as stimulating to catch your attention.
The zombie effect is generally caused by an over dose which causes a hyper sensitive state during which you try to minimize input. If you have ever known someone or are someone that zones out in loud very busy settings it is a similar state only it takes alot less to cause it. For an ADD person it can be really bad because their system is naturally trying all the time to up the sensitivity for input so when this happens its like your fucking with the volume on the stero and you have it cranked all the way up and get close because you still are not hearing anything and then all of the sudden it clicks on and you get blasted. Only with the drug dose you can't turn the volume down and you can't get away from the noise.
The history of aviation design has seen a curious convergence where the function of the airplane tends to dictate its form the higher the expected speed is.
If you look at prop planes you will notice through history more configurations than in even subsonic jets. However if you look at the pinnacle of Piston fighter designs which occured in WWII you will find that most look very similar. The only real unique designs in monoplanes where radial vrs inline/opposed engines and very subtle visual differences.
That has carried over into supersonic jet designs to an ever greater degree. There were two supersonic jet transports created and they look very similar. While some contribute this to spy efforts ( Russia and the creators of the Concorde stealing from each other ) since the end of the cold war it has become fairly apparent that the designs were driven far more by their requirments than anything else.
Hypersonic designs have few possible configurations. If the USAF has a black program that cracked the Ramjet problem then in all likely hood it looks a great deal like HyperX. If you go look the Australian project also looks very similar.
The interesting thing to me would be to see if there was any quiet effort by the airforce in opposition to the hyperX program... IE possibly eliminating a wastefull research program covering ground that has already be covered while at the same time killing the advance of known engineering so they could maintain their edge/secrecy longer. In otherwords once everyone gets this technology the advantage of it is reduced. Also the possibility of creating deffense missles capable of intercepting such a plane hit the table... IE a ramjet missle.
There was a similar life cycle to the use of the SR-71. Early in its life it flew over borders with impunity becasue it couldn't be shot down and its existence was not commonly known. Once its existence was well established then the technology to defend against its incursions came into existence or once technology to defend it became a reality its existence became known. Take your pick. In otherwords it was not publicly known until its advantage had ceased benifiting from its secrecy.
there is a bar from the steering wheel that hooks around the pedal and then you pull it tight and lock it. It is easily defeatable by cutting through the steering wheel same as the just wheel based club.
NO the point is that it is imagined and thus limitations on what is imagined when it is imagined is not a good argument.
Eh imagined is not the best word. Thought of is perhaps better... I would say something like pie is more than imagination.
IN other words your 2 deminsional people saying infinity dosn't exist becasue their perception allows no comprehension of its existence is correct from their view but wrong from ours... similar for the guy I was responding two only my contention is that for all he knows WE are the two deminional beings and someone else stands in our place with regards to the idea of division by infinity or whatnot.
And yet it is a mathmatical concept often used in mathmatics, the discipline of the interaction/relationships of numbers.
would you also contend that zero is not a number ?
Both are mathmatical concepts just as are 1,2 and all other numbers that fall between nothing and everything. Zero and infinty are often exceptions to mathmatical operations. Logically the infinate number of divisions betwen 0-1 added to the infinite number of divisions between 1-2 equals 2*infinity. Yet conceptually the value of the two combined is equal to the single value of either and yet the infinte values of 0-2 beyond a doubt logically and conceptually hold values not contained in 0-1 or 1-2 individualy even though they are all infinte.
Yes but the technology is also skewed heavily to finding such planets and its capabilities are not up to finding an earthlike planet or even a similar solar system arrangement to our own..
I.E. gas giants that are close or pass close to their stars cause more of the wobble and create more visible transits.
When the technology reaches the point it could almost certainly detect a jupiter sized/located planet or better yet an earth sized/located planet then we will be in a better position to make assertions about the possible existence of life as we know it to exist on earth in other solar systems.
As is the system is not capable of doing this and thus detections withen its range do not serve as a good means for extrapolation about what it can't detect in the first place.
On the otherhand not that long ago people were arguing that even planets would proove rare or non-existent around other stars. This is prooving to be a silly assertion as we have been finding plenty of planets around other stars even though our planet detecting ability is so limited.
If we are finding this many now while we are at the extreme edge of planet detecting sensitivity in our instruments it should be reasonable to assume we should find many many more as our technology to detect planets improoves.
Learn all the rules first so you know how to break them PROPERLY.
I do have to ask a question here though. With computer interaction being such a fundamental reality of the modern world why do you insist that the basics consist only of learning how to perform them with non-electronic means?
The reason you teach the basics at a young age is so that use of them becomes second nature. Otherwise you risk creating a disconnection between thought and communication. For example it is far more difficult to learn a second language at a late age and by late age I mean highschool or even middle school. Saving computer skills till those ages has a similar issue in that use of the machine often becomes an impediment to the communication process rather than an enabler. In other words the struggle just to use the machine takes precedence over the task at hand.
Computers and calculators are not ruining education in America. Over crowded class rooms run by underpaid unskilled teachers implementing highly politicized agendas are far more to blame.
My appologies to all the incredibly dedicated individuals that endeavor against this downward spiral on slave wages.
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small price to pay to protect an investment that at this point runs into the billions.
We have a second launch facility in mothball condition at Vandenberg... not the greatest of options but we need not build from the ground up to continue on to a return to flight. However the Vandenberg facility does not allow easy access to ISS.
Leaving the shuttles at Kennedy is tragic, silly and I hope to god unavoidable due to the state the shuttles are in for re-fit. However it amazes me that there are not constant ready to go plans to evacuate the orbiters in the event of a hurricane that exceeds the facilities design limitations.
THe buildings can be re-built relatively easily. The infrastructure to re-build the orbiters no longer exists.
I do not really disagree with anything you are saying.
My only real point is that the claims were declared junk science without proper experimentation to unequivically state they were false claims. No matter how you slice it or dice it on P&F's actions one way or another the discrediting of the claim without sufficient testing is reprehensible.
True the burden of proof is not on the scientific world at large regarding extravegant unconventional claims. However as the keepers of scientific knowledge the burden is upon them to speak only that which they KNOW. Not that which they assume. Many assumed P&F 1) did not posses the knowledge due to the fact they were making claims in an area outside their field 2) that the idea of table top fusion was absurd 3) their circumvention of proper protocol could only be because they were trying to hide something. Due to these assumptions the claims were not properly investigated by the scientific community at large. They were studied in secret and any ascociated with efforts that did come to light were often as not ridiculed as crackpots.
You say the system works more than it dosn't. I say where there is smoke there is fire. If there is one case of mishandled discovery I say the odds are there are more. The unique case is by far the most rare. The very fact that two otherwise well respected scientists decided to take the unconventional road to getting the word on their experiment out to me seems an indication not that the system works but that they forsaw difficulties and decided to try and avoid them.
After all the history of scientific discovery is not one of established theory and protocol gracefully accepting revision but instead one of upheaval and arguments. Established theory and its adherrants fight tooth and nail to maintain their status. Always have and probably always will.
and yet others did have success repeating the original experiment while others had difficulty.
SO since not EVERYONE was reporting the same results the theory is tossed out as crackpot because it wasn't possible anyway?
P & F made mistakes certainly but don't absolve the system of sussing out new ideas of all fault. It is a system that is inherrently biased against anything unexplained and/or at odds with accepted theory. P & F to some extent created a self fullfilling prophesy by going against the grain with their anouncement. However, the knee jerk out of hand dismissal of their claims without sufficient experimental evidence (or in otherwords, what the established scientists were complaining about P & F NOT doing in the first place) is completely unacceptable. In the end they answered shoddy work with shoddy work and perhaps jepordized a very important discovery in the process.
We could be 15 years into accepted serious study of this phenomenon isntead of just realizing the idea might have some merit.
You seem to be missing one critical point about the adjustments... they happen on the fly.
Your not choosing this stuff while driving, the car is handling it for you.
Theoretically this means the car changes LESS during the driving experience not more from the drivers perspective as the system would be designed to maintain a desireable range of performance. You like push/understeer whatever the system does its best to maintain what you are most comfortable with. Which means LESS driving adjustment not more.
You don't have to know what the system is doing differently, you have to know its limits just the same as you do with a mechanical system. Only this system is adaptive vrs Re-active and that means it can maintain its expected level of performance under a wider range of conditions than a purely re-active system.
Think of it this way.. instead of deciding on a compromise setup that handles the majority of the track best you now have a system capable of tuning itself for optimal performance over every INCH of the track.
To some degree I agree with that last comment about technology replacing the driver. However the over regulation of racing is causing racing to cease to be a testbed arena for new technology that it has been traditionally as it becomes incresaingly more about getting more out of the same or intentionally limited tech rather than pushing the envelope. Thats great for competition but horrible for advances.
I would like to see the emergence of a new racing scene with less regulation and more emphasis on TRYING to find that new edge that gives the unfair advantage. Have limitations for safety reasons, not for limiting technological advances.
http://www.detnews.com/2003/autosinsider/0308/12/b 02-242629.htm/
I wonder if you could eliminate the transmission and do this with 2-4 Hub motors.
100kw would move most cars quite smartly with the low end capabilities of electric motors.
Use
http://www.freedom-motors.com/
in one of the 75 HP configurations weiging in at 80 pounds driving a DC generator with essentially a bigger battery/capacitor pack where the capacitors handle the heavy loads and acceleration. The motor provides LD sustained crusing capacity and keeps a minimal battery pack charaged up for a sustained power expenditure ( like climbing a mountain ).
Figure a battery pack would need to be able to sustain say 50kw ( in addition to the motor energy generation) for 5-10 minutes without going under 50% charge. Capacitors capable of sustainting max for 1-2 minutes similar to this device. Not that you would accelerate this long but that would allow for numerous stop and go cycles before you could deplete the charge.. esspecially with regenetarive breaking.
You eliminate the transmission and transaxel. Might be able to break even on weight and your connections (exception of steering most likely) becomes cabling rather than mechanical linkages.
Toss in the magnetic suspension from the other story on here and you could make a very interesting car.
I agree for the most part, however that only solves the short haul problem.
Flying cars solve the long haul problem.
I imagine major population center would have a bubble for air traffic. IE say minimum altitude of 5000 feet withen 10 miles of the center or some such when not in landing pattern for approved landing zones.
You could have landing zones served by rail lines forming a comprehensive transportation solution.
Perhaps the flying car could also utilize this network ?? Perhaps not, dual use vehicles generally don't do anything well. Though I have long wondered if you could create a interchangeable cab concept.
You know GM's skateboard fuel cell idea where you can change bodies ? Well there is nothing to say you would have to connect the body to a skateboard with wheels... could just as easily be a platform with wings. The body would simply be the control module. If you could createa feasible design that could cover multiple control situations and could be easily swapped without heavy machinery then It might work.
Other guy hit it pretty good , but to put it another way. How much space do you have to work with on a road. How much 200-1000 feet off the ground? Road coverage or 'driveable' surface is less than 10% of a population center, probably more like 1%.. and sub fractions of that would mark your options for specific directions. Once you clear the tallest object in your path altitude wise you have 100% of the space available to you and in 3 dimensions rather than just 1.
The place you have any form of 'air congestion' currently is limited to high concentration takeoff and landing zones... IE major airport hubs. Even so, when is the last time you could see more than 10 planes at once from any vantage point be in flying into Hartsfield, Laguardia, LAX or on the ground around these areas? How about the last time you saw 10 cars being driven withen 100 feet of you?
You would however have to figure out something for high population zones. VTOL car capacity would make Jetson like options work but traditional takeoff and landing runs could proove a problem in the more congested population centers just from the amount of space needed for enough landing zones to avoid landing congestion.
In particular things like major sporting events, lots and lots and lots of people trying reach the same location. Major business centers etc...
Actually I have a habit of saying viola when I am saying voila as a joke. Granted the context here does not proivide a good means for conveying that.
Past that why not get over spelling and reply to the points made rather than an unrelated mistake.
Might not remain the common case. Computers are going from one per houshold to multiple per household.
If you had a default network setup that could utilize wireless networking for KVM then you could beat the price point of multiple systems for a power home with a single system that could serve all users instead of one box for each person.
Say a default 2-4 processor system and a desktop cube with CD/DVD burner and KVM inputs/ USB etc... and a wireless connection with the server.
If you can make it plug and play then it could catch on fairly easy I might imagine.
Only real practicality issues in my book is satisfying gamers in the family simultaneously and useability. Can't require real knowledge to set up and use... that seems to have prooven the case over and over again in the home market.
Your thinking in terms of top of the line current technology.
I am talking about what was used to make films and the quality 15-20 years ago.
Your telling me you couldn't make a higher quality picture than Woodward & Berstien with modern home/semi proffesional cameras and some patience ? You think a movie of similar quality and as gripping a story line wouldn't be a success today?
Not every movie is a CGI marathon. And like I said Blockbusters may retain a niche. But the budget for smaller drama films centered around actors and dialog has not exploded in the same way as big budget special effects extravaganzas. Those films are very top heavy for the actors pay.
Does it still cost alot of money for steady cam shots and camera man union rates ??? Hell yes. But the gap between that and what you can put together with 10 grand in cameras and some dedication has closed a great deal.
A home production dosn't have all the capacity of a major budget film of today obviously. However it does have more capacity than full budget Hollywood films of the past, and the gap is getting narrower not wider for the physical camera work.
How many bars are open 24 hours a day ? Or more importantly how many are closed at least 8 hours a day ?
How many might be willing to let someone in during off hours ?
How many would let you do it for free or a small nominal fee/ trade for small tasks being performed ?
I imagine the answer is more than none though finding them might be a bitch. I suggest the yellow pages and alot of phone calls and trips to try and get to know owners. Hell work in a likely spot where you know you can get to know the owner. Talk to waitreses and barkeeps about the boss man and find a likely spot.
I understand the desire to make it look great. But instead of struggling to do something you know your not well equiped to do why not figure out a way to make this weakness a strength ? If you can make it a success with limitations to then imagine what that says to someone about what you could do with better resources. In other words, find a way to work with what you do have and then perhaps that will lead to working with what you want to have.
Whats so odd about the idea students might choose to listen to lectures over and over again ?
They read over lecture notes over and over and over again, they even read other peoples lecture notes in case they think they missed something. If you have the option to actually listen to the source of your notes to double check them and help with learning the material better then why wouldn't you?
This is not a suggestion that they will listen to them to relax or instead of music. This becomes a hell of a study aide and overall educational resource.
Granted I am talking about reasonably good students at least somewhat dedicated to learning. But That consists of most of the students on the path to graduation.
In addition now if you miss class and someone has the lecture on IPOD you can now have a peer to peer sharing of all class lectures taking place on campus and the collective storage of a freshman class equiped with at a minimum an IPOD. Most of who are determined to get the best grades with the least amount of work.
If you throw in decent mpeg 4 video recording you then concievably have fricken TIVO for college classes at Duke.
Its genius. And the best part is Students will be self motivated to do it. I could easily see a group of friends creating a designated person for each class to record.. then if they put it on a p2p system viola, whole campus or more importantly everyone that takes that class has access to it.
Throw in wireless on board P2P in an IPOD form factor also accessible by laptops etc... and you have a very interesting development.
Additionally is DUKE going to place restirctions on sharing lectures to the outside world? Theoretically someone motivated to learn with access to p2p could now purchase books ( or even use open source textbooks where available ) and follow along with class lectures etc from p2p sources. Throw in an open accesible blog with collaborative study discussions and viola, open source free ( as in beer ) audit education from one of the more elite private institutions in the US.
NO what is stopping you from shooting a feature is how you think it must be shot... ie in the way features are made in hollywood.
This whole idea is talking about a shift in that paradigm.
If the only thing stopping you is capital then obviously you have the time. Film the feature. Just go do it. Take what you have and do it.
If you limit yourself to doing it the way its done right now then you make yourself beholden to the powers that be of that method.
agreed
P.C. over produced crap by and large. but given the presence of huge amounts of money ( paid by audiences ) the benifit of the doubt rather than saying they are starving hostages held in thrall by the media mogules controls over what they are allowed to view..... ie if there is only crap then people will enjoy crap and greatly appreciate less smelly crap even though its still crap.
ok
perhaps I am saying thats the case after all.
Most actors, good bad or indifferent wait tables or work odd jobs.
The ones that get to do nothing but acting and buy huge mansions in Beverly hills are the exception. Not the rule. And there is no assurance that these are even the best actors. I'd say your assurance these day is that they are the best looking people that have some acting ability. Not the same as saying they are the best actors.
As for how companies can make money promoting the best actors. Simple. They have to provide a service that the public wants and is willing to pay to have provided better than it can do for itself. Some of what they do will still be viable. Set up a web site as a major source of new material with a stamp of approval with a good image rep for having good stuff. Get the hits and make your money from ads, or perhaps people paying you to host your stuff. Hell google essentially gives away gargantuan amounts of bandwidth and makes money doing it. Why couldn't a movie house?
Are you suggesting the only way for them to make money is the way they do it now?
People who want to make them.
Perhaps there will remain a niche for the blockbuster but hell these days a few thousand bucks will put on your desk the equipment you once needed a studio and production crew to do.
Music passed the point where a home studio can produce a quality production recording a while back.
Movies are not that far behind.
Before you say people will not do something for nothing you need to think about it. Open source is all about people doing something that they want to do without any immediate reward in place.
granted the signal to noise ratio will be worse with general people producing but with something like moderation communities the good stuff will get noticed, recognised and spread around.
Production companies perhaps have life left. Finding and promoting talent... real talent... could be a money making proposition. However they can't remain based on income from physical based media distribution, it is absurd... absolutly absurd in an age that becomes more digital with each passing day.
check it compared to per passanger for the car as well... most times in those examples they go by one person in a car vrs 400 in a single plane. If the car numbers are for a single person then your factor of four becomes four people in a car.
Theory is baisicly your not sensitive enough to input so you are constantly in search mode for something to stimulate you. In the worst cases you create your own stimulation. Distraction during conversation is because it fails grasp your attention... it never gets above your thresh hold.
By providing a stimulant ( Ritalin, Caffine etc... ) your upping your sensitivity to input and the net effect in most cases is actually longer attention span because something does not have to be as stimulating to catch your attention.
The zombie effect is generally caused by an over dose which causes a hyper sensitive state during which you try to minimize input. If you have ever known someone or are someone that zones out in loud very busy settings it is a similar state only it takes alot less to cause it. For an ADD person it can be really bad because their system is naturally trying all the time to up the sensitivity for input so when this happens its like your fucking with the volume on the stero and you have it cranked all the way up and get close because you still are not hearing anything and then all of the sudden it clicks on and you get blasted. Only with the drug dose you can't turn the volume down and you can't get away from the noise.
Not fun.
The history of aviation design has seen a curious convergence where the function of the airplane tends to dictate its form the higher the expected speed is.
If you look at prop planes you will notice through history more configurations than in even subsonic jets. However if you look at the pinnacle of Piston fighter designs which occured in WWII you will find that most look very similar. The only real unique designs in monoplanes where radial vrs inline/opposed engines and very subtle visual differences.
That has carried over into supersonic jet designs to an ever greater degree. There were two supersonic jet transports created and they look very similar. While some contribute this to spy efforts ( Russia and the creators of the Concorde stealing from each other ) since the end of the cold war it has become fairly apparent that the designs were driven far more by their requirments than anything else.
Hypersonic designs have few possible configurations. If the USAF has a black program that cracked the Ramjet problem then in all likely hood it looks a great deal like HyperX. If you go look the Australian project also looks very similar.
The interesting thing to me would be to see if there was any quiet effort by the airforce in opposition to the hyperX program... IE possibly eliminating a wastefull research program covering ground that has already be covered while at the same time killing the advance of known engineering so they could maintain their edge/secrecy longer. In otherwords once everyone gets this technology the advantage of it is reduced. Also the possibility of creating deffense missles capable of intercepting such a plane hit the table... IE a ramjet missle.
There was a similar life cycle to the use of the SR-71. Early in its life it flew over borders with impunity becasue it couldn't be shot down and its existence was not commonly known. Once its existence was well established then the technology to defend against its incursions came into existence or once technology to defend it became a reality its existence became known. Take your pick. In otherwords it was not publicly known until its advantage had ceased benifiting from its secrecy.
there is a bar from the steering wheel that hooks around the pedal and then you pull it tight and lock it. It is easily defeatable by cutting through the steering wheel same as the just wheel based club.
Both are nusicences though.
NO the point is that it is imagined and thus limitations on what is imagined when it is imagined is not a good argument.
Eh imagined is not the best word. Thought of is perhaps better... I would say something like pie is more than imagination.
IN other words your 2 deminsional people saying infinity dosn't exist becasue their perception allows no comprehension of its existence is correct from their view but wrong from ours... similar for the guy I was responding two only my contention is that for all he knows WE are the two deminional beings and someone else stands in our place with regards to the idea of division by infinity or whatnot.
And yet it is a mathmatical concept often used in mathmatics, the discipline of the interaction/relationships of numbers.
would you also contend that zero is not a number ?
Both are mathmatical concepts just as are 1,2 and all other numbers that fall between nothing and everything. Zero and infinty are often exceptions to mathmatical operations. Logically the infinate number of divisions betwen 0-1 added to the infinite number of divisions between 1-2 equals 2*infinity. Yet conceptually the value of the two combined is equal to the single value of either and yet the infinte values of 0-2 beyond a doubt logically and conceptually hold values not contained in 0-1 or 1-2 individualy even though they are all infinte.
I'd say the parents point still holds.
Yes but the technology is also skewed heavily to finding such planets and its capabilities are not up to finding an earthlike planet or even a similar solar system arrangement to our own..
I.E. gas giants that are close or pass close to their stars cause more of the wobble and create more visible transits.
When the technology reaches the point it could almost certainly detect a jupiter sized/located planet or better yet an earth sized/located planet then we will be in a better position to make assertions about the possible existence of life as we know it to exist on earth in other solar systems.
As is the system is not capable of doing this and thus detections withen its range do not serve as a good means for extrapolation about what it can't detect in the first place.
On the otherhand not that long ago people were arguing that even planets would proove rare or non-existent around other stars. This is prooving to be a silly assertion as we have been finding plenty of planets around other stars even though our planet detecting ability is so limited.
If we are finding this many now while we are at the extreme edge of planet detecting sensitivity in our instruments it should be reasonable to assume we should find many many more as our technology to detect planets improoves.
Learn all the rules first so you know how to break them PROPERLY.
I do have to ask a question here though. With computer interaction being such a fundamental reality of the modern world why do you insist that the basics consist only of learning how to perform them with non-electronic means?
The reason you teach the basics at a young age is so that use of them becomes second nature. Otherwise you risk creating a disconnection between thought and communication. For example it is far more difficult to learn a second language at a late age and by late age I mean highschool or even middle school. Saving computer skills till those ages has a similar issue in that use of the machine often becomes an impediment to the communication process rather than an enabler. In other words the struggle just to use the machine takes precedence over the task at hand.
Computers and calculators are not ruining education in America. Over crowded class rooms run by underpaid unskilled teachers implementing highly politicized agendas are far more to blame.
My appologies to all the incredibly dedicated individuals that endeavor against this downward spiral on slave wages.
why bother invalidating when you can just swap the percentages so the country voted the 'right' way