"It's the same thing. No, we're not going in with soldiers and dictating our will upon China, Iran, and other countries with censorship. Rather, we're going in with our culture, and our technology, and doing the same thing. One country forcing another sovereign country to do something against its own will, is wrong."
That is an interesting view. IMHO your very very wrong. We are not forcing anything on China in terms of technology and culture. China is forcing limitations on its citizens. We are not responsible if their citizens do not care to follow those limitations. We are not forcing them to accept our culture and technology and we have no obligation to help China enforce its ideals on its population. It is not our fault they are trying to catch a fart in a bottle.
Right there with you on the laptop and usb key, I do the same thing. But even so you define it as super critical data. I am talking about all data, not just what you pick and choose. All applications as well. No picking and choosing unless you are forced offline in which case you would have to make sure you had what you needed as always. In otherwords design programs so that they can work as a server app ( I am accessing from a random system somewhere ) to a full client side ( I have to work offline ). Or at its best, with both abilities working in tandem doing what they do best. Working completely online would obviously have some performance issues due to latency unless you had a very nice link. Client side would potentially be limited by how much data could be stored locally... ie no google access for random info, just static help files and anything else you have loaded locally.
And yes the new Office 12 stuff is nice. It also is priced accordingly and is not something the average user will have access to. That takes a server license and client license at the least in addition to the additional hardware. The point is not that microsoft may already provide this. The point is that Google doing this would provide such a usefull setup for free... at least in terms of use. They will obviously get their slice on the side from context ads. This certainly need not even be the only option. I imagine business soultions will still need their own cordoned off space but if Google could provide a secure enough option then why not use that as well? I grant that is a BIG if. No matter how benign the entity you don't want to let your data out of the house. But then we trust banks (third parties) with our money so it isn't that crazy to think that perhaps Google could build a level of trust that would attract businesses to use them even under the most demanding security needs.
As for the shopping thing... I think you have me confused with someone else. I just said office docs, net windows, mp3, file system etc... nothing specific about what you might be browsing at the time.
Word and Excel need $$$ for a license. Yes M$ office has a large online component... mostly afterthought crap stuff if you ask me. As for the enterprise server install setup for remote execution? That really costs a crap load of money. Though yes I would agree this would be something similar in concept. Only instead of needing individual intranet installations across an office install eveyone could have access to a similar setup just from home via Google's servers.
"Yeah, you'd be amazed how often I'm writing technical documentation and suddenly realize I need to go buy a blender from Amazon."
Right... and I am sure you have never been writting some technical documentation and not looked up some info online which you then perhaps cut and pasted... perhaps a URL for further info or related documentation. Amazon is not the net... but then if you did get the urge for a blender then what the hey... people do that already. Its called a networked computer where people do all of their work. This way you could maintain your sessions across multiple systems. Your writing, web browsing, email etc... and wherever you had access and a fat pipe it would be like accessing your home system. No this will never replace having your 'personal system' for comfort and ease of use ( especially for something like writing code), but it would be nice if you did not have to lug around your system in order to have full access to the stuff youa re working on would it not ? Or at least can you be open minded enough to consider that there are those out there who might find that a usefull function.
As for a horrible javascript implementation I couldn't agree more. TIMTOWTDI... or in other words there is more than one way to skin a cat. Javascript and AJAX are not the only answers. Throwing out all the old apps is not the only answer. That would be like throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water. There is this thing known as modifying existing code, you might have heard of it.
Yes Ballmer... missed that, and I even hit preview first, DOUGHT !!
I see a awful lot of comments about how people would preffer to keep their data local or how the browser is just to limited to really use for an office system of any sophistication but no consideration of other options. Like for example having the option of not storing your documents online... or storing them both on and off line. There are other options to either/or scenarios.
I can't argue that web browsers are terribly limited in this respect though. Which is why I really think the answer is the next generation. There is a theory floating about that google is considering a web providing service... sometimes called a parrallel internet. Well how would one access it? How about portal software? Something similar to AOL but something truly unique under the hood instead of being a cheezy skin over default system utilities? IE Google makes its own browser system that includes HTML rendering but which also goes beyond. Something similar to Google Earth only instead of rendering a 3d globe it is a system designed for word processing and spreadsheets. With a large offline component that also uses online functions as needed... and perhaps caches the most commonly accessed ones to speed up the process and to deal with Lag. It may even allow for a full offline functionality that syncs up with its online counterpart as available.
Even without a new 'browser' per say lets just say that Google Office is similar to Google Earth. The on and off line components are blended in and toss in a embedded firefox component that you can switch to if so desired for one stop shopping... IE tabs that include your office documents your working on as well as your net windows... system command line ? MP3 playing ? file browser ? its not to long before your talking about an OS portal... then if you make something like a Knoppix distro for sampling it and allow a full install you can design a system from the ground up to blur the line between on and off line in a way that really has yet to happen for the masses. They can use Windows install base as a stepping stone. If they can get to where people are just using windows to access the google progs then a full up OS replacement may then be possible on a scale that would have Blamer tossing a few more chairs around.
Actually it probably works fine in most situations where it dosn't have to know exactly what happend. In the sky diving example they probably can infer the planes trajectory that you jump out of. Combined with occasionally updates it just smoothly connects the dots and guesses in the mean time how to render the objects it already knows is there.
Same goes for anything else behind you. The stuff dosn't go away just because they don't have a shot of it. They just take what was there, then adjust the perspectives based on your movement information. So in any static environment where what is behind you only changes as you move this could probably work pretty good, especially if they can determin spatial information to avoid clipping issues from the image.
Where this would break down in a hurry would be say a crowd of people, herd of animals, trees blowing in the wind as it could guess but it would also have to animate their motions. That is a pretty daunting concept though not impossible. But the basic landscape isn't something that really changes all that much. Afterall what we are talking about here is an immersive image, not security footage.
Though it seems to me silly not to back it up with another 180 lens done the same way... or perhaps a series of 3 which would mean three 90 degree overlaps to deal with fisheye distortion and full 360 degree coverage 100 percent of the time. Real time stitching of the information together in real time would have to be easier than trying to guess I would think. But then... the guessing is just software and cpu time whereas cameras are hardware... custom hardware tends to be a lot more expensive than software.
The community standard as related to porn distribution most notably challenged by Larry Flynt essentially said the community standard only held sway inso much as it related to public distribution of the content. IE to carry smut on store shelves it had to pass community standards.
The whole case against Flynt was not predicated on the idea that hardcore porn was illegal but that to offer it for distribution was illegal in public places. The idea was to make it legal to create and own but impossible to distribute
Where does this enter into private internet access?
The community standard is essentially distilled down to the household level. IE what content is chosen to be displayed (put on the shelf) at the household level as that is the only exposure.
Unless you want to argue that access to such content from withen larger defined communities (like a town or state) should be regulated.... this is somewhat akin to saying since I live in X location I can not go into a store in Y location because it is denied where I am from.
Damn googling around it looks like somewhere along the road I have gotten goofed on my power notation. Was all prepared to argue that Kw/hr was a pretty standard (albeit counter intuitive) notation for denoting kilowatt hours and it seems there are very few examples of it (though they are out there). I certainly agree with your nit though, its something that bothered me when I first got intrested in alternative power and kept running across that form of notation for killowatt hours... then just fell into the habit cause it is what I kept seeing.
Seems kWh is what it is supposed to be. Damn... new habit to learn and an old one to break.
although thinkin of it as just plane kw * hr isn't always a good thing either. In that example of that bulb consuming 1.8 kWh per day it isn't like it ran at 1000 watts for 1.8 hours.
Expensive to develop and deploy with little return means no vested intrest in providing it for industry. To go heavy at fusion right now means they get squeezed from both ends. IE it costs more to research and then implement but they have to charge less than the tech they replace otherwise nobody wants to use it. Its a Chicken or the Egg kind of problem. How do you get cheap plentifull fusion power if it dosn't exist already. More importantly, how do you make money making it happen?
As for why the government hasn't made bigger strides? Hmmm a Bush has been president or VP for 20 of the past 28 years (well by the end of Dubbya's current term that is). Major Oil family in a position to influence or outright determine energy policy for most of 30 years, during which time alternative energy research was limited at best. Coincidence ? You decide.
We could probably get off the middle east oil tit with Fission a hell of a lot faster than Fusion. Such a Shame NIMBY has done such damage to that possibility.
You still need a usage over time. 14 kw what ? I know that it is not 14kw/hr per month, they may have said something odd like 14 kw/months. But the kw/hr is the standard of electrical power supply. Average home usage is somewhere around 15kw/hr a day. A 75 watt bulb left on all day burns 1,800 watt hours (75 watts per hour for 24 hours) or 1.8 kw/hr per day or 54 kw/hr a month. At the TVA rate of about 7 cents per kw/hr that is a cool 3.78/3.85 of your electric bill each month.
Everyone has the same ability to provide speech more or less.
Not everyone has the same money to donate. Thus if you equate money to free speach you are essentially giving more power to those with money.
Now granted eloquence and the ability to persuade are not equaly distributed among the population. But I would say that those that are smart/wise enough to effectively sway public opinion are far better suited to providing such influence than those that have money. Considering that 1% of the population has more than 50% of the wealth in this nation I would say that by and large campaign contribution limits are a good thing.
True enough.... but on the 7th and 21st those people had something in common. A BOMB in their backpacks. It was quickly determined the guy didn't have a bomb. He should have then been allowed to go about his business at that point. He certainly should not have been entered into an international suspected terrorist list and had his Flat searched and items taken.
Detaining someone that met a very general profile is questionable but under the circumstances of previous bombings it is understandable. Not letting him go once it was determined he did not have a bomb on his person was a very bad decision.
Something else caught my attention... the evident repeated attempts to add a false allegation to the sequence of events that was constituted as suspicious (ie he failed to get on an available train when he had not) and the idea that "keeping his rucksack with him at all times" was suspicious is beyond silly. What else is someone on the tube supposed to do with their rucksack? Leave it lieing at the turnstile to pick up on their way back?
These are signs of irrationality on the part of law enforcement. People on mass transit with a backpack are going to keep their backpack with them. To suggest that someone who does that is suspect is absurd. Someone doing CYA adding a detail to the report that would make their decision to search/detain the guy seem more reasonable is also a very bad thing. And a very good example of why it is dangerous to erode individual freedoms in the name of 'security'. The old issue of who will watch the watchers.
It is useful at providing hands on astronatical engineering experience for students. And I have little problem allowing all universities doing similar experiments... especially if they are all collaborative excercises like this one.
As for the utility of the rez of the camera it may surprise you to discover that many pictures provided by ISS ops are of similar or lower resolution. Neither are of any real significance when talking about high rez sattelite photography. Hell we don't even know what state of the art is there as it is classified... we do know they have had cameras that could id a pack of smokes from orbit since the 70's. But that sort of optic technology is beyond the budget of an activity like this.
However this rez is useful for stuff like weather systems, ice coverage, algea blooms, drought impacts, and any number of other large scale studies. Again it dosn't have to cover new territory to be useful.
I really don't think the space debris issues is as big a deal as you make it out to be. I think it is worth consideration... but not worth denying universities access for projects of this nature.
Yes but the collisions are really only an issue at great differences in relative velocities. IE something traveling at 17,500 mph isn't going to have much of a problem with something traveling 17,499 if they are in the same orbit.
Furthermore speed determines your orbit altitude so anything in a more or less eastward orbit at the same altitude has essentially the same speed. Now there are issues with stuff in different orbits like say a 45 degree offset of intersecting orbits at which the relative velocities can be fairly high.. I think at 45 degrees it is roughly half.. so for 17,500mpg orbits that would be about a 8500mph collision. Which is nothing to sneeze at.
However most people discussing this tend to forget something... that is that space is big. For example Saturn has far more space debris in its ring system than earth is even close to having. Yet when we send satellites through it we really don't do anything sepcial to avoid debris in the rings. Statisticlly its just open space. Same for all the junk in orbit around earth.
If worse comes to worse for most man made debris I imagine we could develop large electromagnetic systems for collecting metallic debris.
As for the guy that almost got hit in texas... he has about as much chance just being hit by 'natural' space debris as man made. You run more risk of hitting other planes in the air every time you fly than a sattelite runs of being hit by a piece of man made space debris. Also sooner or later all of that debris will come back to earth as its orbit will decay.
Tell the kids involved in making this happen that this thing is not useful. Usefulness is not just about the technical sophistication of a project. This is a hands on project of a nature that few people ever actually get to be a part of.
Space junk is an issue a grant... but why not then just argue that there should be a de-orbit plan that will take it out of orbit. Not argue it shouldn't be up there period.
Ummmm just how do you propose to get it to the ISS this decade? Payload mass on Soyuz is laughable and beyond spoken for. A washing machine sized payload, or even the smaller cube sats has NO chance. Shuttle isn't much better... starting with the simple fact it isn't flying. After that ISS payload space is also spoken for and very behind schedule so again getting these things up there would take a long time and a lot of money clearing NASA's manned certification issues for launching a payload with a crew.
Frankly if you want to actually get science payloads up and running I would suggest ISS as the LAST possibility till they get their act together.
It does not have to invalidate the entire field. But as current theories have problems explaining them it would seem any that try to explain will step on some toes. In general people don't like having their 'toes' stepped on. This is not to say that HAS to happen. It is just one possibility. Perhaps a puzzle piece will come to the fore tommorrow which makes it all gel nicely.
All in all I just love the megafauna issue as one which exemplifies just how much we don't know.
Nice to find another person to add to the ole 'freinds' list. Though I preffer to think of it as my list of people I think have stuff worth saying.
Eh favor copmlexity I suppose is a bias... or conceit on my part. But generally speaking we find the farther back we go the less complexity. IE we start at amino acids (theoretically if memory serves) and through some concoction of events we arrive at the single cellular level and on up to today with to say the least not single cell. not even saying we are the most complex or the most prevelant. So complexity is not the only option... neither is not forming complexity so again it goes back to what is rewarded with survival... for whatever reason (better or the idiot). And probabilities say that if some answers involve complexity they are likely to form at some point and if they are possible it is highly unlikely they will not form at some point.
As I understand it if you really get into Darwin, and the various refinements since, it ultimately boils down to numbers. So there is no 100% answer, just probabilities. Throwbacks are possible and predicted but they are not what is common. For example if you say throwbacks are possible would you predict that a throwback biology would be what comes to dominate ? IE that your village idiot proposal is in fact what happend and that it happend for All life on earth ? Cause no known example of biology today exibits the characteristics that would make megafauna possible but it does all show signs of a common origin. UNless I just havn't heard of it yet... which is always possible. So feel free to enlighten me.
Yep have one myself. But if you really use them and study those links on Google you will find that some of those codes are not explained and that it often takes a good while before the info for any new codes in new models is distributed. Also whenever a manufacturer changes their dongle it takes a while for the aftermarket to catch up. Its the same deal as ink jets and toner cartridges.
I shouldn't have to go to google and I shouldn't have to buy an aftermarket device to get information from my car that it already generates. Certainly shouldn't have to wait on legal precedent to give me rights with regards to acceessing that information which is what it took to get to where we are now.
and playing a video game (no matter how realistic) is REAL violence ? Its not a lets pretend ?
Sitting down to a Playstation and pushing the power button is a lets pretend activity. Or are you really suggesting kids are unable to make that distinction? If So I can see your point. But have seen no evidence that this is the case.
By the way I pointed out a lot of problems I see with the system without suggesting solutions.
One. For the tinfoil crowd they need an off switch. Really its probably as simple as a fuse already though lot of time there are multiple elements on a single fused circut. But the system should be able to be turned fully off. And NOT be able to be turned on remotely. Yes the safety of monitoring airbag deployment is nice. But I hold that an individual has the right to choose to not be protected in this manner. When they don't have one I become concerned about privacy issues because I no longer can choose to opt out. Yes it is GM now. You really think if they are successfull with it this will not be standard for all cars in 5 years ?
Two. OBD information should be COMPLETELY open and readily available to owners. And that dosn't mean I go down to the dealer where they can tell me what the car is saying or that I have to maintain a yearly subscription to some service. I want direct access to the information from the car with no intermediaries. When I buy a new car it should come with a CD with access software and dongles for connecting it to my laptop/computer/palm pilot etc. Or perhaps wireless/Blue Tooth. In otherwords the access to this information should be via standard interfaces to common equipment. Not specialized propriatary systems made builky on purpose (Ever seen an OBD system at a dealer?). In all honesty there should be a display in the car or at least available as an option. We have these nice fancy on board car computers and yet they don't (to my knowledge) display OBD info? WHY THE FUCK NOT? And it had better not be some 1000 dollar option. You telling me a 3 or 4 digit LCD with the circutry to display a code the car already computes should cost that much? It should be standard and its long overdue.
Car computers are seriously lagging behind where they should be. And I am ALL for them. But I am not for this bullshit propriatry crap automakers are trying to slip us on the sly.
1. The service is being offered for free now. There is no promise it will remain free and what you want to bet that free extra or not you will have to keep paying the subscription fee in order to keep getting your free updates... and cars don't usually tank in the first year. IE this free service will be most valuable 3-4 yeard down the road when real problems tend to first crop up in new vehicles.
2) Your right this is something that has been possible for years. This information should have been free with the advent of on board diagnostics but has been kept locked down for the most part to propriatery code readers that are at their heart about as complex as a calculator and yet cost dealerships thousands. I bought the car, the car has self diagnostic capability and I should have easy access to that information. It took a court ruling to force manufactureres to even release the code meanings (until recently you could read them with a multimeter) and they still drag their heels on releasing the meaning of ALL codes. Even though it is illegal many dealers will require a minimum fee to pull a car into a service bay and read the codes for a customer.
3)Yes the FBI could track you with or without the help of GM. And tracking everyone isn't the point. The point is the COULD track anyone with this system if it had not be disabled. THere are no complaints about ligitimate uses. The problem is that once the capacity is in place it is possible for it to be abused. Before the ability to tap a car required some effort. Now the damn thing comes tapped and networked to begin with.
4) GM is now offering for Free information that rightfully belongs to the owners of their cars. Whooooptidooo. Again as I pointed out the value of catching problems early will still require maintianing your subscription throughout the life of your ownership of the car. That my friend is not FREE.
5) OBD info is no bad thing. It is when the information is available in such a way to make it highly easy to abuse without the knowledge of the owner that it is so insiduous. Not to mention access to the information for the owner, let me stress that OWNER, of the car is restricted and yes I consider having to maintain a 200 dollar a year subscription fee for a 'free' service to be restricted. The sad thing is that is a better offer than most dealers offer with regard to on board diagnostic information.
On star is a fantastic safety tool. However it is very ignorant to think it is not also a very powerfull tool for invading privacy. Someone joked about the engine being disabled by 'unauthorised access' under the hood. That may be a bit of a stretch. But automakers (Saab I think) actually made a concept car with a sealed engine compartment that could only be opened by propriatary tools. It isn't that much of a stretch for you to buy a car that has a 'seal' of some sort on mechanical access that if it is broken it voids your warranty and the car itself rats you out. That is not good for competition and that is bad for the consumer.
Slashdot Mirror
"It's the same thing. No, we're not going in with soldiers and dictating our will upon China, Iran, and other countries with censorship. Rather, we're going in with our culture, and our technology, and doing the same thing. One country forcing another sovereign country to do something against its own will, is wrong."
That is an interesting view. IMHO your very very wrong. We are not forcing anything on China in terms of technology and culture. China is forcing limitations on its citizens. We are not responsible if their citizens do not care to follow those limitations. We are not forcing them to accept our culture and technology and we have no obligation to help China enforce its ideals on its population. It is not our fault they are trying to catch a fart in a bottle.
Right there with you on the laptop and usb key, I do the same thing. But even so you define it as super critical data. I am talking about all data, not just what you pick and choose. All applications as well. No picking and choosing unless you are forced offline in which case you would have to make sure you had what you needed as always. In otherwords design programs so that they can work as a server app ( I am accessing from a random system somewhere ) to a full client side ( I have to work offline ). Or at its best, with both abilities working in tandem doing what they do best. Working completely online would obviously have some performance issues due to latency unless you had a very nice link. Client side would potentially be limited by how much data could be stored locally... ie no google access for random info, just static help files and anything else you have loaded locally.
And yes the new Office 12 stuff is nice. It also is priced accordingly and is not something the average user will have access to. That takes a server license and client license at the least in addition to the additional hardware. The point is not that microsoft may already provide this. The point is that Google doing this would provide such a usefull setup for free... at least in terms of use. They will obviously get their slice on the side from context ads. This certainly need not even be the only option. I imagine business soultions will still need their own cordoned off space but if Google could provide a secure enough option then why not use that as well? I grant that is a BIG if. No matter how benign the entity you don't want to let your data out of the house. But then we trust banks (third parties) with our money so it isn't that crazy to think that perhaps Google could build a level of trust that would attract businesses to use them even under the most demanding security needs.
As for the shopping thing... I think you have me confused with someone else. I just said office docs, net windows, mp3, file system etc... nothing specific about what you might be browsing at the time.
Word and Excel need $$$ for a license. Yes M$ office has a large online component... mostly afterthought crap stuff if you ask me. As for the enterprise server install setup for remote execution? That really costs a crap load of money. Though yes I would agree this would be something similar in concept. Only instead of needing individual intranet installations across an office install eveyone could have access to a similar setup just from home via Google's servers.
"Yeah, you'd be amazed how often I'm writing technical documentation and suddenly realize I need to go buy a blender from Amazon."
Right... and I am sure you have never been writting some technical documentation and not looked up some info online which you then perhaps cut and pasted... perhaps a URL for further info or related documentation. Amazon is not the net... but then if you did get the urge for a blender then what the hey... people do that already. Its called a networked computer where people do all of their work. This way you could maintain your sessions across multiple systems. Your writing, web browsing, email etc... and wherever you had access and a fat pipe it would be like accessing your home system. No this will never replace having your 'personal system' for comfort and ease of use ( especially for something like writing code), but it would be nice if you did not have to lug around your system in order to have full access to the stuff youa re working on would it not ? Or at least can you be open minded enough to consider that there are those out there who might find that a usefull function.
As for a horrible javascript implementation I couldn't agree more. TIMTOWTDI... or in other words there is more than one way to skin a cat. Javascript and AJAX are not the only answers. Throwing out all the old apps is not the only answer. That would be like throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water. There is this thing known as modifying existing code, you might have heard of it.
Yes Ballmer... missed that, and I even hit preview first, DOUGHT !!
I see a awful lot of comments about how people would preffer to keep their data local or how the browser is just to limited to really use for an office system of any sophistication but no consideration of other options. Like for example having the option of not storing your documents online... or storing them both on and off line. There are other options to either/or scenarios.
I can't argue that web browsers are terribly limited in this respect though. Which is why I really think the answer is the next generation. There is a theory floating about that google is considering a web providing service... sometimes called a parrallel internet. Well how would one access it? How about portal software? Something similar to AOL but something truly unique under the hood instead of being a cheezy skin over default system utilities? IE Google makes its own browser system that includes HTML rendering but which also goes beyond. Something similar to Google Earth only instead of rendering a 3d globe it is a system designed for word processing and spreadsheets. With a large offline component that also uses online functions as needed... and perhaps caches the most commonly accessed ones to speed up the process and to deal with Lag. It may even allow for a full offline functionality that syncs up with its online counterpart as available.
Even without a new 'browser' per say lets just say that Google Office is similar to Google Earth. The on and off line components are blended in and toss in a embedded firefox component that you can switch to if so desired for one stop shopping... IE tabs that include your office documents your working on as well as your net windows... system command line ? MP3 playing ? file browser ? its not to long before your talking about an OS portal... then if you make something like a Knoppix distro for sampling it and allow a full install you can design a system from the ground up to blur the line between on and off line in a way that really has yet to happen for the masses. They can use Windows install base as a stepping stone. If they can get to where people are just using windows to access the google progs then a full up OS replacement may then be possible on a scale that would have Blamer tossing a few more chairs around.
with three 180 degree cameras in a triangular formation it would be three 60 degree overlaps... not 90. dought.
Actually it probably works fine in most situations where it dosn't have to know exactly what happend. In the sky diving example they probably can infer the planes trajectory that you jump out of. Combined with occasionally updates it just smoothly connects the dots and guesses in the mean time how to render the objects it already knows is there.
Same goes for anything else behind you. The stuff dosn't go away just because they don't have a shot of it. They just take what was there, then adjust the perspectives based on your movement information. So in any static environment where what is behind you only changes as you move this could probably work pretty good, especially if they can determin spatial information to avoid clipping issues from the image.
Where this would break down in a hurry would be say a crowd of people, herd of animals, trees blowing in the wind as it could guess but it would also have to animate their motions. That is a pretty daunting concept though not impossible. But the basic landscape isn't something that really changes all that much. Afterall what we are talking about here is an immersive image, not security footage.
Though it seems to me silly not to back it up with another 180 lens done the same way... or perhaps a series of 3 which would mean three 90 degree overlaps to deal with fisheye distortion and full 360 degree coverage 100 percent of the time. Real time stitching of the information together in real time would have to be easier than trying to guess I would think. But then... the guessing is just software and cpu time whereas cameras are hardware... custom hardware tends to be a lot more expensive than software.
"Both sides could only continue preparing for a war that neither could win, in order to *not lose*."
This is only true if the country that didn't back down makes good on its advantage.
The community standard as related to porn distribution most notably challenged by Larry Flynt essentially said the community standard only held sway inso much as it related to public distribution of the content. IE to carry smut on store shelves it had to pass community standards.
The whole case against Flynt was not predicated on the idea that hardcore porn was illegal but that to offer it for distribution was illegal in public places. The idea was to make it legal to create and own but impossible to distribute
Where does this enter into private internet access?
The community standard is essentially distilled down to the household level. IE what content is chosen to be displayed (put on the shelf) at the household level as that is the only exposure.
Unless you want to argue that access to such content from withen larger defined communities (like a town or state) should be regulated.... this is somewhat akin to saying since I live in X location I can not go into a store in Y location because it is denied where I am from.
Damn googling around it looks like somewhere along the road I have gotten goofed on my power notation. Was all prepared to argue that Kw/hr was a pretty standard (albeit counter intuitive) notation for denoting kilowatt hours and it seems there are very few examples of it (though they are out there). I certainly agree with your nit though, its something that bothered me when I first got intrested in alternative power and kept running across that form of notation for killowatt hours... then just fell into the habit cause it is what I kept seeing.
Seems kWh is what it is supposed to be. Damn... new habit to learn and an old one to break.
although thinkin of it as just plane kw * hr isn't always a good thing either. In that example of that bulb consuming 1.8 kWh per day it isn't like it ran at 1000 watts for 1.8 hours.
Eh that was a goof saying 75 watts per hour. The rest of it was right though.
Should have read supplying 75 w/hr * 24 hours.... or for the whole thing
75 w/hr * 24hr / 1000 * 30days * $.07= $3.78 or energy metered every 30 days at 7 cents a kw/hr if you leave a 75 watt bulb on all the time.
Expensive to develop and deploy with little return means no vested intrest in providing it for industry. To go heavy at fusion right now means they get squeezed from both ends. IE it costs more to research and then implement but they have to charge less than the tech they replace otherwise nobody wants to use it. Its a Chicken or the Egg kind of problem. How do you get cheap plentifull fusion power if it dosn't exist already. More importantly, how do you make money making it happen?
As for why the government hasn't made bigger strides? Hmmm a Bush has been president or VP for 20 of the past 28 years (well by the end of Dubbya's current term that is). Major Oil family in a position to influence or outright determine energy policy for most of 30 years, during which time alternative energy research was limited at best. Coincidence ? You decide.
We could probably get off the middle east oil tit with Fission a hell of a lot faster than Fusion. Such a Shame NIMBY has done such damage to that possibility.
You still need a usage over time. 14 kw what ? I know that it is not 14kw/hr per month, they may have said something odd like 14 kw/months. But the kw/hr is the standard of electrical power supply. Average home usage is somewhere around 15kw/hr a day. A 75 watt bulb left on all day burns 1,800 watt hours (75 watts per hour for 24 hours) or 1.8 kw/hr per day or 54 kw/hr a month. At the TVA rate of about 7 cents per kw/hr that is a cool 3.78/3.85 of your electric bill each month.
Everyone has the same ability to provide speech more or less.
Not everyone has the same money to donate. Thus if you equate money to free speach you are essentially giving more power to those with money.
Now granted eloquence and the ability to persuade are not equaly distributed among the population. But I would say that those that are smart/wise enough to effectively sway public opinion are far better suited to providing such influence than those that have money. Considering that 1% of the population has more than 50% of the wealth in this nation I would say that by and large campaign contribution limits are a good thing.
True enough.... but on the 7th and 21st those people had something in common. A BOMB in their backpacks. It was quickly determined the guy didn't have a bomb. He should have then been allowed to go about his business at that point. He certainly should not have been entered into an international suspected terrorist list and had his Flat searched and items taken.
Detaining someone that met a very general profile is questionable but under the circumstances of previous bombings it is understandable. Not letting him go once it was determined he did not have a bomb on his person was a very bad decision.
Something else caught my attention... the evident repeated attempts to add a false allegation to the sequence of events that was constituted as suspicious (ie he failed to get on an available train when he had not) and the idea that "keeping his rucksack with him at all times" was suspicious is beyond silly. What else is someone on the tube supposed to do with their rucksack? Leave it lieing at the turnstile to pick up on their way back?
These are signs of irrationality on the part of law enforcement. People on mass transit with a backpack are going to keep their backpack with them. To suggest that someone who does that is suspect is absurd. Someone doing CYA adding a detail to the report that would make their decision to search/detain the guy seem more reasonable is also a very bad thing. And a very good example of why it is dangerous to erode individual freedoms in the name of 'security'. The old issue of who will watch the watchers.
It is useful at providing hands on astronatical engineering experience for students. And I have little problem allowing all universities doing similar experiments... especially if they are all collaborative excercises like this one.
As for the utility of the rez of the camera it may surprise you to discover that many pictures provided by ISS ops are of similar or lower resolution. Neither are of any real significance when talking about high rez sattelite photography. Hell we don't even know what state of the art is there as it is classified... we do know they have had cameras that could id a pack of smokes from orbit since the 70's. But that sort of optic technology is beyond the budget of an activity like this.
However this rez is useful for stuff like weather systems, ice coverage, algea blooms, drought impacts, and any number of other large scale studies. Again it dosn't have to cover new territory to be useful.
I really don't think the space debris issues is as big a deal as you make it out to be. I think it is worth consideration... but not worth denying universities access for projects of this nature.
Yes but the collisions are really only an issue at great differences in relative velocities. IE something traveling at 17,500 mph isn't going to have much of a problem with something traveling 17,499 if they are in the same orbit.
Furthermore speed determines your orbit altitude so anything in a more or less eastward orbit at the same altitude has essentially the same speed. Now there are issues with stuff in different orbits like say a 45 degree offset of intersecting orbits at which the relative velocities can be fairly high.. I think at 45 degrees it is roughly half.. so for 17,500mpg orbits that would be about a 8500mph collision. Which is nothing to sneeze at.
However most people discussing this tend to forget something... that is that space is big. For example Saturn has far more space debris in its ring system than earth is even close to having. Yet when we send satellites through it we really don't do anything sepcial to avoid debris in the rings. Statisticlly its just open space. Same for all the junk in orbit around earth.
If worse comes to worse for most man made debris I imagine we could develop large electromagnetic systems for collecting metallic debris.
As for the guy that almost got hit in texas... he has about as much chance just being hit by 'natural' space debris as man made. You run more risk of hitting other planes in the air every time you fly than a sattelite runs of being hit by a piece of man made space debris. Also sooner or later all of that debris will come back to earth as its orbit will decay.
Tell the kids involved in making this happen that this thing is not useful. Usefulness is not just about the technical sophistication of a project. This is a hands on project of a nature that few people ever actually get to be a part of.
Space junk is an issue a grant... but why not then just argue that there should be a de-orbit plan that will take it out of orbit. Not argue it shouldn't be up there period.
Ummmm just how do you propose to get it to the ISS this decade? Payload mass on Soyuz is laughable and beyond spoken for. A washing machine sized payload, or even the smaller cube sats has NO chance. Shuttle isn't much better... starting with the simple fact it isn't flying. After that ISS payload space is also spoken for and very behind schedule so again getting these things up there would take a long time and a lot of money clearing NASA's manned certification issues for launching a payload with a crew.
Frankly if you want to actually get science payloads up and running I would suggest ISS as the LAST possibility till they get their act together.
Your point is taken... but Shuttle is a bit more successfull than the goose. 100 some odd missions certainly beats one semi ground effect flight.
It does not have to invalidate the entire field. But as current theories have problems explaining them it would seem any that try to explain will step on some toes. In general people don't like having their 'toes' stepped on. This is not to say that HAS to happen. It is just one possibility. Perhaps a puzzle piece will come to the fore tommorrow which makes it all gel nicely.
All in all I just love the megafauna issue as one which exemplifies just how much we don't know.
Nice to find another person to add to the ole 'freinds' list. Though I preffer to think of it as my list of people I think have stuff worth saying.
Eh favor copmlexity I suppose is a bias... or conceit on my part. But generally speaking we find the farther back we go the less complexity. IE we start at amino acids (theoretically if memory serves) and through some concoction of events we arrive at the single cellular level and on up to today with to say the least not single cell. not even saying we are the most complex or the most prevelant. So complexity is not the only option... neither is not forming complexity so again it goes back to what is rewarded with survival... for whatever reason (better or the idiot). And probabilities say that if some answers involve complexity they are likely to form at some point and if they are possible it is highly unlikely they will not form at some point.
As I understand it if you really get into Darwin, and the various refinements since, it ultimately boils down to numbers. So there is no 100% answer, just probabilities. Throwbacks are possible and predicted but they are not what is common. For example if you say throwbacks are possible would you predict that a throwback biology would be what comes to dominate ? IE that your village idiot proposal is in fact what happend and that it happend for All life on earth ? Cause no known example of biology today exibits the characteristics that would make megafauna possible but it does all show signs of a common origin. UNless I just havn't heard of it yet... which is always possible. So feel free to enlighten me.
Yep have one myself. But if you really use them and study those links on Google you will find that some of those codes are not explained and that it often takes a good while before the info for any new codes in new models is distributed. Also whenever a manufacturer changes their dongle it takes a while for the aftermarket to catch up. Its the same deal as ink jets and toner cartridges.
I shouldn't have to go to google and I shouldn't have to buy an aftermarket device to get information from my car that it already generates. Certainly shouldn't have to wait on legal precedent to give me rights with regards to acceessing that information which is what it took to get to where we are now.
and playing a video game (no matter how realistic) is REAL violence ? Its not a lets pretend ?
Sitting down to a Playstation and pushing the power button is a lets pretend activity. Or are you really suggesting kids are unable to make that distinction? If So I can see your point. But have seen no evidence that this is the case.
By the way I pointed out a lot of problems I see with the system without suggesting solutions.
One. For the tinfoil crowd they need an off switch. Really its probably as simple as a fuse already though lot of time there are multiple elements on a single fused circut. But the system should be able to be turned fully off. And NOT be able to be turned on remotely. Yes the safety of monitoring airbag deployment is nice. But I hold that an individual has the right to choose to not be protected in this manner. When they don't have one I become concerned about privacy issues because I no longer can choose to opt out. Yes it is GM now. You really think if they are successfull with it this will not be standard for all cars in 5 years ?
Two. OBD information should be COMPLETELY open and readily available to owners. And that dosn't mean I go down to the dealer where they can tell me what the car is saying or that I have to maintain a yearly subscription to some service. I want direct access to the information from the car with no intermediaries. When I buy a new car it should come with a CD with access software and dongles for connecting it to my laptop/computer/palm pilot etc. Or perhaps wireless/Blue Tooth. In otherwords the access to this information should be via standard interfaces to common equipment. Not specialized propriatary systems made builky on purpose (Ever seen an OBD system at a dealer?). In all honesty there should be a display in the car or at least available as an option. We have these nice fancy on board car computers and yet they don't (to my knowledge) display OBD info? WHY THE FUCK NOT? And it had better not be some 1000 dollar option. You telling me a 3 or 4 digit LCD with the circutry to display a code the car already computes should cost that much? It should be standard and its long overdue.
Car computers are seriously lagging behind where they should be. And I am ALL for them. But I am not for this bullshit propriatry crap automakers are trying to slip us on the sly.
1. The service is being offered for free now. There is no promise it will remain free and what you want to bet that free extra or not you will have to keep paying the subscription fee in order to keep getting your free updates... and cars don't usually tank in the first year. IE this free service will be most valuable 3-4 yeard down the road when real problems tend to first crop up in new vehicles.
2) Your right this is something that has been possible for years. This information should have been free with the advent of on board diagnostics but has been kept locked down for the most part to propriatery code readers that are at their heart about as complex as a calculator and yet cost dealerships thousands. I bought the car, the car has self diagnostic capability and I should have easy access to that information. It took a court ruling to force manufactureres to even release the code meanings (until recently you could read them with a multimeter) and they still drag their heels on releasing the meaning of ALL codes. Even though it is illegal many dealers will require a minimum fee to pull a car into a service bay and read the codes for a customer.
3)Yes the FBI could track you with or without the help of GM. And tracking everyone isn't the point. The point is the COULD track anyone with this system if it had not be disabled. THere are no complaints about ligitimate uses. The problem is that once the capacity is in place it is possible for it to be abused. Before the ability to tap a car required some effort. Now the damn thing comes tapped and networked to begin with.
4) GM is now offering for Free information that rightfully belongs to the owners of their cars. Whooooptidooo. Again as I pointed out the value of catching problems early will still require maintianing your subscription throughout the life of your ownership of the car. That my friend is not FREE.
5) OBD info is no bad thing. It is when the information is available in such a way to make it highly easy to abuse without the knowledge of the owner that it is so insiduous. Not to mention access to the information for the owner, let me stress that OWNER, of the car is restricted and yes I consider having to maintain a 200 dollar a year subscription fee for a 'free' service to be restricted. The sad thing is that is a better offer than most dealers offer with regard to on board diagnostic information.
On star is a fantastic safety tool. However it is very ignorant to think it is not also a very powerfull tool for invading privacy. Someone joked about the engine being disabled by 'unauthorised access' under the hood. That may be a bit of a stretch. But automakers (Saab I think) actually made a concept car with a sealed engine compartment that could only be opened by propriatary tools. It isn't that much of a stretch for you to buy a car that has a 'seal' of some sort on mechanical access that if it is broken it voids your warranty and the car itself rats you out. That is not good for competition and that is bad for the consumer.