I went to see a movie about ocean life just last month. The IMAX theatre in dallas just uses polarized lenses. This technique works quite well, but you have to be sure you don't tilt your head or you lose the filtering in each lense. Some of the light though does get through the filter, and this can cause the image to look a little blurry on a brightly lit image.
I'm not sure if it was because of my eyes trying to focus on the blurry image, or the fact that the focal distance of the IMAX cameras doesn't match up to each person, but after an hour and a half i did get a bit of a headache and my eyes muscles felt tired.
I've had a blowout on highway doing 60 through Fort Worth traffic. Right before it blew (1 second to react) I realized something was wrong with the tire. At the time i was in the far left lane of a 3 lane highway. Luckily to the right of me it was clear and i started to move towards the shoulder. halfway out of my lane it blew and i crossed the other two lanes without much difficulty.
The thing that made this an easy recover was that i was driving a front wheel drive toyota corolla and it was one of the rear wheels that blew.
It really freaked me and my wife out when it was happening. Later though i realized that we really wern't in much danger since it was a rear tire and i knew something was about to happen.
A cousin of mine who was a hemophiliac contracted HIV from donor blood. They discovered he had it after tests run by the company making the treatments. They had discovered a bad batch had been released for use. He was around 18-20 at the time and lived to about 25-26 before his immune system succumbed to the HIV. That was about 15 years ago.
I've had a Logitech Dinovo Bluetooth keyboard and mouse set for over a year now, the keyboard will go several months on 4AA's, and the mouse will last several days on a charge.
It might be a bit more expensive for controllers, but with native ability to add any bluetooth device to the console, such as mouse, keyboard, headset. It seems like it would be a no-brainer.
I posted a story early this morning as well.. which was rejected too.. *sigh*
It's now been about 7 hours since i found the exeem lite program, and only 40 minutes since slashdot listed the launch of exeem.com website. When i was first able to connect with the exeem lite program there was only about 2000 users total. That slowly rose to about 4000 over the course of the day. Then exeem.com launched and the slashdot story was posted within minutes. The current count of users is up to 30k. 25k joined within 30 minutes of it reaching a major news source. Thats a major jump in traffic. And so far it has been fast and responsive.
I created a site for discusion about the program and bittorrent in general. If anyone wants to check it out you can find it here http://www.exeem-torrents.com
Here's my personal definition of 'self consciousness'.
1. Can it learn beyond its preprogrammed functions for learning? 2. Is it unique in its 'thoughts' and 'ideals'? 3. Can it improve its knowledge based on its past experiences and the experiences of others?
I look at this as if it were a pet. My dogs, however unintelligent they may be, still fit into each one of these categories. They can learn whats right and wrong, even if I'm scolding or praising the other dog. Each one has a unique personality. And they surprise me at times with what they actually comprehend when I talk with them. It doesn't have to be a complicated definition to work for almost everything.
Ok, I'm going to bite. Let the apple fanatics flame me for it.
Apple has done a really great job of marketing the iPod and the iTunes music store. And they are both great products. So good that they own a large majority of the market in each area with only a small amount of competition. Arguably that would be considered a monopoly in digital music sales, both hardware and content. There is no doubt that apple is using the success of one product to lock you in to the other. The exact same thing Microsoft has done with its OS and browser.
When Microsoft does it, everyone complains how they are using their monopoly to control the browser wars. But when apple does it everyone makes excuses. Example... "You can always burn it to a cd then rip to mp3". Well with Microsoft you could always download a different browser.
The issue is Microsoft had a monopoly on the OS and they used it to gain an unfair advantage in the browser wars. So why is it that apple can do the exact same thing with online digital music?
Packet8 Video
on
The Other VoIP
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I'm not sure of how many months were meant by several, but packet8 had it whenever i started service with them. And if i remember right that was back in January.
Even in corporations where there is an IT staff, I see computers brought in all the time full of spy-ware and viruses so, you can't say that since there is an IT staff there won't be any problems. In our own environment we used 2k for a few years, and now use XP. I never reboot my computer unless absolutely needed, it runs 24/7. I do development with VS, flash, Photoshop, and several other environments. With 2k I would have to reboot at least once a week to keep things stable sometimes more than once in a day. With XP I only reboot once every 2 weeks to once a month. In my personal experience XP is a much more stable environment.
Suprisingly enough cell phone providers now have 2 numbers associated with a phone. A MIN (Mobile Identification Number) which does not change, and a cell phone number which can change to anything the provider wants, so now the phone number is just a lookup for the MIN number. Thats how providers were able to get number portability to work.
The real problem is law enforcement is usually lazy, partly because of all the work that they have to do already. They want to get the fastest most believable answer they can. Which can lead to false arrests and even innocent people going to jail over circumstantial evidence. Lets say one of your "friends" borrows your car while your sleeping. Drives past one of those cameras, and a little later robs a convenience store before bringing your car back. He was wearing a mask so the clerk couldn't see his face. As he drove away the clerk gets the description of the car, a database search reveals it was your car, therefore you are now guilty until proven innocent.
Or another example, you did some things in the past and served your time. However a crime was committed just like you had done in the past, around the same time your vehicle was in the area. You are now automatically a suspect and on the top of their list if they don't have any other leads. Less likely to be guilty until proven innocent, but you can bet they will want to question you, hold you, keep you from leaving town, probe into your private life etc... until they find out better information or give up on finding evidence about you.
The real issue is technology helps things like this become more common, and the law is turning more and more into "guilty until proven innocent" over circumstantial evidence because people don't understand how fallible these systems are when used solely by themselves to convict someone.
The reason governments can controll who gets to drive and who cannot, Is becuase if you can't drive well enough to pass a driving test, then you are much more likely to infringe on someone elses rights when you cause an accident. The same goes for DUI, prison, and other ways the government may remove your rights.
Everyone is guaranteed to start off with basic rights (but it doesn't always happen that way). But if you are infringing on anothers right, or the possibility of you infringing on anothers right is too high, then that right will be taken away.
More than likely they will come up with a way to do it completely without any implantation. At least for reading impulses from the brain. It would just require sensors that are far more accurate and sensitive than what we have now.
One thing that would work, but still require everyone to switch to the new system in a reasonable time is if you used the.mail tld only for reverse lookups. Everyones email address would stay the same, smtp would not change, and mx records would not change. Only the allow and deny processes of the smpt server would change. If the ip reverse lookup has a.mail tld then allow traffic through, if not then block it with a special error code.
This would make it so only the servers that register their information can send out email, it would help stop virus propagation, becuase they would have to relay through a.mail server to get sent out. If too much spam or viruses are sent out then the server gets blacklisted untill it is fixed. Most companies keep a close watch on virus emails and spam that individuals are sending through their server and block those that they need to. And those that don't deserve to be blacklisted.
Spam companies would have to register for a.mail tld to send out from their own servers, which means they are now easily traceable, less likely to use illegal tactics, and easier to block.
While it's not a perfect solution, it is better than the current situation. And would only require one registration process per company.
The only downside is for those that cannot controll their own reverse lookup information. It would cause a lot of problems for smaller companies with uncooperative isp's.
I don't know much about them, other than the fact that we have a snap server that we use for daily backups for our webservers. It came with 2 of the IBM drives. Both failed within a few weeks. We got replacments and those failed as well within a few weeks. We made sure the next replacements were not the same brand, and we havn't had any problems since.
I use the newest logitech Bluetooth mouse and keyboard. It encrypts both the keyboard and keypad, so anyone snooping would only be able to trace my mouse commands.
Imagine trying to drive a car, but instead of sitting behind the wheel you have to use these long sticks to turn the wheel, push the gas, and push brake. Even after to getting accustomed to it, there would still be a larger delay in reaction, more likelihood of missing the gas or brake, and far less control in fine steering. This is the way we are with computers at the moment, putting a keyboard and mouse in our hands, simply because we are to far away from the computer (interface wise).
Right now the technology is very limited to just controlling a mouse. How long does it normally take you to think about closing a website page, to actually clicking the button? 1 - 2 seconds? Even longer for those with muscle control problems. Now think about being able to do that as soon as you thought it. In the course of the day you just saved half an hour of web browsing. Think about doing that with a keyboard. 300 words per minute will be child's play. And that's just changing the interface from muscle movements to thought for a keyboard and mouse.
Now think further down the road when we learn even more, and improve the connections. People that can't speak can now synthesize their own voice with just thought. Programming would no longer be typing in lines of code, simply thinking of a conditional statement, or looping structure would create it. No more having to get up to turn off the lights, or stumbling over something in the dark to reach the switch.
Instead of being limited by hardware interfaces, we would only be limited in how fast we can think, and the hardware we are interfaced with.
This is the one I have here.
I use it to carry my 16" pro-star desktop replacement laptop. It weighs in at about 12 lbs, with about an extra 5 lbs in accessories. And due to the design, I can carry it for hours without hardly any fatigue on my shoulders. I've had it now for 2 years and it still looks brand new.
I don't use Dreamweaver any longer, for the simple fact i code just as fast or faster by hand with a text editor. But it is the tool i suggest to everyone else when they are designing web pages. Out of all the WYSIWYG editors, Dreamweaver has been at the top for years, and still is. It's the most compliant, produces code that is less bloated than anything else, and doesn't screw up my hand coded pages. No other editor I know of can do that.
As far as flash goes, I never considered it to have a language of its own until flash 5, that's when it began to be usable for web applications. Flash MX furthered the standard, and even more was possible, but it still had its limitations. Now with the newest MX 2004, flash has become a very good development tool. With webservice calls built in, xml objects, and form objects, it has finally switched from being an animation tool, to a web development tool. Almost everyone associates flash with short little animations, or annoying ads, but no one has seen the true capabilities of flash yet because there are not many people that use it as a development tool. The majority of people who use flash are designers, not programmers. There is at least one shopping cart where the entire GUI is in flash, and it works great. I myself have written web based graphing applications for oil companies, because they needed something they could print out from the data they receive instead of paying someone to draw it by hand and make copies for everyone else. Flash still has a ways to go before it can be used for mainstream web applications, but it's not far off at the moment.
Slashdot Mirror
I went to see a movie about ocean life just last month. The IMAX theatre in dallas just uses polarized lenses. This technique works quite well, but you have to be sure you don't tilt your head or you lose the filtering in each lense. Some of the light though does get through the filter, and this can cause the image to look a little blurry on a brightly lit image.
I'm not sure if it was because of my eyes trying to focus on the blurry image, or the fact that the focal distance of the IMAX cameras doesn't match up to each person, but after an hour and a half i did get a bit of a headache and my eyes muscles felt tired.
I've had a blowout on highway doing 60 through Fort Worth traffic. Right before it blew (1 second to react) I realized something was wrong with the tire. At the time i was in the far left lane of a 3 lane highway. Luckily to the right of me it was clear and i started to move towards the shoulder. halfway out of my lane it blew and i crossed the other two lanes without much difficulty.
The thing that made this an easy recover was that i was driving a front wheel drive toyota corolla and it was one of the rear wheels that blew.
It really freaked me and my wife out when it was happening. Later though i realized that we really wern't in much danger since it was a rear tire and i knew something was about to happen.
Keller TX has it through verizon. A semi rural area just north of Fort Worth.
A cousin of mine who was a hemophiliac contracted HIV from donor blood. They discovered he had it after tests run by the company making the treatments. They had discovered a bad batch had been released for use. He was around 18-20 at the time and lived to about 25-26 before his immune system succumbed to the HIV. That was about 15 years ago.
If I had mod points you'd be getting them.
I would love it if they used bluetooth for it.
I've had a Logitech Dinovo Bluetooth keyboard and mouse set for over a year now, the keyboard will go several months on 4AA's, and the mouse will last several days on a charge.
It might be a bit more expensive for controllers, but with native ability to add any bluetooth device to the console, such as mouse, keyboard, headset. It seems like it would be a no-brainer.
It's now been about 7 hours since i found the exeem lite program, and only 40 minutes since slashdot listed the launch of exeem.com website. When i was first able to connect with the exeem lite program there was only about 2000 users total. That slowly rose to about 4000 over the course of the day. Then exeem.com launched and the slashdot story was posted within minutes. The current count of users is up to 30k. 25k joined within 30 minutes of it reaching a major news source. Thats a major jump in traffic. And so far it has been fast and responsive.
I created a site for discusion about the program and bittorrent in general. If anyone wants to check it out you can find it here http://www.exeem-torrents.com
But it still works great... for now.
Here's my personal definition of 'self consciousness'.
1. Can it learn beyond its preprogrammed functions for learning?
2. Is it unique in its 'thoughts' and 'ideals'?
3. Can it improve its knowledge based on its past experiences and the experiences of others?
I look at this as if it were a pet. My dogs, however unintelligent they may be, still fit into each one of these categories. They can learn whats right and wrong, even if I'm scolding or praising the other dog. Each one has a unique personality. And they surprise me at times with what they actually comprehend when I talk with them. It doesn't have to be a complicated definition to work for almost everything.
Ok, I'm going to bite. Let the apple fanatics flame me for it. Apple has done a really great job of marketing the iPod and the iTunes music store. And they are both great products. So good that they own a large majority of the market in each area with only a small amount of competition. Arguably that would be considered a monopoly in digital music sales, both hardware and content. There is no doubt that apple is using the success of one product to lock you in to the other. The exact same thing Microsoft has done with its OS and browser. When Microsoft does it, everyone complains how they are using their monopoly to control the browser wars. But when apple does it everyone makes excuses. Example... "You can always burn it to a cd then rip to mp3". Well with Microsoft you could always download a different browser. The issue is Microsoft had a monopoly on the OS and they used it to gain an unfair advantage in the browser wars. So why is it that apple can do the exact same thing with online digital music?
I'm not sure of how many months were meant by several, but packet8 had it whenever i started service with them. And if i remember right that was back in January.
Thats about right. Though most of the time it's another program that is at fault and not XP itself.
Even in corporations where there is an IT staff, I see computers brought in all the time full of spy-ware and viruses so, you can't say that since there is an IT staff there won't be any problems. In our own environment we used 2k for a few years, and now use XP. I never reboot my computer unless absolutely needed, it runs 24/7. I do development with VS, flash, Photoshop, and several other environments. With 2k I would have to reboot at least once a week to keep things stable sometimes more than once in a day. With XP I only reboot once every 2 weeks to once a month. In my personal experience XP is a much more stable environment.
Suprisingly enough cell phone providers now have 2 numbers associated with a phone. A MIN (Mobile Identification Number) which does not change, and a cell phone number which can change to anything the provider wants, so now the phone number is just a lookup for the MIN number. Thats how providers were able to get number portability to work.
Or another example, you did some things in the past and served your time. However a crime was committed just like you had done in the past, around the same time your vehicle was in the area. You are now automatically a suspect and on the top of their list if they don't have any other leads. Less likely to be guilty until proven innocent, but you can bet they will want to question you, hold you, keep you from leaving town, probe into your private life etc... until they find out better information or give up on finding evidence about you.
The real issue is technology helps things like this become more common, and the law is turning more and more into "guilty until proven innocent" over circumstantial evidence because people don't understand how fallible these systems are when used solely by themselves to convict someone.
The reason governments can controll who gets to drive and who cannot, Is becuase if you can't drive well enough to pass a driving test, then you are much more likely to infringe on someone elses rights when you cause an accident. The same goes for DUI, prison, and other ways the government may remove your rights. Everyone is guaranteed to start off with basic rights (but it doesn't always happen that way). But if you are infringing on anothers right, or the possibility of you infringing on anothers right is too high, then that right will be taken away.
More than likely they will come up with a way to do it completely without any implantation. At least for reading impulses from the brain. It would just require sensors that are far more accurate and sensitive than what we have now.
This would make it so only the servers that register their information can send out email, it would help stop virus propagation, becuase they would have to relay through a .mail server to get sent out. If too much spam or viruses are sent out then the server gets blacklisted untill it is fixed. Most companies keep a close watch on virus emails and spam that individuals are sending through their server and block those that they need to. And those that don't deserve to be blacklisted.
Spam companies would have to register for a .mail tld to send out from their own servers, which means they are now easily traceable, less likely to use illegal tactics, and easier to block.
While it's not a perfect solution, it is better than the current situation. And would only require one registration process per company.
The only downside is for those that cannot controll their own reverse lookup information. It would cause a lot of problems for smaller companies with uncooperative isp's.
I don't know much about them, other than the fact that we have a snap server that we use for daily backups for our webservers. It came with 2 of the IBM drives. Both failed within a few weeks. We got replacments and those failed as well within a few weeks. We made sure the next replacements were not the same brand, and we havn't had any problems since.
I use the newest logitech Bluetooth mouse and keyboard. It encrypts both the keyboard and keypad, so anyone snooping would only be able to trace my mouse commands.
Imagine trying to drive a car, but instead of sitting behind the wheel you have to use these long sticks to turn the wheel, push the gas, and push brake. Even after to getting accustomed to it, there would still be a larger delay in reaction, more likelihood of missing the gas or brake, and far less control in fine steering. This is the way we are with computers at the moment, putting a keyboard and mouse in our hands, simply because we are to far away from the computer (interface wise). Right now the technology is very limited to just controlling a mouse. How long does it normally take you to think about closing a website page, to actually clicking the button? 1 - 2 seconds? Even longer for those with muscle control problems. Now think about being able to do that as soon as you thought it. In the course of the day you just saved half an hour of web browsing. Think about doing that with a keyboard. 300 words per minute will be child's play. And that's just changing the interface from muscle movements to thought for a keyboard and mouse. Now think further down the road when we learn even more, and improve the connections. People that can't speak can now synthesize their own voice with just thought. Programming would no longer be typing in lines of code, simply thinking of a conditional statement, or looping structure would create it. No more having to get up to turn off the lights, or stumbling over something in the dark to reach the switch. Instead of being limited by hardware interfaces, we would only be limited in how fast we can think, and the hardware we are interfaced with.
This is the one I have here. I use it to carry my 16" pro-star desktop replacement laptop. It weighs in at about 12 lbs, with about an extra 5 lbs in accessories. And due to the design, I can carry it for hours without hardly any fatigue on my shoulders. I've had it now for 2 years and it still looks brand new.
I don't use Dreamweaver any longer, for the simple fact i code just as fast or faster by hand with a text editor. But it is the tool i suggest to everyone else when they are designing web pages. Out of all the WYSIWYG editors, Dreamweaver has been at the top for years, and still is. It's the most compliant, produces code that is less bloated than anything else, and doesn't screw up my hand coded pages. No other editor I know of can do that. As far as flash goes, I never considered it to have a language of its own until flash 5, that's when it began to be usable for web applications. Flash MX furthered the standard, and even more was possible, but it still had its limitations. Now with the newest MX 2004, flash has become a very good development tool. With webservice calls built in, xml objects, and form objects, it has finally switched from being an animation tool, to a web development tool. Almost everyone associates flash with short little animations, or annoying ads, but no one has seen the true capabilities of flash yet because there are not many people that use it as a development tool. The majority of people who use flash are designers, not programmers. There is at least one shopping cart where the entire GUI is in flash, and it works great. I myself have written web based graphing applications for oil companies, because they needed something they could print out from the data they receive instead of paying someone to draw it by hand and make copies for everyone else. Flash still has a ways to go before it can be used for mainstream web applications, but it's not far off at the moment.