I've seen signals from satellites that were strong, but hopeleesly scrambled, when the signal path went through a stormy section of the ionosphere.
But at least you knew the transmission was scrambled since the data failed to align with the required protocol (e.g. a bad checksum, no magic number, etc.). I think this is what the OP was referring to. If you can get any data from the transmission after the signal has been processed, it's highly likely that its good data.
As far as I'm concerned, it won't be a *real* warhammer MMO until there's a game mode where you can go head-to-head against another player at the army vs army scale. I suppose this could function as a kind of "commander mode" super-imposed onto a traditional MMO PvP framework. After all that's a big part of what makes Warhammer distinct from other Tolkien-like storytelling frameworks.
Of course to make it true to Warhammer, players will have to sit idle for hours while the commanders argue with an admin over the rules...
Personally, I was imagining a sign taped to the back of the monitor reading "Kick Me", "I never shut up." or "Lazy Ass Contractor."
For that matter, a little anthropomorphism would go a long way to make this "friendlier". Just add a manequin torso in place of that pole, and let the monitor be the head. Then let the office dress up the droid however they see fit.
Hawaiian shirt day? No problem - someone will donate a spare. Power meeting with customers, here's a shirt, tie and jacket. Heading down to the server room? Here's an ironic printed T-shirt. Totally bungle that last software patch? Well, let's just hope you weren't trying to impress anyone.
Meanwhile, the remote user can use trippy Max Headroom graphics in the background of the telecast for the full effect. Seriously, this thing is packed full of screw-off potential.
Being someone who lives just over the county line from College Park (I can hear the Terps play half the time and see the light pollution from the stadium), I couldn't agree more.
I saw the documentary too - they've been been mucking about with magnetic fields for a very long time; although their approach seems to be very accident prone. This should clarify things a bit:
I guess you could install a kind of "feedback compressor" not unlike the kind you use for a PA system. It would allow a wide range of pain an sensation types up to a threshold where they get clamped or even reduced far below said threshold as to lessen the possibility of shock or psychological harm to wearer. Even accelerometers could come in handy for figuring out the on-going "trauma status" of the prosthetic, well beyond what flesh and bone can do.
So you could "burn" yourself on the stove as a much needed learning exercise (read: don't break the $10,000 arm), but bamboo shoots under the nails or fingers caught in car doors wouldn't be a problem; freak accidents shouldn't penalize the wearer after all.
And then, of course, is the "off" switch available on the mil-spec model...;)
Keeping your mind alert through talking to a passenger or listening to heavy metal on the radio actually helps prevent this condition.
I alluded to this earlier in the thread, but this is very, very true.
Nothing keeps a solo driver awake and alert during long drives, than doing your best (read:worst) Rob Halford impression while barreling down the interstate.
Singing along to music helps too, especially when it comes to emergency trips where combating drowsyness is a must.
I think the difference between this kind of activity and what is cited in the article is the level of interactivity involved. Simply put, listening to audio is a whole world apart from having a conversation, groping for your phone in your pocket or even looking at driving directions.
But what you suggest, that audiobooks *increase* your awareness, is certainly worth looking into. I, for one, didn't think that was possible.
It's been done. See the Commonwealth of Virginia's controversial "car tax". IMO, its the only fair way to tax people's use of the road that doesn't involve vehicle tracking systems, higher income taxes, higher real-estate taxes, or toll booths everywhere.
The upshot to such a tax is that the state can tax proportionate to your income and/or the vehicle's specifications like weight, size, capacity, and fuel economy. Granted, I have yet to see it done any way other than according to the vehicle's value, but that's another story.
The downside is that if you're in a carpool, or only drive a short distance to work, you get screwed.
Honestly, I don't know why we don't see more utracaps being used in energy-recovery systems, even in EVs.
Think about it: you burn a heck of a lot of juice just breaking the inertia of the car. If you just recovered energy from the brakes, odds are, you're moving again soon since you're probably at a red light. So the caps can be used to handle the needed voltage spike for starting from a dead stop. That'll do wonders for your batteries.
As it happens, this is exactly what caps are used for in consumer electronics: leveling out voltage spikes.
Honestly, I think the single most important thing that Tesla Motors is doing is completely smashing all of the myths regarding electric vehicles. That will do more for opening up the EV market than the other big auto makers ever did.
And the timing is right too. With gas prices starting to spiral, millions of people will be clamoring for a consumer model any day now.
All they need to do is build a sub-compact four-seater, with a 100 mile range, for $15k and they'll have the next model-T.
FWIW, my el-cheapo cellphone has no bluetooth and the USB adapter w/software costs $25 + S&H. That and no kiosk/store in existence carries the adapter.
So one way or another they find a way to make you pay.:(
Okay, can someone please explain to me w(hy)tf organ, muscle, and connective tissues derived from land animals is called meat, but the same derived from aquatic creatures isn't?
This largely due to a misinterpretation of western societiey's Christian legacy. I googled around for "fish on friday" and dug up this:
The real reason why christians do this is still kind of open for debate.
In short, it comes down to a old tradition of "abstaining from eating meat during fasting". Somewhere along the line an exception for fish was made. Since fish were okay, one could (falsely) conclude from this tradition that "fish is not meat". IMO the way surf and turf prepare, behave and taste from one another reinforces this.
As a result, that's the kind of bias injected into the debate, and how strict vs non-strict vegetarians view one another and their meal. Personally, I think it comes down to how "huggable" your would-be lunch is, but that's just me.
I know a lot of fat vegans. I don't know how they do it, they must trough all day on their bean and hummus pittas. A lot of the meat eaters are reasonable weights on the other hand.
That's not all that shocking seeing as how the latest culprits of the "american obesity epidemic" are refined sugar and starch. Second to that are hydrogenated oils, which are made from vegetable products and can be best thought of as a form of "synthetic lard" since it fills the same role in cooking.
In short: calories and fats with no vitamins and/or minerals (salt doesn't count) are the real culprit here. Hummus and pita on the other hand still has some rudimentary nutritional value to it thanks to the chick peas and olive oil.
So you can still be a strict vegetarian and develop metabolic syndrome. Odds are your tubby vegan friends are having plenty of doritos and pepsi along with their beans and rice, or think that "corn-on-the-cob, biscuits, rice and potatoes" is a well balanced meal.
I had no idea what "Bonzai Buddy" was, so I had to look it up.
At first I thought it had something to do with minature trees - maybe something like that light-hearted widget from a decade ago that let you put put animated sheep all over the place. Just install, and park a little plant on your taskbar, and prune it from time-to-time. What would be so wrong about that?
Nope. Instead, you get the frankenstein-like intersection of Grape Ape, Clippy, and GatorWare, along with the disaterous super-set of ethical implications from those aggregate parts. BonziBuddy will verbally abuse your children, sleep with your wife, drain your bank account, kick your dog, eat over the sink, run-up your cellular bill, re-program your favorite channels on the cable remote, and leave the cap off of the toothpaste tube, all after first keying your Lexus on the way up the driveway. It will lumber around on your computer like a 30-something, jobless, unemployed son-in-law that won't leave your couch "'cause X-Play is on". It will do this, all the while screaming "fire bad!", as it stumbles its way to the neighbor's house because you're "out of Mountain Dew and Doritos."
I am very glad that I never had to cross paths with this thing, let alone having to explain to people why they can get what they need if they "just google it".
Or you could wrap them with aerogel (thanks AC!), bury them hollow and then fill them up. Besides, who knows how rigid such a superconductor is - may as well keep the mess below ground in a concrete coffin.
As for the coolant - there's reasons why there are such things as MSDS sheets and safety protocols. No need to have anyone close by when you fill the line, nor is there any reason why it would be charged and full of coolant when you perform a repair.
As for installing on an as-needed basis, not a bad idea. I can see one application already: high-energy particle physics. No need to have the powerplant near the collider when you can construct a dedicated cryo-power line and run 1.21 gigawatts straight into the accelerator. Hell, you could probably pipe the collider's coolant along the same line, provided it's big enough.
Interesting thought - the increased surface area of the inside of the tube would allow for a higher cooling capacity for a given volume of coolant. However, you're talking about a *LOT* of coolant for transmission lines. The system supplying it would have to be something on par with what is used for city water. Insulating that mess is another problem. And then, how do you exchange the heat out, install heat sinks on the towers perhaps?
There's also the concern of what is an acceptable failure mode is for such a system. Right now, aluminum cable is used for high-tension lines, but the only way it can fail is if a line snaps, or if a tower breaks. Adding coolant to the mix creates another thing that must not fail, and is more likely to fail at that.
Captain: Where the hell are your mod points, private?! Damn beauracrat mods must have wandered out into the bacterial fog without their facemasks again. They wouldn't be able to get a damn thing done on this site if it weren't for us and our tanks standing between them and the trolls.
This repair bay looks like hell, clean it up already.
Slashdot Mirror
As far as I'm concerned, it won't be a *real* warhammer MMO until there's a game mode where you can go head-to-head against another player at the army vs army scale. I suppose this could function as a kind of "commander mode" super-imposed onto a traditional MMO PvP framework. After all that's a big part of what makes Warhammer distinct from other Tolkien-like storytelling frameworks.
Of course to make it true to Warhammer, players will have to sit idle for hours while the commanders argue with an admin over the rules...
Personally, I was imagining a sign taped to the back of the monitor reading "Kick Me", "I never shut up." or "Lazy Ass Contractor."
For that matter, a little anthropomorphism would go a long way to make this "friendlier". Just add a manequin torso in place of that pole, and let the monitor be the head. Then let the office dress up the droid however they see fit.
Hawaiian shirt day? No problem - someone will donate a spare. Power meeting with customers, here's a shirt, tie and jacket. Heading down to the server room? Here's an ironic printed T-shirt. Totally bungle that last software patch? Well, let's just hope you weren't trying to impress anyone.
Meanwhile, the remote user can use trippy Max Headroom graphics in the background of the telecast for the full effect. Seriously, this thing is packed full of screw-off potential.
I saw the documentary too - they've been been mucking about with magnetic fields for a very long time; although their approach seems to be very accident prone. This should clarify things a bit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfoXOydWFMM
Namaste, and good luck.
Good point.
;)
I guess you could install a kind of "feedback compressor" not unlike the kind you use for a PA system. It would allow a wide range of pain an sensation types up to a threshold where they get clamped or even reduced far below said threshold as to lessen the possibility of shock or psychological harm to wearer. Even accelerometers could come in handy for figuring out the on-going "trauma status" of the prosthetic, well beyond what flesh and bone can do.
So you could "burn" yourself on the stove as a much needed learning exercise (read: don't break the $10,000 arm), but bamboo shoots under the nails or fingers caught in car doors wouldn't be a problem; freak accidents shouldn't penalize the wearer after all.
And then, of course, is the "off" switch available on the mil-spec model...
Clutch your bag of cane sugar tightly, my friend. For last week I saw the next wave approaching on a powdered juice mix container:
Crystallized HFCS
So there you have it: absolutely nothing the mighty cane can do can be done for cheaper, and at a higher cost for your health, than HFCS. Yuck.
I alluded to this earlier in the thread, but this is very, very true.
Nothing keeps a solo driver awake and alert during long drives, than doing your best (read:worst) Rob Halford impression while barreling down the interstate.
Singing along to music helps too, especially when it comes to emergency trips where combating drowsyness is a must.
I think the difference between this kind of activity and what is cited in the article is the level of interactivity involved. Simply put, listening to audio is a whole world apart from having a conversation, groping for your phone in your pocket or even looking at driving directions.
But what you suggest, that audiobooks *increase* your awareness, is certainly worth looking into. I, for one, didn't think that was possible.
Han Solo: "Shut him up or shut him down."
Me, I'm already on the lookout for any updates with large wooden badgers.
Ah, that explains a few things. Thanks for the reply.
I'm inclined to agree with you.
Republican or not, you have to admit, it's kinda neat to see someone active in politics that has references on pouet.net.
It's been done. See the Commonwealth of Virginia's controversial "car tax". IMO, its the only fair way to tax people's use of the road that doesn't involve vehicle tracking systems, higher income taxes, higher real-estate taxes, or toll booths everywhere.
The upshot to such a tax is that the state can tax proportionate to your income and/or the vehicle's specifications like weight, size, capacity, and fuel economy. Granted, I have yet to see it done any way other than according to the vehicle's value, but that's another story.
The downside is that if you're in a carpool, or only drive a short distance to work, you get screwed.
Exactly.
Honestly, I don't know why we don't see more utracaps being used in energy-recovery systems, even in EVs.
Think about it: you burn a heck of a lot of juice just breaking the inertia of the car. If you just recovered energy from the brakes, odds are, you're moving again soon since you're probably at a red light. So the caps can be used to handle the needed voltage spike for starting from a dead stop. That'll do wonders for your batteries.
As it happens, this is exactly what caps are used for in consumer electronics: leveling out voltage spikes.
Honestly, I think the single most important thing that Tesla Motors is doing is completely smashing all of the myths regarding electric vehicles. That will do more for opening up the EV market than the other big auto makers ever did.
And the timing is right too. With gas prices starting to spiral, millions of people will be clamoring for a consumer model any day now.
All they need to do is build a sub-compact four-seater, with a 100 mile range, for $15k and they'll have the next model-T.
FWIW, my el-cheapo cellphone has no bluetooth and the USB adapter w/software costs $25 + S&H. That and no kiosk/store in existence carries the adapter.
:(
So one way or another they find a way to make you pay.
If I may be so bold: can you clue me in here for a second?
Can't I just buy a phone from kisosk X, with no plan, buy a SIM card+plan from kiosk Y, and be on my way? What am I missing here?
Granted, that's not how *anyone* advertises their services, but all the parts are there AFAIK.
At that scale, you might do better to build a reactor fueled by that explosive material and focus the energy on the target via a beam of some sort.
And of course you'll have to find a suitable location to test it once it's fully operational...
This largely due to a misinterpretation of western societiey's Christian legacy. I googled around for "fish on friday" and dug up this:
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/52049
The real reason why christians do this is still kind of open for debate.
In short, it comes down to a old tradition of "abstaining from eating meat during fasting". Somewhere along the line an exception for fish was made. Since fish were okay, one could (falsely) conclude from this tradition that "fish is not meat". IMO the way surf and turf prepare, behave and taste from one another reinforces this.
As a result, that's the kind of bias injected into the debate, and how strict vs non-strict vegetarians view one another and their meal. Personally, I think it comes down to how "huggable" your would-be lunch is, but that's just me.
That's not all that shocking seeing as how the latest culprits of the "american obesity epidemic" are refined sugar and starch. Second to that are hydrogenated oils, which are made from vegetable products and can be best thought of as a form of "synthetic lard" since it fills the same role in cooking.
In short: calories and fats with no vitamins and/or minerals (salt doesn't count) are the real culprit here. Hummus and pita on the other hand still has some rudimentary nutritional value to it thanks to the chick peas and olive oil.
So you can still be a strict vegetarian and develop metabolic syndrome. Odds are your tubby vegan friends are having plenty of doritos and pepsi along with their beans and rice, or think that "corn-on-the-cob, biscuits, rice and potatoes" is a well balanced meal.
I had no idea what "Bonzai Buddy" was, so I had to look it up.
At first I thought it had something to do with minature trees - maybe something like that light-hearted widget from a decade ago that let you put put animated sheep all over the place. Just install, and park a little plant on your taskbar, and prune it from time-to-time. What would be so wrong about that?
Nope. Instead, you get the frankenstein-like intersection of Grape Ape, Clippy, and GatorWare, along with the disaterous super-set of ethical implications from those aggregate parts. BonziBuddy will verbally abuse your children, sleep with your wife, drain your bank account, kick your dog, eat over the sink, run-up your cellular bill, re-program your favorite channels on the cable remote, and leave the cap off of the toothpaste tube, all after first keying your Lexus on the way up the driveway. It will lumber around on your computer like a 30-something, jobless, unemployed son-in-law that won't leave your couch "'cause X-Play is on". It will do this, all the while screaming "fire bad!", as it stumbles its way to the neighbor's house because you're "out of Mountain Dew and Doritos."
I am very glad that I never had to cross paths with this thing, let alone having to explain to people why they can get what they need if they "just google it".
Or you could wrap them with aerogel (thanks AC!), bury them hollow and then fill them up. Besides, who knows how rigid such a superconductor is - may as well keep the mess below ground in a concrete coffin.
As for the coolant - there's reasons why there are such things as MSDS sheets and safety protocols. No need to have anyone close by when you fill the line, nor is there any reason why it would be charged and full of coolant when you perform a repair.
As for installing on an as-needed basis, not a bad idea. I can see one application already: high-energy particle physics. No need to have the powerplant near the collider when you can construct a dedicated cryo-power line and run 1.21 gigawatts straight into the accelerator. Hell, you could probably pipe the collider's coolant along the same line, provided it's big enough.
Interesting thought - the increased surface area of the inside of the tube would allow for a higher cooling capacity for a given volume of coolant. However, you're talking about a *LOT* of coolant for transmission lines. The system supplying it would have to be something on par with what is used for city water. Insulating that mess is another problem. And then, how do you exchange the heat out, install heat sinks on the towers perhaps?
There's also the concern of what is an acceptable failure mode is for such a system. Right now, aluminum cable is used for high-tension lines, but the only way it can fail is if a line snaps, or if a tower breaks. Adding coolant to the mix creates another thing that must not fail, and is more likely to fail at that.
Captain: Where the hell are your mod points, private?! Damn beauracrat mods must have wandered out into the bacterial fog without their facemasks again. They wouldn't be able to get a damn thing done on this site if it weren't for us and our tanks standing between them and the trolls.
This repair bay looks like hell, clean it up already.