The spacecraft, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., has been orbiting Mars since 1997, with more than 20,000 orbits so far. The Mars Orbiter Camera has already taken more than 120,000 pictures of Mars.
That's about 20,000 images/year, or ~55 pictures per day. At that rate, they'd need quite a few more years to map much more of the surface of mars. Perhaps they could take many pictures of different areas, and once they find an area that seems suitable for a launch (and *gasp*.. maybe a human landing in the future) they could spend some extra time mapping out that entire area.
I just noticed that in the pictures of Mars taken while the Surveyor approaches Mars, there are no stars. Does NASA actually photoshop the images to take out the stars, or is it glare or something from the planet itself that prevents us from seeing the stars? I know they touch up images of nebulae and galaxies to create more aesthetic (and budget-enlarging) pictures, but I would think that images with stars would evoke more of a sense of awe in people.
How about some more images of places that appear to be very flat? These places could serve as great landing places for probes or even humans later. As this is the closest that Mars will be to Earth in something like the next 200 years, I'm kind of dissapointed that we aren't taking more advantage of this unique opportunity by sending people.
As I'm too lazy to read any of those links, this may be a dumb question. Does SeattleWireless TV cover any areas other than Seattle? I'm thinking about Bellevue/Renton in particular.
I find it a little hard to believe that a 19 inch LCD screen (which can cost around $400) and a 19 inch crt (which can cost around $250 to %300) is cheaper after shipping.
Spiffy. I bet they get to play tetris on that thing...
It's always both a shame and nice
on
Secret Empire
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
..that such people are recognized now. If I had contributed to the war effort in such a great way, I'd want to be recognized - but maybe that's just me. I guess that's just a part of war. Like the author said, it is nice to recognize them now. I wonder if any of them are still alive and will read this book?
The problem is that in organizations that use Internet filters (yes, even schools), they can legally control everything that goes across their intranets. They have the final say in what is allowed and what isn't because they're the ones paying the internet bills. In the case of the school, it is completely legal to block sites even if they don't breech the guidelines - I remember reading somewhere that while in public schools, the first amendment is not guaranteed. Teachers that advocate going to church will be fired. Students that post too-liberal signs in school hallways can be suspended or worse. I would assume the same applies to the internet - you are not guaranteed the freedom to view any site you wish.
My school employs N2H2's filtering software. I find it to be rather intrusive and annoying when I'm researching (or simply surfing the internet). In N2H2's defense, writing an intelligent filter that will not make any mistakes is close to impossible. I mean - think of what you're asking! A filter that will make near-human decisions based on a site's content/url... I'd like to see you write one. It would be impossible to manually screen each and every page on the internet each and every time they were updated, which would be the only sure-fire way to keep good pages from getting blocked. However, I am of the opinion that N2H2's filtering software Bess could be a little more effective. It does block rediculous pages at times...
Oh well. Until the software gets better, I'll just continue to write scripts to get past the filters =P
Sure, they might be able to see things in super-fine detail. But how often is there going to be a gas cloud that acts as a perfect lens for whatever you want to look at?
AFAIK, for every 15 BTU's that are put into the process, 100 are taken out in the form of oil and gas. And that is just for turkey waste - those figures would be higher if the material used was plastic bottles, for example. The test facility that is up and running right now is powered by the gasoline that it produces, in fact.
The process is not only designed for turkey waste; it can also be applied to other carbon-based materials. The Discovery article gives examples like tires and plastic bottles, amongst other things.
3D displays would require quite a bit of change in hardware and software to be useful, as far as I can tell. I doubt that any video cards made right now are (currently, anyways) capable of displaying the 3D illusion.
And to take full advantage of 3D displays, it would require 3D file formats, no? New formats for movies and pictures would need to be created. *.mpg3d or *.gif3d or something. It's an interesting idea.
It would be interesting to see the code behind AOL's spam filters. What do they consider spam? Does the email have to contain a certain percentage of capitalized letters, come from a certain user/address, have lots of embedded images etc?
If the filter is anything like the filters in use in public schools and library networks, then it would be a fair guess that quite a few legit emails were blocked by the filters. It seems like writting an intelligent filter is pretty hard.
"A very small fraction", according to the article. However, as it is impossible for the AOL people to go over all 1 billion emails, it would be very hard to say. I would tend to lean towards "enough legit emails discarded to get annoying"
Slashdot Mirror
Taken from the story:
The spacecraft, managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., has been orbiting Mars since 1997, with more than 20,000 orbits so far. The Mars Orbiter Camera has already taken more than 120,000 pictures of Mars.
That's about 20,000 images/year, or ~55 pictures per day. At that rate, they'd need quite a few more years to map much more of the surface of mars. Perhaps they could take many pictures of different areas, and once they find an area that seems suitable for a launch (and *gasp*.. maybe a human landing in the future) they could spend some extra time mapping out that entire area.
I just noticed that in the pictures of Mars taken while the Surveyor approaches Mars, there are no stars. Does NASA actually photoshop the images to take out the stars, or is it glare or something from the planet itself that prevents us from seeing the stars? I know they touch up images of nebulae and galaxies to create more aesthetic (and budget-enlarging) pictures, but I would think that images with stars would evoke more of a sense of awe in people.
How about some more images of places that appear to be very flat? These places could serve as great landing places for probes or even humans later. As this is the closest that Mars will be to Earth in something like the next 200 years, I'm kind of dissapointed that we aren't taking more advantage of this unique opportunity by sending people.
Hmm, nevermind. I was envisioning TV over 802.11b. Seemed cool until I remembered that we already have wireless TV (with antennae)
As I'm too lazy to read any of those links, this may be a dumb question. Does SeattleWireless TV cover any areas other than Seattle? I'm thinking about Bellevue/Renton in particular.
Is there a link to the intel page where you can order these?
I find it a little hard to believe that a 19 inch LCD screen (which can cost around $400) and a 19 inch crt (which can cost around $250 to %300) is cheaper after shipping.
Now if only the RIAA could follow this lead. I don't seen anyone hating disney - oh wait, they're not suing the youth of America.
1.2.3.4.5.6, i believe..
Personally, I just stopped watching satuday morning cartoons altogether when I discovered the internet..
Spiffy. I bet they get to play tetris on that thing...
..that such people are recognized now. If I had contributed to the war effort in such a great way, I'd want to be recognized - but maybe that's just me. I guess that's just a part of war. Like the author said, it is nice to recognize them now. I wonder if any of them are still alive and will read this book?
How? I searched the fandango site and it said that showtimes for Reloaded weren't released yet and that I couldn't buy them.
The problem is that in organizations that use Internet filters (yes, even schools), they can legally control everything that goes across their intranets. They have the final say in what is allowed and what isn't because they're the ones paying the internet bills. In the case of the school, it is completely legal to block sites even if they don't breech the guidelines - I remember reading somewhere that while in public schools, the first amendment is not guaranteed. Teachers that advocate going to church will be fired. Students that post too-liberal signs in school hallways can be suspended or worse. I would assume the same applies to the internet - you are not guaranteed the freedom to view any site you wish.
My school employs N2H2's filtering software. I find it to be rather intrusive and annoying when I'm researching (or simply surfing the internet). In N2H2's defense, writing an intelligent filter that will not make any mistakes is close to impossible. I mean - think of what you're asking! A filter that will make near-human decisions based on a site's content/url... I'd like to see you write one. It would be impossible to manually screen each and every page on the internet each and every time they were updated, which would be the only sure-fire way to keep good pages from getting blocked. However, I am of the opinion that N2H2's filtering software Bess could be a little more effective. It does block rediculous pages at times...
Oh well. Until the software gets better, I'll just continue to write scripts to get past the filters =P
Read the article - it's not gravity that creates the telescopic effect.
Especially when they get it mixed up with atmospheric clouds..
"We don't need new telescopes! Just look through a cloud!"
Sure, they might be able to see things in super-fine detail. But how often is there going to be a gas cloud that acts as a perfect lens for whatever you want to look at?
It's still a cool idea, however.
Hopefully. It would be a shame to have written all those sci-fi books and have them all turn out wrong...
AFAIK, for every 15 BTU's that are put into the process, 100 are taken out in the form of oil and gas. And that is just for turkey waste - those figures would be higher if the material used was plastic bottles, for example.
The test facility that is up and running right now is powered by the gasoline that it produces, in fact.
For those of you that still believe this to be an april fools joke, check out these links:
/ story1.html
www.joplinglobe.com/archives/2001/010729/regional
www.changingworldtech.com/mfceo.html
The process is not only designed for turkey waste; it can also be applied to other carbon-based materials. The Discovery article gives examples like tires and plastic bottles, amongst other things.
I can already see new viruses whose payloads are great big Bill Gates heads that pop out at you..
3D displays would require quite a bit of change in hardware and software to be useful, as far as I can tell. I doubt that any video cards made right now are (currently, anyways) capable of displaying the 3D illusion.
And to take full advantage of 3D displays, it would require 3D file formats, no? New formats for movies and pictures would need to be created. *.mpg3d or *.gif3d or something. It's an interesting idea.
It would be interesting to see the code behind AOL's spam filters. What do they consider spam? Does the email have to contain a certain percentage of capitalized letters, come from a certain user/address, have lots of embedded images etc?
If the filter is anything like the filters in use in public schools and library networks, then it would be a fair guess that quite a few legit emails were blocked by the filters. It seems like writting an intelligent filter is pretty hard.
"A very small fraction", according to the article. However, as it is impossible for the AOL people to go over all 1 billion emails, it would be very hard to say. I would tend to lean towards "enough legit emails discarded to get annoying"