Ah, I see. Normally when talking about that direction the phrase, "You can't grep a dead tree," is used. (I also jumped in late to the discussion. Either you're confusing me with an earlier respondent or we've discussed in cross purposes before. I don't tend to keep track of such things.)
Generally you can't "rip" something that isn't already in a digital form. That's changing with vinyl and cassettes as devices come out that will digitize them. The two things that are preventing easy consumer conversion of books to files are the lack of photocopiers that will turn pages for you and the inaccuracy of OCR software. (And to those relying on it, try running the result back through a text-to-speech engine to catch some of the more glaring errors.)
For me, however, there have been exactly two books which I had enough interest to manually type into a computer to have an electronic copy. They were the manual for GBBS "Pro" (into Microsoft Word so I could have a nice laser-printed edition) and the novelization of the movie WarGames (green title, not the Science Fiction Book Club red-titled version (expurgated of drug references), into AppleWorks). The latter was my first, just because I could, and is probably lost by now.
Today, I'd only consider the five books of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to be worth the personal effort, except they've already been done. And I own two purchased hard copy sets.
I loved Pinball Construction Set so much that when I learned how games worked on the Apple II series I wanted to create an upgrader for PCS games to convert them not only to ProDOS-compatible games but also upgrade the graphics to Apple IIgs graphics. Since every game converted to standalone was exactly the same size, I figured that it would just be a matter of converting the raster graphics images, the playfield image, and the lookup table to make it work, while any excess screen space would be mine to do with as I pleased.
Alas, like my other dreams of upgrading Apple II games to Apple IIgs games, college education got in the way long enough to extinguish those plans. I never got around to doing a complete disassembly like I'd done with Sabotage. Well, not having a 65c816 assembler was also got in the way.
I remember a "Simon and Simon" episode (early 80's) that featured a whiz kid with an Apple II Plus. The plot focused on his hacking abilities, but he was also shown playing Raster Blaster.
Simon & Simon had a crossover with the short-lived series Whiz Kids, with first A.J. Simon appearing on a Whiz Kids story, then the two brothers visiting Richie Adler in a Simon & Simon episode. One or both of these may be what you're remembering.
While Simon & Simon is being released on DVD, there's no sign of Whiz Kids being released. I hope they at least include the crossover Whiz Kids episode with Season 3 of Simon & Simon.
I managed to get that game stuck in an unplayable situation where the camera was no longer focused on the playfield. Persistently. Across all the tables. I don't recall now what I had to do to get it working again.
Is there something about a Kindle that inhibits the use of a photocopier?
Some photocopiers even offer crop and zoom options you can use to remove the Kindle itself from the photocopy, and it wouldn't take much skill to create a circuit to have a relay push the Next Page button when an optical sensor sees the photocopier's light sweep by.
Even better if you can find one that will take two scans and print them as page and facing-page on both sides. Cut the sheets in half and bind them however you like and you've created two bound hard copies.
Also, some photocopiers can scan to PDFs rather than print. You might be able to script a program controlling a flat bed scanner to do the same, or to OCR into a text file.
It doesn't need a very large power source. It's still a landmine
And generally installed outdoors where there's a very large fusion power source accessible all day long. They make receptors for this power source that are so small that they fit in pocket-sized computing devices!
Of course, they're already quite willing to blow up cell phone batteries, so....
2) It is BROADCASTING A SIGNAL which might make it very easy to find (once you know to look for it).
If it broadcasts continuously or just frequently enough to be noticed. Instead it stays silent most of the time, and when it does transmit, it can receive the RFID data and detonate far faster than you can react if you detected the signal.
So even running a drone vehicle with 500 US passport RFID tags on board ahead of your convoy won't guarantee that the road is clear.
I think it might be determined by what contract Comcast was relaying the broadcast signal. I think they're only allowed a limited amount of replacing broadcast ads in certain breaks with their own ads. (I remember watching MTV simulcast over FM on the cable and hearing the national ad with the local cable ad's video.) An argument could be made that the public was expecting to see the same content as they would over the airwaves, governed by the same broadcast content standards, and that Comcast has a responsibility to preserve those standards in their activity as a relay.
I wouldn't want to be Comcast in any lawsuits over this. Imagine if it were an ad for Dr. John's Adult Novelties and Boutique in the commercial break of... of... damn, what are the current crop of children's programs on broadcast commercial television these days?
No specifications were revealed but DNA, a daily newspaper, has mentioned that it will be small and portable, will feature Wi-Fi, LAN, and expandable memory, and will operate on 2 watts of power.
User interface devices and storage media sold separately.
Seriously, imagine what you could do with a small CCD and a mobile chassis for just one of these babies without those extra items, if not a hundred of them for $1000.
Now I just need heat-seeking pistol rounds and I can recreate the setting of the movie Runaway.
[interrupting Missile Mike] Max: Hi. I'm doing a survey on this kind of mindless violence and its effect on the mind-mind-mind-mindless. Do you believe all that killing is necessary? Does it s-s-s-scare you? Raker: Me? Max: Yes! Yes! You with that plank on whee-whee-whee-whee-wheels. What is its effect-t-t-t on you? Raker: You can see me? Max: Well. That was a fas-fas-fascinating discussion and I think you've answered my question. Thank you-you-you-you, thank you... for your help.
Right now the police can pull you over and ask for your license. Don't show it and you see the inside of a cell.
Only if you've been witnessed driving without it. If you're a passenger or otherwise not driving, you can be compelled to truthfully identify yourself, but you don't need corroborating documentation.
This doesn't mean the authority involved won't overstep his bounds and arrest you anyway for failure to comply with (IAOO -- In the Armed Officer's Opinion) a lawful order and/or interfering in police business.
"Well," he said, "it's to do with the project which first made the software incarnation of the company profitable. It was called Reason, and in its own way it was sensational."
"What was it?"
"Well, it was a kind of back-to-front program. It's funny how many of the best ideas are just an old idea back-to-front. You see there have already been several programs written that help you to arrive at decisions by properly ordering and analysing all the relevant facts so that they then point naturally towards the right decision. The drawback with these is that the decision which all the properly ordered and analysed facts point to is not necessarily the one you want."
"Yeeeess..." said Reg's voice from the kitchen.
"Well, Gordon's great insight was to design a program which allowed you to specify in advance what decision you wished it to reach, and only then to give it all the facts. The program's task, which it was able to accomplish with consummate ease, was simply to construct a plausible series of logical-sounding steps to connect the premises with the conclusion.
"And I have to say that it worked brilliantly. Gordon was able to buy himself a Porsche almost immediately despite being completely broke and a hopeless driver. Even his bank manager was unable to find fault with his reasoning. Even when Gordon wrote it off three weeks later."
"Heavens. And did the program sell very well?"
"No. We never sold a single copy."
"You astonish me. It sounds like a real winner to me."
"It was," said Richard hesitantly. "The entire project was bought up, lock, stock and barrel, by the Pentagon. The deal put WayForward on a very sound financial foundation. Its moral foundation, on the other hand, is not something I would want to trust my weight to. I've recently been analysing a lot of the arguments put forward in favour of the Star Wars project, and if you know what you're looking for, the pattern of the algorithms is very clear.
"So much so, in fact, that looking at Pentagon policies over the last couple of years I think I can be fairly sure that the US Navy is using version 2.00 of the program, while the Air Force for some reason only has the beta-test version of 1.5. Odd, that."
"Do you have a copy?"
"Certainly not," said Richard, "I wouldn't have anything to do with it. Anyway, when the Pentagon bought everything, they bought everything. Every scrap of code, every disk, every notebook. I was glad to see the back of it. If indeed we have. I just busy myself with my own projects."
Kinda hard to have a video conference when you have to be on both sides of the device at once for it to work.
Stand facing a mirror or other reflective surface.
Even better if the camera was on the edge. Then you can hold it to your ear and not only have it read your reflection but maybe also project the other party into the mirror and onto your own face (forehead, cheek, fogged or frosted part of the mirror, whatever). Digital filters can remove the projected image from the image sent to the other party in real time.
Except you'd need it on two edges to handle left- and right-eared (and ambiauditory?) people.
Even without a parallax effect or tracking the user's eyes, it could still have the effect of The Polaroid from The Lost Room for augmented reality which would be cool, especially when combined with the iPhone knowing its orientation and position.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, I see. Normally when talking about that direction the phrase, "You can't grep a dead tree," is used. (I also jumped in late to the discussion. Either you're confusing me with an earlier respondent or we've discussed in cross purposes before. I don't tend to keep track of such things.)
Generally you can't "rip" something that isn't already in a digital form. That's changing with vinyl and cassettes as devices come out that will digitize them. The two things that are preventing easy consumer conversion of books to files are the lack of photocopiers that will turn pages for you and the inaccuracy of OCR software. (And to those relying on it, try running the result back through a text-to-speech engine to catch some of the more glaring errors.)
For me, however, there have been exactly two books which I had enough interest to manually type into a computer to have an electronic copy. They were the manual for GBBS "Pro" (into Microsoft Word so I could have a nice laser-printed edition) and the novelization of the movie WarGames (green title, not the Science Fiction Book Club red-titled version (expurgated of drug references), into AppleWorks). The latter was my first, just because I could, and is probably lost by now.
Today, I'd only consider the five books of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to be worth the personal effort, except they've already been done. And I own two purchased hard copy sets.
I guess I may be a bit OCD.
I loved Pinball Construction Set so much that when I learned how games worked on the Apple II series I wanted to create an upgrader for PCS games to convert them not only to ProDOS-compatible games but also upgrade the graphics to Apple IIgs graphics. Since every game converted to standalone was exactly the same size, I figured that it would just be a matter of converting the raster graphics images, the playfield image, and the lookup table to make it work, while any excess screen space would be mine to do with as I pleased.
Alas, like my other dreams of upgrading Apple II games to Apple IIgs games, college education got in the way long enough to extinguish those plans. I never got around to doing a complete disassembly like I'd done with Sabotage. Well, not having a 65c816 assembler was also got in the way.
I remember a "Simon and Simon" episode (early 80's) that featured a whiz kid with an Apple II Plus. The plot focused on his hacking abilities, but he was also shown playing Raster Blaster.
Simon & Simon had a crossover with the short-lived series Whiz Kids, with first A.J. Simon appearing on a Whiz Kids story, then the two brothers visiting Richie Adler in a Simon & Simon episode. One or both of these may be what you're remembering.
While Simon & Simon is being released on DVD, there's no sign of Whiz Kids being released. I hope they at least include the crossover Whiz Kids episode with Season 3 of Simon & Simon.
Merry Christmas
One of the best damn games on the Wii.
I managed to get that game stuck in an unplayable situation where the camera was no longer focused on the playfield. Persistently. Across all the tables. I don't recall now what I had to do to get it working again.
Alan Cox does assure us that Linux is now working on 64-bit time, and the UNIX epoch 'roll-over' would happen about the time that the sun burnt out."
No, I think he meant "when Sun burns out."
Either that or he knows something we don't about the nature of time. (Or is that "knew something we won't"?)
there is no easy way to rip a book.
Is there something about a Kindle that inhibits the use of a photocopier?
Some photocopiers even offer crop and zoom options you can use to remove the Kindle itself from the photocopy, and it wouldn't take much skill to create a circuit to have a relay push the Next Page button when an optical sensor sees the photocopier's light sweep by.
Even better if you can find one that will take two scans and print them as page and facing-page on both sides. Cut the sheets in half and bind them however you like and you've created two bound hard copies.
Also, some photocopiers can scan to PDFs rather than print. You might be able to script a program controlling a flat bed scanner to do the same, or to OCR into a text file.
Is there a service out there than can convert YouTube videos into an animated GIF or a series of still images?
I think the A380 will be a success because there will be more cattle to transport at a more effective cost...
Yeah... Great guess which plane I will be avoiding!!!!
Is it not the one that flies people to volcanoes to be blown up with nuclear bombs?
Compounds with strong ionic bonds tend to disassociate completely in water forming the constituent ions
When did the saltwater oceans explode in a chemical reaction with sodium and produce a massive cloud of poisonous chlorine gas in your world?
(Sucks to be Utah.)
Do they have any idea what this will do to the liver and onion market on Reticula?
It doesn't need a very large power source. It's still a landmine
And generally installed outdoors where there's a very large fusion power source accessible all day long. They make receptors for this power source that are so small that they fit in pocket-sized computing devices!
Of course, they're already quite willing to blow up cell phone batteries, so....
2) It is BROADCASTING A SIGNAL which might make it very easy to find (once you know to look for it).
If it broadcasts continuously or just frequently enough to be noticed. Instead it stays silent most of the time, and when it does transmit, it can receive the RFID data and detonate far faster than you can react if you detected the signal.
So even running a drone vehicle with 500 US passport RFID tags on board ahead of your convoy won't guarantee that the road is clear.
I think it might be determined by what contract Comcast was relaying the broadcast signal. I think they're only allowed a limited amount of replacing broadcast ads in certain breaks with their own ads. (I remember watching MTV simulcast over FM on the cable and hearing the national ad with the local cable ad's video.) An argument could be made that the public was expecting to see the same content as they would over the airwaves, governed by the same broadcast content standards, and that Comcast has a responsibility to preserve those standards in their activity as a relay.
I wouldn't want to be Comcast in any lawsuits over this. Imagine if it were an ad for Dr. John's Adult Novelties and Boutique in the commercial break of... of... damn, what are the current crop of children's programs on broadcast commercial television these days?
Don't worry about it...just go back to playing your sorcerer of light.
I was attacking the darkness!
No specifications were revealed but DNA, a daily newspaper, has mentioned that it will be small and portable, will feature Wi-Fi, LAN, and expandable memory, and will operate on 2 watts of power.
User interface devices and storage media sold separately.
Seriously, imagine what you could do with a small CCD and a mobile chassis for just one of these babies without those extra items, if not a hundred of them for $1000.
Now I just need heat-seeking pistol rounds and I can recreate the setting of the movie Runaway.
[interrupting Missile Mike]
Max: Hi. I'm doing a survey on this kind of mindless violence and its effect on the mind-mind-mind-mindless. Do you believe all that killing is necessary? Does it s-s-s-scare you?
Raker: Me?
Max: Yes! Yes! You with that plank on whee-whee-whee-whee-wheels. What is its effect-t-t-t on you?
Raker: You can see me?
Max: Well. That was a fas-fas-fascinating discussion and I think you've answered my question. Thank you-you-you-you, thank you... for your help.
Except of course that TFA was wrong and it was 1.6 PB / 1.6 MCPUs = 1 GB/CPU.
I imagine though it could run a few gigs (jobs of short or uncertain duration).
It can do 20 Pflops with 1.6 million processors, so 12.5Gflops per processor, but with 1.6TB of memory, it means its only got 1Mb per processor.
The other seven megabits per processor are used for parity checking.
Right now the police can pull you over and ask for your license. Don't show it and you see the inside of a cell.
Only if you've been witnessed driving without it. If you're a passenger or otherwise not driving, you can be compelled to truthfully identify yourself, but you don't need corroborating documentation.
This doesn't mean the authority involved won't overstep his bounds and arrest you anyway for failure to comply with (IAOO -- In the Armed Officer's Opinion) a lawful order and/or interfering in police business.
"Well," he said, "it's to do with the project which first made the software incarnation of the company profitable. It was called Reason, and in its own way it was sensational."
"What was it?"
"Well, it was a kind of back-to-front program. It's funny how many of the best ideas are just an old idea back-to-front. You see there have already been several programs written that help you to arrive at decisions by properly ordering and analysing all the relevant facts so that they then point naturally towards the right decision. The drawback with these is that the decision which all the properly ordered and analysed facts point to is not necessarily the one you want."
"Yeeeess..." said Reg's voice from the kitchen.
"Well, Gordon's great insight was to design a program which allowed you to specify in advance what decision you wished it to reach, and only then to give it all the facts. The program's task, which it was able to accomplish with consummate ease, was simply to construct a plausible series of logical-sounding steps to connect the premises with the conclusion.
"And I have to say that it worked brilliantly. Gordon was able to buy himself a Porsche almost immediately despite being completely broke and a hopeless driver. Even his bank manager was unable to find fault with his reasoning. Even when Gordon wrote it off three weeks later."
"Heavens. And did the program sell very well?"
"No. We never sold a single copy."
"You astonish me. It sounds like a real winner to me."
"It was," said Richard hesitantly. "The entire project was bought up, lock, stock and barrel, by the Pentagon. The deal put WayForward on a very sound financial foundation. Its moral foundation, on the other hand, is not something I would want to trust my weight to. I've recently been analysing a lot of the arguments put forward in favour of the Star Wars project, and if you know what you're looking for, the pattern of the algorithms is very clear.
"So much so, in fact, that looking at Pentagon policies over the last couple of years I think I can be fairly sure that the US Navy is using version 2.00 of the program, while the Air Force for some reason only has the beta-test version of 1.5. Odd, that."
"Do you have a copy?"
"Certainly not," said Richard, "I wouldn't have anything to do with it. Anyway, when the Pentagon bought everything, they bought everything. Every scrap of code, every disk, every notebook. I was glad to see the back of it. If indeed we have. I just busy myself with my own projects."
Video telephones are also part of the definition of the 21st Century Future along with flying cars and personal AI robots.
Yeah, I want a 3G phone with as many cameras as a spider has eyes.
How about a camera that has a flip-down reflective half-sphere (or cone) to take 360-degree images?
Kinda hard to have a video conference when you have to be on both sides of the device at once for it to work.
Stand facing a mirror or other reflective surface.
Even better if the camera was on the edge. Then you can hold it to your ear and not only have it read your reflection but maybe also project the other party into the mirror and onto your own face (forehead, cheek, fogged or frosted part of the mirror, whatever). Digital filters can remove the projected image from the image sent to the other party in real time.
Except you'd need it on two edges to handle left- and right-eared (and ambiauditory?) people.
Even without a parallax effect or tracking the user's eyes, it could still have the effect of The Polaroid from The Lost Room for augmented reality which would be cool, especially when combined with the iPhone knowing its orientation and position.
How much you wanna bet they'll be sending-up Battlestar Galactica every chance they get? With a title like "Back to Earth"...
What, like it's a cat colony?