I'm surprised nobody has brought up color gamut yet. I have to roll my eyes whenever I see that Samsung vs Apple commercial "So your Galaxy has more pixels" So what? You could be shooting 8k video and it would still suck if the device were only 8-bit.
From a scientific point of view anyway. From Predator 2: "This doesn't correspond to anything on the periodic table." Really? I'd propose naming a new element Hollywoodium but I think that would introduce more problems than it would solve.
Closing accounts is one thing but there are a lot more insidious things going on. For example, my Chase Business account was recently changed without my approval such that I could not make outgoing international wire transfers unless I kept $50,000 in the account. That means that I have to tie up more cash that doesn't earn any interest in order to be able to purchase components from outside the country. That was the first straw. The next one was when my business banking rep called me to try to convince me to close out some of my credit cards that I keep on hand for times when I need to purchase a lot of inventory to handle a big order. Intentionally closing a credit card has negative impact on your credit rating. Why was the rep trying to get me to fall on my own sword? They said they were concerned about my exposure. WTF? I always pay the cards off every month. What exposure?
But there are other cases where some bureaucrat functionary decides to take "social justice" into their own hands. The firearms business has recently been targeted even though everything they are doing is perfectly legal and above board. In one instance, the bank rep told the company "We don't think you should be in this business." In another, a manufacturer went into a meeting with the bank they had been doing business with for years. The bank rep told them that they were going to take away their lines of credit. To the manufacturer's credit, they said "Fine. We're closing all our accounts now. Today. This minute."
Actually, you, sir (spelled with a c and a u) are the one who is ignorant. The Sheriff is the highest ranking authority of any county in the United States with law enforcement authority that supersedes every other agency including all federal agencies. Most people don't know that so I'm not surprised that you don't.
As a matter of fact, I am a licensed pilot and have been flying both full size aircraft and radio controlled aircraft for 30 years so don't presume to think that you know more than I do on the subject.
The reality is two-fold: First a foremost, the FAA has NO regulatory authority in these matters. They are simply using a "POLICY" written in 2007 to intimidate people. Read that word again: Policy. Policy is not regulation. The FAA knows they have no legal leg to stand on here otherwise they would have made a real regulation. Second: Sheriff's are elected officials and have to balance perception with pure law enforcement. Around here, there are too many people (read: growers and tinfoil hat types) who are worked into a lather about government surveillance.
The real question will be whether or not the FAA wants to risk the negative publicity when a lost 5-year old kid dies because they wouldn't allow a search & rescue UAV to be used. I personally would enjoy seeing Bill O'Reilly rip them a new one.
Right now, we're running into a road block with using UAVs for search & rescue with our local Sheriff. Given that his position is an elected one, he doesn't want to run the risk of alienating the electorate.
IMHO, hard sci-fi doesn't sell too well to large audiences. Star Trek is more high-brow. Star Wars and Aliens, IMHO, needs the 2-hour film format to work. I'm really surprised that Firefly didn't last. It had fun and interesting characters, interesting back stories, plots that weren't run-of-the-mill stuff. Yes, there was comedy but it was nicely blended. I kinda hope Nathan Fillion decides to produce a new version of the series when he's done with Castle.
Those of you old enough to remember when by law there was only Ma Bell might want to think twice about this. There was no incentive to make POTS any better than it was. Once it was deregulated, competition drove innovation. What incentive would a single ISP run by a city have to add capacity? Just raise the price to the user? B.S. Municipal water and sewer fees go up every year but you're not getting more water. Sure, they could add a bigger storage tank and better pumps which happened in my neighborhood but that process took about 10 years to complete when it could have been built in 6 months. The giant sloth that is government bureaucracy would be the worst thing that could happen. Add to that the sticky fingers in any government and you can pretty much guarantee that ISP revenue won't go to maintaining and upgrading the service.
Competition is the only way to ensure continued growth and expansion. But the last mile is where the problem really lies. Right now, you basically have DSL or Cable. Two entities is not enough to ensure that things keep moving forward. Cellular-based technology would help but the wireless providers have taken the approach of charging the customer for consumption.
The sad yet interesting thing about this is that the entire system could probably run on a single smartphone. Which reminds me, anyone know what the rocket launcher app on the Apple "Gigantic" commercial is? Hint: It's not called "Rocketlauncher"
Sorry, but this really has no appeal for me. I like the occasional comic relief in my sci-fi but knowing it's a sitcom makes me not want to watch it. Jar Jar Binks is not funny. He's annoying. Droids that flap their arms around and behave in an overly anthropomorphized manner aren't funny. Spaceballs is funny but only because it's a spoof.
Clearly, the contractor was stupid and more interested in saving money than doing it correctly. The same goes for any politician that decides to alter a design for reasons such as being able to say that a bridge will be the longest span in history.
Instead of using luminescent paint for the lines, why can't we imbed piezoelectric crystals into the tarmac that would generate light from the mass of the vehicle. That way you'd see this glow where the cars are.
"Hello. I'm a famous person...and I'm for sale. Do have a product or a business that needs promotion? Do you sell something worthless? Something no one will buy because it's poorly built and doesn't work properly? Likely to come apart at high speeds? Perhaps with toxic side effects? Well, I'm here to help you. I'll take your product and I'll sell it to them because they trust me. That's right; they trust me because...I'm a famous person."
Now will somebody please explain to me why people shouldn't listen to this particular celebrity but we should all listen to and shout hosannas to the rogue's gallery of celebrities James Cameron got to spout off in his global warming movie.
It's not about making money in this case because Equusearch is a non-profit and asks for no money from families or local law enforcement agencies. Speaking as a member of a search & rescue group, we're all volunteers and pay for all of our own equipment. Pretty much the only thing we get reimbursed for is fuel and that comes out of a state search & rescue fund. That fuel money is only given out on actual missions. Training expenses are all on our own dime. The Feds don't pay for anything.
That said, a UAV or a human piloted helicopter isn't a magic talisman that allows you to find the subject. If the subject is under a few feet of brush or tree cover, you won't see them from the air. Aerial vehicles are another tool in the toolbox. There are a few benefits to a UAV. One is it's significantly cheaper to operate. A jet ranger helicopter can cost well over $600 an hour to operate. A Robinson is cheaper but still expensive. A UAV can be programmed to take hi-res photos in a grid pattern for later review. Multiple people can review the imagery because different people will notice different things.
Now, as to federal regulation, this kind of B.S. makes our job exceedingly difficult if not impossible. Here there are several designated "wilderness" areas. Nobody is allowed to take a motorized vehicle into them even for matters of public safety. In fact, helicopters aren't allowed to land. They have to hover and touch a skid to off load search personnel. That's a very very dangerous thing to do. Then there's the BLM. These morons pull the same crap on so-called state trust land. Don't get me started on their incompetence when it comes to managing wildfires. Then there's the National Forest Service. Recently, they've unilaterally decided to close off a huge percentage of the roads in the forest. But they don't physically close them off. You're supposed to know which roads are open or closed and the only official map has no topographic features on it...at all. If you're on one, they can give you a ticket. Volunteer search & rescue folks are not exempt.
Which brings me to the FAA. Legally, they have no leg to stand on when it comes to UAVs. They keep referring to a 2007 policy hoping nobody will know the real deal. It's not an official regulation, only a policy recommendation. IMHO, what the FAA is doing as well as other federal agencies is trying to rule through intimidation and policies that would make Kafka envious. They know they're full of it but they also know that the average citizen doesn't have the resources to fight them in court.
The difference between those who have implants and those who don't is that the former group can turn it off if they want to "appreciate" deaf culture. Those who aren't deaf need to stick their fingers in their ears and say "LALALALALALA!!!" to avoid listening to stupid stuff.
Until somebody gets a hold of the random number generator algorithm. You'd almost have to use some sort of biological process to generate the seed (no pun intended).
Actually, it doesn't require much expertise at all. All you need is a frequency-hopping radio, an amplifier, and perhaps a directional antenna, all of which can be obtained for not a lot of money on the interwebs. Then you simply blast the drone with RF noise thus drowning out the operator's transmission. Most 2.4GHz R/C radios these days have a failsafe feature which gets engaged when the receiver no longer can hear the transmitter. That failsafe puts the servo outputs into a preset position. If it wasn't set for hovering throttle level, which is entirely possible, then gravity takes over.
So then why does Zuckerberg desperately want to hire foreign workers? If he really needs workers and can't find the skills he needs with US workers, then they aren't being trained in currently marketable skills (I believe that based on personal experience) and he should fund training for the skills he needs which would take less money and time than a four-year college program. If he needs workers but doesn't want to pay what Americans are willing to work for then he's no different than every other company that outsources to China or wherever and any claims of altruism are total B.S.
Heh, that whole thing was B.S. Having grown up in NJ and commuted to school in New York every weekday for 12 years, traffic on the GWB is always a nightmare.
Why doesn't Zuckerberg take what amounts to beer money for him and give out a few hundred full four-year scholarships for STEM programs to native-born Americans? He could take the interest alone (at 1%) for one year on his net worth and foot the bill for probably a thousand students.
"I watch you very carefully. Green mean go. Red mean stop. Yellow mean go very fast."
Seriously, assuming that this isn't an April Fool's joke posting, this tech now effectively gives more control to the big brother folks running the traffic control centers. They could retard the timing of the lights to slow people down. Some irritating bureaucrat wants his limousine to get across town faster? One phone call and the lights all favor his route. How long will it be before self-driving cars have to check in with the traffic control center to get a speed request approved?
Seriously, somebody needs to find a way to eliminate the wave propagation of heavy traffic. IMHO, those entrance ramp meters are a dumb idea. It just backs up traffic onto the local roads. Foot on the gas, people!
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And switched to OSX or Linux.
I'm surprised nobody has brought up color gamut yet. I have to roll my eyes whenever I see that Samsung vs Apple commercial "So your Galaxy has more pixels" So what? You could be shooting 8k video and it would still suck if the device were only 8-bit.
From a scientific point of view anyway. From Predator 2: "This doesn't correspond to anything on the periodic table." Really? I'd propose naming a new element Hollywoodium but I think that would introduce more problems than it would solve.
Closing accounts is one thing but there are a lot more insidious things going on. For example, my Chase Business account was recently changed without my approval such that I could not make outgoing international wire transfers unless I kept $50,000 in the account. That means that I have to tie up more cash that doesn't earn any interest in order to be able to purchase components from outside the country. That was the first straw. The next one was when my business banking rep called me to try to convince me to close out some of my credit cards that I keep on hand for times when I need to purchase a lot of inventory to handle a big order. Intentionally closing a credit card has negative impact on your credit rating. Why was the rep trying to get me to fall on my own sword? They said they were concerned about my exposure. WTF? I always pay the cards off every month. What exposure?
But there are other cases where some bureaucrat functionary decides to take "social justice" into their own hands. The firearms business has recently been targeted even though everything they are doing is perfectly legal and above board. In one instance, the bank rep told the company "We don't think you should be in this business." In another, a manufacturer went into a meeting with the bank they had been doing business with for years. The bank rep told them that they were going to take away their lines of credit. To the manufacturer's credit, they said "Fine. We're closing all our accounts now. Today. This minute."
Actually, you, sir (spelled with a c and a u) are the one who is ignorant. The Sheriff is the highest ranking authority of any county in the United States with law enforcement authority that supersedes every other agency including all federal agencies. Most people don't know that so I'm not surprised that you don't.
As a matter of fact, I am a licensed pilot and have been flying both full size aircraft and radio controlled aircraft for 30 years so don't presume to think that you know more than I do on the subject.
The reality is two-fold: First a foremost, the FAA has NO regulatory authority in these matters. They are simply using a "POLICY" written in 2007 to intimidate people. Read that word again: Policy. Policy is not regulation. The FAA knows they have no legal leg to stand on here otherwise they would have made a real regulation. Second: Sheriff's are elected officials and have to balance perception with pure law enforcement. Around here, there are too many people (read: growers and tinfoil hat types) who are worked into a lather about government surveillance.
The real question will be whether or not the FAA wants to risk the negative publicity when a lost 5-year old kid dies because they wouldn't allow a search & rescue UAV to be used. I personally would enjoy seeing Bill O'Reilly rip them a new one.
Right now, we're running into a road block with using UAVs for search & rescue with our local Sheriff. Given that his position is an elected one, he doesn't want to run the risk of alienating the electorate.
IMHO, hard sci-fi doesn't sell too well to large audiences. Star Trek is more high-brow. Star Wars and Aliens, IMHO, needs the 2-hour film format to work. I'm really surprised that Firefly didn't last. It had fun and interesting characters, interesting back stories, plots that weren't run-of-the-mill stuff. Yes, there was comedy but it was nicely blended. I kinda hope Nathan Fillion decides to produce a new version of the series when he's done with Castle.
Those of you old enough to remember when by law there was only Ma Bell might want to think twice about this. There was no incentive to make POTS any better than it was. Once it was deregulated, competition drove innovation. What incentive would a single ISP run by a city have to add capacity? Just raise the price to the user? B.S. Municipal water and sewer fees go up every year but you're not getting more water. Sure, they could add a bigger storage tank and better pumps which happened in my neighborhood but that process took about 10 years to complete when it could have been built in 6 months. The giant sloth that is government bureaucracy would be the worst thing that could happen. Add to that the sticky fingers in any government and you can pretty much guarantee that ISP revenue won't go to maintaining and upgrading the service.
Competition is the only way to ensure continued growth and expansion. But the last mile is where the problem really lies. Right now, you basically have DSL or Cable. Two entities is not enough to ensure that things keep moving forward. Cellular-based technology would help but the wireless providers have taken the approach of charging the customer for consumption.
The sad yet interesting thing about this is that the entire system could probably run on a single smartphone. Which reminds me, anyone know what the rocket launcher app on the Apple "Gigantic" commercial is? Hint: It's not called "Rocketlauncher"
Sorry, but this really has no appeal for me. I like the occasional comic relief in my sci-fi but knowing it's a sitcom makes me not want to watch it. Jar Jar Binks is not funny. He's annoying. Droids that flap their arms around and behave in an overly anthropomorphized manner aren't funny. Spaceballs is funny but only because it's a spoof.
Panel says the average human being is not ready for the inevitable collision with a moving vehicle.
Clearly, the contractor was stupid and more interested in saving money than doing it correctly. The same goes for any politician that decides to alter a design for reasons such as being able to say that a bridge will be the longest span in history.
But how the hell did he get a patent so fast?
Instead of using luminescent paint for the lines, why can't we imbed piezoelectric crystals into the tarmac that would generate light from the mass of the vehicle. That way you'd see this glow where the cars are.
"Hello. I'm a famous person...and I'm for sale. Do have a product or a business that needs promotion? Do you sell something worthless? Something no one will buy because it's poorly built and doesn't work properly? Likely to come apart at high speeds? Perhaps with toxic side effects? Well, I'm here to help you. I'll take your product and I'll sell it to them because they trust me. That's right; they trust me because...I'm a famous person."
Now will somebody please explain to me why people shouldn't listen to this particular celebrity but we should all listen to and shout hosannas to the rogue's gallery of celebrities James Cameron got to spout off in his global warming movie.
It's not about making money in this case because Equusearch is a non-profit and asks for no money from families or local law enforcement agencies. Speaking as a member of a search & rescue group, we're all volunteers and pay for all of our own equipment. Pretty much the only thing we get reimbursed for is fuel and that comes out of a state search & rescue fund. That fuel money is only given out on actual missions. Training expenses are all on our own dime. The Feds don't pay for anything.
That said, a UAV or a human piloted helicopter isn't a magic talisman that allows you to find the subject. If the subject is under a few feet of brush or tree cover, you won't see them from the air. Aerial vehicles are another tool in the toolbox. There are a few benefits to a UAV. One is it's significantly cheaper to operate. A jet ranger helicopter can cost well over $600 an hour to operate. A Robinson is cheaper but still expensive. A UAV can be programmed to take hi-res photos in a grid pattern for later review. Multiple people can review the imagery because different people will notice different things.
Now, as to federal regulation, this kind of B.S. makes our job exceedingly difficult if not impossible. Here there are several designated "wilderness" areas. Nobody is allowed to take a motorized vehicle into them even for matters of public safety. In fact, helicopters aren't allowed to land. They have to hover and touch a skid to off load search personnel. That's a very very dangerous thing to do. Then there's the BLM. These morons pull the same crap on so-called state trust land. Don't get me started on their incompetence when it comes to managing wildfires. Then there's the National Forest Service. Recently, they've unilaterally decided to close off a huge percentage of the roads in the forest. But they don't physically close them off. You're supposed to know which roads are open or closed and the only official map has no topographic features on it...at all. If you're on one, they can give you a ticket. Volunteer search & rescue folks are not exempt.
Which brings me to the FAA. Legally, they have no leg to stand on when it comes to UAVs. They keep referring to a 2007 policy hoping nobody will know the real deal. It's not an official regulation, only a policy recommendation. IMHO, what the FAA is doing as well as other federal agencies is trying to rule through intimidation and policies that would make Kafka envious. They know they're full of it but they also know that the average citizen doesn't have the resources to fight them in court.
The difference between those who have implants and those who don't is that the former group can turn it off if they want to "appreciate" deaf culture. Those who aren't deaf need to stick their fingers in their ears and say "LALALALALALA!!!" to avoid listening to stupid stuff.
Until somebody gets a hold of the random number generator algorithm. You'd almost have to use some sort of biological process to generate the seed (no pun intended).
Actually, it doesn't require much expertise at all. All you need is a frequency-hopping radio, an amplifier, and perhaps a directional antenna, all of which can be obtained for not a lot of money on the interwebs. Then you simply blast the drone with RF noise thus drowning out the operator's transmission. Most 2.4GHz R/C radios these days have a failsafe feature which gets engaged when the receiver no longer can hear the transmitter. That failsafe puts the servo outputs into a preset position. If it wasn't set for hovering throttle level, which is entirely possible, then gravity takes over.
Not this crude matter.
So then why does Zuckerberg desperately want to hire foreign workers? If he really needs workers and can't find the skills he needs with US workers, then they aren't being trained in currently marketable skills (I believe that based on personal experience) and he should fund training for the skills he needs which would take less money and time than a four-year college program. If he needs workers but doesn't want to pay what Americans are willing to work for then he's no different than every other company that outsources to China or wherever and any claims of altruism are total B.S.
Heh, that whole thing was B.S. Having grown up in NJ and commuted to school in New York every weekday for 12 years, traffic on the GWB is always a nightmare.
Why doesn't Zuckerberg take what amounts to beer money for him and give out a few hundred full four-year scholarships for STEM programs to native-born Americans? He could take the interest alone (at 1%) for one year on his net worth and foot the bill for probably a thousand students.
"I watch you very carefully. Green mean go. Red mean stop. Yellow mean go very fast."
Seriously, assuming that this isn't an April Fool's joke posting, this tech now effectively gives more control to the big brother folks running the traffic control centers. They could retard the timing of the lights to slow people down. Some irritating bureaucrat wants his limousine to get across town faster? One phone call and the lights all favor his route. How long will it be before self-driving cars have to check in with the traffic control center to get a speed request approved?
Seriously, somebody needs to find a way to eliminate the wave propagation of heavy traffic. IMHO, those entrance ramp meters are a dumb idea. It just backs up traffic onto the local roads. Foot on the gas, people!