Um, the Acela exists, and is certainly competitive with NYC-Washington air travel time-wise and price-wise(although it barely deserves to be called "high-speed" as it tops out at something like 80 mph, and then only in a limited section of the route). Unfortunately, it's still ten (or more) times as expensive as a chinatown bus and 4 times as much as a major bus line, with only 1-2 hours difference.
What we need is a moderate, centrist candidate, who also runs on the platform of reforming lobbying and elections to be more open, maybe with a healthy dose of repealing laws favoring corporations over individuals.
That's how Obama campaigned. The econopocalypse, Republican stonewalling, and an overall underestimation of how powerful the presidency actually is has derailed much of that during his term, though.
Perhaps you have magic eyes that can look at a piece of fish and see the mercury in it. Do you have any useful advice (i.e. not platitudes) for those of us with normal vision?
What are you talking about? It's widely known that EVERY species of long-lived, predatory ocean fish has significant mercury in it because it falls out of the fucking sky into the ocean from burning coal in power plants and then bioaccumulates.
Perhaps this chart helpfully provided by the cocksucking regulators with data going back as far as 1978 would have saved you some grief. Or perhaps the very notion of "I'm going to eat only one thing" might have encouraged a normal person to do some research beyond reading the label on the damn can.
What part of "consult with your doctor before starting any program of diet or exercise" didn't you understand?
And then seriously? Your reaction to your own gobsmackingly foolhardy ignorance about what you put into your body results in you trusting nobody but yourself to supervise your water quality?
Even at the movies, the projector shows each frame twice for slightly less than 1/48th of a second each time. 24 fps is really low for human persistence of vision; it was chosen because film stock is expensive and it was about the lowest one could get away with with a straight face (25/30 fps for PAL/NTSC was chosen because it allows you to use the AC power for timing rather than adding electronics and raising the price of a set). Super-8 film cameras go even lower, at 18fps, but the motion is noticeably jerky in super-8 footage (to say nothing of the wacky pulldown you have to do going to video).
The book deals with binary encoded messages in large numbers before that point, so the gist is that the character already knows she's looking for a statistically improbable string of 1s and 0s. She's also searching in a number of different bases at once.
I could see it in some healthcare settings. Hospitals with pediatric inpatient units, or nursing/rehab facilities might legitimately have a Wii for the patients.
Lots of small media/web companies have a console in the break area, too.
I don't see either of those being particularly attractive targets, however.
I tried. Then I realized that the community of the game offered six-week courses in how to play before you could be credible even in a support role. Not the same at all.
Rendering 3D scenes faster so I can make my clients happy without working late nights; holding lots of geometry, textures, and lightmaps so I can render without crashing; and holding the rendered uncompressed 1080p footage plus the scratch space for compositing and editing it.
It's not the camera so much as the playback medium. There's little point in mastering to some ridiculous large-format print resolution when hardware that can play it back at speed doesn't exist. That having been said, most effects work these days is done at 4k and downscaled to 2k on release, with really complex/detailed work mastered at 6k or 8k to give the artists extra resolution to nail the smallest details.
When you watch films in true IMAX, you can often tell which shots/films were mastered at higher and lower resolutions, especially for the compositing, as little problems that weren't noticeable on someone's monitor or in a small screening room can be glaringly obvious at huge size. One of the most impressive things about Avatar was near-totally consistent and super-clean CG and compositing throughout the entire film - hardly any shots had anything dodgy about them even in IMAX, except for some surprisingly off-the-shelf smoke.
louder, more expensive, better traction, lasts longer.
I believe the salt damage issue can be mitigated by using a different mix and allowing lots of curing time. After all, asphalt sidewalks are exceedingly rare, but salted even more heavily than roads in high-traffic areas.
While many of the things you've said are true, you've been away a while. They're replacing cars, the stations are a great deal cleaner than they used to be, and they're finally building the 2nd avenue subway and service to LaGuardia airport, as well as working on the signal and cellphone coverage issues.
Nonprofit Technology Resources in Philly does something similar, without the art. A very worthy organization, and one that I am constantly surprised local geeks haven't heard about.
those SGI x86 "workstations" were just expensive NT boxes with (then jaw-droppingly new and shiny, but ludicrously small for serious graphics work) flat-screen monitors and wacky purple cases.
Other countries have parliamentary systems where minor parties are able to win a handful of seats in a national election, then hold a majority party hostage to form a coalition government.
In the US, the executive is not answerable to "votes of no confidence" by congress, being (more or less) directly elected for a clearly-defined term of office, so coalitions aren't necessary. We also vote for individual seats instead of parties, and every seat is tied to a geographical region, so unless there's a 3rd-party majority enclave (that has escaped being redistricted out of existence), it is more or less impossible for a third party candidate to hold office at the national level.
So, to review: In parliamentary systems, third parties play a pivotal, undemocratic role in forming governments and determining government policy; while in the US system, lobbyists and assorted strange constituencies in early primary states play a pivotal, undemocratic role in forming governments and determining government policy.
Slashdot Mirror
They did, however, start banging everything in sight once the birth control pill gave us the ability to cure parenthood.
Um, the Acela exists, and is certainly competitive with NYC-Washington air travel time-wise and price-wise(although it barely deserves to be called "high-speed" as it tops out at something like 80 mph, and then only in a limited section of the route). Unfortunately, it's still ten (or more) times as expensive as a chinatown bus and 4 times as much as a major bus line, with only 1-2 hours difference.
That's how Obama campaigned. The econopocalypse, Republican stonewalling, and an overall underestimation of how powerful the presidency actually is has derailed much of that during his term, though.
Link or it didn't happen.
Is there a government takeover of car insurance, too?
The cocksucking regulators do. As do a large number of medical, consumer, and environmental advocacy groups.
Verizon FiOS routers put the defualt (unique and reasonably secure) SSID and WEP key on the label next to the S/N
Perhaps this chart helpfully provided by the cocksucking regulators with data going back as far as 1978 would have saved you some grief. Or perhaps the very notion of "I'm going to eat only one thing" might have encouraged a normal person to do some research beyond reading the label on the damn can.
What part of "consult with your doctor before starting any program of diet or exercise" didn't you understand?
And then seriously? Your reaction to your own gobsmackingly foolhardy ignorance about what you put into your body results in you trusting nobody but yourself to supervise your water quality?
I'm not a C coder, but dabble in OO scripting languages with distinct assignment/comprison operators, and I'm wondering why
BOOL Status;
if Status == (some_true_false_function())
x++;
return Status;
Wouldn't work just as well.
Even at the movies, the projector shows each frame twice for slightly less than 1/48th of a second each time. 24 fps is really low for human persistence of vision; it was chosen because film stock is expensive and it was about the lowest one could get away with with a straight face (25/30 fps for PAL/NTSC was chosen because it allows you to use the AC power for timing rather than adding electronics and raising the price of a set). Super-8 film cameras go even lower, at 18fps, but the motion is noticeably jerky in super-8 footage (to say nothing of the wacky pulldown you have to do going to video).
The book deals with binary encoded messages in large numbers before that point, so the gist is that the character already knows she's looking for a statistically improbable string of 1s and 0s. She's also searching in a number of different bases at once.
I could see it in some healthcare settings. Hospitals with pediatric inpatient units, or nursing/rehab facilities might legitimately have a Wii for the patients.
Lots of small media/web companies have a console in the break area, too.
I don't see either of those being particularly attractive targets, however.
Not fuck up the WWI armistice?
I tried. Then I realized that the community of the game offered six-week courses in how to play before you could be credible even in a support role. Not the same at all.
Rendering 3D scenes faster so I can make my clients happy without working late nights; holding lots of geometry, textures, and lightmaps so I can render without crashing; and holding the rendered uncompressed 1080p footage plus the scratch space for compositing and editing it.
It's not the camera so much as the playback medium. There's little point in mastering to some ridiculous large-format print resolution when hardware that can play it back at speed doesn't exist. That having been said, most effects work these days is done at 4k and downscaled to 2k on release, with really complex/detailed work mastered at 6k or 8k to give the artists extra resolution to nail the smallest details.
When you watch films in true IMAX, you can often tell which shots/films were mastered at higher and lower resolutions, especially for the compositing, as little problems that weren't noticeable on someone's monitor or in a small screening room can be glaringly obvious at huge size. One of the most impressive things about Avatar was near-totally consistent and super-clean CG and compositing throughout the entire film - hardly any shots had anything dodgy about them even in IMAX, except for some surprisingly off-the-shelf smoke.
What's the point of "pinging"? Determining which numbers are live?
louder, more expensive, better traction, lasts longer.
I believe the salt damage issue can be mitigated by using a different mix and allowing lots of curing time. After all, asphalt sidewalks are exceedingly rare, but salted even more heavily than roads in high-traffic areas.
While many of the things you've said are true, you've been away a while. They're replacing cars, the stations are a great deal cleaner than they used to be, and they're finally building the 2nd avenue subway and service to LaGuardia airport, as well as working on the signal and cellphone coverage issues.
Nonprofit Technology Resources in Philly does something similar, without the art. A very worthy organization, and one that I am constantly surprised local geeks haven't heard about.
Because their power is disproportionate to their popular support.
those SGI x86 "workstations" were just expensive NT boxes with (then jaw-droppingly new and shiny, but ludicrously small for serious graphics work) flat-screen monitors and wacky purple cases.
damn. I mean only VGA ports.
...but cheap-ass $300 desktops are being sold in 2010 with only VGA ports.
Other countries have parliamentary systems where minor parties are able to win a handful of seats in a national election, then hold a majority party hostage to form a coalition government.
In the US, the executive is not answerable to "votes of no confidence" by congress, being (more or less) directly elected for a clearly-defined term of office, so coalitions aren't necessary. We also vote for individual seats instead of parties, and every seat is tied to a geographical region, so unless there's a 3rd-party majority enclave (that has escaped being redistricted out of existence), it is more or less impossible for a third party candidate to hold office at the national level.
So, to review: In parliamentary systems, third parties play a pivotal, undemocratic role in forming governments and determining government policy; while in the US system, lobbyists and assorted strange constituencies in early primary states play a pivotal, undemocratic role in forming governments and determining government policy.