I used to work at Best Buy (in store), and though I had some idea of how unscrupulous some of the people I worked with could be, I didn't imagine it was so terrible. Anyway, it used to be that we would get service plans for our computers nearly for free- so I purchased one for my new laptop when I worked there. A year later, I had since quit and then took the laptop in for service. I knew that the people in store had low morals, but I wasn't quite sure how the people at the service center stacked up, so I installed some monitoring software that would log everything that happened on my computer. Please note that the only things wrong with my computer were HARDWARE issues- a loose headphone jack, and a broken monitor. Absolutely nothing that would require data manipulation in the least on the computer itself.
A few days later, I get a call from the Best Buy tech center asking me for the password to my windows account. He had apparently already reset the BIOS password and now wanted to access windows itself. I told him no, he didn't need to do that to fix it, and he replied that if I wouldn't give him the password, he'd have to ship the computer back to me without any repairs done. Begrudgingly, I told him the password to an account I had set up specifically for the purpose of the Best Buy technicians in case this had occurred. He hangs up, a few weeks go by, and I finally get my laptop back.
What I found was that, over the course of TWO HOURS, this technician systematically went through almost every file on my entire hard drive, and what's more- he actually BURNED TO CDS, from my own CD burner, data and games I had on my hard drive. He even backed up a game folder onto multiple cds that required a full system install (half-life 2, in this case). This was not only a clear case of poor workmanship (why the hell should I wait 4 weeks for a repair if it's just this guy dicking around on my hard drive), but also of a total invasion of privacy. Moreover, my audio jack was not fixed.
I called the Best Buy support company and over an hour or so, I managed to finaggle a conversation with the manager in charge of the division that "fixed" my computer. I asked him if he knew what was going on, and he replied in a very nonchalant manner that "these guys only access things that are necessary to fix your computer". I told him I had proof of otherwise, and moreover that they were going through all my personal files (the scant few I had left on my hard drive before sending it in, anyway). He didn't so much deny this as he did *literally* tell me that I was "wasting his time". I told him I was thinking of suing, though admittedly I wasn't sure for what; I didn't know if the invasion of privacy, breach of contract, or failure to repair were "suable" offenses. He actually LAUGHED, told me that since I had "signed the contract", there was nothing I could do, and that he didn't care what evidence I had.
Yeah, it sucked. So I did wind up going to a lawyer, who advised me that the amount of time and effort that would have to go into fighting a contract's specific wording (did it say "might be accessed", or "would be accessed") would not be worth whatever payout might actually occur (if any at all). He also implied that it might be harder for someone in my position as a prior employee to assert claims against the company's behavior, which I had never previously objected to while working there. In truth, I had actually quit because of the shady practices going on in my local store, and had mentioned it on my 2-week notice, but alas, such is life.
I would really like to kick one of these guys in the balls.
It's ludicrous to say these animals are endangered in any fashion. Wikipedia's page has reference-cited information that the giant squid's bigger cousin, the Colossal Squid could possibly make up as much as 77% of the biomass consumed by Sperm Whales, whose numbers are listed as ranging from at minimum 200,000 to a maximum 2,000,000 individuals. The Colossal Squid is seen even less by science, and the beaks of them are found nearly as often in the stomachs of Sperm Whales.
Giant Squid are in no shape, way, or fashion rare. They are simply too fast, too unpredictable, spread over too large an area, and live in such a deep range that they are very hard for humans to find. They are fragile creatures on the surface, they fall apart quite easily, especially when reaching shallower depths, making them an ideal target for scavengers; they would die quickly if they stayed near the surface for too long. This means that not only are you not apt to find a live one, but dead ones are mostly eaten by other animals or deteriorate long before reaching shore. It is very rare to find one washed ashore. This does NOT mean that the animal itself is rare or endangered.
Stop saying scientists are selfish in attempting to recover 2-3 specimens of an animal which probably numbers (at least) in the hundreds of thousands. They are trying to document a species in order to HELP its survival, not destroy it. You should be encouraging them, not discouraging them from researching this animal. It takes thousands of animals being harvested monthly to put a dent in a robust species like this, and since we have only seen a rare few of them, it's only natural to want to see more. Don't be ridiculous and think about one or two dying for science as a problem when hundreds, even thousands of them are being eaten daily by Sperm Whales, Pacific Sleeper Sharks, and possibly other species. Taking the Peter Rabbit approach to a creature like this ("Aww, poor Giant Squid!") is detrimental not only to science, but to your understanding of the world.
Also, you can't eat this animal, and no Japanese have any interest in eating it. On top of this, any who DID would be sorely disappointed, as the animal has a *high* ammonia content, too strong to eat safely, and so strong in fact that even being in a room with a piece of it would make you lose your appetite.
I find it extremely interesting that the "We are one" section icon shows both North and South Korea. An ultra censored xenophobic communist nation and a worldly important capitalist nation? The only place in the world where the US still has to actively deploy soldiers to mediate is on their common border. Those two countries are totally different worlds. Man, talk about propoganda.
In places like Japan or Korea, you can replace phone systems within a few months or a relatively short amount of time, as compared with the United States, which still doesn't even have coverage in some parts. When you live in a country the size of California, things can get done a lot quicker.
Hmm... I suppose you're right, speech is ok, but with any instrumentation that is "smooth", such as a brass or a wind with a steady note, it becomes steadily apparent that there's a need for a better encode.
LOL, ok, I admit that sounded pretty stupid. I only meant to say that comparing OGG's 128 with WMA or MP3's 128 is pretty retarded, as they both sound pretty bad compared to a higher file size/bitrate anyway. Seriously, what's the point of an *extremely* lossy format like that, when bandwidth can handle something much better than that in the first place?
I don't know how you could possibly say that 128kbps sounds good on any encoding format. If you buy headphones that are more than $20, or a sound system that's worthwhile, you can certainly tell that 128 sounds muffled and tinny. If you can't tell.. you're deaf.
128kbps doesn't cut it. It's an absolute lossy, disgusting bitrate, no matter what it's in. They should test similar file sizes instead of by bitrate, to determine whether something is good or not- this gives a better impression of quality vs size, instead of a purely comparison based test.
People have been making these for their computers out of lexan and plexiglass for years... It's interesting to me that something like this hasn't come up in the past. I'd personally like to see one that uses a tri-color LED and morphs between them, instead of switching manually.
You'll notice Asimo was designed to look and act like a human, while this soccer robot was designed to 1) identify ball, and 2) move ball to goal. Asimo is supposed to interact with humans and have more autonomous thinking than just moving a ball around. Not to mention the surface area of those feet and hands looks to be about 300% comparitively by size with the Asimo.
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I used to work at Best Buy (in store), and though I had some idea of how unscrupulous some of the people I worked with could be, I didn't imagine it was so terrible. Anyway, it used to be that we would get service plans for our computers nearly for free- so I purchased one for my new laptop when I worked there. A year later, I had since quit and then took the laptop in for service. I knew that the people in store had low morals, but I wasn't quite sure how the people at the service center stacked up, so I installed some monitoring software that would log everything that happened on my computer. Please note that the only things wrong with my computer were HARDWARE issues- a loose headphone jack, and a broken monitor. Absolutely nothing that would require data manipulation in the least on the computer itself. A few days later, I get a call from the Best Buy tech center asking me for the password to my windows account. He had apparently already reset the BIOS password and now wanted to access windows itself. I told him no, he didn't need to do that to fix it, and he replied that if I wouldn't give him the password, he'd have to ship the computer back to me without any repairs done. Begrudgingly, I told him the password to an account I had set up specifically for the purpose of the Best Buy technicians in case this had occurred. He hangs up, a few weeks go by, and I finally get my laptop back. What I found was that, over the course of TWO HOURS, this technician systematically went through almost every file on my entire hard drive, and what's more- he actually BURNED TO CDS, from my own CD burner, data and games I had on my hard drive. He even backed up a game folder onto multiple cds that required a full system install (half-life 2, in this case). This was not only a clear case of poor workmanship (why the hell should I wait 4 weeks for a repair if it's just this guy dicking around on my hard drive), but also of a total invasion of privacy. Moreover, my audio jack was not fixed. I called the Best Buy support company and over an hour or so, I managed to finaggle a conversation with the manager in charge of the division that "fixed" my computer. I asked him if he knew what was going on, and he replied in a very nonchalant manner that "these guys only access things that are necessary to fix your computer". I told him I had proof of otherwise, and moreover that they were going through all my personal files (the scant few I had left on my hard drive before sending it in, anyway). He didn't so much deny this as he did *literally* tell me that I was "wasting his time". I told him I was thinking of suing, though admittedly I wasn't sure for what; I didn't know if the invasion of privacy, breach of contract, or failure to repair were "suable" offenses. He actually LAUGHED, told me that since I had "signed the contract", there was nothing I could do, and that he didn't care what evidence I had. Yeah, it sucked. So I did wind up going to a lawyer, who advised me that the amount of time and effort that would have to go into fighting a contract's specific wording (did it say "might be accessed", or "would be accessed") would not be worth whatever payout might actually occur (if any at all). He also implied that it might be harder for someone in my position as a prior employee to assert claims against the company's behavior, which I had never previously objected to while working there. In truth, I had actually quit because of the shady practices going on in my local store, and had mentioned it on my 2-week notice, but alas, such is life. I would really like to kick one of these guys in the balls.
I live in Nagoya, anonymous coward. Also, you are a jerk.
It's ludicrous to say these animals are endangered in any fashion. Wikipedia's page has reference-cited information that the giant squid's bigger cousin, the Colossal Squid could possibly make up as much as 77% of the biomass consumed by Sperm Whales, whose numbers are listed as ranging from at minimum 200,000 to a maximum 2,000,000 individuals. The Colossal Squid is seen even less by science, and the beaks of them are found nearly as often in the stomachs of Sperm Whales.
Giant Squid are in no shape, way, or fashion rare. They are simply too fast, too unpredictable, spread over too large an area, and live in such a deep range that they are very hard for humans to find. They are fragile creatures on the surface, they fall apart quite easily, especially when reaching shallower depths, making them an ideal target for scavengers; they would die quickly if they stayed near the surface for too long. This means that not only are you not apt to find a live one, but dead ones are mostly eaten by other animals or deteriorate long before reaching shore. It is very rare to find one washed ashore. This does NOT mean that the animal itself is rare or endangered.
Stop saying scientists are selfish in attempting to recover 2-3 specimens of an animal which probably numbers (at least) in the hundreds of thousands. They are trying to document a species in order to HELP its survival, not destroy it. You should be encouraging them, not discouraging them from researching this animal. It takes thousands of animals being harvested monthly to put a dent in a robust species like this, and since we have only seen a rare few of them, it's only natural to want to see more. Don't be ridiculous and think about one or two dying for science as a problem when hundreds, even thousands of them are being eaten daily by Sperm Whales, Pacific Sleeper Sharks, and possibly other species. Taking the Peter Rabbit approach to a creature like this ("Aww, poor Giant Squid!") is detrimental not only to science, but to your understanding of the world.
Also, you can't eat this animal, and no Japanese have any interest in eating it. On top of this, any who DID would be sorely disappointed, as the animal has a *high* ammonia content, too strong to eat safely, and so strong in fact that even being in a room with a piece of it would make you lose your appetite.
Does this remind anyone else of the Warthog from Halo? Throw some 4 wheel steering on this bad boy, it'd be very similar. Well, at least I think so.
I find it extremely interesting that the "We are one" section icon shows both North and South Korea. An ultra censored xenophobic communist nation and a worldly important capitalist nation? The only place in the world where the US still has to actively deploy soldiers to mediate is on their common border. Those two countries are totally different worlds. Man, talk about propoganda.
So why abbreviate it? I don't understand!
In places like Japan or Korea, you can replace phone systems within a few months or a relatively short amount of time, as compared with the United States, which still doesn't even have coverage in some parts. When you live in a country the size of California, things can get done a lot quicker.
Hmm... I suppose you're right, speech is ok, but with any instrumentation that is "smooth", such as a brass or a wind with a steady note, it becomes steadily apparent that there's a need for a better encode.
LOL, ok, I admit that sounded pretty stupid. I only meant to say that comparing OGG's 128 with WMA or MP3's 128 is pretty retarded, as they both sound pretty bad compared to a higher file size/bitrate anyway. Seriously, what's the point of an *extremely* lossy format like that, when bandwidth can handle something much better than that in the first place?
I don't know how you could possibly say that 128kbps sounds good on any encoding format. If you buy headphones that are more than $20, or a sound system that's worthwhile, you can certainly tell that 128 sounds muffled and tinny. If you can't tell.. you're deaf.
128kbps doesn't cut it. It's an absolute lossy, disgusting bitrate, no matter what it's in. They should test similar file sizes instead of by bitrate, to determine whether something is good or not- this gives a better impression of quality vs size, instead of a purely comparison based test.
Oh, I didn't realize.
They should outsource their votes to the US... It'd balance things out, methinks.
People have been making these for their computers out of lexan and plexiglass for years... It's interesting to me that something like this hasn't come up in the past. I'd personally like to see one that uses a tri-color LED and morphs between them, instead of switching manually.
You'll notice Asimo was designed to look and act like a human, while this soccer robot was designed to 1) identify ball, and 2) move ball to goal. Asimo is supposed to interact with humans and have more autonomous thinking than just moving a ball around. Not to mention the surface area of those feet and hands looks to be about 300% comparitively by size with the Asimo.