Do most states even have actual speed limits? In my state, there are "speed limit" signs with numbers on them posted through the road system, but the actual state code uses language that suggests otherwise - the actual law is that drivers must drive at "reasonable and prudent" speeds, and that exceeding the posted limit is "prima facie" evidence of violation.
But so would keeping "summer hours" at various businesses. 9-5 in the winter? 8-4 in the summer! See how easy that is? No need to take something that has a real, astronomical meaning, and fiddle with it completely arbitrarily for no real benefit at all.
In fact, the greatest benefit we could get would probably be to encourage businesses to vary their working times to spread out the "rush hour" traffic. This would reduce congestion on the roads (it's not strictly linear, so even a small change could reap huge rewards), a net win for both commuters and the environment. I know that an extra half hour of real time at each end of the day spent "not commuting" would be more valuable to me than 20 "extra" hours of daylight that we got by shifting our troubles by the same amount.
I don't know if there were any CRT TVs capable of 1080p, but only a CRT display would be capable of "natively" supporting both 1080p and 720p.. Well, that or a 2160p display, I suppose.
I can definitely tell the difference on my LCD screen. I'm not sure how the physics of plasma screens work as to whether there is some natural blurring that would mask the effects of upscaling a 720p signal.
I agree that there are diminishing returns going from 720 to 1080, but non-native resolutions definitely exacerbate the differences. And let's not even consider the effect of recording something at 1080, resampling it to 720 for broadcast, then upscaling it to fit a 1080 screen. Please, just broadcast it at the resolution you recorded it at and let me decide whether to letterbox it or upscale it.
If you're looking at a ranking like this one, then the answer is.. the sample size and actual differences in performance might not be large enough to make any substantive conclusions about the nations ahead of us.
For one thing, fewer than half of the "better than US" nations on that list have populations larger than 10 million (iceland has less than half the population of Rhode Island, even...). Next, the scores of the top 20 or so nations are within about 10%, so I'm not sure that being third vs thirteenth in the rankings is worth more than bragging rights.
Certainly, we should look at what everyone is doing and see what is working and what isn't, but it's not so cut and dry that what we're doing is significantly inferior to what other nations are doing.
Did you know you can put an unpractically huge number of addresses in the TO: field alone? I love seeing my email address neatly nestled amid 200 others that definitely won't be picked up by spammers, for sure.
Regardless of whether you can tell the difference between a 720p screen and a 1080p screen, you can certainly tell when the images have been scaled from one to fit the other. Since a lot of home TVs are natively 1080p, it doesn't make sense for home theater boxes not to be capable of outputting that when available.
Subtle? Only if you have a screen that can do both natively (and who has HD CRTs in their living rooms any more....). If your screen doesn't do it natively, then the difference is sharp. Or blurry, rather, in either direction, assuming the stream was properly encoded at the resolution it claims. Otherwise, it's just blurry. The artifacts propagate further than just a single pixel width.
Now, the real question is why any of these home theater boxes need to bother to decode compressed video just to send it over a digital link to a television which has a built-in video processor for the same format. You'd think the televisions would be designed with a direct input....
No, there's an actual adapter you could use that is the equivalent of an adapter. And the adapter works with all the current gen devices with an iPod connector. Of course, iPods don't do 1080p video, and the 720p video they do do suffers a bit from compression artifacts (although... netflix streaming is surprisingly watchable despite them being a battery powered device that barely bigger than a credit card...)
Apple TV does it wirelessly, though, which is far more convenient.
I'm not sure that that would've mattered either, as the "water-tight" compartments weren't sealed at the top. Interestingly, they're still not sealed at the top, which i suspect contributed to the sinking of the costa concordia recently.
You're assuming that the work he does wouldn't require an internet connection anyway. I'm not sure that that's a reasonable assumption, though. I'd suspect that more often than not, if they're considering issuing a company laptop, that the work probably involves connecting to the company network to do stuff anyway. In which case, the network access issue wouldn't be relevant.
However...
Why use citrix, when you can use the OS's built-in remote desktop capability? Or in the case of unixy machines, the even better solution of X-forwarding.
The vault at the bank does not contain the money. It contains banks of small, thin-walled boxes. The purpose of the vault is to appear impressive, to attract customers.
Pfft. The Trieste has nothing in common with the german brand of dirigibles. I mean, yeah, both vessels have a low occupy-able area compared to the total volume of the craft, and are lighter than the ambient medium with buoyancy provided by a rigid cylinder filled with highly flammable fluid, but other than that, I can't see any similarities.
"Proper" SF isn't "hard SF" Although they're both difficult to get right, especially if you also want to be entertaining.
The idea of sci fi in general, and its main strength over other forms of literature, is to explore some social issue using fantastic elements to disguise the bits that would prejudice the reader. Like the film Gattaca, which explorers racism without prejudicing white viewers with actual race differences. (speaking of which.. why does the title have an extra letter?)
Hard scifi doesn't necessarily don't explore real issues, but instead plays with the what if [thing that's impossible] were everyday and commonplace scenario. Sometimes you get a story that's engrossing. Sometimes you get a product manual for products you can never buy. Frequently, you miss out on the "permanent and universal interest" part of enduring literature, though.
10% is enough to get things started, though. The American revolution was fought with fewer than 30% supporters at its peak, and most really didn't care.
Which suggests that the real number is far, far less than 10%. Indeed, when you talk to people about, say, the freedom-of-travel impediments (of, say, TSA et al), most will actually get upset that you're upset about it.
Slashdot Mirror
Even just "locking up their dad in prison" would be pretty bad for his children...
Do most states even have actual speed limits? In my state, there are "speed limit" signs with numbers on them posted through the road system, but the actual state code uses language that suggests otherwise - the actual law is that drivers must drive at "reasonable and prudent" speeds, and that exceeding the posted limit is "prima facie" evidence of violation.
But so would keeping "summer hours" at various businesses. 9-5 in the winter? 8-4 in the summer! See how easy that is? No need to take something that has a real, astronomical meaning, and fiddle with it completely arbitrarily for no real benefit at all.
In fact, the greatest benefit we could get would probably be to encourage businesses to vary their working times to spread out the "rush hour" traffic. This would reduce congestion on the roads (it's not strictly linear, so even a small change could reap huge rewards), a net win for both commuters and the environment. I know that an extra half hour of real time at each end of the day spent "not commuting" would be more valuable to me than 20 "extra" hours of daylight that we got by shifting our troubles by the same amount.
I don't know if there were any CRT TVs capable of 1080p, but only a CRT display would be capable of "natively" supporting both 1080p and 720p.. Well, that or a 2160p display, I suppose.
I can definitely tell the difference on my LCD screen. I'm not sure how the physics of plasma screens work as to whether there is some natural blurring that would mask the effects of upscaling a 720p signal.
I agree that there are diminishing returns going from 720 to 1080, but non-native resolutions definitely exacerbate the differences. And let's not even consider the effect of recording something at 1080, resampling it to 720 for broadcast, then upscaling it to fit a 1080 screen. Please, just broadcast it at the resolution you recorded it at and let me decide whether to letterbox it or upscale it.
If you're looking at a ranking like this one, then the answer is.. the sample size and actual differences in performance might not be large enough to make any substantive conclusions about the nations ahead of us.
For one thing, fewer than half of the "better than US" nations on that list have populations larger than 10 million (iceland has less than half the population of Rhode Island, even...). Next, the scores of the top 20 or so nations are within about 10%, so I'm not sure that being third vs thirteenth in the rankings is worth more than bragging rights.
Certainly, we should look at what everyone is doing and see what is working and what isn't, but it's not so cut and dry that what we're doing is significantly inferior to what other nations are doing.
How about... 10% (or some number you negotiate prior to death) of the gross proceeds can be assigned to whatever beneficiaries you have specified.
It seems kind of shady to complain about a shortage of something when you not only have price controls on it, but the price you control it at is zero.
BCC? If only.
Did you know you can put an unpractically huge number of addresses in the TO: field alone? I love seeing my email address neatly nestled amid 200 others that definitely won't be picked up by spammers, for sure.
Regardless of whether you can tell the difference between a 720p screen and a 1080p screen, you can certainly tell when the images have been scaled from one to fit the other. Since a lot of home TVs are natively 1080p, it doesn't make sense for home theater boxes not to be capable of outputting that when available.
Subtle? Only if you have a screen that can do both natively (and who has HD CRTs in their living rooms any more....). If your screen doesn't do it natively, then the difference is sharp. Or blurry, rather, in either direction, assuming the stream was properly encoded at the resolution it claims. Otherwise, it's just blurry. The artifacts propagate further than just a single pixel width.
Now, the real question is why any of these home theater boxes need to bother to decode compressed video just to send it over a digital link to a television which has a built-in video processor for the same format. You'd think the televisions would be designed with a direct input....
No, there's an actual adapter you could use that is the equivalent of an adapter. And the adapter works with all the current gen devices with an iPod connector. Of course, iPods don't do 1080p video, and the 720p video they do do suffers a bit from compression artifacts (although... netflix streaming is surprisingly watchable despite them being a battery powered device that barely bigger than a credit card...)
Apple TV does it wirelessly, though, which is far more convenient.
And he'll chemically process the masters so he can film it again over any remaining frames of the original.
I'm not sure that that would've mattered either, as the "water-tight" compartments weren't sealed at the top. Interestingly, they're still not sealed at the top, which i suspect contributed to the sinking of the costa concordia recently.
You're assuming that the work he does wouldn't require an internet connection anyway. I'm not sure that that's a reasonable assumption, though. I'd suspect that more often than not, if they're considering issuing a company laptop, that the work probably involves connecting to the company network to do stuff anyway. In which case, the network access issue wouldn't be relevant.
However...
Why use citrix, when you can use the OS's built-in remote desktop capability? Or in the case of unixy machines, the even better solution of X-forwarding.
So... Now that you've gotten past the span filter, what do you have to say?
Skinny is fashionable now for the same reason being heavy was hundreds of years ago.
It's a sign of being wealthy enough not to have to work for a living?
The vault at the bank does not contain the money. It contains banks of small, thin-walled boxes. The purpose of the vault is to appear impressive, to attract customers.
Aren't skyscrapers already better for earthquakes than shorter buildings?
What's the deal with compressed air levitation. Is it good or is it whack?
It's fun
Pfft. The Trieste has nothing in common with the german brand of dirigibles. I mean, yeah, both vessels have a low occupy-able area compared to the total volume of the craft, and are lighter than the ambient medium with buoyancy provided by a rigid cylinder filled with highly flammable fluid, but other than that, I can't see any similarities.
Ghostbusters.
It could be both, if the lie was in print, depending on the typeface....
"Proper" SF isn't "hard SF" Although they're both difficult to get right, especially if you also want to be entertaining.
The idea of sci fi in general, and its main strength over other forms of literature, is to explore some social issue using fantastic elements to disguise the bits that would prejudice the reader. Like the film Gattaca, which explorers racism without prejudicing white viewers with actual race differences. (speaking of which.. why does the title have an extra letter?)
Hard scifi doesn't necessarily don't explore real issues, but instead plays with the what if [thing that's impossible] were everyday and commonplace scenario. Sometimes you get a story that's engrossing. Sometimes you get a product manual for products you can never buy. Frequently, you miss out on the "permanent and universal interest" part of enduring literature, though.
We in the US have the FCC. You guys in UK have an analogous agency. You must, to satisfy the international telecommunications treaties...
...A reminder that even if you're doing something as boring as fixing up a bivariate plot...
Fixing the curve so it looks more menacing? Getting rid of pesky outlier points? What "fixing" of a plot are you doing in Photoshop?
10% is enough to get things started, though. The American revolution was fought with fewer than 30% supporters at its peak, and most really didn't care.
Which suggests that the real number is far, far less than 10%. Indeed, when you talk to people about, say, the freedom-of-travel impediments (of, say, TSA et al), most will actually get upset that you're upset about it.