Back in the 1950s Johns Hopkins offered a penny a piece for each live firefly you gave them. Lots of kids got pocket money, but the population noticeably dropped for the next couple of years.
They've not only researched it, they've used it in combat. I'm afraid I don't have an online reference, but I recall reading in a National Geographic magazine in the late 70s or early 80s that Japanese and Allied officers used bioluminescent plankton and mold to read maps and documents in the Pacific theatre during WWII.
Re:The holy grail of camera tech....
on
HDR Video a Reality
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
and it also has to give BJs
... Actually, forget the HDR, focus stacking, panoramic stitching and the rest. I say we put all the R&D money into BJs!
You think Arc is "steaming pile of 'software'"? I've tried a few of the free alternatives (QGIS, MapWindow, Thuban), and, while ambitious projects, they don't come anywhere close to Arc. Can you suggest something better?
MS Word is better and more feature-ful than the competition, but that doesn't mean it's not a steaming pile. The two categories are not mutually exclusive.
Perhaps the developed world should consider that when you can't feed yourself or your family, broadband is not really that high a priority
My god, the ignorance around here is astounding. (That's an observation, not an insult.)
When you're struggling to get by, the one thing you want more than anything else is that your children don't have to struggle the way you did. Parents will go hungry in order to educate their children. I know; I see them do it all the time.
I'm really amazed that I have to write this again and again. Does nobody remember the century of immigration to the US, when people lived in abysmally poor conditions, willing to do anything in order for their children to succeed? (The slums of New York were in many ways far more desperate and deadly than most of rural Africa.) Does nobody realise that the reason their children were able to advance in society is because someone was building telephone networks, schools and colleges?
The problems of the developing world are manifold, that's absolutely true. Nothing is as simple or as easy as it seems. But to say that you have to solve hunger before you solve communications is like suggesting a baby learn to hop first, then walk, because after all, if he can't walk on one leg, what hope has he got of walking on two?
Thank you. You've got people saying things like "We've got to get broadband to the third world so they can catch up!". Broadband? Many of these people don't even have clean water supplies, or a house that isn't made of trash or mud. Just how much is a freakin' broadband connection going to help them?
Yeah, there's hurricanes in them southern parts. Every year! Why they bother building houses I'll never know.
And illness, too. So why build schools? They're all gonna die anyway!
Come to think of it, why even expect them to read or count? What's the point? They're POOR, I tell you, POOR! When you're poor, there's no point in asking for anything except food and a pine box.
Yeah -- I'm pretty sure that worldwide ownership rate of cell phones is somewhat less than 73%.
Not by much.
I work in ICT development and advocacy in the Pacific, and write about it occasionally. I can think of several countries off the top of my head where teledensity has risen by orders of magnitude within 12-18 months of new mobile services being rolled out.
In Vanuatu, where I live, we went from about 20,000 active accounts to 100,000 within 9 months. Unimpressed? The entire population of the country is 235,000.
I predict that there will come a time when the idea of 73% coverage of all of humanity doesn't raise eyebrows the way it does now. I predict that this will happen within 5-10 years.
"I think it will be more secure and the carriers will be able to track and store my information", said Li Junru, speaking slowly and clearly into the nearby potted plant.
They can. It's only their philosophy that prevents them from doing so.
Bullshit. The MPEG-LA's patent restrictions explicitly disallow redistribution by unlicensed third parties. The license under which Mozilla has been released explicitly allows redistribution by third parties.
That's kind of the point of Free Software.
Saying that 'it's only their philosophy' that prevents them from licensing H.264 is disingenuous at best, mendacious at worst. It's like saying it's only philosophy that prevents the US from moving to a Communist-style command economy; it's only philosophy that stops the Catholic church from performing abortions.
Yes, it's only philosophy that prevents Firefox from becoming its own antithesis and from eschewing the very operating principles that made it the success it is today.
Just finished reading the first couple posts from your blog. Any advice for someone who wants to pickup and move to Vanuatu to either do networking or volunteer work?
Come visit first. There's a regional geek conference that should give you an idea of where things are at, coming up in mid-September. PacINET 2010 promises to be pretty good fun, and registration is free. If you can pony up for the ticket and cheap accommodation (guest houses start at about US$20/night, then you'll be right.
A more general, cautionary note to folks thinking about working in ICT development projects in underdeveloped countries: You'd better be strong, flexible, resourceful, good with (human) languages and have more than the normal allotment of patience.
I've been stuck in cyclones, got malaria, dengue, been hospitalised from the after-effects of prolonged dehydration, had more skin infections in more places than anyone really wants to know. I've been bitten by things straight out of a Tim Burton movie. I've had death threats and constant, insanely unreasonable demands on my time and my pocketbook.
To put things into perspective: we had a 7.5 earthquake here a couple of weeks ago, and were laughing about it within the hour. Nature is tough and unforgiving here. You'd better be prepared.
You may think all this is exciting. It's emphatically not. Put your Hollywood imagination away. It's tedious, uncomfortable and often dangerous in small, boring, trivial ways.
I walked away from an affluent existence as one of the first few professional web developers to enter the field and survive now on a pittance (although I do live moderately well by local standards - my new house has hot water!).
You have to measure success like a batting average. Just assume you'll strike out more than you succeed. Most projects are unwinnable from the start, and you only go through with them because to do nothing would be worse.
On top of all of that, you'll need to adjust to a culture so foreign that it will shock you to your core. And you'll only have yourself to rely on. There won't be any police if you're in a tight spot, the fire truck - if it arrives at all - will come in time to water down the ashes.
You'll see children maimed and even killed by trivially treatable conditions. You'll see good people die and bad people prosper.
But once in a while, someone will smile at you like this, and it will all be worthwhile....
... It better be, anyway, because most of the time, that's all the payment you get.
If, after all that, you're still intent on coming, then read this and come on along.
Do you know if they have cell service on all of those islands with satellite backhauls? Or did they have to physically aggregate the data from the devices?
For the most part, they logged the data to the devices, then brought them back to Port Vila (the capital) and transferred it to the central system.
GPRS service is available throughout much of the country, but at terribly slow speeds and very high prices (about US$4.00/MB). It is being used to transfer monitoring data from the several active volcanoes we have, but to my knowledge, not for much else. Even donors find the service too expensive and slow to rely on.
There are VSAT uplinks at various places around the islands, but the two telcos here rely mostly on microwave links to hop from one island to the next.
Yes, it's satire. But it's true in the same way the Daily Show is true. Having worked in development these last 7 years, I can tell you from experience that most large-scale aid projects are just as fucked up as most large-scale software development projects - astoundingly inept bureaucracies whose sole interest is wringing more dollars from (sometimes) well-intentioned dupes.
Strictly speaking, Brazil is not the first nation to do this.
The tiny Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu recently completed their 2010 census using smart phones. They mapped every single household across over 80 inhabited islands using GPS and are in the process of putting everything into a GIS-ready database.
The challenge, of course, was several orders of magnitude smaller, but as a proof of concept, it was compelling. To be able to use electronic data gathering ina Least Developed Country with no mobile phone service to 20% of the country is pretty remarkable. This is the first time in its history that Vanuatu has had reliable, complete demographic data.
Wait what? Since when is ethical hacking dubious?! If I had mod points, you would be modded as a troll.
Then it's a good thing you don't have points (and possibly the reason why).
If you disagree, rebut the argument with evidence and reason. Modding people down for being wrong (in your opinion) is childish and, most important of all, unpersuasive.
So, instead of people simply talking into bluetooth mics, gesturing wildly in space and acting like a schizophrenic off their meds, you're simultaneously going to have people waving their arms around like they are conducting a symphony.
Yep, cubicleville is going to get even weirder than it already is.
I'm more worried about in-car devices misinterpreting people who talk with their hands. I can just see the headlines:
"Us Ubuntu and Mac users will not give you peace nor rest until Windows is dead"
Good luck with that. Of course once OUR Windows is dead it'll be YOUR machines sending us SPAM.
Yeah, you know what? You may be right, but in the mean time...
... Could you please stop making excuses and fix your fucking machines that spam the rest of the world!?!
Because, you see, whatever MY potential for causing YOU harm in the future (and I admit it's non-zero), the likelihood that the overwhelming majority of the millions of machines in this botnet right now are running Windows has a probability of 1. So maybe if WE stopped speculating about some future email Armageddon and focused on the one that's happening right now, we might actually get something done.
And who knows? Maybe the lessons you learn by cleaning up this mess will help us all avoid it in the future? Now wouldn't that be nice?
Nicer than your reply, anyway, which is the rhetorical equivalent of 'Yo' Momma!'
People tend to view the internet as this vast bazaar of millions of sites and voices. But images like this show just how homogeneous and centralised the majority of the net really is.
And yet it's still big enough for you to post to the wrong thread... and get modded insightful.
This is what I want to know: Is Microsoft's new stance a sort of "this is the way the world is going, we'd better at least pretend to get with the program," or is it more like "we need to do a better job with PR of covering up our continuing efforts to break and absorb every platform that isn't ours?"
The exec was mis-quoted. He actually said, 'We embrace Open Source.'
... And we all know that Microsoft's embrace is like an anaconda's.
So, when Iran defends itself from what they see as an imperialist nation, they're antagonizing the West?
OK.
But it's still not newsworthy.
Oh my, yes it is. This particular UAV doesn't have the range to threaten Israel (that would require another 500km at least), but you can bet that Iran wants the world to think that the next one will. Militarily, a UAV would be an less-than-ideal delivery mechanism for a nuclear weapon, but it might prove viable if it were able to fly low-and-slow with a negligible radar profile.
Iran's closer neighbours, meanwhile, have all been served notice, too. This is Iran's way of saying, 'Don't fuck with us.' Remember that most neighbouring countries do not love the Shi'ite version of Islam, which is a majority religion only in Iran and Iraq, I believe. Think back to the European wars that accompanied the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. Shias and Sunnis are kind of like Catholics and Protestants. Peaceful now, but often at odds with one another.
Lastly, this is Iran thumbing its nose at US-sponsored economic sanctions. Effectively, they're saying, 'No matter what you do to thwart us, we can still acquire the technologies we want to be the threat you don't want us to be. So why not sit down and allow us to negotiate a better place for ourselves in the region?'
I prefer to buy based on pragmatism, not zealotry.
You're reading far too much into Bruce's statement.
If buying ATI cards because of their improved performance encourages ATI to make a greater investment in open source drivers, which in turn further improves features and performance, how is this is any way NOT pragmatic?
There may be such a thing as open source zealotry, but, when they choose it, the vast majority of people choose FOSS because it's better than the alternatives.
Lastly, accusing Bruce Perens, of all people, of zealotry is not a great way to impress us with your perspicacity.
You can assert that I'm being cynical and despairing, but I'm calling it like I see it.
I think you're spot on with your analysis. I only take issue with your conclusion that it can't be changed.
Every great success in US history - and there are many - has come as a result of concerted action against enfranchised elites over the course of decades.
People've been fighting about it for a lot longer than that. It's just that somehow the world has decided the US has to solve the world's ills in the mere 200 years they've been here - despite the rest of you lot having been around quite a bit longer.
Of course, racial and social inequality have been with us for as long as we've had race and society. My point, however, was specifically in the context of the US, and my argument was specifically about the appallingly cynical view of politics that prevails in the US.
The US looms large at this point in history because the effects of its actions are often global in scope.
Slashdot Mirror
Back in the 1950s Johns Hopkins offered a penny a piece for each live firefly you gave them. Lots of kids got pocket money, but the population noticeably dropped for the next couple of years.
They've not only researched it, they've used it in combat. I'm afraid I don't have an online reference, but I recall reading in a National Geographic magazine in the late 70s or early 80s that Japanese and Allied officers used bioluminescent plankton and mold to read maps and documents in the Pacific theatre during WWII.
and it also has to give BJs
... Actually, forget the HDR, focus stacking, panoramic stitching and the rest. I say we put all the R&D money into BJs!
The summary stops a bit short... they already unsuspended him, the article even says so at the end.
Yes, but the entire population of Dildo (conveniently located near Come by Chance, Newfoundland) are still awaiting justice!
You think Arc is "steaming pile of 'software'"? I've tried a few of the free alternatives (QGIS, MapWindow, Thuban), and, while ambitious projects, they don't come anywhere close to Arc. Can you suggest something better?
MS Word is better and more feature-ful than the competition, but that doesn't mean it's not a steaming pile. The two categories are not mutually exclusive.
My god, the ignorance around here is astounding. (That's an observation, not an insult.)
When you're struggling to get by, the one thing you want more than anything else is that your children don't have to struggle the way you did. Parents will go hungry in order to educate their children. I know; I see them do it all the time.
I'm really amazed that I have to write this again and again. Does nobody remember the century of immigration to the US, when people lived in abysmally poor conditions, willing to do anything in order for their children to succeed? (The slums of New York were in many ways far more desperate and deadly than most of rural Africa.) Does nobody realise that the reason their children were able to advance in society is because someone was building telephone networks, schools and colleges?
The problems of the developing world are manifold, that's absolutely true. Nothing is as simple or as easy as it seems. But to say that you have to solve hunger before you solve communications is like suggesting a baby learn to hop first, then walk, because after all, if he can't walk on one leg, what hope has he got of walking on two?
Thank you. You've got people saying things like "We've got to get broadband to the third world so they can catch up!". Broadband? Many of these people don't even have clean water supplies, or a house that isn't made of trash or mud. Just how much is a freakin' broadband connection going to help them?
Yeah, there's hurricanes in them southern parts. Every year! Why they bother building houses I'll never know.
And illness, too. So why build schools? They're all gonna die anyway!
Come to think of it, why even expect them to read or count? What's the point? They're POOR, I tell you, POOR! When you're poor, there's no point in asking for anything except food and a pine box.
...
... Sheesh...
Yeah -- I'm pretty sure that worldwide ownership rate of cell phones is somewhat less than 73%.
Not by much.
I work in ICT development and advocacy in the Pacific, and write about it occasionally. I can think of several countries off the top of my head where teledensity has risen by orders of magnitude within 12-18 months of new mobile services being rolled out.
In Vanuatu, where I live, we went from about 20,000 active accounts to 100,000 within 9 months. Unimpressed? The entire population of the country is 235,000.
I predict that there will come a time when the idea of 73% coverage of all of humanity doesn't raise eyebrows the way it does now. I predict that this will happen within 5-10 years.
Has Microsoft put out any Shakespeare yet? Then there's your proof.
I dunno, I consider MSIE to be the of the great tragedies of my lifetime....
"I think it will be more secure and the carriers will be able to track and store my information", said Li Junru, speaking slowly and clearly into the nearby potted plant.
There. Fixd it for you.
Physician, heal thyself. 8^)
Why can FF not offer H.264 video?
They can. It's only their philosophy that prevents them from doing so.
Bullshit. The MPEG-LA's patent restrictions explicitly disallow redistribution by unlicensed third parties. The license under which Mozilla has been released explicitly allows redistribution by third parties.
That's kind of the point of Free Software.
Saying that 'it's only their philosophy' that prevents them from licensing H.264 is disingenuous at best, mendacious at worst. It's like saying it's only philosophy that prevents the US from moving to a Communist-style command economy; it's only philosophy that stops the Catholic church from performing abortions.
Yes, it's only philosophy that prevents Firefox from becoming its own antithesis and from eschewing the very operating principles that made it the success it is today.
Just finished reading the first couple posts from your blog. Any advice for someone who wants to pickup and move to Vanuatu to either do networking or volunteer work?
Come visit first. There's a regional geek conference that should give you an idea of where things are at, coming up in mid-September. PacINET 2010 promises to be pretty good fun, and registration is free. If you can pony up for the ticket and cheap accommodation (guest houses start at about US$20/night, then you'll be right.
A more general, cautionary note to folks thinking about working in ICT development projects in underdeveloped countries: You'd better be strong, flexible, resourceful, good with (human) languages and have more than the normal allotment of patience.
I've been stuck in cyclones, got malaria, dengue, been hospitalised from the after-effects of prolonged dehydration, had more skin infections in more places than anyone really wants to know. I've been bitten by things straight out of a Tim Burton movie. I've had death threats and constant, insanely unreasonable demands on my time and my pocketbook.
To put things into perspective: we had a 7.5 earthquake here a couple of weeks ago, and were laughing about it within the hour. Nature is tough and unforgiving here. You'd better be prepared.
You may think all this is exciting. It's emphatically not. Put your Hollywood imagination away. It's tedious, uncomfortable and often dangerous in small, boring, trivial ways.
I walked away from an affluent existence as one of the first few professional web developers to enter the field and survive now on a pittance (although I do live moderately well by local standards - my new house has hot water!).
You have to measure success like a batting average. Just assume you'll strike out more than you succeed. Most projects are unwinnable from the start, and you only go through with them because to do nothing would be worse.
On top of all of that, you'll need to adjust to a culture so foreign that it will shock you to your core. And you'll only have yourself to rely on. There won't be any police if you're in a tight spot, the fire truck - if it arrives at all - will come in time to water down the ashes.
You'll see children maimed and even killed by trivially treatable conditions. You'll see good people die and bad people prosper.
But once in a while, someone will smile at you like this, and it will all be worthwhile....
... It better be, anyway, because most of the time, that's all the payment you get.
If, after all that, you're still intent on coming, then read this and come on along.
Do you know if they have cell service on all of those islands with satellite backhauls? Or did they have to physically aggregate the data from the devices?
For the most part, they logged the data to the devices, then brought them back to Port Vila (the capital) and transferred it to the central system.
GPRS service is available throughout much of the country, but at terribly slow speeds and very high prices (about US$4.00/MB). It is being used to transfer monitoring data from the several active volcanoes we have, but to my knowledge, not for much else. Even donors find the service too expensive and slow to rely on.
There are VSAT uplinks at various places around the islands, but the two telcos here rely mostly on microwave links to hop from one island to the next.
OK, I'll bite. What do you think is wrong with a charity combatting disease in Africa?
Happy to answer that: Hand Relief International.
Yes, it's satire. But it's true in the same way the Daily Show is true. Having worked in development these last 7 years, I can tell you from experience that most large-scale aid projects are just as fucked up as most large-scale software development projects - astoundingly inept bureaucracies whose sole interest is wringing more dollars from (sometimes) well-intentioned dupes.
Strictly speaking, Brazil is not the first nation to do this.
The tiny Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu recently completed their 2010 census using smart phones. They mapped every single household across over 80 inhabited islands using GPS and are in the process of putting everything into a GIS-ready database.
The challenge, of course, was several orders of magnitude smaller, but as a proof of concept, it was compelling. To be able to use electronic data gathering ina Least Developed Country with no mobile phone service to 20% of the country is pretty remarkable. This is the first time in its history that Vanuatu has had reliable, complete demographic data.
Then it's a good thing you don't have points (and possibly the reason why).
If you disagree, rebut the argument with evidence and reason. Modding people down for being wrong (in your opinion) is childish and, most important of all, unpersuasive.
So, instead of people simply talking into bluetooth mics, gesturing wildly in space and acting like a schizophrenic off their meds, you're simultaneously going to have people waving their arms around like they are conducting a symphony. Yep, cubicleville is going to get even weirder than it already is.
I'm more worried about in-car devices misinterpreting people who talk with their hands. I can just see the headlines:
300 DEAD IN ITALIAN ROAD APOCALYPSE
or:
DEAF HACKER CULT SCARE
"Us Ubuntu and Mac users will not give you peace nor rest until Windows is dead"
Good luck with that. Of course once OUR Windows is dead it'll be YOUR machines sending us SPAM.
Yeah, you know what? You may be right, but in the mean time...
Because, you see, whatever MY potential for causing YOU harm in the future (and I admit it's non-zero), the likelihood that the overwhelming majority of the millions of machines in this botnet right now are running Windows has a probability of 1. So maybe if WE stopped speculating about some future email Armageddon and focused on the one that's happening right now, we might actually get something done.
And who knows? Maybe the lessons you learn by cleaning up this mess will help us all avoid it in the future? Now wouldn't that be nice?
Nicer than your reply, anyway, which is the rhetorical equivalent of 'Yo' Momma!'
And yet it's still big enough for you to post to the wrong thread... and get modded insightful.
... Beer is a dish best served cold. And it is very cold in space.
Plus it gives a whole new meaning to the name Buzz Lightyear.
This is what I want to know: Is Microsoft's new stance a sort of "this is the way the world is going, we'd better at least pretend to get with the program," or is it more like "we need to do a better job with PR of covering up our continuing efforts to break and absorb every platform that isn't ours?"
The exec was mis-quoted. He actually said, 'We embrace Open Source.'
... And we all know that Microsoft's embrace is like an anaconda's.
So, when Iran defends itself from what they see as an imperialist nation, they're antagonizing the West?
OK.
But it's still not newsworthy.
Oh my, yes it is. This particular UAV doesn't have the range to threaten Israel (that would require another 500km at least), but you can bet that Iran wants the world to think that the next one will. Militarily, a UAV would be an less-than-ideal delivery mechanism for a nuclear weapon, but it might prove viable if it were able to fly low-and-slow with a negligible radar profile.
Iran's closer neighbours, meanwhile, have all been served notice, too. This is Iran's way of saying, 'Don't fuck with us.' Remember that most neighbouring countries do not love the Shi'ite version of Islam, which is a majority religion only in Iran and Iraq, I believe. Think back to the European wars that accompanied the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. Shias and Sunnis are kind of like Catholics and Protestants. Peaceful now, but often at odds with one another.
Lastly, this is Iran thumbing its nose at US-sponsored economic sanctions. Effectively, they're saying, 'No matter what you do to thwart us, we can still acquire the technologies we want to be the threat you don't want us to be. So why not sit down and allow us to negotiate a better place for ourselves in the region?'
We need two Jullian Assanges; We need many!
"I AM SPARTA- uh, I mean... Julia Assa... uh... Line?"
You're reading far too much into Bruce's statement.
If buying ATI cards because of their improved performance encourages ATI to make a greater investment in open source drivers, which in turn further improves features and performance, how is this is any way NOT pragmatic?
There may be such a thing as open source zealotry, but, when they choose it, the vast majority of people choose FOSS because it's better than the alternatives.
Lastly, accusing Bruce Perens, of all people, of zealotry is not a great way to impress us with your perspicacity.
I think you're spot on with your analysis. I only take issue with your conclusion that it can't be changed.
Every great success in US history - and there are many - has come as a result of concerted action against enfranchised elites over the course of decades.
Now get to work. 8^)
Of course, racial and social inequality have been with us for as long as we've had race and society. My point, however, was specifically in the context of the US, and my argument was specifically about the appallingly cynical view of politics that prevails in the US.
The US looms large at this point in history because the effects of its actions are often global in scope.