Pigeons fly in V formation, as do crows. Actually, most birds that size do. Once you start getting smaller though, they flock, but don't do the V formation -- even with migratory birds. Once you're down to Juncos, Chickadees and Sparrows, they use more of a chaotic swarm and weave method to confuse predators -- but they also tend to hop from tree to tree, and don't fly long distances in the open.
What really confuses me is seagulls -- they flock like smaller birds and yet travel distances and have few (land/air) predators.
That's a big assumption, as I saw articles written up on this in the 90's that used thermal imaging cameras to accomplish the same thing -- and experiments using the wings of dead birds in a V in a wind tunnel in the 80's. in the 00's, there was even some thermal-based studies using high speed cameras that uncovered extra vortices and other neat tricks employed by bird wings that had never been seen before.
In short, the news is that some Biology major discovered something in a novel way for his thesis, and journalists picked up the simplest bit of the study results as the "story" without doing their history checking first.
When you're playing a game, the concept of money is game money. A lot of games let you earn and spend money. Why would anyone playing a game, and presented with a choice like "do you want more energy for $0.99?", think that they are spending real USD money? Especially in a "free app".
Well, the prompt that you're about to spend real money and do you want to authorize this, followed by a prompt for your account ID and password should be a clue. The prompt is very obviously not a game prompt.
Apple doesn't provide a receipt? Funny... I've always got a (delayed) email receipt that aggregates the month's purchases, and have been able to review purchases in iTunes....
However, I just double checked, and iTunes appears to be the ONLY!?!?! way to review purchases -- if you use your device OTA and make purchases OTA, the only way you can review purchases is when Apple emails the transaction receipt -- there appears to be no other means of getting at your purchase info other than via iTunes.
Minor correction: You do need a payment method to open the iTunes Store account. After 24 hours you may remove the payment method from the account, but the CC is a form of identity and age verification in the process.
This makes no sense... you can open an account using a gift card -- which says absolutely nothing about identity or age verification.
So an advocate would not benefit the process? Then the process is broken. In the interests of protecting innocents from government overreach, dissolve the FISA court.
Issuing investigative warrants generally isn't an adversarial process even in ordinary courts. An ordinary court handling the warrant requests would still apply the same standards, and would be burdened by the confidentiality requirements. Dissolving the FISA court doesn't get you anything.
Wait... it sounds like you're saying that HAVING the FISA court doesn't get you anything either... as the FISA judges are currently being burdened by the same confidentiality requirements.
At the bottom of it you're arguing that FISA itself is useless, and the only reason not to get rid of it is that it already exists.
Your point about FISA not really being the issue stands though -- and it could even be argued that with FISA, at least we've got a single court to examine instead of having to go after individual cases handed off to various courts and judges.
Except that in this case, they're correct. Adding such an advocate doesn't really solve anything and just makes the situation more complex.
And good luck finding 10 randomly selected people who would fit the profile and couldn't be swayed -- if their identity is public, then you could have people pressuring them; if their identity is private, then we're back to a secret system where there's no public verification (how do we know the people are random? How do we know they're unbiased? How do we know they understand the complexities of the situation? How do we know someone isn't buying them off?)
It is not something you get. It is something you take.
If you've got to the point where you have to take it, you've already given it away.
Privacy is something you hold on to for as long as possible, unless you see benefits to not doing so. Remember that privacy in and of itself is useless -- it's like intellectual property: only there for the betterment of humankind. And similarly, it can be abused in both directions.
If there's a backlog in the court system, it's entirely because of underfunding.
Does this go for backlogs in ER holding rooms as well?
Could there be a backlog because there are an unnecessary number of cases are going to court in the first place, instead of going to mediation or arbitration?
I'm suspicious of an advocate chosen by the court. Fox guarding the henhouse?
I'm suspicious of an advocate chosen by anyone connected to the US Federal government. However, I agree that one chosen by the court itself would be particularly bad.
I see no problem with an advocate chosen by the court, as long as that choice is fully public and examinable, and can be rescinded if non confidence is shown by a sizable majority.
The problem here is that having a court-chosen advocate, chosen in secret, operating in secret, doesn't meet that expectation. Once you start hiding information, you're in muddy waters. Once you've been proven to have abused that position, all trust is gone, and secrecy is no longer a viable option.
The whole solution is to slash the NSA budget and let them figure out where to get the most bang for their buck. They'll never tell you the truth about what they're up to and the "secret" courts are a joke. Cut their budget in half and they may have to choose between spying on their citizens and spying on foreign nationals.
Or, they may find that grabbing everything and automating the search process is MUCH cheaper than due dilligence, and be able to argue with FISC that they have to do it this way, because they haven't been provided any other option.
Funny that you got marked troll for an insightful comment to your own timely submission... I for one was quite pleased with the quality of this submission and your comments in it (so far):)
We should be telling/examining both sides of a story; just not trolling both sides. In this case, both the judge and you have perfectly reasonable arguments. What this says is that some other solution to oversight is needed; the one proposed won't work.
I'd go further and say if no reasonable oversight to the program is possible, it's past time to close the program. This goes for stuff going through other courts as well. This would put the onus of proof of reasonable oversight back on the courts and the programs they're supporting, where it belongs.
Of course, I'm not holding my breath on that, as nobody who could make such a threat stick has any reason to desire the affected programs closed.
Body language can convey intelligence or ignorance, and explains this experience far better. It's actually quite interesting, if that is the explanation, because he is clueless about the real reason and attributes it to a stereotype. Projecting, in psychological terms.
I think it's really a combination; physical stereotype will only take you so far, but if you complement it with body language, people tend to give you the benefit of the doubt even if the results say they shouldn't. Confidence artists have used this combination for generations.
On his part, I'm sure his physical looks helped him to train his body language to suit the situation. This is something I see a lot -- if someone's supposed to be a "dumb blonde" they'll often acquire the body language over time to fit the part -- even if they've got an IQ of 150. It's partially because we pick up body tells from the people we associate with, and people tend to associate with people (by default) who look like they do.
So? I fit that, and still consider this "stuff that matters". I was wondering why they thought their register VM was applicable to a scheme variant, and I had started to cross Guile off my list of relevant Scheme implementations. I'll be waiting until I see what actually gets documented before I weigh in further though.
Then again, I've been interested in Apple products since the 70's, so get off my lawn:D
What I'm wishing is that they'd just set an alarm so I'd know when it gets to 6 AM; this is one long night. I figure they use geolocation so that the time is accurate worldwide; although I'd be interested to see what time it says in Swatch time.
I was totally awed by the bravery and the diamond-hardened integrity of those American journalists.
Today ? American journalism ?
Ptuuuuiiii !!
I think you'll find that Journalism is like computer games or popular music... there's a HUGE amount of trash out there, and amidst the trash, a few diamonds. As the years go by, the diamonds are kept/remembered, and the rest goes in the landfill of time.
For example, look at yellow journalism -- that developed out of a feud between Hearst and Pulitzer, and ended up using the Spanish-American war to drive readership.
There are still dedicated journalists today; they're just usually not heard amidst the clamour of all the story writers that have continued to flood the system.
On the other hand, it's harder to "shutter" a microphone.
Not really; I can think of a few ways. The easiest would be placing a coloured conductive fluid in front of the microphone head -- when the microphone is enabled, so is the LED, and the fluid is propelled to the edges of the chamber (which is where the LED is. Result: sound will be at the very least muffled, and there will be a visual indicator of where the fluid is and whether the mic is on.
Unless changing the bulb is extremely difficult, wouldn't the bigger concern be the wattage rating? The difference between an A19 and the 11 hard usage incandescents would make itself felt in energy savings pretty quickly.
With illumination, there's always (at least) three factors: longevity, luminescence, and energy consumption. Coming in after the fact are things like initial price, disposal, and toxicity/environmental danger. Of course, there's also spectrum, but I'm bundling that with luminescence.
Personally, I'm looking forward to affordable piezoluminescent paint. By the time it wears out, you need to repaint anyway, and it's a lot cheaper to light for many surfaces.
The technology also allows the 3D capture of faces, giving a third dimension to portraits, profile pictures or images of loved ones.
Having a convenient way of getting 3D models of everyday objects, users will now be able to copy real-world objects by scanning a full 360 degree model of an object. The resulting 3D model can be used for visualization or augmented reality applications, or even be used for 3D printing, potentially at a remote location, effectively enabling the user to replicate an object.
so you can now use your smartphone to generate a photorealistic 3-D model of anyone's face, that can be replicated on a 3-D printer as a mask.
Are there any 3-D printers out there that print rubber, or would this still be a 2-step process (print the mould, then make the mask)?
Since this app purports to do all processing on the phone, you could use it on anyone, stream the model back to some parked van, and have a doppleganger ready to go in minutes.... smacks of Mission: Impossible.
That's a non-sequitur. However, to answer both questions: http://www.simplehelp.net/2008/06/12/how-to-play-flac-files-in-itunes/ So you can move to a different lossless format that is supported by most hardware and has an open source reference implementation, or you can use a kludge to make flac (which isn't really an accepted container, just an encoding) work in OS X natively.
Slashdot Mirror
Pigeons fly in V formation, as do crows. Actually, most birds that size do. Once you start getting smaller though, they flock, but don't do the V formation -- even with migratory birds. Once you're down to Juncos, Chickadees and Sparrows, they use more of a chaotic swarm and weave method to confuse predators -- but they also tend to hop from tree to tree, and don't fly long distances in the open.
What really confuses me is seagulls -- they flock like smaller birds and yet travel distances and have few (land/air) predators.
That's a big assumption, as I saw articles written up on this in the 90's that used thermal imaging cameras to accomplish the same thing -- and experiments using the wings of dead birds in a V in a wind tunnel in the 80's. in the 00's, there was even some thermal-based studies using high speed cameras that uncovered extra vortices and other neat tricks employed by bird wings that had never been seen before.
In short, the news is that some Biology major discovered something in a novel way for his thesis, and journalists picked up the simplest bit of the study results as the "story" without doing their history checking first.
Should have answered in a V to be more uplifting....
The BS is Apple calling it a free app.
When you're playing a game, the concept of money is game money. A lot of games let you earn and spend money. Why would anyone playing a game, and presented with a choice like "do you want more energy for $0.99?", think that they are spending real USD money? Especially in a "free app".
Well, the prompt that you're about to spend real money and do you want to authorize this, followed by a prompt for your account ID and password should be a clue. The prompt is very obviously not a game prompt.
Apple doesn't provide a receipt? Funny... I've always got a (delayed) email receipt that aggregates the month's purchases, and have been able to review purchases in iTunes. ...
However, I just double checked, and iTunes appears to be the ONLY!?!?! way to review purchases -- if you use your device OTA and make purchases OTA, the only way you can review purchases is when Apple emails the transaction receipt -- there appears to be no other means of getting at your purchase info other than via iTunes.
Minor correction:
You do need a payment method to open the iTunes Store account. After 24 hours you may remove the payment method from the account, but the CC is a form of identity and age verification in the process.
This makes no sense... you can open an account using a gift card -- which says absolutely nothing about identity or age verification.
It's more like a basketball court, being played on by the Harlem Globetrotters, in clown suits, and Jim Carrey as the ref
Close... it's really more like a tennis court, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as the players.
So an advocate would not benefit the process? Then the process is broken. In the interests of protecting innocents from government overreach, dissolve the FISA court.
Issuing investigative warrants generally isn't an adversarial process even in ordinary courts. An ordinary court handling the warrant requests would still apply the same standards, and would be burdened by the confidentiality requirements. Dissolving the FISA court doesn't get you anything.
Wait... it sounds like you're saying that HAVING the FISA court doesn't get you anything either... as the FISA judges are currently being burdened by the same confidentiality requirements.
At the bottom of it you're arguing that FISA itself is useless, and the only reason not to get rid of it is that it already exists.
Your point about FISA not really being the issue stands though -- and it could even be argued that with FISA, at least we've got a single court to examine instead of having to go after individual cases handed off to various courts and judges.
Except that in this case, they're correct. Adding such an advocate doesn't really solve anything and just makes the situation more complex.
And good luck finding 10 randomly selected people who would fit the profile and couldn't be swayed -- if their identity is public, then you could have people pressuring them; if their identity is private, then we're back to a secret system where there's no public verification (how do we know the people are random? How do we know they're unbiased? How do we know they understand the complexities of the situation? How do we know someone isn't buying them off?)
It is not something you get. It is something you take.
If you've got to the point where you have to take it, you've already given it away.
Privacy is something you hold on to for as long as possible, unless you see benefits to not doing so. Remember that privacy in and of itself is useless -- it's like intellectual property: only there for the betterment of humankind. And similarly, it can be abused in both directions.
If there's a backlog in the court system, it's entirely because of underfunding.
Does this go for backlogs in ER holding rooms as well?
Could there be a backlog because there are an unnecessary number of cases are going to court in the first place, instead of going to mediation or arbitration?
Apologies if I missed your sarcasm tag.
I'm suspicious of an advocate chosen by anyone connected to the US Federal government. However, I agree that one chosen by the court itself would be particularly bad.
I see no problem with an advocate chosen by the court, as long as that choice is fully public and examinable, and can be rescinded if non confidence is shown by a sizable majority.
The problem here is that having a court-chosen advocate, chosen in secret, operating in secret, doesn't meet that expectation. Once you start hiding information, you're in muddy waters. Once you've been proven to have abused that position, all trust is gone, and secrecy is no longer a viable option.
The whole solution is to slash the NSA budget and let them figure out where to get the most bang for their buck. They'll never tell you the truth about what they're up to and the "secret" courts are a joke. Cut their budget in half and they may have to choose between spying on their citizens and spying on foreign nationals.
Or, they may find that grabbing everything and automating the search process is MUCH cheaper than due dilligence, and be able to argue with FISC that they have to do it this way, because they haven't been provided any other option.
Funny that you got marked troll for an insightful comment to your own timely submission... I for one was quite pleased with the quality of this submission and your comments in it (so far) :)
We should be telling/examining both sides of a story; just not trolling both sides. In this case, both the judge and you have perfectly reasonable arguments. What this says is that some other solution to oversight is needed; the one proposed won't work.
I'd go further and say if no reasonable oversight to the program is possible, it's past time to close the program. This goes for stuff going through other courts as well. This would put the onus of proof of reasonable oversight back on the courts and the programs they're supporting, where it belongs.
Of course, I'm not holding my breath on that, as nobody who could make such a threat stick has any reason to desire the affected programs closed.
I'll nod and agree to that. You obviously know what you're talking about.
Body language can convey intelligence or ignorance, and explains this experience far better.
It's actually quite interesting, if that is the explanation, because he is clueless about the real reason and attributes it to a stereotype. Projecting, in psychological terms.
I think it's really a combination; physical stereotype will only take you so far, but if you complement it with body language, people tend to give you the benefit of the doubt even if the results say they shouldn't. Confidence artists have used this combination for generations.
On his part, I'm sure his physical looks helped him to train his body language to suit the situation. This is something I see a lot -- if someone's supposed to be a "dumb blonde" they'll often acquire the body language over time to fit the part -- even if they've got an IQ of 150. It's partially because we pick up body tells from the people we associate with, and people tend to associate with people (by default) who look like they do.
So? I fit that, and still consider this "stuff that matters". I was wondering why they thought their register VM was applicable to a scheme variant, and I had started to cross Guile off my list of relevant Scheme implementations. I'll be waiting until I see what actually gets documented before I weigh in further though.
Then again, I've been interested in Apple products since the 70's, so get off my lawn :D
What I'm wishing is that they'd just set an alarm so I'd know when it gets to 6 AM; this is one long night. I figure they use geolocation so that the time is accurate worldwide; although I'd be interested to see what time it says in Swatch time.
I was totally awed by the bravery and the diamond-hardened integrity of those American journalists.
Today ? American journalism ?
Ptuuuuiiii !!
I think you'll find that Journalism is like computer games or popular music... there's a HUGE amount of trash out there, and amidst the trash, a few diamonds. As the years go by, the diamonds are kept/remembered, and the rest goes in the landfill of time.
For example, look at yellow journalism -- that developed out of a feud between Hearst and Pulitzer, and ended up using the Spanish-American war to drive readership.
There are still dedicated journalists today; they're just usually not heard amidst the clamour of all the story writers that have continued to flood the system.
>
On the other hand, it's harder to "shutter" a microphone.
Not really; I can think of a few ways. The easiest would be placing a coloured conductive fluid in front of the microphone head -- when the microphone is enabled, so is the LED, and the fluid is propelled to the edges of the chamber (which is where the LED is. Result: sound will be at the very least muffled, and there will be a visual indicator of where the fluid is and whether the mic is on.
Remind me to not let Johnny Depp take my photo!
Just don't let him walk around you while "talking" on his phone....
Unless changing the bulb is extremely difficult, wouldn't the bigger concern be the wattage rating? The difference between an A19 and the 11 hard usage incandescents would make itself felt in energy savings pretty quickly.
With illumination, there's always (at least) three factors: longevity, luminescence, and energy consumption. Coming in after the fact are things like initial price, disposal, and toxicity/environmental danger. Of course, there's also spectrum, but I'm bundling that with luminescence.
Personally, I'm looking forward to affordable piezoluminescent paint. By the time it wears out, you need to repaint anyway, and it's a lot cheaper to light for many surfaces.
http://cvg.ethz.ch/mobile/press.php
The technology also allows the 3D capture of faces, giving a third dimension to portraits, profile pictures or images of loved ones.
Having a convenient way of getting 3D models of everyday objects, users will now be able to copy real-world objects by scanning a full 360 degree model of an object. The resulting 3D model can be used for visualization or augmented reality applications, or even be used for 3D printing, potentially at a remote location, effectively enabling the user to replicate an object.
so you can now use your smartphone to generate a photorealistic 3-D model of anyone's face, that can be replicated on a 3-D printer as a mask.
Are there any 3-D printers out there that print rubber, or would this still be a 2-step process (print the mould, then make the mask)?
Since this app purports to do all processing on the phone, you could use it on anyone, stream the model back to some parked van, and have a doppleganger ready to go in minutes.... smacks of Mission: Impossible.
That's a non-sequitur. However, to answer both questions:
http://www.simplehelp.net/2008/06/12/how-to-play-flac-files-in-itunes/
So you can move to a different lossless format that is supported by most hardware and has an open source reference implementation, or you can use a kludge to make flac (which isn't really an accepted container, just an encoding) work in OS X natively.
I think you still miss the irony in the presentation....