I realize that with all the pressure to post first people don't always read the articles, but it is amazing to me that this and several preceding comments are making the same, misinformed statement... Why not tell him to memorize his lines... cause "That's better than a USB thumb drive!"
The point, and he did have one, was that using powerpoint, or perhaps it's analog equivalent, cue cards, were not good enough for him. He was always looking off to the side or down and not right at the camera.
I will 'splain: Unless you can afford a studio with long camera angles, there is a thing called parallax that will make you look like every dumb asshole who tries, and fails to do a home documentary... staring off into space, uncomfortably over the viewer's right shoulder or worse, their crotch.
We have all seen these on public access channels that have small studios or too few lenses to get sufficiently far enough away that a person holding a cue card can make the person on camera look natural without completely obstructing the view of the camera.
I could understand it if someone said "What about a piece of poster board with a hole cut in the middle and the text written around the lens" because that would at least show some understanding of the problem, if not actually hitting on an acceptable solution. (Hint: Unless you have only a single cue card, bad idea.)
Think about it, WHY ARE TELEPROMPTERS SO EXPENSIVE AND USEFUL IN THE FIRST PLACE? It is because, Occam's razor hasn't eliminated them in the places where they are most useful. Yes, Letterman and Conan can get away with cue cards, but that is because they have larger studios, more cameras to cut up the view so that people don't get uncomfortable with a walleyed announcer, and they can move around during spots that depend heavily on cue cards like the short monologue of 5-8, 30 second jokes. Not 60 second news storys where they have to pronounce words like Slobodan Milosevich or Hafith al-Barghuth
Give the guy a little credit, he said he tried other, less complicated analog and digital methods and in true/. fashion, copied the IP of the Teleprompter and released it open source. Compare his solution, some 2x4's and a piece of glass with a commercial equivalent
It is a criminal offense to kick out a minor. The parents in FL were lucky/brilliant by finding the one niche that would stick in the hearts and minds of the media the world over. The kids are now saying they are going to work the media too, and demand cable in the bedroom, etc. but public opinion is against them.
This is the kind of thing that will work only once though. It is already old news. It isn't even original, Cosby did a Cosby show similar to this approach, though they didn't move out.
I say: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Fun.
Bizarre Labs has some great stuff. Lemon batteries, crystal radios, electro-magnets, leyden jars. Even plans for Tesla coils and radioactive cloud chambers are there.
This does beg the question: What are the basic principles that need to be covered. Here are some that I would imagine are important:
Magnetism
Electromagnetism
Basic Circuits and electron flow
Photon Simultaneity
... well maybe not that last one, success rates are still pretty low. You might have to build up to that with a few simple explanatory topics.
I can't imagine how the effects of a polygraph test being leaked to the press somehow have more integrity than the reports of a psychic being leaked to the press.
What I mean to say is I can imagine how it got to the point where a polygraph is somehow more credible than a psychic.
It is like Scientology and that bogus E-Meter. Just because it uses "technology" doesn't mean it is valid.
I am searching for the reference to the kid who won the science fair using the laser based method of detecting antibiotics in the water supply... apparently he cause an uproar over this very issue.
I firmly believe that if only the majority of the public could PRONOUCE the word NEW-CLEER... much of the Fear, Uncertainity, and Doubt would dissipate.
I want to see some AAA powered diagrams and try this at home. It is the frontal lobe, beneath a full 3/4 " of hardened calcium (in some, harder than others). We should be able to empirically test this by finding spelling errors in subsequent posts.
The whole "Cats rule, dogs drool" or vice versa argument aside...
By genetically engineering a species to have a radically different integumentary system aren't we increasing the odds of something like the new AIDS-like virus they just found or a more deadly bird-flu jumping species to homo-sapiens?
Granted I have no idea how an HIV like virus is related to your hair/skin/nails system... but what assurances do I have that just because I am paranoid, the world is not really out to get me?
Making a new species is like unleashing a little Von Neuman machine on the planet. A REALLY expensive Von Neuman machine.
There comes a point when I hope that robot spacecraft like this fail and the logical conclusion is that "Well... I guess we will have to send people."
I am glad that our knowledge is expanding by orders of magnitude, but inwardly I long for a vast open ocean (of space) being the only thing separating us from a "new world" where we can go, colonize, and spread the virus of humanity before we kill ouseleves living in our own filth.
Naturally it will be a robot that finds this new world first, but there is just some atavistic, medieval reaction to the idea that a robot is our emmisary to the stars.
I seriously doubt that all but the very edge of the bell curve could usefully use this much CPU horsepower. Even given the upper limits of Academia. While we, as a species, have been good at developing bigger, better, stronger, faster computing machines, we have not advanced very far in asking them meaningful questions.
Inevitably someone will say "we can finally predict the weather..." and in true Futurama Farnsworth fashion I say PSHAW! We don't even know how to properly frame the QUESTION of how to predict the weather, much less get closer to an "Answer" like "The hurricane will hit EXACTLY here, at EXACTLY this time. Only the people on these specific streets are boned."
Still, I bet I could get like 1 billion FPS on UT2004 at 3600x4800!
Seriously though, I want to see small improvements. Better, easier to grasp programming languages. More critical thinking skills taught in schools. And a cluster like this dedicated to uber-porn. I'm talking full frame, Hi Def, ggg stuff. (did I type that last part out loud?)
The article was a little wonky on testing methods, but overall they seemed geared towards trying to HELP microsoft's poor showing. The article makes the point, and I reiterate it here:
"If anyone knows how to really increase the performance of Windows 2003, let me know and I will create an addendum to this. Apparently there has to be some magic voodoo you can do to gain performance on Windows 2003 Server since Microsoft continually states that Windows 2003 outperforms Samba."
If his experiment is repeatable, then why is Microsoft so cocky about Win2k3 Server? Is there some hidden registry entry like HKEY_LOCALMACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Curen tVersion/Parameters/REG_SZ Suck="disabled"
Absolutely, I like "old fashioned" copy protection. The older, and more exploited the better.
Seriously, the key to piracy, ALL piracy is to understand that there are only 2 motivating factors to human behavior. Fear of Retribution and Hope of Reward. Whip and Carrot.
How about, instead of the 100% whip mentality that game authors have now, they throw in some REAL carrots. Block modded/cracked versions of games to their servers, AND give away micro-prizes for users. For every 10 frags you get a widow's mite, and then eventually, after many hours of playing and immersion in the vendors controlled reality, you can collect enough to trade them in for a new kick ass graphics card, or maybe a heavily discounted upgrade to the next version, or some similar economy.
We are talking people willing to dedicate hours to completely virtual rewards (especially in RPGs). Give them a limited edition T-Shirt for some in game feat and you will have a near riot at the Electronics Boutiques across America of gamers trying to buy the game.
Finally, the biggest carrot of all is price. I just bought Age of Empires for $9.97 at Wal Mart. I love that game, and have for years, and until now I have never bought it. If the cost of a game is too high, then the cost/benefit calculation that will go on in the gaming public's heads will tend towards piracy. I don't care how cool a game is, $49.99 is too high a price to pay when there are "five finger discount" versions available freely on line.
Game software companies will argue (whine) "the reason that prices are so high is that piracy is so rampant!" But they have always been high. Even ROM cartridges, which are difficult to pirate for even a dedicated copyright scofflaw (not impossible, just difficult) are priced too high so the "piracy=increased price" argument is a bit disingenuous.
It is good if EA or Ubisoft wants to make a profit... That means better and better content and technology for everyone. But I want them to choose to make that profit on volume, not on overpriced, easily pirated, strings of 1's and 0's.
If a company has a policy that is not draconion in its implementation of copy protection, and acknowledges my desires to have things like nocd patches by making them readily and officially available, then I will reward that company with my hard earned $ (even if I still think I am paying too much). I bought UT2004 for that reason. They started off with a CD/DVD required, but eventually they will give out the nocd patch like they did with 2003. They don't charge me a monthly fee, and while their servers are sometimes laggy, I can usually find a server playing the ChainIsle map and after 15 minutes I have to turn it off and de-compress because I am as jazzed as if I had had 3 Starbuck's "Venti" Kenyan coffee's in a row.
As if we didn't have a problem with bogus and illegal registration now. I predict Dick Tracy or Mickey Mouse will win the first 10 mil.
If people can't feel strongly enough about participating in democracy by going to a polling location in their neighborhood, how can we expect the concept to survive. What is next, bread and circuses?
This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.
The Goodyear blimp comes back with massive holes in it from every game. Everything from Rednecks with deer rifles, to bird strikes rip the hell out of it every time it goes up.
Do a blimp search at http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/query.asp and you can see that since 1962, there have only been 23 accidents in the US and only 2 of them have been fatal. These things are well nigh indestructible.
Look on the bright side. Patents are only for 20 years and then they run out. After that it is freely duplicatable. Copyrights are forever, if the RIAA and it's obsequious servant, Congress, has its way.
Oh, and in absolute systems, your are correct: Correlation does not imply causality. However, in a more probabilistic model (like reality or quantum physics), there is an interconnectedness to systems which raises the likelyhood that correlation does in fact imply causality. If this were not true then the scientific method would be pretty much dead in the water since it relies heavily on the idea of "normal" or "natural" distribution.
That being said, it is very difficult to "prove" that a system is behaving in an absolute or probabilistic manner. Go down one path and you have Chaos math and the "butterfly effect." Go down the other and you are arguing a Calvinistic pre-destinarian model
Don't agree with me? Go blow, I am protected by the 1st ammendment, or was that your point?
They are mutually exclusive to a point. For instance, most rail guage for trains is of 2 widths in the whole world. It would be silly to have 14 different guages scattered around the major railroads of the world and try to say that there is some kind of standard.
How does a spec become a standard? People recognize the relative benefits of a spec versus the proprietary advantages of doing it their own way. Since standards tend to emerge in discrete verticals, there isn't a dilution of this benefit.
It would not be incorrect to say that a "standard" is really an honorific applied to the spec that won in the marketplace of ideas. If the discrete vertical you chose to be the "standard" in is trivial, then it will be a pyhric victory. If it is non-trivial, even if a better idea comes along, you will have a marked advantage as the "incumbent" standard. (QWERTY vs Dvorak keyboard layouts as an example). Eventually, if enough people see the benefit vs the advantage of the existing standard... new standard.
Man, can't a guy be jealous he will never be able to afford a trip like this without being called a Communist fuckhead pisshead centrally-planned piece of worm-ring filth.
The good news is that thanks to probate law all those rich astronauts will leave there money here and it will pay for your methadone you Just-been-outsourced WalMart-working CS Major.
There is also the problem of weight in the form of liquid water. It might make sense to condense the water out of the air, but that might take too much power to pull out of the cost benefit well you are already in.
What about continuity? What if we find out that all Herbivores were democrats while carnivores were a solid lock for republican dionsaurs... will we go back to JP1 and have T Rex spit out the lawyer as a professional courtesy?
Slashdot Mirror
The point, and he did have one, was that using powerpoint, or perhaps it's analog equivalent, cue cards, were not good enough for him. He was always looking off to the side or down and not right at the camera.
I will 'splain: Unless you can afford a studio with long camera angles, there is a thing called parallax that will make you look like every dumb asshole who tries, and fails to do a home documentary... staring off into space, uncomfortably over the viewer's right shoulder or worse, their crotch.
We have all seen these on public access channels that have small studios or too few lenses to get sufficiently far enough away that a person holding a cue card can make the person on camera look natural without completely obstructing the view of the camera.
I could understand it if someone said "What about a piece of poster board with a hole cut in the middle and the text written around the lens" because that would at least show some understanding of the problem, if not actually hitting on an acceptable solution. (Hint: Unless you have only a single cue card, bad idea.)
Think about it, WHY ARE TELEPROMPTERS SO EXPENSIVE AND USEFUL IN THE FIRST PLACE? It is because, Occam's razor hasn't eliminated them in the places where they are most useful. Yes, Letterman and Conan can get away with cue cards, but that is because they have larger studios, more cameras to cut up the view so that people don't get uncomfortable with a walleyed announcer, and they can move around during spots that depend heavily on cue cards like the short monologue of 5-8, 30 second jokes. Not 60 second news storys where they have to pronounce words like Slobodan Milosevich or Hafith al-Barghuth
Give the guy a little credit, he said he tried other, less complicated analog and digital methods and in true /. fashion, copied the IP of the Teleprompter and released it open source. Compare his solution, some 2x4's and a piece of glass with a commercial equivalent
It is a criminal offense to kick out a minor. The parents in FL were lucky/brilliant by finding the one niche that would stick in the hearts and minds of the media the world over. The kids are now saying they are going to work the media too, and demand cable in the bedroom, etc. but public opinion is against them. This is the kind of thing that will work only once though. It is already old news. It isn't even original, Cosby did a Cosby show similar to this approach, though they didn't move out. I say: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Fun.
Bizarre Labs has some great stuff. Lemon batteries, crystal radios, electro-magnets, leyden jars. Even plans for Tesla coils and radioactive cloud chambers are there.
This does beg the question: What are the basic principles that need to be covered. Here are some that I would imagine are important:
Magnetism
Electromagnetism
Basic Circuits and electron flow
Photon Simultaneity
... well maybe not that last one, success rates are still pretty low. You might have to build up to that with a few simple explanatory topics.
"What do you get when you multiply six by nine"
At least according to the H2G2 BBC television series.
I just hope we have enough hydrocarbons to survive the oncoming dark. This explains where all the light is going though: Previously reported here
What I mean to say is I can imagine how it got to the point where a polygraph is somehow more credible than a psychic.
It is like Scientology and that bogus E-Meter. Just because it uses "technology" doesn't mean it is valid.
I am searching for the reference to the kid who won the science fair using the laser based method of detecting antibiotics in the water supply... apparently he cause an uproar over this very issue.
I firmly believe that if only the majority of the public could PRONOUCE the word NEW-CLEER... much of the Fear, Uncertainity, and Doubt would dissipate.
Thereby proving that Space-Curse-Time is curved and can be inverted.
Though, as a Red Sox Fan, I must state for the record that I am hopeful but remain cautiously pessimistic.
I want to see some AAA powered diagrams and try this at home. It is the frontal lobe, beneath a full 3/4 " of hardened calcium (in some, harder than others). We should be able to empirically test this by finding spelling errors in subsequent posts.
By genetically engineering a species to have a radically different integumentary system aren't we increasing the odds of something like the new AIDS-like virus they just found or a more deadly bird-flu jumping species to homo-sapiens?
Granted I have no idea how an HIV like virus is related to your hair/skin/nails system... but what assurances do I have that just because I am paranoid, the world is not really out to get me?
Making a new species is like unleashing a little Von Neuman machine on the planet. A REALLY expensive Von Neuman machine.
I am glad that our knowledge is expanding by orders of magnitude, but inwardly I long for a vast open ocean (of space) being the only thing separating us from a "new world" where we can go, colonize, and spread the virus of humanity before we kill ouseleves living in our own filth.
Naturally it will be a robot that finds this new world first, but there is just some atavistic, medieval reaction to the idea that a robot is our emmisary to the stars.
Inevitably someone will say "we can finally predict the weather..." and in true Futurama Farnsworth fashion I say PSHAW! We don't even know how to properly frame the QUESTION of how to predict the weather, much less get closer to an "Answer" like "The hurricane will hit EXACTLY here, at EXACTLY this time. Only the people on these specific streets are boned."
Still, I bet I could get like 1 billion FPS on UT2004 at 3600x4800!
Seriously though, I want to see small improvements. Better, easier to grasp programming languages. More critical thinking skills taught in schools. And a cluster like this dedicated to uber-porn. I'm talking full frame, Hi Def, ggg stuff. (did I type that last part out loud?)
If his experiment is repeatable, then why is Microsoft so cocky about Win2k3 Server? Is there some hidden registry entry like HKEY_LOCALMACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Curen tVersion/Parameters/REG_SZ Suck="disabled"
Of course the default is "enabled"
Seriously, the key to piracy, ALL piracy is to understand that there are only 2 motivating factors to human behavior. Fear of Retribution and Hope of Reward. Whip and Carrot.
How about, instead of the 100% whip mentality that game authors have now, they throw in some REAL carrots. Block modded/cracked versions of games to their servers, AND give away micro-prizes for users. For every 10 frags you get a widow's mite, and then eventually, after many hours of playing and immersion in the vendors controlled reality, you can collect enough to trade them in for a new kick ass graphics card, or maybe a heavily discounted upgrade to the next version, or some similar economy.
We are talking people willing to dedicate hours to completely virtual rewards (especially in RPGs). Give them a limited edition T-Shirt for some in game feat and you will have a near riot at the Electronics Boutiques across America of gamers trying to buy the game.
Finally, the biggest carrot of all is price. I just bought Age of Empires for $9.97 at Wal Mart. I love that game, and have for years, and until now I have never bought it. If the cost of a game is too high, then the cost/benefit calculation that will go on in the gaming public's heads will tend towards piracy. I don't care how cool a game is, $49.99 is too high a price to pay when there are "five finger discount" versions available freely on line.
Game software companies will argue (whine) "the reason that prices are so high is that piracy is so rampant!" But they have always been high. Even ROM cartridges, which are difficult to pirate for even a dedicated copyright scofflaw (not impossible, just difficult) are priced too high so the "piracy=increased price" argument is a bit disingenuous.
It is good if EA or Ubisoft wants to make a profit... That means better and better content and technology for everyone. But I want them to choose to make that profit on volume, not on overpriced, easily pirated, strings of 1's and 0's.
If a company has a policy that is not draconion in its implementation of copy protection, and acknowledges my desires to have things like nocd patches by making them readily and officially available, then I will reward that company with my hard earned $ (even if I still think I am paying too much). I bought UT2004 for that reason. They started off with a CD/DVD required, but eventually they will give out the nocd patch like they did with 2003. They don't charge me a monthly fee, and while their servers are sometimes laggy, I can usually find a server playing the ChainIsle map and after 15 minutes I have to turn it off and de-compress because I am as jazzed as if I had had 3 Starbuck's "Venti" Kenyan coffee's in a row.
If people can't feel strongly enough about participating in democracy by going to a polling location in their neighborhood, how can we expect the concept to survive. What is next, bread and circuses?
This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.
It's called ELECTRICAL TAPE.
Do a blimp search at http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/query.asp and you can see that since 1962, there have only been 23 accidents in the US and only 2 of them have been fatal. These things are well nigh indestructible.
Look on the bright side. Patents are only for 20 years and then they run out. After that it is freely duplicatable. Copyrights are forever, if the RIAA and it's obsequious servant, Congress, has its way.
Don't believe me? Read this article and tell me this guy isn't a serial killer.
Oh, and in absolute systems, your are correct: Correlation does not imply causality. However, in a more probabilistic model (like reality or quantum physics), there is an interconnectedness to systems which raises the likelyhood that correlation does in fact imply causality. If this were not true then the scientific method would be pretty much dead in the water since it relies heavily on the idea of "normal" or "natural" distribution.
That being said, it is very difficult to "prove" that a system is behaving in an absolute or probabilistic manner. Go down one path and you have Chaos math and the "butterfly effect." Go down the other and you are arguing a Calvinistic pre-destinarian model
Don't agree with me? Go blow, I am protected by the 1st ammendment, or was that your point?
How does a spec become a standard? People recognize the relative benefits of a spec versus the proprietary advantages of doing it their own way. Since standards tend to emerge in discrete verticals, there isn't a dilution of this benefit.
It would not be incorrect to say that a "standard" is really an honorific applied to the spec that won in the marketplace of ideas. If the discrete vertical you chose to be the "standard" in is trivial, then it will be a pyhric victory. If it is non-trivial, even if a better idea comes along, you will have a marked advantage as the "incumbent" standard. (QWERTY vs Dvorak keyboard layouts as an example). Eventually, if enough people see the benefit vs the advantage of the existing standard... new standard.
The good news is that thanks to probate law all those rich astronauts will leave there money here and it will pay for your methadone you Just-been-outsourced WalMart-working CS Major.
There is also the problem of weight in the form of liquid water. It might make sense to condense the water out of the air, but that might take too much power to pull out of the cost benefit well you are already in.
What about continuity? What if we find out that all Herbivores were democrats while carnivores were a solid lock for republican dionsaurs... will we go back to JP1 and have T Rex spit out the lawyer as a professional courtesy?
stop the madness I want to get off.