I would love it for a graphics editor. Being able to swap tools, zoom, bring up pallets, etc... with out having to go digging through menus or trying to remember hot keys. I think VR in desktop software has a place, but it is in augmentation, a fringe benefit, not the core functionality.
I work on IVR systems for clinical research and medical screening (along with a huge variety of other things we make these systems do). And it's pretty good. We do a lot of work massaging the Grammars to make the system more accurate though, and we have a lot of extra logic built in for situations where we can predict values and assign weights to different words. But the one thing that rather annoys me is that I quite often have issues with Skype's quality just being a bit to low for the system to pull off. I use Skype to dial in so I don't have to take my hands off the keyboard/mouse for testing (or deal with the phone in general). I would guess about 1 in 5 questions I have to repeat or wait for a reprompt because of an audible glitch from the VoIP connection.
All in all though, I'm rather impressed with the functionality and accuracy we do have. I'm not sure it will take over in many places though because of the error rate on free-formed text and the volume levels. My old cube-farm was noisy enough with everyone typing, I even can't imagine it with everyone trying to talk to their computers and hoping the noise filters would pick out their voice correctly. I've got a nice closed of office to work in now, so no one has to hear me yell "Invalid selection my ^%#!" at my computer;)
"and, indeed, the lawyer who sent it to us said his firm is looking for additional patents to go after in this manner"
Forget IT, go to law school.
1) Help company get patents 2) Profit 3) Help company threaten to sue infringers 4) Profit 5) Defend company against other lawyers representing other patents 6) Profit 7) Sue other companies for bogus patents 8) Profit
Heck, even if the company they represent gets burned and goes under, they still walk away with no penalty. It's like all the financial benefits of inventing something, with out the work or risk!
Nah. Just make the term "Broad Band" a standard that is reviewed every 2 years and be done with it. Otherwise, in 20 years we'll be connecting over the Super double wide ultra fast inter tubes of doom.
It's a mixture of both. This is a press release by marketing to try to bolster stock prices. So when they mean licenses sold, that doesn't mean the same thing as copies purchased. It with all likelihood refers to the number of licenses they have sold to Dell and other major PC vendors, all of the free upgrade licenses from XP, all of the copies they sold to retailers (which the retailer may or may not be having luck selling), etc...
Vista isn't the failure that/. anti-MS pundits would have you believe, but it is a long way from the success that Microsoft's marketing department would have you believe.
The underlying issue that were are hoping cracks some senior official heads (Gonzo and Rove would be a nice start) is voter fraud. The 8 who got fired, yeah, it's a bummer, but as you mentioned, not illegal. But, the ones who DIDN'T get fired, that is the problem. I live in Wisconsin, where one of the selected for replacement attorneys wound up keeping his job. He had a lowly admin official locked up for 4 months on trumped up corruption charges. And you can bet we got hammered by the "Doyle's aids are in prison due to corruption" adds in the build up the the election. Doyle still won the election, but it was much closer than it would have been otherwise. Fast forward to the actual court case for the accused, it lasted like 5 minutes, the Judge cleared her of any wrong doing, apologized to her, and admonished the attorney.
That case and many more like it, are the real issues. The things that will send people to jail. The hearings over the 8 that were fired have two goals: 1) a Perjury trap for Gonzo (who has done a remarkable job of avoiding them at the cost of all of his credibility) and 2) grounds to pull up more internal documentation (the missing emails). The theory being that the hearings over the purge is the crack in the Cadberry egg that will let us get to the gooey caramel middle.
GM today announced plans to begin planning the development of a new hybrid platform. A GM executive was quoted saying "Toyota has really got a jump on this whole 'hybrid' thing, but we're on it!" The new platform, due out in 13 years is expected to compete against the current Prius. Only time will tell if this risky endeavor will be a wise one.
I disagree. If there is one power source that isn't going to be replaced any time soon, it's Coal. The US has such huge reserves of coal that there is virtually no way for alternative grid power to compete unsubsidized. So as long as we're burning coal, we're going to need a way to clean it. Enter algae farms. Algae farms and coal-plant algae scrubbing gives us a huge and renewable power source (OK, so coal will run out some day in a few millenniums, but for all practical purposes, it is sustainable). It is carbon neutral in that we are still releasing the same pollution the power plant would have spit out, but we are not adding any more emissions from transportation.
While I love the idea of fuel cells, they have a few major drawbacks. 1) They are not currently attainable for wide scale use. 2) They are extremely expensive. 3) They require a completely new fuel delivery infrastructure. 4) There are still massive technical issues.
I think Hydrogen and Fuel cell power trains are in our future. But I don't think they will ever become as ubiquitous as the gasoline internal combustion engine. Truth be told, I don't think any drive train will ever be as standard as the current gas engine. There is no magic bullet to our transportation needs. But there are lots of options. Bio-Diesel, ethanol, plug-in electric, fuel cell, hydrogen combustion, etc... some blend of all of them will make up the future of our transportation needs. Each with their own benefits and drawbacks. I think Bio-Diesel will enjoy the largest segment growth to start with though, as we already have the engines, delivery, and systems to handle it, all we need is for more refineries and algae farms to come online.
Heya Batman,
I'm going to have to disagree with your initial point. At the high school level I would agree, any education has to be accepted for it's educational value. But at the grade school level (we're talking 5-10 year olds here) it is much more about motivating interest in a subject. I don't care if the 4th grader sitting in a lab is more interested in the logic that tells the turtle move, the motors and gears that make the turtle move, or the tactics that can be applied to make a specific type of drawing. What I care about is that they are interested, and will hopefully go on to learn more.
I did two of these courses in my youth, Lego Logo classes. Some kids did a turtle project or other follow the instruction projects, some made race cars, and some got into more of the advanced stuff with the IR detectors, logic based movement, and more advanced mechanics. Some kids liked the coding, some kids liked the building, some kids liked the brain storming.
I learned Lego Logo as a grade schooler in summer school. Great fun! Definitely one of the things that influenced my youth leading me into a CompSci future.
Gonzo is supposed to be giving the bill more credibility?!?!
That would be great! They would try to hold someone accountable under the IPPA2007 law, but would find that no lawyers, prosecutors, or judges could recall exactly what part of the law had been violated, and then find that no one actually wrote the law down. In the end, the person would still be convicted though, because everyone knows they broke the law, they just can't remember how.
Winterizing Diesel is already a standard practice. BD100 will Gel right around freezing, and will start giving clogging issues a bit below freezing. On most diesels this is only an issue at start up, once the engine is running the fuel pump constantly cycles excess fuel up to the hot engine, and back into the tank where it melts and other gelled fuel. Mixing with Diesel #1 or Diesel #2 with an anti-gel component will keep you safe well below freezing. BD80 for sub-freezing climates, and BD50 for the 'OMG my nuts froze to the car seat' climates. And for the most part, most refineries do that work for ya. I've never had to do anything beyond pump fuel into my car, and I don't anticipate having to do more once we get these BD plants up and running.
A very solid point! A gutless IC engine can be pushed really far for efficiency. You can lean out the mixture and drop the power output (you'll get more NOx I believe though). A hybrid does a few things for ya, it will recoup power from braking, it will allow a better fuel:air mixture (less NOx emissions), and it will augment your power on acceleration to make up for the gutlessness of the IC engine. If performance isn't an issue, then yes, a mid 80's civic can probably be pushed to 60mpg it you're willing to drive it.
As for the VW TDI, I have one, I love it. I get 600-700 miles per tank, I average around 43mpg. It's not a rocket, but it's peppy, enough for quick highway merges and passing. The only downside is that in 2k8 there's going to be like 10 new Diesels on the market in the US (Honda, Toyota, the new VWs, and I'm sure some more), and Diesel demand is going to jump. Increasing Diesel prices means higher shipping costs, which will lead directly to inflation. On the bright side though, there are more and more biodiesel plants coming online. There's a soy->BD plant being built just a few miles from my house, and I keep hearing little news bits about algae farms making progress. Provided those farms become a reality, BD100 > E85.
Slashdot Mirror
Fair enough, can't blaim the coder if the words weren't in the documentation.
-Rick
I would love it for a graphics editor. Being able to swap tools, zoom, bring up pallets, etc... with out having to go digging through menus or trying to remember hot keys. I think VR in desktop software has a place, but it is in augmentation, a fringe benefit, not the core functionality.
-Rick
To be fair, that's a problem with the IVR coder, not the voice recognition engine.
-Rick
I work on IVR systems for clinical research and medical screening (along with a huge variety of other things we make these systems do). And it's pretty good. We do a lot of work massaging the Grammars to make the system more accurate though, and we have a lot of extra logic built in for situations where we can predict values and assign weights to different words. But the one thing that rather annoys me is that I quite often have issues with Skype's quality just being a bit to low for the system to pull off. I use Skype to dial in so I don't have to take my hands off the keyboard/mouse for testing (or deal with the phone in general). I would guess about 1 in 5 questions I have to repeat or wait for a reprompt because of an audible glitch from the VoIP connection.
;)
All in all though, I'm rather impressed with the functionality and accuracy we do have. I'm not sure it will take over in many places though because of the error rate on free-formed text and the volume levels. My old cube-farm was noisy enough with everyone typing, I even can't imagine it with everyone trying to talk to their computers and hoping the noise filters would pick out their voice correctly. I've got a nice closed of office to work in now, so no one has to hear me yell "Invalid selection my ^%#!" at my computer
-Rick
"and, indeed, the lawyer who sent it to us said his firm is looking for additional patents to go after in this manner"
Forget IT, go to law school.
1) Help company get patents
2) Profit
3) Help company threaten to sue infringers
4) Profit
5) Defend company against other lawyers representing other patents
6) Profit
7) Sue other companies for bogus patents
8) Profit
Heck, even if the company they represent gets burned and goes under, they still walk away with no penalty. It's like all the financial benefits of inventing something, with out the work or risk!
-Rick
What kind of SCSI do you have?
SCSI-1
Fast SCSI
Fast Wide SCSI
Ultra SCSI(1.5)
Ultra SCSI(3)
Wide Ultra SCSI
Wide Ultra SCSI(1.5)
Wide Ultra SCSI(3)
Ultra2 SCSI
Wide Ultra2 SCSI
Ultra3 SCSI or Ultra160 SCSI
Ultra320 SCSI
Nah. Just make the term "Broad Band" a standard that is reviewed every 2 years and be done with it. Otherwise, in 20 years we'll be connecting over the Super double wide ultra fast inter tubes of doom .
-Rick
You and your wife are boring. I can saturate both directions on the T1 at work without any help.
Your boss lets you look at porn at work?
-Rick
I'm waiting for Jon Stewart to tell me. /sheep
Run XP, upgrade to Ubuntu.
-Rick
It's a mixture of both. This is a press release by marketing to try to bolster stock prices. So when they mean licenses sold, that doesn't mean the same thing as copies purchased. It with all likelihood refers to the number of licenses they have sold to Dell and other major PC vendors, all of the free upgrade licenses from XP, all of the copies they sold to retailers (which the retailer may or may not be having luck selling), etc...
/. anti-MS pundits would have you believe, but it is a long way from the success that Microsoft's marketing department would have you believe.
Vista isn't the failure that
-Rick
The underlying issue that were are hoping cracks some senior official heads (Gonzo and Rove would be a nice start) is voter fraud. The 8 who got fired, yeah, it's a bummer, but as you mentioned, not illegal. But, the ones who DIDN'T get fired, that is the problem. I live in Wisconsin, where one of the selected for replacement attorneys wound up keeping his job. He had a lowly admin official locked up for 4 months on trumped up corruption charges. And you can bet we got hammered by the "Doyle's aids are in prison due to corruption" adds in the build up the the election. Doyle still won the election, but it was much closer than it would have been otherwise. Fast forward to the actual court case for the accused, it lasted like 5 minutes, the Judge cleared her of any wrong doing, apologized to her, and admonished the attorney.
That case and many more like it, are the real issues. The things that will send people to jail. The hearings over the 8 that were fired have two goals: 1) a Perjury trap for Gonzo (who has done a remarkable job of avoiding them at the cost of all of his credibility) and 2) grounds to pull up more internal documentation (the missing emails). The theory being that the hearings over the purge is the crack in the Cadberry egg that will let us get to the gooey caramel middle.
-Rick
GM today announced plans to begin planning the development of a new hybrid platform. A GM executive was quoted saying "Toyota has really got a jump on this whole 'hybrid' thing, but we're on it!" The new platform, due out in 13 years is expected to compete against the current Prius. Only time will tell if this risky endeavor will be a wise one.
-Rick
Pot here, stop calling me black you asshole!
-Rick
I disagree. If there is one power source that isn't going to be replaced any time soon, it's Coal. The US has such huge reserves of coal that there is virtually no way for alternative grid power to compete unsubsidized. So as long as we're burning coal, we're going to need a way to clean it. Enter algae farms. Algae farms and coal-plant algae scrubbing gives us a huge and renewable power source (OK, so coal will run out some day in a few millenniums, but for all practical purposes, it is sustainable). It is carbon neutral in that we are still releasing the same pollution the power plant would have spit out, but we are not adding any more emissions from transportation.
While I love the idea of fuel cells, they have a few major drawbacks. 1) They are not currently attainable for wide scale use. 2) They are extremely expensive. 3) They require a completely new fuel delivery infrastructure. 4) There are still massive technical issues.
I think Hydrogen and Fuel cell power trains are in our future. But I don't think they will ever become as ubiquitous as the gasoline internal combustion engine. Truth be told, I don't think any drive train will ever be as standard as the current gas engine. There is no magic bullet to our transportation needs. But there are lots of options. Bio-Diesel, ethanol, plug-in electric, fuel cell, hydrogen combustion, etc... some blend of all of them will make up the future of our transportation needs. Each with their own benefits and drawbacks. I think Bio-Diesel will enjoy the largest segment growth to start with though, as we already have the engines, delivery, and systems to handle it, all we need is for more refineries and algae farms to come online.
-Rick
Heya Batman,
I'm going to have to disagree with your initial point. At the high school level I would agree, any education has to be accepted for it's educational value. But at the grade school level (we're talking 5-10 year olds here) it is much more about motivating interest in a subject. I don't care if the 4th grader sitting in a lab is more interested in the logic that tells the turtle move, the motors and gears that make the turtle move, or the tactics that can be applied to make a specific type of drawing. What I care about is that they are interested, and will hopefully go on to learn more.
I did two of these courses in my youth, Lego Logo classes. Some kids did a turtle project or other follow the instruction projects, some made race cars, and some got into more of the advanced stuff with the IR detectors, logic based movement, and more advanced mechanics. Some kids liked the coding, some kids liked the building, some kids liked the brain storming.
It takes all kinds in the tech world.
-Rick
I didn't write "First Post!!1!!1!!ELEVEN!! LOLERSKATES" on the first post of the thread. That would explain the Off topic moderation.
-Rick
Don't let the blindingly bright holiness of the 'Don't Be Evil' company blind you from the obvious.
This patent is just taking existing knowledge and technology and applying it "in video games" much the same as the "...on the internet" patents.
-Rick
I learned Lego Logo as a grade schooler in summer school. Great fun! Definitely one of the things that influenced my youth leading me into a CompSci future.
-Rick
Gonzo is supposed to be giving the bill more credibility?!?!
That would be great! They would try to hold someone accountable under the IPPA2007 law, but would find that no lawyers, prosecutors, or judges could recall exactly what part of the law had been violated, and then find that no one actually wrote the law down. In the end, the person would still be convicted though, because everyone knows they broke the law, they just can't remember how.
-Rick
Bill Hilf is dead. That is all.
-Rick
"The ONLY thing I don't want with lights on it, is my watch. It's a simple, metal watch with a sigle dial."
But how will you tell the time at night!?! Indiglow FTW!
-Rick
Winterizing Diesel is already a standard practice. BD100 will Gel right around freezing, and will start giving clogging issues a bit below freezing. On most diesels this is only an issue at start up, once the engine is running the fuel pump constantly cycles excess fuel up to the hot engine, and back into the tank where it melts and other gelled fuel. Mixing with Diesel #1 or Diesel #2 with an anti-gel component will keep you safe well below freezing. BD80 for sub-freezing climates, and BD50 for the 'OMG my nuts froze to the car seat' climates. And for the most part, most refineries do that work for ya. I've never had to do anything beyond pump fuel into my car, and I don't anticipate having to do more once we get these BD plants up and running.
-Rick
Oh come on now, it was funny in that 'look at the retards fighting on the internet' way. That counts for something, right?
-Rick
A very solid point! A gutless IC engine can be pushed really far for efficiency. You can lean out the mixture and drop the power output (you'll get more NOx I believe though). A hybrid does a few things for ya, it will recoup power from braking, it will allow a better fuel:air mixture (less NOx emissions), and it will augment your power on acceleration to make up for the gutlessness of the IC engine. If performance isn't an issue, then yes, a mid 80's civic can probably be pushed to 60mpg it you're willing to drive it.
As for the VW TDI, I have one, I love it. I get 600-700 miles per tank, I average around 43mpg. It's not a rocket, but it's peppy, enough for quick highway merges and passing. The only downside is that in 2k8 there's going to be like 10 new Diesels on the market in the US (Honda, Toyota, the new VWs, and I'm sure some more), and Diesel demand is going to jump. Increasing Diesel prices means higher shipping costs, which will lead directly to inflation. On the bright side though, there are more and more biodiesel plants coming online. There's a soy->BD plant being built just a few miles from my house, and I keep hearing little news bits about algae farms making progress. Provided those farms become a reality, BD100 > E85.
-Rick
For 'real world' numbers: http://www.greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/
-Rick