I agree. The first thing I thought of when I saw this was, "holy crap, there goes photojournalism." It might not be put to evil use in the U.S., but this technology could be powerful in the hands of tyrants.
Of course it would also create a cat-and-mouse equipment escalation, where they have anti-camera devices, and we have cameras they can't detect, etc etc. But in places like North Korea, the average person's ability to get such specialized equipment would be nil.
I'd be glad to see an end to paparazzi, but let's hope it doesn't hurt free speech, too.
In "Rainbow Mars," Larry Niven (who also wrote Ringworld, seemingly the basis of Halo's ring-shaped planet) imagined "world trees" that grow downward from space and attach to a pre-grown stalk on a planet.
The world-trees were huge, but rather than supporting their weight traditionally, the roots were designed to hold them in the ground, as opposed to being flung out into space.
I guess if you had a space elevator and stuck enough mass out into space, it could take some of the supportive strain off the base of it with centrifugal pull. I'm not sure how the strain would work out on it.
At first I imagined an elevator box where you open it and push your cargo (a rocket, whatever) out, but I guess it makes more sense to let it accelerate and sling it off the end with centrifugal force, like... like a sling. No fuel required to get moving.
Unless, of course, Microsoft designs it. Then what you need is is color, touch-sensitive screen with an animated puppy on it. When you get in, he bounds up towards you and barks, and a little balloon appears saying, "Where do you want to go today? Based on past trips, I'd guess you want to go up. Is this correct?"
Halfway up the ribbon to space, the elevator would get confused and start going down. You'd have to stop it, turn it off, and manually open and shut the door to reset the system. Then the elevator would remind you that you should always reset the elevator using the Start menu.
I realize we're getting further off-topic, but what I'm trying to say is, the media doesn't have to last, as long as the data is worth something to somebody - and that criteria will get easier to meet as storage space gets cheaper.
Google, for example, is putting the content of tons of books into a database. Fifty years from now, you might be able to download the whole thing onto a disk in a few seconds. Each time disk formats change, lots of individuals and instituations will say, "Let's see, well, we've got the entire canon of English literature on the old computers; let's migrate those to new ones. After all, it's only a few hojillion gigabytes."
Ancient libraries couldn't be distributed all over the world; ours can. In Rome, you could burn one library and lose irreplacable documents. For us, if anything is *almost* lost, and one individual copy is found, bingo, copies all over the world again.
I don't see why this couldn't continue indefinitely.
And if EVERY computer archive is destroyed by nuclear war, there won't be any archeologists in the future anyway.
I agree in general that a lot of our information won't last, but information to stone buildings is not a fair comparison. Papyrus to paperback is closer.
Still, although lots of data will be lost, anything that continues to interest people will be preserved. Think about this: the commercial value of satellite maps from 2005 may go up or down in coming years, depending on what it's needed for. But the cost of storing that info will certainly go down as drives get larger. (That's why I can easily keep all my files from older computers in a subdirectory on my current one.) As long as anyone cares about it, why can't it be maintained? (Barring Armageddon, of course.)
Also, think about how MUCH information we now have. Our society produces more text about itself in a day than the Romans probably did in their whole history. Even if a small fraction survives, it will be a lot.
Personally, I'm not very likely to *switch* operating systems, period. As long as my computer will do normal stuff for me, I'm fine.
What is frustrating is that a machine that is perfectly capable of letting me create and print documents, record music, burn CDs, surf the web, etc etc is slowly becoming outdated because of software. Lots of stuff is available only for XP and up now.
Basically whatever is easiest is what I'll do. If the annoyance of not being able to find compatible software ever becomes more than the hassle of upgrading, I'll get a new machine and use what it has. But actively seeking out a new operating system - Vista, Linux, or whatever - just means hours of relearning how to use my computer, in my mind.
If all these images are being archived, future archeologists will have a lot of interesting stuff to see. Any place that you want to know more about, just look up the images from the right year.
Another thing that will be awesome is to take imagery of a particular city, for example, and animate it over time to watch sprawl, decay, renewal, etc.
This does sound like a step toward virtual reality. Actually, I've been asking myself why we don't already have 3d headsets. Back when games were actually 2d pretending to be 3d (think of the original Wolfenstein, where a dead enemy looked the same from every direction), it would have been hard.
Now, lots of games model everything in 3d anyway. Couldn't you just hack something to adapt it? For example, take Halo on the Xbox. If you could hack the box and make it give you two views of the same scene from slightly different angles, then send those to goggles, you'd have 3d. I know that's easier said than done, but the system is already rendering a view based on things that "exist" virtually, so why not go ahead and render two similar views?
As a side note, I wonder how much advantage having depth perception would give you over 2D players.
Sentences should begin with capital letters and end with appropriate punctuation. Double quotation marks are generally used first, and quotes inside quotes use single marks. For example: "I heard a woman say 'fruit basket,'" insisted Janet.
Who actually uses grammar checkers? I don't. Yes, I'm a professional writer and have a pretty good grasp on grammar, but it's not because I think constantly about the rules of commas or something. I just write like I'm talking.
I'm not trying to sound arrogant, but how is it that you can speak English your whole life and still not know how to write it?
The only time I ever have the grammar checks in word processing programs highlight anything, it's when I'm doing something that the computer is too dumb to understand or when I'm using a newer form of a word - for example, "to e-mail" is now a normal verb, but it used to just be a noun.
Overall, though, I'd say that if you need a grammar check to reform your sentences, you also need a logic check to reform your thoughts. Am I wrong?
P.S. As I previewed this, it occured to me that people who don't speak English natively could really use a grammar checker, and I'd sure appreciate one if I had to write Spanish.
The stuff you accept as a kid...
on
Happy Birthday Mario
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I was playing some Mario 3 the other day on a friend's NES, and realized what screwy concepts abound in the game. You're an Italian plumber out to rescue a princess in a land ruled by mushrooms and lizards. If you get a feather, that turns you into - of course - a racoon, which logically would help you fly.
Loony Toons are also funnier to me now. I used to take it for granted that you could unfold an Acme Hole and lay it on the ground as a trap, but now I realize how creative those cartoonists were to bend reality so much.
Slashdot Mirror
As a side note, perhaps Georgia Tech's new theme song will be "She Blinded me With Science."
I agree. The first thing I thought of when I saw this was, "holy crap, there goes photojournalism." It might not be put to evil use in the U.S., but this technology could be powerful in the hands of tyrants.
Of course it would also create a cat-and-mouse equipment escalation, where they have anti-camera devices, and we have cameras they can't detect, etc etc. But in places like North Korea, the average person's ability to get such specialized equipment would be nil.
I'd be glad to see an end to paparazzi, but let's hope it doesn't hurt free speech, too.
In "Rainbow Mars," Larry Niven (who also wrote Ringworld, seemingly the basis of Halo's ring-shaped planet) imagined "world trees" that grow downward from space and attach to a pre-grown stalk on a planet.
The world-trees were huge, but rather than supporting their weight traditionally, the roots were designed to hold them in the ground, as opposed to being flung out into space.
I guess if you had a space elevator and stuck enough mass out into space, it could take some of the supportive strain off the base of it with centrifugal pull. I'm not sure how the strain would work out on it.
At first I imagined an elevator box where you open it and push your cargo (a rocket, whatever) out, but I guess it makes more sense to let it accelerate and sling it off the end with centrifugal force, like... like a sling. No fuel required to get moving.
Unless, of course, Microsoft designs it. Then what you need is is color, touch-sensitive screen with an animated puppy on it. When you get in, he bounds up towards you and barks, and a little balloon appears saying, "Where do you want to go today? Based on past trips, I'd guess you want to go up. Is this correct?"
Halfway up the ribbon to space, the elevator would get confused and start going down. You'd have to stop it, turn it off, and manually open and shut the door to reset the system. Then the elevator would remind you that you should always reset the elevator using the Start menu.
I realize we're getting further off-topic, but what I'm trying to say is, the media doesn't have to last, as long as the data is worth something to somebody - and that criteria will get easier to meet as storage space gets cheaper.
Google, for example, is putting the content of tons of books into a database. Fifty years from now, you might be able to download the whole thing onto a disk in a few seconds. Each time disk formats change, lots of individuals and instituations will say, "Let's see, well, we've got the entire canon of English literature on the old computers; let's migrate those to new ones. After all, it's only a few hojillion gigabytes."
Ancient libraries couldn't be distributed all over the world; ours can. In Rome, you could burn one library and lose irreplacable documents. For us, if anything is *almost* lost, and one individual copy is found, bingo, copies all over the world again.
I don't see why this couldn't continue indefinitely.
And if EVERY computer archive is destroyed by nuclear war, there won't be any archeologists in the future anyway.
I agree in general that a lot of our information won't last, but information to stone buildings is not a fair comparison. Papyrus to paperback is closer.
Still, although lots of data will be lost, anything that continues to interest people will be preserved. Think about this: the commercial value of satellite maps from 2005 may go up or down in coming years, depending on what it's needed for. But the cost of storing that info will certainly go down as drives get larger. (That's why I can easily keep all my files from older computers in a subdirectory on my current one.) As long as anyone cares about it, why can't it be maintained? (Barring Armageddon, of course.)
Also, think about how MUCH information we now have. Our society produces more text about itself in a day than the Romans probably did in their whole history. Even if a small fraction survives, it will be a lot.
Personally, I'm not very likely to *switch* operating systems, period. As long as my computer will do normal stuff for me, I'm fine.
What is frustrating is that a machine that is perfectly capable of letting me create and print documents, record music, burn CDs, surf the web, etc etc is slowly becoming outdated because of software. Lots of stuff is available only for XP and up now.
Basically whatever is easiest is what I'll do. If the annoyance of not being able to find compatible software ever becomes more than the hassle of upgrading, I'll get a new machine and use what it has. But actively seeking out a new operating system - Vista, Linux, or whatever - just means hours of relearning how to use my computer, in my mind.
If all these images are being archived, future archeologists will have a lot of interesting stuff to see. Any place that you want to know more about, just look up the images from the right year.
Another thing that will be awesome is to take imagery of a particular city, for example, and animate it over time to watch sprawl, decay, renewal, etc.
Really? What exactly would I look for as far as goggles or video card features? I'm curious to try it...
This does sound like a step toward virtual reality. Actually, I've been asking myself why we don't already have 3d headsets. Back when games were actually 2d pretending to be 3d (think of the original Wolfenstein, where a dead enemy looked the same from every direction), it would have been hard.
Now, lots of games model everything in 3d anyway. Couldn't you just hack something to adapt it? For example, take Halo on the Xbox. If you could hack the box and make it give you two views of the same scene from slightly different angles, then send those to goggles, you'd have 3d. I know that's easier said than done, but the system is already rendering a view based on things that "exist" virtually, so why not go ahead and render two similar views?
As a side note, I wonder how much advantage having depth perception would give you over 2D players.
Sentences should begin with capital letters and end with appropriate punctuation.
Double quotation marks are generally used first, and quotes inside quotes use single marks. For example: "I heard a woman say 'fruit basket,'" insisted Janet.
Yeah, so I can hide in the woods with my magnet guns. Bring it on, you metal bastards!
Hooray! Now we can have the world's tiniest caterpillar race!
Who actually uses grammar checkers? I don't. Yes, I'm a professional writer and have a pretty good grasp on grammar, but it's not because I think constantly about the rules of commas or something. I just write like I'm talking.
I'm not trying to sound arrogant, but how is it that you can speak English your whole life and still not know how to write it?
The only time I ever have the grammar checks in word processing programs highlight anything, it's when I'm doing something that the computer is too dumb to understand or when I'm using a newer form of a word - for example, "to e-mail" is now a normal verb, but it used to just be a noun.
Overall, though, I'd say that if you need a grammar check to reform your sentences, you also need a logic check to reform your thoughts. Am I wrong?
P.S. As I previewed this, it occured to me that people who don't speak English natively could really use a grammar checker, and I'd sure appreciate one if I had to write Spanish.
I was playing some Mario 3 the other day on a friend's NES, and realized what screwy concepts abound in the game. You're an Italian plumber out to rescue a princess in a land ruled by mushrooms and lizards. If you get a feather, that turns you into - of course - a racoon, which logically would help you fly.
Loony Toons are also funnier to me now. I used to take it for granted that you could unfold an Acme Hole and lay it on the ground as a trap, but now I realize how creative those cartoonists were to bend reality so much.
Give a man a golf ball and entertain him for a day. But teach him to golf and entertain him for the rest of his life.
So the guy who doesn't know how to golf is still going to be amused all day by a golf ball? I'm not even sure that would work on a Labrador.