I think on of the images there is the guts of the full-body-musical-touch-sensor-thingie. It appears to allow you to touch various parts of your body to activate those specific synths. Bang bang bang...
My family has been PC for over 15 years, since our first computer (I have my own setup with Macs or Linux boxes, a long way away from them). The thing is, I can only be so helpful over the phone, and then I'm useless because they can't even explain the problem to me really. Then they have to take it to a shop, which is a tragedy, and end up with some wierd peripherals and upgrades. It's really a mess. A linux box is a solution for a very small percentage of people. Web. E-mail. Ok. My parents like to use their digital camera also, for example, or *try* to edit their home videos off their camcorder. This isn't even easy in Windows, let alone Linux. So let's not pretend Linux is the solution to everything just because it is stable. It is not easy to use (yes I use it - even Ubuntu, I know from first hand experience). I'm just going to get them a mac (or help them buy it and set it up next time I'm in town). Atleast I know I'll be able to properly diagnose things over the phone, and I suspect they will get the hang of it quickly as well. I'm no blind fan boy, but Macs are simpler yet cover more bells and whistles out of the box for simple people, like my parents, than any other OS/box.
...Lego, which treats every individual piece with reverence
Seriously? Maybe with the Mindstorm series, but they certain have no standards when it comes to their core line up. Have you seen some of the bizarre stuff from them lately? Like Dino Attack, where it's a bunch of assault vehicles battling mean dinosaurs. Half the crap looks like it comes practically preassembled, the pieces are so big. What happened to the era of smaller, or geometrically more simple pieces that actually required some imagination to use? I hardly think Lego puts so much thought into every piece.
I think you could imagine a law that would require every vendor of DRM-encrypted multimedia to deliver keys to any bona fide player vendor.
Ah, but there's the rub -- who's a bona fide manufacturer? Every chump and competitor who comes along? How about Mr. Knock-off Manufacturer who would then have the "keys" to your entire customer base? What about the small guy? How small is too small? So many issues involved when you're forced to share your technology with anyone who asks, but not to just anyone (because then that would just enable anybody to defeat the DRM essentially). It seems like the simplest solution here is to maintain the status quo but not prosecute DRM-stripping or -defeating utilities for personal use.
I wonder -- Should soldiers really expect the same rights as far as freedom of speech as other civilians? They are already severely limited in that respect according to the military code of justice. I realize this is about pentagon surveillance (possibly to limit negative propaganda, possibly under the cover of protecting top secret information), but can't they just order them not to post videos? The troops are now "hearing the message". What does that mean? Strong hints along the lines of "if you do this, your chances of promotion may be more limited..."? It seems like if the Pentagon would just clarify their policy, this shouldn't be a point of debate at all. As much as I oppose the war, I realize that for a soldier, the buck stops with the chain of command, in this case up to the Pentagon.
FTA: "Biologists have suspected for years that some positions on the DNA, notably those where it bends most easily, might be more favorable for nucleosomes than others, but no overall pattern was apparent. Drs. Segal and Widom analyzed the sequence at some 200 sites in the yeast genome where nucleosomes are known to bind, and discovered that there is indeed a hidden pattern."
Honestly, many of us biologists are kind of giggling at how the NYT (and I guess Slashdot) have been hoodwinked by hot headlines. We have known for decades that histones bind DNA and organize it (into nucleosomes), periodically, all along its length. Now, this group has identified some concensus sequences where the nucleosomes are most likely to form. Turns out, yeah, it's what we thought, with the little twist that precise positioning of nucleosomes could help regulate gene expression (also heavily predicted and fully expected). There are new articles about DNA organization weekly. I think the NYT just picked one and labeled it as a "code beyond genetics", which is absurd, since the organization of DNA is controlled ultimately by DNA sequences. Also, if you want to talk about codes beyond genetics, there is a whole field of study called "epigenetics", which is "the study of reversible heritable changes in gene function that occur without a change in the sequence of nuclear DNA".
When your blood alcohol comes down you'll probably realise that you're not going to find much likeness regarding brain development between humans and C. Elegans. Because they don't have much of a brain... in fact they're lacking circulatory and respiratory systems as well.
WRONG. Maybe worms don't have a "brain" as we know it, but they are a very good model for nervous systems. Nearly 1/3 of the cells of C. elegans worms are neurons, and the entire lineage of every cell in the adult worm is well mapped. Worms are a good animal model system, and combined with research from flies (Drosophila) and mice, much is known about neural development. Since we are humans, clearly, we are often most interested specifically in what is know about our own development. So the Yale study, while not entirely novel, certainly is an important study in a long line of great research to help us understand the development and wiring of the brain.
The article makes it sound like this is another communist China authoritarian/totalitarian scheme to use the people for state aims. Do not be fooled! This program is the brainchild of MPAA/RIAA. Why not do it domestically?
FTA: "The program may work better here than it would elsewhere, local officials suggest. Hong Kong teenagers are surprisingly obedient, possibly because of a Confucian tradition and very strong social pressures to study hard and serve the community."
That's right! Their kids are more brainwashed! Go MPAA/RIAA.
...that this would cancel out the prolific viewer "paradox". Those who watch movies as they arrive and quickly return them, hoping for more, eventually get "throttled"...the turn around time decreases. You would think that those lazy viewers would cancel out those active viewers and the business model would remain valid. At least I think so. Apparently Netflix doesn't think so... seems like they're relying on those lazy viewers to keep their business model afloat -- why else would they punish their active viewers (effectively forcing them to mimic the lazy viewers).
One of the mission goals was to set up a -80 C freezer on the ISS. We have a couple in our lab (most bio labs do) -- they're primarily used to store biological samples. The -20 C freezer and 4 C refridgerater are also standard operating equipment in biology (or chemistry, I suppose), so it looks like they're gearing up to do some life sciences work.
Now, this brings up an interesting issue -- How do you operate refrigeration equipment in space? Especially that -80 C...it's a real power hog and probably outputs a lot of heat (in a closed air environment, is this a problem?). Does anyone know how cooling is done in space? Is it still based on condenser coils? Can they somehow utilize the "cold" of space for this purpose?
Let's not kid ourselves. The "single fee" deal just means they partially factor in the cost of the additional licenses into the overhead cost. You're paying for it if you use the VM licenses or not. I think we'll see exactly what that means when pricing for Vista Enterprice edition is announced.
This seems really fascinating in principle. It would be nice to know if they did any brain wave readings (usually a difference between healthy and brain dead people can be readily discerned). Perhaps more subtle changes in brain wave patterns could even be measured. That way we would know atleast one indication of how 'intact' the mind is after recovery. Memory storage and recall are not well understood...how 'hardwired' are we, really? For the/. crowd, is our mind in the non-volatile or the volatile storage medium. I fear that might all be lost mentally upon cryopreservation.
You are technically right. However, most fanboys or unfanboys really consider the pricing of the new consoles to be Xbox360 = $400, PS3 = $600, Wii = $200-300? Most people don't give a damn about the base configuration, so come on, no one is making a mistake with intent to deceive. Whether you like XBox or PS3, let's compare their flagship offerings, $400 vs $600. I will continue to think of the consoles at that price range. Go ahead and flag me however you want, those are the most accurate and reasonable prices to consider.
...and place it at the Lagrange point between the Moon and the Earth. There, external forces may be minimized, and some productive observations could be made. Any experiment which tries to measure "extra dimensions" or whatever would have to have such a low margin of error that yes, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to acheive within a space craft. Don't believe everything you hear -- the fundamental laws of physics are still the most important considerations at the scale of observation currently possible.
...are all of random ships floating around in space. There to show off the "beautiful graphics" with absolutely no indication as to what a screen of actual gameplay looks like. Too many games out there rely on these cherry-picked screenshots as selling points.
Anybody else find that the so-called "leet" speak or whatever it is, is really annoying? Like the "Fatal1ty" gamer dude, and anybody else who likes to say "pwned" a lot? Pretty innocuous on its own, but just another degradation of literary tradition. Here's a thought: misspelling isn't cool.
IMHO, shoving our values down the throats of other nations is not the way to free the 1 billion Chinese citizens of this planet. My point is stated clearly by your words: "Different situations call for different measures."...which is another way of saying its ok to be hypocritical. As an analogy, consider some foreign effort to "help" the citizens of the US get around their NSA wiretapped phone calls, or, in a different way of looking at it, some foreign effort to expose a flaw in our phone systems that would allow unauthorized bypassing of such wiretapping capability. Gee golly gosh! That would just wrong! Basically, just about every response to my post points out that revealing the flaw in the Chinese firewall publically has basically made it impossible to exploit it, and since we're not supposed to like the Chinese government, that is a bad thing. My point is that, if for some reason, we were supposed to like the Chinese government, then it would be a good thing. So many people's views here are skewed based on if they like or dislike M$, Linux, China, Bush. I'd rather just leave that bias crap out of it. This topic is about network security -- was the research group supposed to just keep their findings to themselves or let hackers exploit the flaw? If it was a flaw that could be exploited to allow hackers access to YOUR computer, I think you'd be singing a different tune. In summary, your "holier than thou because I care about the Chinese people" rhetoric doesn't hold water. I'm not exactly pro-totalitarianism either, but I've thought my beliefs through enough that atleast I'm consistent in what I believe.
Well done on writting a 'how-to' on pointers to make the firewall better. Im sure people out there new these things, and used them to their advantage. Now all holes will be plugged and even more censorship will rein in China. You have now had your 15mins of fame.
This is the same old tired argument we hear here on Slashdot over and over again. Expose the flaws and you either 1) alert the hackers on how to expose them or 2) Allow the admins to patch them. It's funny how depending on your political ideology, people will swing either way. How about a consistent opinion in favor of revealing flaws? Those who favor security by obscurity deserve neither.
The recent record was set at a track (in Arizona) that was different from the previous record holder's ride (in Germany). In fact, aren't there bound to be many differences? Like time of day, weather, and especially wind speed and direction? Is a different of ~1-1.5% within a margin of error or a bona-fide new record? Sure it is technically a longer distance, but it seems like it would be impossible to fully normalize against the different conditions. I guess one would have to atleast do it one the same track, with approximately equivalent weather conditions. Considering that these speed bikes are so precision tuned to add seconds here and there to a time trial, such margins of error should be at least be acknowledged.
I think you're absolutely right -- just because a lot of CG characters are modeled directly from human actor footage, it does not mean that the state of the art is at a stand still. Companies like pixar are taking it to new levels as far as fully-imagined characters from scratch. Note, however, that all their best characters are non-human: toys, bugs, fish, monsters, cars (even the incredibles are comic-book stylized). It is simply too unconvincing when they try to modal humans from scratch. However, I'm not sure there will be that many technological leaps required to achieve a convincing effect -- it is party also a matter of psychology. We are ingrained from birth to recognize and characterize other humans, so essentially, we're a very tough audience. But some subtle changes in modeling -- more grime, more wrinkles, more blemishes, will help humanize the CG characters.
I suppose, realistically, that theory in this case will always be ambiguous. We'll have to see what happens basically. My guess is that the French law will result in the customer losing...i.e. paying higher prices. THAT is the bottom line, isn't it?
Slashdot Mirror
I think on of the images there is the guts of the full-body-musical-touch-sensor-thingie. It appears to allow you to touch various parts of your body to activate those specific synths. Bang bang bang...
My family has been PC for over 15 years, since our first computer (I have my own setup with Macs or Linux boxes, a long way away from them). The thing is, I can only be so helpful over the phone, and then I'm useless because they can't even explain the problem to me really. Then they have to take it to a shop, which is a tragedy, and end up with some wierd peripherals and upgrades. It's really a mess. A linux box is a solution for a very small percentage of people. Web. E-mail. Ok. My parents like to use their digital camera also, for example, or *try* to edit their home videos off their camcorder. This isn't even easy in Windows, let alone Linux. So let's not pretend Linux is the solution to everything just because it is stable. It is not easy to use (yes I use it - even Ubuntu, I know from first hand experience). I'm just going to get them a mac (or help them buy it and set it up next time I'm in town). Atleast I know I'll be able to properly diagnose things over the phone, and I suspect they will get the hang of it quickly as well. I'm no blind fan boy, but Macs are simpler yet cover more bells and whistles out of the box for simple people, like my parents, than any other OS/box.
Seriously? Maybe with the Mindstorm series, but they certain have no standards when it comes to their core line up. Have you seen some of the bizarre stuff from them lately? Like Dino Attack, where it's a bunch of assault vehicles battling mean dinosaurs. Half the crap looks like it comes practically preassembled, the pieces are so big. What happened to the era of smaller, or geometrically more simple pieces that actually required some imagination to use? I hardly think Lego puts so much thought into every piece.
I think you could imagine a law that would require every vendor of DRM-encrypted multimedia to deliver keys to any bona fide player vendor.
Ah, but there's the rub -- who's a bona fide manufacturer? Every chump and competitor who comes along? How about Mr. Knock-off Manufacturer who would then have the "keys" to your entire customer base? What about the small guy? How small is too small? So many issues involved when you're forced to share your technology with anyone who asks, but not to just anyone (because then that would just enable anybody to defeat the DRM essentially). It seems like the simplest solution here is to maintain the status quo but not prosecute DRM-stripping or -defeating utilities for personal use.
I wonder -- Should soldiers really expect the same rights as far as freedom of speech as other civilians? They are already severely limited in that respect according to the military code of justice. I realize this is about pentagon surveillance (possibly to limit negative propaganda, possibly under the cover of protecting top secret information), but can't they just order them not to post videos? The troops are now "hearing the message". What does that mean? Strong hints along the lines of "if you do this, your chances of promotion may be more limited..."? It seems like if the Pentagon would just clarify their policy, this shouldn't be a point of debate at all. As much as I oppose the war, I realize that for a soldier, the buck stops with the chain of command, in this case up to the Pentagon.
Touche!
FTA: "Biologists have suspected for years that some positions on the DNA, notably those where it bends most easily, might be more favorable for nucleosomes than others, but no overall pattern was apparent. Drs. Segal and Widom analyzed the sequence at some 200 sites in the yeast genome where nucleosomes are known to bind, and discovered that there is indeed a hidden pattern."
Honestly, many of us biologists are kind of giggling at how the NYT (and I guess Slashdot) have been hoodwinked by hot headlines. We have known for decades that histones bind DNA and organize it (into nucleosomes), periodically, all along its length. Now, this group has identified some concensus sequences where the nucleosomes are most likely to form. Turns out, yeah, it's what we thought, with the little twist that precise positioning of nucleosomes could help regulate gene expression (also heavily predicted and fully expected). There are new articles about DNA organization weekly. I think the NYT just picked one and labeled it as a "code beyond genetics", which is absurd, since the organization of DNA is controlled ultimately by DNA sequences. Also, if you want to talk about codes beyond genetics, there is a whole field of study called "epigenetics", which is "the study of reversible heritable changes in gene function that occur without a change in the sequence of nuclear DNA".
When your blood alcohol comes down you'll probably realise that you're not going to find much likeness regarding brain development between humans and C. Elegans. Because they don't have much of a brain... in fact they're lacking circulatory and respiratory systems as well.
WRONG. Maybe worms don't have a "brain" as we know it, but they are a very good model for nervous systems. Nearly 1/3 of the cells of C. elegans worms are neurons, and the entire lineage of every cell in the adult worm is well mapped. Worms are a good animal model system, and combined with research from flies (Drosophila) and mice, much is known about neural development. Since we are humans, clearly, we are often most interested specifically in what is know about our own development. So the Yale study, while not entirely novel, certainly is an important study in a long line of great research to help us understand the development and wiring of the brain.
FTA: "The program may work better here than it would elsewhere, local officials suggest. Hong Kong teenagers are surprisingly obedient, possibly because of a Confucian tradition and very strong social pressures to study hard and serve the community."
That's right! Their kids are more brainwashed! Go MPAA/RIAA.
...that this would cancel out the prolific viewer "paradox". Those who watch movies as they arrive and quickly return them, hoping for more, eventually get "throttled"...the turn around time decreases. You would think that those lazy viewers would cancel out those active viewers and the business model would remain valid. At least I think so. Apparently Netflix doesn't think so... seems like they're relying on those lazy viewers to keep their business model afloat -- why else would they punish their active viewers (effectively forcing them to mimic the lazy viewers).
Maybe "price", "value". You knew exactly what it meant, yet somehow it warranted a smartass reply. Welcome to slashdot.
One of the mission goals was to set up a -80 C freezer on the ISS. We have a couple in our lab (most bio labs do) -- they're primarily used to store biological samples. The -20 C freezer and 4 C refridgerater are also standard operating equipment in biology (or chemistry, I suppose), so it looks like they're gearing up to do some life sciences work.
Now, this brings up an interesting issue -- How do you operate refrigeration equipment in space? Especially that -80 C...it's a real power hog and probably outputs a lot of heat (in a closed air environment, is this a problem?). Does anyone know how cooling is done in space? Is it still based on condenser coils? Can they somehow utilize the "cold" of space for this purpose?
Let's not kid ourselves. The "single fee" deal just means they partially factor in the cost of the additional licenses into the overhead cost. You're paying for it if you use the VM licenses or not. I think we'll see exactly what that means when pricing for Vista Enterprice edition is announced.
This seems really fascinating in principle. It would be nice to know if they did any brain wave readings (usually a difference between healthy and brain dead people can be readily discerned). Perhaps more subtle changes in brain wave patterns could even be measured. That way we would know atleast one indication of how 'intact' the mind is after recovery. Memory storage and recall are not well understood...how 'hardwired' are we, really? For the /. crowd, is our mind in the non-volatile or the volatile storage medium. I fear that might all be lost mentally upon cryopreservation.
You are technically right. However, most fanboys or unfanboys really consider the pricing of the new consoles to be Xbox360 = $400, PS3 = $600, Wii = $200-300? Most people don't give a damn about the base configuration, so come on, no one is making a mistake with intent to deceive. Whether you like XBox or PS3, let's compare their flagship offerings, $400 vs $600. I will continue to think of the consoles at that price range. Go ahead and flag me however you want, those are the most accurate and reasonable prices to consider.
...and place it at the Lagrange point between the Moon and the Earth. There, external forces may be minimized, and some productive observations could be made. Any experiment which tries to measure "extra dimensions" or whatever would have to have such a low margin of error that yes, it would be IMPOSSIBLE to acheive within a space craft. Don't believe everything you hear -- the fundamental laws of physics are still the most important considerations at the scale of observation currently possible.
..."internet to be free for paid internet subscribers." NO idea what the AOL for Broadband business model ever was, except deception.
...are all of random ships floating around in space. There to show off the "beautiful graphics" with absolutely no indication as to what a screen of actual gameplay looks like. Too many games out there rely on these cherry-picked screenshots as selling points.
Anybody else find that the so-called "leet" speak or whatever it is, is really annoying? Like the "Fatal1ty" gamer dude, and anybody else who likes to say "pwned" a lot? Pretty innocuous on its own, but just another degradation of literary tradition. Here's a thought: misspelling isn't cool.
IMHO, shoving our values down the throats of other nations is not the way to free the 1 billion Chinese citizens of this planet. My point is stated clearly by your words: "Different situations call for different measures." ...which is another way of saying its ok to be hypocritical. As an analogy, consider some foreign effort to "help" the citizens of the US get around their NSA wiretapped phone calls, or, in a different way of looking at it, some foreign effort to expose a flaw in our phone systems that would allow unauthorized bypassing of such wiretapping capability. Gee golly gosh! That would just wrong! Basically, just about every response to my post points out that revealing the flaw in the Chinese firewall publically has basically made it impossible to exploit it, and since we're not supposed to like the Chinese government, that is a bad thing. My point is that, if for some reason, we were supposed to like the Chinese government, then it would be a good thing. So many people's views here are skewed based on if they like or dislike M$, Linux, China, Bush. I'd rather just leave that bias crap out of it. This topic is about network security -- was the research group supposed to just keep their findings to themselves or let hackers exploit the flaw? If it was a flaw that could be exploited to allow hackers access to YOUR computer, I think you'd be singing a different tune. In summary, your "holier than thou because I care about the Chinese people" rhetoric doesn't hold water. I'm not exactly pro-totalitarianism either, but I've thought my beliefs through enough that atleast I'm consistent in what I believe.
Well done on writting a 'how-to' on pointers to make the firewall better. Im sure people out there new these things, and used them to their advantage. Now all holes will be plugged and even more censorship will rein in China. You have now had your 15mins of fame.
This is the same old tired argument we hear here on Slashdot over and over again. Expose the flaws and you either 1) alert the hackers on how to expose them or 2) Allow the admins to patch them. It's funny how depending on your political ideology, people will swing either way. How about a consistent opinion in favor of revealing flaws? Those who favor security by obscurity deserve neither.
The recent record was set at a track (in Arizona) that was different from the previous record holder's ride (in Germany). In fact, aren't there bound to be many differences? Like time of day, weather, and especially wind speed and direction? Is a different of ~1-1.5% within a margin of error or a bona-fide new record? Sure it is technically a longer distance, but it seems like it would be impossible to fully normalize against the different conditions. I guess one would have to atleast do it one the same track, with approximately equivalent weather conditions. Considering that these speed bikes are so precision tuned to add seconds here and there to a time trial, such margins of error should be at least be acknowledged.
I think you're absolutely right -- just because a lot of CG characters are modeled directly from human actor footage, it does not mean that the state of the art is at a stand still. Companies like pixar are taking it to new levels as far as fully-imagined characters from scratch. Note, however, that all their best characters are non-human: toys, bugs, fish, monsters, cars (even the incredibles are comic-book stylized). It is simply too unconvincing when they try to modal humans from scratch. However, I'm not sure there will be that many technological leaps required to achieve a convincing effect -- it is party also a matter of psychology. We are ingrained from birth to recognize and characterize other humans, so essentially, we're a very tough audience. But some subtle changes in modeling -- more grime, more wrinkles, more blemishes, will help humanize the CG characters.
IDIOTS!
I suppose, realistically, that theory in this case will always be ambiguous. We'll have to see what happens basically. My guess is that the French law will result in the customer losing...i.e. paying higher prices. THAT is the bottom line, isn't it?