I've found that it's the lubricant which smells bad. Get the non-lubricated ones, and the smell problem is taken care of, but now you definitely need either copious amounts of saliva, or some artificial lubricant; I personally recommend a condom-safe silicone type.
I always thought that the big deal with condoms was psychological. People think it will make sex less interesting, and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it's not all about the penis in the vagina. There's hands to touch, grab, pinch, and stroke your partner's body; lips; eye contact; positions; sounds; and so on. Condoms may make sex 10% less interesting, but 90% of awesome is still pretty cool in my book.
What if you aren't using floats, and you're using fixed point instead? The problem there is more of a precision problem than round-off. Like, for instance, a filter size of 3, whose reciprocal isn't neatly represented in fixed-point notation.
What all of the replies to my statement point out is that there is no such thing as an easy way to average something. There is ALWAYS a gotcha - what instructions you have available on your target architecture, how much data you're averaging, what kind of response you want from the filter, your arithmetic precision, etc. No one averaging method will work for everything.
Nothing in particular is wrong with a "normal" average. The question is, did they want this to be a moving average in order to smooth a stream of data, or did they really intend on using a simple average to de-noise a single point in time?
Also, that implementation will require divisions or hacks to get around divisions (as if multiplies aren't hard enough), and even after that it will still suffer from numerical instability after a long period of time due arithmetic precision or the lack thereof.
As mentioned elsewhere, a correct moving average requires you to remember the values, or to engage in hacks that fake a moving average at the expense of precision. I don't see why they were using a moving average in the first place, because they're probably not interested in the sensor's output for the vast majority of the time.
You don't need floating point to handle this kind of computation. You could precompute the reciprocal of your filter size in fixed-point format and multiply that by the sum if you wanted.
I don't understand why they didn't just specify a filter size that is a power of 2, so they could use right-shifts to do the division. You wouldn't even need any fixed-point math at all. Read 2^n samples, sum them, right-shift by n, done. No moving average, no divisions, not even any multiplies.
The keyword is moving average. Let's say your filter averages 8 consecutive samples together. The first 8 samples arrive and you're adding them together with the total. What happens when the 9th sample comes in? You need to delete the first sample, which is difficult if you don't store that value in an array.
An anonymous poster brought up this equation...
A:= ((N-1)/N)*A + (1/N)*S
where A is the running average and S is the N'th sample. There are concerns about precision and round-off error that will build up over a long period of time. So, for instance, the first few people might be less likely to be "over the limit", while the last few will be more likely.
Also, doing a division in an embedded system like that is not exactly easy or fast. You could pre-compute fixed-point representations of (N-1)/N and (1/N), but that does nothing to address the numerical stability of that implementation.
You are correct. In the biz, we refer to this as an exponentially-weighted moving-average-filter. Recent samples are weighted more heavily than older samples.
y(n) = alpha*x(n) + (1 - alpha)*y(n-1)
The alpha value controls how much of the current input makes it to the output and how much of the old output stays. i.e. with an alpha value of 0.5, half of the new value is added to half of the old value. With an alpha of 0.1, 10% of the new value gets added to 90% of the old value.
This filter is nice because it doesn't require you to remember all the values that you want to average together, but it's a horrible way to get over the inherent noisiness in sensors.
A federal judge told the cops that they need a warrant to track your location via cell phone. I fail to see how this is any different than tracking your location by GPS. Unless the police have more power than the feds...?
Good show! I should say that I've posted a similar comment to my original on Wired, Techdirt, and Slashdot, multiple times each, and you're the first person to ever reply with an honest-to-God answer! But...
1) I wonder how many people reading your comment had to google Libby Hoeler.
2) After doing some googling of my own, I fail to see how this girl's life was ruined. To my knowledge, she: didn't lose any scholarships; wasn't kicked out of school; didn't destroy her career. Most people don't even think she's a slut because the video was for her boyfriend only.
3) Libby's videos are a bit more than a "naked picture". From the textual descriptions I've read, it might actually qualify as pornographic due to the provocative dancing.
Social embarrassment, even on the massive scale only capable over the Internet, does not ruin one's life. The Star Wars Kid probably had it worse than Ms Hoeler.
Okay, so, one case nearly a decade old involving someone who was only embarrassed. I dare say that this offers support for my statement.
I agree with you that some aspects of society are better off "socialist" or "public". The Achilles Heel of capitalism is that it underestimates the worst excesses of human greed that can be perpetrated by the powerful against the meek.
The corrupt PA judges you mention are a powerful example of how a private system motivated by profit will exploit all channels available - ethical or not - to maximize their profit.
Considering that this prosecutor was trying to get these children enrolled in some rehabilitation program, I think we should all try following the money...
I'm so sick of this myth that naked pictures cause problems. The shame associated with nudity (and even sex) says more about those viewing the picture than those who are in it.
Seriously, has anyone ever known someone whose life was ruined because of a naked picture?
Anyone?
The shame that our society attaches to nudity and sex is an attempt at prohibition. By making it taboo, it becomes enticing. Just like with alcohol, drugs, and prostitution, this forces it underground. Poor debaters will also use the taboo nature of the subject to stifle honest discussion by suggesting that supporters engage in the prohibited acts (i.e. those who defend these children are pedophiles who want easy access to CP, those who defend drug users are junkies, etc).
If it weren't for that prosecutor, none of you would have ever known anything about this. Isn't it ironic that the response taken to teach these kids about "potentially permanent burdens" has done more to create those exact burdens than the act itself would have?
When will we learn that over-protecting our children is hurting them by stunting their social growth? When they turn 18 and go off to college, an over-protected teenager will not be equipped with the proper skills necessary to navigate a world full of people who want to take advantage of them.
As for the fear that there will be an explosion of new child porn if it's legal for minors to take pictures of themselves...further application of this logic leads to support for banning bullets because their existence leads to an "explosion" of homicides involving guns.
Also, consider that teenagers are already doing this, and in a quantity deserving of its own slang description.
Users and their expectations differ widely, as the article mentions. One set of users want a device to do a few things very well, and another set wants it to do everything even if that makes it more complicated. Being a hardware developer, I am of the latter mindset.
Management is always on your ass to get the product out the door, generally as soon as it works. User interface considerations add greatly to the product latency, and if you have competitors you might not have the luxury of designing a good interface.
Not all interfaces can easily be abstracted for human interaction. For instance, we like for one design component to have one purpose, but sometimes this isn't really tractable because we require more buttons than space permits, so we use "soft buttons". That is to say nothing of the desire for knobs, switches, jog wheels, and so on.
There's also the 80/20 rule. Just because no one uses all of the features on a single phone doesn't mean that the all of the features aren't used regularly across all of the phones.
I dunno, I sortof like the idea of trying to minimize my excess consumption. It makes me feel responsible.
I don't need a big car. I don't need a big house. I don't need to cook food on a stove when a microwave uses much less energy.
It doesn't matter if "climate change" is real or not. Quite similar to Pascal's Wager.
Let's say there is no general trend of rising temperatures. If I live irresponsibly, consuming without regard for need, then there's not really a problem. If I live responsibly, then I have been slightly inconvenienced, but I still get to feel like a good guy.
Let's say that temperatures are in fact rising, or will rise significantly in the next few hundred years. If I live irresponsibly, then I may be dooming my future descendants. If I live responsibly, I may be saving my future descendants.
Given this two-by-two grid of decisions and results, I think that consuming in proportion to my need and not my desire is a wise decision.
Our irresponsible behavior as a society has created a financial crisis where we have borrowed without regard for future ability to repay. We thought the housing/stock/oil/xyz market would keep going up, and up, and up. Yay free money!
Except that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Now, you think that we can just consume fossil fuels without regard for the earth's future ability to handle them. It may be that the earth could handle it without too much trouble, but you don't know that, and the risk you want us to take is quite possibly worse than the risks that Wall Street took.
Is it really too much to ask people to live within their means, and the planet's?
You didn't quote any bits for supporting evidence, either. Here, let me help.
Considering the eventual outcome of being wrong in all this, it is highly irresponsible of them, and I hope that if things do go tits up in a pear shaped bowl that they are the ones made to pay.
Nowhere do I see the suggestion for punishing the other people for having a different opinion, even one that the author disagrees with. Rather, it appears that he believes people who cause a problem ought to be the ones who are held responsible for it. I can understand why such a concept might be difficult for some people to comprehend; accountability is such a foreign concept in today's society.
In fact, if you had actually read all those paragraphs that you counted, you might have noticed this sentiment...
Of course it is good if they exist to ensure that the science is rigourous.
Doesn't sound like someone who wants to "punish" anyone to me. But don't let me interfere with your attempts to belittle strangers over the Internet.
If the volcano explodes this Thursday, then the vast majority of the US will likely be spared the fate you are so certain they will suffer. One day earlier and it will be dumped all over the east coast; one day later and the west coast will suffer instead.
2) I find that most people who engage in ad hominems have low self esteem and use the attacks to boost their ego by creating the illusion of superiority. A well-adjusted human being respects others and knows that there are more effective ways to communicate.
Maybe you were you having a bad day? Normally my attempts at humor are transparent enough that others don't react so flippantly. But, hey, fight fire with fire. If you're already embracing arrogant behavior, then here's to tit-for-tat!
3) Actually, you said the stuff was going over "much of the US". But don't let minor inconsistencies like this knock you off your high horse; I wouldn't want you to bruise your ego when you landed.
4) I've got a lot of faith in nature; I don't think there's anything that humans could do that would completely destroy the planet. In the mean time, society should advance forward with inventions that improve life and expand knowledge.
May I suggest helping to nurture the green revolution? It could lead to investors who favor eco-friendly stocks over dividend-friendly stocks. In fact, you could start right now, by going out and purchasing stock from companies who you think do business the right way. Without your contribution, how can they stand up to the 3M's and the Wal-Mart's of the world?
Being embarrassed at the sight of nudity says more about the observer than it does about the person who is naked. It is a pity that our culture is this way.
Take a moment to appreciate the irony of the situation.
Saranko wants to send a message that any pictures you take might end up on the Internet, becoming an embarrassment for you.
Now, think for a moment. Do you know anyone, besides celebrities, who was embarrassed by naked pictures? Sure, you could google, but I bet you're going to stumble on mostly court cases.
Thus, without Saranko, the world would not know about six teenagers in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Any embarrassment they suffer is a direct result of this prosecution.
First, Hauser's law does not validate your point. It focuses only on the top tax rate; it is implied that the burden becomes shifted onto the middle class, either through changes in the tax structure or increased deficits. It specifically invalidates your point, which I shall quote here for you since you appear to have forgotten it.
Also, you do understand that Obama will tax the top more but that government revenue is guaranteed to go down, right?
Second, the money has been coming from debt. This is "wealth creation" in the 20th century. Enslaving the poor to the rich, who use interest payments and inflation to slowly transfer wealth to themselves.
Third, you continually fail to understand economies of scale. Why do cell phone carriers subsidize phones? They're losing money! But they're enlarging the market. Taxes go up, but more people have more money, so the people begin purchasing more stuff, and the larger market allows economies of scale to drive down the cost of the goods so that you get a net profit, even after the tax.
Or maybe (just maybe) companies will instead pay their workers a decent wage and fall into a lower tax bracket.
Just about everyone can be productive given the right incentives. It is saddening that you have such a pitiful view of your fellow humans. Some people will get free rides; get over it. Once you move on, you realize that luring people into productivity is worth some wasted spending. Humans are better than you give them credit for.
Again, let selfish rich people move their businesses to other countries. America is where the market is at. It will leave a hole that will be filled by some budding entrepreneur who is enough of a patriot to stay in American even though there is an extra cost. When the size of the traitor's market goes down, so will the profits.
I have a question for you. What is a better expenditure of money - a $10 million dollar yacht, or a hundred $100,000 homes for people to live in? You still need people to chop wood, make paint, and so forth. You still need companies to coordinate this. Arguably, you need more people, because you're handling a hundred "things" instead of just one.
Slashdot Mirror
games like Manhunt are explicitly designed around killing defenseless strangers
The enemies in Manhunt are not defenseless. They're trying to kill you.
They smell bad
I've found that it's the lubricant which smells bad. Get the non-lubricated ones, and the smell problem is taken care of, but now you definitely need either copious amounts of saliva, or some artificial lubricant; I personally recommend a condom-safe silicone type.
I always thought that the big deal with condoms was psychological. People think it will make sex less interesting, and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it's not all about the penis in the vagina. There's hands to touch, grab, pinch, and stroke your partner's body; lips; eye contact; positions; sounds; and so on. Condoms may make sex 10% less interesting, but 90% of awesome is still pretty cool in my book.
What if you aren't using floats, and you're using fixed point instead? The problem there is more of a precision problem than round-off. Like, for instance, a filter size of 3, whose reciprocal isn't neatly represented in fixed-point notation.
What all of the replies to my statement point out is that there is no such thing as an easy way to average something. There is ALWAYS a gotcha - what instructions you have available on your target architecture, how much data you're averaging, what kind of response you want from the filter, your arithmetic precision, etc. No one averaging method will work for everything.
Nothing in particular is wrong with a "normal" average. The question is, did they want this to be a moving average in order to smooth a stream of data, or did they really intend on using a simple average to de-noise a single point in time?
Also, that implementation will require divisions or hacks to get around divisions (as if multiplies aren't hard enough), and even after that it will still suffer from numerical instability after a long period of time due arithmetic precision or the lack thereof.
As mentioned elsewhere, a correct moving average requires you to remember the values, or to engage in hacks that fake a moving average at the expense of precision. I don't see why they were using a moving average in the first place, because they're probably not interested in the sensor's output for the vast majority of the time.
You don't need floating point to handle this kind of computation. You could precompute the reciprocal of your filter size in fixed-point format and multiply that by the sum if you wanted.
I don't understand why they didn't just specify a filter size that is a power of 2, so they could use right-shifts to do the division. You wouldn't even need any fixed-point math at all. Read 2^n samples, sum them, right-shift by n, done. No moving average, no divisions, not even any multiplies.
The keyword is moving average. Let's say your filter averages 8 consecutive samples together. The first 8 samples arrive and you're adding them together with the total. What happens when the 9th sample comes in? You need to delete the first sample, which is difficult if you don't store that value in an array.
An anonymous poster brought up this equation...
A := ((N-1)/N)*A + (1/N)*S
where A is the running average and S is the N'th sample. There are concerns about precision and round-off error that will build up over a long period of time. So, for instance, the first few people might be less likely to be "over the limit", while the last few will be more likely.
Also, doing a division in an embedded system like that is not exactly easy or fast. You could pre-compute fixed-point representations of (N-1)/N and (1/N), but that does nothing to address the numerical stability of that implementation.
With an attitude like that, it's obvious that you have little experience with embedded systems...
You are correct. In the biz, we refer to this as an exponentially-weighted moving-average-filter. Recent samples are weighted more heavily than older samples.
y(n) = alpha*x(n) + (1 - alpha)*y(n-1)
The alpha value controls how much of the current input makes it to the output and how much of the old output stays. i.e. with an alpha value of 0.5, half of the new value is added to half of the old value. With an alpha of 0.1, 10% of the new value gets added to 90% of the old value.
This filter is nice because it doesn't require you to remember all the values that you want to average together, but it's a horrible way to get over the inherent noisiness in sensors.
You can watch somebody tailing you, but barring those of us with tin-foil hats, you aren't going to see the GPS device.
That's called a Mersenne Prime. (2^n) - 1.
Note that 2^n would be a 1 followed by several zeros. Subtract one from this number, and you would have a series of all ones.
For instance, 3 = 11b. 7 = 111b. 31 = 11111b. 127 = 1111111b.
If you're being tailed, or followed by a chopper, you can actually see that you're being tailed.
A federal judge told the cops that they need a warrant to track your location via cell phone. I fail to see how this is any different than tracking your location by GPS. Unless the police have more power than the feds...?
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/celltracking/lenihanorder.pdf
Good show! I should say that I've posted a similar comment to my original on Wired, Techdirt, and Slashdot, multiple times each, and you're the first person to ever reply with an honest-to-God answer! But...
1) I wonder how many people reading your comment had to google Libby Hoeler.
2) After doing some googling of my own, I fail to see how this girl's life was ruined. To my knowledge, she: didn't lose any scholarships; wasn't kicked out of school; didn't destroy her career. Most people don't even think she's a slut because the video was for her boyfriend only.
3) Libby's videos are a bit more than a "naked picture". From the textual descriptions I've read, it might actually qualify as pornographic due to the provocative dancing.
Social embarrassment, even on the massive scale only capable over the Internet, does not ruin one's life. The Star Wars Kid probably had it worse than Ms Hoeler.
Okay, so, one case nearly a decade old involving someone who was only embarrassed. I dare say that this offers support for my statement.
I agree with you that some aspects of society are better off "socialist" or "public". The Achilles Heel of capitalism is that it underestimates the worst excesses of human greed that can be perpetrated by the powerful against the meek.
The corrupt PA judges you mention are a powerful example of how a private system motivated by profit will exploit all channels available - ethical or not - to maximize their profit.
Considering that this prosecutor was trying to get these children enrolled in some rehabilitation program, I think we should all try following the money...
I'm so sick of this myth that naked pictures cause problems. The shame associated with nudity (and even sex) says more about those viewing the picture than those who are in it.
Seriously, has anyone ever known someone whose life was ruined because of a naked picture?
Anyone?
The shame that our society attaches to nudity and sex is an attempt at prohibition. By making it taboo, it becomes enticing. Just like with alcohol, drugs, and prostitution, this forces it underground. Poor debaters will also use the taboo nature of the subject to stifle honest discussion by suggesting that supporters engage in the prohibited acts (i.e. those who defend these children are pedophiles who want easy access to CP, those who defend drug users are junkies, etc).
If it weren't for that prosecutor, none of you would have ever known anything about this. Isn't it ironic that the response taken to teach these kids about "potentially permanent burdens" has done more to create those exact burdens than the act itself would have?
When will we learn that over-protecting our children is hurting them by stunting their social growth? When they turn 18 and go off to college, an over-protected teenager will not be equipped with the proper skills necessary to navigate a world full of people who want to take advantage of them.
As for the fear that there will be an explosion of new child porn if it's legal for minors to take pictures of themselves...further application of this logic leads to support for banning bullets because their existence leads to an "explosion" of homicides involving guns.
Also, consider that teenagers are already doing this, and in a quantity deserving of its own slang description.
Users and their expectations differ widely, as the article mentions. One set of users want a device to do a few things very well, and another set wants it to do everything even if that makes it more complicated. Being a hardware developer, I am of the latter mindset.
Management is always on your ass to get the product out the door, generally as soon as it works. User interface considerations add greatly to the product latency, and if you have competitors you might not have the luxury of designing a good interface.
Not all interfaces can easily be abstracted for human interaction. For instance, we like for one design component to have one purpose, but sometimes this isn't really tractable because we require more buttons than space permits, so we use "soft buttons". That is to say nothing of the desire for knobs, switches, jog wheels, and so on.
There's also the 80/20 rule. Just because no one uses all of the features on a single phone doesn't mean that the all of the features aren't used regularly across all of the phones.
I dunno, I sortof like the idea of trying to minimize my excess consumption. It makes me feel responsible.
I don't need a big car. I don't need a big house. I don't need to cook food on a stove when a microwave uses much less energy.
It doesn't matter if "climate change" is real or not. Quite similar to Pascal's Wager.
Let's say there is no general trend of rising temperatures. If I live irresponsibly, consuming without regard for need, then there's not really a problem. If I live responsibly, then I have been slightly inconvenienced, but I still get to feel like a good guy.
Let's say that temperatures are in fact rising, or will rise significantly in the next few hundred years. If I live irresponsibly, then I may be dooming my future descendants. If I live responsibly, I may be saving my future descendants.
Given this two-by-two grid of decisions and results, I think that consuming in proportion to my need and not my desire is a wise decision.
Our irresponsible behavior as a society has created a financial crisis where we have borrowed without regard for future ability to repay. We thought the housing/stock/oil/xyz market would keep going up, and up, and up. Yay free money!
Except that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Now, you think that we can just consume fossil fuels without regard for the earth's future ability to handle them. It may be that the earth could handle it without too much trouble, but you don't know that, and the risk you want us to take is quite possibly worse than the risks that Wall Street took.
Is it really too much to ask people to live within their means, and the planet's?
There is a certain irony in reading your sig after your post.
You didn't quote any bits for supporting evidence, either. Here, let me help.
Considering the eventual outcome of being wrong in all this, it is highly irresponsible of them, and I hope that if things do go tits up in a pear shaped bowl that they are the ones made to pay.
Nowhere do I see the suggestion for punishing the other people for having a different opinion, even one that the author disagrees with. Rather, it appears that he believes people who cause a problem ought to be the ones who are held responsible for it. I can understand why such a concept might be difficult for some people to comprehend; accountability is such a foreign concept in today's society.
In fact, if you had actually read all those paragraphs that you counted, you might have noticed this sentiment...
Of course it is good if they exist to ensure that the science is rigourous.
Doesn't sound like someone who wants to "punish" anyone to me. But don't let me interfere with your attempts to belittle strangers over the Internet.
1) Ten seconds of googling will show that the jet stream changes dramatically from day to day
If the volcano explodes this Thursday, then the vast majority of the US will likely be spared the fate you are so certain they will suffer. One day earlier and it will be dumped all over the east coast; one day later and the west coast will suffer instead.
2) I find that most people who engage in ad hominems have low self esteem and use the attacks to boost their ego by creating the illusion of superiority. A well-adjusted human being respects others and knows that there are more effective ways to communicate.
Maybe you were you having a bad day? Normally my attempts at humor are transparent enough that others don't react so flippantly. But, hey, fight fire with fire. If you're already embracing arrogant behavior, then here's to tit-for-tat!
3) Actually, you said the stuff was going over "much of the US". But don't let minor inconsistencies like this knock you off your high horse; I wouldn't want you to bruise your ego when you landed.
4) I've got a lot of faith in nature; I don't think there's anything that humans could do that would completely destroy the planet. In the mean time, society should advance forward with inventions that improve life and expand knowledge.
May I suggest helping to nurture the green revolution? It could lead to investors who favor eco-friendly stocks over dividend-friendly stocks. In fact, you could start right now, by going out and purchasing stock from companies who you think do business the right way. Without your contribution, how can they stand up to the 3M's and the Wal-Mart's of the world?
AK is pretty far up on the globe compared to the continental US. If I were you, I would invest in a Canadian dust mask company.
Being embarrassed at the sight of nudity says more about the observer than it does about the person who is naked. It is a pity that our culture is this way.
Take a moment to appreciate the irony of the situation.
Saranko wants to send a message that any pictures you take might end up on the Internet, becoming an embarrassment for you.
Now, think for a moment. Do you know anyone, besides celebrities, who was embarrassed by naked pictures? Sure, you could google, but I bet you're going to stumble on mostly court cases.
Thus, without Saranko, the world would not know about six teenagers in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Any embarrassment they suffer is a direct result of this prosecution.
First, Hauser's law does not validate your point. It focuses only on the top tax rate; it is implied that the burden becomes shifted onto the middle class, either through changes in the tax structure or increased deficits. It specifically invalidates your point, which I shall quote here for you since you appear to have forgotten it.
Second, the money has been coming from debt. This is "wealth creation" in the 20th century. Enslaving the poor to the rich, who use interest payments and inflation to slowly transfer wealth to themselves.
Third, you continually fail to understand economies of scale. Why do cell phone carriers subsidize phones? They're losing money! But they're enlarging the market. Taxes go up, but more people have more money, so the people begin purchasing more stuff, and the larger market allows economies of scale to drive down the cost of the goods so that you get a net profit, even after the tax.
Or maybe (just maybe) companies will instead pay their workers a decent wage and fall into a lower tax bracket.
Just about everyone can be productive given the right incentives. It is saddening that you have such a pitiful view of your fellow humans. Some people will get free rides; get over it. Once you move on, you realize that luring people into productivity is worth some wasted spending. Humans are better than you give them credit for.
Again, let selfish rich people move their businesses to other countries. America is where the market is at. It will leave a hole that will be filled by some budding entrepreneur who is enough of a patriot to stay in American even though there is an extra cost. When the size of the traitor's market goes down, so will the profits.
I have a question for you. What is a better expenditure of money - a $10 million dollar yacht, or a hundred $100,000 homes for people to live in? You still need people to chop wood, make paint, and so forth. You still need companies to coordinate this. Arguably, you need more people, because you're handling a hundred "things" instead of just one.