So wait, they don't have backup plants already.. so, a simple blackout would cripple a large part of our nation's intelligence? I'm no fan of the NSA, but if we are spending billions a year on something, I should at least hope they are there when there might actually be some sort of crisis beyond spying on our citizens. Having a stock of fuel around would only improve their longevity in an emergency.
As I said in an earlier post, if a public university can afford several megawatts.. the center of a major government institution with deep pockets should too? Plus, the waste heat can have a number of uses at the source.
Ok, so at.10 a kw/hour that means they are pulling in the range of 23MW. Doesn't it seem wasteful for them NOT to build a gas turbine plant of their own? I mean, my local public university has 4MW of power. It would provide them with another layer of redundancy, and, they could route the waste into an absorption cooler to offset their cooling requirements.
They can be very difficult for the handicapped, hard of sight etc..
The thing that makes me doubt the whole thing is anything but fraud from the beginning is the all or nothing attitude the supporters have.
If we move to an optical scanning system, why not have a touch screen system that, oh, I don't know.. PRINTS a filled out ballot for the user who is unable to themselves?
For that matter, as best I know (ok, it was a little before my time), punch cards are quite reliable, fast and accurate when not hand punched. It's not like it's some lost technology, I'm sure there are plenty of companies that would love to make loads of money by just digging out some old designs and tooling. Just have the touch-screen machines spit out a nice human-readable card that a user can take a look over. It gets scanned at the polling station for the official count, then could easily and quickly be verified by two independent sources for the cost of transport and two high-speed reading machines, many of which they still probably just have in a warehouse somewhere anyway. Fast, verifiable, proven technology. This isn't rocket science.
It doesn't have to be that way, if you ever happened to catch, say, the anime Tenchi Muyo, the technology was anything but.
But then, good luck selling anything like that to your average male gamer.
Perhaps that is the crux of the problem, what people expect of sci-fi is very limited. There are more firearms in StarGate then any cop show. Even the Utopian vision of StarTrek is based around a military complex, it just happens to be a military that holds science and pure science in high regard.
In essence, any sci-fi games have become modern combat games that use technology simply as a way to take more liberties. Planeside isn't much different then what you'd expect from a WWII FPS in game play.. and EVE isn't' much different then what you might expect from a naval battle simulation.
So, if these genres are effectively modern combat simulations, it's going to look silly if you can shoot people with a rifle and they are somehow unharmed... how are people going to accept things like ever increasing hit points, ever increasing powers (technology use)? The answer is simple, they won't because at that point, they will just call it Fantasy again. The cookie cutter structure of what we consider MMORPGS, the very idea of "levels", is simply not compatible with what people expect from "sci-fi".
StarWars only barely manages to straddle that line with its glowing swords and Jedi powers. At that point, why not just give them real swords and magic powers? Well, I suppose then you have Final Fantasy, and I doubt people are really calling that sci-fi.
Realism just doesn't lend itself to the level treadmill, which is it seems how MMORPGs are defined. Much less, how would you incorporate a sniper or a fighter pilot into a top down style group? Seems that would only fit an FPS style game, and how would it be any different then any other combat FPS, except, with character levels? Go the other direction, or perhaps something like mech combat, and it's basically a Massively Multiplayer RTS.
So, either change how the average person thinks of sci-fi, or just be content that its going to be another modern combat simulator of one sort or another.
For that matter, what is a "peer" exactly? I'm not an expert on TCP/IP I suppose, but isn't every computer with an IP address a peer to another? Weather it's my grandmothers old mac or big iron web server, we're all peers, aren't we?
On the flip side, if I rent a server at a hosting company for $50 a month.. or for that matter, a virtual host for $15 a month, is it no longer "peer-to-peer" since I'm just a server?
If I set no outgoing connections on bit-torrent, then aren't I just downloading like any other?
That's how I felt at first when I read this, but then I thought about it a little more.
Think of a corner gas-station that has entrances to public streets on both sides, two public use spaces, much like the AP in our coffee shop: Unlicensed radio bands and the internet. I don't think it is a person's right to drive through the gas station's private property in order to get around traffic or a red light. If everyone did it, the station's lot would have constant traffic and make it imposable for the station to do business. On the same token, people that are using access points like this are crossing private property: the internal network and DSL line, which are finite in space, and clogging it for the people that own and pay for that property.
Personally, I think it should be common sense that if you want to keep your network private, you should have some sort of authentication (even better, with a strong encryption), but, we are a little ways off from that. The good news is, stories like this will help such adoptions along, I think, anyways.
SkySeer, will be able to accomplish tasks too dangerous for officers and free up helicopters for other missions.
Wow, the situation in LA is a lot worse then I thought since apparently they are worried about helicopters being shot out of the sky.. I wonder when it was the Crypts picked up a surface to air missile?
I suppose this is a bit off topic, but what the heck.
I use both regularly at work, for as much an expert that does or doesn't make me. Refrigerated heavy fog machines are great, but both are still used. In my experience at least, when used properly dry ice has a much richer, heavier effect then the machines like Jem (which we have) or Le Maitre makes. Of course, from a practical standpoint the heavy foggers are much more convenient. But for a good, one shot effect, we still often go with a large dry ice machine.
I love daylight florescent lights, I use them at my desk and, to many people's surprise, in my bedroom. Once you get used to the blue, I find it much more pleasant then the yellow tint of the standard kind, especially to augment daylight. Fact is though, that even their ability to render colors properly is inferior to a plain old generic incandescent light bulb (http://www.sizes.com/units/CRI.htm). The color temperature rating on florescent and even gas discharge lamps is just an approximation of true blackbody color temperature. This is why even budget conscious retail and food chains still will have at least incandescent spot lighting, things just look better under it.
As a professional stage lighting designer looking for rich colors and as a person looking to save on cooling and power costs at home, I can't wait for LEDs to keep getting cheaper, brighter, and more efficient. Unfortunately being that white LEDs are based on phosphors in somewhat the same way as CRTs and fluorescents are, I don't think we aren't going to see the end of incandescents quite yet.
It happens all the time; how many times do you hear the same old stories drug out and beaten again and again? How many times do we have to hear about the lady that sued McDonalds, and every time leave out the third degree burns? Or commercials saying that X politician hates our troops because he voted against funding for them Y number of times, irregardless of the context that it may have happened in.
We hear these "horror stories" again and again, and so often they are just parroting of sensational headlines or blurbs without any idea of what actually happened. The world of law and politics is far less about what someone has done and far more about what it can be made to sound like.
So.. you will have no trouble when your DSL provider blocks VOIP and programs like TeamSpeak and your cable provider blocks ABC's website and iTunes? They are in the business of providing telephone and television services to you, after all.
I wouldn't say it had to do with maturity, but rather in the fringe elements became much more outspoken in the more liberal era, just as the scary far right fringe elements have become much more outspoken right now. Sadly, the war on stupidity will rage on far longer than any buzzword of the week war.
Of course, no side wants to admit how ridiculous some of the ideas on their side of the line might be for the (founded) fear of it becoming an exploited vulnerability in their platform.
Well, we are all glad you had drive, intelligence and motivation. Many of us do not. Is it our or their own fault? When it comes down to it, it's a totally moot point. When the army comes along and gives them a way out (or the apperance of one) and all you have to do is sign up for "A couple of years" it seems a pretty easy way out for people, whether it's their own problem or not.
I find it interesting that %5 find it more complicated. Connect cable/phone, power, computer, make a short phone call, and ding, your computer is full of internets.
I really, it comes down to a lack of knowledge and money. I think even all the other reasons would be moot except unavailable if the price were comparable. Nobody wants slower, or to tie up their phone line, so really I think properly educated, the vast majority just don't find it worth the money.
It is a BIG concern for classical listeners. It bugs the hell out of me trying to listen to "The Rite of Spring" on an MP3 player when every 3 to 10 minutes it gets interrupted.
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They almost didn't. If a classically trained producer who just happened to hear 'something' in it that caught his ear in passing, they might never have gone anywhere.
We might never have heard of Stravinsky or Picasso had they not established themselves as masters of the current form of art before they went in very new directions. Had Picasso started his carrier painting like that, I doubt we would have heard of cubism.
I think the problem today is we have become so used to gloss that we are unwilling to except anything that isn't perfect. People find theater ridicules because it doesn't have edited perfection of film. We don't accept games that are a bit rough around the edges. Anything without the marketing and gloss of a big company is an "Off-Brand." Now, many, if not most, of us outgrow this, but I think few of us can say we are completely immune to it. It doesn't help that so often off brands really are crap.
So we forget, we grab the "name we trust" or listen to that band we heard on the radio all the time. Fortunately though, we have places for musicians to start out in, clubs, schools, little places, or little theaters for actors to tune their craft. We aren't in a place where new stuff is imposable, but it takes a lot of work from the artists, and an open mind from the audience.
It's simplistic and not based in reality and just gives lazy people and excuse to dodge doing important work. The only important work is well paid work?
I'm sorry, but I know people who do what they love, and work -damn hard- at it.
Having said that, the mistake I made was taking such advice, and not really having something I loved, thinking I was making some sacrifice for nobility and art when I should have just done the "Day Job" thing.
Ok, so I didn't RTFA, but I'm going to give my two cents anyways: If you love, and enjoy something, don't be afraid to keep at it, don't be afraid to commit, and don't be afraid to make that love commercial, you're not selling out. Make some money, make it a job, go where it takes you, and stop when your ready. (And putting it on pause four years for collage won't kill you).
If you love something, but find that in the end, it only occupies part of your life, then maybe that good paying desk job is for you. If you're not already putting in the time you would need to make it your career, use that other time for money, and when the clock strikes 5, your mind is at ease to think about whatever you like. A well paying job that consumes your life really isn't worth it, unless it is your life.
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So wait, they don't have backup plants already.. so, a simple blackout would cripple a large part of our nation's intelligence? I'm no fan of the NSA, but if we are spending billions a year on something, I should at least hope they are there when there might actually be some sort of crisis beyond spying on our citizens. Having a stock of fuel around would only improve their longevity in an emergency.
As I said in an earlier post, if a public university can afford several megawatts.. the center of a major government institution with deep pockets should too? Plus, the waste heat can have a number of uses at the source.
Ok, so at .10 a kw/hour that means they are pulling in the range of 23MW. Doesn't it seem wasteful for them NOT to build a gas turbine plant of their own? I mean, my local public university has 4MW of power. It would provide them with another layer of redundancy, and, they could route the waste into an absorption cooler to offset their cooling requirements.
They can be very difficult for the handicapped, hard of sight etc..
The thing that makes me doubt the whole thing is anything but fraud from the beginning is the all or nothing attitude the supporters have.
If we move to an optical scanning system, why not have a touch screen system that, oh, I don't know.. PRINTS a filled out ballot for the user who is unable to themselves?
For that matter, as best I know (ok, it was a little before my time), punch cards are quite reliable, fast and accurate when not hand punched. It's not like it's some lost technology, I'm sure there are plenty of companies that would love to make loads of money by just digging out some old designs and tooling. Just have the touch-screen machines spit out a nice human-readable card that a user can take a look over. It gets scanned at the polling station for the official count, then could easily and quickly be verified by two independent sources for the cost of transport and two high-speed reading machines, many of which they still probably just have in a warehouse somewhere anyway. Fast, verifiable, proven technology. This isn't rocket science.
It doesn't have to be that way, if you ever happened to catch, say, the anime Tenchi Muyo, the technology was anything but.
But then, good luck selling anything like that to your average male gamer.
Perhaps that is the crux of the problem, what people expect of sci-fi is very limited. There are more firearms in StarGate then any cop show. Even the Utopian vision of StarTrek is based around a military complex, it just happens to be a military that holds science and pure science in high regard.
In essence, any sci-fi games have become modern combat games that use technology simply as a way to take more liberties. Planeside isn't much different then what you'd expect from a WWII FPS in game play.. and EVE isn't' much different then what you might expect from a naval battle simulation.
So, if these genres are effectively modern combat simulations, it's going to look silly if you can shoot people with a rifle and they are somehow unharmed... how are people going to accept things like ever increasing hit points, ever increasing powers (technology use)? The answer is simple, they won't because at that point, they will just call it Fantasy again. The cookie cutter structure of what we consider MMORPGS, the very idea of "levels", is simply not compatible with what people expect from "sci-fi".
StarWars only barely manages to straddle that line with its glowing swords and Jedi powers. At that point, why not just give them real swords and magic powers? Well, I suppose then you have Final Fantasy, and I doubt people are really calling that sci-fi.
Realism just doesn't lend itself to the level treadmill, which is it seems how MMORPGs are defined. Much less, how would you incorporate a sniper or a fighter pilot into a top down style group? Seems that would only fit an FPS style game, and how would it be any different then any other combat FPS, except, with character levels? Go the other direction, or perhaps something like mech combat, and it's basically a Massively Multiplayer RTS.
So, either change how the average person thinks of sci-fi, or just be content that its going to be another modern combat simulator of one sort or another.
"Swinging on a swing in space."
Hey, if you figure that one out in zero/micro gravity, you DESERVE a patent.
For that matter, what is a "peer" exactly? I'm not an expert on TCP/IP I suppose, but isn't every computer with an IP address a peer to another? Weather it's my grandmothers old mac or big iron web server, we're all peers, aren't we?
On the flip side, if I rent a server at a hosting company for $50 a month.. or for that matter, a virtual host for $15 a month, is it no longer "peer-to-peer" since I'm just a server?
If I set no outgoing connections on bit-torrent, then aren't I just downloading like any other?
That's how I felt at first when I read this, but then I thought about it a little more.
Think of a corner gas-station that has entrances to public streets on both sides, two public use spaces, much like the AP in our coffee shop: Unlicensed radio bands and the internet. I don't think it is a person's right to drive through the gas station's private property in order to get around traffic or a red light. If everyone did it, the station's lot would have constant traffic and make it imposable for the station to do business. On the same token, people that are using access points like this are crossing private property: the internal network and DSL line, which are finite in space, and clogging it for the people that own and pay for that property.
Personally, I think it should be common sense that if you want to keep your network private, you should have some sort of authentication (even better, with a strong encryption), but, we are a little ways off from that. The good news is, stories like this will help such adoptions along, I think, anyways.
SkySeer, will be able to accomplish tasks too dangerous for officers and free up helicopters for other missions.
Wow, the situation in LA is a lot worse then I thought since apparently they are worried about helicopters being shot out of the sky.. I wonder when it was the Crypts picked up a surface to air missile?
I suppose this is a bit off topic, but what the heck.
I use both regularly at work, for as much an expert that does or doesn't make me. Refrigerated heavy fog machines are great, but both are still used. In my experience at least, when used properly dry ice has a much richer, heavier effect then the machines like Jem (which we have) or Le Maitre makes. Of course, from a practical standpoint the heavy foggers are much more convenient. But for a good, one shot effect, we still often go with a large dry ice machine.
I love daylight florescent lights, I use them at my desk and, to many people's surprise, in my bedroom. Once you get used to the blue, I find it much more pleasant then the yellow tint of the standard kind, especially to augment daylight. Fact is though, that even their ability to render colors properly is inferior to a plain old generic incandescent light bulb (http://www.sizes.com/units/CRI.htm). The color temperature rating on florescent and even gas discharge lamps is just an approximation of true blackbody color temperature. This is why even budget conscious retail and food chains still will have at least incandescent spot lighting, things just look better under it.
As a professional stage lighting designer looking for rich colors and as a person looking to save on cooling and power costs at home, I can't wait for LEDs to keep getting cheaper, brighter, and more efficient. Unfortunately being that white LEDs are based on phosphors in somewhat the same way as CRTs and fluorescents are, I don't think we aren't going to see the end of incandescents quite yet.
It happens all the time; how many times do you hear the same old stories drug out and beaten again and again? How many times do we have to hear about the lady that sued McDonalds, and every time leave out the third degree burns? Or commercials saying that X politician hates our troops because he voted against funding for them Y number of times, irregardless of the context that it may have happened in.
We hear these "horror stories" again and again, and so often they are just parroting of sensational headlines or blurbs without any idea of what actually happened. The world of law and politics is far less about what someone has done and far more about what it can be made to sound like.
... Can I change my answer on this weeks poll?
So.. you will have no trouble when your DSL provider blocks VOIP and programs like TeamSpeak and your cable provider blocks ABC's website and iTunes? They are in the business of providing telephone and television services to you, after all.
I wouldn't say it had to do with maturity, but rather in the fringe elements became much more outspoken in the more liberal era, just as the scary far right fringe elements have become much more outspoken right now. Sadly, the war on stupidity will rage on far longer than any buzzword of the week war.
Of course, no side wants to admit how ridiculous some of the ideas on their side of the line might be for the (founded) fear of it becoming an exploited vulnerability in their platform.
Well, we are all glad you had drive, intelligence and motivation. Many of us do not. Is it our or their own fault? When it comes down to it, it's a totally moot point. When the army comes along and gives them a way out (or the apperance of one) and all you have to do is sign up for "A couple of years" it seems a pretty easy way out for people, whether it's their own problem or not.
I was going to point that out. Actualy, I am pretty sure that is just a real live sticker :P
I find it interesting that %5 find it more complicated. Connect cable/phone, power, computer, make a short phone call, and ding, your computer is full of internets.
I really, it comes down to a lack of knowledge and money. I think even all the other reasons would be moot except unavailable if the price were comparable. Nobody wants slower, or to tie up their phone line, so really I think properly educated, the vast majority just don't find it worth the money.
"Our new system runs over 800 GigScams a second!"
It is a BIG concern for classical listeners. It bugs the hell out of me trying to listen to "The Rite of Spring" on an MP3 player when every 3 to 10 minutes it gets interrupted.
They almost didn't. If a classically trained producer who just happened to hear 'something' in it that caught his ear in passing, they might never have gone anywhere.
We might never have heard of Stravinsky or Picasso had they not established themselves as masters of the current form of art before they went in very new directions. Had Picasso started his carrier painting like that, I doubt we would have heard of cubism.
I think the problem today is we have become so used to gloss that we are unwilling to except anything that isn't perfect. People find theater ridicules because it doesn't have edited perfection of film. We don't accept games that are a bit rough around the edges. Anything without the marketing and gloss of a big company is an "Off-Brand." Now, many, if not most, of us outgrow this, but I think few of us can say we are completely immune to it. It doesn't help that so often off brands really are crap.
So we forget, we grab the "name we trust" or listen to that band we heard on the radio all the time. Fortunately though, we have places for musicians to start out in, clubs, schools, little places, or little theaters for actors to tune their craft. We aren't in a place where new stuff is imposable, but it takes a lot of work from the artists, and an open mind from the audience.
I rest my case.
It's simplistic and not based in reality and just gives lazy people and excuse to dodge doing important work.
The only important work is well paid work?
I'm sorry, but I know people who do what they love, and work -damn hard- at it.
Having said that, the mistake I made was taking such advice, and not really having something I loved, thinking I was making some sacrifice for nobility and art when I should have just done the "Day Job" thing.
Ok, so I didn't RTFA, but I'm going to give my two cents anyways:
If you love, and enjoy something, don't be afraid to keep at it, don't be afraid to commit, and don't be afraid to make that love commercial, you're not selling out. Make some money, make it a job, go where it takes you, and stop when your ready. (And putting it on pause four years for collage won't kill you).
If you love something, but find that in the end, it only occupies part of your life, then maybe that good paying desk job is for you. If you're not already putting in the time you would need to make it your career, use that other time for money, and when the clock strikes 5, your mind is at ease to think about whatever you like. A well paying job that consumes your life really isn't worth it, unless it is your life.
Financial Incentives.
Wouldn't this also contamanate the tree with those metals?
I don't know, they could have axed it a lot of things.