"The original show concept blended puppetry with animation and was set in feudal Japan but dealt with modern-day suburban situations."
Man, I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in that pitch meeting.
Exec 1 - 'I dunno about this feudal Japan idea. and... puppets?' Exec 2 - 'You know, our research shows, most Fox viewers live in suburbs - we need something more suburban' Exec 1 - 'You're right. We need an angle.' Exec 2 - 'Can we deal with modern suburban issues in a feudal Japanese setting?' Producer (steam coming out of ears) - 'I guess so, if it means you'll commission the show' Exec 1 - 'I feel a daytime Emmy coming on...' Exec 2 - 'High Five!'
Sometimes, I wonder why the entire planet hasn't already been sucked into the bottomless void between TV executives' ears.
Indeed. As does my brain on zero caffeine. Halved the wrong number. See another of my replies on this thread for some demonstration that I do know something about audio sampling:)
well, there's a complex relationship between sampling frequency, and the maximum reproducible frequency. Imagine a 44 KHz wave, and sample its magnitude 44000 times a second (digital recording is more or less a case of grabbing a number representing the sound pressure at each sample point). You'll end up taking a sample at the same pint on the waveform every cycle, and you'll lose the waveform shape completely. Now, sample a 22KHz waveform at the same rate, and you'll find yourself picking up alternating sample values. You'll have a crude approximation of the waveform. The fidelity of the digital recording to the original waveform obviously improves as the frequency drops.
Well, the usual rough figure quoted for top-end of human hearing is 20KHz, and vinyl addicts will go on about harmonics as well, but you're ignoring the crucial importance of stereo
44.1KHz gives you two 22.05KHz sampling channels, i.e., CD stereo.
Actually, I saw a snip of an interview with Keanu, and he was commenting on how difficult it was to act for the facial captures used to put his face on the CGI Keanu in some of the fight sequences. Strapped into a chair with a camera inches from his face, with Wachowskis shouting 'okay, now you're kicking him. Now he punches you in the gut. Now you're landing.'
Sounds like an interesting acting challenge for me, and one that even Keanu stepped up to pretty well - watch Neo's face in those sequences, and you'll see some very well synched facial expressions.
You're just pissed cos Keanu Reeves didn't spend six months training to actually learn how to fly for this movie.
When you're talking about bodies moving through space at speeds in excess of the earth's escape velocity (which is likely to be the case for most bodies we encounter - remember, they've got that gravitational pull accellerating them towards us all the way in, and they're starting a long way out), actually the earth's gravity is going to cause very little deflection in the path as it gets close.
If you ignore the other gravitational sources in the solar system, like the sun, basically any asteroids that you put into that system will be on elliptical paths, with the earth's centre of gravity at one of the foci. To get an ellipse like that to actually intersect the earth, it's got to be a pretty extreme ellipse - long and thin, almost straight. In other words, for the earth to get hit by an asteroid, one needs to take a good long run-up and be coming very fast right at us to hit us.
In which case, it's a shooting gallery. You can pretty much see the earth as a flat circular target, with the potentially impacting asteroid coming at it perpendicular to the plane of the circle.
Now, the closer to the edge of the circle the asteroid hits, the more oblique the angle it impacts with the surface. if it hits in the middle, it's a perpendicular impact - if it's at the edge, it comes screaming in horizontally.
You can do the maths yourself to prove it, but essentially there's an even chance of the asteroid impacting at any angle. There's a fifty fifty chance it'll come in under 45 degrees, fifty fifty that it'll come in above. So, shallow angled impacts are just as likely as high angle impacts.
If the majority of asteroids come in on the plane of the ecliptic, of course, you get some shifting of the odds according to where you are in the world. If that is the case, for example, if you're at the north pole and you're going to get hit my an asteroid, chances are it'll come in at a very low angle. If you're at the equator and you get hit, well... it could come in at any angle, depending on time of day.
So, if you're considering asteroid impacts at a particular point on the earth's surface, and that point is far from the equator, then the odds that it'll be an oblique impact may be higher.
But, as others have pointed out, this is mostly irrelevant in the face of 1/2mv^2 energy wanging into the side of the planet - what angle it does it at isn't likely to matter a whole deal.
If I'm not allowed to use a computer program to automatically make web requests, then I don't see why they should be allowed to use a computer program to automatically respond to them. If they want the convenience of having a computer sit there answering anybody's query of 'how much does this cost?', then they should not be surprised when somebody writes a computer program to simplify the process of asking a number of different retailers what their prices are.
So, if they don't have a person sitting at a terminal in the server room personally typing in all the HTML for each web page, I'm not going to type in URLs personally. Those terms and conditions are, of course, available to anybody who cares to look at my web site, so I don't see any reason why websites won't comply with them.
More seriously, web site terms and conditions are always written in appalling pseudo-terminology that talks about allowing people to 'access' the web site, but prohibiting them from 'downloading' content from it, or 'storing' it. Quite how one accesses content on a website without downloading and subsequently storing it (if only in my local computer RAM) is beyond me.
There's an implicit assumption here that using a web browser to generate and send your HTTP requests is okay, but any other program is not; quite how the border between browsers and non-browser user agents is drawn is completely ignored. The terminology used in the legal documentation should at least, surely, bear some relation to the terminology used in the HTTP RFCs. For example, I'd respect a web site whose T's and C's (which were perhaps available from a URL identified in a header in every HTTP response issued) said something like this:
'You may submit HTTP GET and POST requests to port 80 of the server provided they are correctly formed according to current IETF RFCs; HTTP responses transmitted by this web server must be interpreted in strict accordance with the prevailing IETF RFCs. The content of any response issued by the server is copyright this website.'
Frankly, any attempt to require any more than that on the part of your users is a futile effort on the web.
So... your saying that snow falls up onto mountains, then?
Of course, your understanding of seasons leaves a lot to be desired, but...
Surely, by that reckoning, the most important mass transfer involved would be that bit of the ol' water cycle when the most water is in the atmosphere, as opposed to in the ocean (or sitting on mountain peaks in crystalline form).
Yeah - and could someone please tell Coppola to finish Apocalypse Now already? I've bought too many copies of that film. And Ridley, would you quit playing with Blade Runner? Just stick all the footage on a big DVD box set and give me a few menu options - original theatrical release, directors first cut, directors second cut, studio cut, network TV cut, special edition, redux, digital remaster, phantom edit...
Hutchison Telecom, the people who originally set up the Orange mobile phone network in the UK and, I think, Holland, launched their UK-wide 3G network under the freakishly-logoed '3' brand this month. Check www.three.co.uk for details.
Anyone got a clue what they're thinking with that logo?
I think the thinking behind banning the use of cellphones in cars in 'several European states' (I dunno why you ignore the several American states that have also banned cellphone use while driving) is more to do with the level of distraction caused by use of telephones. For the most part, the hazard I find cellphone users cause in traffic is that they don't notice the lights have gone green, or that there's a gap in traffic they can pull into - then they drive too slowly when they are moving. I'd like to see more attention payed to people who fill their car with kids, don't strap them down, and then overtake me on their way to school while screaming over their shoulder at the monsters in the back seat.
Regardless, the health risk case is definitely 'not proven' at this stage. As mobile phone technology evolves, personal area networks based on bluetooth evolve, and usage patterns shift, I think we'll see transmitters moved away from the headset anyway.
I think you've got to admit that a business model which financially rewards the creators of content is likely to be more sustainable in the long term than one based on 'everybody gets the content for free'. If you want to see the continued creation of music, you've got to consider how you can fund artists (not that I'm condoning the current business model which ensures that the few commercially successful artists that exist make thousands of times more than, say doctors, but hey... they deserve a few pennies for their efforts). Options like this one just might provide a better solution for that than the current publishing/distribution model.
The problem is that the existence of 'free' (modulo the long term social cost of killing the creation of future music) alternatives could prevent this potentially sustainable model from catching hold.
Normally, when a society wants to proscribe some activity which is destructive to its long term health (such as the widespread freeloading of music), it uses social norms and, in extreme cases, laws to prevent them. Hmm - maybe copying music without giving anything back to the artist ought to be socially unacceptable, or maybe even illegal?
Spend the next couple of years learning some C, and a bit of OS theory - you're already thinking about those kinds of things anyway (when you're not arguing with your mates about lord of the rings). In '91, drop an email to torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (get yourself an email account, you'll need one), and ask if there's anything you can do to help on that minix project.
Then when the Red Hat IPO happens, take the shares, but remember to SELL!!
> That that margin of error might have been a deciding factor in the race was extremely unusual--very few races are that close.
But the only time when it matters to keep the margin of error to a minimum is when the race is that close. If you're going to give all the spoils to the victor, damn straight the margin of error had better be less than the margin of victory. If that means counting every ballot repeatedly until you're absolutely sure every single one has been correctly counted, so your margin of error is less than the five vote margin of victory, then so be it.
"I'm sorry your vote wasn't counted, but it was part of an overall margin of error that's calculated into the system, so it all balances out in the end" is not exactly the embodiment of the democratic spirit...
I still have an old Powerbook 165c, and a Mac IIci, both doing sterling work in one capacity or another around the house. Old macs age much more gracefully than PCs, and can generally continue to run the latest software for a long time after they're purchased. Apple have managed the two big transitions in their history - from 68x to PowerPC and from classic MacOS to OS X - in a very slick manner that ensures the minimum hardware and software is left behind. No need to fear the future...
Apparently not only never had a girlfriend, but also never seen a diamond. Ugly rock? Them's some strange aesthetic sensibilities.
Regardless of everything you may have to say about the diamond industry, diamonds themselves aren't really to blame, and a pure cut diamond is one of the most amazing natural objects you'll ever see. These things get dug out of the fricking ground, damnit - they're the hardest material in existence, a pure sample of the basic chemical element that makes up life on this planet, and they shine like nothing you've ever seen.
If you're choosing a symbol to represent unending love, there's not a lot wrong with choosing a life-giving, pure element, aside from the lack of originality, but why does everything you do have to be original?
Frankly, if you're looking to buy a ring, all the best looking ones have a big diamond in the middle. If you're worried about ethics, make sure you buy from a jeweller who shares your concerns - and they do exist. Choose a craftsman whose work you like. A good ring is a work of art, one your wife will wear for the rest of her life. That's gotta be worth a few bucks.
It's even less complicated than you make out. Lego is the name of a company. You don't pluralize it. You wouldn't say 'I have to reinstall several Microsofts this afternoon', would you? We call things Microsoft makes, 'Microsoft Applications' (if we're feeling generous). So, similarly, you wouldn't say you were going to build a moebius strip out of Legos. Lego bricks, Lego pieces, etc., yes, fine, but NOT Legos.
Slashdot Mirror
"The original show concept blended puppetry with animation and was set in feudal Japan but dealt with modern-day suburban situations."
Man, I'd love to have been a fly on the wall in that pitch meeting.
Exec 1 - 'I dunno about this feudal Japan idea. and... puppets?'
Exec 2 - 'You know, our research shows, most Fox viewers live in suburbs - we need something more suburban'
Exec 1 - 'You're right. We need an angle.'
Exec 2 - 'Can we deal with modern suburban issues in a feudal Japanese setting?'
Producer (steam coming out of ears) - 'I guess so, if it means you'll commission the show'
Exec 1 - 'I feel a daytime Emmy coming on...'
Exec 2 - 'High Five!'
Sometimes, I wonder why the entire planet hasn't already been sucked into the bottomless void between TV executives' ears.
> 11kHz, and that just plain sucks.
:)
Indeed. As does my brain on zero caffeine. Halved the wrong number. See another of my replies on this thread for some demonstration that I do know something about audio sampling
well, there's a complex relationship between sampling frequency, and the maximum reproducible frequency. Imagine a 44 KHz wave, and sample its magnitude 44000 times a second (digital recording is more or less a case of grabbing a number representing the sound pressure at each sample point). You'll end up taking a sample at the same pint on the waveform every cycle, and you'll lose the waveform shape completely. Now, sample a 22KHz waveform at the same rate, and you'll find yourself picking up alternating sample values. You'll have a crude approximation of the waveform. The fidelity of the digital recording to the original waveform obviously improves as the frequency drops.
Well, the usual rough figure quoted for top-end of human hearing is 20KHz, and vinyl addicts will go on about harmonics as well, but you're ignoring the crucial importance of stereo
44.1KHz gives you two 22.05KHz sampling channels, i.e., CD stereo.
Actually, I saw a snip of an interview with Keanu, and he was commenting on how difficult it was to act for the facial captures used to put his face on the CGI Keanu in some of the fight sequences. Strapped into a chair with a camera inches from his face, with Wachowskis shouting 'okay, now you're kicking him. Now he punches you in the gut. Now you're landing.'
Sounds like an interesting acting challenge for me, and one that even Keanu stepped up to pretty well - watch Neo's face in those sequences, and you'll see some very well synched facial expressions.
You're just pissed cos Keanu Reeves didn't spend six months training to actually learn how to fly for this movie.
When you're talking about bodies moving through space at speeds in excess of the earth's escape velocity (which is likely to be the case for most bodies we encounter - remember, they've got that gravitational pull accellerating them towards us all the way in, and they're starting a long way out), actually the earth's gravity is going to cause very little deflection in the path as it gets close.
If you ignore the other gravitational sources in the solar system, like the sun, basically any asteroids that you put into that system will be on elliptical paths, with the earth's centre of gravity at one of the foci. To get an ellipse like that to actually intersect the earth, it's got to be a pretty extreme ellipse - long and thin, almost straight. In other words, for the earth to get hit by an asteroid, one needs to take a good long run-up and be coming very fast right at us to hit us.
In which case, it's a shooting gallery. You can pretty much see the earth as a flat circular target, with the potentially impacting asteroid coming at it perpendicular to the plane of the circle.
Now, the closer to the edge of the circle the asteroid hits, the more oblique the angle it impacts with the surface. if it hits in the middle, it's a perpendicular impact - if it's at the edge, it comes screaming in horizontally.
You can do the maths yourself to prove it, but essentially there's an even chance of the asteroid impacting at any angle. There's a fifty fifty chance it'll come in under 45 degrees, fifty fifty that it'll come in above. So, shallow angled impacts are just as likely as high angle impacts.
If the majority of asteroids come in on the plane of the ecliptic, of course, you get some shifting of the odds according to where you are in the world. If that is the case, for example, if you're at the north pole and you're going to get hit my an asteroid, chances are it'll come in at a very low angle. If you're at the equator and you get hit, well... it could come in at any angle, depending on time of day.
So, if you're considering asteroid impacts at a particular point on the earth's surface, and that point is far from the equator, then the odds that it'll be an oblique impact may be higher.
But, as others have pointed out, this is mostly irrelevant in the face of 1/2mv^2 energy wanging into the side of the planet - what angle it does it at isn't likely to matter a whole deal.
Ah yes, now hand me a 9 metre-squared-kilo-per-amp-cubic-second battery....
If I'm not allowed to use a computer program to automatically make web requests, then I don't see why they should be allowed to use a computer program to automatically respond to them. If they want the convenience of having a computer sit there answering anybody's query of 'how much does this cost?', then they should not be surprised when somebody writes a computer program to simplify the process of asking a number of different retailers what their prices are.
So, if they don't have a person sitting at a terminal in the server room personally typing in all the HTML for each web page, I'm not going to type in URLs personally. Those terms and conditions are, of course, available to anybody who cares to look at my web site, so I don't see any reason why websites won't comply with them.
More seriously, web site terms and conditions are always written in appalling pseudo-terminology that talks about allowing people to 'access' the web site, but prohibiting them from 'downloading' content from it, or 'storing' it. Quite how one accesses content on a website without downloading and subsequently storing it (if only in my local computer RAM) is beyond me.
There's an implicit assumption here that using a web browser to generate and send your HTTP requests is okay, but any other program is not; quite how the border between browsers and non-browser user agents is drawn is completely ignored. The terminology used in the legal documentation should at least, surely, bear some relation to the terminology used in the HTTP RFCs. For example, I'd respect a web site whose T's and C's (which were perhaps available from a URL identified in a header in every HTTP response issued) said something like this:
'You may submit HTTP GET and POST requests to port 80 of the server provided they are correctly formed according to current IETF RFCs; HTTP responses transmitted by this web server must be interpreted in strict accordance with the prevailing IETF RFCs. The content of any response issued by the server is copyright this website.'
Frankly, any attempt to require any more than that on the part of your users is a futile effort on the web.
Ah well. I can dream.
Yes, absolutely - people are inherently opposed to change. You, for example, are posting to Slashdot from an 80 column terminal, apparently.
Well, this one is $139, but sounds like the sort of thing you're talking about...
So... your saying that snow falls up onto mountains, then?
Of course, your understanding of seasons leaves a lot to be desired, but...
Surely, by that reckoning, the most important mass transfer involved would be that bit of the ol' water cycle when the most water is in the atmosphere, as opposed to in the ocean (or sitting on mountain peaks in crystalline form).
Yeah - and could someone please tell Coppola to finish Apocalypse Now already? I've bought too many copies of that film. And Ridley, would you quit playing with Blade Runner? Just stick all the footage on a big DVD box set and give me a few menu options - original theatrical release, directors first cut, directors second cut, studio cut, network TV cut, special edition, redux, digital remaster, phantom edit...
You've not been watching the animatrix releases, then? That's your matrix prequels, demi-sequels, and hemi-demi-super-sequels all roled into one...
So don't panic, there's going to be a DVD to spend your money on before reloaded comes out this summer.
Woh...
Hutchison Telecom, the people who originally set up the Orange mobile phone network in the UK and, I think, Holland, launched their UK-wide 3G network under the freakishly-logoed '3' brand this month. Check www.three.co.uk for details.
Anyone got a clue what they're thinking with that logo?
I think the thinking behind banning the use of cellphones in cars in 'several European states' (I dunno why you ignore the several American states that have also banned cellphone use while driving) is more to do with the level of distraction caused by use of telephones. For the most part, the hazard I find cellphone users cause in traffic is that they don't notice the lights have gone green, or that there's a gap in traffic they can pull into - then they drive too slowly when they are moving. I'd like to see more attention payed to people who fill their car with kids, don't strap them down, and then overtake me on their way to school while screaming over their shoulder at the monsters in the back seat.
Regardless, the health risk case is definitely 'not proven' at this stage. As mobile phone technology evolves, personal area networks based on bluetooth evolve, and usage patterns shift, I think we'll see transmitters moved away from the headset anyway.
I think you've got to admit that a business model which financially rewards the creators of content is likely to be more sustainable in the long term than one based on 'everybody gets the content for free'. If you want to see the continued creation of music, you've got to consider how you can fund artists (not that I'm condoning the current business model which ensures that the few commercially successful artists that exist make thousands of times more than, say doctors, but hey... they deserve a few pennies for their efforts). Options like this one just might provide a better solution for that than the current publishing/distribution model.
The problem is that the existence of 'free' (modulo the long term social cost of killing the creation of future music) alternatives could prevent this potentially sustainable model from catching hold.
Normally, when a society wants to proscribe some activity which is destructive to its long term health (such as the widespread freeloading of music), it uses social norms and, in extreme cases, laws to prevent them. Hmm - maybe copying music without giving anything back to the artist ought to be socially unacceptable, or maybe even illegal?
Spend the next couple of years learning some C, and a bit of OS theory - you're already thinking about those kinds of things anyway (when you're not arguing with your mates about lord of the rings). In '91, drop an email to torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (get yourself an email account, you'll need one), and ask if there's anything you can do to help on that minix project.
Then when the Red Hat IPO happens, take the shares, but remember to SELL!!
> That that margin of error might have been a deciding factor in the race was extremely unusual--very few races are that close.
But the only time when it matters to keep the margin of error to a minimum is when the race is that close. If you're going to give all the spoils to the victor, damn straight the margin of error had better be less than the margin of victory. If that means counting every ballot repeatedly until you're absolutely sure every single one has been correctly counted, so your margin of error is less than the five vote margin of victory, then so be it.
"I'm sorry your vote wasn't counted, but it was part of an overall margin of error that's calculated into the system, so it all balances out in the end" is not exactly the embodiment of the democratic spirit...
Can we moderate the post as 'Flamebait'?
This kind of 'cos there's no right or wrong answers, humanities must be easy' crap is just illiterate carping.
Liberal arts degrees are rated for scholarship and insight. Yes, grade inflation's a problem, but don't blame the subject matter.
I still have an old Powerbook 165c, and a Mac IIci, both doing sterling work in one capacity or another around the house. Old macs age much more gracefully than PCs, and can generally continue to run the latest software for a long time after they're purchased. Apple have managed the two big transitions in their history - from 68x to PowerPC and from classic MacOS to OS X - in a very slick manner that ensures the minimum hardware and software is left behind. No need to fear the future...
Also nto quite true. Check out Cassini from the ASP.NET team for a non-IIS ASP.NET runtime.
Apparently not only never had a girlfriend, but also never seen a diamond. Ugly rock? Them's some strange aesthetic sensibilities.
Regardless of everything you may have to say about the diamond industry, diamonds themselves aren't really to blame, and a pure cut diamond is one of the most amazing natural objects you'll ever see. These things get dug out of the fricking ground, damnit - they're the hardest material in existence, a pure sample of the basic chemical element that makes up life on this planet, and they shine like nothing you've ever seen.
If you're choosing a symbol to represent unending love, there's not a lot wrong with choosing a life-giving, pure element, aside from the lack of originality, but why does everything you do have to be original?
Frankly, if you're looking to buy a ring, all the best looking ones have a big diamond in the middle. If you're worried about ethics, make sure you buy from a jeweller who shares your concerns - and they do exist. Choose a craftsman whose work you like. A good ring is a work of art, one your wife will wear for the rest of her life. That's gotta be worth a few bucks.
It's even less complicated than you make out. Lego is the name of a company. You don't pluralize it. You wouldn't say 'I have to reinstall several Microsofts this afternoon', would you? We call things Microsoft makes, 'Microsoft Applications' (if we're feeling generous). So, similarly, you wouldn't say you were going to build a moebius strip out of Legos. Lego bricks, Lego pieces, etc., yes, fine, but NOT Legos.
It's called 'taking without owner's consent' or 'twoc'ing. They had to make a special law to cover it.