About business models: the only set of people I can think of who use something like Google Glass at the moment are military pilots, who have had head-up displays for decades and are getting helmet-mounted displays at the moment. Why do they find it useful? Because they need information instantly, don't have their hands free, have huge budgets available and don't care if they look like a cyborg. So there's a clue for a target market: the military. I imagine a squad on patrol would find it useful to have information on the area they're walking through sent to them in real time without having to take their hands off their weapons or look down; and their commanders would find it useful to be able to see what the troops are seeing in real time. They could afford a far higher budget than most civilians, and looking like a freakish cyborg from Hell could potentially be a bonus. Only issue: surely DARPA's on this already? But maybe Google could do it better...
It's worth remembering that this is an article in Wired, for which a standard article format is:
1) X is a newer product
2) Y is an older product
3) therefore X will totally destroy Y; X = good/the future, Y=bad/obsolete; if you like X (and Wired always does) then you are cool, if not you're a loser.
We've seen articles like this about how "The Web is Dead", "Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business" etc.
The irony is that IMHO one of the most interesting ideas Wired ever floated was "the long tail" - i.e. that the internet makes it possible to buy/ sell/ enjoy a far greater variety of content than physical shops. In other words, the opposite of the winner-takes-all argument they keep rolling out now.
When you look at the moon from New Zealand, it appears to be "upside down" compared with how it looks in the UK. I assume therefore that the moon is "a different way up" depending on where on earth you look at it from, which would make sense. The moon map you link to is presumably as seen from Russia (it's a.ru site), Harriot was I assume in the UK. This might account for the difference you mention?
However, no doubt some astronomically-aware/.er can enlighten us?
This is not just "politics" story. It's also a "media/tech" story - a story about how the opportunities offered by tech will inevitably change media, in this case video.
You'll be amazed to hear that the internet is an interactive medium and TV/cinema usually are not.
Yes, I know you know that -- but nevertheless, the vast majority of videos posted online act as if there was no difference between the internet and TV or cinema. Youtube is fun, and has plenty of interaction before or after the video - but once you press play, it's no more interactive than "Casablanca".
The situation today mirrors the early days of film, when many filmmakers thought that cinema was simply a new method of distribution for filmed theatre and music hall content. But eventually the medium asserted itself and true cinema was born. How will this happen with online video?
Well, things like this NYT site are part of the start. And Youtube has just started allowing "annotations" which can include hyperlinks to other videos.
But the real change will only happen once the people *shooting* the video start concieving, scripting, shooting and editing specifically for interactive, online use. Wikipedia has some interesting examples under "interactive video". One note: most of the successful examples are non-fiction, because of the well-known problems with combining traditional linear storytelling and interaction in any medium.
So yes, it's an interesitng site. And it's the start of a big change, as online filmmakers slowly start to follow the most basic creative rule of all: use the medium.
Did he have any friends or relatives in the Middle East?
Indeed he did - from TFA:
"Ivins, the son of a Princeton-educated pharmacist, was born and raised in Lebanon" ...though if you're going to be pedantic that should be...
"Ivins, the son of a Princeton-educated pharmacist, was born and raised in Lebanon, Ohio"
Don't have the robot SAY a message (which will of course almost certainly be absurdly inappropriate) let it RECORD a message. There are many examples of situations where people who knew they were trapped and going to die have left a message for their family. Such messages are of course disturbing for the loved ones, but also treasured. And by reminding a severely wounded person of the world outside, and of what they have to live for, making the recording might perhaps boost the person's will to remain conscious and survive. And even if they don't survive, making the message and feeling it would get to your family might help make the end less bitter.
We are contantly being shown guestimates about CO2 emissions. So here are two questions some informed or intrepid/.er might like to comment on:
How many extra tons of CO2 have been put into the atmosphere since the 1970s because US nuclear energy generation was (more or less) stopped by public protest?
How many extra tons of CO2 would have been put into the atmosphere since the 1970s if Japan, France and Germany had bowed to public protest and stopped their nuclear energy generation?
Obviously no-one can be certain because there would be so many variables involved. And of course if nuclear energy generation had NOT been (more or less) stopped there might have been a Chernobyl (or worse) in the US. But some informed guesses might be of interest (described if you like in terms of football fields, libraries of congress, 747s, etc). At the very least, the US story is an interesting example of the law of unintended consequences.
Watch this youtube video of The Excorcist crucifix masturbation scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyOSVqKYQNE ...congratulations! Soon you will be a sex offender under UK law. Because you are "in possesion" of that extract in your computer, and "It is an offence for a person to be in possession of an extreme pornographic image...(for example) an image of...an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in serious injury to a person's...genitals..."
Now it's not an offense to watch The Excorcist -- but is IS an offense to own extracts (like this YouTube extract) where "it appears that the image was extracted (whether with or without other images) solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal." That's not why you watched it? Better hope the jury believes you...
No, I don't think animated films are covered by this absurd bill, because it says images are illegal only "where any such...person or animal depicted in the image is or appears to be real".
But that doesn't mean film fans are out of trouble.
As you can see from the act itself, the really bizarre thing about this bill is that it may be legal to own an entire extreme film (such as Pasolini's "120 Days of Sodom"), because it's been passed the British Board of Film Classification. But it would be illegal to own a still from that film, if it was decided you owned that still "for the purpose of sexual arousal". And of course there are plenty of mainstream films showing sexy people in danger - what happens if you're caught with a still from one of those?
Absurd. And bad news for any of us Brits who thought the principle of "freedom of speech" meant anything in the UK.
A final weird irony about this bill banning various forms of visual image is that it was sponsored by David Blunkett, a politican who -- to his great credit -- became Home Secretary even though he is completely blind.
The article dwells on marriage with robots, which I can't see happening anytime soon; but robots as a replacement for human prostitutes? Absolutely.
The oldest profession is driven by one of humanity's most basic problems (there just aren't enough sexy people to go round) but has lots of downsides (disease, wasted lives, etc). Sex robots seem like a great solution -- provided they are realistic enough to keep the customer satisfied.
So, naturally, we need a X-prize for this problem: a competition for a sex robot that can pass a sexual Turing test. The original Turing Test was for a machine able to hold a conversation indistinguishable from human conversation. We clearly need a sexual Turing test, for a machine able to generate a sexual experience indistinguishable from sex with a human.
I suggest we need two categories:
1) one for "fully autonomous" sex robots, driven by their own AI
2) the other category for "puppet robots" controlled remotely by human operators who would move the robot's limbs, speak through its mouth, etc.
Obviously to start with, robots in the puppet category could be much more realistic than those in the autonomous category. The job of being an operator would be very similar to the job of working on a sex chat line.
Butterscotch is a soft pony toy costing $299 which responds if you stroke it etc. It's not a huge leap from this sort of reaction to the sort of response one would need for a sex robot. Just read the blurb for Butterscotch and replace in your mind the word "pony" with "girl" or "boy"...
With realistic animation, movement and sounds, this incredibly lifelike pony is a very special, once-in-a-lifetime friend. This adorable pony...really 'comes alive' as she moves and responds to your loving care! Touch or talk to your pony and her head moves! As you continue to interact with her, watch her ears wiggle and her eyes blink! Be sure to take extra-special care of your pony. Feed her the carrot and groom her with her brush. Watch her swish her tail back and forth! She even whinnies and snorts, and will sniff your hand! Sit on your pony for a pretend ride...!
The sex robot is with us already; just currently disguised as a horse...
Obviously experiments like these tend to hugely oversimplify the workings of the mind, but it might be interesting to try this experiment around the world -- because it might show that in many cases political opponents think the same way.
For example, in Iran you could run the test on Muslim fundamentalists and democratic reformers; in Russia on democratic reformers and die-hard Communists. I suspect when you put it next to these results from the US you would find that those who most deeply hate each other were also tending to think the same way.
And then of course there are other examples which break established norms. In the late 70s you could also have tried it for example on Mrs Thatcher and left wing union leaders: in that case, you had a "right-wing", "illiberal" leader who was bringing about radical change, and "left wing liberals" who were defending the status quo. I guess you could try it now on Sarkozy in France and his left-wing opponents. In this case, who "could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas"? It's more complex than just left-wing or right-wing. And if tests like these help us see that, then, for all their over-simplification, they might have some value.
G.I. Joe will become an acronym for ""Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity" -- an international, coed task force charged with defeating bad guys... Evidently, they are worried that the rest of the world would not accept an American soldier movie. Well, if we look at the facts, the rest of the world would be controlled by Nazis if it were not for the G. I. Joe.
* I have the greatest respect for the US Heroes who served so selflessly in WW2, but if we "look at the facts" the Nazis were *not* defeated by the US Army acting alone; the Nazis were defeated by an alliance of the USSR, the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the free Poles, French, etc, etc. At the time they were called "the allies", but you could almost call such an alliance, well, a "Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity".
* If one insists on selecting one nation from the Allies who did the most to defeat Hitler, that would have to be the USSR. The turning point of the war in Europe was not D-Day, it was Stalingrad (as Wikipedia, says, "The battle of Stalingrad was the largest single battle in human history.") The battle of Kursk was another key moment ("the largest armored engagement and the most costly single day of aerial warfare to date." - Wikipedia). Auschwitz was not liberated by the US, but by the Red Army. Want more facts? Look at the numbers of military deaths: 407,300 US; 382,600 UK; 10,700,000 USSR.
* This is not to deny that Stalin was a monster -- of course he was. But sometimes history fails to fall into neat moral boxes.
* This also does nothing to contradict the selfless heroism of the US soliders who served in Europe. But to claim that such solders acting alone were primarily responsible for defeating the Nazis is clearly incorrect. Indeed, ironically it is the view of history that comes from watching "American soldier movies" rather than reading history books: much as I love "Saving Private Ryan", "Band of Brothers" etc, and scrupulously accurate though they are about the stories they tell, overall they can give a rather warped view of what happened in WW2.
* So what? Why is it important to correct the warped view of history expressed in TFA? Partly because the incorrect notion that the US *acting alone* defeated the Nazis has become a dangerous political weapon -- for example, I remember a Wall Street Journal editorial before the invasion of Iraq which all but claimed that Germany had no right to oppose the US plan to invade Iraq because the US had saved Germany from the Nazis. Would they have said that Germany had no right to oppose a decision made by Russia for the same reason? I think not.
* If you want to find a war where the US forces *were* primarily responsible for victory, then look at the Pacific theatre in WW2. Again, they were helped by the Australians etc -- but there's no doubt the US did the heavy lifting in the Pacific.
* Want another war the US primarily won? The cold war -- IMHO, the greatest victory in history, because if the war had been bungled it would have been the worst catastrophe in human history. How was it won? Okay, of course there were lapses, but overall, to generalise, I think you could say it won by stealth, cunning, having the better technology, the better ideas, (usually) holding the moral high ground, acting with prudence and patience, etc. And also by building alliances like NATO which again you could almost describe as a "Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity". Perhaps the guys making this new G.I. Joe movie know more about how to win wars in the real world than the author of TFA...
Hey TSM -- I'm outraged! I quoted the exact same quote just last Friday and got a miserable 3 for it (i.e. nothing except for my karma bonus) -- now you quote it a few days later and get a 5... what kind of exam system is this? ; )
Still it is a great quote... but is it "sewer" or "manhole"?
Re:how is this funny?(Score:3)
by ofcourseyouare (965770) * on Friday August 24, @01:22PM (#20341909)
Someone *else's* pain and anguish is funny because, as the divine Mel Brooks put it, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."
Someone *else's* pain and anguish is funny because, as the divine Mel Brooks put it, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."
Possible reason why we don't see their TV shows...
on
The Fermi Paradox is Back
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
One piece of wild speculation on why we haven't accidentally picked up any TV or radio broadcasts from ET...
At this point in time TV and radio is rapidly being usurped by interactive media, most of which currently travels along cables and would of course be undetectable from other planets. As for wireless internet, the power of a wireless LAN router is obviously far less strong than say a TV signal broadcast from a TV tower. And future wireless broadband signals would presumably also be local and low-powered, because it's more efficient that way. (Guesswork, of course).
Of course traditional high-powered TV and radio broadcasts aren't dead yet, but in say 100 years it's pretty easy to imagine that they they might be. (Or not -- I know this is all speculation)
So, IF (huge if) other civilisations follwed this path, this might be a possible reason why we don't see or hear their broadcasts -- because like us their high-powered broadcast media only existed for a short time, and were soon replaced by more efficient low-powered interactive media
Thanks for sharing this story. I'd be very interested in your opinion of the device under discussion here. Do you think it would work in the chaotic environment of Iraq? Make things better? Worse? Your thoughts much appreciated, if you have time.
Hi there -- I have shot luma key many times, way back in the 90s. For certain subjects it was (and is) quite appropriate. But the key thing (haha) is to have a clear distinction between foreground and background: thus, a man wearing a black turban might just work against a pure white background using luma key -- but you'd spend hours cleaning it up. However, a man wearing a black turban against a black background would be a complete non-starter.
Thanks for the warning against hubris, though. It's an ever-present threat...
Neal Krawetz may know about image compression, but clearly doesn't know much about shooting video. "most likely videotaped in front of a black sheet"? No way.
When you shoot chroma key pieces like this video, the video editing software (Avid, Final Cut, whatever) wants to distinguish your blank background from your foreground, so you use a colour that doesn't appear in your forgeground -- usually intense chroma key blue or green, given think most foregrounds include pinkish faces. A black sheet would be a complete non-starter, especially for a guy wearing so much black.
Once you have done the cutout, decent software will turn any remaining fringes of blue or green into black (or whetever colour you like) so the final result is more pleasing. Look at the very top of Al-Z's turban, and you can see a classic fringe line -- that would have been blue or green before, but the software has made it black. I suggest Mr. Krawetz visit any normal post-production house for a thirty minute intro to shooting chroma key before making more statements of this kind.
(BTW, interesting though the image compression stuff is, it's not necessary with the al-Zawahiri video -- at a glance, this video has obviously been shot against blue screen or green screen. You can see that the perspective on the background (camera tilted down slightly) is different from that on al-Z (camera tilted up slightly); also Al-z is ever so slightly soft, while the background is completely crisp.)
Good point. But my question about E3 is this -- when will Sony, MS and the developers of games for their platforms sit down and say something like this: "we're selling expensive consoles, with expensive games to match; we're being being thrashed by Nintendo, selling lower cost (and often) semi-casual games; we had the most famous industry event in the world outside the film business, attracting massive press and throngs of hardcore fans -- okay it cost a bit, but the PR value was huge... and we decided to just shut it down?!? And replace it with a bunch of low key meetings in Santa Monica!?!?! What were we thinking... or were we thinking at all..."
Time will tell of course, but I think in a few years time they may well try to revive E3, and find it's not so easy to get a media event like that back, once you've thrown it away.
I think closing E3 reflects clouded thinking of the same kind that got the PS3 into its current mess -- assuming the fans will always be there and will always buy, regardless of treatment/ marketing/ price, etc.
I hope this is not considered off-topic, but IMHO Molyneux missed a huge opportunity and perhaps they could put it right...
Lionhead's game 'The Movies' is essentially two things:
- a ho-hum management game based on running a movie studio
- an extremely powerful machinima generator
When The Movies was released, it was released as a management game -- you have to play for a couple of hours to get to the machinima maker. Most people weren't interested; the game was a flop, and contributed to LH being bought by MS.
What they should have done -- and still could -- is drop the idea of the management game; and just release the machinima maker, not as a game, but as a cool way to make your own movies. If Apple owned it, I'm sure they'd have released it already, calling it "your movie studio in a box" etc.
Not too late -- would be great to see Lionhead get something back for all the work they put into the game.
I would suggest there is one potentially very significant difference between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD which is "BD-J" -- to quote Wikipedia...
"BD-J, or Blu-ray Disc Java, is the interactive platform supporting advanced content for Blu-ray Disc. BD-J allows bonus content on Blu-ray Disc titles to be far more sophisticated than bonus content provided by standard DVD, including network access... and access to local storage." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD-J
AFAIK HD-DVD doesn't have anything like this (please correct me if I'm wrong). Now I agree that no movie studios are producing content which uses this functionality in a useful way, but that may change. See for example this piece which Ian McKellen (Gandalf/Magneto) did, talking in a question-and-answer format about Shakespeare for the National Theatre in the UK:
IMHO, this shows the way that using BD-J you could produce some "DVD extra" type content which was vastly more interactive and thought-provoking than what's currently done. Having said that, AFAIK no-one is doing anything with it (except -- groan -- Dragon's Lair is being re-released again, on Blu-Ray. Deep Sigh.)
Perhaps therefore the one creatively interesting advantage of Blu-Ray will be wasted while the studios put all their energy into fighting the customers with DRM...
Yes absolutely -- but I would suggest that 3d cinema ignores something even more fundamental: the reality of a film is created in the mind's eye of the viewer. What makes it more real is making a better damn film.
I've seen the "new" 3d and it gave me as much of a headache and was as annoying as say 3d IMAX. It's a briefly amusing gimmick.
Incidentally, in an industry demo, I've seen the opening 5 minutes of the original Star Wars movie, digitally "made 3d". If it's going to work anywhere, it'll work there, right? The opening title crawl in 3d? The battle cruiser roaring over your head? Great choice of movie, but after 5 minutes, you just want to lose the irritating 3d effect and just watch the damn film. Because 3d doesn't make it real -- acting/directing/storytelling etc does.
The reason the industry is pushing 3d is that...
* they're trying to keep cinema ahead of home cinema
* they've installed lots of new digital equipment in cinemas but no-one notices -- they want content which demonstrates the fact ...personally, I think 3d will do little better than it did in the 50s; maybe for kid's movies (especially CGI animation) it'll keep working -- after all CGI 3d animation is what keeps IMAX going these days.
IMHO a far better bet for showing the value of digital cinema is live sport. At the last world cup, many London cinemas showed every England football match. I don't care about football, but even I was swept along by the combination of actually being able to see the action, and the passion of a cinema full of cheering/booing sports fans. Now that's adding realism to the regular cinema experience...
Slashdot Mirror
About business models: the only set of people I can think of who use something like Google Glass at the moment are military pilots, who have had head-up displays for decades and are getting helmet-mounted displays at the moment. Why do they find it useful? Because they need information instantly, don't have their hands free, have huge budgets available and don't care if they look like a cyborg. So there's a clue for a target market: the military. I imagine a squad on patrol would find it useful to have information on the area they're walking through sent to them in real time without having to take their hands off their weapons or look down; and their commanders would find it useful to be able to see what the troops are seeing in real time. They could afford a far higher budget than most civilians, and looking like a freakish cyborg from Hell could potentially be a bonus. Only issue: surely DARPA's on this already? But maybe Google could do it better...
It's worth remembering that this is an article in Wired, for which a standard article format is: 1) X is a newer product 2) Y is an older product 3) therefore X will totally destroy Y; X = good/the future, Y=bad/obsolete; if you like X (and Wired always does) then you are cool, if not you're a loser. We've seen articles like this about how "The Web is Dead", "Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business" etc. The irony is that IMHO one of the most interesting ideas Wired ever floated was "the long tail" - i.e. that the internet makes it possible to buy/ sell/ enjoy a far greater variety of content than physical shops. In other words, the opposite of the winner-takes-all argument they keep rolling out now.
When you look at the moon from New Zealand, it appears to be "upside down" compared with how it looks in the UK. I assume therefore that the moon is "a different way up" depending on where on earth you look at it from, which would make sense. The moon map you link to is presumably as seen from Russia (it's a .ru site), Harriot was I assume in the UK. This might account for the difference you mention?
/.er can enlighten us?
However, no doubt some astronomically-aware
This is not just "politics" story. It's also a "media/tech" story - a story about how the opportunities offered by tech will inevitably change media, in this case video.
You'll be amazed to hear that the internet is an interactive medium and TV/cinema usually are not. Yes, I know you know that -- but nevertheless, the vast majority of videos posted online act as if there was no difference between the internet and TV or cinema. Youtube is fun, and has plenty of interaction before or after the video - but once you press play, it's no more interactive than "Casablanca".
The situation today mirrors the early days of film, when many filmmakers thought that cinema was simply a new method of distribution for filmed theatre and music hall content. But eventually the medium asserted itself and true cinema was born. How will this happen with online video?
Well, things like this NYT site are part of the start. And Youtube has just started allowing "annotations" which can include hyperlinks to other videos.
But the real change will only happen once the people *shooting* the video start concieving, scripting, shooting and editing specifically for interactive, online use. Wikipedia has some interesting examples under "interactive video". One note: most of the successful examples are non-fiction, because of the well-known problems with combining traditional linear storytelling and interaction in any medium.
So yes, it's an interesitng site. And it's the start of a big change, as online filmmakers slowly start to follow the most basic creative rule of all: use the medium.
Did he have any friends or relatives in the Middle East?
...though if you're going to be pedantic that should be...
Indeed he did - from TFA:
"Ivins, the son of a Princeton-educated pharmacist, was born and raised in Lebanon"
"Ivins, the son of a Princeton-educated pharmacist, was born and raised in Lebanon, Ohio"
what an exquisite piece of work, many thanks for pointing it out...
Don't have the robot SAY a message (which will of course almost certainly be absurdly inappropriate) let it RECORD a message. There are many examples of situations where people who knew they were trapped and going to die have left a message for their family. Such messages are of course disturbing for the loved ones, but also treasured. And by reminding a severely wounded person of the world outside, and of what they have to live for, making the recording might perhaps boost the person's will to remain conscious and survive. And even if they don't survive, making the message and feeling it would get to your family might help make the end less bitter.
We are contantly being shown guestimates about CO2 emissions. So here are two questions some informed or intrepid /.er might like to comment on:
How many extra tons of CO2 have been put into the atmosphere since the 1970s because US nuclear energy generation was (more or less) stopped by public protest?
How many extra tons of CO2 would have been put into the atmosphere since the 1970s if Japan, France and Germany had bowed to public protest and stopped their nuclear energy generation?
Obviously no-one can be certain because there would be so many variables involved. And of course if nuclear energy generation had NOT been (more or less) stopped there might have been a Chernobyl (or worse) in the US. But some informed guesses might be of interest (described if you like in terms of football fields, libraries of congress, 747s, etc). At the very least, the US story is an interesting example of the law of unintended consequences.
Watch this youtube video of The Excorcist crucifix masturbation scene:
...congratulations! Soon you will be a sex offender under UK law. Because you are "in possesion" of that extract in your computer, and "It is an offence for a person to be in possession of an extreme pornographic image...(for example) an image of...an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in serious injury to a person's...genitals..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyOSVqKYQNE
Now it's not an offense to watch The Excorcist -- but is IS an offense to own extracts (like this YouTube extract) where "it appears that the image was extracted (whether with or without other images) solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal." That's not why you watched it? Better hope the jury believes you...
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmbills/130/07130.43-46.html#j400
No, I don't think animated films are covered by this absurd bill, because it says images are illegal only "where any such ...person or animal depicted in the image is or appears to be real".
You can read the whole bill here -- it's not long, and would be quite funny in parts if it wasn't so sad: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmbills/130/07130.43-46.html#j400"
But that doesn't mean film fans are out of trouble.
As you can see from the act itself, the really bizarre thing about this bill is that it may be legal to own an entire extreme film (such as Pasolini's "120 Days of Sodom"), because it's been passed the British Board of Film Classification. But it would be illegal to own a still from that film, if it was decided you owned that still "for the purpose of sexual arousal". And of course there are plenty of mainstream films showing sexy people in danger - what happens if you're caught with a still from one of those?
Absurd. And bad news for any of us Brits who thought the principle of "freedom of speech" meant anything in the UK.
A final weird irony about this bill banning various forms of visual image is that it was sponsored by David Blunkett, a politican who -- to his great credit -- became Home Secretary even though he is completely blind.
The article dwells on marriage with robots, which I can't see happening anytime soon; but robots as a replacement for human prostitutes? Absolutely.
...really 'comes alive' as she moves and responds to your loving care! Touch or talk to your pony and her head moves! As you continue to interact with her, watch her ears wiggle and her eyes blink! Be sure to take extra-special care of your pony. Feed her the carrot and groom her with her brush. Watch her swish her tail back and forth! She even whinnies and snorts, and will sniff your hand! Sit on your pony for a pretend ride...!
The oldest profession is driven by one of humanity's most basic problems (there just aren't enough sexy people to go round) but has lots of downsides (disease, wasted lives, etc). Sex robots seem like a great solution -- provided they are realistic enough to keep the customer satisfied.
So, naturally, we need a X-prize for this problem: a competition for a sex robot that can pass a sexual Turing test. The original Turing Test was for a machine able to hold a conversation indistinguishable from human conversation. We clearly need a sexual Turing test, for a machine able to generate a sexual experience indistinguishable from sex with a human.
I suggest we need two categories:
1) one for "fully autonomous" sex robots, driven by their own AI
2) the other category for "puppet robots" controlled remotely by human operators who would move the robot's limbs, speak through its mouth, etc.
Obviously to start with, robots in the puppet category could be much more realistic than those in the autonomous category. The job of being an operator would be very similar to the job of working on a sex chat line.
But even robots in the autonomous category might be reasonably convincing, even using current technology as used in Aibo or toys such as the "Fur Real Friends Butterscotch Pony".http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000F475PY/reamonsit-21/
Butterscotch is a soft pony toy costing $299 which responds if you stroke it etc. It's not a huge leap from this sort of reaction to the sort of response one would need for a sex robot. Just read the blurb for Butterscotch and replace in your mind the word "pony" with "girl" or "boy"...
With realistic animation, movement and sounds, this incredibly lifelike pony is a very special, once-in-a-lifetime friend. This adorable pony
The sex robot is with us already; just currently disguised as a horse...
Obviously experiments like these tend to hugely oversimplify the workings of the mind, but it might be interesting to try this experiment around the world -- because it might show that in many cases political opponents think the same way.
For example, in Iran you could run the test on Muslim fundamentalists and democratic reformers; in Russia on democratic reformers and die-hard Communists. I suspect when you put it next to these results from the US you would find that those who most deeply hate each other were also tending to think the same way.
And then of course there are other examples which break established norms. In the late 70s you could also have tried it for example on Mrs Thatcher and left wing union leaders: in that case, you had a "right-wing", "illiberal" leader who was bringing about radical change, and "left wing liberals" who were defending the status quo. I guess you could try it now on Sarkozy in France and his left-wing opponents. In this case, who "could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas"? It's more complex than just left-wing or right-wing. And if tests like these help us see that, then, for all their over-simplification, they might have some value.
G.I. Joe will become an acronym for ""Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity" -- an international, coed task force charged with defeating bad guys... Evidently, they are worried that the rest of the world would not accept an American soldier movie. Well, if we look at the facts, the rest of the world would be controlled by Nazis if it were not for the G. I. Joe.
* I have the greatest respect for the US Heroes who served so selflessly in WW2, but if we "look at the facts" the Nazis were *not* defeated by the US Army acting alone; the Nazis were defeated by an alliance of the USSR, the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the free Poles, French, etc, etc. At the time they were called "the allies", but you could almost call such an alliance, well, a "Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity".
* If one insists on selecting one nation from the Allies who did the most to defeat Hitler, that would have to be the USSR. The turning point of the war in Europe was not D-Day, it was Stalingrad (as Wikipedia, says, "The battle of Stalingrad was the largest single battle in human history.") The battle of Kursk was another key moment ("the largest armored engagement and the most costly single day of aerial warfare to date." - Wikipedia). Auschwitz was not liberated by the US, but by the Red Army. Want more facts? Look at the numbers of military deaths: 407,300 US; 382,600 UK; 10,700,000 USSR.
* This is not to deny that Stalin was a monster -- of course he was. But sometimes history fails to fall into neat moral boxes.
* This also does nothing to contradict the selfless heroism of the US soliders who served in Europe. But to claim that such solders acting alone were primarily responsible for defeating the Nazis is clearly incorrect. Indeed, ironically it is the view of history that comes from watching "American soldier movies" rather than reading history books: much as I love "Saving Private Ryan", "Band of Brothers" etc, and scrupulously accurate though they are about the stories they tell, overall they can give a rather warped view of what happened in WW2.
* So what? Why is it important to correct the warped view of history expressed in TFA? Partly because the incorrect notion that the US *acting alone* defeated the Nazis has become a dangerous political weapon -- for example, I remember a Wall Street Journal editorial before the invasion of Iraq which all but claimed that Germany had no right to oppose the US plan to invade Iraq because the US had saved Germany from the Nazis. Would they have said that Germany had no right to oppose a decision made by Russia for the same reason? I think not.
* If you want to find a war where the US forces *were* primarily responsible for victory, then look at the Pacific theatre in WW2. Again, they were helped by the Australians etc -- but there's no doubt the US did the heavy lifting in the Pacific.
* Want another war the US primarily won? The cold war -- IMHO, the greatest victory in history, because if the war had been bungled it would have been the worst catastrophe in human history. How was it won? Okay, of course there were lapses, but overall, to generalise, I think you could say it won by stealth, cunning, having the better technology, the better ideas, (usually) holding the moral high ground, acting with prudence and patience, etc. And also by building alliances like NATO which again you could almost describe as a "Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity". Perhaps the guys making this new G.I. Joe movie know more about how to win wars in the real world than the author of TFA...
Hey TSM -- I'm outraged! I quoted the exact same quote just last Friday and got a miserable 3 for it (i.e. nothing except for my karma bonus) -- now you quote it a few days later and get a 5... what kind of exam system is this? ; )
Still it is a great quote... but is it "sewer" or "manhole"?
Re:how is this funny?(Score:3) by ofcourseyouare (965770) * on Friday August 24, @01:22PM (#20341909)
Someone *else's* pain and anguish is funny because, as the divine Mel Brooks put it, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."
Someone *else's* pain and anguish is funny because, as the divine Mel Brooks put it, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."
One piece of wild speculation on why we haven't accidentally picked up any TV or radio broadcasts from ET...
At this point in time TV and radio is rapidly being usurped by interactive media, most of which currently travels along cables and would of course be undetectable from other planets. As for wireless internet, the power of a wireless LAN router is obviously far less strong than say a TV signal broadcast from a TV tower. And future wireless broadband signals would presumably also be local and low-powered, because it's more efficient that way. (Guesswork, of course).
Of course traditional high-powered TV and radio broadcasts aren't dead yet, but in say 100 years it's pretty easy to imagine that they they might be. (Or not -- I know this is all speculation)
So, IF (huge if) other civilisations follwed this path, this might be a possible reason why we don't see or hear their broadcasts -- because like us their high-powered broadcast media only existed for a short time, and were soon replaced by more efficient low-powered interactive media
All wildly speculative I know.
Thanks for sharing this story. I'd be very interested in your opinion of the device under discussion here. Do you think it would work in the chaotic environment of Iraq? Make things better? Worse? Your thoughts much appreciated, if you have time.
Hi there -- I have shot luma key many times, way back in the 90s. For certain subjects it was (and is) quite appropriate. But the key thing (haha) is to have a clear distinction between foreground and background: thus, a man wearing a black turban might just work against a pure white background using luma key -- but you'd spend hours cleaning it up. However, a man wearing a black turban against a black background would be a complete non-starter.
Thanks for the warning against hubris, though. It's an ever-present threat...
Neal Krawetz may know about image compression, but clearly doesn't know much about shooting video. "most likely videotaped in front of a black sheet"? No way.
When you shoot chroma key pieces like this video, the video editing software (Avid, Final Cut, whatever) wants to distinguish your blank background from your foreground, so you use a colour that doesn't appear in your forgeground -- usually intense chroma key blue or green, given think most foregrounds include pinkish faces. A black sheet would be a complete non-starter, especially for a guy wearing so much black.
Once you have done the cutout, decent software will turn any remaining fringes of blue or green into black (or whetever colour you like) so the final result is more pleasing. Look at the very top of Al-Z's turban, and you can see a classic fringe line -- that would have been blue or green before, but the software has made it black. I suggest Mr. Krawetz visit any normal post-production house for a thirty minute intro to shooting chroma key before making more statements of this kind.
(BTW, interesting though the image compression stuff is, it's not necessary with the al-Zawahiri video -- at a glance, this video has obviously been shot against blue screen or green screen. You can see that the perspective on the background (camera tilted down slightly) is different from that on al-Z (camera tilted up slightly); also Al-z is ever so slightly soft, while the background is completely crisp.)
Good point. But my question about E3 is this -- when will Sony, MS and the developers of games for their platforms sit down and say something like this: "we're selling expensive consoles, with expensive games to match; we're being being thrashed by Nintendo, selling lower cost (and often) semi-casual games; we had the most famous industry event in the world outside the film business, attracting massive press and throngs of hardcore fans -- okay it cost a bit, but the PR value was huge... and we decided to just shut it down?!? And replace it with a bunch of low key meetings in Santa Monica!?!?! What were we thinking... or were we thinking at all..."
Time will tell of course, but I think in a few years time they may well try to revive E3, and find it's not so easy to get a media event like that back, once you've thrown it away.
I think closing E3 reflects clouded thinking of the same kind that got the PS3 into its current mess -- assuming the fans will always be there and will always buy, regardless of treatment/ marketing/ price, etc.
Why not keep the service running as is but locate the actual servers in China?
I hope this is not considered off-topic, but IMHO Molyneux missed a huge opportunity and perhaps they could put it right...
Lionhead's game 'The Movies' is essentially two things:
- a ho-hum management game based on running a movie studio
- an extremely powerful machinima generator
When The Movies was released, it was released as a management game -- you have to play for a couple of hours to get to the machinima maker. Most people weren't interested; the game was a flop, and contributed to LH being bought by MS.
What they should have done -- and still could -- is drop the idea of the management game; and just release the machinima maker, not as a game, but as a cool way to make your own movies. If Apple owned it, I'm sure they'd have released it already, calling it "your movie studio in a box" etc.
Not too late -- would be great to see Lionhead get something back for all the work they put into the game.
I would suggest there is one potentially very significant difference between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD which is "BD-J" -- to quote Wikipedia...
"BD-J, or Blu-ray Disc Java, is the interactive platform supporting advanced content for Blu-ray Disc. BD-J allows bonus content on Blu-ray Disc titles to be far more sophisticated than bonus content provided by standard DVD, including network access... and access to local storage." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD-J
AFAIK HD-DVD doesn't have anything like this (please correct me if I'm wrong). Now I agree that no movie studios are producing content which uses this functionality in a useful way, but that may change. See for example this piece which Ian McKellen (Gandalf/Magneto) did, talking in a question-and-answer format about Shakespeare for the National Theatre in the UK:
http://www.stageworkmckellen.org/
IMHO, this shows the way that using BD-J you could produce some "DVD extra" type content which was vastly more interactive and thought-provoking than what's currently done. Having said that, AFAIK no-one is doing anything with it (except -- groan -- Dragon's Lair is being re-released again, on Blu-Ray. Deep Sigh.)
Perhaps therefore the one creatively interesting advantage of Blu-Ray will be wasted while the studios put all their energy into fighting the customers with DRM...
Mr. Hydro, sir, you may have been joking, but you just very neatly summed up a large part of the future of advertising.
Yes absolutely -- but I would suggest that 3d cinema ignores something even more fundamental: the reality of a film is created in the mind's eye of the viewer. What makes it more real is making a better damn film.
...personally, I think 3d will do little better than it did in the 50s; maybe for kid's movies (especially CGI animation) it'll keep working -- after all CGI 3d animation is what keeps IMAX going these days.
I've seen the "new" 3d and it gave me as much of a headache and was as annoying as say 3d IMAX. It's a briefly amusing gimmick.
Incidentally, in an industry demo, I've seen the opening 5 minutes of the original Star Wars movie, digitally "made 3d". If it's going to work anywhere, it'll work there, right? The opening title crawl in 3d? The battle cruiser roaring over your head? Great choice of movie, but after 5 minutes, you just want to lose the irritating 3d effect and just watch the damn film. Because 3d doesn't make it real -- acting/directing/storytelling etc does.
The reason the industry is pushing 3d is that...
* they're trying to keep cinema ahead of home cinema
* they've installed lots of new digital equipment in cinemas but no-one notices -- they want content which demonstrates the fact
IMHO a far better bet for showing the value of digital cinema is live sport. At the last world cup, many London cinemas showed every England football match. I don't care about football, but even I was swept along by the combination of actually being able to see the action, and the passion of a cinema full of cheering/booing sports fans. Now that's adding realism to the regular cinema experience...