Seriously, though, can't computers do this sort of thing more efficiently?
I'll have to disagree with the poster that claims this can't be done.
Yes, it can. It's known as "pattern recognition." The problem is that for the most effective recognition, you need either before/after images (which would be normalized and then overlaid at appropriate registration points), or a series of pics fed to the algorithm, one of which contains the artifact you're interested in (supervised learning). The former is often use to detect motion in astronomical image of the same area of sky. The latter is very accurate, but requires a prior training of the algorithm so that the algorithm can "learn" what it's looking for.
It's possible that there are no before/after images (of suitable quality and/or coverage) that can be overlaid for feature anomaly detection. It's probably a bit late in the game for use of a supervised learning model.
Partially kidding. The conversation was real. Verizon thinks I have FiOS installed. As a previous poster so glibly alluded to, my next Verizon bill will tell the tale.
Since I know I don't have an ONT or battery in the garage, it's highly doubtful I have FiOS. Now to see if Verizon agrees with me...
So the other day, a youngish surfer dude in a bright red shirt emblazoned with the "Verizon FiOS" log comes to the door. The conversation goes something like this:
Him: "So, how's the new FiOS service?" Me: "Umm...what FiOS service?" Him: (Looks at clipboard with one piece of paper on it.) "Looks like we installed here a few weeks back. This your address?" Me: "Why, yes it is." (Stealth thinking mode kicks in.) "Yeah, sorry, my mind was elsewhere...service is great!" Him: "And the TV and the internet connection are working fine?" Me: "Oh yes, fantastic! Couldn't have dumped Comcast any sooner!" Him: "Well, that's great. Anything else you need, just let me know."
And there I stood, watching surfer dude walk away, trying to figure out how in the hell I can tell whether I really do have FiOS. My understanding is that the copper is cut to the house after FiOS is installed, and there was a lot of digging in the yard a few weeks back when Verizon's contractors came through. So, is there a way I can tell whether I'm hooked up?
Most of us aren't SAR experts, and wouldn't know a burn mark from a ridge shadow. The SARs that will be sifting through the public's mostly incorrect identification of accident artifacts would be better utilized in direct search efforts (either in the air or using imagery), rather than being distracted by what could best be considered a somewhat morbid game of "Where's Steve".
The time to test this type of technology out isn't during a live SAR mission. Leave the search and rescue to the experts, and please don't tie up their time with your well-meaning, but ultimately time-wasting, suppositions.
Keep in mind that in some states (Texas specifically, possibly others), refusal to take a Breathalyzer test when requested can result in an *automatic* suspension of your driver's license, whether or not you end up being convicted of DUI/DWI/whatever. That said, one should have already decided in advance whether or not they will refuse one...trying to decide at the time you're stopped is the wrong time to make that decision.
(BTW, IANAL...but I do drive in Texas, and I believe the refusal to take the breath test is a penalty completely separate from the DWI/DUI laws...)
Intelligent people carefully choose the battles they want to fight. Sometimes, common sense trumps principle. All the guy had to do was show the cop his driver's license, and be on his way. And the saddest part of this whole fiasco?
My three siblings sat in the back of the Buick crying their eyes out, which is the only part of today that I regret.
Good job, Michael. Not only did you have to ruin your day, but everyone else's as well. Maybe in the future, you can grow up and learn to pick your battles more wisely. This battle just wasn't worth it.
As an air traffic controller and pilot who has spent many years interacting with both, I can assure you that the role alcohol plays a big role in many aviation circles. No, I didn't say that every scopedope, swivelhead, and jet jock drink before, during or after. But alcohol is often a major part of the social fabric whenever these types congregate.
We used to work the NASA T38s from Houston when they would come up for approach practice in East Texas. Every pilot/astronaut we worked was the consummate professional, and I can never recall ever having to repeat a control instruction. Ever. I seriously doubt any of these pilots were impaired, and I seriously doubt any shuttles have been flown or staffed by drunks.
However, I have no doubts about the quantity of alcohol that was served at pre-takeoff festivities...
I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in the US "hokey" is used to refer to something artificial, contrived, fake. I certainly don't want to trust the security of my systems to something that's contrived.
Geez, more proof that intelligence and common sense aren't necessarily bed partners...
No, my friend, you've missed the boat on this one. The "arcade experience" was standing in front of Gorgar, with its immense vocabulary of seven words, and immersing yourself in pure physics joy. Other than Asteroids and Galaga, there really aren't many video games that can even remotely hold a candle to pinball.
I run an automotive performance tuning business, and use Google AdWords (with mixed success) to advertise. Google recently introduced a new feature where they recommend keywords to use based upon, I assume, traffic profiles with similar businesses.
Guess what some of the suggested adwords were?
You get a thousand points if you guessed "names of your competitors." Several obviously trademarked names showed up in their list.
I found this to be quite interesting in that Google was practically *inviting* me to use these trademarked names to drive clicks to my site.
Tempting? Yes...but in the end, not tempted enough to violate Google's own policies which prohibit this practice.
It did get me to wondering, though: Can I be held liable for false advertising or in violation of Google's TOS if I follow Google's keyword recommendations?
While I'm sure folks appreciate your safety message, please don't try to practice chemistry at the same time. Both glass and asbestos are silicates, and are indeed chemically related. The danger from asbestos is that, even though it's inert, inhaled crystals that fall within a narrow range of size lodge deep within the lung tissue and cause scarring that can lead to further complications.
In fact, inhaling glass dust can lead to silicosis, which is just as devastating.
a concept that promises to reduce the environmental impact of farming
Thereby freeing up arable land for more "environmentally friendly" endeavors, like factories and housing developments.
Give me a break. How about spending this money on ways to reduce the world's population growth? Lack of arable land is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.
The report says most of the 3 billion people to be added to world population in the next 50 years would be born in areas where land was scarce. If the grain-land area in the world stayed the same as in 2000, the 9 billion people projected to inhabit the planet in 2050 would each be fed from less than 0.07 hectares of grain-land -- an area smaller than what is available per person today in countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, which face the shortage of land.. (link)
...but my limited math skills are all going red-flag on me at the moment:
For True-False exams for example, the number subtracted would most likely be (Number Wrong ÷ 2). Let's see how that would work out, for the sample case above. You, answering two questions correctly and guessing at 98 would be likely, on the average, to get 49 wrong, and so have a final score of 2 + 49 - (49 ÷ 2), or 75.5, while I, again on the average. answering only 1 correctly and guessing at 97, would get a final score of 1 + (97 ÷ 2) - ((97 ÷ 2) ÷ 2)), which comes out to be 25.25. Here there is a substantial difference between our scores, closer to the two-fold difference in our actual knowledge.
OK, forgive me for RTFA, but how is 2 + 49 - (49/2) equal to 75.5? My trusty calculator tells me this is 26.5, exactly one point higher than the second example -- as I would expect.
The entire argument is fallacious...I know twice as much as you, so much that I get 100 questions right, you get 50 right and guess at the other 50...50 + 25 - (25/2) = 62.5. Not quite a 2:1 ratio there.
While I agree with the author's premise that guessing should be penalized, he does a terrible job proving his point.
I always thought the difficulty of separating voices from background noise was the result of poor sound editing (especially when movies are transferred to DVD). I was watching "Flags of our Fathers" the other night, and the remastered sound editing was so piss-poor, with dialog dynamic levels well below the background sound levels, that I found myself repeatedly re-playing scenes. It saddens me that studios are so quick to rush their movies to DVD they don't even take the time to preserve the sound quality.
...pay a visit to the Minuteman Missle National Historic Site in South Dakota. They offer tours of an underground Minuteman Delta launch bunker on a appointment-only basis, 6-8 to a group. The bunker itself, built in the 60's, is actually an air-tight, climate-controlled concrete capsule suspended on giant shock absorbers about 150 feet below the surface. The only entrance into the capsule is via a 5-ton vault door that could be opened and shut in under a minute. It provides a fascinating insight into the Cold War and the level of redundancy that was in place to ensure that if a launch was ordered, it would happen (for instance, launch orders would be given to a number of different launch sites simultaneously, so no launch site personnel would be aware of who actually launched a missle).
Interesting story: There was an "emergency egress" hatch in the capsule that led to the surface through a corrugated pipe. There were only a few problems: The hatch door weighed over 200 pounds and dropped down from the ceiling, ensuring the first one out would probably be the last one out. And the government was afraid the Russkies knew where the egress points were on the surface, so the government poured a parking lot over it. Only problem was they failed to tell the launch controllers that their "emergency egress" system led to the underside of a parking lot. This was all top-secret stuff, never came to light until after the sites were decommissioned and dismantled.
It's disturbing that the teachers unions did not come to her defense
As a long-time union member, I can assure you that the image of the union (or gains made via concessions by management) almost always trumps the protectionism provided its members. I have personally been "sold down the river" when it became clear that the union stood more to gain from honoring management's wishes that I would just go away rather than defending me (ironic, since I was a union rep with the singular goal of defending my bargaining unit members). I have seen many others treated similarly over the years.
BTW, this really isn't a dig for or against unions; it's just something you accept when you get involved with a union.
OTOH, Apple has made good on replacement batteries and display logic boards. You win some, you lose some. You'll find this with any hardware manufacturer. (I remember buying a Syjet some years ago...was DOA, tried to return it to Syjet for repair. I must have been the straw that broke the camel's back, as they promptly declared bankruptcy. Never did get my drive back...)
Umm...no, those are recorded *mortgage* figures, and do not necessarily reflect *actual selling price*. Please, do some research before you undersell your own home based upon county records. (In fact, the Texas Legislature just shot down a bill this session that would have mandated recording of actual selling prices rather than mortgage amounts.)
Many people don't realize that the deeds to their property is public property, and a sufficiently nosy neighbor could have always went down to the town hall/court and looked up what everyone on their block paid for their house (this is usually listed on the deed).
Umm...not in Texas. Nor can you go to the courthouse and request concealed handgun permits.
Not passing judgement here...just pointing out that some government entities are beginning to recognize the fact that not all records need be public...
Fix the damn file associations dialog so that you can not only add file associations and actions from the GUI (rather than digging down into an.rdf file), but that files of the same type open consistently without constantly having to deal with the "open with" dialog.
Oh, wait...same problem on Linux too! Never mind...
Slashdot Mirror
...well, a circular slide rule, that is...
I rarely read ads in the newspaper, and throw away the glossy Sunday inserts. Am I stealing advertising revenue from the newspaper publisher?
Seriously, though, can't computers do this sort of thing more efficiently?
I'll have to disagree with the poster that claims this can't be done.
Yes, it can. It's known as "pattern recognition." The problem is that for the most effective recognition, you need either before/after images (which would be normalized and then overlaid at appropriate registration points), or a series of pics fed to the algorithm, one of which contains the artifact you're interested in (supervised learning). The former is often use to detect motion in astronomical image of the same area of sky. The latter is very accurate, but requires a prior training of the algorithm so that the algorithm can "learn" what it's looking for.
It's possible that there are no before/after images (of suitable quality and/or coverage) that can be overlaid for feature anomaly detection. It's probably a bit late in the game for use of a supervised learning model.
You do bring up a very good point.
I do hope that you are kidding, but here you go.
Partially kidding. The conversation was real. Verizon thinks I have FiOS installed. As a previous poster so glibly alluded to, my next Verizon bill will tell the tale.
Since I know I don't have an ONT or battery in the garage, it's highly doubtful I have FiOS. Now to see if Verizon agrees with me...
So the other day, a youngish surfer dude in a bright red shirt emblazoned with the "Verizon FiOS" log comes to the door. The conversation goes something like this:
Him: "So, how's the new FiOS service?"
Me: "Umm...what FiOS service?"
Him: (Looks at clipboard with one piece of paper on it.) "Looks like we installed here a few weeks back. This your address?"
Me: "Why, yes it is." (Stealth thinking mode kicks in.) "Yeah, sorry, my mind was elsewhere...service is great!"
Him: "And the TV and the internet connection are working fine?"
Me: "Oh yes, fantastic! Couldn't have dumped Comcast any sooner!"
Him: "Well, that's great. Anything else you need, just let me know."
And there I stood, watching surfer dude walk away, trying to figure out how in the hell I can tell whether I really do have FiOS. My understanding is that the copper is cut to the house after FiOS is installed, and there was a lot of digging in the yard a few weeks back when Verizon's contractors came through. So, is there a way I can tell whether I'm hooked up?
Most of us aren't SAR experts, and wouldn't know a burn mark from a ridge shadow. The SARs that will be sifting through the public's mostly incorrect identification of accident artifacts would be better utilized in direct search efforts (either in the air or using imagery), rather than being distracted by what could best be considered a somewhat morbid game of "Where's Steve".
The time to test this type of technology out isn't during a live SAR mission. Leave the search and rescue to the experts, and please don't tie up their time with your well-meaning, but ultimately time-wasting, suppositions.
Keep in mind that in some states (Texas specifically, possibly others), refusal to take a Breathalyzer test when requested can result in an *automatic* suspension of your driver's license, whether or not you end up being convicted of DUI/DWI/whatever. That said, one should have already decided in advance whether or not they will refuse one...trying to decide at the time you're stopped is the wrong time to make that decision.
(BTW, IANAL...but I do drive in Texas, and I believe the refusal to take the breath test is a penalty completely separate from the DWI/DUI laws...)
Intelligent people carefully choose the battles they want to fight. Sometimes, common sense trumps principle. All the guy had to do was show the cop his driver's license, and be on his way. And the saddest part of this whole fiasco?
My three siblings sat in the back of the Buick crying their eyes out, which is the only part of today that I regret.
Good job, Michael. Not only did you have to ruin your day, but everyone else's as well. Maybe in the future, you can grow up and learn to pick your battles more wisely. This battle just wasn't worth it.
We've all been hearing ad nauseum about power and cooling issues in the data center.
Whose data center? Mine? Yours? The EPA's?
Please don't butcher the English language like that. Throwing random articles around is a sign of laziness (similar in magnitude to "They said...").
Brought to you by SIAA (Society against the Indiscriminant Abuse of Articles)
As an air traffic controller and pilot who has spent many years interacting with both, I can assure you that the role alcohol plays a big role in many aviation circles. No, I didn't say that every scopedope, swivelhead, and jet jock drink before, during or after. But alcohol is often a major part of the social fabric whenever these types congregate.
We used to work the NASA T38s from Houston when they would come up for approach practice in East Texas. Every pilot/astronaut we worked was the consummate professional, and I can never recall ever having to repeat a control instruction. Ever. I seriously doubt any of these pilots were impaired, and I seriously doubt any shuttles have been flown or staffed by drunks.
However, I have no doubts about the quantity of alcohol that was served at pre-takeoff festivities...
Gimp...Pidgin...and now...
Hokey?
Hokey?
I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in the US "hokey" is used to refer to something artificial, contrived, fake. I certainly don't want to trust the security of my systems to something that's contrived.
Geez, more proof that intelligence and common sense aren't necessarily bed partners...
No, my friend, you've missed the boat on this one. The "arcade experience" was standing in front of Gorgar, with its immense vocabulary of seven words, and immersing yourself in pure physics joy. Other than Asteroids and Galaga, there really aren't many video games that can even remotely hold a candle to pinball.
I run an automotive performance tuning business, and use Google AdWords (with mixed success) to advertise. Google recently introduced a new feature where they recommend keywords to use based upon, I assume, traffic profiles with similar businesses.
Guess what some of the suggested adwords were?
You get a thousand points if you guessed "names of your competitors." Several obviously trademarked names showed up in their list.
I found this to be quite interesting in that Google was practically *inviting* me to use these trademarked names to drive clicks to my site.
Tempting? Yes...but in the end, not tempted enough to violate Google's own policies which prohibit this practice.
It did get me to wondering, though: Can I be held liable for false advertising or in violation of Google's TOS if I follow Google's keyword recommendations?
The the CDC must be wrong, along with every other medically-qualified resource that has shown a causal effect between glass manufacture and silicosis.
Admitting defeat is far more manly than hurling unwarranted insults.
Asbestos has nothing to do with glass
While I'm sure folks appreciate your safety message, please don't try to practice chemistry at the same time. Both glass and asbestos are silicates, and are indeed chemically related. The danger from asbestos is that, even though it's inert, inhaled crystals that fall within a narrow range of size lodge deep within the lung tissue and cause scarring that can lead to further complications.
In fact, inhaling glass dust can lead to silicosis, which is just as devastating.
a concept that promises to reduce the environmental impact of farming
Thereby freeing up arable land for more "environmentally friendly" endeavors, like factories and housing developments.
Give me a break. How about spending this money on ways to reduce the world's population growth? Lack of arable land is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.
The report says most of the 3 billion people to be added to world population in the next 50 years would be born in areas where land was scarce. If the grain-land area in the world stayed the same as in 2000, the 9 billion people projected to inhabit the planet in 2050 would each be fed from less than 0.07 hectares of grain-land -- an area smaller than what is available per person today in countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, which face the shortage of land..
(link)
...but my limited math skills are all going red-flag on me at the moment:
For True-False exams for example, the number subtracted would most likely be (Number Wrong ÷ 2). Let's see how that would work out, for the sample case above. You, answering two questions correctly and guessing at 98 would be likely, on the average, to get 49 wrong, and so have a final score of 2 + 49 - (49 ÷ 2), or 75.5, while I, again on the average. answering only 1 correctly and guessing at 97, would get a final score of 1 + (97 ÷ 2) - ((97 ÷ 2) ÷ 2)), which comes out to be 25.25. Here there is a substantial difference between our scores, closer to the two-fold difference in our actual knowledge.
OK, forgive me for RTFA, but how is 2 + 49 - (49/2) equal to 75.5? My trusty calculator tells me this is 26.5, exactly one point higher than the second example -- as I would expect.
The entire argument is fallacious...I know twice as much as you, so much that I get 100 questions right, you get 50 right and guess at the other 50...50 + 25 - (25/2) = 62.5. Not quite a 2:1 ratio there.
While I agree with the author's premise that guessing should be penalized, he does a terrible job proving his point.
I always thought the difficulty of separating voices from background noise was the result of poor sound editing (especially when movies are transferred to DVD). I was watching "Flags of our Fathers" the other night, and the remastered sound editing was so piss-poor, with dialog dynamic levels well below the background sound levels, that I found myself repeatedly re-playing scenes. It saddens me that studios are so quick to rush their movies to DVD they don't even take the time to preserve the sound quality.
...pay a visit to the Minuteman Missle National Historic Site in South Dakota. They offer tours of an underground Minuteman Delta launch bunker on a appointment-only basis, 6-8 to a group. The bunker itself, built in the 60's, is actually an air-tight, climate-controlled concrete capsule suspended on giant shock absorbers about 150 feet below the surface. The only entrance into the capsule is via a 5-ton vault door that could be opened and shut in under a minute. It provides a fascinating insight into the Cold War and the level of redundancy that was in place to ensure that if a launch was ordered, it would happen (for instance, launch orders would be given to a number of different launch sites simultaneously, so no launch site personnel would be aware of who actually launched a missle).
Interesting story: There was an "emergency egress" hatch in the capsule that led to the surface through a corrugated pipe. There were only a few problems: The hatch door weighed over 200 pounds and dropped down from the ceiling, ensuring the first one out would probably be the last one out. And the government was afraid the Russkies knew where the egress points were on the surface, so the government poured a parking lot over it. Only problem was they failed to tell the launch controllers that their "emergency egress" system led to the underside of a parking lot. This was all top-secret stuff, never came to light until after the sites were decommissioned and dismantled.
It's disturbing that the teachers unions did not come to her defense
As a long-time union member, I can assure you that the image of the union (or gains made via concessions by management) almost always trumps the protectionism provided its members. I have personally been "sold down the river" when it became clear that the union stood more to gain from honoring management's wishes that I would just go away rather than defending me (ironic, since I was a union rep with the singular goal of defending my bargaining unit members). I have seen many others treated similarly over the years.
BTW, this really isn't a dig for or against unions; it's just something you accept when you get involved with a union.
OTOH, Apple has made good on replacement batteries and display logic boards. You win some, you lose some. You'll find this with any hardware manufacturer. (I remember buying a Syjet some years ago...was DOA, tried to return it to Syjet for repair. I must have been the straw that broke the camel's back, as they promptly declared bankruptcy. Never did get my drive back...)
Umm...no, those are recorded *mortgage* figures, and do not necessarily reflect *actual selling price*. Please, do some research before you undersell your own home based upon county records. (In fact, the Texas Legislature just shot down a bill this session that would have mandated recording of actual selling prices rather than mortgage amounts.)
Many people don't realize that the deeds to their property is public property, and a sufficiently nosy neighbor could have always went down to the town hall/court and looked up what everyone on their block paid for their house (this is usually listed on the deed).
Umm...not in Texas. Nor can you go to the courthouse and request concealed handgun permits.
Not passing judgement here...just pointing out that some government entities are beginning to recognize the fact that not all records need be public...
And here, all this time, we thought it was all about Rayleigh scattering.
/. moderators trumps all!
I guess the collective wisdom of
Fix the damn file associations dialog so that you can not only add file associations and actions from the GUI (rather than digging down into an .rdf file), but that files of the same type open consistently without constantly having to deal with the "open with" dialog.
Oh, wait...same problem on Linux too! Never mind...