Seriously, "what red is" has a quite understandable explanation, and one that's useful in many contexts even if you can't see it, in contrast to many of the philosophical BS questions so often found here.
To someone born a paraplegic due to spinal malformation you would explain that sex is just a physical act of copulation as if he were unable to understand the physical concept.
To the deaf you would describe a trumpet's sound as being betwen certain frequencies.
It contains information, but fails to answer the question. A question deemed by you to be bullshit simply because you cannot understand why the person asks it.
The human brain is composed of one hundred billion or so neurons. Looks like it's pretty much finite to me. I have ten times as many bytes of information in my hard disk.
Yet while you were typing (presumably not saving anything other than in RAM), was the content of your hard disk changing (Yes, perhaps a bit, but play along for this example)
The neurons are continuously 'remapping' in your brain. Even while some may be static, other's are making new connections in manners which we currently can't predict, or really understand why did it connect to 'this' neuron instead of 'that' neuron.
Not that the brain functions in any quantum manner, but it's one of those things that if you were to KNOW the exact mapping of neurons, the very next instant the mapping would be incorrect and very quickly become inaccurate (100 billion or so items making new connections in multiple paths)
I suppose it would be something like trying to map the water vapor droplets in a cloud. There is a finite number of droplets there too, but predicting the shape/behavior of a cloud with any precision after only a single second would be very, very difficult.
And then, all you need is another $500,000 on promotion to differentiate yourself from the flood of other crappy garage band recordings. Why would you need to do that?
Creating music is and always was easy. Good. Distributing music used to be difficult, but now it's easy. Good, if it were otherwise we would have somehow slipped in technological advancement.
Advertising, making a name for yourself, and actually seeing any returns (financial or otherwise) from your distribution is still very difficult.
But presumably, it isn't difficult making a name for yourself enough to create a small, but sustainable presence if what you seek to do is make a living through live performance? Certainly it wouldn't be a rock-star lifestyle, but why exactly, do I care if that lifestyle is supported?
Tell me, if it weren't for that $500,000 advance, would rock-stars cease to exist? Of course not. Some local bands would somehow figure out a way to expand their appeal to a more general audience, and eventually build up world wide support. In the absense of any 'angel benefactor' tossing a pile of money in your lap, it might take a bit longer, but it wouldn't be impossible.
And isn't that similar to the situation today? Not everyone gets to be a rock star now, and not everyone would get to be a rockstar if every major label dried up overnight. Some, however, would find it possible to reach that level on their own, especially if a void existed in the market.
But it really comes down to this:
Why is it so important that someone have the ability to reach rock-star level status? Especially when the emerging system seems to support a lot more local/small (and innovative) musicians rather than the old system in which these small-scale bands actually DID have a hard time even getting to the point where they could make ends meet.
That pop-stars are rare isn't really a problem. It wasn't a problem from 1300AD - 19th century. And I doubt it was anything essential from the 19th century until now.
I agree, but I deal with rainfall and watershed data. The engineers talk in 20, 50 and 100 year events and these are no where nailed down to any sort of accuracy. even the full 400 year measuring period is looking at is still 8.7e-7% of the lifespan of the sun we have looked at such a small window and drawn an assumption over that window. We are definitely going to be wrong. heck we cant even predict tomorrows weather accurately, let alone something we measuring at a distance, where we are still only theorizing about how it actually works. "slight" variances on a cosmic scale may not be measured in years.
I understand where you are coming from (mostly).
Remember the Earth just about as old as the Sun (possibly even older depending on when you consider Earth, Earth and not a protoplanetary blob). Our current weather/preciptation models would be bunk even 100,000 years ago.
For this section of time, with no evidence to the contrary, 400 years of data is easily sufficient for me to forcast 1 month out. I would bet my entire life's savings that there would be less than 150 sun spots 1 month from now (I'd probably make the bet for 1 year from now as well)
Contrast this with data we are getting from Arctic Ice cores, which have been shown to correspond to an 11 year cycle (isotopes created from heavier bombardment in the ionosphere).
Of course over the lifetime of the planet these things are going to change. But it is VERY unlikely that these things are going to change very much in one 11 year period. (or even 100-200 years)
Sounds like people shouldn't be endangering my life in the ever increasing crackdown on alcohol. If DUI drivers are so evil and incapable of controlling themselves as these people believe, what makes you think that they would avoid those roads?
Either they horrible monsters who can't control themselves and are a danger to everyone else like MADD says,
Or if they are responsible enough to avoid these sorts of roads, are they really that 'dangerous' to begin with?
The sun is 4.6 BILLION years old and we are concerned with a couple of years difference in the Solar Cycle? How many of our empirical evidence cycles have we measured in this sort of accuracy? The whole cycle measures within 2.3e-8% of its lifespan and we are surprised that we haven't got the accuracy narrowed down? What other natural phenomenon have we measured to this accuracy cause I would really like to see the ruler that was used...
What got your panties in a twist? Just because something might vary over 4.8 Billion years has nothing to do with the fact that based on our current set of measurements this period was a bit longer. Hell, it doesn't matter if we measured only ONE other cycle, we could STILL make the observation "Hey, this cycle is longer than the last one".
However since you did ask. Sunspots were what we first used as a 'ruler'. Discovered in 800 BC, drawn later, and eventually the cycle was first showin in 1843 using data going back to 1755. We now know sunspot data (from historical observations not always available to the first discoverers of the cycle) going back to 1610.
And it's not like it's a 'slight' cycle either. These things vary by 150+ appearances per day during the peak, down to a dozen or fewer during the minimum.
You: We should nuke the sun from orbit! Moderator: The nuke won't make it into orbit, it's too hot. You: Let's go at night, then. Moderator: Oh yeah, of course!
Slashdot: Aren't the nukes technically already in orbit?
I'll give a bit of a hint here, I do the same thing, just with a slight variation:
Mostly-Trusted media sites get the same password (obviously vastly different user names) Slashdot, Fark, Broadband Reports, etc
Then I have my pseudo-trusted sites with their own password group: Demonoid, imageshack, probably others.
Non-trusted sites get a random junk password each access = reset password ie: low accountability not tied to a company name with 2-3 visits/year
My email gets its own password of 10+ characters
Work gets its own password of whatever the hell rules they implement this week. Tech support has to deal with LOTS of reset requests since I don't write it down, but they have a different password for every freaking service and every freaking service has a different password lifetime setting.
So aside from work, I really only have 3 passwords or so, but it helps break up the damage should one be compromised. Compartmentalized is probably the best description.
the isuckers/star wars suckers will buy anything their cult leaders tell them to buy, in the case of the SW nerds they probably have 20 versions of each movie already and can't wait to buy more due to the continuous finds of new scenes
You said you stopped buying AFTER you already bought the TPM dvd. Are you really in a good position to call other people suckers?
Really? He was the life of the party. Contrast that to Hephaestus from the wiki:
He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes. Like other mythic smiths but unlike most other gods, Hephaestus was lame, which gave him a grotesque appearance in Greek eyes. He served as the blacksmith of the gods, and he was worshiped in the manufacturing and industrial centers of Greece,
If that's not the God of the Geeks, I don't know what is. He was cast down by his parents to go live in their basement.
It seems to me that an adaptive keyboard is a crutch for people who don't want to learn a product well enough to be good at it. I fail to see how having buttons that change with context is really much better than being able to chose the same context with a mouse.
Well I think I know who wouldn't win this competition.;)
If you fail to see how an adaptive interface can be useful, I would point you to successes which are currently in-use. The iPhone, Logitech's high-end remotes, etc. Now the trick with these, is that their interface doubles as their primary screen, so the big thing here is why/how is this going to be better than mouse/screen (as you rightfully brought up).
But isn't that the point of this competition? We don't know an immediate way this can be implemented to be better, but it isn't impossible that something interesting and useful could come up.
The obvious example is gaming. Yes I know, you can have all your information up there on your HUD, but couldn't that be a bit distracting or non-immersive? I know when I play paintball I don't have an overlay telling me how tired I am, how many balls are in my hopper, what my gas pressure is. At least for the latter two, I'd have to look down to check it. It opens up the possibility to make the main screen a pure display, and move the status and interface elements elsewhere and accessible, but not gone.
It wouldn't ALWAYS be the best thing to do, but sometimes it might be, and when it is, it would be possible.
One application which I would LOVE to have context aware menus/toolbars/interfaces shifted OFF of my screen is for applications like Excel or other cases where screen space is more important to me than having an always present but not always used tools surrounding my workarea.
Web browsing could be another interesting aspect as I currently use only 5/8ths of my keyboard for typing. Having the remaining 3/8ths turn into large, but useful buttons (Forward, Back, Stop, Refresh).
And one aspect where I would KILL for a device like this?
Home Theater & entertainment. Think about how nice it would be to have a keyboard which could display a whole set of commands for controlling your movies/music without having to take down the visualization, or walk to a position where you can see the screen then manipulate a mouse, select what you want, etc. Everything could be right there on your keyboard and tailored just for your application.
Of course, I don't have to wonder about that last part, since I currently use an old iPhone as a device to control my computer when I'm listening to music/watching movies/etc. Hitting a button and having it shift from a remote control for my cable box, and turn into a small but useful keyboard/mouse has been great.
I'd love to enter this competition, if I had known about it earlier (and was still a student).
Serves me right for basing my justification based on the summary, especially when part of my post complained that there were errors in that exact summary.
I had some paving stones that were "outtakes" from a gravestone cutter near Austin Texas. One of them was lovely, with colorful hot air baloons on it. There must have been a quality control problem because it wasn't completed. They sold these by the pound and it was a lot cheaper than regular quarried granite. I'd be surprised if the new owner moved those stones or even would recognize what they are:-)
Every now and then, a gravestone gets chipped, or breaks, or replaced. Pretty much the same as your 'flawed' markers from the cutter.
It is not an infinitely sustainable model to follow.
Neither is the universe if we want to get completely nihilistic about it.
Filling up cemeteries isn't a problem, and when it is, we can easily fix it with a few backhoes (which you would need anyway if you wanted to build there) and a few changed laws.
You really think Cemeteries are what's holding back 'REAL progress'? And all this time it was not being able to develop on that land that was holding back 'REAL progress'.
You know, what's funny is that if our ancestors didn't take some efforts to bury/preserve their dead, we would know a great deal less about them.
Typical problem of universities (I've also studied at a university myself): they teach how/why stuff works from a highly theoretical pov, not how it is used in practice. This gives a great basis for deeper understanding but most practical things are not learned in university but in real life.
There is no way that a University can teach the practical skills for the wide variety of jobs available. Either you would end up so specialized that you would have to go get another 'degree' if you wanted to move into an adjacent field, or they would need to make it so generic that you would have to create specialized schools for each... and we are back at the same problem.
If you want practical, go to a tech school. If you have an interest in a field and want more of the theory/traditional education, college is for you.
Neither should have a stigma, we need good technical workers. They certainly command a decent paycheck.
Dont turn college into a vocational training center, trying that and denigrating votech has really hurt our educational system.
Anyone remember the game "Life or Death"? I was young, and the only patients who survived me were those I could refer to a specialist, and those with gas.
Oh you lucky kidney stone patients, and those of you who I thought had Kidney stones and the specialist saved you. The rest, I'm sorry, there was nothing I could do (right, apparently).
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, "what red is" has a quite understandable explanation, and one that's useful in many contexts even if you can't see it, in contrast to many of the philosophical BS questions so often found here.
To someone born a paraplegic due to spinal malformation you would explain that sex is just a physical act of copulation as if he were unable to understand the physical concept.
To the deaf you would describe a trumpet's sound as being betwen certain frequencies.
It contains information, but fails to answer the question. A question deemed by you to be bullshit simply because you cannot understand why the person asks it.
Next question?
Yes, is one born that way? Or do you have to work at it?
The human brain is composed of one hundred billion or so neurons. Looks like it's pretty much finite to me. I have ten times as many bytes of information in my hard disk.
Yet while you were typing (presumably not saving anything other than in RAM), was the content of your hard disk changing (Yes, perhaps a bit, but play along for this example)
The neurons are continuously 'remapping' in your brain. Even while some may be static, other's are making new connections in manners which we currently can't predict, or really understand why did it connect to 'this' neuron instead of 'that' neuron.
Not that the brain functions in any quantum manner, but it's one of those things that if you were to KNOW the exact mapping of neurons, the very next instant the mapping would be incorrect and very quickly become inaccurate (100 billion or so items making new connections in multiple paths)
I suppose it would be something like trying to map the water vapor droplets in a cloud. There is a finite number of droplets there too, but predicting the shape/behavior of a cloud with any precision after only a single second would be very, very difficult.
explain the color red
As a colorblind individual, that is my FAVORITE thing to ask people when they start cracking jokes about what color is my shirt.
And then, all you need is another $500,000 on promotion to differentiate yourself from the flood of other crappy garage band recordings.
Why would you need to do that?
Creating music is and always was easy.
Good.
Distributing music used to be difficult, but now it's easy.
Good, if it were otherwise we would have somehow slipped in technological advancement.
Advertising, making a name for yourself, and actually seeing any returns (financial or otherwise) from your distribution is still very difficult.
But presumably, it isn't difficult making a name for yourself enough to create a small, but sustainable presence if what you seek to do is make a living through live performance? Certainly it wouldn't be a rock-star lifestyle, but why exactly, do I care if that lifestyle is supported?
Tell me, if it weren't for that $500,000 advance, would rock-stars cease to exist? Of course not. Some local bands would somehow figure out a way to expand their appeal to a more general audience, and eventually build up world wide support. In the absense of any 'angel benefactor' tossing a pile of money in your lap, it might take a bit longer, but it wouldn't be impossible.
And isn't that similar to the situation today? Not everyone gets to be a rock star now, and not everyone would get to be a rockstar if every major label dried up overnight. Some, however, would find it possible to reach that level on their own, especially if a void existed in the market.
But it really comes down to this:
Why is it so important that someone have the ability to reach rock-star level status? Especially when the emerging system seems to support a lot more local/small (and innovative) musicians rather than the old system in which these small-scale bands actually DID have a hard time even getting to the point where they could make ends meet.
That pop-stars are rare isn't really a problem. It wasn't a problem from 1300AD - 19th century. And I doubt it was anything essential from the 19th century until now.
I agree, but I deal with rainfall and watershed data. The engineers talk in 20, 50 and 100 year events and these are no where nailed down to any sort of accuracy. even the full 400 year measuring period is looking at is still 8.7e-7% of the lifespan of the sun we have looked at such a small window and drawn an assumption over that window. We are definitely going to be wrong. heck we cant even predict tomorrows weather accurately, let alone something we measuring at a distance, where we are still only theorizing about how it actually works. "slight" variances on a cosmic scale may not be measured in years.
I understand where you are coming from (mostly).
Remember the Earth just about as old as the Sun (possibly even older depending on when you consider Earth, Earth and not a protoplanetary blob). Our current weather/preciptation models would be bunk even 100,000 years ago.
For this section of time, with no evidence to the contrary, 400 years of data is easily sufficient for me to forcast 1 month out. I would bet my entire life's savings that there would be less than 150 sun spots 1 month from now (I'd probably make the bet for 1 year from now as well)
Contrast this with data we are getting from Arctic Ice cores, which have been shown to correspond to an 11 year cycle (isotopes created from heavier bombardment in the ionosphere).
Of course over the lifetime of the planet these things are going to change. But it is VERY unlikely that these things are going to change very much in one 11 year period. (or even 100-200 years)
Sounds like DUIers should avoid those roads then.
Sounds like people shouldn't be endangering my life in the ever increasing crackdown on alcohol. If DUI drivers are so evil and incapable of controlling themselves as these people believe, what makes you think that they would avoid those roads?
Either they horrible monsters who can't control themselves and are a danger to everyone else like MADD says,
Or if they are responsible enough to avoid these sorts of roads, are they really that 'dangerous' to begin with?
The sun is 4.6 BILLION years old and we are concerned with a couple of years difference in the Solar Cycle? How many of our empirical evidence cycles have we measured in this sort of accuracy? The whole cycle measures within 2.3e-8% of its lifespan and we are surprised that we haven't got the accuracy narrowed down? What other natural phenomenon have we measured to this accuracy cause I would really like to see the ruler that was used...
What got your panties in a twist? Just because something might vary over 4.8 Billion years has nothing to do with the fact that based on our current set of measurements this period was a bit longer. Hell, it doesn't matter if we measured only ONE other cycle, we could STILL make the observation "Hey, this cycle is longer than the last one".
However since you did ask. Sunspots were what we first used as a 'ruler'. Discovered in 800 BC, drawn later, and eventually the cycle was first showin in 1843 using data going back to 1755. We now know sunspot data (from historical observations not always available to the first discoverers of the cycle) going back to 1610.
And it's not like it's a 'slight' cycle either. These things vary by 150+ appearances per day during the peak, down to a dozen or fewer during the minimum.
Take a look at this picture: http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/Zurich_Color_Small.jpg
You don't exactly have to be a statistical wizard to see a pattern in that data.
Well, I'll agree with you that most seasonal holidays have been pretty much commercialized. endjoke.
But what are the seasons, if not natural cycles? Was it a corporate plot of the first humans in order to maximize crop yields?
You: We should nuke the sun from orbit!
Moderator: The nuke won't make it into orbit, it's too hot.
You: Let's go at night, then.
Moderator: Oh yeah, of course!
Slashdot: Aren't the nukes technically already in orbit?
it's better to leave all notes at the bottom of the Marianas trench.
I leave mine in the atmosphere, accessible to anyone interested in recombining the trillions of atoms and molecules that issued from my smokestack.
I'll give a bit of a hint here, I do the same thing, just with a slight variation:
Mostly-Trusted media sites get the same password (obviously vastly different user names)
Slashdot, Fark, Broadband Reports, etc
Then I have my pseudo-trusted sites with their own password group:
Demonoid, imageshack, probably others.
Non-trusted sites get a random junk password each access = reset password
ie: low accountability not tied to a company name with 2-3 visits/year
My email gets its own password of 10+ characters
Work gets its own password of whatever the hell rules they implement this week. Tech support has to deal with LOTS of reset requests since I don't write it down, but they have a different password for every freaking service and every freaking service has a different password lifetime setting.
So aside from work, I really only have 3 passwords or so, but it helps break up the damage should one be compromised. Compartmentalized is probably the best description.
the isuckers/star wars suckers will buy anything their cult leaders tell them to buy, in the case of the SW nerds they probably have 20 versions of each movie already and can't wait to buy more due to the continuous finds of new scenes
You said you stopped buying AFTER you already bought the TPM dvd. Are you really in a good position to call other people suckers?
Only if your sysadmin isn't doing his job properly.
Belief is a powerful thing. And I bet most sysadmins believe that they are just so.
Dionysus
Really? He was the life of the party. Contrast that to Hephaestus from the wiki:
He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metals, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes. Like other mythic smiths but unlike most other gods, Hephaestus was lame, which gave him a grotesque appearance in Greek eyes. He served as the blacksmith of the gods, and he was worshiped in the manufacturing and industrial centers of Greece,
If that's not the God of the Geeks, I don't know what is. He was cast down by his parents to go live in their basement.
It seems to me that an adaptive keyboard is a crutch for people who don't want to learn a product well enough to be good at it. I fail to see how having buttons that change with context is really much better than being able to chose the same context with a mouse.
Well I think I know who wouldn't win this competition. ;)
If you fail to see how an adaptive interface can be useful, I would point you to successes which are currently in-use. The iPhone, Logitech's high-end remotes, etc. Now the trick with these, is that their interface doubles as their primary screen, so the big thing here is why/how is this going to be better than mouse/screen (as you rightfully brought up).
But isn't that the point of this competition? We don't know an immediate way this can be implemented to be better, but it isn't impossible that something interesting and useful could come up.
The obvious example is gaming. Yes I know, you can have all your information up there on your HUD, but couldn't that be a bit distracting or non-immersive? I know when I play paintball I don't have an overlay telling me how tired I am, how many balls are in my hopper, what my gas pressure is. At least for the latter two, I'd have to look down to check it. It opens up the possibility to make the main screen a pure display, and move the status and interface elements elsewhere and accessible, but not gone.
It wouldn't ALWAYS be the best thing to do, but sometimes it might be, and when it is, it would be possible.
One application which I would LOVE to have context aware menus/toolbars/interfaces shifted OFF of my screen is for applications like Excel or other cases where screen space is more important to me than having an always present but not always used tools surrounding my workarea.
Web browsing could be another interesting aspect as I currently use only 5/8ths of my keyboard for typing. Having the remaining 3/8ths turn into large, but useful buttons (Forward, Back, Stop, Refresh).
And one aspect where I would KILL for a device like this?
Home Theater & entertainment. Think about how nice it would be to have a keyboard which could display a whole set of commands for controlling your movies/music without having to take down the visualization, or walk to a position where you can see the screen then manipulate a mouse, select what you want, etc. Everything could be right there on your keyboard and tailored just for your application.
Of course, I don't have to wonder about that last part, since I currently use an old iPhone as a device to control my computer when I'm listening to music/watching movies/etc. Hitting a button and having it shift from a remote control for my cable box, and turn into a small but useful keyboard/mouse has been great.
I'd love to enter this competition, if I had known about it earlier (and was still a student).
I'm pretty sure, if it came down to it, I'd rather call the priest to deal with my computer issues.
My computer is full of daemons.
Serves me right for basing my justification based on the summary, especially when part of my post complained that there were errors in that exact summary.
I could understand if this were a revival of ancient religions.
Greek God Squad.
Of course, you would be hard pressed to find a geek that met the physical standards applied to any greek god.
Well, other than Hephaestus, the first Geek.
The lawyers are just being overzealous in this case.
God and Geek are not easily confused.
Squad is generic.
And the story, is inappropriately tagged with copyright when this is a trademark issue.
You got fired for stealing tombstones? (j/k)
I had some paving stones that were "outtakes" from a gravestone cutter near Austin Texas. One of them was lovely, with colorful hot air baloons on it. There must have been a quality control problem because it wasn't completed. They sold these by the pound and it was a lot cheaper than regular quarried granite. I'd be surprised if the new owner moved those stones or even would recognize what they are :-)
Every now and then, a gravestone gets chipped, or breaks, or replaced. Pretty much the same as your 'flawed' markers from the cutter.
I have a couple of old tombstones stacked up to make a nice set of stairs leading up to our garden.
One of the perks of being a cemetery caretaker (former)
It is not an infinitely sustainable model to follow.
Neither is the universe if we want to get completely nihilistic about it.
Filling up cemeteries isn't a problem, and when it is, we can easily fix it with a few backhoes (which you would need anyway if you wanted to build there) and a few changed laws.
You really think Cemeteries are what's holding back 'REAL progress'? And all this time it was not being able to develop on that land that was holding back 'REAL progress'.
You know, what's funny is that if our ancestors didn't take some efforts to bury/preserve their dead, we would know a great deal less about them.
Typical problem of universities (I've also studied at a university myself): they teach how/why stuff works from a highly theoretical pov, not how it is used in practice. This gives a great basis for deeper understanding but most practical things are not learned in university but in real life.
There is no way that a University can teach the practical skills for the wide variety of jobs available. Either you would end up so specialized that you would have to go get another 'degree' if you wanted to move into an adjacent field, or they would need to make it so generic that you would have to create specialized schools for each... and we are back at the same problem.
If you want practical, go to a tech school. If you have an interest in a field and want more of the theory/traditional education, college is for you.
Neither should have a stigma, we need good technical workers. They certainly command a decent paycheck.
Dont turn college into a vocational training center, trying that and denigrating votech has really hurt our educational system.
(sorry for typos, injured my hands)
Anyone remember the game "Life or Death"? I was young, and the only patients who survived me were those I could refer to a specialist, and those with gas.
Oh you lucky kidney stone patients, and those of you who I thought had Kidney stones and the specialist saved you. The rest, I'm sorry, there was nothing I could do (right, apparently).