I've had a link to the blacklight power stuff on my website for years now (and I got the link from a website that was years older). For 400 more crackpots try this
"only if the decibel level was doubled, you would think of it as twice as loud" Do you have a reference for that? And don't just say "Look in any psychology book". Do you have a reference to somewhere that says explicitly that doubling the decibel level doubles apparent loudness. I for one have never compared two sounds saying one is twice as loud as another. I have simply never used the word 'twice' in this way. I really would like to know what you mean. So please give a reference.
"I think if we could get down to the point of truly understanding and having one of the formulas for life..." Don't you get it? With a sentence like this Venter is clearly a self-publicist trying to cash in on the press's liking for way out statements. Nobody I know in biotechnology would ever dream of releasing a statement like this. His proposed experiment is much more modest than that and `optimised' viruses are already commonplace in the lab. The whole idea of getting the churches involved in an experiment to delete genes is purely a publicty stunt. It's a pity there appear to be few competent biotechnology people posting to Slashdot to give this news its proper perspective.
A century or so ago there were no record labels but plenty of music. Then there was recording technology backed up by wide distribution but only big organisations could afford to do this. Now everyone can record and distribute widely and there is no need for record companies. That's all folks. The record companies were businesses built on a tecnology gap that has now closed. Why should we mourn their loss?
The cosmological constant doesn't really have much to do with the aether. When Einstein came to writing down his field equations he wanted to write down the most general purpose equation he could that was simple and connected the variables he thought was involved in gravity. As a result he couldn't rule out the cosmological constant term because it's simple and connects these variables in a way that respects the symmetries one expects. There's no way to rule this term out a priori so Einstein had to leave it in.
One of the terms in the Einstein field equations (the equations that describe gravity in General Relativity) is proportional to a constant called the Cosmological Constant. If this is greater than zero it describes what is effectively a repulsive force that could be unmeasurably small locally but over the size of the universe is enough to cause an accelerating expansion. Just about any book on general relativity or cosmology will have a description of this.
"Here's a clue guys, let the market decide." So why do you bomb the f**k out of anyone who decides to let the US market decide which is a better form of entertainment between coke, heroin and, say, watching TV?
"unwilling to let their people make decisions for themselves?" But this is a 'tragedy of the commons' type situation. It may be in each individual's interest to buy a Pentium III but the collective action of everyone in Europe buying Pentium III's may compromise national security making everyone worse off. I'm not saying PIII's compromise security - but it's only right that governments investigate whether it does - especially if the NSA or FBI are involved.
"Quantum encryption is based on the properties of photons and really has very little computing going on for it." I'm not sure this is a correct thing to say. Quantum encryption is a special case of quantum computing. You can write quantum encryption protocols and algorithms as quantum computer programs. Just like quantum computing you represent binary messages as spin states of electrons, photons or whatever other particle you have to hand and you perform unitary operations on them. These unitary operations are the same building blocks that quantum computers are built from.
...are the Monstrous Moonshine Conjectures. Actually they're theorems now but they're so unenlightening they may as well be conjectures still. The guy who first posed these conjectures was none other than JH Conway - the inventor of the cellular automaton known as the "Game of Life". They are conjectures about an object called the Monster Group which is one of the most obscure objects in mathematics. It's tied up with data compression (Golay error correcting codes), String Theory, Game Theory, Elliptic Curves, Modular forms (like STW)...hell everything! Richard Borcherds, who proved the results a few years back was awarded the Fields medal recently (the mathematics Nobel prize). Do a web search on monstrous moonshine for more info.
You're missing the point a bit. This preprint isn't just some story that someone made up so the idea itself isn't necessarily that new. To produce a paper you need to embed the idea into some kind of formal structure so you can quantify it and talk about it more rigorously. That's why SF isn't science.
The preprint server contains unreviewed preprints. They are not the official statement of that body of people called 'scientists'. It's just a repository where researchers and students can distribute material. Sometimes they are submitted by kooks and sometimes they come from the very best in their field.
...you all have 60 days to desist from use of the word 'go' which has now been trademarked. Apparently, although 'go' was thought to have been in general usage, it has never actually been trademarked. This left the word wide open for such action. The owners have already started legal proceedings against microsoft for using "Where do you want to *go* today?" Attorneys acting for microsoft's defense argue that only the imperative 'go' has been trademarked and that the infinitive 'to go' is public domain. Expert witnesses are being called in to determine whether or not this infinitive may in fact be split into 'to' and 'go' or whether 'to go' is in fact a distinct entity. If 'to go' is found to be analysable into its component parts we may expect further action to determine whether or not 'went' is a derivative work...
"Cinesite had Flame and Flint licenses as well" Well Flame and Flint aren't really competing products - at least for quality film work. The Flames (at least at Cinesite Europe) were almost purely for commercials and film work used to be almost solely Cineon. The fact of the matter is that quite a while back the guys at Cinesite figured out that Cineon was basically working in a completely incorrect colour space (and presented this information at SIGGRAPH resulting in effects houses developing workarounds) and people at Cinesite are now pretty excited now about having a new product that works in the correct colour space while preserving the full dynamic range needed for film.
Re:Frank Tipler as fiction
on
The Broken God
·
· Score: 1
I thought that Tipler's book on the omega point was one of the best works of science fiction I've ever read! And if we humans do ever manage to get to the point of exponential expansion across the universe Tipler's book is *nothing* compares to how 'wacked out' things will really be con't you think?
"Cineon was a very cool piece of software." I think not. I believe it set back the industry several years. No scripting. Nothing procedural. Poor effects support. Poor support for integration of CG with live action (in fact no support - the mathematics of comping CG is *completely* wrong in Cineon). Check out Shake. Cineon was merely less bad than the competition. Even Cinesite (also owned by Kodak) has Shake licenses. BTW I wrote a piece of Cineon and own no shares in Shake.
Snell & Wilcox provided motion interpolation software - not the bullet time rig. Not interpolation *hardware* BTW (though that is their speciality). Dan Piponi, Head of R&D, Manex Visual Effects
There has been a misinformation campaign by the Australian press to make out that the visual effects for The Matrix were Australian. The main company behind the vfx was Manex Visual Effects http://www.mvfx.com. Animal Logic and D-Film in Australia were also involved and between them did more shots (and damn good work too) but technical innovation (eg. the bullet time rig) were from Manex (although the rig was physically built on the East Coast at Innovation Arts). The effects supervisor was based at Manex and Manex was the central coordinating location where standards were set. One Australian magazine, in a desperate attempt to make Australians seem the heroes, actually claimed Manex was Australian! Everything was shot in Australia though. Of course working at Manex doesn't make me biased or anything... BTW At NAB last year an Aussie came up to me and asked me about the Matrix crew gear I was wearing. When I said I did vfx in California for the Matrix he accused me of being a liar because all the effects were Australian and he walked off disgustedly. It was certainly a successful press campaign! Dan Piponi, Head of R&D, Manex Visual Effects
Well I'll say one good thing for Radio Shat. When I was a kid they used to have Trash-80s in the Tandy Store in Hammersmith, London. We used to hang out in Tandy because I and my mates could write cool graphics demos (like blocky pixels moving in lissajous figures - these were the early days) and as that was the most powerful micro I had access to I learnt quite a lot! Thank you Tandy (they're called Tandy stores in the UK).
I sometimes use an email address that reflects who I've given it to. So if I register for RealAudio I might call myself someting like realaudio@tanelorn.demon.co.uk. That way I can track down who's been giving out my e-mail address when the spam pours in.
Slashdot Mirror
I've had a link to the blacklight power stuff on my website for years now (and I got the link from a website that was years older). For 400 more crackpots try this
"only if the decibel level was doubled, you would think of it as twice as loud" Do you have a reference for that? And don't just say "Look in any psychology book". Do you have a reference to somewhere that says explicitly that doubling the decibel level doubles apparent loudness. I for one have never compared two sounds saying one is twice as loud as another. I have simply never used the word 'twice' in this way. I really would like to know what you mean. So please give a reference.
"I think if we could get down to the point of truly understanding and having one of the formulas for life..." Don't you get it? With a sentence like this Venter is clearly a self-publicist trying to cash in on the press's liking for way out statements. Nobody I know in biotechnology would ever dream of releasing a statement like this. His proposed experiment is much more modest than that and `optimised' viruses are already commonplace in the lab. The whole idea of getting the churches involved in an experiment to delete genes is purely a publicty stunt. It's a pity there appear to be few competent biotechnology people posting to Slashdot to give this news its proper perspective.
A century or so ago there were no record labels but plenty of music. Then there was recording technology backed up by wide distribution but only big organisations could afford to do this. Now everyone can record and distribute widely and there is no need for record companies. That's all folks. The record companies were businesses built on a tecnology gap that has now closed. Why should we mourn their loss?
The cosmological constant doesn't really have much to do with the aether. When Einstein came to writing down his field equations he wanted to write down the most general purpose equation he could that was simple and connected the variables he thought was involved in gravity. As a result he couldn't rule out the cosmological constant term because it's simple and connects these variables in a way that respects the symmetries one expects. There's no way to rule this term out a priori so Einstein had to leave it in.
One of the terms in the Einstein field equations (the equations that describe gravity in General Relativity) is proportional to a constant called the Cosmological Constant. If this is greater than zero it describes what is effectively a repulsive force that could be unmeasurably small locally but over the size of the universe is enough to cause an accelerating expansion. Just about any book on general relativity or cosmology will have a description of this.
Flat doesn't imply it's not exapnding. Red shift is caused by expansion.
"Here's a clue guys, let the market decide." So why do you bomb the f**k out of anyone who decides to let the US market decide which is a better form of entertainment between coke, heroin and, say, watching TV?
"unwilling to let their people make decisions for themselves?" But this is a 'tragedy of the commons' type situation. It may be in each individual's interest to buy a Pentium III but the collective action of everyone in Europe buying Pentium III's may compromise national security making everyone worse off. I'm not saying PIII's compromise security - but it's only right that governments investigate whether it does - especially if the NSA or FBI are involved.
"Quantum encryption is based on the properties of photons and really has very little computing going on for it." I'm not sure this is a correct thing to say. Quantum encryption is a special case of quantum computing. You can write quantum encryption protocols and algorithms as quantum computer programs. Just like quantum computing you represent binary messages as spin states of electrons, photons or whatever other particle you have to hand and you perform unitary operations on them. These unitary operations are the same building blocks that quantum computers are built from.
...are the Monstrous Moonshine Conjectures. Actually they're theorems now but they're so unenlightening they may as well be conjectures still. The guy who first posed these conjectures was none other than JH Conway - the inventor of the cellular automaton known as the "Game of Life". They are conjectures about an object called the Monster Group which is one of the most obscure objects in mathematics. It's tied up with data compression (Golay error correcting codes), String Theory, Game Theory, Elliptic Curves, Modular forms (like STW)...hell everything! Richard Borcherds, who proved the results a few years back was awarded the Fields medal recently (the mathematics Nobel prize). Do a web search on monstrous moonshine for more info.
Encryption. Elliptic curves play a key role in both encryption and decryption methods.
You're missing the point a bit. This preprint isn't just some story that someone made up so the idea itself isn't necessarily that new. To produce a paper you need to embed the idea into some kind of formal structure so you can quantify it and talk about it more rigorously. That's why SF isn't science.
The preprint server contains unreviewed preprints. They are not the official statement of that body of people called 'scientists'. It's just a repository where researchers and students can distribute material. Sometimes they are submitted by kooks and sometimes they come from the very best in their field.
...you all have 60 days to desist from use of the word 'go' which has now been trademarked. Apparently, although 'go' was thought to have been in general usage, it has never actually been trademarked. This left the word wide open for such action. The owners have already started legal proceedings against microsoft for using "Where do you want to *go* today?" Attorneys acting for microsoft's defense argue that only the imperative 'go' has been trademarked and that the infinitive 'to go' is public domain. Expert witnesses are being called in to determine whether or not this infinitive may in fact be split into 'to' and 'go' or whether 'to go' is in fact a distinct entity. If 'to go' is found to be analysable into its component parts we may expect further action to determine whether or not 'went' is a derivative work...
"Cinesite had Flame and Flint licenses as well" Well Flame and Flint aren't really competing products - at least for quality film work. The Flames (at least at Cinesite Europe) were almost purely for commercials and film work used to be almost solely Cineon. The fact of the matter is that quite a while back the guys at Cinesite figured out that Cineon was basically working in a completely incorrect colour space (and presented this information at SIGGRAPH resulting in effects houses developing workarounds) and people at Cinesite are now pretty excited now about having a new product that works in the correct colour space while preserving the full dynamic range needed for film.
I thought that Tipler's book on the omega point was one of the best works of science fiction I've ever read! And if we humans do ever manage to get to the point of exponential expansion across the universe Tipler's book is *nothing* compares to how 'wacked out' things will really be con't you think?
"Cineon was a very cool piece of software." I think not. I believe it set back the industry several years. No scripting. Nothing procedural. Poor effects support. Poor support for integration of CG with live action (in fact no support - the mathematics of comping CG is *completely* wrong in Cineon). Check out Shake. Cineon was merely less bad than the competition. Even Cinesite (also owned by Kodak) has Shake licenses. BTW I wrote a piece of Cineon and own no shares in Shake.
"Ahhh... I too want to be an effects animator" That's what *you* think!
Snell & Wilcox provided motion interpolation software - not the bullet time rig. Not interpolation *hardware* BTW (though that is their speciality). Dan Piponi, Head of R&D, Manex Visual Effects
There has been a misinformation campaign by the Australian press to make out that the visual effects for The Matrix were Australian. The main company behind the vfx was Manex Visual Effects http://www.mvfx.com. Animal Logic and D-Film in Australia were also involved and between them did more shots (and damn good work too) but technical innovation (eg. the bullet time rig) were from Manex (although the rig was physically built on the East Coast at Innovation Arts). The effects supervisor was based at Manex and Manex was the central coordinating location where standards were set. One Australian magazine, in a desperate attempt to make Australians seem the heroes, actually claimed Manex was Australian! Everything was shot in Australia though. Of course working at Manex doesn't make me biased or anything... BTW At NAB last year an Aussie came up to me and asked me about the Matrix crew gear I was wearing. When I said I did vfx in California for the Matrix he accused me of being a liar because all the effects were Australian and he walked off disgustedly. It was certainly a successful press campaign! Dan Piponi, Head of R&D, Manex Visual Effects
"the first to market a commercial hardware-accelerated 3D X server." Pardon my ignorance but haven't SGI been doing that for a decade?
Well I'll say one good thing for Radio Shat. When I was a kid they used to have Trash-80s in the Tandy Store in Hammersmith, London. We used to hang out in Tandy because I and my mates could write cool graphics demos (like blocky pixels moving in lissajous figures - these were the early days) and as that was the most powerful micro I had access to I learnt quite a lot! Thank you Tandy (they're called Tandy stores in the UK).
Who cares what Radio Shat, the worst hardware vendor on the planet, does with the worst software vendor?
I sometimes use an email address that reflects who I've given it to. So if I register for RealAudio I might call myself someting like realaudio@tanelorn.demon.co.uk. That way I can track down who's been giving out my e-mail address when the spam pours in.