Ill admit that back in the 90's after I met my aforementioned BBS friend I never paid for any software until around 2003-ish after I grew out of it though I still grabbed a lot of music and movies from BT sites. It was fun to pirate stuff from BBS's and later 0-day warez ftp servers. I remember playing Quake well over a month before it was released in stores. Early leaks were the bomb.
Anyways, today I pay for all of my games and software, even my copy of Windows 7 ultimate (every other PC I have runs Linux). I still buy music but I also trade a lot of music but I don't download it from BT sites, instead I trade with friends. I don't care about movies anymore but I still watch a little TV from time to time.
Hate is one of the strongest emotions we have and unfortunately one that is much easier to evoke. It is the perfect political tool. Plus this country has plenty of hate simmering just below the surface of everyone, waiting to be quickly brought to a boil.
Political parties know this all too well and winning votes is easier when you pander to these jackasses. Just make up some bullshit about how the blacks, jews, feminists, gun haters/lovers, mexicans, gays, brown people, catholics etc. are ruining this country and suddenly you have peoples attention. And then using that attention you whip them into a frenzy by evoking fear and then inciting hatred.
These people are often your closet racists who pretend they accept all people until you tell them your girlfriend is black or you are going to a gay wedding. Then they proceed to flip out about how your kids will be "niglets" (someone actually said this to me) or how the fags are going to ruin the american family. People are shitty, not all but way too many.
They do care but between trying to financially keep their heads above water and fighting off the urge to watch Duck Dynasty they have little time to enact change.
Well that was sarcasm but life is so busy that things like government tyranny fall by the wayside. Our lives are just comfortable and busy enough to allow us to ignore the greater issues at hand. Ask a person today what their concerns are and I bet its going to be things like job security, getting a better job to make more money or keeping their head above water. Government tyranny is just low enough to let us not care. Then throw in the incentive for social problems and you have the foundation for a pacifying system to keep people just above poverty and starving so they do revolt.
Steam and their competitors make it easy to buy, download and play games. Even if you don't want Steam you have few options: buy the actual game on CD or DVD (and have it loaded with buggy malware-like copy prevention and needing the CD/DVD when you want to play) or a publishers distribution platform which works just like Steam. Downloading the game makes so much more sense in the internet age and I would never go back to buying physical media copies.
Steam and steam like service benefits: - I can pre-order, buy or gift a game instantly from my PC, no running to stores, shipping or waiting for packages. - Instant download. Buy the game and play it once its downloaded which can easily happen in under an hour. - NO CD/DVD's needed and no storing of bulky media and packaging. Who wants a shelf full of plastic taking up space and collecting dust? - Built in communications. My brother and I once played a game of TF2 while casually chatting using the Steam voice chat. It was an amazing thing to be able to casually talk as if he were next to me yet still be able to play the game and use its voice to talk to teammates. - I can log into another PC using my Steam ID and I instantly gain access to my games. No lugging around any media. - You can't lose the media. Remember old games and their copy protection? "Turn to page 42 of the manual and enter the second word in the third paragraph" or One that I hated until I got a cracked version from a friend who was a BBS master, Quarinitine. It had a dark red card the size of a sheet of paper with black almost unreadable text (to prevent photocopying). It was a chart you used to look up a set of numbers and then enter the corresponding code to play the game. Those were the devil, loose that card or manual and you were screwed.
disadvantages: -no refunds. Easy - play the demo, look for recommendations/reviews or don't buy it, I haven't regretted one purchase yet (well maybe crysis 2 but that was because its gameplay sucked compared to the original but on a whole it was pretty fun). -sometimes there are connection/server issues but they usually clear up within hours or a day. You won't die from not playing games. -off line might crap out. But honestly, who uses that? Only two scenarios need off-line mode: places where the internet is flaky and prone to outages OR you are away from home like on a business trip or vacation. If you are part of the former, then the problem isn't Steam, its your shitty internet. If you are the latter then I assume you have better things to do than play games. Go out and have some fun. That or people just like to bitch about a non-issue just to bolster their prejudice against a media distribution platform. They could be paid shills but I digress.
Since using Steam from the day it was released (after the beta AIM looking days), I have only had two or three connection issues with Steam cloud syncing. They were steam server issues that went away within a few hours, no big deal. Contrast that to my last run-in with copy prevention CD malware like securom which randomly crashed, randomly locked up my pc on launch or permanently changed my mouse cursor to a rainbow colored CD until I rebooted (after it randomly crashes). I actually had to download a crack for Crysis just to play the fucking game without securom (aka suck-rom). And of course what if you lose or damage the CD/DVD? How do you play your copy protected need-the-cd-to-make-sure-you-aren't-a-thief game? Screw that.
Who modded this drek up? (feeding the trolls but hey, why not?) Space travel was brought to us by the USA and Russia. The USA was funding Wernher Von Braun, a Nazi scientist the US captured and took back to the US. He was more than happy to get a huge budget and sandbox to play with and the US government were happy as long as it meant they beat the Russians to space. So it was a combination of Europe and the USA.
Television was brought about by the efforts of many countries, including Germany, Hungary, England, Russia, Japan and the USA. Philo Farnsworth, an American developed the first practical TV system (camera and receiver) and started the TV revolution. The first TV station was based in the USA.
"Most basic scientific advancements in chemistry, physics: brought to you by the kind people of Europe and Russia." Russia is part of Europe unless you are talking to a Russian. This one is vague but I assume part of the answer is easy: they were made before the US was even a country or shortly thereafter during the Newton and the scientific revolution from 1600 to 1800 (Source) And even before 1600 we had many people from all over Europe, the Middle-east and Asia laying the groundwork for modern sciences. Or did you forget those last two? Barbaric ignorance indeed.
Okay how about this: Europe created the USA. Therefore all things brought to us by the USA were brought to us by Europe. Hopefully ignorant, butt-hurt Eurotrash trolls such as yourself yourself can now sleep better.
The problem with burying power lines is you can't completely seal them up. You need to be able to get access to them for junction points to connect the feeders to service entries for homes and buildings. Water, dirt and salt are the main enemies of underground service. Then you have contractors digging up wires either via negligence or from reading improperly marked prints. Its a tradeoff between the two really. Overhead lines are easier and cheaper to string up but can be taken out by vehicle crashes, trees (the main enemy of overheads) and ice. Plus they don't look as nice.
On christmas day a family friends block was torn up and full of construction equipment after the manholes went up in flames. His wife had a video of flames shooting up about 2 meters high from the manhole in front of their house. Turns out salt had corroded the splices to the point where there was enough resistance to heat up, arc and start a fire. Smoke also made its way through the conduits into the homes closest to the manholes and they had the be evacuated while the fire department inspected them. This happened at 4AM and they didn't have power until 3PM albeit via temporary service lines.
Or better yet: a flatbed scanner. In a scanner you have a 1 dimensional array of sensors defining a pixel width. You then move the sensor along an axis repeatedly recording that data at regular intervals (distance or time). That motion gomes from a little rubber timing belt around two pulleys, one of which is a step motor, which drags the 1D sensor across the photo or page being scanned. The result is now a 2d array of pixels that is, drum roll please: a picture we can see. If you ever used a scanner you would notice that high resolution scans take much longer. This is because the sensor has to be moved more slowly in order to allow the scanner to properly process the large amount of data from the sensor and send it to the computer without needing large amounts of memory in the scanner. Lets do some math: a hypothetical scanner has a sensor with 300 pixels per inch, 8.5 inches wide (for letter sized paper) and capturing 24 bits of RGB color. You now have (300*8.5*24)/8 = 7650 bytes per sample. And if you sample at 300 evenly spaced points in one inch and you page length is 11 inches (again letter size) then you have 7650*300*11 = 25245000 or 25.25 megs of data for a 300x300 DPI 24 bit color scan.
The same technology is used in slit cameras for industrial automation systems on conveyor lines or other areas of machine vision. The conveyor or linear movement is like the little belt in the flatbed scanner moving the object past the 1D sensor array. The cameras used are slit cameras that contain a 1D pixel array and using an encoder on the conveyor or timing, a computer can determine the speed at which to sample the array and write that line of data to a 2D array and voila, a picture appears. You can treat the image as a stream of pixel lines and write them to a file akin to a scrolling image. The interesting part is the images from that stream isn't a single instant in time (or freeze frame) like a photo from a 2D sensor but a picture of time elapsed from row to row of pixels. Its a picture of elapsed time. Or like an oscilloscope. But you have a 2D array of pixels vs time instead of signal amplitude vs time.
But why a 1D array when we have 2D arrays in cameras already? The answer is twofold: -you can more effectively make a wider pixel array consisting of millions of pixels and remove the need to take a large, data intensive frame. You simply stream the 1D array and buffer it. You somewhat simplify the imaging process as you simply stream the sensor data to disk(or wherever) instead of freeze, write buffer to disk and then get ready to snap again. -pixels next to each other on a 2D sensor experience noise from each other. Ever zoom in on a picture taken with a cheap, high megapixel camera? Its looks like grey, fuzzy/blurry snow. That is the noise. So a 1D array has less noise as its a single row of pixels.
The Google satellite is using the same technology and the benefits are enormous.
And one more tidbit: those persistence of vision displays that uses a 1D array of spinning LED's to create images or text works the opposite of a slit camera. Instead of reading a sensor array, it writes to an array of LED's at regular intervals (say every degree of rotation at a constant speed) to produce an image. It does this so fast your eyes don't notice the array LEDs switching on and off.
Besides the crappy buy a car process there is the dealership service department and parts counter. Those two right there add to the cancer on the auto industry that are dealerships.
You said these were on an oil rig. Might there be a vibration problem? Drilling rig, diesel engines, pumps, compressors etc. all produce vibration. Even with dampening there might be a minute amount of movement that still shook something enough to damage the chips.
"Maybe it's because I'm not in the US, but here this just seems like the right thing to do. It's actually been profitable, too, since some things aren't claimed, so end up being legally mine."
Oh come on. Its not like everyone in the US are a bunch of selfish, thieving jerks. There are people who are low-life jerks and there are people who are good people. I have had my phone returned to me, twice. The first time it was a goy in brooklyn who honestly looked like a gangbanger thug. He didn't ask for a dime and refused the 20 bucks i was giving him as a thankyou. The second time I dropped it in a cab in Atlantic City. I called my phone, he picked up and arranged to ship it back to me. A few days later the phone came in a padded envelope and he didn't ask for any money. I mailed back 40 bucks and a note telling him to treat himself to a nice lunch or whatever.
Of course there are crappy people all over, shockingly, outside of the US as well. I used to go to a bar where the bartender kept every thing he found someone had left behind. He was a piece of shit so that goes hand in hand with being a lousy thief.
dammit `~My `keyboard is on` the fritz so` forgive random` quotes, apostrophes `and tildes. I tried to delete them but `the `backspace key also inserts them! Yay!
First ``they `say this: "half of all Americans say astrology, the study of celestial bodies' purported influence on human behavior and worldly events, is either "very scientific" or "sort of scientific."
`An`d `then` t`hey` say `this: "By contrast, 92 percent of the Chinese public think horoscopes are a bunch of baloney."
So `they used` two `different `words which mean two `different things but used them in `a `comparison as if they were the `same` thing.`Great reporting!
My guess is astrology sounds very close to astronomy in both spelling and pronunciation` so it is leading to confusion. I` read throug`h t`he` report ``but `the `problem is `no` exact sample `question `was given and we don't know how the people were asked. It simply `states that "Since 1979, surveys have `asked `Americans whether they view astrology as being scientific." `I `guess it `must read something `like this: "Do `you think `astrology is` a `science?" with` a few check `boxes under it with "not `at all" "sort of" or "very `scientific".
I `bet if they replaced astrology with horoscopes then we would `see `a completely dif`ferent `dataset`.
This. The bright headlamp race has to stop. I drive on the highway daily for a total of a 50 mile(~80km) commute. I cant tell you the number of times I have been blinded by HID's and other overly bright headlamps. My coworker` even tinted the windows on his car...for night driving! Its that bad.
You want my take? Idiotically bright headlamps are most always found on luxury vehicles. Its a way for the driver to tell everyone on the road "Look at me, I'm rich!" Automakers have no reason to justify such intense light other than entering into a pissing match with each other. You also have the tools who leave the high beams on because, why not they paid for them? And its next to impossible to drive in front of such an asshole with HID's.
My thought: Fuck all of you luxury car makers and you're sick headlamp arms race. No one needs them - PERIOD.
The mistake he made was knowingly publish documents that didn't belong to him and which he knew weren't supposed to be publicly available. If you read the article, the only information the authorities had in the beginning was that someone had documents they should have had and that the IP address used to access them was foreign (Panama, because of his VPN). They then traced that back to him which looked awfully suspicious. They had no idea he simply stumbled upon them through a Google search. So at first they were sure they were hacked, they didn't realize the link was right out in the open. The problem was sorted out but he still did the wrong thing by publishing documents that didn't belong to him. That is why he was fined. To me, its a fit punishment. He meant no harm but he knew he shouldn't have done what he did.
He even admits he did the wrong thing:
First observation: there are a lot of documents freely available here. Second observation: they speak about public health. Third observation: L'ANSES is a public establishment. Question: Is it that this ought to be public? Response: (too) obvious at the time: yes....I did it wrong.
Your answer sounds like it is nothing more than the regurgitated result of the Torvalds - Tenenbaum debate. Basically it was an argument between the creator of Minix (Tenenbaum) and Torvalds who was inspired to write Linux after playing around with Minix. Torvalds outright called Tenenbaum an idiot and since then we have this single argument as some sort of proof that macrokernels are the holy grail of OS design. And this was over 20 years ago. Though in the end the Linux kernel won because it was available and working.
This ancient argument still poisons peoples opinion about kernel topologies and I still believe there is some hope for microkernels in the area of security. Partitioning in a microkernel is a bit more powerful than jails as Root is not needed to access things that would normally lie in kernel space (e.g. drivers.) Each user can be given their own drivers and user-space outside of the scope of root. Root serves as the true root user, NEVER allowing users any access to it.
Performance is therefore a potential issue in microkernel systems. Indeed, the experience of first-generation microkernels such as Mach and ChorusOS showed that systems based on them performed very poorly. However, Jochen Liedtke showed that Mach's performance problems were the result of poor design and implementation, and specifically Mach's excessive page cache footprint. Liedtke demonstrated with his own L4 microkernel that through careful design and implementation, and especially by following the minimality principle, IPC costs could be reduced by more than an order of magnitude compared to Mach. L4's IPC performance is still unbeaten across a range of architectures.
While these results demonstrate that the poor performance of systems based on first-generation microkernels is not representative for second-generation kernels such as L4, this constitutes no proof that microkernel-based systems can be built with good performance. It has been shown that a monolithic Linux server ported to L4 exhibits only a few percent overhead over native Linux.[15] However, such a single-server system exhibits few, if any, of the advantages microkernels are supposed to provide by structuring operating system functionality into separate servers.
A number of commercial multi-server systems exist, in particular the real-time systems QNX and Integrity. No comprehensive comparison of performance relative to monolithic systems has been published for those multiserver systems. Furthermore, performance does not seem to be the overriding concern for those commercial systems, which instead emphasize reliably quick interrupt handling response times (QNX) and simplicity for the sake of robustness. An attempt to build a high-performance multiserver operating system was the IBM Sawmill Linux project.[16] However, this project was never completed.
So there you have it. The old argument doesn't appear to hold any water simply because no one has ever undertaken the task of actually building a modern u-kernel based OS for mass consumption. Torvalds is a bit of an egomaniac and a blowhard (though I am very grateful for his efforts) and I doubt he would ever change his opinion until someone actually wruites a u-kernel OS that gives Linux some serious competition. And I doubt it will ever happen because of a great quote I once read:
"Plan 9 failed simply because it fell short of being a compelling enough improvement on Unix to displace its ancestor. Compared to Plan 9, Unix creaks and clanks and has obvious rust spots, but it gets the job done well enough to hold its position. There is a lesson here for ambitious system architects: the most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing codebase that is just good enough.(emphasis mine) -Eric S. Raymond
This quote is about Plan9, the bell labs "successor" to Unix. It really explains why the sometimes better technology fails to replace existing technology. And it rings true in any area of engineering.
I suppose the millions of people who protested and fought for change throughout history were all acting like spoiled children too. Sure comparing the beta protest to major protests or even wars is exaggerated but in the end its about people fighting for what they perceive as important. Since 1999 when I started reading/. I have learned so much. And a good percentage has come from reading comments that are moderated by the community. And the community is you and me, not some paid shill or robot./. is important to me and many, many others in its current form. So we will fight for it.
And to be frank: If you don't like the protest then shut the fuck up and go read news somewhere else. Until then let us do what we feel is right. Maybe we will win, maybe we will lose. But the point is to fight and keep on fighting until there is no reason to fight anymore. And there is still plenty of fighting left to do.
mmmmmmmm...copy pasta... The new site is not "movin on up". It's more like "movin on down", a step backwards./. aint broke so dont fix it.
Dice, I am protesting the beta site. I will not follow any links from an article and I will not participate in any meaningful discussion.
You speak of a wider audience, who is this wider audience? Oh, I get it. You aren't satisfied with 3+ million registered users and now you need to attract the clueless hordes to drive up advertising revenue./. isnt about the news, its about the comments and its simplicity. We dont need pictures or silly web2.0html5socialmediabatmobile layouts or interfaces. Just gives us the damn text summary, links and the goodness of the comment section.
Fellow/.'ers, join me in this protest. Do not post a comment related to an article or click any links. Instead, post a comment in protest of the beta design. Mods (who wish to participate in the protest): Mod up protest comments comments only. Do not mod down on-topic comments as it isn't fair to the poster.
Slashdot Mirror
Is SQL really that right language for encoding business logic?
Probably not. And especially not if you would like your DB to be portable between various DB's.
Mr. Szoka, Mr. Skorup,
How much did Comcast/Time Warner/Verizon etc. pay you for your lip services?
Ill admit that back in the 90's after I met my aforementioned BBS friend I never paid for any software until around 2003-ish after I grew out of it though I still grabbed a lot of music and movies from BT sites. It was fun to pirate stuff from BBS's and later 0-day warez ftp servers. I remember playing Quake well over a month before it was released in stores. Early leaks were the bomb.
Anyways, today I pay for all of my games and software, even my copy of Windows 7 ultimate (every other PC I have runs Linux). I still buy music but I also trade a lot of music but I don't download it from BT sites, instead I trade with friends. I don't care about movies anymore but I still watch a little TV from time to time.
Hate is one of the strongest emotions we have and unfortunately one that is much easier to evoke. It is the perfect political tool. Plus this country has plenty of hate simmering just below the surface of everyone, waiting to be quickly brought to a boil.
Political parties know this all too well and winning votes is easier when you pander to these jackasses. Just make up some bullshit about how the blacks, jews, feminists, gun haters/lovers, mexicans, gays, brown people, catholics etc. are ruining this country and suddenly you have peoples attention. And then using that attention you whip them into a frenzy by evoking fear and then inciting hatred.
These people are often your closet racists who pretend they accept all people until you tell them your girlfriend is black or you are going to a gay wedding. Then they proceed to flip out about how your kids will be "niglets" (someone actually said this to me) or how the fags are going to ruin the american family. People are shitty, not all but way too many.
They do care but between trying to financially keep their heads above water and fighting off the urge to watch Duck Dynasty they have little time to enact change.
Well that was sarcasm but life is so busy that things like government tyranny fall by the wayside. Our lives are just comfortable and busy enough to allow us to ignore the greater issues at hand. Ask a person today what their concerns are and I bet its going to be things like job security, getting a better job to make more money or keeping their head above water. Government tyranny is just low enough to let us not care. Then throw in the incentive for social problems and you have the foundation for a pacifying system to keep people just above poverty and starving so they do revolt.
Those were major blocks. Within those blocks are plenty of free addresses kicking around thanks to the widespread use of NAT.
What games are those? Console? Older PC games?
Steam and their competitors make it easy to buy, download and play games. Even if you don't want Steam you have few options: buy the actual game on CD or DVD (and have it loaded with buggy malware-like copy prevention and needing the CD/DVD when you want to play) or a publishers distribution platform which works just like Steam. Downloading the game makes so much more sense in the internet age and I would never go back to buying physical media copies.
Steam and steam like service benefits:
- I can pre-order, buy or gift a game instantly from my PC, no running to stores, shipping or waiting for packages.
- Instant download. Buy the game and play it once its downloaded which can easily happen in under an hour.
- NO CD/DVD's needed and no storing of bulky media and packaging. Who wants a shelf full of plastic taking up space and collecting dust?
- Built in communications. My brother and I once played a game of TF2 while casually chatting using the Steam voice chat. It was an amazing thing to be able to casually talk as if he were next to me yet still be able to play the game and use its voice to talk to teammates.
- I can log into another PC using my Steam ID and I instantly gain access to my games. No lugging around any media.
- You can't lose the media. Remember old games and their copy protection? "Turn to page 42 of the manual and enter the second word in the third paragraph" or One that I hated until I got a cracked version from a friend who was a BBS master, Quarinitine. It had a dark red card the size of a sheet of paper with black almost unreadable text (to prevent photocopying). It was a chart you used to look up a set of numbers and then enter the corresponding code to play the game. Those were the devil, loose that card or manual and you were screwed.
disadvantages:
-no refunds. Easy - play the demo, look for recommendations/reviews or don't buy it, I haven't regretted one purchase yet (well maybe crysis 2 but that was because its gameplay sucked compared to the original but on a whole it was pretty fun).
-sometimes there are connection/server issues but they usually clear up within hours or a day. You won't die from not playing games.
-off line might crap out. But honestly, who uses that? Only two scenarios need off-line mode: places where the internet is flaky and prone to outages OR you are away from home like on a business trip or vacation. If you are part of the former, then the problem isn't Steam, its your shitty internet. If you are the latter then I assume you have better things to do than play games. Go out and have some fun. That or people just like to bitch about a non-issue just to bolster their prejudice against a media distribution platform. They could be paid shills but I digress.
Since using Steam from the day it was released (after the beta AIM looking days), I have only had two or three connection issues with Steam cloud syncing. They were steam server issues that went away within a few hours, no big deal. Contrast that to my last run-in with copy prevention CD malware like securom which randomly crashed, randomly locked up my pc on launch or permanently changed my mouse cursor to a rainbow colored CD until I rebooted (after it randomly crashes). I actually had to download a crack for Crysis just to play the fucking game without securom (aka suck-rom). And of course what if you lose or damage the CD/DVD? How do you play your copy protected need-the-cd-to-make-sure-you-aren't-a-thief game? Screw that.
Who modded this drek up? (feeding the trolls but hey, why not?)
Space travel was brought to us by the USA and Russia. The USA was funding Wernher Von Braun, a Nazi scientist the US captured and took back to the US. He was more than happy to get a huge budget and sandbox to play with and the US government were happy as long as it meant they beat the Russians to space. So it was a combination of Europe and the USA.
Television was brought about by the efforts of many countries, including Germany, Hungary, England, Russia, Japan and the USA. Philo Farnsworth, an American developed the first practical TV system (camera and receiver) and started the TV revolution. The first TV station was based in the USA.
"Most basic scientific advancements in chemistry, physics: brought to you by the kind people of Europe and Russia."
Russia is part of Europe unless you are talking to a Russian. This one is vague but I assume part of the answer is easy: they were made before the US was even a country or shortly thereafter during the Newton and the scientific revolution from 1600 to 1800 (Source) And even before 1600 we had many people from all over Europe, the Middle-east and Asia laying the groundwork for modern sciences. Or did you forget those last two? Barbaric ignorance indeed.
Okay how about this: Europe created the USA. Therefore all things brought to us by the USA were brought to us by Europe. Hopefully ignorant, butt-hurt Eurotrash trolls such as yourself yourself can now sleep better.
The problem with burying power lines is you can't completely seal them up. You need to be able to get access to them for junction points to connect the feeders to service entries for homes and buildings. Water, dirt and salt are the main enemies of underground service. Then you have contractors digging up wires either via negligence or from reading improperly marked prints. Its a tradeoff between the two really. Overhead lines are easier and cheaper to string up but can be taken out by vehicle crashes, trees (the main enemy of overheads) and ice. Plus they don't look as nice.
On christmas day a family friends block was torn up and full of construction equipment after the manholes went up in flames. His wife had a video of flames shooting up about 2 meters high from the manhole in front of their house. Turns out salt had corroded the splices to the point where there was enough resistance to heat up, arc and start a fire. Smoke also made its way through the conduits into the homes closest to the manholes and they had the be evacuated while the fire department inspected them. This happened at 4AM and they didn't have power until 3PM albeit via temporary service lines.
Dear Mother Nature,
You win at winter. Now please give us spring and win that one even better.
Or better yet: a flatbed scanner.
In a scanner you have a 1 dimensional array of sensors defining a pixel width. You then move the sensor along an axis repeatedly recording that data at regular intervals (distance or time). That motion gomes from a little rubber timing belt around two pulleys, one of which is a step motor, which drags the 1D sensor across the photo or page being scanned. The result is now a 2d array of pixels that is, drum roll please: a picture we can see. If you ever used a scanner you would notice that high resolution scans take much longer. This is because the sensor has to be moved more slowly in order to allow the scanner to properly process the large amount of data from the sensor and send it to the computer without needing large amounts of memory in the scanner. Lets do some math: a hypothetical scanner has a sensor with 300 pixels per inch, 8.5 inches wide (for letter sized paper) and capturing 24 bits of RGB color. You now have (300*8.5*24)/8 = 7650 bytes per sample. And if you sample at 300 evenly spaced points in one inch and you page length is 11 inches (again letter size) then you have 7650*300*11 = 25245000 or 25.25 megs of data for a 300x300 DPI 24 bit color scan.
The same technology is used in slit cameras for industrial automation systems on conveyor lines or other areas of machine vision. The conveyor or linear movement is like the little belt in the flatbed scanner moving the object past the 1D sensor array. The cameras used are slit cameras that contain a 1D pixel array and using an encoder on the conveyor or timing, a computer can determine the speed at which to sample the array and write that line of data to a 2D array and voila, a picture appears. You can treat the image as a stream of pixel lines and write them to a file akin to a scrolling image. The interesting part is the images from that stream isn't a single instant in time (or freeze frame) like a photo from a 2D sensor but a picture of time elapsed from row to row of pixels. Its a picture of elapsed time. Or like an oscilloscope. But you have a 2D array of pixels vs time instead of signal amplitude vs time.
But why a 1D array when we have 2D arrays in cameras already? The answer is twofold:
-you can more effectively make a wider pixel array consisting of millions of pixels and remove the need to take a large, data intensive frame. You simply stream the 1D array and buffer it. You somewhat simplify the imaging process as you simply stream the sensor data to disk(or wherever) instead of freeze, write buffer to disk and then get ready to snap again.
-pixels next to each other on a 2D sensor experience noise from each other. Ever zoom in on a picture taken with a cheap, high megapixel camera? Its looks like grey, fuzzy/blurry snow. That is the noise. So a 1D array has less noise as its a single row of pixels.
The Google satellite is using the same technology and the benefits are enormous.
And one more tidbit: those persistence of vision displays that uses a 1D array of spinning LED's to create images or text works the opposite of a slit camera. Instead of reading a sensor array, it writes to an array of LED's at regular intervals (say every degree of rotation at a constant speed) to produce an image. It does this so fast your eyes don't notice the array LEDs switching on and off.
Besides the crappy buy a car process there is the dealership service department and parts counter. Those two right there add to the cancer on the auto industry that are dealerships.
You said these were on an oil rig. Might there be a vibration problem? Drilling rig, diesel engines, pumps, compressors etc. all produce vibration. Even with dampening there might be a minute amount of movement that still shook something enough to damage the chips.
"Maybe it's because I'm not in the US, but here this just seems like the right thing to do. It's actually been profitable, too, since some things aren't claimed, so end up being legally mine."
Oh come on. Its not like everyone in the US are a bunch of selfish, thieving jerks. There are people who are low-life jerks and there are people who are good people. I have had my phone returned to me, twice. The first time it was a goy in brooklyn who honestly looked like a gangbanger thug. He didn't ask for a dime and refused the 20 bucks i was giving him as a thankyou. The second time I dropped it in a cab in Atlantic City. I called my phone, he picked up and arranged to ship it back to me. A few days later the phone came in a padded envelope and he didn't ask for any money. I mailed back 40 bucks and a note telling him to treat himself to a nice lunch or whatever.
Of course there are crappy people all over, shockingly, outside of the US as well. I used to go to a bar where the bartender kept every thing he found someone had left behind. He was a piece of shit so that goes hand in hand with being a lousy thief.
dammit `~My `keyboard is on` the fritz so` forgive random` quotes, apostrophes `and tildes. I tried to delete them but `the `backspace key also inserts them! Yay!
First ``they `say this:
"half of all Americans say astrology, the study of celestial bodies' purported influence on human behavior and worldly events, is either "very scientific" or "sort of scientific."
`An`d `then` t`hey` say `this:
"By contrast, 92 percent of the Chinese public think horoscopes are a bunch of baloney."
So `they used` two `different `words which mean two `different things but used them in `a `comparison as if they were the `same` thing.`Great reporting!
My guess is astrology sounds very close to astronomy in both spelling and pronunciation` so it is leading to confusion. I` read throug`h t`he` report ``but `the `problem is `no` exact sample `question `was given and we don't know how the people were asked. It simply `states that "Since 1979, surveys have `asked `Americans whether they view astrology as being scientific." `I `guess it `must read something `like this: "Do `you think `astrology is` a `science?" with` a few check `boxes under it with "not `at all" "sort of" or "very `scientific".
I `bet if they replaced astrology with horoscopes then we would `see `a completely dif`ferent `dataset`.
I'll second that. They are most likely mixing up the two words.
This.
The bright headlamp race has to stop. I drive on the highway daily for a total of a 50 mile(~80km) commute. I cant tell you the number of times I have been blinded by HID's and other overly bright headlamps. My coworker` even tinted the windows on his car...for night driving! Its that bad.
You want my take? Idiotically bright headlamps are most always found on luxury vehicles. Its a way for the driver to tell everyone on the road "Look at me, I'm rich!" Automakers have no reason to justify such intense light other than entering into a pissing match with each other. You also have the tools who leave the high beams on because, why not they paid for them? And its next to impossible to drive in front of such an asshole with HID's.
My thought: Fuck all of you luxury car makers and you're sick headlamp arms race. No one needs them - PERIOD.
The mistake he made was knowingly publish documents that didn't belong to him and which he knew weren't supposed to be publicly available. If you read the article, the only information the authorities had in the beginning was that someone had documents they should have had and that the IP address used to access them was foreign (Panama, because of his VPN). They then traced that back to him which looked awfully suspicious. They had no idea he simply stumbled upon them through a Google search. So at first they were sure they were hacked, they didn't realize the link was right out in the open. The problem was sorted out but he still did the wrong thing by publishing documents that didn't belong to him. That is why he was fined. To me, its a fit punishment. He meant no harm but he knew he shouldn't have done what he did.
He even admits he did the wrong thing:
There. Fixed that for you.
gas - short for gasoline. /ducks (ouch - hits head on desk)
And me without mod points.
All excellent points.
Your answer sounds like it is nothing more than the regurgitated result of the Torvalds - Tenenbaum debate. Basically it was an argument between the creator of Minix (Tenenbaum) and Torvalds who was inspired to write Linux after playing around with Minix. Torvalds outright called Tenenbaum an idiot and since then we have this single argument as some sort of proof that macrokernels are the holy grail of OS design. And this was over 20 years ago. Though in the end the Linux kernel won because it was available and working.
This ancient argument still poisons peoples opinion about kernel topologies and I still believe there is some hope for microkernels in the area of security. Partitioning in a microkernel is a bit more powerful than jails as Root is not needed to access things that would normally lie in kernel space (e.g. drivers.) Each user can be given their own drivers and user-space outside of the scope of root. Root serves as the true root user, NEVER allowing users any access to it.
Here is a good excerpt from the wikipedia article on microkernels (Hurd uses Mach):
So there you have it. The old argument doesn't appear to hold any water simply because no one has ever undertaken the task of actually building a modern u-kernel based OS for mass consumption. Torvalds is a bit of an egomaniac and a blowhard (though I am very grateful for his efforts) and I doubt he would ever change his opinion until someone actually wruites a u-kernel OS that gives Linux some serious competition. And I doubt it will ever happen because of a great quote I once read:
"Plan 9 failed simply because it fell short of being a compelling enough improvement on Unix to displace its ancestor. Compared to Plan 9, Unix creaks and clanks and has obvious rust spots, but it gets the job done well enough to hold its position. There is a lesson here for ambitious system architects: the most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing codebase that is just good enough. (emphasis mine)
-Eric S. Raymond
This quote is about Plan9, the bell labs "successor" to Unix. It really explains why the sometimes better technology fails to replace existing technology. And it rings true in any area of engineering.
"...and planting data on people's systems."
So the NSA is responsible for beta?
I suppose the millions of people who protested and fought for change throughout history were all acting like spoiled children too. Sure comparing the beta protest to major protests or even wars is exaggerated but in the end its about people fighting for what they perceive as important. Since 1999 when I started reading /. I have learned so much. And a good percentage has come from reading comments that are moderated by the community. And the community is you and me, not some paid shill or robot. /. is important to me and many, many others in its current form. So we will fight for it.
And to be frank: If you don't like the protest then shut the fuck up and go read news somewhere else. Until then let us do what we feel is right. Maybe we will win, maybe we will lose. But the point is to fight and keep on fighting until there is no reason to fight anymore. And there is still plenty of fighting left to do.
mmmmmmmm...copy pasta... /. aint broke so dont fix it.
The new site is not "movin on up". It's more like "movin on down", a step backwards.
Dice, I am protesting the beta site. I will not follow any links from an article and I will not participate in any meaningful discussion.
You speak of a wider audience, who is this wider audience? Oh, I get it. You aren't satisfied with 3+ million registered users and now you need to attract the clueless hordes to drive up advertising revenue. /. isnt about the news, its about the comments and its simplicity. We dont need pictures or silly web2.0html5socialmediabatmobile layouts or interfaces. Just gives us the damn text summary, links and the goodness of the comment section.
Fellow /.'ers, join me in this protest. Do not post a comment related to an article or click any links. Instead, post a comment in protest of the beta design. Mods (who wish to participate in the protest): Mod up protest comments comments only. Do not mod down on-topic comments as it isn't fair to the poster.