Messages

The capability to remove objects from video in realtime -- coming maybe eventually to a view near you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgTq-AgYlTE

It'd be ideal for removing branding from things.  Or eradicating "blemishes" and "blight".

Next time you see a reporter "on-location", you can ask yourself how many people were really behind the reporter...

I wondered about those, but no I don't think they are RFIDs. They've been there for a really really long time.

AFAIK those are based on some kind of coil. You can see it in certain types of them, they look like a sticker that's made of an 8-sided spiral of metal print, is a coil. Something something magnetic field something electric current something, and the alarm goes bleepy when you pass it. I'm not entirely sure how they disable those coils, though. Maybe they actually short them using a stronger magnetic field that burns part of the circuit.

Fun thing to try is, if you have a big loop of cable, say UTP network cable, and you roll it up in a coil, a fairly normal way of storing large ends of cable, it should trigger the alarm as well.

If I'm thinking about the same thing you are, it might be a big, crude RFID tag.
More likely, I imagine, is that the sticker circuit is a resonant circuit.  It would soak up oscillations near some set frequency -- which is why only the stickers set off the detector.

Of course, my memory of EM devices is fuzzy.

Does this reduce the sentencing disparity as well?  or will they still be trying to put people away for 20 years for a couple ounces?

28 g=1 ounce.
500 g is about a pound.

So, minimum 5 years for an ounce, if that helps answer your question

It's darkly ironic, considering we call our land the breadbasket.  Untold thousands of acres of fertile soil, colossal machines to farm it, even subsidies to keep farmers from overproducing, and we starve our poor.

Days like these make me wish the red menace would hurry the fuck up.

Like Red Menace is any better at providing plenty for all.

Sounds like it also pollutes like a motherfucker: it generates deuterium fluoride--gaseous hydrofluoric acid--when it functions.

I'd have to see a more complete version of his proposal, (can't seem to find the rest of that comic) but from my extremely limited knowledge it sounds like a bad idea.  As I understand it, the basic idea is for people to form abstract sub-nations, which could each then have their own set of laws - the idea being to take the First Nations as a model, but removing the hereditary and geographical requirements.

I'll be the first to admit, the only thing I know about the legal/constitutional status of the First Nations is that they can build casinos on their land regardless of local regulations.  I think.  What other regulations are they exempt from?  Does Federal stuff still apply?  If they wanted to build an under-regulated coal or nuclear plant on their land instead of a casino, could they do it?

Basically, what I don't want to happen is for the Carcinogens Build Character Nation to move in and start screwing up my groundwater because a "nation" composed entirely of industrialists has a different take on the "economic costs of regulation vs. the right for people who aren't filthy rich industrialists to have babies that aren't all mutated and stuff" issue.  Or the Screw Marijuana We Want Free Heroin Nation, or the We Don't Believe in Speed Limits Nation, or any of a dozen different special-interest nations.

This exists, at least
http://option4.seantevis.com/index.htm

Also,
http://athousandnations.com/2010/07/19/hacking-virtual-sovereignty-through-indian-sovereignty/#comments

Good point.  However, I'd rather a kid be fucking around with two occilators than with his airplane glue.

Which reminds me, I need to generate a 1000Hz and a 1023Hz tone for the next song I'm writing. 

With any luck, I can generate some controversy.

"They's puttin' DRUGS into th' muziks!"
   \

Generating tones:
http://andyware.com/abox2/download/index.html

This program is pretty useful/fun in general, especially if you get a copy of virtual audio cable.

yeah. I googled this, and there's nothing that will generate these for you.



makes em more cool then init :P

There is now.
http://www.subblue.com/projects/mandelbulb

i wonder what the constitution would have been like if it had been written by discordians.

Wonder what it would have been like if it hadn't been written by Discordians!

I'd be worried about more than porn if i lived in South Africa.

You might have to worry less if  they had more porn.

I know we have some scientist-types here, so I thought I'd ask:
How important is it that a lab notebook containing raw data be kept with the notebooks containing procedures and documentation?  For example, if you had a study about a novel anti-osteoporosis drug in rats, and you had one notebook detailing all the procedures used, another journal/notebook containing the day-to-day observations of the scientists involved, another notebook containing necropsy reports of the animals, and another notebook containing tons of x-rays of the lab rats, would any of those be valuable without the others?  I'm thinking that just having one or two notebooks from the set would be pretty useless.

Paper trail is supremely important.  Best to keep original notebooks, but also update a master, digital record of procedures and any changes in procedure.

Also, just use one notebook at a time.  Simpler time-record.  Perhaps one diary per active researcher, but only one at a time.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Now that we've taken our civics and science courses, let's move on to math.

Subject:
predicting attacks mathematically using PULSE

Mr. President,

I still say thet my math can help locate and predict when and where an attack would occur agaimst our troops and country. This is the four generation of our civilization. Each time we advanced to a level where we could predict future events. Why is it so hard to acknowledge this now. have we arrived so far that we don't care to recognize new technology when it is knocking at our fromt door? I can prove the mathematical connectiond thaat links any 2 events or occurences before they occur or how they occurred. This method is called P.U.L.S.E. PULSE can be applied to any reoccurng event from earthquakes to missing persons.

Sincerely,
Rev. William J Warr, Jr.
301.401.9998

link

I need to learn more about PULSE.  Srsly.

Didn't find much...
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/pdf/Archive/Alt/alt.fan.letterman/2009-10/msg01958.pdf
http://findlindseybaum.blogspot.com/2009/09/updated-donations-needed-list.html
http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=25&sid=1464593

Hovercraft eels comes from a Monty Python sketch about a Hungarian tourist, where the punchline is that someone has intentionally been publishing very, absurdly incorrect hungarian/english phrasebooks.  To wit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao


Pool on the roof comes from Hackers.

I have to agree, Kai, on both counts. The supervisor probably won't face any repercussions either.

I'm going to assume that incidents like these (and that one with that woman and the douche who took her picture) will keep happening.

Public outcry against the machines? Maybe?

Claims of sexual harassment?