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Comment Re:LOL (Score 1) 555

Kansas City should be the next Silicon Valley. Google Fiber could support it.

Why not? Kansas City is a cheap place to live, reasonably cosmopolitan. You just have to find an area where Google Fiber is going to be installed. Who says you have to be in California to code?/p?

Comment Re:Go to Cabela's or Bass Pro Shop... (Score 1) 629

Here's the type I'm talking about. They have smaller and slicker models, including some that are in-ear sized. The goal of a "hunter's aid" is to block overly loud noises and boost sounds in the range of human speech - which is exactly what 90% of age-related hearing loss needs. Here's one that fits in your ear and costs $75! You could visit a store and try half a dozen different models and very likely find one that will do the job she needs done. There is a small possibility that she really needs the customization that a licensed audiologist only can provide, and really needs a $4000 pair. But it's worth visiting the sporting goods store first and making sure.

Comment Re:Go to Cabela's or Bass Pro Shop... (Score 2) 629

...and buy a pair of "Hunter's ears". If her loss is broadband, and doesn't require special tuning, the bog standard hunter's hearing assistance device will do what she needs for less than $200 an ear. Mead Killion, the audiologist who started Etymotic Research has written about this problem and has compared off-the-shelf "hunter's ears" with leading hearing aids and, in some circumstances, the hunter's ear was better. As well as a tenth the price. Here's an article from the Wall Street Journal about it.

Forgot to log in before I posted this. May as well use my karma for something.

Comment Not the only Spaniard who helped (Score 5, Interesting) 67

Actually, a different Spaniard may have had more to do with breaking the German codes.

Joan Pujol Garcia was a Catalan double agent known to the Germans as Arabel and to the British as Garbo. He became so trusted by the Germans that they gave him their current codes (though not an Enigma machine). He would encrypt his reports, transmit them by radio to Madrid, where they would be re-encrypted and sent on to Berlin. Thus he was able to supply Bletchley with both a current code and the plaintext.

For his services to the Allies, he was awarded an MBE by King George VI.

For his services to the Third Reich, he was awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler.

He was a vital part of Operation Fortitude and convinced the Nazis that the Normandy invasion was a dirversion. He may well have been the greatest bullshit artist who ever lived.

Comment Re:Kinda pointless? (Score 1) 240

I'm in Kansas City, and I can't wait! Gigabit down is wonderful and everything, but the part that sound wonderful is gigabit UP!

I'm currently on Everest/Surewest which sucks less than Time-Warner, but it still sucks. Uploading a 3 minute HD clip to YouTube takes a fricken hour currently.

Comment Re:Potential (Score 1) 77

As the grafting process becomes more seamless, I wonder if it might be put to other uses, like tattoo removal. Or even applying tattoos.

That is exactly what I was thinking, that, in a few years time this is going to be the growth business of all time and all those tattooed kiddies hit 30 and try to get real jobs, instead of working at Starbucks or Kinkos.

Comment Re:Pixel-peeping verus art (Score 1) 103

Not that I know of. Of course anyone on slashdot should be able to whip one up in a couple of minutes... :)

Not me, I can't program for shit.

Doing so might violate Google's terms of service, but there are no copyright issues involved, so the only recall Google would have is to block you from their services. Once you have the image it is yours to do what you please with, though IANAL.

I'd imagine someone will produce a Firefox plug-in. I'd also imagine the art galleries involved are asserting a copyright on the image - even though the works of art themselves are in the public domain.

Comment Re:Pixel-peeping verus art (Score 1) 103

Is there a tool that will zoom into the image to a particular level, capture a segment, pan to the adjacent area, capture that, etc, panning and capturing until it has captured a mosaic of the whole very high resolution image and will stitch the image back together?

Not that I would ever even consider doing anything like that.

Comment Re:C-Band programming (Score 1) 386

There are literally thousands of free to receive signals on C and Ku. You use a C/Ku receiver to move the dish and skew the LNBs. But you use splitters and DiSqe switches and take the signals from the C and Ku LNBs to a new DVB receiver.

Each transponder that used to be dedicated to a single analog standard definition channel now carries dozens of standard definition or high definition MPEG compressed channels. And while some may be encrypted, many more are not. And that includes most sports "back hauls".

One advantage is that these signals are the very best looking MPEG available. Because, in most cases, the HD MPEG signal is going to be decompressed to analog HD, have a logo stuck on it and be recompressed, it has to be very nigh quality to start with. An excellent OTA HD signal can be 19.2 Mb/sec, though usually limited to 12 Mb/sec so they can have a weather channel. On your local cable channel, it might be reduced to a 6 Mb/sec QAM signal. But the DVB signal may be as much as 35 Mb/sec!

Comment Re:Nostalgia (Score 1) 81

Rock star/programmer Todd Rundgren wrote a paint program for this thing called the Utopia Graphics System. It was advertised in the first Apple catalog, but I don't know if it was ever available as a commercial product. Anyone remember it?

Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 727

Seconded. The two audiologists who run Etymotics, the high-end in-ear monitor company, have been pushing to change the laws that do nothing more than protect profits. The Walkers Game Ear II has received excellent reviews and costs less than $200 and has proven very useful for normal, age-related hearing loss. Get one, try it, and if it doesn't work, re-gift it to an older relative or a hunter.

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