http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/24/energy-japan-mof-idUSL4N0AT00Y20130124

"Japan's LNG imports soared 11.2 percent to a record high of 87.31 million tonnes in 2012, driven by an increased need for fuel to generate electricity after the
nuclear sector was hit by the Fukushima crisis, government data showed on Thursday."
"Japan paid a record price for crude at $114.90 per barrel last year, compared with $108.65 in 2011."

This goes to what you were saying. There may be alternative energy sources for some countries, but for some, the only way to go is nuclear. Japan is indeed trying to restart most (they've restarted 2) of their reactors, despite the intense protest against doing so. But their fuel costs have caused them to go from a net exporter country to a net importer country. And now they are screwed.

Even if they're increasing LNG, they're still burning coal and oil. All of these pollute, and the dirtier they are, the more people they kill, more than thousands per year. Nuclear kills no one, probably because we are so paranoid about it.

In honor of the time before xkcd, but in the style of such:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_Earth_to_the_Moon

5. Secretly sell short gold prior to the news of this really getting out.
6. Profit again!

7. Get arrested for benefiting from manipulating markets.
8. Go to jail and write a book.
9. Profit!

Ah, life is ever interesting...

You know, the more you cut the more you can cure. Eventually you can remove every brain disease if you cut out the entire brain. What an idea!

Also, I have this 100% weight loss program people should check out...

As some have stated already on here; with enough angles we can reconstruct the scene and understand it; i.e. thinking a gun was pointed at someone in one angle only to see it was not in another angle.

Well, let's take technology one step further; with multiple angles, can we develop something to auto construct a 3D representation of a scene and play it back? If you have 3 or more cameras it should be fairly accurate...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardik

Hardik
Facebook: "Is this your friend's real name?" Yes.
Facebook: "Is this REALLY your friend's real name?" Yes.
Facebook: "C'mon... " Yes.
Facebook: "Did he have a tough time in school?" Yes.

Civ 2 : England discovers Pottery?

I honestly think we underestimate our ancestors sometimes who should've been just as smart and tenacious as we are. They maybe appear primitive simply because we have the benefit of a long history of discoveries to build on. And where their technology branched off in ways we don't care about, there could be even more secrets to be had...

It could be because the majority of people interested in the stock believe that the deal isn't likely to go through, perhaps? But otherwise yes, I've seen the prices usually go right to the buyout price. If the deal should go through the price should instantly rise to that amount and the Bollinger Bands (which measure standard deviation) would immediately narrow.

"He's dead." I think that's the problem. He's revered so much like a god at Apple, you *can't* go against his last wishes. You'd be branded a traitor or an infidel. You cannot counter a god's last dying wish. The only one who could would be Steve Jobs himself and well, he's dead!

That's the theory at least. Hopefully it won't be like this but I think we're all wondering how much of a corporate cult Apple had turned into.

Hmm... I'm familiar with this having played first and second violin in at least one very good orchestra as well. The idea being that the conductor is there to alter the performance as he sees fit. I remember us being told not to rush, or to play other passages in a certain way. However, the whole reason for doing this was that we were going to put forth a live performance, where we had only one (per performance) chance to play it as close to as directed.

However, what I'm proposing is slightly different. Think of it as instead of a theatrical performance, it's a movie, where people can do as many takes as necessary and you can actually do each take slightly different and the director can put it together differently later. (Or even worse, alter your performance with CG! heh) In this way, you could perform once and screw up, and then submit a better performance (or partial performance) later. It would be a continual iterative process, and thus the Open Source analogy.

I think we sort of already do this though, especially with those boy bands who can't sing; they get auto-tuned until it sounds in tune. You can get better music with less skill. As awful as that sounds... 8) Maybe it's better to say that we can extend the skills of even the best of us and allow people to choose.

By the way, in terms of remote conducting, they did already try this with a Russian conductor in Vancouver conducting an orchestra in Moscow Red Square in real-time during the closing ceremony of the Vancouver Olympics. http://mariinsky.rt.com/news/gergiev-orchestra.html I don't think it worked out just 'okay' but it would be interesting to explore how technology can continue to influence something like classical music.

Anyways, thanks for the discussion from everyone. This has been very fascinating.

So, a system that can do this would also deliver more information than just the tempo. And in addition, there may be further information that's required by the concert master, or other leaders of other sections. Actually, this may require special people who can conduct without hearing the music first. And that may not be an easy thing to do, although it doesn't sound like an unsurmountable challenge.

In any case, whether this turns out as Frankenmusic or good music, we won't know until we try it. And then perhaps fix it.

I've heard enough poor student orchestras or even extremely famous conductors screw up so badly I have a feeling I wouldn't mind listening to something like this.

By composer, you mean the guy who compiles the ensemble, rather than the more traditional meaning of composer, right?

I imagine that over time the performance would continue to get better with people's contributions. So indeed an initial musician can play the entire part, but someone can come in and re-edit his performance. Or cut in parts where other people have played it better. This does feel like Frankenmusic to me when I first think about it though, but I believe the continuous improvement (assuming there's enough interest) should help.

I would think that the composer part is the same too. People would create 'ensembles' from the various tracks and other people would vote or create their own. It's all about crowd-sourced, open and continuous improvement.

I was just thinking about this problem too. And I think the solution is that the 'Conductor' would also be one of the 'pieces' that are required to put together the entire ensemble. This would essentially be the framework with which all the other performances can time themselves to; by watching a video of the conductor at work.

Now this would be a bit harder than real conducting; either the conductor would have to listen to another performance and 'conduct' or conduct while imagining the music. The video doesn't have to be continuous; it can be spliced together too, nor does it even have to have any semblance of prettiness, only that the timing is plainly obvious. In fact the conductor doesn't even need to be human; it could be a bouncing ball, with some words to indicate who and where people should play with what flavor.

The open source analogy would be a framework with which other developers can use, but I think a more appropriate analogy would be the use of an animatic while making an animation. (Or some movies these days also use it.) An animatic consists of the entire movie compiled together but with rough draft or even quickly sketched scenes. The scenes are slowly replaced with the finals until the movie comes together. In this way, the director can already see how the movie will play out, especially with respect to time. (A storyboard gives a good indication to story, but gives no indication with time. That would be like just having the sheet music, for example.)

I was wondering if the Open Source analogy is correct and then I had this idea.

If we're talking about free collaboration, which is what Open Source is supposed to mean (rather than copyright-less or public domain works) then could we have say an entire orchestral piece played one instrument at a time by individual musicians. When you put all the tracks together, excluding weaker performances and always including stronger performances (based on individual tastes, of course) then... isn't this the ideal Open Sourced Music method?

This would probably be a cool idea...

"THE HOBBIT, frankly, did not look cinematic."

Is it because we are conditioned that the low frames per second represent a 'movie?' I remember seeing an FPS one time at 60 fps, not realizing right away that it was supposed to be a FPS and not a movie and my first and immediate response my brain gave me is, "wtf is this?!" It seems different frame rates make me think it's a different 'experience' of sorts, a game, a TV broadcast, etc. (Even say the 60fps black and white from back awhile ago... was it 60fps?) So I think I understand the feeling, even though I tell myself that I prefer the 48 frames per second. Because I then see the action in some other movies, say, Gladiator, at 24 fps and I see just how bad the action is represented.

I really *do* want to see more motion/information on the screen and I'm willing to put myself through reconditioning to do so.
But I'm not sure everyone else will, or even understands it this way.

Has anyone else noticed this effect?