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Comment Infrared (Score 3, Insightful) 36

Sounds like illuminating the background with infrared (840nm, 940nm) would work, and creating cameras that can record a fourth alpha channel (infrared).

This basically solves all the problems with this technology, it even creates a channel that can be used to realistically light the actors from behind by replacing the infrared with the intended colors. It's kind of like the real life version of an alpha channel.

If it's a problem that the recording environment is too dark as a result of this, white LEDs can be used to augment the infrared LEDs. Alpha is unaffected because it's a separate channel. The white light can be cut out using the alpha channel as guidance, similar to how this works for virtual production tech.

The only potential problem is reflectivity of certain substances/fabrics which may be slightly different for infrared compared to visible light, but this can be compensated both pre-shooting and in post production.

Another potential problem is contamination with other IR sources like iPhone Pro VCSEL LIDAR which fires @ 940nm while taking pictures, but this can be mitigated in post for sure.

Comment Re:Nope (Score 1) 194

You underestimate some regimes.

The West is very individualistic, but other nations tend to be more about the needs of the country or the many, even it comes at the cost of a portion of its own citizens.

And yes, a vaccine will definitely not be perfect, but if a virus kills 70% of the population and just 5% of a vaccinated population (despite illness), some regimes will take that chance. The bigger chance may be the engineering process though; good luck testing this with sufficient amounts of people without accidentally spreading the virus.

The biggest reason NOT to do this will be the fact that global supply chain issues will also impact the country itself. Reliance on each other is something that keeps us from destroying each other.

Also the fact that nations WILL impose trade bans is a continuing reason to not do this. As soon as the world finds out who engineered a virus (and with the vaccines, they will) the repercussions for that nation will be huge.

Realistically I don't see any of this happening.

Comment Re:Covered by ARS already (Score 1) 89

Not sure what frequency bands exactly, but the c-band is already being used by T-Mobile on former Sprint frequencies in large parts of the US. And like you said the rest of the world including Canada also uses c-band frequencies for 4G and 5G. So not sure what these people are panicking about? Are we missing something?

Comment Re:Par for the course (Score 1) 83

It could be that Delta used actual designs and clearly copied UX components that saved them a ton of time compared to when a non-initiated team would've created the same app. So he might have saved them a ton of R&D time.

So lots of talk and discussion here, but we just don't know the full story here. A billion seems steep though, but paying him for actual time spent seems fair.

Comment WHO does have a weird relationship with China (Score 4, Informative) 307

A Dutch late night snow made an item about the WHO's relationship with China. It's online here with English subtitles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

It's actually pretty enjoyable to watch and it is illuminating. Long story short: something fishy does seem to be going on. Of course Trump as always overreacts and uses this story to distract from how weakly he's handled COVID-19 in the US and to distract from his absence of any leadership or taking any responsibility. But there is something there that should be looked at regardless of this.

Just shouting, terminating a relationship doesn't help, maybe the next president can take care of this, if no other country steps up before then.

Comment Good time to also stop subsidizing fossil fuels? (Score 2) 177

According to the IMF, governments around the world subsidize(!) the oil industry with a whopping $5.7 trillion. Some people think green power is very much subsidized, and in some cases it is. The amount with which fossil fuels are subsidized are pretty extreme though and green subsidies pale in comparison.

Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/sc...

Comment Re:Lazyness (Score 1) 88

I'm convinced that US card companies have decided not to assign PINs to credit cards because it would lower customer spend more than it would lower the $ amount of fraud.

Another problem may be that if VISA decides to do this, MC and Amex might not follow, and people would start preferring to use MC/Amex cards...

Comment Circular Polarization Spectography (Score 1) 14

Wasn't circular polarization spectroscopy the best indicator for detecting life? I just Googled this because I remembered it, and space.com just wrote an article about it:
https://www.space.com/corkscre...

So how does this compare to the fingerprinting technique, when it comes to efficiently scanning all nearby planets/moons?

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