Darren New wrote:
> Maybe I'm dense, but I'm not sure I understand what a wind storm has to 
> do with whether the TV is broadcast in analog or digital. Was it shaking 
> the tower too much or something? Or did it knock down the digital 
> antenna? Was the problem at the arena or the broadcaster?

I assume the problem was at the antenna since multiple channels were 
effected, though I don't know where they were broadcast from so I can't 
be sure..  I'm also assuming that the storm actually had something to to 
with it, though it would be a surprisingly coincidence if it didn't. 
The wind was very strong (and also full of flying sand!), so I wouldn't 
be too surprised if it was able to jiggle or knock over an antenna.

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And lo on Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:38:56 -0000, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake, saying:

>   Somehow it feels that they went digital before the technology was  
> really
> ready for it. I wonder why is it. Whose interest does it serve (besides
> temporarily boosting digibox sales)?
>

Money, money, money, money, money. Free's up a whole chunk of the spectrum  
for sale to service providers who can use it to enhance our wireless lives.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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And lo on Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:42:48 -0000, Bill Pragnell  
<bil### [at] hotmailcom> did spake, saying:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>> And lo on Sat, 15 Dec 2007 15:11:44 -0000, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg>  
>> did spake, saying:
>>
>>> Orchid XP v7 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>>>> Plausible. But then, why not just manipulate the laws of physics so  
>>>> the
>>>> man goes flying without having to physically kick him? :-D (Or better
>>>> yet, make it so all the oxygen in the room mysteriously vanishes...)
>>>
>>>   It sounds plausible also with the overly long jumps: They just can't
>>> manipulate the system to transport them to the roof of the other  
>>> building.
>>> They have to trigger the physics simulation by making an actual jump,  
>>> and
>>> then just "nudge" it slightly to boost the jump.
>>  Thanks you know that always kind of bugged me, why jump from building  
>> to building when you could just 'tell' the Matrix that the co-ordinates  
>> that represent your position as here are really there. As previously  
>> mentioned the real answer is "Because it looks cooler to film", but as  
>> internal logic goes your position makes sense.
>
> The Matrix is not a film that can be rationally dissected IMO; it's all  
> utter nonsense from beginning to end (why use humans as batteries? even  
> if you do, why bother keeping their minds active with all that  
> complicated VR? leave them vegetative!), albeit very exciting and  
> stylish nonsense. When it comes to the extra abilities exhibited by the  
> 'free' humans in the Matrix, almost all explanations make a degree of  
> sense. What bothers me is how limited the Agents are. If they can dodge  
> bullets and hijack 'slaved' human avatars, it should be impossible to  
> land a punch or even see them coming...

The Agents are using the same 'code' as everyone else so they can only  
tweak it in the same way as the free humans. As for landing a punch, a  
slave human probably wouldn't be able to -

Slave Human accesses punch code
Agent sees code access, accesses tweaked dodge punch code
Slave Human misses as tweaked dodge interprets punch code correctly

Free Human accesses punch code - then tweaks it
Agent sees code access, accesses tweaked dodge punch code
Free Human hits Agent as tweaked dodge fails to interpret tweaked punch  
code correctly

> As for leaping buildings, I like to think that Morpheus and co simply  
> don't know how to tell the Matrix to teleport them. With some effort and  
> practice (and maybe augmenting their avatars prior to connection) they  
> can perform some highly nifty feats sometimes verging on the superhuman,  
> but only Neo with his more 'fundamental' mental connections with the  
> Matrix can do the truly superhuman. And even he can't teleport. Ha! What  
> a loser.
>
> :-)

On the teleportation front you're probably right, it's not a natural  
extension to human abilities so it's 'unsensable' to them. Though that  
would make the initial Smith/Neo merge and wall flexing strange.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Warp wrote:
> Bill Pragnell <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>> The Matrix is not a film that can be rationally dissected IMO; it's all 
>> utter nonsense from beginning to end
> 
>   I disagree. Most of the things have plausible explanations. A few of
> them might be far-fetched retconning, but they are still plausible.

Don't get me wrong; I rather like the Matrix, and I even enjoyed the 
almost universally-reviled sequels. Especially the second one.

My main problem really is that the 'big' explanations are hogwash. 
Mainly, the machines' dependence on humans - power is a ridiculous 
excuse, and even if you accept that there's still no need for the Matrix 
whatsoever. And why would the machines have been dependent on solar 
power? Just a slim excuse to provide a wrecked world as the future setting.

But once you get past those, I guess the rest of it does make a kind of 
sense. Although I dislike cliched plot devices like restricted 
exit/entry points and dying IRL if you get capped in the Matrix. And I 
still think the agents would be more deadly.  They can dodge bullets 
most of the time, but fists, only sometimes. This means most of the 
time, their reflexes are the same as humans, but only sometimes speed up 
to what they would actually be. Why? What's the point? Grrr. :-)

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And lo on Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:07:30 -0000, Bill Pragnell  
<bil### [at] hotmailcom> did spake, saying:

> Warp wrote:
>> Bill Pragnell <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>>> The Matrix is not a film that can be rationally dissected IMO; it's  
>>> all utter nonsense from beginning to end
>>    I disagree. Most of the things have plausible explanations. A few of
>> them might be far-fetched retconning, but they are still plausible.
>
> Don't get me wrong; I rather like the Matrix, and I even enjoyed the  
> almost universally-reviled sequels. Especially the second one.
>
> My main problem really is that the 'big' explanations are hogwash.  
> Mainly, the machines' dependence on humans - power is a ridiculous  
> excuse, and even if you accept that there's still no need for the Matrix  
> whatsoever. And why would the machines have been dependent on solar  
> power? Just a slim excuse to provide a wrecked world as the future  
> setting.

Well yeah, I'm trying to remember the animations they dealt with it in  
more detail.

> But once you get past those, I guess the rest of it does make a kind of  
> sense. Although I dislike cliched plot devices like restricted  
> exit/entry points and dying IRL if you get capped in the Matrix. And I  
> still think the agents would be more deadly.  They can dodge bullets  
> most of the time, but fists, only sometimes. This means most of the  
> time, their reflexes are the same as humans, but only sometimes speed up  
> to what they would actually be. Why? What's the point? Grrr. :-)

Because the fists are tweaked physics code, but the bullets are standard  
physics code and thus trajectories can be predicted. It appears only Neo  
can alter the physics outside of his embodiment.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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And lo on Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:24:39 -0000, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>  
did spake, saying:

> Kevin Wampler wrote:
>> I was in Las Vegas during a wind storm couple of months back, and they  
>> eventually had to switch the televisions in the sports betting area  
>> from digital (some sort of HDTV in this case) to analogue for exactly  
>> this reason.
>
> Maybe I'm dense, but I'm not sure I understand what a wind storm has to  
> do with whether the TV is broadcast in analog or digital. Was it shaking  
> the tower too much or something? Or did it knock down the digital  
> antenna? Was the problem at the arena or the broadcaster?

Depends what was causing the storm, or what the storm was composed of. You  
should see what happens to my picture when there's lightning on my LOS,  
hell even a 'noisey' vehicle going past can cause break-up because of my  
range.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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Bill Pragnell <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> My main problem really is that the 'big' explanations are hogwash. 
> Mainly, the machines' dependence on humans - power is a ridiculous 
> excuse, and even if you accept that there's still no need for the Matrix 
> whatsoever. And why would the machines have been dependent on solar 
> power? Just a slim excuse to provide a wrecked world as the future setting.

  If 200 years ago you would have told someone that today we take sand and
build machines from it which can make calculations millions of times faster
than humans can, you would have been labeled a madman.

  Just because we can't imagine humans as sources of power now doesn't mean
that it wouldn't at least he *plausible* that maybe hundreds of years from
now machines invent a way to actually get enormous amounts of energy from
humans through a process we can't even imagine right now (exactly in the
same way as 200 years ago people couldn't even imagine the process by which
sand could be used to perform billions of calculations per second).

  Far-fetched? Maybe. Plausible? Yes.

> Although I dislike cliched plot devices like restricted 
> exit/entry points and dying IRL if you get capped in the Matrix.

  Well, their brain was directly connected to the Matrix after all.
It's plausible that the wrong feedback could kill the person connected
to it.

  As for the restricted entry points, they were, after all, hacking
themselves into the system in a way that they avoided detection. In other
words, they had to find security holes and backdoors.

> And I 
> still think the agents would be more deadly.  They can dodge bullets 
> most of the time, but fists, only sometimes.

  Different physics in play. It's plausible that an awakened firing a
gun can't control the bullet, which is 100% simulated by the Matrix,
and thus agents have full data about it. However, if they punch with
their fist, they can tamper with the physics routines of the Matrix and
the agents have hard time following. IOW, they can't predict where the
fist is going to be in the next 0.1 seconds while they can predict the
bullet because they have the full physics data related to it at their
disposal.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   Just because we can't imagine humans as sources of power now doesn't mean
> that it wouldn't at least he *plausible* that maybe hundreds of years from
> now machines invent a way to actually get enormous amounts of energy from
> humans through a process we can't even imagine right now (exactly in the
> same way as 200 years ago people couldn't even imagine the process by which
> sand could be used to perform billions of calculations per second).

Hmmm. There's nothing particularly unique about humans. What about 
monkeys? What about bags of protein and water attached to chemical 
drips? What's the difference? And Morpheus says at one point how much 
*heat* energy a human body generates (in a practically obsolete unit). 
Your logic is stretched almost to breaking point by its generosity!

>   Far-fetched? Maybe. Plausible? Yes.

As far fetched -> infinity, plausibility -> 0.

>   Well, their brain was directly connected to the Matrix after all.
> It's plausible that the wrong feedback could kill the person connected
> to it.
Yah. Weak point, I admit. I was criticizing the coughing up blood etc 
more than the actual death.

>   As for the restricted entry points, they were, after all, hacking
> themselves into the system in a way that they avoided detection. In other
> words, they had to find security holes and backdoors.

Yup, fair enough.

>   Different physics in play. It's plausible that an awakened firing a
> gun can't control the bullet, which is 100% simulated by the Matrix,
> and thus agents have full data about it. However, if they punch with
> their fist, they can tamper with the physics routines of the Matrix and
> the agents have hard time following. IOW, they can't predict where the
> fist is going to be in the next 0.1 seconds while they can predict the
> bullet because they have the full physics data related to it at their
> disposal.

But how much faster can an Agent think compared to a human? If it's 
dodging the bullets, then it's not bound by the local physics because 
those physics will prohibit the sort of speed necessary to react and 
move (think whiplash, muscle damage). If it starts to move as the human 
pulls the trigger (in the same way, in theory, humans can also dodge 
bullets) then it has plenty of time to react to the human's slow 
movements. In that case, it has oodles of time to leisurely lean out of 
the way of a plodding fist. It doesn't need to know the physics of the 
flying fist, it can just amble out of the way, fine-tuning its movements 
as it goes.

Um, I've thought about this a bit too much, haven't I? :-)

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Bill Pragnell <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Hmmm. There's nothing particularly unique about humans.

  Except that there are billions of them.

> What about monkeys?

  Extint?

> >   Far-fetched? Maybe. Plausible? Yes.

> As far fetched -> infinity, plausibility -> 0.

  Not really.

> >   Well, their brain was directly connected to the Matrix after all.
> > It's plausible that the wrong feedback could kill the person connected
> > to it.
> Yah. Weak point, I admit. I was criticizing the coughing up blood etc 
> more than the actual death.

  The brain can cause lots of physical symptoms.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> I seem to recall reading that operating frequency of the human brain is
> on the order of 40Hz.
>
> I wonder how long it would take a human brain to render POV-Ray...

In the cyberpunk classic Neuromancer, from which The Matrix drew/stole many of
its concepts and characters, there's this device, the simstim (simulated
stimulation) by which an AI begins talking to the main character.  The simstim
is used to broadcast some person's senses to other people, i.e. it functions
like a TV broadcast where "viewers" actually get into the "actors" shoes and
hear, see, smell and taste the same the "actor" experiences.  The AI uses it to
build a virtual world out of the memories of the character and talk to him, like
a controlled dream.  The thing is:  the resolution is decided by how much memory
is there to provide it.  At one moment the AI asks the character to look at the
palm of his hands, and he barely can make out the fine lines and rugged
details.  Still, it was far more vivid than the Matrix in the book, which was
full of geometric patterns from early 80's computer imagery...

I think the brain is well capable in this respect of rendering through memories.
:)

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