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Texting in Chinese characters on a smartphone; How is this done efficiently? I did a bit of googling and all I was able to find were YouTube videos that seemed to use character recognition where the images were drawn in and then the software figured out what they were. But on the train the other day I saw a woman that was texting in what I think was Chinese, but I suppose that it could have been another language. She had what appeared to have nine keys, each one with a partially drawn Chinese character. She then built each character by hitting one of the nine keys. I was pretty impressed with how fast she was able to do it. Is this the modern way that texting is done in Chinese?
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Aug 20, 2011 23:15
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I was hoping someone who knew a little more about programing than I do could offer their opinion on the feasibility of this idea. Would it be very difficult to take the input from a face tracking webcam (http://goo.gl/go86K) and use the data to control a motorized TV wall mount (http://goo.gl/Q1kxy). I suppose you'd have to mount the camera on the TV and get some kind of remote control transmitter you could attach to the computer. I think the hard part would be getting the facial tracking data since I assume that's all done by the software so to get the data you'd either have to write your own or find open source code for that correct? It's a silly idea, I know but once I started thinking about it I'm now really curious how difficult it would be.
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Aug 21, 2011 01:03
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JackRabbitStorm posted:My google-fu is failing me... whats the website that will help you find items to get up to the 25.00 needed for amazons super saver shipping? http://www.filleritem.com/
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Aug 21, 2011 01:06
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carlcarlson posted:Around here they use clay pipe, which sounds like a terrible idea, but I'm no plumber. Clay will easily outlast PVC or metal piping.
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Aug 21, 2011 01:09
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Septic Knothead posted:Texting in Chinese characters on a smartphone; How is this done efficiently? I did a bit of googling and all I was able to find were YouTube videos that seemed to use character recognition where the images were drawn in and then the software figured out what they were. But on the train the other day I saw a woman that was texting in what I think was Chinese, but I suppose that it could have been another language. She had what appeared to have nine keys, each one with a partially drawn Chinese character. She then built each character by hitting one of the nine keys. I was pretty impressed with how fast she was able to do it. Is this the modern way that texting is done in Chinese? http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/12/world/la-fg-china-characters-20100712 posted:Whether on their computers or texting on phones, most Chinese use a system where they type out the sound of the word in Pinyin, the most commonly used Romanization system — and presto, they are given a choice of characters to use. Try the Chinese thread in SAL, though. They can probably give a more complete answer.
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Aug 21, 2011 01:15
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gwar3k1 posted:I got a copy of "Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered The World" free with a copy of Arcade magazine years ago. I have since lost the book and would like to read it again. Amazon has it for stupid prices, and ebay is much more acceptable but still over priced. Try here.
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Aug 21, 2011 01:16
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FCKGW posted:Clay will easily outlast PVC or metal piping.  ) but clay pipe makers say 100 years and so do PVC pipe makers. I can't find an independent source. (Metal pipe is indeed a much shorter 25 years.)PVC http://www.teppfa.org/pdf/CivilsLifetimeofPVCpipes1.pdf Clay http://www.clayistheway.org/clayarticles/An_Economic_Approach.pdf
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Aug 21, 2011 01:35
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I'm going skiing next weekend and originally my friend was going to drive down to the snow. Now his car is stuffed so I most likely will have to drive. Where we are going we may have to drive on snow/ice to get to our hotel. As someone who has never ever driven on snow and ice what should I know? I think we can get chains just before entering the place we have to be and people there can help us fit it. My car is a corolla, automatic, FWD. We aren't talking metres upon metres of snow here. Its in Australia.
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Aug 21, 2011 03:23
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Fists Up posted:I'm going skiing next weekend and originally my friend was going to drive down to the snow. Now his car is stuffed so I most likely will have to drive. Where we are going we may have to drive on snow/ice to get to our hotel. As someone who has never ever driven on snow and ice what should I know? Allow yourself 3 times the distance to decelerate.
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Aug 21, 2011 03:31
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TequilaJesus posted:Allow yourself 3 times the distance to decelerate. Allow yourself 3 times the distance to do just about anything, really. Snow is slick, ice more so. Be prepared for the possibility that when you turn the wheel, you won't actually start turning for another few moments. Even experienced snow drivers have that moment of "oh shiiiiiiit" the first time they turn the wheel and keep going straight, before the tires grip and the car starts turning. Speaking of which, your instinct is going to be to overturn, because you're turning the wheel and nothing is happening. Be prepared for that; it's very likely that when your tires do grip, you're going to end up turning much more sharply than you think you will, because the wheels are actually turned farther than they need to be. Don't panic or overcorrect; once your tires have gripped they're probably going to stay gripped, and you'll be okay once you figure out what's going on. You should be fine with chains, but just in case, grab a couple of broken-down cardboard boxes and stick them in the boot. These will come in handy if you get stuck. The advantage to cardboard boxes is that they are a) big, b) flat, c) rough, and d) disposable. You want them to be big because they'll get more traction against the snow that way; you want them to be flat so that your car doesn't have to work to get onto them; you want them to be rough because they'll provide more traction; and you want them to be disposable because driving a wet, snowy car tire onto a cardboard box is going to gently caress the box up. If you get stuck, you're stuck one of two ways: either your drive wheels are stuck, or your non-drive wheels are stuck. If your drive wheels are stuck, stick the cardboard boxes under the drive wheels, opposite the direction you're trying to go. (If you're driving forward to get out, place the boxes behind the wheels.) Shove them under the wheels as far as you can get them, and then (assuming you're trying to go forward) back onto the boxes as gingerly as you can. The boxes will provide traction. You're going backwards because the objective of the boxes isn't to get you out directly; it's to give you momentum for when you're going forward. Once you're on the boxes, use your shoes to dig away the snow in front of the drive-wheel tires, and then drive forward. You should have enough momentum at this point to get out, unless you're in really deep snow, in which case you're going to have to keep doing this until you get out or until you get a snow shovel. If your non-drive wheels are stuck, stick the boxes under the non-drive wheels in the direction you're trying to go. (If you're driving backward to get out, place the boxes behind the wheels.) The objective this time is to flatten the area between the non-drive wheels and the place you want the car to go, so that the drive wheels don't have to work so much. Either way, when you're trying to get unstuck, keep the turn wheels straight. Turning the wheels may seem like it's what you want to do to get the car facing the direction you need it to be, but if your wheels are turned it'll take extra force (from the engine and your friends who are, I dearly hope, pushing the drat car) to get the car going. (Some of the force they're putting into making the car go forward will be translated into force making the car turn, so you'll have less forward force on the car.) All that said: if you encounter an area where you have to drive on snow, take a break for 15 minutes and tool around a snowy parking lot. That will do more to get you comfortable and confident driving in snow than any amount of internet explanation will.
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Aug 21, 2011 03:59
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I have a science question. Say there's a suicidal maniac trillionaire who wants to design and build a solar-powered spacecraft and launch it directly at the sun. Could he construct the vessel to make it go faster the closer it got to the sun? Like, the vehicle is able to draw more power from the sun and it makes it go faster without loving it up. I guess he doesn't really care if it fucks it up because he wants to die anyways but like, it needs to get as close to the sun as possible, or just go really fast. Thank you.
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Aug 21, 2011 04:30
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Is there a thread about Americorps? I found one on the Peacecorps, but they require a college degree. I tried a google search and it only produced threads that offhandedly mention americorps, but not one about it.
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Aug 21, 2011 04:31
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GET BUCK posted:I have a science question. Say there's a suicidal maniac trillionaire who wants to design and build a solar-powered spacecraft and launch it directly at the sun. Could he construct the vessel to make it go faster the closer it got to the sun? Like, the vehicle is able to draw more power from the sun and it makes it go faster without loving it up. I guess he doesn't really care if it fucks it up because he wants to die anyways but like, it needs to get as close to the sun as possible, or just go really fast. Thank you. You don't need the solar power, actually. If you stick a concrete cube in space and heave it at the sun, assuming that you've got enough velocity to escape Earth, gravity alone will accelerate you toward the sun. If you do have solar power, it's even easier: remember that there's no air resistance in space, so if an object is traveling at X speed, it's going to continue traveling at X speed until it encounters a force that changes its speed, either by speeding it up (something pushes on the back) or slowing it down (something pushes on the front). So if you're gathering solar power and using it to power an engine, the engine will continue to accelerate the vehicle as long as it's receiving power. Assuming I'm remembering my physics right, that's in addition to the acceleration due to gravity. So basically, all your suicidal trillionaire needs to do is seal himself in a box, get the box into orbit, and have someone give it a good shove toward the sun, and he'll continue accelerating toward it until the he and the box are destroyed by the sun. If he's got solar power, he'll accelerate even faster. No need for special technology; it's built right into the universe.
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Aug 21, 2011 04:49
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Besesoth posted:
I can't find an online excerpt from the book that goes fairly in-depth into the issue, but here's an interesting and relevant thread. To answer GET BUCK's question: it'd be very hard. You need to get the rocket up to something like 30km/s to get it into the sun. The fastest rocket was (is?) 16 km/s and that's using slingshotting around other planets. I guess if your engine held up and you kept chugging at max speed (in reverse of orbit direction, of course) you'd get there eventually ... hundreds of years maybe? It depends on the weight of your spaceship and how much acceleration your engine can provide. 30km/s is fast: 67,000 mph. 90 times the speed of sound. (I guess you probably mean photon-collector/emitter engine, since I don't know how a traditional solar-panel engine can cause thrust in space, and if you were carrying fuel to emit gas to acceleration you run into the problem that you need more fuel, which increases the ships mass, which increases the fuel needed, etc. round and round.) edit: to avoid suffering a near-instantly fatal g-force your suicidal eccentric could maintain acceleration at maybe 5g (in a special suit) or 49 m/s/s so theoretically he could hit the Sun in a minimum of ~10 minutes without dying first. But he'd probably be blacked out. Also no solar-powered (or other) engine could sustain such acceleration. It'd be cheaper, easier, and probably pretty much the same experience to just jump into a volcano  randyest fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Aug 21, 2011 |
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Aug 21, 2011 05:21
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Xandu posted:Try the Chinese thread in SAL, though. They can probably give a more complete answer. I asked that a while back in there. The answer was most people use pinyin, but there do exist Wubi capable phones.
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Aug 21, 2011 07:08
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Fig Newton posted:Try here. Brilliant! I can buy a book for the price of a book! Thanks.
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Aug 21, 2011 10:33
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randyest posted:That'd be true if the Earth and Sun were not moving, or were not moving relative to one another. That's what I get for talking about physics when I'm exhausted. 
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Aug 21, 2011 15:18
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Fists Up posted:I'm going skiing next weekend and originally my friend was going to drive down to the snow. Now his car is stuffed so I most likely will have to drive. Where we are going we may have to drive on snow/ice to get to our hotel. As someone who has never ever driven on snow and ice what should I know? Check the rules before you pay for chains; in some places here in the U.S., it's unlawful to install chains before or after certain dates, or even at all, due to the damage they do to roads. But if everybody's doing chains where you're going--if it's "the thing to do" on that particular road to that particular destination--then profit by others' wisdom and go for it, they are extremely helpful, especially if you've no experience on driving on ice and snow. Re: the actual driving. Driving in loose, deep snow has its own set of rules; the following will only address driving on plowed, snowpacked, slick roads. [If you're going to be forging upwards into the mountains through a howling blizzard, then the First Rule of driving in deep loose snow is: If it's deeper than halfway up your car tire, and if you're driving a simple family sedan...don't. Period. You WILL get stuck. Pack a snow shovel, some cardboard as mentioned above, and a blanket, and a candle and some matches, if this is the case.] Anyway. If you're just going to be driving on "slick", then all you need to know is the same thing that people in places like Dallas, Texas, and Washington, D.C. need to know every time Mother Nature drops an entire inch of snow on them, leading to complete traffic paralysis caused by people who don't know how to drive on snow, which is: Slow Down. That's all, really. Just change your normal driving habits to "Grandpa" and you'll be fine. Visualize yourself as a tiny head wearing an ancient fedora or a golf cap, just barely visible above the steering wheel, hands firmly clutched at 10 and 2. It means drive with slow deliberation. It means don't slam on the brakes, don't gun the engine to accelerate fast away from a stop sign. Make your turns in slo-mo the way the flight attendant in "2001: A Space Odyssey" makes her turns. And the most important thing is: always steer INTO a skid. This can be counterintuitive, but as a lifelong resident of U.S. Places Where It Snows A Lot In Winter, I'm here to tell you that it is a True Thing. If you're driving down the road, and the car suddenly starts to skid sideways into the oncoming traffic, then you turn the wheel into the skid. Yes. Steer into the skid. Youtube tutorials. Short one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJWng3CmGqY Medium one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXEh_-a-p9o Long one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BitLl5Bnxw One final bit of hard-won wisdom: Look for the crunchy places to drive on. This means that if you have a choice of where to put your car's wheels, put them on crunchy, rough, textured, tire-tracked roadway rather than slick, icy, plowed-out-and-now-hard-packed-and-glossy-snow roadway. When you pull up to a stop sign or stop light, or a place to pull out into traffic, avoid the shiny packed-down ruts where everyone else sits and waits, because when it's your turn to go, your wheels will simply spin helplessly. Look for the crunchy spots as you pull up and put your wheels there, even if it means you're a tad out of the path (although not projecting out into the other lane's right-of-way, of course). And on snowy entrance ramps onto a highway, you can sometimes profitably use part of the shoulder to run one side of your wheels on; you aren't going to be able to accelerate to anything approaching normal highway speeds anyway, you're not going to be able to merge with a zoom, it's more like a slow trundle, so use the crunchy part of the shoulder if the main pathway up the ramp is glossy and slick. Exit ramps, ditto. ETA: Note that chains are not magic charms that will stick your car to the roadway and enable you to drive at your normal breakneck Formula 1 speeds. You still need to slow down like Grandpa and drive very conservatively. Fig Newton fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Aug 21, 2011 |
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Aug 21, 2011 15:27
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Septic Knothead posted:Texting in Chinese characters on a smartphone; How is this done efficiently? kimbo305 posted:I asked that a while back in there. The answer was most people use pinyin, but there do exist Wubi capable phones.
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Aug 21, 2011 15:36
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kimbo305 posted:I asked that a while back in there. The answer was most people use pinyin, but there do exist Wubi capable phones.
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Aug 21, 2011 16:18
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My bank is one of the many switching over to charging me a monthly fee for the privilege of using my own money so I'm looking to jump ship. I need a bank with free checking including debit card usage and no minimum balance to not incur "service fees" (I never dip below $200 but being charged $8 a month for not having $500 in my account every day at all times is infuriating to me). *The catch* is I need to be able to do cash deposits (so ING, Ally, and USAA are out). My employer lets us cash out payroll check in-store and I've been told by all my fellow employees to always do so because the checks have bounced in the past. Are there any banks that can do this? 
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Aug 21, 2011 16:40
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Bobert51 posted:I was hoping someone who knew a little more about programing than I do could offer their opinion on the feasibility of this idea. Assuming the Logitech camera has an known API (in short, that's the way you access somebody else code from your own) you wouldn't need to write the face recognition software. I doubt the TV mount you mention has an API (as its remote control based), so you would need some knowledge of electronics to figure out how to interface it from a computer. In short, if you have the proper skills it would be very much doable. However, given you are asking about it, I don't think that's the case.
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Aug 21, 2011 18:56
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13Pandora13 posted:My bank is one of the many switching over to charging me a monthly fee for the privilege of using my own money so I'm looking to jump ship. I need a bank with free checking including debit card usage and no minimum balance to not incur "service fees" (I never dip below $200 but being charged $8 a month for not having $500 in my account every day at all times is infuriating to me). Check out your local banks. The smaller banks in my area all in all have better accounts than national chains. For instance, if you're in central illinois, United Community Bank is up your alley. Local banks mean you won't have as many bank ATMs if you travel, but a good local bank coupled with a wider spread bank like UCAA that refunds ATM fees might be the solution to that (assuming you travel a lot and use ATMs rather than "cash back") But yeah, try local banks.
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Aug 21, 2011 18:56
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Is it relatively normal for banks to charge a fee for closing personal accounts? I'm trying to get my gf to switch banks since they're absolutely hosing her with monthly fees on a plain old chequing/debit account, but the tellers are telling her there's a deactivation fee in the range of 20-40 bucks (I forget exactly). There have been so many outrageous issues with this bank (RBC) that I need to know if this is the status quo and I'm just out of the loop for banking (I've never had to pay any fees unless I used a third party ATM for years now with my couple other banks) Pweller fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Aug 21, 2011 |
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Aug 21, 2011 19:40
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Pweller posted:Is it relatively normal for banks to charge a fee for closing personal accounts? I'm trying to get my gf to switch banks since they're absolutely hosing her with monthly fees on a plain old chequing/debit account, but the tellers are telling her there's a deactivation fee in the range of 20-40 bucks (I forget exactly). I don't claim any kind of overview of banking practices, but my guess would be that a bank that will charge you fees on a plain vanilla checking/debit account will also charge you a deactivation fee. It's pure profit, see. I'd go ahead and pay the fee and dump them, and get yourself some free checking. Banks everywhere offer it, it's no biggie. Your GF has fallen into evil hands, I'm thinkin'.
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Aug 21, 2011 20:54
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Pweller posted:Is it relatively normal for banks to charge a fee for closing personal accounts? I'm trying to get my gf to switch banks since they're absolutely hosing her with monthly fees on a plain old chequing/debit account, but the tellers are telling her there's a deactivation fee in the range of 20-40 bucks (I forget exactly). Effective June 1, 2011... Account closing upon request: Free if closed in person at any RBC branch, $20 otherwise
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Aug 21, 2011 20:58
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Huntersoninski posted:But yeah, try local banks. Try local credit unions as well. In practice anything small and local, bank or credit union, is likely to be a good bet. It's the OmniCorp monstrosities that tend to put the screws to you.
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Aug 21, 2011 21:22
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WillieWestwood posted:Effective June 1, 2011... Nice, thanks for pointing that out. At least that's one minor upside to having let this drag out a couple months longer than it should have.
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Aug 21, 2011 22:06
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Hey, could anyone identify this spider. I found it while vacationing in Santa Fe, and couldn't quite determine what it was.
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Aug 22, 2011 02:02
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take_it_slow posted:Hey, could anyone identify this spider. I found it while vacationing in Santa Fe, and couldn't quite determine what it was. Looks like a Carlsbad Green, but it's tough to tell without an overhead shot.
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Aug 22, 2011 02:17
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I don't think so, it was only about an inch and a half, and the abdomen and thorax were about equal size and ovoidal in shape. Though perhaps it was a juvenile, which would explain the sparse hairs?
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Aug 22, 2011 03:04
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 Can someone identify this song? It sounds very Vangelis-ey, straight from Blade Runner but I've never heard it on any of the soundtracks.
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Aug 22, 2011 03:45
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:
According to SoundHound on my phone, it's Opening Titles [from Mutiny on the Bounty] by Vangelis.
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Aug 22, 2011 04:56
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kimbo305 posted:According to SoundHound on my phone, it's Opening Titles [from Mutiny on the Bounty] by Vangelis. Close, it's the closing titles from Mutiny on the Bounty (I've got a compilation of Vangelis stuff).
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Aug 22, 2011 05:02
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I need help in seeing a doctor with no insurance for my girlfriend. She has no health insurance - her parents do not have any either. She is own her own and has no job to pay for a doctor. She constantly has stomach pains, her jaw hurts a lot, and various other health issues. She is on birth control and I'm not sure if that affects her health conditions. I want to take her to a doctor that will do a quality full check up on her that won't put me in debt unless I have to. What can I do? I have no understanding of the process about how to get her to a doctor so any help is appreciated. Thanks.
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Aug 22, 2011 06:51
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0089, nobody can even begin to answer that unless they know which geopolitical boundaries you reside within.
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Aug 22, 2011 06:58
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hooah posted:Close, it's the closing titles from Mutiny on the Bounty (I've got a compilation of Vangelis stuff). Thanks to both of you guys, I've been trying to figure this out for years. I am not a clever man.
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Aug 22, 2011 12:25
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Dr. Video Games 0089 posted:I need help in seeing a doctor with no insurance for my girlfriend. As noted above by Eyeball, we need to know where you live. Also, we need to know what you define as "won't put me in debt". How much are you willing and able to pay for a full workup for her? Full workups generally include a battery of lab tests, and possibly also x-rays, MRIs, and CAT scans, which are not cheap. Generally speaking, in the U.S., hospital emergency rooms function as court-of-last-resort health care for the indigent, but they will not address vague health issues such as "stomach pains", "jaw hurts", and "miscellaneous". They will address fevers, wounds, and broken bones, on a short-term basis only, as in "patch it up and send it back out the door". In some U.S. locations, hospitals run outpatient clinics that charge a nominal fee (mine here in Central Illinois charge ~$60 per visit). So this is why we need to know where you are.
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Aug 22, 2011 12:56
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So I think someone is actively trying to steal my identity. I received a call on Friday night from a Skype number - they were trying to get personal information from me. They knew my address, name, phone number, and Gamertag (?) - anyways, I didn't give them any personal information. Lo and behold last night I received a text message at 5AM from someone trying to recover my Gmail password. I also tried to log on to USAA to pay an insurance bill only to find that account was restricted. That may have been because I screwed up the password once, but I don't think it is that sensitive. Anyways, how should I go about handling this? Has anyone run into something similar?
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Aug 22, 2011 14:04
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My roommate went on a trip last week and after getting back last night, stayed at a friend's house. Found out that the friend has cockroaches.... BAD. What should we do with her stuff (suitcase of clothes mostly) to make sure we aren't going to be having our own problem in a couple months? This is in Pennsylvania, and I don't know specifically what kind they are.
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Aug 22, 2011 14:23
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GOONS ARE MEAN