I'm a computer science/computer engineering student, and I've come up with an idea for my senior project in a couple years. In chapel every day, someone goes up into the rafters, stands on a walkway and takes pictures of the seats. Theoretically, someone looks at these pictures, determines which seats are empty and who they belong to, and thereby takes attendance. It doesn't seem to happen all that often, but such is the theory.
I want to automate it. The idea is to place a digital camera or cameras along this walkway. At certain times of day set by a piece of software on the network, the camera(s) will take pictures from certain positions and angles. These pictures will be sent over the network to a script which will analyze the pictures, determine which seats are empty, and update the online database of absences.
Of course, I'd like to find a pre-existing camera that has the capability to be controlled and take high-res snapshots over a network, then send those pictures back. However, my funding is not limitless, and nothing even remotely close at ANY price has yet been seen. So first question: anyone know if such a thing exists?
Failing that, I need to have the engineering mechanics guys build a mounting for a pre-existing camera. The most likely design for each camera is thus: the camera will be mounted on a motorized squveling assembly. Both the mounting and the camera will be controlled by a small computer, which will require a way to interface with the camera and the network. That computer will store instructions passed to it over the network, and execute them at the programmed times, pointing and shooting. The camera will need to be controllable over its USB or wireless interface, and the computer will need a USB host interface and a network connection, wired or wireless. My best guess right now is a Zaurus SL-5500 with a USB host CF adaptor and a hub to plug the wifi adaptor and camera into. However, most of that is just because those are pre-existing parts that can be modified relatively easily.
What I'd like to know is whether any better pre-existing parts exist that I can't find, OR whether there's a setup that I can build that would work better than this setup. Any other suggestions regarding any aspect of the project are also welcome. No sarcasm about the idea of taking attendance in chapel, though, please. We get enough of that at shcool already. Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
You are the Devil.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
What did I say about that?
Look, they're gonna take attendance anyway, I may as well save time for the people who are wasting hours doing it now. Besides, if you have any better ideas for a senior group project for EECE and EMCH majors that involves enough programming to count for a CS project, please, let me know. Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
Valerie the Virtual Girlfriend. You will need to program her personality and build the USB penis port. Fun for all except during the trial runs.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"Look, they're gonna take attendance anyway, I may as well save time for the people who are wasting hours doing it now."
Isn't that analogous to (if less severe than) saying "people are going to kill people anyway, so I may as well make more efficient weapons"?
Seriously, you want to automate the process of calculating who's most likely to suffer eternal damnation for lack of regulated worship?
And this doesn't violate your request, as I'm not actually being sarcastic.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
How about a program and cameras set up to scan the faces of those entering, logging them, and creating an attendance report.
This would minumized the chance of falling from said rafter while mounting the cameras there....
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
No, but are you talking about Megapixel resolution? And your program would be a HUGE pain in the ass. Training the program to reconize the various shapes, colors, positions and perspectives of humans would be, well, really freakin' hard. That's AI stuff. Do you do AI stuff? AI stuff is cool. Where's Catman at? And if it's distinct seats it's maybe easier, but if it's pews, there again you'd likely need a miracle. You'd probably get more consistent and accurate results with a door beam leg counter. Which would probably defeat the purpose of the exercise.
As for equipment there is the above mentioned web-cam which seems an obvious choice. I know that the Phillips ToUCam is a popular hobbyist camera frequently modified by amateur astrophotographers for taking long exposures and various other custom software hacks. The X-10 system has some nice wireless cams, some with infra-red, wide angle, color, b&W, some with positionable mounts, and optional video to web capture hardware/software. But none of that's going to give you megapixels. You could spend $200,000 and get a nice HD Camera for this, but if you did I'd be forced to come down there and punch you in the stomach several times. Which leaves us with digital still cameras. My crappy 2MP digital camera does have the capacity to snap pictures at user definable intervals, but lacks the ability to download these until you're finished which would require regular pulling of the card/connecting the cable. The Nikons tend to be popular with the DigiCam Astrophotgraphy crowd.
It's an interesting idea, but it would be profoundly difficult to implement. There was that MIT thing where the robot watched cars in the parking lot. This isn't that but it's interesting. This is probably the guy to talk to.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Why not just put a photoelectric beam across the doorway? Every time that trips, one more person has entered.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Because God can't damn anonymous sinners? B)
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Seriously, you want to automate the process of calculating who's most likely to suffer eternal damnation for lack of regulated worship?
Um... this is a CLASS. You fail to attend class a certain number of times, you fail the class. Same as every other class on campus, just... vastly larger.
Training the program to reconize the various shapes, colors, positions and perspectives of humans would be, well, really freakin' hard
Don't have to. Everyone has an assigned seat, and all seats are purple. If there's a big field of purple where a person should be, that seat is empty, and that person is absent.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
So. Not to discourage you or anything, but 3D image recognition is still only in its infancy - the good folks over in AI #101 have basically been struggling with this (well, minus the attendance issue) problem for twenty years and even they, in all their combined wisdom, haven't cracked the nut yet. I'd start praying for some divine inspiration if I were you. B)
Anyway, what you're proposing would involve enough programming for ten CS projects. To mathematically describe a human face (which would be your first order of business) you'd have to write dedicated software that could convert a bunch of digicam inputs of your fellow worshipper to a wireframe surface and then break up that surface into smaller chunks of triangles (assuming you don't want to invest in a supercomputer to run your program) and then do a vertex-by-vertex comparison with a mesh already in your church's database (to name one popular technique) and correct for mesh deformation (something as simple as a facial expression can throw off your algorithms and fuck up the wrong person's afterlife) and take into account perspective distortions and a host of other pesky optical effects that could spell someone's doom if not filtered out - in short, the level of complexity would be way over your head alone.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Hmm... on the other hand, if your script only has to differentiate between empty and occupied seats because everyone's seat is predetermined anyway, it's certainly doable.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Hope you don't have fat people that wear purple, they would be absent while sitting there.
Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
Try a PLC-driven servo motor for the camara mount. Allen-Bradley (sp?) makes a good one.
Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
How stupid of me.
I should have rememberd!
This technology already exists. Companies use it on injection-molding presses all the time.
If a part fails to drop from the mold, and the mold closes major damage can ocure. Some companies use a system that photographs the empty mold and each cycle compares the picture of the empty mold to the image that the camara sees. It then flashes an alarm and prevents the mold from closing. Some of the advanced ones will tell you which cavity/how many parts didn't drop.
I don't have one here, but look around on the net.
Omega, PM me and I'll help you track this down.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
quote:Originally posted by Omega: Um... this is a CLASS. You fail to attend class a certain number of times, you fail the class. Same as every other class on campus, just... vastly larger.
Wow. Marks based on attendance. That takes me back to oh....grade school.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Church is a class there? Sounds like an easy A...
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Just don't fail, or you'll get F's for life.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Well, one could argue that if you don't attend enough of the lectures you'll fail the course. Simply because you'll have no idea what's going on when writing the exam. Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Church is a class there? Sounds like an easy A...
Yeah, it's supposedly part of the original charter of the school. (Mind you, nobody seems to know where one might find a copy of that, but that's a different story.) Every student has to take a Bible class and go to chapel every day. MWF we have a twenty minute chapel and a standard fifty minute class of our choosing that generally counts for two credit-hours. Right now I'm in "Biblical Ethics", which is a requirement for my majors, and next semeter is "Chrisitian Evidences". TR we have University Bible, which is a class AND chapel, and lasts half an hour. There are actually questions on all the Bible finals from the UB lectures, but even the faculty teaching the lectures doesn't take that seriously. One guy put a misplaced "Z" in every correct answer.
Well, one could argue that if you don't attend enough of the lectures you'll fail the course. Simply because you'll have no idea what's going on when writing the exam.
Such is the general principle. From what I gather, the official explanation is that the school feels some obligation to your parents to ensure that you get the education they're paying for. That's the same reason you're required to talk to your academic advisor every semester before registering for the next, and why you're required to declare a major after about two years. They want some record that, yes, we've been trying to help this guy. They can't make you learn, they can't make you graduate, but they can certainly make sure nobody thinks it's the school's fault in any way. Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
So.. you're doing Christian Computer Science!?
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
monitor....
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Everything I do is Christian, or at least that's the intent. Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"...the school feels some obligation to your parents to ensure that you get the education they're paying for."
Why would they expect that the students' parents are paying?
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Some of the parents actually do.... although I have only known a small group.... usually doctors and lawyers kids, maybe a real estate broker here and there.....
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Well I hope the lonely, poor kid gets help from the local blind colonel (retired).
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Ritten: That's what I mean. If I were a school, I would expect the students whose parents are paying to be the minority.
Actually, if I were a school, I'd be an inanimate mass of building materials. But you know what I mean.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Why would they expect that the students' parents are paying?
I would assume that the people who make such decisions know from whence cometh their checks.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Ask not for whom the check comes, it comes for thee!
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
Tee hee. He said "comes."
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"From" is already included in "whence".
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Thank you.
Posted by Grokca (Member # 722) on :
Wouldn't swipe cards as you enter classes be an easier method of knowing if you show up? I know your friends could swipe you in and screw up attendance, but this method has been used in factories for at least the last 70 years. Much less complex and cheaper to implement. Remember thr first rule of engineering, KISS.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
That's the system used at my school and it works pretty well. It's just a standard industrial swiping system, everyone has a card and it's easy to track who's in and who's not. Except when the computers go mad.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
There's something vaguely unsettling about the prospect of treating attendance at church like time at work in a factory, although I can't quite put my finger on it...
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
This is a private Christian university. People who go here know exactly what the rules are. If they don't like that, they're perfectly free to go anywhere else they please.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
Actually, I was referring to the swipe cards (i.e. factory style) mentioned by Grocka and Wraith.
Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
I would not attend a church with a time-card system. "You missed two days last spring NOW YOU WILL BURN IN HELL!!! Unless you load up the collection plate next go'round."
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
That's already the way it is. It's just that they'd have more solid evidence.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
*L*
Y'all have funny views of how we think church works. I like it. Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
Actually my reply was based on a combo my the sum of all my vists to church and my last preformance review as a mere mortal.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Well, to go really old fashioned and anti-tech, couldn't you just have a register? It gets passed around the class, and everyone there signs next to their name. I know it's open to abuse, probably not as much as you think. People are lazy.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Couldn't the camera thing be easily circumvented by having your buddy put a book or something on your seat for the duration of the class? The camera wouldn't see the seat cover, so it would think you were in class.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Well, to go really old fashioned and anti-tech, couldn't you just have a register?
Actually, we do that for the 200 or so seats on the floor of the arena, and for people who are late, and for everyone on Fridays when we're in chapel elsewhere. I didn't say this was the BEST system in the world. It's just what they do, and I may as well take advantage of it and build a nifty toy.
And the camera thing could only be circumvented if the entirity of the seat was covered. Which is possible, of course, but it'd take more than a book, and I don't think anyone would really go to the trouble.
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Omega-3 said:"Actually, we do that for the 200 or so seats on the floor of the arena"
Wow, like that vulcan Pon'Farr arena? "Da-di-Da da da da da Da-di-daaa da"!?
I haven't even asked, are you protestant or catholic, Omega?
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Not catholic, he's stated that....
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
I attend Brentwood Hills Church of Christ, and DLU is Church of Christ affiliated. Whether Church of Christ is a denomination depends on your definition, though. There are a lot of churches with that name that worship in the same general way, and are organized in the same way. We consider that way to be as close as possible to the way early Christians worshipped and organized themselves. (Of course, until Christianity was assimilated into Roman culture in about the fourth century, there wasn't any such thing as a church building, much less a congregation of 1,400 people, but I digress.) However, each congregation is an independent entity. We do group projects occasionally, like the Nashville Workcamp, but there's no overarching organizational structure between churches.
So to answer the question you actually asked, I'm about as far from Catholic as you can be and still be Christian.
As for the arena, it's basically a gym with seating for 6,000. It's the only place on campus where the entire student body can gather at one time, which is apparently rather important to President Flatt.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
quote:We consider that way to be as close as possible to the way early Christians worshipped and organized themselves.
So, you spend a lot of time being chased around an arena by lions?
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Which has what to do with how early Christians worshipped or organized?
3/10.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"...I'm about as far from Catholic as you can be and still be Christian."
I think I'd be inclined to offer the Mormons that particular distinction...
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
quote:Originally posted by Omega: Which has what to do with how early Christians worshipped or organized?
Well, I'd imagine they'd be doing a lot of praying...
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Enough with the moralizing and religious banter, there is a dorky technical problem to be solved.
So you have 6000 purple seats and you want to engineer a system that can visually determine which ones are occupied. You're likely going to need several cameras/angles to do this properly. Witha single camera even at moderately high resolution you're going to have a difficult time resolving every seat. I'd say an array of webcams would be in order. This is good because they are inexpensive and tiny. This is bad because they frequently suck balls. There are going to be overlaps to take into consideration (which could be good for redundancy) and then there's Tim's unlikely but horrible fat-guy-in-a-purple-mack scenario which would be difficult to get around. But it does seem fairly do-able. And even kind of interesting.
Posted by Toadkiller (Member # 425) on :
But if we help him we're feeding the machine which will someday own us all.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Or not. I mean, you've had a fundamentalist Christian in charge for, what, three years now, and yet abortion still isn't illegal, you still got separation of church and state, and the homosexuals haven't been smote by God or indeed anyone else. Sure, there are a few less Muslims in the world, and a bunch of old white guys have gotten even richer, but it's hardly The Handmaid's Tale is it?
No, we should all support Stephen's project and assist him in any way we can. If it comes to fruition, his plan will ensure that God-squaders everywhere will be far too busy hassling each other over their church attendance to bother the rest of us. And if that's not heaven on Earth, I don't know what is. 8)
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
Sitting naked on the couch eating bon-bons and watching Cartoon Network?
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
I think I'd be inclined to offer the Mormons that particular distinction...
I can never quite decide whether they qualify as Christians, is the thing. Thankfully, my opinion doesn't matter. Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I was about to type "Well, they worship Christ, so surely that makes them Christians?" When it suddenly occurred to me I wasn't sure. . . Do they in fact worship Christ? At all? Is there a Holy Trinity Plus Brigham Young?
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Well, my main problem with the CoJCoLDS is that they hold as scripture various things that make no sense. I've never actually read all the way through that copy of the Book of Mormon on the bookshelf behind me, but from what I understand, one man was supposedly told the whole thing at one time, and little of it is consistant with the Bible as it's generally accepted. It's a bunch of stories, with minimal insight into how God intended life to be lived.
Hm.
Let me put it this way: You can (and arguably should) look at all of history as a single story of God workiing in the "life" of humanity, showing us how he intended life to be lived. Life was created with specific intentions for its nature, and we lost that path. God always tried to show us the way back, so that we may truly live. Jesus was the perfect expression of that. "I come that you may have life and have it abundantly." In that context, what possible purpose could the stories in the Book of Mormon serve? Why would God (or the angel Moroni) even bother? So yeah, Mormons believe Christ to be the Son of God, which is great, but if the whole point to Christ BEING the Son of God is that it allows us to live life in the best way possible... why bother with the Book of Mormon at all?
Of course, I personally believe that the whole thing was a massive joke. I mean, the whole bit about The Brother of Jarod is almost Pythonesque. SUBMARINES? Though the bit about God giving him the finger might qualify as inspired, just not in the way the Mormons think. Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I really don't want to play Mormon's Advocate, but surely there's precedent for the message changing given (as I perceive it, but I know I'm not alone in this) the differences between Old and New Testaments? In that light, could the Book or Mormon just be reinforcing/supplementing the instructions contained in the New T, or even supplanting them, a Divine case of 'third time lucky?'
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Well, that's just it, it's not a question of instructions. The events of the Old and New Testaments were all attempts on the part of God to teach us how we might live as well as humanly possible. Christ was the ultimate way for us to see it. The Book of Mormon doesn't even pretend to improve on that. It's just stories of Lehi leading Jews to America, Christ appearing there after his ressurection, founding a church, which then mysteriously vanished leaving no evidence, only to be ressurected itself centuries later when some guy claimed to find disappearing tablets in a field.
Mind you, this is their beliefs as expressed in public. Many ex-Mormons claim that the CoJCoLDS has other beliefs that don't get out much, that seem more Bhuddist than Christian, i.e. we become God after death or somesuch. So yeah, they're Christian in that they believe Christ is the son of God, but their beliefs about what that means are apparently way different from what even they define as scriptural. Assuming what I understand from these ex-Mormons is accurate, naturally.
And, just for the record, my statements are intended to describe what I understand about the official beliefs of the CoJCoLDS. I say nothing about individual Mormons.
Posted by Grokca (Member # 722) on :
Seems like a good place to test just what god and jesus did tell us.
quote: Is there a Holy Trinity Plus Brigham Young?
A Trinity in four parts? Sounds familiar...
quote: but from what I understand, one man was supposedly told the whole thing at one time
...and he allegedly discovered the book of Mormon written on gold tablets buried in upstate New York. Anytime he had to consult these tablets he went behind a screen; I think only one other person ever claimed to have seen them. So a really plausible story then.
quote: Seems like a good place to test just what god and jesus did tell us.
Reason: Found in Denied List (Occult/New Age). Entry causing block is ffrf.org.
I love the school's blocking system... Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Your school calls "occult" anything that questions the veracity of the bible? You're not going to Omega's school, are you?
BTW, I scored a 27 out of 50.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
15 out of 50!
Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
"occult" has nothing to do with something questioning canon bible texts. The events in the bible can be described as occult, though. Stigmata, walking on water, raising dry bones. That's occult.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
It's the Freedom From Religion Foundation, innit? That would probably trigger the occult/new age alarm bells. . .
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Ironic that his school should block a site devoted to keeping church and state seperate...
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
What happened to Korah and his family? Shoot, I'VE never heard of that one, and I used to be the local Bible trivia geek.
The rest of this test is crap, BTW. It operates on the assumption that God approves of everything that happened in the Bible, i.e. Gideon and his huge family, Solomon's thousand girlfriends, Jephthah's sacrificing his daugther (assuming he did), etc. The Bible never says God approved of any of that, it just says it happened. Further, it takes many things out of context. I'd be happy to go through each question explaining the actual teachings of Christianity as opposed to those the maker of this test seems to believe, if anyone would actually be interested.
Oh, and just for the record, 34/50, trying to guess what answers they wanted. Of course, at least a few of the "correct" answers are crap anyway. i.e. "Don't boil a kid in its mother's milk" is NOT the tenth commandment, unless you use very unconventional definitions of the "Ten Commandments". I especially like the bit about when Jesus allows divorce. The correct response, like my Bible teacher is fond of saying, is "WRONG QUESTION!" This test shouldn't be multiple choice, each question should be an essay explaining why the question is wrong. Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
quote:Since 1978, the nonprofit Freedom From Religion Foundation has been working to
* keep state and church separate * educate the public about the views of nontheists.
And that is occult? Pokemon and Harry Potter are more occult than this.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Now ask Wraithy to visit a Harry Potter or Pok�mon site and see what happens. 8)
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Since when is "New Age" something that comes up on Internet filters, anyway? Would it block, like, a Yanni site, or something? I mean, that example might actually be for the better, but still...
"Of course, at least a few of the 'correct' answers are crap anyway. i.e. 'Don't boil a kid in its mother's milk' is NOT the tenth commandment, unless you use very unconventional definitions of the 'Ten Commandments'."
Did you even read the explanation of the answer? They were referring to the bible's own definition of "the ten commandments".
"I especially like the bit about when Jesus allows divorce. The correct response, like my Bible teacher is fond of saying, is 'WRONG QUESTION!'"
Why? Because you don't agree with it, but it would be bad to disagree with Jesus? And, therefore, one shouldn't even ask the question? One should just pretend there's no disagreement?
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
You have to understand the context in which Jesus was being asked the question. At the time there were two schools of thought. One said a man could divorce his wife for anything, buring toast, whatever. The other said it was only in cases of adultery. But the problem was, both groups were looking for a way out. They wanted a rule that they could skirt the very edge of, so they'd know exactly how far they could go. But it's not a question of rules. God indended marriage to be one man and one woman, for their entire lives. Life as it is intended to be lived. The question should always be, how can I live my life in accordance with God's plan for life? Thus the question of "how far can I go and still get away with it?" is the wrong question.
(Oh, and BTW, the bit about sexual infidelity being grounds for divorce is considered by many scholars to refer to the kind of divorce Joseph was planning to seek from Mary, before they were actually married. Just an aside.)
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
26! Admittedly, five of those I had to guess (biblical punishment not being my strong suit), but hey, you learn.
"It operates on the assumption that God approves of everything that happened in the Bible..."
And this is an unreasonable assumption because...?
"I'd be happy to go through each question explaining the actual teachings of Christianity as opposed to those the maker of this test seems to believe..."
Please do. Since your opinion doesn't matter and the Actual Teachings vary from person to person anyway, what harm can it bring? B)
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
quote:Originally posted by Cartman: "It operates on the assumption that God approves of everything that happened in the Bible..."
And this is an unreasonable assumption because...?
Well, you've got two assumptions you can make: a) God approves of every event that is recorded in the Bible, or b) God disapproves of some events that are recorded in the Bible, and his disapproval simply isn't voiced in every instance. If you assume 'a' when you can just as easily assume 'b', and when 'a' results in massive contradictions and 'b' doesn't, I would say that assuming 'a' is unreasonable. The simplest workable, accurate explanation is probably the correct one.
Put another way, you're proposing that God can be assumed to approve of specific events on which He has no recorded stated opinion. One of the defining principles of the Church of Christ is that we are silent where the Bible is silent. Mind you, that's not necessarily the case, but it's a nice idea at the very least.
Okay, Cartman, ask and you shall receive. Just give me a few minutes and I'll post again with my response to the test. Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
Well, shit, there goes the neighborhood.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Okay, here're the first ninteen questions. If you still want the rest, I'll do 'em too. Sorry for the lack of specific scriptures in certain places, finding them would have doubled the time I spent on this. If you want 'em, I'll try and find 'em for ya. Hope this is somewhat enlightening as to what the Bible actually says.
1. What is the last of the Ten Commandments?
That reading of scripture does invoke some curiousity, but it's (again) purposefully interpreting things in a contradictory manner, when a non-contradictory and equally valid manner is available. Exodus 34 has God say a bunch of stuff that the test-writer has listed. Then He says "Write all this down!" which Moses obviously did, seeing as it's in Exodus. Then it says Moses was there for 40 days, and wrote on the tablets the "words of the promise, the ten commandments." It does NOT say that the words spoken immediately prior are said commandments, and while that might be a reasonable interpretation, it's equally reasonable to assume that it refers to the commandments given earlier.
2. What is the penalty for working on the Sabbath?
Correct question: what was the perscribed penalty for Jews who worked on the Sabbath? The question makes it seem as if the commandments apply to everyone.
What is the harm in working on the Sabbath? It seems the only harm is to the ego of the Sovereign, who demands respect with no respect to human needs.
HAR! The Sabbath existed to give REST, not to stroke God's ego. (Or would that be Ego?) Yes, the rest is a great opportunity to reflect on God's blessings and should be taken as such, but it existed as a service to man. He didn't have to work, nor could he make anyone work for him. Thus even servants and slaves rested. As for death being the punishment for defiance of the law, well, there I think I just have to trust God's judgement that in that particular situation, capital punishment served as an effective deterrent.
3. What is God's name?
Jealous. --This is a petty self-described insecurity from a supposedly all-wise leader.
Ah, the joys of 16th century translations. Jealousy hasn't always implied insecurity. More modern translations render the same concept as refusal to tolerate rivals, which fits perfectly with everything else God commands. Our concept of a jealous husband would be a paranoid one, whereas this is more one who just doesn't want his wife running around on him.
4. How should parents treat a stubborn and rebellious son?
Corrected question: what did God say to the Jews about how to treat consistantly unruly children? Again with the mistake that these laws apply to all people in all situations.
Once again, I can only trust that God knew that for the legal-minded Jews of the time, the deterrent of capital punishment was appropriate.
5. What happens if you are not a virgin on your wedding night?
Corrected question: yet again, laws given to Jews, we're not Jews, thus laws not given to us.
The fact that Christian women who have engaged in premarital sex are not being stoned to death today shows that even believers recognize cruelty and absurdity in their own "Good Book."
Like I say, we recognize that we are free from the law of sin and death. Again, same explanation for capital punishment as above. Of course, the entire thing is based on the idea that extramarital sex is not how God intended life to be lived, which you probably don't accept. But then, it's my argument, I can assume whatever I please so long as I'm consistant.
6. What does the bible say about witches?
Corrected question: BURN THEM! No, but seriously, you know what I'm going to say here.
7. Which of these foods does the bible expressly permit you to eat? (The others are "abominations.")
Yet again, Jewish law, not applicable to me. As for the bit about the coney chewing cud, there are so many conceivable explanations that I don't feel the need to list them here. I will on request, if desired. Just don't ask me to explain the overarching pattern of the Hebraic food laws.
8. When the Israelites conquered the Midianites, what part of the spoils of war was given to the priest as "the Lord's tribute"?
Of the 32,000 virgins that were kept alive as "booty" for God's warriors, 32 young captives were handed to the priest. The bible brutally sanctifies war crimes against girls and women that continue to this day.
How does someone being given to a priest automatically turn into war crimes? Virgins were able to hold some position in the temple, though I can't remember exactly what they did there. I'd be happy to look it up, if you doubt. Further, I point out that this is another circumstance where God's opinion on the matter is not stated, simply that these things happened. So here we've got the test-maker making TWO unfounded assumptions, when the only reason to make those particular assumptions is to reach the desired conclusion that God approves of rape.
9. What is the origin of the "mighty men" giants known as nephilim?
The "sons of God" were angels: "the expression clearly refers to divine beings."
If it's so clearly refering to angels, then why is there still debate about it to this day? The referred group could have been anyone. Further, even if these were angels in question, God doesn't control angels any more than he controls us. Angels either follow God's will or don't. The ones that don't could easily have fathered children, though why they'd bother I'm not sure.
10. What happened to Korah and his family, Israelites who thought they could talk directly with God without a human intermediary?
They didn't want to talk to God, they wanted power. Korah wanted to depose Moses, which God obviously found unacceptable. Again with the capital punishment.
11. According to the bible, who created evil?
"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." (Isaiah 45:7)
The word "create" above is bara, the same word used in Genesis 1:1. The word "evil" is ra, such as in Genesis 2:9, "the tree of knowledge of good and evil." Some versions, such as the NIV, have unjustifiably softened the implications of this verse by translating ra as "disaster" or "calamity," although ra is used repeatedly throughout scripture to refer to moral evil.
Frankly, I think I trust the makers of multiple translations as to what's a justifiable English rendering more than I trust this one man who isn't definitely identified on the page.
12. According to the bible, what is God not able to do?
Judges 1:19 says that Judah and his men couldn't drive out the chariots, not that God couldn't.
13. According to the bible, where does God live? In darkness
Every verse referenced talks about God in a stormcloud. Reasonable imagry.
The Mormon religion, in fact, considers God to be a natural being living on a planet.
And we've come full circle...
14. According to biblical biology, what is a bat? A bird
Ooh, they used a different arbitrary classification scheme than OUR arbitrary classification scheme! They MUST be wrong!
Dropping the sarcasm for a moment, we define "bird" to be any egg-laying critter with feathers and hollow bones, to be simplistic about it. But that's a man-made definition. We could just as easily define bird as "warm-blooded thing that flies", and draw the arbitrary line slightly differently to include bats.
15. According to biblical anatomy, where does thinking happen? The heart
This is the very definition of nitpicking. The Bible isn't trying to say "Okay, you know that beating thing in their chest? That tells you a lot about a person's mind." We use the language the same way today, talking about the heart of a matter being the key aspect, that which determines how all else goes.
Tellingly, the word "brain" appears nowhere in the Bible. The bible was clearly not inspired by an all-knowing god.
The words "quantum physics" don't appear in the Koran. Thus the Koran is not divinely inspired. Non-sequitor.
16. How did Gideon demonstrate his family values?
Was Gideon ever held up as an example of family values one way or the other?
17. After Jephthah was victorious in battle, what sacrifice did he burn on the altar, as he had vowed to the Lord? His virgin daughter.
Jephthah MAY have burned his daughter. However, if she was going to be burned to death, why would she have wandered around in the wilderness for weeks bemoaning her dying as a virgin? Wouldn't she have been a little more concerned about dying AT ALL? Many consider it more likely that she was dedicated to temple work for the rest of her life, requiring her to remain a virgin, and thus fulfilling Jephthah's promise to sacrifice the first thing that came to meet him, so long as the "burnt" part wasn't too important.
Further, even if Jephthah did burn his daughter, God expressly forbade any such practice, a fact apparently unknown to the maker of this test. God also provided rules for escaping from vows made in haste such as this one. If Jephthah did physically sacrifice his daughter, he didn't have to, and it was only his ignorance of the word of God that resulted in his doing so.
Notice how everyone assumed the correctness of Jephthah's actions: there is no denunciation of this pointless murder from God, or from anyone in Jephthah's community, or from the biblical writers. It was the right thing to do.
Notice how this writer makes exactly the assumptions he wants to make? The Bible doesn't record everything that went on. There may have BEEN denunciations. Shoot, God may have fried the man on the spot for all we know. Just because nobody in the Bible expressly says "Hey, see this specific action? This is wrong," doesn't mean it's RIGHT.
18. What price did David pay King Saul for his first wife? The foreskins of 200 Philistines
David is supposed to be a biblical role model; but how does massacre and mutilation show moral leadership?
Again, not everything done by Biblical figures is to automatically be accepted as a-ok. And Saul making him kill 200 Philistines was probably intended to be a sure way of getting David killed without marrying his daughter.
19. How many regular sexual partners did King Solomon have? At least one thousand. Another fine example of family values from one of God's favorites.
Yes, and he later lead Israel into idolatry due to those wives. Obviously God didn't approve of THAT, wouldn't you agree? And while God never expressly banned polygamy, it's obvious from many texts that marriage is INTENDED to be a one-to-one male-female relationship. I believe He also said that when Israel decided they wanted a king, he should NOT have many wives, so Solomon was in technical violation of the law. Of course, if you worry about technical violation of the law, you're in the wrong mindset anyway.
God allowed for polygamy for the same reason he allowed for a king: they were gonna do it anyway, so he put rules on it. At one point in... I believe it's Deuteronomy, God says "Don't have a king. But when you DO have a king, make sure of x, y, and z." The Israelites could only handle so much, and God knew it.
Shall I continue, or shut up? Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
You keep saying "just because Revered Biblical Figure X did Atrocity Y, and there's no recorded condemnation of it, that doesn't mean it was approved". But that makes no sense. Your claim is that the bible is divinely inspired. In effect, Yahweh was the editor who made sure that what he wanted written got written. So why would he inspire someone to write "Solomon was a really great guy who fucked an ass-load of women."? If he wanted people to know that he disapproved, he would have inspired something more like "Solomon was a pretty good guy, but he sure had trouble keeping his hands off women. But, other than that, he was okay.".
Also, your mantra of "Mosaic law is for Jews only, and I'm not a Jew" is nonsensical. If you believe that those laws were stated by a god, and that that god is the ruler of Everything, then you can't say that certain people have to obey his laws, and others don't. Otherwise, you could never tell another person what they can and cannot morally do. If I killed someone, and you told me murder was immoral, I could say "Maybe your god told you not to kill people, but he never said it to me, so that rule only applies to you.".
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
From a cursory glance, the site seems to promote separation of religion and state. Now while this page has a focus on Christianity, I'm pretty sure that the group would be equally opposed to a government based on Jewish, Islamic, new Age, or Wiccan beliefs for that matter.
So, half of your arguments seem to be somewhat of a cheat. "Ha-ha, it applies only to Jews, I'm not a Jew, and God said its a good idea, so whatever". Even if we accept that rationale, are you saying that it would be a good idea for Ariel Sharon to go ahead and reinstate the death penalty for oh...working on the Sabbath, being an unruly child, if you're not a virgin when marrying, etc.
Or is this a case of "ha-ha, its your own damn fault for not switching to Christianity in the first place"
And what were you going to say about witches? It only applies to Jewish witches???
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Your claim is that the bible is divinely inspired. In effect, Yahweh was the editor who made sure that what he wanted written got written. So why would he inspire someone to write "Solomon was a really great guy who fucked an ass-load of women."? If he wanted people to know that he disapproved, he would have inspired something more like "Solomon was a pretty good guy, but he sure had trouble keeping his hands off women. But, other than that, he was okay.".
Well, then you get into the question of exactly how far inspiration goes. It's one of the running debates of Christianity that we all realize doesn't much matter to how we're gonna live our lives. Unfortunately, that means we tend not to have a firm answer when an unbeliever asks for one! The question is whether God controlled every letter written, effectively using the writers to write exactly whay he wanted; or whether God just ensured that there were no major factual errors in what was being written anyway. I tend to lean towards the second one, for just such reasons as this.
Of course, the Bible also has a tendancy not to hit you over the head. If Solomon married dozens of foreign wives and then lead the people into idolatry, the Bible doesn't say "...and it was WRONG THAT HE DID SO!" That's bleeding obvious, now isn't it? On a few occasions you get an "evil in the sight of the Lord", but that's about as far as it goes, and sometimes in reference to events that aren't specifically described anyway. The histories as written assume that the reader is a member of the (in the case of the Old Testament) Hebrew culture, and thus make certain assumptions about your knowledge and beliefs re: the law of God.
If you believe that those laws were stated by a god, and that that god is the ruler of Everything, then you can't say that certain people have to obey his laws, and others don't.
Sure I can. God said "You people here, I'm making a deal with YOU. Not these other people, YOU. You follow THESE rules, I bless you. Got it?" I am not a member of those people, therefore the terms of that deal do not apply to me. How is that nonsensical?
Otherwise, you could never tell another person what they can and cannot morally do.
Not quite. Those specific laws applied only to the Jews. But those laws are an expression of the general contours, to cop a phrase, of the will of God for human life. He may not want all people to always stone a man for disrespecting his parents, but it's always true that God wants people to respect their parents. God may not want us to burn witches, but we certainly shouldn't think that witchcraft (whatever that term meant in 2,000 BC) is just fine and dandy.
Some ethical theorists divide things into four levels: immediate responses, rules, principles, and central character. Immediate responses are where you do things because that's what your immediate reaction is, no rationalle behind it. Rules is like old Judaism, I do this because the rules tell me to. Principles is like what I'm proposing above: disrespecting parents is bad, and should be ended; however, human life is to be valued; therefore, find way to end disrespect without killing the kid. Finally, central character brings you full-circle. You no longer need to determine what the rules say, or what your principles demand, because you embody their meaning. If we are trying to change our lives to be as God intended, then it's not a question of following rules, it's a question of (sorry, but) what would Jesus do? I need to learn what God's motivations are, and make them my own. And somehow, I doubt God's ultimate goal requires, in all cases, stoning people who work on the Sabbath. Otherwise Jesus would have died a lot sooner.
And what were you going to say about witches? It only applies to Jewish witches???
The same thing I said about the three or four things immediately preceeding that question.
are you saying that it would be a good idea for Ariel Sharon to go ahead and reinstate the death penalty for oh...working on the Sabbath, being an unruly child, if you're not a virgin when marrying, etc. Or is this a case of "ha-ha, its your own damn fault for not switching to Christianity in the first place"
That would seem to be consistant with Judaism. I'm not sure how he resolves that conflict. Thus the flaw of a rule-based system of ethics, and why Christianity as taught by Christ would seem to qualify as a superior ethical model.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
This thread has lost it's appeal....
Posted by Grokca (Member # 722) on :
quote:Shall I continue, or shut up?
Please continue, I noticed you never got to the parts about Jesus' teaching. By the way please send me all of your worldly possessions, have your parents sign over their house and any cash or possessions they happen to have. PM me and I will give you the details on how to get all of this stuff to me.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
A truly cunning stunt. 8)
Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
Can we get back to the part about the camaras? It's not sunday so this stuff is annoying me.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Hehe. Well, hey, if you've got any ideas regarding that, feel free to post 'em.
20. What happened to 42 little children who teased God's prophet Elisha for being bald and he cursed them in the name of the Lord? Two bears came out of the forest and killed them all.
Well, to nitpick, the bears killed 42 of them, which may or may not have been all of them. This is another example where I just have to assume God knows what he's doing about capital punishment.
21. What reason did God give for tormenting Job? Satan dared me, so I destroyed Job for no reason at all.
Important detail: God did none of it. He allowed Satan to, which is a completely different concept.
But that's a detail. The real meat of the issue is, does it really qualify as destroying Job? God CREATED Job, and gave him everything he had. It all comes down to how you look at life: if you look at life as something you deserve, then it's pure torture, because it's never good enough, because I SHOULD have all these nice toys. But if you look at life as something you don't deserve, then every second, rich or poor, sick or well, is still a blessing. And that was the whole point.
22. According to the bible, what does Satan look like? A red dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns. Are there still adults in the 21st century who believe in the existence of Satan? If they do, they are forced to picture him as a mythical 7-headed dragon, the only physical description of Satan given in the bible
Yes, and I'm sure four physical horsemen will come along and destroy the world, too. Satan is no more limited to the form of a dragon than Jesus is limited to the form of a human being, or God is limited to the form of the afore-mentioned thunderclouds.
23. How does the biblical god treat haughty women? He puts scabs on their heads and uncovers their private parts.
Funny, my translation says "forehead". I guess there's some disagreement about the meaning of that term. Under any circumstances, the point of the entire passage taken in context is that Israel is getting arrogant, and the women are an obvious sign of this. Therefore Israel will be made low, women and all. The women will no longer be running around in miniskirts and jewelry, if I may be allowed an anachronism, but will instead be destitute, sick and without clothing.
24. In dollars (shekels), how much is a woman worth? Half a male
Ah, here it is! "If any one of you makes a special vow to give a person to the Lord, you may give money instead of the person." This is what Jephthah should have known! But back to this particular point. This is saying that the work a woman does in the temple/tabernacle is worth less money than the work a man does. Seems reasonable. If I recall, during her period a woman was considered cerimonially unclean, meaning she could only work in the temple 3/4 of the time a man could. Toss in the general rule that men are stronger than women, which would have been even more true in the social and historical context in question, and the difference in work-value seems quite reasonable.
25. What happens if a man rapes an engaged virgin in the city, and no one hears anything? They are both stoned to death.
If the woman doesn't cry out, apparently implying consent, yes. I will admit that the law as written doesn't seem to take into account the idea of the woman being gagged, but I would argue that God obviously didn't intend for a gagged woman to be stoned just because she couldn't scream. It isn't consistant with the purpose of the law, just like letting someone die on the Sabbath when you can help them wouldn't be. Also, given the crowding of cities of the time, rape would be a difficult thing to pull of without being caught, which is an important bit of context.
26. What is the Mosaic Law punishment for being handicapped? You are not allowed in church
The temple (or tabernacle) wasn't equivalent to a modern church building in any sense. The further you went into the temple, the fewer people were allowed there. Priests were set apart from the rest, being descended from Aaron. Handicapped Levites of the line of Aaron, however, were not allowed to be priests. (This guy desperately needs to actually read the verses he's quoting.) They still worked in the temple if possible, but they couldn't be priests. The idea of priests was intended as a symbolic gesture of the holiness of God. "Hey, see these people that are really really holy, physically perfect, no possible complaint from any angle? They're not good enough to come into the heart of the Temple where I dwell. Even the best of them can only do it once a year, because I'm, like, really freaking holy. Totally."
27. According to the Bible, when may a husband have sex with his wife? Not during her menstrual period
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it possible to transmit disease this way? Maybe not commonly today, but we have better medical treatment than they did. Of course, the real question is why women are considered cerimonially unclean during their period. There are a number of possible answers, but the one that most occurs to me is, to give them a break! If they're cerimonially unclean there are fewer things they can do, and the workload is lightened. Just a thought.
28. How should you feel when you dash babies against the rocks? Happy.
That may be the most impressive instance I've ever seen of taking a single verse out of context. (If you want combined verses, check Matthew 27:5, Luke 10:37b, and John 13:27.) This is a psalm, the lament of a Jewish captive in Babylon. The point isn't that you should go around killing children, the point is that whoever destroys Babylon will be (he hopes) blessed, because Babylon has really really pissed the writer off.
29. How many human generations were there before Jesus? 62. --The bible got it wrong by two orders of magnitude. History and archaeology prove that there were more than a mere 62 generations before Christianity. The species Homo sapiens has existed for 100,000 - 200,000 years, which would be at least 5,000 generations.
All that evidence can be interpreted in different ways. We've been over all that before, though, so I see no need to go into it right now.
Matthew and Luke also contradict each other: both genealogies claim to go through Joseph, the father of Jesus (Matthew 1:16; Luke 3:23. Why Joseph? Wasn't God the father?), yet their lists disagree in length and in names--except for Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, an intersection that proves they were not intended to be separate lines. They also contradict the Old Testament genealogies, conveniently deleting and adding in order to make the numbers fit a pattern.
Joseph would likely have been kept in the geneology in a patriarichal society, even if it was really Mary's line. As for the lines intersecting, so Mary and Joseph were related several generations back. Meh. Oh, and the term "son of" doesn't always mean "son" as we understand it, it could also mean descendent. Skipping generations to hit the highlights is insignificant.
30. What Christmas tradition is expressly forbidden in the bible? Christmas trees
Um... those verses (Jeremiah 10:2) seem to me to be referring to carving wooden idols, or possibly building temples to false gods. Anybody else see that? I mean, why would you nail Christmas trees together? The point was that Israel shouldn't worship other gods, as always.
31. According to Jesus, what must you do to have eternal life? Sell everything you have and give all the money to the poor
Just so you know the context of this, a man came to Jesus, said he'd followed the law all his life, and asked what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus told him to sell all he had, give it to the poor and follow him. The man then left sad, because he had lots of stuff. Jesus said TO THAT MAN that he should sell everything. One proposed explanation is that the man was like the people Jesus mocked for tithing: he obeyed the letter of the law, but he ignored the more important matters like justice and mercy. If he had understood the law, he wouldn't have accumulated so much for himself instead of helping others.
Another proposed explanation is that the idea was to illustrate the impossibility of entering heaven because of your own works. The disciples later asked "Who, then, can be saved?" To which Jesus replied "It is impossible for people to save themselves, but everything is possible for God." You can't keep the law perfectly, much as this man claimed he had.
In America, where state and church are separated, Christians should not tithe--unless they want to be doubly taxed!
Again, the problem is looking at this from a rule-based system. We own nothing, what we have we have so we can do good with it. If we can best do good by giving some percentage of our income to our church, then that's what we should do. If not, we should come up with something else.
32. According to Jesus, how should Christian disciples treat their parents? Parents should be hated
The concept of hate here is rendered in more modern translations as a will to abandon. The point is that Christ must be the most important thing in your life, above your family and yourself. If you don't, then you can't love your family at all because you can't understand what it means to truly do so.
33. According to Jesus, how should slaves be treated? They should be beaten for disobedience, but not more severely then they deserve.
Why doesn't the bible--supposedly inspired by an all-loving deity--ever hint that there is something wrong with such a brutal social institution?
Slavery in this country was a brutal social institution in the vast majority of instances. However, slavery as it existed in ancient Israel was a completely different concept. People became slaves because they couldn't pay debts, or because they were prisoners of war. Hardly the self-perpetuating institution we had here two centuries ago. Further, slaves were released every seven years! The ONLY reason people consider slavery in Israel to have been evil is because the word is translated as "slave", and the definitions are so different I'm not sure that translation can be justified.
Of course, now that the real issue in question has been addressed, I note that the scripture in question doesn't address slavery at all! It doesn't say "slaves should be beaten", it says, in effect, "lazy servants (i.e. those who know the truth and don't act on it) will be punished severely."
34. What did Jesus say about peace? "Don't think that I came for peace on earth. I came to start wars." --Are these the words of a good man?
Jesus was saying, "Conflicts will arise over what I say," not that starting wars was his goal. Obviously he was right.
35. Which one of these phrases did Jesus not say about witnessing?
Well, the point here was to get to Jesus saying that his testimony was both true and not true. In John 8:13, the Pharisees say that his testimony on his own behalf was not true, i.e. not acceptable in court, because two witnesses were required by law. Jesus said that his father also testified on his behalf. John 5:31 was simply Jesus quoting the same law the Pharisees quoted later.
36. What personal sacrifice for "the kingdom of heaven" was Jesus talking about when he told his disciples, "He that is able to receive it, let him receive it"? Castrate yourself.
The verses in question say nothing of the kind. The context makes it obvious that Jesus is saying that it's hard not to get married. Some can, for various reasons including castration, some can't. If you can survive not getting married, do it.
37. According to New Testament medical advice, what should you do if you are sick? Ask the church elders to apply oil to your skin and pray for you.
DLU's local Biblical scholar with no apparent job description actually preached a mini-sermon on this a few weeks back. His opinion is that sickness here refers to spiritual sickness, which is certainly a possibility. We have to consider the body to be relatively unimportant. Another possible explanation is that it doesn't say you SHOULDN'T seek medical attention.
There, that's about 2/3 of it. Anybody want me to finish it up?
Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
Please. Make it stop!
Posted by Grokca (Member # 722) on :
quote:There, that's about 2/3 of it. Anybody want me to finish it up?
No that's enough, when are you going to pm me so you can send me your stuff?
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Q: Where does the Bible say tedious and heated theological arguments belong?
Honest. It's somewhere in the Apocrypha, probably.
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
Ah, but you presume Omega believes in the apocrypha... Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
I love the Apocrypha! "Bel and the Dragon" is freaking hilarous! Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
And I thought we were just going to skirt the religious talk, rise above the senseless bickering over a silly on-line quiz and focus on something nice and completely dorky for once. Maybe if we all put down our bibles and focus on how Omega is going to capture frames from a dozen web-cams, clean them up and thus figure who is being a good little protestant and who isn't, this could get moved back out of the Flameboard.
Yeah, somebody pinch me.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
*punches BX*
Oops, sorry. Curse this dyslexia!
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
Owww. Dude, why the ear?
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. . .
Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
I remember when this thread was about cameras. Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Apparently, sixteen pictures are taken each day, from six different positions. SO, six cameras. This will be a bit more expensive than I thought.
Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
Unless you use one camara with a wide-angle lense and a servo-mount. There is your engineering challange.
BTW your laser idea for the stentor line works. So take a bow.
quote:Originally posted by Omega: Apparently, sixteen pictures are taken each day, from six different positions. SO, six cameras. This will be a bit more expensive than I thought.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Well, another problem is that due to the layout of the seats in a semi-octagonal fashion, I'm still gonna need to move the camera to get head-on shots. I'm thinking of running a line transversely across the room and having the camera, servo-mount and mini-computer attached to that. It moves across the room, hanging down from the track, taking pictures at the right locations, and then moves back to its dock to recharge its batteries. I'd need some way to keep it from swinging, but that shouldn't be too hard.
And it WORKED!? You'll have to give me more details! When should I expect my payment? Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
We have to wait for the lasers to arrive, but it worked on a small scale trial on a blown-film line running the same resin blend. Then it's just a matter of mounting them and installing the logic boxes.
Payment... Got 200meg of "hot wife" pictures here, where should I send them to? Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
You're going to send me pictures of your wife? Does Liz know this, and if so, how are you still alive?
Just look me up if you ever open a plant in Nashville and need a computer dude. And name it after me or something. Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
Will do.
Going to be down that way soon, going to visit Eastman Chemical in Kingsport this spring. Been having some trouble with them supplying crap resin to us, going to invoke our right as a customer to audit thier production line.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Snark: Wouldn't it be easier just to give everyone some sort of scannable ID chip and then check them off as they come in? The forehead or hand are good places to put them, I hear.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
That... may be the single funniest thing I've read here in quite some time. Thank you, Simon.
Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
Omega:
It works. Yahoo me for details.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Have your little Canon mounted on a rail to move between the six postions.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Contemplated that. Dr. O'Connor seems to think that that's rather, er, insane. Mainly because it'd be difficult to get it in the same position every time. I think that's fixable, though. The real catch is getting a 100' rail suspended 50' in the air.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Not at all, can be done in a few hours, complete with custom bends. A trip switch with a timer to restart can be made to ensure proper alignment everytime, with you computer telling the unit, you are at position to, adjust angle to this elevation snap the pic and move on.
An I-beam contruction for the tram would be the most stable.
I have installed a drop ceiling in a bank converted from a hall of some sort, with ceilings that high, not a big deal, unless part of the crew is afraid of heights....
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
I suggested that, just have the thing go at a constant velocity every time and tell it to stop at certain times. Unfortunately, he still thinks it won't work. See, this thing has to be at exactly the same place, probably down to the millimeter. It'd be 50' away from a 2.5' target. The slightest deviation and the software won't be able to handle it.
However, if the railing were stable enough, an i-beam like you say, we could place on the beam itself a marker telling the tram where to stop. That I think we could get exact enough. Another possibility was to put a laser on the thing about 35 degrees above the plane of the camera, and have it look for a reflector that we put on the wall. Of course, THAT would take a rather high-powered laser. This isn't gonna be cheap no matter how you go at it.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
No, and you don't want to half step it either. If you set you system up to use something like mils (1 mil = 0.05625 deg) at 100-00 you could end up with a 3.048 cm error margin at worst, if you can get it do be that accurate. A 1 mil error is being off 1 m at 1000 m.
To negate this you could have the computer align the pictures with your target reflector/object. This is beyond me in programming, but I would imagine that it could be done.
Posted by Styrofoaman (Member # 706) on :
Put index notches in the location you want the camara to stop at.
Simple light and eye arrangment reads the index notch and stops the camara at the exact same spot.
You did plan on using stepper moters right?
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
Yeah, notches seem to be the simplest way to go. What, exactly, is a stepper motor? I'm EECE, not EMCH. Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Sounds like a motor that is supposed to run intermitintly(SP? brain cramp)....
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