Assuming the sound and lighting effects are all playback and in sync, AND the song-miming dancers have rehearsed to perfection, it is possible to make it appear as if the live dancers 'control' the phantom dancers. Whereas, in fact, it's the other way round.

I'd have to examine the video several times to be sure, but that would risk the imprinting of the song in my neurals. I don't want that.

The Rings: motion capture makes possible the real time operation of a 3D simulation of a human character using motion and location data captured from a live performer. But this usually requires at least 20 markers on the body - the more the merrier. These markers are usually optical and therefore would be inappropriate for live performance with an audience.  I've read of wireless non-optical marker systems (could be concealed in clothes), but never heard of them in operation.

A ring - as a single marker - would be useless for motion capture. Not enough data, unless the live movements have been rehearsed and already loaded into the model. In which case, the 3D model is doing its moves according to a 'script', but is kept in synch to the live performance by using keyframes triggered by the ring marker.

You can't be me, I'm taken

So sorry. Yep, you have to knock on wood each time you say you think you might be feeling better.

'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher

I have been suffering a prolonged cold or attenuated flu since the third week in January. It started the day my flu shot 'officially' became effective and I just felt generally sick, then, in about a week my nose started running non-stop. I probably abused anti-histamines, as it is just so damned annoying to have mucus strings forming out of your nose any time you lean forward, to always be sneezing, to have my inner ears plugged and to generally have an inflamed face and sinuses.

I controlled the worst of it with heat packs on my upper face, over the eyes, as hot as I could stand it and the same along the backs of my ears and over the ear canal. I used wet washcloths that I put in the microwave. Each treatment takes several minutes and you can't do anything else while a hot compress is over your eyes. The effect is like a highly localized very high fever - 120F+ and it feels so good.

Friday I thought I was so much better, so I went to Walmart,(Arkie cliche alert!), to replenish some bulk items only they carry in town. While riding around in an electric cart I suddenly felt very dizzy and would have fallen had I not been seated. I also felt nauseous. I was stricken with the thought it might be a stroke, but then quickly remembered a previous episode - 20 years ago - when I had been similarly struck down by vertigo while driving home on Victory Boulevard in the SF Valley. I managed to pull over and then vomited all over myself. It was a mile further home and it happened again as I pulled into the driveway. I was prescribed Dramamine by my Dr. and that helped. So this wasn't as bad as it was then, not yet, but I was concerned about getting the 6 miles to home in safety.

Since I was in the Pharmacy area I went to the window to see if I could get Epherine nose drops. Kaiser in California had recommended that solution as it minimized the drug in the body. But there has been the Krank epidemic and Pseudofed, Actifed, and all phenylepherine products have been made available only through the pharmacy. The pharmacy, in typical CYA manner, required a prescription, and it was 5:00PM on Friday. When I said Epherine they heard Apherine, which may have once contained phenylepherine, but no longer. So I got what I could and it helped enough that I could get home - relying on all the driving drunk/stoned tricks I learned in college - watch the speedometer, keep extra distance, watch the lines in the road, go at traffic speed, etc.

Monday I called my doctor's nurse to see if I could get a prescription for Epherine nose drops. The nurse called and my wife picked up to be warned that those Epherine nose drops were highly addictive and would rot the membrane separating the sides of my nostrils, which had been history 25 years ago when I quit smoking. The wife had a great night ragging on me about my addictive personality and how men never listen. :-) The nurse had recommended I see the doctor, which I did today. As the infection had dragged on for weeks he gave me some Amoxicyllin, which actually seems to have helped - at least for now, though the effect wears off after about 8 hours but it is only to be taken twice a day. Two hours after I took the first dose my ears felt clear for the first time since sometime in December. And this was just complications to a mild cold.

At one time I would have insisted on Duracef or better, but hadn't even asked for antibiotics. I know now that antibiotics must be saved for the feed lots and only used in humans as a last resort. Its a wonderful world we live in.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Welcome to the postmodern 1930s...

I distribute. You re-distribute. He gives your hard-earned money to lazy scroungers. -- JakeS

That's how (TB sanatariums) Colorado Springs survived the first half of the 20th century, and with the DOD going out of business, maybe that's how we'll survive the 21st century, too!

...without TB, Colorado Springs might not have become the city it is today.

"For 30 or 40 years, tuberculosis was our sole industry," said Matt Mayberry, director of the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. "We were not a mill town like other communities. That was really the only industry we had."

And for a long time, business was good. From its founding, the men who built Colorado Springs had a vision: an orderly Christian colony where liquor was banned, a college town, a vacation destination, a great place to live.

It also became a great place to die.

http://www.gazette.com/articles/colorado-23740-springs-sanitarium.html

Not just South Africa.  Also Iran, Italy, and India.  

That last is Bad News for the people trying to contain the spread of the strain.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere