Why do so many independent filmmakers still use 8mm or 16mm celluloid film (although they may use digital for editing and sound)?
Answer, because film is really expensive. 8 and 16mm are a lot cheaper to develop and everything else. This is very important for a man making a film for only $1 million.
The point is that movies will eventually go digital, but only when they can come up with a better solution than what we've got. Digital prevents the generation losses inherent in editing and effects and makes distribution cheaper. However movie theaters, who get almost nothing from showing movies (which is why a small coke is $3 and ticket prices are so high), can't afford the kind of upgrade costs inherent in digital movies. Until a majority of theaters are ready to go digital (either through time or a lower cost of entry), it won't be profitable for major movies to go only digital. They won't be able to make a profit by doing a big release.
Case in point - how many theatres do you know that are all THX? Most of the ones I go to are a lower sound grade like DDS or DTS. Why? Because THX quality sound equipment is expensive and most theatres just can't afford it.
I agree, somebody needs to get four of them and teach them to swear. Realtime South Park. P.S. Would somebody moderate up the "they borged Kenny comment" it does not deserve a -1.
Why would this world be limited to a medieval level of technology? Using water and horse power humanity could probably get back to the early industrial revolution without much trouble. Use gas lamps for light like in the 1880s, belt driven machines for manufacturing, etc. Precision parts where going into guns in the early 1820s.
Besides, does anyone here think that a church prohibition would stop steam power? I mean really? It seems to be really stopping premarital sex.
Also, why would a computer use humans as components? Why not build a mechanical calculator? The technology does not require electricity and would be more dependable and repeatable.
Lastly, what is stopping humanity from shooting down the Wanderers or at least avoiding them? You can build a rocket without electricity, or a very large cannon (Saddam Hussein was going to try this incidentally). They've got the calculations for targetting. Simply activate a small electrical power system (or better yet several small ones in a pattern), wait until it gets killed, and repeat. Soon you'll roughly know the Wanderers orbits using some basic math you can do by hand. You will then know how to avoid the EMP sweeps and can use electricity all you want as long as you do it at the right times.
I'm currently a grad student at UD (in Mechanical Engineering, not Physics) and am really stoked that I might be able to run code on this system if I can talk to the right people.
I also work at one of the top composites research centers in the world (also at UD). It takes in $5 million a year, but in the end only between 8-10% gets spent on actual material and equipment. My boss has over $1 million in grants himself, but I still get a kick out of how much of our equipment is still held together with duct tape. A grant that large will be nibbled away to fix problems the physics department or research group has and any fix will cost at least a thousand bucks because it probably won't be something that can come off the shelf. I know my school, it will happen that way.
When all is said and done $500,000 over 3 years ain't that much really, especially since what defines necessary hardware can be kind of shaky. Also you have to consider that about 10% of the money research groups spend on equpiment gets siphoned off the back end by the UD purchasing department.
Incidentally personnel means grad students who don't get benefits and get paid a pittance. Thats probably what the other 20% of mathcing funds will pay for.
If people can become gods how do people get the responsibility to wield that power? Wouldn't this just turn into a Greek Pantheon gone horribly wrong? Worlds would be destroyed and created at a whim with little care for their inhabitants. Do you really think humanity will really be that different from what we are now? A couple thousand years ago we killed each other with swords and sticks, now we kill each other with guns and bombs. In a couple thousand years from now we'll just be killing each other with bigger, better more sophisticated things than we have now. Big f***in' difference...
The Rant
Why is it that Sci-Fi has started doing this so much recently? Technology is a tool, a thing, an it. We cannot draw philosophy from a thing, we cannot use it to judge morals. It exists, no more. Why all these stories about technology inspiring man to perfection or man evolving into godhood? If I wanted men becoming gods I'd read fantasy were such visions belong.
There are too many humanistic visions of our future perfection out there. We operate by a dialectic process. Humanity does not create perfection, we continuously create things that are a little better than we currently have. We make improvements. The problem with this process is that at no time will we ever achieve perfection. Its like walking half-way to a door each step, you can never go through it.
Technology is and has always been as much of hindrance as a help. The internet has allowed us to connect with people and information like never before. This is a good thing. The internet also allows anybody to learn how to build a bomb or engorge themselves in pornography or delude themselves with online relationships or stalk small children in chatrooms or even coordinate global terrorist activities. Help and hindrance.
Why is it man created our problems by eating the apple and now we think we might be able to fix it ourselves by using our MacIntoshes?
What is the cost of making a CD/DVD? About $1 a disc including the jewel case. They sell for at least 16 to 20 times that. If they'd just cut their prices a little maybe fewer people would be motivated to pirate their material and the pirates would make a lot less profit.
I'm not against people making a reasonable profit, but why is it that audio tapes, which are more expensive to manufacture due to the moving parts, cost half as much as a CD?
I'm not a big Brin fan. I've heard interesting ideas from his books, but the only novel of his I've read was Earth and I found it too preachy with too little focus in the narrative.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do so many independent filmmakers still use 8mm or 16mm celluloid film (although they may use digital for editing and sound)?
Answer, because film is really expensive. 8 and 16mm are a lot cheaper to develop and everything else. This is very important for a man making a film for only $1 million.
The point is that movies will eventually go digital, but only when they can come up with a better solution than what we've got. Digital prevents the generation losses inherent in editing and effects and makes distribution cheaper. However movie theaters, who get almost nothing from showing movies (which is why a small coke is $3 and ticket prices are so high), can't afford the kind of upgrade costs inherent in digital movies. Until a majority of theaters are ready to go digital (either through time or a lower cost of entry), it won't be profitable for major movies to go only digital. They won't be able to make a profit by doing a big release.
Case in point - how many theatres do you know that are all THX? Most of the ones I go to are a lower sound grade like DDS or DTS. Why? Because THX quality sound equipment is expensive and most theatres just can't afford it.
I agree, somebody needs to get four of them and teach them to swear. Realtime South Park. P.S. Would somebody moderate up the "they borged Kenny comment" it does not deserve a -1.
Why would this world be limited to a medieval level of technology? Using water and horse power humanity could probably get back to the early industrial revolution without much trouble. Use gas lamps for light like in the 1880s, belt driven machines for manufacturing, etc. Precision parts where going into guns in the early 1820s.
Besides, does anyone here think that a church prohibition would stop steam power? I mean really? It seems to be really stopping premarital sex.
Also, why would a computer use humans as components? Why not build a mechanical calculator? The technology does not require electricity and would be more dependable and repeatable.
Lastly, what is stopping humanity from shooting down the Wanderers or at least avoiding them? You can build a rocket without electricity, or a very large cannon (Saddam Hussein was going to try this incidentally). They've got the calculations for targetting. Simply activate a small electrical power system (or better yet several small ones in a pattern), wait until it gets killed, and repeat. Soon you'll roughly know the Wanderers orbits using some basic math you can do by hand. You will then know how to avoid the EMP sweeps and can use electricity all you want as long as you do it at the right times.
I'm currently a grad student at UD (in Mechanical Engineering, not Physics) and am really stoked that I might be able to run code on this system if I can talk to the right people.
I also work at one of the top composites research centers in the world (also at UD). It takes in $5 million a year, but in the end only between 8-10% gets spent on actual material and equipment. My boss has over $1 million in grants himself, but I still get a kick out of how much of our equipment is still held together with duct tape. A grant that large will be nibbled away to fix problems the physics department or research group has and any fix will cost at least a thousand bucks because it probably won't be something that can come off the shelf. I know my school, it will happen that way.
When all is said and done $500,000 over 3 years ain't that much really, especially since what defines necessary hardware can be kind of shaky. Also you have to consider that about 10% of the money research groups spend on equpiment gets siphoned off the back end by the UD purchasing department.
Incidentally personnel means grad students who don't get benefits and get paid a pittance. Thats probably what the other 20% of mathcing funds will pay for.
Agreed.
The Bad Parts of the Book
If people can become gods how do people get the responsibility to wield that power? Wouldn't this just turn into a Greek Pantheon gone horribly wrong? Worlds would be destroyed and created at a whim with little care for their inhabitants. Do you really think humanity will really be that different from what we are now? A couple thousand years ago we killed each other with swords and sticks, now we kill each other with guns and bombs. In a couple thousand years from now we'll just be killing each other with bigger, better more sophisticated things than we have now. Big f***in' difference...
The Rant
Why is it that Sci-Fi has started doing this so much recently? Technology is a tool, a thing, an it. We cannot draw philosophy from a thing, we cannot use it to judge morals. It exists, no more. Why all these stories about technology inspiring man to perfection or man evolving into godhood? If I wanted men becoming gods I'd read fantasy were such visions belong.
There are too many humanistic visions of our future perfection out there. We operate by a dialectic process. Humanity does not create perfection, we continuously create things that are a little better than we currently have. We make improvements. The problem with this process is that at no time will we ever achieve perfection. Its like walking half-way to a door each step, you can never go through it.
Technology is and has always been as much of hindrance as a help. The internet has allowed us to connect with people and information like never before. This is a good thing. The internet also allows anybody to learn how to build a bomb or engorge themselves in pornography or delude themselves with online relationships or stalk small children in chatrooms or even coordinate global terrorist activities. Help and hindrance.
Why is it man created our problems by eating the apple and now we think we might be able to fix it ourselves by using our MacIntoshes?
What is the cost of making a CD/DVD? About $1 a disc including the jewel case. They sell for at least 16 to 20 times that. If they'd just cut their prices a little maybe fewer people would be motivated to pirate their material and the pirates would make a lot less profit.
I'm not against people making a reasonable profit, but why is it that audio tapes, which are more expensive to manufacture due to the moving parts, cost half as much as a CD?
I'm not a big Brin fan. I've heard interesting ideas from his books, but the only novel of his I've read was Earth and I found it too preachy with too little focus in the narrative.