A photograph can be fine art even though an almost unlimited number of copies can be made from the negative,
Actually, a photograph is more than a negative. Yes, it has a lot to do with it, but it has to do with the composition within the negative, the development process, the techniques. Try plopping your family photo album on a curators desk and ask if its acceptable art.
As for the other things - reproductions of art isn't Art - and that's reflected in the price. Novels, poems, music... etc... try to ask Radiohead to perform for you for the cost of a music CD... it won't happen. Ask for Tolstoy's original manuscripts for the cost of purchasing a book.
There's a lot of conjecture about 'What is Art' and how Art has nothing to do with its Value... "its about emotion blah blah blah." This stuff is really *much* to subjective to discuss. The only thing of interest to discuss in art is its Value!!!:). anyway, I'm sort of interpreting the original poster's question in terms of the 'value' of art - not just whether or not computer art is art... after all, everything can be art.
I'd argue that this is the 'real' question as posed by the original poster. "Can Computer Art be as Valuable as Traditional Art." My interpretation, of course. If you want to discuss Art by its emotional design merits - well Anything and everything *can* be art... even cow dung... so why discuss it at all?
Even within the world of art, there is no clear definition of 'Art'... bringing up this question to a bunch of/.ers may bring a reasonable answer but one thing that art is not - is reasonable. However, given my own interpretation of Art, I'd say that Computer Art is NOT the same as Traditional Art... at least in terms of evaluating its value.
Computer art can be produced in quantities without limits - at 'as good as the original' quality. Art buyers generally purchase art based on limited productions - if it is a limitless production it's equivalent to purchasing a manufactured item - thereby reducing cost.
Traditional Art is released by the artist - Once a painting is sold there's no going back to refine the artwork. Digital images are never really released... they are always onhand ready for updates and improvements - (e.g. who's willing to buy Win ME *at a premium* if Win XP is coming out in a few months?)
...the list goes on... None of it has to do with concepts of design of emotion as certainly computer is capable of conveying these concepts just as well as, if not better than, traditional mediums... (or at least simulate it.) If you still want to pursue this topic, consider thinking of how the Art can and has evolved given the capacity of the computer.
Well, first of all, this isn't a PVR - and the article doesn't say that it is. This is basically a Media-on-demand player. It's equivalent to watching BMWfilms through your cable modem now - except with some finer interface enhancements for the TV. Unlike PVR, it doesn't arrange the TV shows that you want to see in order.
The benefits of MOD/VOD players:
- no HD - (no HD crash), and cheaper,
- supposed "unlimited" library of movies to choose from,
- no need to upgrade the unit as often as... say, TiVo. HD prices are always going down. Early TiVo adopters probably get the shaft here.
- probably have some webtv type of features - surf the web, email - benefit?
On a side note, the TV industry must be crazy now, with the different digital standards going - MPEG 2, 4, 7, HDTV, NTSC, Analog, Digital, Broadband DSL, Cable, Satellite... There's a lot happening right now that can leave consumers in confusion.
Piracy is only useful if the cost of savings is greater than the overall cost. TV content is (for all practical purposes) free to receive. Given download times, HD space, and the number of times you'll watch that one particular show.... you have to ask yourself if its really worth it to store that much data locally.
I can maybe see students doing this because they're really the only ones with this kind of bandwidth and access to T3's (not to mention spirit, mentality, and time), but joe public... I'm skeptical. A 2 hour MPEG2 file size is several GB. (DVD is 8GB). In practical terms, it would take several hours to download a NTSC show of this size over ADSL....unless if you have MPEG4 (or Divx) which (isn't that widely available but...) will compress a full length movie to 700MB... but even then, realistically it can take a while. Also think of the file size, hard drives aren't so cheap that I can waste several gigs for a few movies.
Basically, my point is, this is possible, but not practible enough for it to become widespread.
On your comment about LOTR - you and your friends will have fun but a 52 inch screen isn't a movie theatre... likely they'll all see it on screen anyway.
The strange thing about video is that I simply don't have the patience to watch the same show again and again like I would music files. Probably has to do with the fact that I can't do much else if I'm watching TV shows, whereas with music, I'm driving a car, reading a book, surfing the net, doing my dishes...
Bandwidth also is an issue... in fact, I didn't even realize this until I put it down here, but - Music files you can download (albeit painfully) through dial-up. Movie files? full length MPEG2 (DVD) movies are 8 GB!... MPEG4 you can bring a movie down to 700MB. When was the last time you downloaded an entire linux distribution over DSL? Takes a while, doesn't it? Basically, DSL users can spend a couple of hours downloading one movie provided there's a reasonably fast server... but in instances of P2P, who's going to open their bandwidth so that 10's of not hundreds or thousands of people grab their movies? Ok, I may do it from home for about a day just for kicks, but I wouldn't be able to do it from work (where most of us have faster connections).
This is such BS. 'they have made a lot of progress in the past few years' is precisely why this is a problem. Apple's been around for a lot more than just 'a few years' and it isn't until just NOW that they are supporting standards? I don't even know where to begin:
- Nubus slots,
- Apple serial ports,
- Apple memory,
- Apple monitors (pre pci powermacs),
- Apple microphones,
- No parallel port support.
- Apple floppy drives
- SCSI HD's.
Ok, some of these maybe are justified at some level. But still, this meant that almost *everything* that we bought for our Powermacs - part of the proceeds went to Apple licensing. Modem, printers, memory, microphone, monitors, PC cards, Video adaptors, Network adaptors.
So they finally come around in the last 'few years'... gee, I wonder why... could it be because of their sinking userbase is complaining about interoperability? You must understand that the fundamental concept behind Linux -openness- is to PREVENT crap like this from happening. THIS is the reason Slashdoters are unsympathetic to Apple... if, in fact, they are.
The only people who should still buy from Apple are those those who simply can't afford to change anymore, or those who don't have large computer needs. Go ahead and get yourself an iMac if all that you do is Internet.
This is flamebait to all of you Apple zealots, but I just think back to the early days of the Powermac when the only monitors that were compatible were Apple monitors... of course they were $100 more expensive (no joke) and harder to come by. This is not hearsay either. I was a Powermac owner who was constantly struggling with upgrade problems. Later on, they made adapters that would fit a standard PC monitor to use with the PowerMac... the adapters ranged from $15-$50.
The problem with Apple is that once you've invested a lot of money into their computer and their software, Apple pulls the rug from under you and creates a spin-off of an existing standard in the name of 'progress'. Apple microphones? $35. PC microphones? $1.50. The list goes on and on... parallel ports, serial ports. Yeah, right, progress my ass. Linux will never do this. Apple is in a position of need now... the only reason they won't create Apple computers that use only Apple LCD's is because they don't have the userbase to pull stunts like this. If they ever succeed and do create a userbase... it'll be the same old story.
Quote:
<blockquote><i>actually, msn im has the biggest number of users. second is aol im.</i></blockquote>
I had no idea that msn is more used than aim. Can you give us a source for this?
...will call for active participation by
FTT on the Jabber.com Board of Directors and involvement by various France Telecom affiliates in the guidance of Jabber's technology direction.
Strange, I always thought that jabber.ORG defined the technology direction (rather than jabber.COM). I am happy for jabber.com though. $7 mil can definitely help keep them going for a while if used wisely.
To me, Jabber's strength comes from the fact that it's a distributed server system and not centralized. No one company controls the technology direction. Every company who implements the jabber server has complete control to their own userbase, and all devices that implement the jabber protocol should be able to talk with each other - this means that if we have IM implemented on all sorts of devices - Palm, Computer, Cell phones,... whatever, you don't have to go through one company such as AOL... get
permission, pay license fees, etc...
If a large company such as Microsoft... or even a consumer electronics company such as Sony steps in to support Jabber, it would go a loooong way to standardizing it. They don't even have to invest like FT... just step in and say, "We like this standard and will implement it in our future products."
Sex economy often moves against normal economy. (...and please excuse my wording.)
The porn industry in the 80's skyrocketed when our economy was down. Yes, a lot had to do with the VHS medium maturing, but historically, people look to sex, drugs, and alcohol as a means to relieve their everyday tensions.
I hardly think that this will affect... anything. I haven't ripped a single mp3 track ever!...Even when I own the CD. All of the songs that I want on mp3 format have already been ripped by someone else. It only takes one successful duplication / rip / conversion of the song to propagate it through P2P applications.
Thanks. I thought this post was very informative. Question. How does this affect embedded devices? If I sell a product that uses GPL'ed code, am I only required to return code to those who can prove ownership of my device?
Something that I've been thinking about for a while now is to redo the netscape interface so the toggle javascript button is a main button (rather than going through preferences -> advanced ->javascript). Since Pop-up ads are probably the most annoying of ads and usually created through javascript, this will give us a quick and easy method to disable them....or even better, have an option to prevent only the pop-ups from appearing while allowing all other javascript routines to pass (yes, it can be done, but I don't know how).
The truth of it is that most engineering companies have a lot of grunt work to do... for the company, its either done by cheap co-ops or by high paid salary engineers. Your case is not unusual. You'll find that most co-op programs simply get your foot in the door. If you want to get ahead, do extra homework, speak up and gain your employers trust. No manager, engineering, co-op, or otherwise, would throw some of its important projects to you without gaining your trust, especially if there's grunt work to be done.
how about the technical skills required to produce fine art? Color theory, perspective, foreshortening, brushwork, etc. Are we to also call artists engineers?
Wait a sec. Pow Wow was the only 3rd party to legally use AIM's protocol, also MSN, etc... If they went out of business, its *not* AOL's doing - its because something else was wrong - business plans, whatever.
America just likes a good contest. Honestly, can you imagine if at least ONE of the candidates was actually qualified for Presidency? The election would have been over loong ago. Don't be fooled. Neither of them have a strong following - Most people just went out to vote this year because they didn't want the 'other' guy to be Pres.
Likely the media will put a positive slant on voter turnout now. Yes, voter turnout was record breaking, but its only because we're more cynical!
...that school officials were *trying* to make Patrick's point? All through my high school I heard the contests referred to as beauty pageants by teachers. Our school officials aren't all idiots. The system is bad, but speaking for my friends who have become teachers, they are from the same educated background as us, and they actually *care* for their students education. I do know of one high school jock who became a teacher - a gym teacher. I don't think that he's going to be principal any time soon.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, a photograph is more than a negative. Yes, it has a lot to do with it, but it has to do with the composition within the negative, the development process, the techniques. Try plopping your family photo album on a curators desk and ask if its acceptable art.
As for the other things - reproductions of art isn't Art - and that's reflected in the price. Novels, poems, music
There's a lot of conjecture about 'What is Art' and how Art has nothing to do with its Value... "its about emotion blah blah blah." This stuff is really *much* to subjective to discuss. The only thing of interest to discuss in art is its Value!!!
I'd argue that this is the 'real' question as posed by the original poster. "Can Computer Art be as Valuable as Traditional Art." My interpretation, of course. If you want to discuss Art by its emotional design merits - well Anything and everything *can* be art... even cow dung... so why discuss it at all?
Even within the world of art, there is no clear definition of 'Art'... bringing up this question to a bunch of /.ers may bring a reasonable answer but one thing that art is not - is reasonable. However, given my own interpretation of Art, I'd say that Computer Art is NOT the same as Traditional Art... at least in terms of evaluating its value.
Computer art can be produced in quantities without limits - at 'as good as the original' quality. Art buyers generally purchase art based on limited productions - if it is a limitless production it's equivalent to purchasing a manufactured item - thereby reducing cost.
Traditional Art is released by the artist - Once a painting is sold there's no going back to refine the artwork. Digital images are never really released... they are always onhand ready for updates and improvements - (e.g. who's willing to buy Win ME *at a premium* if Win XP is coming out in a few months?)
...the list goes on... None of it has to do with concepts of design of emotion as certainly computer is capable of conveying these concepts just as well as, if not better than, traditional mediums... (or at least simulate it.) If you still want to pursue this topic, consider thinking of how the Art can and has evolved given the capacity of the computer.
Well, first of all, this isn't a PVR - and the article doesn't say that it is. This is basically a Media-on-demand player. It's equivalent to watching BMWfilms through your cable modem now - except with some finer interface enhancements for the TV. Unlike PVR, it doesn't arrange the TV shows that you want to see in order.
The benefits of MOD/VOD players:
- no HD - (no HD crash), and cheaper,
- supposed "unlimited" library of movies to choose from,
- no need to upgrade the unit as often as... say, TiVo. HD prices are always going down. Early TiVo adopters probably get the shaft here.
- probably have some webtv type of features - surf the web, email - benefit?
On a side note, the TV industry must be crazy now, with the different digital standards going - MPEG 2, 4, 7, HDTV, NTSC, Analog, Digital, Broadband DSL, Cable, Satellite... There's a lot happening right now that can leave consumers in confusion.
Piracy is only useful if the cost of savings is greater than the overall cost. TV content is (for all practical purposes) free to receive. Given download times, HD space, and the number of times you'll watch that one particular show .... you have to ask yourself if its really worth it to store that much data locally.
I can maybe see students doing this because they're really the only ones with this kind of bandwidth and access to T3's (not to mention spirit, mentality, and time), but joe public... I'm skeptical. A 2 hour MPEG2 file size is several GB. (DVD is 8GB). In practical terms, it would take several hours to download a NTSC show of this size over ADSL. ...unless if you have MPEG4 (or Divx) which (isn't that widely available but...) will compress a full length movie to 700MB... but even then, realistically it can take a while. Also think of the file size, hard drives aren't so cheap that I can waste several gigs for a few movies.
Basically, my point is, this is possible, but not practible enough for it to become widespread.
On your comment about LOTR - you and your friends will have fun but a 52 inch screen isn't a movie theatre... likely they'll all see it on screen anyway.
The strange thing about video is that I simply don't have the patience to watch the same show again and again like I would music files. Probably has to do with the fact that I can't do much else if I'm watching TV shows, whereas with music, I'm driving a car, reading a book, surfing the net, doing my dishes...
Bandwidth also is an issue... in fact, I didn't even realize this until I put it down here, but - Music files you can download (albeit painfully) through dial-up. Movie files? full length MPEG2 (DVD) movies are 8 GB!... MPEG4 you can bring a movie down to 700MB. When was the last time you downloaded an entire linux distribution over DSL? Takes a while, doesn't it? Basically, DSL users can spend a couple of hours downloading one movie provided there's a reasonably fast server... but in instances of P2P, who's going to open their bandwidth so that 10's of not hundreds or thousands of people grab their movies? Ok, I may do it from home for about a day just for kicks, but I wouldn't be able to do it from work (where most of us have faster connections).
This is such BS. 'they have made a lot of progress in the past few years' is precisely why this is a problem. Apple's been around for a lot more than just 'a few years' and it isn't until just NOW that they are supporting standards? I don't even know where to begin:
- Nubus slots,
- Apple serial ports,
- Apple memory,
- Apple monitors (pre pci powermacs),
- Apple microphones,
- No parallel port support.
- Apple floppy drives
- SCSI HD's.
Ok, some of these maybe are justified at some level. But still, this meant that almost *everything* that we bought for our Powermacs - part of the proceeds went to Apple licensing. Modem, printers, memory, microphone, monitors, PC cards, Video adaptors, Network adaptors.
So they finally come around in the last 'few years'... gee, I wonder why... could it be because of their sinking userbase is complaining about interoperability? You must understand that the fundamental concept behind Linux -openness- is to PREVENT crap like this from happening. THIS is the reason Slashdoters are unsympathetic to Apple... if, in fact, they are.
The only people who should still buy from Apple are those those who simply can't afford to change anymore, or those who don't have large computer needs. Go ahead and get yourself an iMac if all that you do is Internet.
This is flamebait to all of you Apple zealots, but I just think back to the early days of the Powermac when the only monitors that were compatible were Apple monitors... of course they were $100 more expensive (no joke) and harder to come by. This is not hearsay either. I was a Powermac owner who was constantly struggling with upgrade problems. Later on, they made adapters that would fit a standard PC monitor to use with the PowerMac... the adapters ranged from $15-$50.
The problem with Apple is that once you've invested a lot of money into their computer and their software, Apple pulls the rug from under you and creates a spin-off of an existing standard in the name of 'progress'. Apple microphones? $35. PC microphones? $1.50. The list goes on and on... parallel ports, serial ports. Yeah, right, progress my ass. Linux will never do this. Apple is in a position of need now... the only reason they won't create Apple computers that use only Apple LCD's is because they don't have the userbase to pull stunts like this. If they ever succeed and do create a userbase... it'll be the same old story.
Quote:
<blockquote><i>actually, msn im has the biggest number of users. second is aol im.</i></blockquote>
I had no idea that msn is more used than aim. Can you give us a source for this?
Quote: Strange, I always thought that jabber.ORG defined the technology direction (rather than jabber.COM). I am happy for jabber.com though. $7 mil can definitely help keep them going for a while if used wisely.
To me, Jabber's strength comes from the fact that it's a distributed server system and not centralized. No one company controls the technology direction. Every company who implements the jabber server has complete control to their own userbase, and all devices that implement the jabber protocol should be able to talk with each other - this means that if we have IM implemented on all sorts of devices - Palm, Computer, Cell phones,
If a large company such as Microsoft... or even a consumer electronics company such as Sony steps in to support Jabber, it would go a loooong way to standardizing it. They don't even have to invest like FT... just step in and say, "We like this standard and will implement it in our future products."
JPL... is that their sticker symbol? :).
Is this really of any use? We all know that anything that moves this fast will be in extreme slow motion.:).
Sex economy often moves against normal economy. (...and please excuse my wording.)
The porn industry in the 80's skyrocketed when our economy was down. Yes, a lot had to do with the VHS medium maturing, but historically, people look to sex, drugs, and alcohol as a means to relieve their everyday tensions.
this stuff gives me a headache.
I hardly think that this will affect... anything. I haven't ripped a single mp3 track ever! ...Even when I own the CD. All of the songs that I want on mp3 format have already been ripped by someone else. It only takes one successful duplication / rip / conversion of the song to propagate it through P2P applications.
Thanks. I thought this post was very informative. Question. How does this affect embedded devices? If I sell a product that uses GPL'ed code, am I only required to return code to those who can prove ownership of my device?
Something that I've been thinking about for a while now is to redo the netscape interface so the toggle javascript button is a main button (rather than going through preferences -> advanced ->javascript). Since Pop-up ads are probably the most annoying of ads and usually created through javascript, this will give us a quick and easy method to disable them. ...or even better, have an option to prevent only the pop-ups from appearing while allowing all other javascript routines to pass (yes, it can be done, but I don't know how).
The truth of it is that most engineering companies have a lot of grunt work to do... for the company, its either done by cheap co-ops or by high paid salary engineers. Your case is not unusual. You'll find that most co-op programs simply get your foot in the door. If you want to get ahead, do extra homework, speak up and gain your employers trust. No manager, engineering, co-op, or otherwise, would throw some of its important projects to you without gaining your trust, especially if there's grunt work to be done.
Lost pointers of Babylon,
The great pyramid schemes
...
how about the technical skills required to produce fine art? Color theory, perspective, foreshortening, brushwork, etc. Are we to also call artists engineers?
The question was pretty loaded.
Wait a sec. Pow Wow was the only 3rd party to legally use AIM's protocol, also MSN, etc... If they went out of business, its *not* AOL's doing - its because something else was wrong - business plans, whatever.
Did he use European Lego? or African lego?
America just likes a good contest. Honestly, can you imagine if at least ONE of the candidates was actually qualified for Presidency? The election would have been over loong ago. Don't be fooled. Neither of them have a strong following - Most people just went out to vote this year because they didn't want the 'other' guy to be Pres.
Likely the media will put a positive slant on voter turnout now. Yes, voter turnout was record breaking, but its only because we're more cynical!
...that school officials were *trying* to make Patrick's point? All through my high school I heard the contests referred to as beauty pageants by teachers. Our school officials aren't all idiots. The system is bad, but speaking for my friends who have become teachers, they are from the same educated background as us, and they actually *care* for their students education. I do know of one high school jock who became a teacher - a gym teacher. I don't think that he's going to be principal any time soon.