Gyro is short for gyroscope. Did you ever play with a top as a child? Hopefully, at least once. Conceptually, a gyro is like a top; it is spun up very fast (thousands of RPM, typically), gaining a lot of angular momentum (sorry). Part of the gyro is fixed in the housing in which it resides; the rest is free to move around, typically in two axes, just like a top leans to and fro a little as it moves across a surface. The housing is mounted to the spacecraft in an orientation that aligns the gyro in a known way. When the spacecraft's attitude, or orientation, changes, the housing moves with it BUT the gyro "top" remains fixed inertially, i.e., with respect to things outside the spacecraft. Remember Newton's first law of motion? Paraphrasing, an object in motion stays in motion, maintaining it's orientation, unless something acts on it. The gyro is free to move in the housing, so its orientation remains fixed (inertially) even though the housing its in moves around it.
Anyway, electronics in the inertial reference unit, the overall package of which the gyro is a part, sense the change in orientation of the gyro with respect to the housing and convert this into rotations about the axes the gyro is aligned with. Actually, IRUs typically put out accelerations, which must be integrated to produce rotations, but the idea is the same.
Disregarding the fact that you're responding seriously to a joke, I'd like to make one minor correction to your thought, just so people understand. A spacecraft's attitude is its orientation relative to some coordinate frame. That frame might be defined such that one axis is inline with the spacecraft's velocity vector, but this is not a requirement, in general. Such a frame would be a local frame. One could easily define the spacecraft's attitude in an inertial frame (or relatively inertial) that had no relationship to the velocity vector.
My sibling poster handled the comment about independent action; I'll just add a thought on the delay factor, in general. I'm not familiar with Cassini's design, but I work on geosynchronous satellites, including their ascents to orbit. Most designs are capable of stored commands, which allow the ground to program a maneuver in advance. These programmed maneuvers can be time-tagged to specific epochs. So, as long as you have a solid, synchronized timing source on the satellite/probe, you're able to get the maneuvers to come off at any time you want with relative ease. Of course, the trick is knowing the correct time for a particular maneuver. For this, orbital analysts have fairly sophisticated tools and the smarts to use them. Yes, it is all in the planning.
May I ask what your source of insight into this is? I'm not criticizing your reasoning per se, I'm just curious as to whether there exists some study that would indicate that they're on a sub-optimal part of the supply-demand/price-profit curve.
While I may be modded as troll or flamebaiter, I feel compelled to say that I find the subject ZDNet article, and the underlying talk at the conference, to be a steaming pile of ____. I guess this Slashdot article has some value in terms of showing folks how the world seems to work these days (always has?). But, man, if I had attended the conference and used my valuable time there to attend this talk, I would have felt as though such time had been completely wasted. I mean, what was the point? Is this the sort of content that Windows developer's want to spend their time on?
Perhaps it was intended as nothing more than FUD; if so, that is a sad commentary on things, isn't it?
My experience is with Oracle, so my comments here will be mostly restricted to that context. You are correct in saying that database servers are best dedicated to that function alone; the resources involved (memory, network, etc.) in running a non-trivial database server usually demand their own machine.
I take some exception, however, to your view on raw partitions vs. filesystem-based storage. At least in the Oracle world, most studies and expert opinion I have viewed generally recommend against use of raw partitions. With appropriate use of RAID and suitable filesystem selection, the overhead associated with filesystem storage is usually not considered significant, despite many folks's assumptions otherwise. When you consider the difficulties in managing storage over time--e.g., altering tablespace mappings to files, expansion of tablespaces, equalization of I/O--use of filesystems makes such administration much more straighforward. Tom Kyte, a highly-respected technical expert at Oracle, highly recommends against the use of raw partitions unless you just can't stand the 2-3% performance hit.
That said, raw partitions have been required in "Real Application Clusters" (RAC) environments (previously known as Oracle Parallel Server (OPS)), at least until the mainstream acceptance of so-called cluster filesystems. It is my understanding that Oracle's work on clustered filesystems is aimed at allowing RAC systems to enjoy the substantial benefits of filesystem storage.
Okay, I'll bite. While I am certainly not an OLAP expert, I have found a need to learn a little about it and I plan to use it as part of an application I am developing for personal use.
For the uninitiated, OLAP stands for online analytical processing. In layman's terms, this refers to the process of interactive analysis of data, typically via incremental queries that progressively slice, dice, and refine the data set in order to reveal non-obvious relationships between various parameters.
OLAP is typically performed on data that is of medium-age; i.e., not just current data, as would be found in a typical operational database, but maybe not the full long-term historical data, as would be found, say, in a data mining environment. Of course, different types of data and different application scenarious make such generalizations somewhat problematic, but, generally, OLAP is focused on analysis of, say, the last year or two of data. Regardless, the data sets returned by OLAP queries are typically quite large. As a result, special techniques, distinct from those used for traditional transaction processing, are usually employed in order to meet query response time requirements, which are often key requirements for OLAP systems.
One technique often employed is the use of so-called "star" or "snowflake" schema. This form of schema is quite different from the very normalized schema of transaction processing systems in that the data are organized into central "fact tables" with related dimension tables. Dimensions are things like date, location, product, etc., and have attributes that allow fine-grained querying of the facts in the fact tables. These dimension tables are also constructed in a way that reflects natural hierarchies; e.g., a date dimension would allow queries by year, month, week, day, etc.
While such schema can be defined in traditional transaction processing systems, OLAP-aware database systems typically incorporate design elements that optimize processing of queries on such schemas. OLAP queries are focused on examining aggregates of data across the various dimensions, such as sums, averages, etc. These aggregates may be precomputed on selected chunks of the overall data set to speed up online queries, but the query processor needs to be able to identify opportunities to take advantage of such things. So, optimizing queries for OLAP is a key feature of an OLAP-aware system.
Another feature of an OLAP-capable system is some sort of API for creating the various components needed, e.g., the schema, definitions for any pre-computed aggregates, defining rules for "rolling up" from lower levels of a dimension's hierarchy to higher levels, etc. Oracle's OLAP, for instance, provides several techniques for accessing OLAP data and metadata, but they mostly boil down to either a Java API (high-level) or a more arcane, lower-level API for more direct access. The API(s) available to program an OLAP application can be critical in determining the ease with which applications can be created, and the types of applications that can be created.
Incidentally, I agree that the Playboy chicks generally aren't that attractive. The pictures are so perfectly smooth, blemish-free, and artificial it looks like someone just posed the toys from realdoll.com. No thanks.
I agree. If you happen to like the "tastefulness" of Playboy but would prefer more real-looking women, my advice would be to procure issues from the late 70's to mid 80's off of Ebay. Maybe I'm biased because of my age (39), but I find the women portrayed back then were very nice to look at.
Not that that should be viewed as a substitute for online pr0n, though....
And the biggest reason I can't take pictures as good as the photographers for Penthouse / Playboy has nothing to do with technical merits or ability and everything to do with that pesky restraining order.
While I'm pretty sure you're joking here, I'd like to point out to folks that aren't photographers how difficult glamour photography really is. Take a look at some amateur stuff on photo.net and see how crappy the results can be with decent equipment and solid amateur skills. If you read any interview with a pro glamour photographer, you'll hear them point out how they are totally focused (no pun intended) on their job; no time to ogle the pretty girl. It's one of the toughest photography gigs out there.
Much of what you say has merit, but I would like to offer up one other idea.
Despite rumors to the contrary, film photography is still very much alive and well, particularly in domains where digital cameras don't excel, such as low-light and high frame rate. I don't wish to ignite a film vs. digital flame war, but I'll point out that manual cameras such as Leicas are also highly-revered in high-end photographic circles, and I'm not talking about photo-snobs here. An often cited advantage of the manual camera is that, in a way, it forces the photographer to work on composition, lighting choices, lens selection, etc., much more than might be the case with an automatic, do-everything-for-you type camera. Once a photographer leaves the ranks of the point-and-shoot crowd, it is usually these preparatory steps that yield the best photographs, rather than the more trial-and-error approach you suggest.
I've read this sub-thread with some interest and have to add one potentially off-topic comment. I believe that professional photographers do, indeed, have relatively low "keeper" ratios (depending on subject as the other poster alludes to). I think it is quite possible that the wedding photographer you mention had a high keeper ratio because (1) wedding photography is generally more routine than say sports photography or glamour photography, and (2) because wedding photography is highly competitive with very low profit margin. Basically, the cost of film and processing cuts into profits, so less is more. Wedding photography is probably not the ideal benchmark to use to judge professional photography in general.
While your advice to avoid flash whenever possible might be useful to the user of low-end equipment, I don't think it is correct in general. Flash is frequently used by professional photographers in a wide variety of circumstances to address a wide variety of lighting problems. For example, flash is used to provide "fill," or illumination of shadowed areas such as under people's chins, under bills of hats, or in eye sockets.
The trick is to learn how much flash to use and how to apply it. Bounce flash is one useful technique to reduce harshness.
Color casting is a concern, but this is where Photoshop (or it's equivalent) can come in. Most (all?) flash units are balanced for daylight usage, which means that the color cast of flash more or less is equivalent to mid-day sunlight. This won't work that well under tungsten lighting indoors. Flourescent is problematic under almost all circumstances. Photoshop color correction techniques can do quite a bit to fix things though.
Anyway, please consider flash as a tool for more than just low-light conditions. With practice, it can be a good thing.
This is excellent advice. In particular, purchase the heaviest, most stable tripod you can afford. Mass ==> stability, especially in wind. Fewer leg extension elements is also better (4 beats 5 beats 6) for any given length. Carbon fiber vs. aluminum is mostly personal preference, though some prefer cf due to (slightly) reduced weight when considering a tripod for mobile use.
Monopods are useful, too, but they should not be thought of as a replacement for a good tripod. Rather, they are useful in situations where tripods are not viable but stabilization is still desired. Developing good monopod technique is valuable.
How slow you can shoot handheld is determined by many things; lens length, ISO speed, available light, etc. One-half second is pushing the limit, particularly if you intend to blow up your image at all. When images are blown up is when you really see the payoff of tripod use; images that seem sharp at 4x6 can look really bad at 8x10 or larger.
For slashdotter's interested in photography, digital or film, check out photo.net... it's pretty much the #1 photo geek site out there. Much info available for the enthusiast.
Your definition of non-com is mostly correct; non-com refers to noncommissioned officer (NCO), a term that relates to personnel of grade E-5 (sometimes E-4) or better. As a result, privates are not considered NCOs, but sergeants are.
I think the parent was using "non-com" to refer to non-combatants.
Re:State of the art?
on
Shrek 2 How-To
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I see and, for the most part, agree with what you're saying. I will offer up the idea, though, that technology is typically a limiting factor in many creative endeavours; I think that's what the parent was getting at. I don't think he is suggesting that art created with older technology is dull in terms of its intrinsic quality, but rather that the vision might not be as fully realized as the artist would have liked, given the available technology limiting him.
Nonetheless, I think art should be critiqued in the context of the time from which it came. There's really nothing inherently wrong with things looking dated; on this we clearly agree. I think this is why many people object, for example, at how Mr. Lucas is redefining his former art to supposedly better capture his original artistic vision. I think they'd rather he leave it alone, in its original context (warts and all), and move on to newer, (hopefully) better things.
Oh, I don't know. Perhaps I am biased; I graduated MIT in '87 so it is a name with which I am pretty familiar. (Note, however, that I claim absolutely zero credit for anything to do with Project Athena or any of its offspring.) I merely respect the work and am, in general, in favor of maintaining those few ideals we have remaining in this world.:-)
You know, it really doesn't take that long to say "X Window System." Further, I think X11, if not X, is perfectly unambiguous in context, at least to anyone who has taken the minimal time required to find out what it is.
My point is that many people are just lazy, not wanting to take the time to learn or respect the wishes of others. While it may be pragmatic to cater to these sorts of people, I think it is hardly commendable. In particular, I think members of the Slashdot community and, by extension, the GNU/Linux community, should take the time to project the ideal. There are plenty of folks among the so-called unwashed masses who can represent the unenlightened. Who knows? Maybe, if we stay the course of the ideal, we might just influence a few of them to see the light when they might not otherwise.
I have moderator points so it is difficult for me to know whether it is better to mod others or attempt to offer a meaningful view of my own. I have decided to offer my view; only you can decide if it is at all meaningful. This is a very long post so, if you're not into that, please save yourself now. I guess I have wanted to share my thoughts on this subject for a long time and am choosing this opportunity to do that. I hope someone finds it interesting.
I want to say a little about Star Wars and the movies that came after. Like a few others here, I grew up on it. I'm 39, so I was 12 when Star Wars came out in '77. I regard this as the perfect age for the original three movies; old enough to understand almost everything that was going on yet young enough to be amazed and awed by it.
Certainly, the original Star Wars was an audio-visual tour de force (no pun intended). That this is Lucas' strength is well-documented and generally uncontested. The alternative universe that Lucas presented to audiences in '77 was intoxicating; it offered a complete departure from the mundaneness of real life. Creating a movie that is as unique as the original Star Wars was in today's world is difficult, if not impossible. The Lord of the Rings movies certainly succeed in terms of the visualization aspect (and many other aspects, of course), but really don't equal in terms of the newness factor; Tolkien's Middle Earth is a generally well-known quantity to any who choose to read the books and it has been that way for decades. When Star Wars came out, it was completely new.
Some people attempt to explain Star Wars' initial and long-term success in terms of its melding of a variety of classic and modern myths. While there is certainly some incorporation of myth in the story, as there is in many modern stories (the temptation to borrow from the classics is often irresistable), I do not believe that is where it's strength comes from. I believe the enduring quality of the original movie comes from the immersiveness of the world presented and the complete uniqueness of the elements. For example, the lightsaber; Darth Vader's appearance, voice, and breathing; the faceless stormtroopers; R2-D2's beeping and chirping; etc. From the very first scene, the overhead fly-by of the star destroyer, you knew you were in a movie unlike any you had seen before. After the rebel grunts formed up to supposedly repel the impending assualt and the airlock door lights up and then explodes, with troopers emerging with blaster fire, and then Vader emerging, I couldn't help but say to myself "This is so cool." And it just went on from there. The result was a complete and unique movie-going experience.
This is part of the problem with the more-recent movies. Movies have changed a lot since 1977. As has been observed by many, this is in large part attributable to Mr. Lucas because of "Star Wars" and Mr. Spielberg because of 1975's "Jaws." The combined effect of these two movies was the introduction of the concept of the blockbuster movie. Some, including myself at times, have lamented this. Not because Star Wars or Jaws weren't good (they were very good, of course) but because Hollywood has more or less evolved into a blockbuster-producing machine.
But back to Star Wars. While it could be said that The Empire Strikes Back (TESB) failed in terms of complete uniqueness (how can a sequel not?), it succeeded completely in most other respects. The decision to employ Irvin Kershner as director in order to allow a different tone to be developed was, in hindsight, genius. I strongly believe this accounts, directly and indirectly, for most of TESB's critical success. As other posters have pointed out, character development, at least as much as can be afforded in a Star Wars-like framework, is emphasized. Like The Two Towers (the film), this center film provides some pause to set the stage for the inevitable final struggle. But TESB is, of course, much more than that. I will never forget the walker sequence my entire life. When the rebel gru
Slashdot Mirror
Damn you all to hell! Just kidding.
I'll try.
:-)
Gyro is short for gyroscope. Did you ever play with a top as a child? Hopefully, at least once. Conceptually, a gyro is like a top; it is spun up very fast (thousands of RPM, typically), gaining a lot of angular momentum (sorry). Part of the gyro is fixed in the housing in which it resides; the rest is free to move around, typically in two axes, just like a top leans to and fro a little as it moves across a surface. The housing is mounted to the spacecraft in an orientation that aligns the gyro in a known way. When the spacecraft's attitude, or orientation, changes, the housing moves with it BUT the gyro "top" remains fixed inertially, i.e., with respect to things outside the spacecraft. Remember Newton's first law of motion? Paraphrasing, an object in motion stays in motion, maintaining it's orientation, unless something acts on it. The gyro is free to move in the housing, so its orientation remains fixed (inertially) even though the housing its in moves around it.
Anyway, electronics in the inertial reference unit, the overall package of which the gyro is a part, sense the change in orientation of the gyro with respect to the housing and convert this into rotations about the axes the gyro is aligned with. Actually, IRUs typically put out accelerations, which must be integrated to produce rotations, but the idea is the same.
Hopefully, that helped a bit.
Disregarding the fact that you're responding seriously to a joke, I'd like to make one minor correction to your thought, just so people understand. A spacecraft's attitude is its orientation relative to some coordinate frame. That frame might be defined such that one axis is inline with the spacecraft's velocity vector, but this is not a requirement, in general. Such a frame would be a local frame. One could easily define the spacecraft's attitude in an inertial frame (or relatively inertial) that had no relationship to the velocity vector.
:-)
Pedantic, yes, but perhaps useful. Or not.
My sibling poster handled the comment about independent action; I'll just add a thought on the delay factor, in general. I'm not familiar with Cassini's design, but I work on geosynchronous satellites, including their ascents to orbit. Most designs are capable of stored commands, which allow the ground to program a maneuver in advance. These programmed maneuvers can be time-tagged to specific epochs. So, as long as you have a solid, synchronized timing source on the satellite/probe, you're able to get the maneuvers to come off at any time you want with relative ease. Of course, the trick is knowing the correct time for a particular maneuver. For this, orbital analysts have fairly sophisticated tools and the smarts to use them. Yes, it is all in the planning.
You go, girl. :-)
May I ask what your source of insight into this is? I'm not criticizing your reasoning per se, I'm just curious as to whether there exists some study that would indicate that they're on a sub-optimal part of the supply-demand/price-profit curve.
While I may be modded as troll or flamebaiter, I feel compelled to say that I find the subject ZDNet article, and the underlying talk at the conference, to be a steaming pile of ____. I guess this Slashdot article has some value in terms of showing folks how the world seems to work these days (always has?). But, man, if I had attended the conference and used my valuable time there to attend this talk, I would have felt as though such time had been completely wasted. I mean, what was the point? Is this the sort of content that Windows developer's want to spend their time on?
Perhaps it was intended as nothing more than FUD; if so, that is a sad commentary on things, isn't it?
END RANT
My experience is with Oracle, so my comments here will be mostly restricted to that context. You are correct in saying that database servers are best dedicated to that function alone; the resources involved (memory, network, etc.) in running a non-trivial database server usually demand their own machine.
I take some exception, however, to your view on raw partitions vs. filesystem-based storage. At least in the Oracle world, most studies and expert opinion I have viewed generally recommend against use of raw partitions. With appropriate use of RAID and suitable filesystem selection, the overhead associated with filesystem storage is usually not considered significant, despite many folks's assumptions otherwise. When you consider the difficulties in managing storage over time--e.g., altering tablespace mappings to files, expansion of tablespaces, equalization of I/O--use of filesystems makes such administration much more straighforward. Tom Kyte, a highly-respected technical expert at Oracle, highly recommends against the use of raw partitions unless you just can't stand the 2-3% performance hit.
That said, raw partitions have been required in "Real Application Clusters" (RAC) environments (previously known as Oracle Parallel Server (OPS)), at least until the mainstream acceptance of so-called cluster filesystems. It is my understanding that Oracle's work on clustered filesystems is aimed at allowing RAC systems to enjoy the substantial benefits of filesystem storage.
Okay, I'll bite. While I am certainly not an OLAP expert, I have found a need to learn a little about it and I plan to use it as part of an application I am developing for personal use.
For the uninitiated, OLAP stands for online analytical processing. In layman's terms, this refers to the process of interactive analysis of data, typically via incremental queries that progressively slice, dice, and refine the data set in order to reveal non-obvious relationships between various parameters.
OLAP is typically performed on data that is of medium-age; i.e., not just current data, as would be found in a typical operational database, but maybe not the full long-term historical data, as would be found, say, in a data mining environment. Of course, different types of data and different application scenarious make such generalizations somewhat problematic, but, generally, OLAP is focused on analysis of, say, the last year or two of data. Regardless, the data sets returned by OLAP queries are typically quite large. As a result, special techniques, distinct from those used for traditional transaction processing, are usually employed in order to meet query response time requirements, which are often key requirements for OLAP systems.
One technique often employed is the use of so-called "star" or "snowflake" schema. This form of schema is quite different from the very normalized schema of transaction processing systems in that the data are organized into central "fact tables" with related dimension tables. Dimensions are things like date, location, product, etc., and have attributes that allow fine-grained querying of the facts in the fact tables. These dimension tables are also constructed in a way that reflects natural hierarchies; e.g., a date dimension would allow queries by year, month, week, day, etc.
While such schema can be defined in traditional transaction processing systems, OLAP-aware database systems typically incorporate design elements that optimize processing of queries on such schemas. OLAP queries are focused on examining aggregates of data across the various dimensions, such as sums, averages, etc. These aggregates may be precomputed on selected chunks of the overall data set to speed up online queries, but the query processor needs to be able to identify opportunities to take advantage of such things. So, optimizing queries for OLAP is a key feature of an OLAP-aware system.
Another feature of an OLAP-capable system is some sort of API for creating the various components needed, e.g., the schema, definitions for any pre-computed aggregates, defining rules for "rolling up" from lower levels of a dimension's hierarchy to higher levels, etc. Oracle's OLAP, for instance, provides several techniques for accessing OLAP data and metadata, but they mostly boil down to either a Java API (high-level) or a more arcane, lower-level API for more direct access. The API(s) available to program an OLAP application can be critical in determining the ease with which applications can be created, and the types of applications that can be created.
Does this help a little?
In my experience, some things just are funny. As Master Yoda would say, "There is no why."
Incidentally, I agree that the Playboy chicks generally aren't that attractive. The pictures are so perfectly smooth, blemish-free, and artificial it looks like someone just posed the toys from realdoll.com. No thanks.
I agree. If you happen to like the "tastefulness" of Playboy but would prefer more real-looking women, my advice would be to procure issues from the late 70's to mid 80's off of Ebay. Maybe I'm biased because of my age (39), but I find the women portrayed back then were very nice to look at.
Not that that should be viewed as a substitute for online pr0n, though....
Okay, I'll bite... where in the world did you find that? Or is it possible you made it up???
And ... your ... point ... is ... what?
And the biggest reason I can't take pictures as good as the photographers for Penthouse / Playboy has nothing to do with technical merits or ability and everything to do with that pesky restraining order.
While I'm pretty sure you're joking here, I'd like to point out to folks that aren't photographers how difficult glamour photography really is. Take a look at some amateur stuff on photo.net and see how crappy the results can be with decent equipment and solid amateur skills. If you read any interview with a pro glamour photographer, you'll hear them point out how they are totally focused (no pun intended) on their job; no time to ogle the pretty girl. It's one of the toughest photography gigs out there.
Much of what you say has merit, but I would like to offer up one other idea.
Despite rumors to the contrary, film photography is still very much alive and well, particularly in domains where digital cameras don't excel, such as low-light and high frame rate. I don't wish to ignite a film vs. digital flame war, but I'll point out that manual cameras such as Leicas are also highly-revered in high-end photographic circles, and I'm not talking about photo-snobs here. An often cited advantage of the manual camera is that, in a way, it forces the photographer to work on composition, lighting choices, lens selection, etc., much more than might be the case with an automatic, do-everything-for-you type camera. Once a photographer leaves the ranks of the point-and-shoot crowd, it is usually these preparatory steps that yield the best photographs, rather than the more trial-and-error approach you suggest.
Just a thought.
I've read this sub-thread with some interest and have to add one potentially off-topic comment. I believe that professional photographers do, indeed, have relatively low "keeper" ratios (depending on subject as the other poster alludes to). I think it is quite possible that the wedding photographer you mention had a high keeper ratio because (1) wedding photography is generally more routine than say sports photography or glamour photography, and (2) because wedding photography is highly competitive with very low profit margin. Basically, the cost of film and processing cuts into profits, so less is more. Wedding photography is probably not the ideal benchmark to use to judge professional photography in general.
Remote or cable release works well here, too. Also, if your camera supports mirror lock-up, this can help, though you need to use a tripod for that.
While your advice to avoid flash whenever possible might be useful to the user of low-end equipment, I don't think it is correct in general. Flash is frequently used by professional photographers in a wide variety of circumstances to address a wide variety of lighting problems. For example, flash is used to provide "fill," or illumination of shadowed areas such as under people's chins, under bills of hats, or in eye sockets.
The trick is to learn how much flash to use and how to apply it. Bounce flash is one useful technique to reduce harshness.
Color casting is a concern, but this is where Photoshop (or it's equivalent) can come in. Most (all?) flash units are balanced for daylight usage, which means that the color cast of flash more or less is equivalent to mid-day sunlight. This won't work that well under tungsten lighting indoors. Flourescent is problematic under almost all circumstances. Photoshop color correction techniques can do quite a bit to fix things though.
Anyway, please consider flash as a tool for more than just low-light conditions. With practice, it can be a good thing.
This is excellent advice. In particular, purchase the heaviest, most stable tripod you can afford. Mass ==> stability, especially in wind. Fewer leg extension elements is also better (4 beats 5 beats 6) for any given length. Carbon fiber vs. aluminum is mostly personal preference, though some prefer cf due to (slightly) reduced weight when considering a tripod for mobile use.
... it's pretty much the #1 photo geek site out there. Much info available for the enthusiast.
Monopods are useful, too, but they should not be thought of as a replacement for a good tripod. Rather, they are useful in situations where tripods are not viable but stabilization is still desired. Developing good monopod technique is valuable.
How slow you can shoot handheld is determined by many things; lens length, ISO speed, available light, etc. One-half second is pushing the limit, particularly if you intend to blow up your image at all. When images are blown up is when you really see the payoff of tripod use; images that seem sharp at 4x6 can look really bad at 8x10 or larger.
For slashdotter's interested in photography, digital or film, check out photo.net
Your definition of non-com is mostly correct; non-com refers to noncommissioned officer (NCO), a term that relates to personnel of grade E-5 (sometimes E-4) or better. As a result, privates are not considered NCOs, but sergeants are.
I think the parent was using "non-com" to refer to non-combatants.
I see and, for the most part, agree with what you're saying. I will offer up the idea, though, that technology is typically a limiting factor in many creative endeavours; I think that's what the parent was getting at. I don't think he is suggesting that art created with older technology is dull in terms of its intrinsic quality, but rather that the vision might not be as fully realized as the artist would have liked, given the available technology limiting him.
Nonetheless, I think art should be critiqued in the context of the time from which it came. There's really nothing inherently wrong with things looking dated; on this we clearly agree. I think this is why many people object, for example, at how Mr. Lucas is redefining his former art to supposedly better capture his original artistic vision. I think they'd rather he leave it alone, in its original context (warts and all), and move on to newer, (hopefully) better things.
That's what I see, anyway.
Peace.
... X isn't really a very good name.
:-)
Oh, I don't know. Perhaps I am biased; I graduated MIT in '87 so it is a name with which I am pretty familiar. (Note, however, that I claim absolutely zero credit for anything to do with Project Athena or any of its offspring.) I merely respect the work and am, in general, in favor of maintaining those few ideals we have remaining in this world.
"Mojave Spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive...." :-)
You know, it really doesn't take that long to say "X Window System." Further, I think X11, if not X, is perfectly unambiguous in context, at least to anyone who has taken the minimal time required to find out what it is.
My point is that many people are just lazy, not wanting to take the time to learn or respect the wishes of others. While it may be pragmatic to cater to these sorts of people, I think it is hardly commendable. In particular, I think members of the Slashdot community and, by extension, the GNU/Linux community, should take the time to project the ideal. There are plenty of folks among the so-called unwashed masses who can represent the unenlightened. Who knows? Maybe, if we stay the course of the ideal, we might just influence a few of them to see the light when they might not otherwise.
Just a thought.
I have moderator points so it is difficult for me to know whether it is better to mod others or attempt to offer a meaningful view of my own. I have decided to offer my view; only you can decide if it is at all meaningful. This is a very long post so, if you're not into that, please save yourself now. I guess I have wanted to share my thoughts on this subject for a long time and am choosing this opportunity to do that. I hope someone finds it interesting.
I want to say a little about Star Wars and the movies that came after. Like a few others here, I grew up on it. I'm 39, so I was 12 when Star Wars came out in '77. I regard this as the perfect age for the original three movies; old enough to understand almost everything that was going on yet young enough to be amazed and awed by it.
Certainly, the original Star Wars was an audio-visual tour de force (no pun intended). That this is Lucas' strength is well-documented and generally uncontested. The alternative universe that Lucas presented to audiences in '77 was intoxicating; it offered a complete departure from the mundaneness of real life. Creating a movie that is as unique as the original Star Wars was in today's world is difficult, if not impossible. The Lord of the Rings movies certainly succeed in terms of the visualization aspect (and many other aspects, of course), but really don't equal in terms of the newness factor; Tolkien's Middle Earth is a generally well-known quantity to any who choose to read the books and it has been that way for decades. When Star Wars came out, it was completely new.
Some people attempt to explain Star Wars' initial and long-term success in terms of its melding of a variety of classic and modern myths. While there is certainly some incorporation of myth in the story, as there is in many modern stories (the temptation to borrow from the classics is often irresistable), I do not believe that is where it's strength comes from. I believe the enduring quality of the original movie comes from the immersiveness of the world presented and the complete uniqueness of the elements. For example, the lightsaber; Darth Vader's appearance, voice, and breathing; the faceless stormtroopers; R2-D2's beeping and chirping; etc. From the very first scene, the overhead fly-by of the star destroyer, you knew you were in a movie unlike any you had seen before. After the rebel grunts formed up to supposedly repel the impending assualt and the airlock door lights up and then explodes, with troopers emerging with blaster fire, and then Vader emerging, I couldn't help but say to myself "This is so cool." And it just went on from there. The result was a complete and unique movie-going experience.
This is part of the problem with the more-recent movies. Movies have changed a lot since 1977. As has been observed by many, this is in large part attributable to Mr. Lucas because of "Star Wars" and Mr. Spielberg because of 1975's "Jaws." The combined effect of these two movies was the introduction of the concept of the blockbuster movie. Some, including myself at times, have lamented this. Not because Star Wars or Jaws weren't good (they were very good, of course) but because Hollywood has more or less evolved into a blockbuster-producing machine.
But back to Star Wars. While it could be said that The Empire Strikes Back (TESB) failed in terms of complete uniqueness (how can a sequel not?), it succeeded completely in most other respects. The decision to employ Irvin Kershner as director in order to allow a different tone to be developed was, in hindsight, genius. I strongly believe this accounts, directly and indirectly, for most of TESB's critical success. As other posters have pointed out, character development, at least as much as can be afforded in a Star Wars-like framework, is emphasized. Like The Two Towers (the film), this center film provides some pause to set the stage for the inevitable final struggle. But TESB is, of course, much more than that. I will never forget the walker sequence my entire life. When the rebel gru