Using arguments such as 'this is nonsense' doesn't give you much backing here.
Your analysis of exceeding the dynamic range of digital and film suggests you don't really understand. For starters, it isn't one channel. A typical sunset pic will blow all three channels sequentially, be it film or digital. The difference is that when digital reaches 255 in the red channel,it doesn't go anyl further. You'll notice a sudden red to orange shift in hue as the channels lose their respective ratios. In film, the characteristic curve has a shoulder, which tails back the clipping of it's channels, allowing for a smooth transition to white. Yes, inaccurate colour changes occur near the limits of the film, but they will look more natural.
Your argument hinges on digital being technically superior, so that how the media behaves beyond its limits is not of any importance. Its a shame you didn't provide references. I'm afraid I cannot provide any here as it's too much of a faff from my phone, but if you'd like to look up mauro franic on photo.net, he has an excellent comparison of dynamic range, and some articles on resolution.
I'll leave you with this - fuji velvia has 120lp/mm resolution, as measured by fuji as a specification of the medium - how does that translate to pixel pairs per mm?
Some people have pointed towards companies such as emperor linux as a supplier of OEM machines with linux pre-installed. The problem with this is that the company have probably already had to pay for Windows license in sourcing the computer. This means that buying from these companies actually costs more than buying the machine with Windows.
I have written to my local MP and MEP to address this issue. It must surely lbe in breach of competition laws that I cannot buy a dell or lenovo laptop with anything other than one supplier of operating system.
I am confident that this monopoly will be tackled before I come round to replacing my 7 year old Thinkpad T40.
That's simply not true - I'd like to see your references. Most comparisons between film and digital have compared digital versus scanned film rather than digital prints versus optical prints. The actual resolution of film is difficult to quantify as it needs specialist equipment (I'm not talking about a scanner) - for example viewing film through a microscope will retrieve far more information than any scanner costing less than $5000.
When you refer to a '60 megapixel' digital image - you must also remember that there is a certain amount of redundancy in the image, due to the bayer interpolation. Those pixels are not pixel-perfect.
But that only addresses resolution - probably one of the least important aspects of visual media. What is also important is tonality, colour accuracy, dynamic range and most importantly, fidelity (i.e. free from artefacts).
But film still wins outside of what is measurable - where you exceed the resolution and dynamic range. All you get in digital is a metaphorical brick wall of digital noise, artefacts from bayer interpolation/sharpening/noise reduction, whereas on film you get (?artistic) soft grainy organic noise. The same applies to dynamic range - in digital you get harsh clipping of colour as you exceed the range of each of the R, G and B sensors, creating a stripy rainbow from red/orange/yellow to white in every sunset photo you ever take, with film you get a smooth gradation to white.
To prove my last point - have you ever seen anyone take digital photos at an ISO of 3200 to get 'the look'. Yet I'm sure you've seen plenty of B&W film images shot at 3200 for effect, and that's because when you exceed the limits of film (easy to do with ISO3200), what lies beneath is organic and beautiful in its own right.
There are still very strong reasons to carry on shooting film, particularly if you know how to get the best out of it. You can get a small second-hand camera (such as a Pentax MX or Nikon FE), weighing half the weight of your Canon 5d mkII, with excellent glass, lets say the 50/1.4 SMC-A or 50/1.4 nikkor, use some fuji superia 400, or if you're feeling special, some provia 400 and send your photos to NCPS in california and get them to do processing and the budget scan, and if there's anything really amazing in that roll, you can get a stunning 30x20 optical print of it. Once you've done that, try telling me with any confidence that you've seen better digital prints:)
It will mean that I, as a Linux user, will be able to read and write MS Word documents correctly, connect to an exchange server, and buy and use an iphone with my music player (should I want).
I think it's ridiculous at the moment for me to need Microsoft Windows plus MS Word just to be able to collaborate on a MS Word (or Powerpoint) document - I don't even want to use the software - just to be able to save in.doc would be a huge boon, and open up the Word Processor market to many competitors who cannot compete at the moment because of MS's dominance and closed nature.
I would disagree with you, though I was initially concerned that they were swapping the buttons around.
Giving 10.04 a proper go, I find that the fact that these commonly used buttons placed near to other commonly used buttons (applications and places menu and menu and buttons of the application) means that there's less skirting around with the mouse. Whereas there is usually not that much of use in the top right - shutdown and restart etc...
Maybe it's a good idea.
Plus, it reminds me of another favourite OS - Workbench 3.1
I switched to Ubuntu back last March when I tried and failed to prevent WGA from installing on my legit Win XP machine.
Today, Ubuntu proved it's worth. I had a presentation to give - and I found using open office impress and word processor a pleasure to use. I exported the presentation as a pdf file, but in the end, I thought I'd just connect up my laptop to the projector. I did need to fiddle with the display settings, but it worked grand.
I still have 5 years of angst to get over from using Windows - Ubuntu is my therapy!!!!
Disagree. I had a perfectly valid version of Windows XP. Fed up with the increasingly slow boot-up times, I was irked that microsoft wanted me to install WGA - even explicitly stating that it ran every time on start up. No thanks - I didn't want it, and it wasn't a critical update.
I'm glad in retrospect that I didn't just moan about it. March last year, I switched to Ubuntu after my last time clicking no to WGA, and it's a breath of fresh air just how much Ubuntu respects my choices.
That may be the case on IE8, but in most organisations running older versions of IE, it is not so straightforward, and these browsers direct to bing. At my work I have run several bing searches purely by accident by mistyping the url.
You're right - size isn't everything (there are plenty of examples of less intelligent, larger brained animals).
Broca's and Wernicke's areas are parts of the brain for constructing and understanding language, respectively. This part of the brain is a unique part of the homo sapiens, and is why our brains our asymmetric (broca's and wernicke's is almost always on the left side of your brain). It is believed that the crucial genetic mutation that allowed for this asymmetry, also allowed for us to suffer from schizophrenia, which is believed to be due to a malfunctioning of correctly labelling thoughts versus speech versus what is heard.
But back to the point - human intelligence is, as you say, a lot to do with nuture, but this in turn is dependant on our 'nature' (language).
Then again, I've also head that the most intelligent are a particular shade of blue followed by mice, and then dolphins....
I have an amusing story about Microsoft which I came across while travelling around India two years ago. One of the leprosy colonies we were visiting was paired with an orphanage school, with a few hundred children. They showed me their IT room - the head of IT proudly showed me a room with around 30 computers in. They looked a bit old, particularly in a time when LCD screen technology was what I was used to. Clearly, this was the future for the children of India. The IT guy explained to me how he'd had 30 copies or so of pirated Windows XP on the computers. An Indian rep of Microsoft discovered this and demanded the license fees for the software. As a charity, with a yearly budget probably less than the cost of these licenses, the IT guy had no choice. Overnight he switched all the systems to Linux. The school functioned perfectly well for months, until the Microsoft rep returned to find out what he'd done. Presumably, suddenly fearful that the emerging IT market in India were being brought up on Linux, he asked him to switch back to Windows and gave him the Windows licenses.
The sad thing is that it looked like the computers were running Windows when I was there - maybe some were Linux.
As a physician who has worked at several hospitals, I would be inclined to agree with you.
A distinction should be made between a computer system designed to improve patient care, and one to save money. One may lead on to another, but they aren't the same thing.
The problem, as I see it, is that computer systems are designed without enough consultation or observance of the people using it. A computer system is installed in order to solve a problem, but without speaking to those who will be using the system, it will never solve the unknown problem.
In the UK, the hospital doctor's time is extremely limited. We want to see relevant information immediately, without having to spend time doing a manual search. In the past, this was achieved by getting the most junior doctor to put the elbow work in to preparing the information for the seniors to view. Nowadays, with effectively less doctors around (i.e. doctors not working 100 hour weeks anymore) with higher standards of care expected, efficiency has to come from somewhere. I would say that computer systems make a huge efficiency saving in my daily work. Where previously I would have had to find and obtain physical X-rays from the department, collate them, and take them to the ward, and then return them, now I can call them up on any computer terminal. The same applies to blood results. The potential for the system can go much further than is realised now.
The problem is that we are not consulted on what we need the system for. Most systems are primarily for the use of junior and middle grade doctors to obtain information on their patients (usually only more experience nurses have access to and interpret radiology or pathology results). Consultant clinicians usually rely on their team to provide the information to them, but they also, on occasion (for example clinics) need access to the same information. And yet, I have never been consulted or shadowed regarding the development or use of these systems. From my perspective, this is a conversation that happens between the managers and the IT department.
At a hospital I worked at recently, a new system was introduced for electronic discharge summaries (paperwork completed by the doctor, which gives a summary of the admission and is sent to the GP/community practitioner). I received an email asking for personal feedback on the system _after_ it was put in place. I wasn't able to give personal feedback, either, because no one in the department had the time to speak to me. The change in the system was disastrous - it was a completely new system which was not intuitive to the doctors who needed to use it. The extra time and stress on the doctors which resulted, added to the risk to patients and detriment of patient care in convoluted ways (think of the butterfly effect).
In the future, I see the computer system eventually becoming a true way to improve patient care. It will do this be reducing the amount of admin work and inefficiencies in the clinical workers day, allowing more time to see the patient, think about the patient and discuss the patient with colleagues. Just in case anyone reading this is happening to be working on the NHS information system here is what I would like to see: (ideally, of course)
1. Instantaneous access. With this comes intuitiveness. Every second wasted is another second lost looking after my patients, and can be crucial in life-threatening situations.
2. 100% reliable.
3. Comprehensive. The more I can access, the less time I will waste using other systems. I want to know the patient details, ward, BP, pulse, respiratory rate, temperature, oral intake, bowel motions, urinary output, any other parameter we might be measuring (see 4) medication (and all their changes and whether they were given), clinicians notes (both recent and old), clinical letters, allergies, radiology - everything!!!!!!
4. Flexible. Hospitals take in everyone with any complaint, and medicine is pretty much infinitely complex, and continually
Slashdot Mirror
Using arguments such as 'this is nonsense' doesn't give you much backing here.
Your analysis of exceeding the dynamic range of digital and film suggests you don't really understand. For starters, it isn't one channel. A typical sunset pic will blow all three channels sequentially, be it film or digital. The difference is that when digital reaches 255 in the red channel,it doesn't go anyl further. You'll notice a sudden red to orange shift in hue as the channels lose their respective ratios. In film, the characteristic curve has a shoulder, which tails back the clipping of it's channels, allowing for a smooth transition to white. Yes, inaccurate colour changes occur near the limits of the film, but they will look more natural.
Your argument hinges on digital being technically superior, so that how the media behaves beyond its limits is not of any importance. Its a shame you didn't provide references. I'm afraid I cannot provide any here as it's too much of a faff from my phone, but if you'd like to look up mauro franic on photo.net, he has an excellent comparison of dynamic range, and some articles on resolution.
I'll leave you with this - fuji velvia has 120lp/mm resolution, as measured by fuji as a specification of the medium - how does that translate to pixel pairs per mm?
Absolutely.
Some people have pointed towards companies such as emperor linux as a supplier of OEM machines with linux pre-installed. The problem with this is that the company have probably already had to pay for Windows license in sourcing the computer. This means that buying from these companies actually costs more than buying the machine with Windows.
I have written to my local MP and MEP to address this issue. It must surely lbe in breach of competition laws that I cannot buy a dell or lenovo laptop with anything other than one supplier of operating system.
I am confident that this monopoly will be tackled before I come round to replacing my 7 year old Thinkpad T40.
That's simply not true - I'd like to see your references. Most comparisons between film and digital have compared digital versus scanned film rather than digital prints versus optical prints. The actual resolution of film is difficult to quantify as it needs specialist equipment (I'm not talking about a scanner) - for example viewing film through a microscope will retrieve far more information than any scanner costing less than $5000.
When you refer to a '60 megapixel' digital image - you must also remember that there is a certain amount of redundancy in the image, due to the bayer interpolation. Those pixels are not pixel-perfect.
But that only addresses resolution - probably one of the least important aspects of visual media. What is also important is tonality, colour accuracy, dynamic range and most importantly, fidelity (i.e. free from artefacts).
But film still wins outside of what is measurable - where you exceed the resolution and dynamic range. All you get in digital is a metaphorical brick wall of digital noise, artefacts from bayer interpolation/sharpening/noise reduction, whereas on film you get (?artistic) soft grainy organic noise. The same applies to dynamic range - in digital you get harsh clipping of colour as you exceed the range of each of the R, G and B sensors, creating a stripy rainbow from red/orange/yellow to white in every sunset photo you ever take, with film you get a smooth gradation to white.
To prove my last point - have you ever seen anyone take digital photos at an ISO of 3200 to get 'the look'. Yet I'm sure you've seen plenty of B&W film images shot at 3200 for effect, and that's because when you exceed the limits of film (easy to do with ISO3200), what lies beneath is organic and beautiful in its own right.
There are still very strong reasons to carry on shooting film, particularly if you know how to get the best out of it. You can get a small second-hand camera (such as a Pentax MX or Nikon FE), weighing half the weight of your Canon 5d mkII, with excellent glass, lets say the 50/1.4 SMC-A or 50/1.4 nikkor, use some fuji superia 400, or if you're feeling special, some provia 400 and send your photos to NCPS in california and get them to do processing and the budget scan, and if there's anything really amazing in that roll, you can get a stunning 30x20 optical print of it. Once you've done that, try telling me with any confidence that you've seen better digital prints :)
Duncan.
..news for people who appreciate freedom.
It will mean that I, as a Linux user, will be able to read and write MS Word documents correctly, connect to an exchange server, and buy and use an iphone with my music player (should I want).
I think it's ridiculous at the moment for me to need Microsoft Windows plus MS Word just to be able to collaborate on a MS Word (or Powerpoint) document - I don't even want to use the software - just to be able to save in .doc would be a huge boon, and open up the Word Processor market to many competitors who cannot compete at the moment because of MS's dominance and closed nature.
D
I would disagree with you, though I was initially concerned that they were swapping the buttons around.
Giving 10.04 a proper go, I find that the fact that these commonly used buttons placed near to other commonly used buttons (applications and places menu and menu and buttons of the application) means that there's less skirting around with the mouse. Whereas there is usually not that much of use in the top right - shutdown and restart etc...
Maybe it's a good idea.
Plus, it reminds me of another favourite OS - Workbench 3.1
Duncan.
I switched to Ubuntu back last March when I tried and failed to prevent WGA from installing on my legit Win XP machine.
Today, Ubuntu proved it's worth. I had a presentation to give - and I found using open office impress and word processor a pleasure to use. I exported the presentation as a pdf file, but in the end, I thought I'd just connect up my laptop to the projector. I did need to fiddle with the display settings, but it worked grand.
I still have 5 years of angst to get over from using Windows - Ubuntu is my therapy!!!!
Or, if they were to become intelligent enough to understand how they evolved, would that disprove God?
do they believe in God?
Disagree. I had a perfectly valid version of Windows XP. Fed up with the increasingly slow boot-up times, I was irked that microsoft wanted me to install WGA - even explicitly stating that it ran every time on start up. No thanks - I didn't want it, and it wasn't a critical update.
I'm glad in retrospect that I didn't just moan about it. March last year, I switched to Ubuntu after my last time clicking no to WGA, and it's a breath of fresh air just how much Ubuntu respects my choices.
This is the kind of stuff that finally made me move to linux!
That may be the case on IE8, but in most organisations running older versions of IE, it is not so straightforward, and these browsers direct to bing. At my work I have run several bing searches purely by accident by mistyping the url.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfqht0LEOWQ
Go to Options > Personal Stuff and change appearance to GTK+ theme.
You're right - size isn't everything (there are plenty of examples of less intelligent, larger brained animals).
Broca's and Wernicke's areas are parts of the brain for constructing and understanding language, respectively. This part of the brain is a unique part of the homo sapiens, and is why our brains our asymmetric (broca's and wernicke's is almost always on the left side of your brain). It is believed that the crucial genetic mutation that allowed for this asymmetry, also allowed for us to suffer from schizophrenia, which is believed to be due to a malfunctioning of correctly labelling thoughts versus speech versus what is heard.
But back to the point - human intelligence is, as you say, a lot to do with nuture, but this in turn is dependant on our 'nature' (language).
Then again, I've also head that the most intelligent are a particular shade of blue followed by mice, and then dolphins....
I have an amusing story about Microsoft which I came across while travelling around India two years ago. One of the leprosy colonies we were visiting was paired with an orphanage school, with a few hundred children. They showed me their IT room - the head of IT proudly showed me a room with around 30 computers in. They looked a bit old, particularly in a time when LCD screen technology was what I was used to. Clearly, this was the future for the children of India. The IT guy explained to me how he'd had 30 copies or so of pirated Windows XP on the computers. An Indian rep of Microsoft discovered this and demanded the license fees for the software. As a charity, with a yearly budget probably less than the cost of these licenses, the IT guy had no choice. Overnight he switched all the systems to Linux. The school functioned perfectly well for months, until the Microsoft rep returned to find out what he'd done. Presumably, suddenly fearful that the emerging IT market in India were being brought up on Linux, he asked him to switch back to Windows and gave him the Windows licenses.
The sad thing is that it looked like the computers were running Windows when I was there - maybe some were Linux.
As a physician who has worked at several hospitals, I would be inclined to agree with you.
A distinction should be made between a computer system designed to improve patient care, and one to save money. One may lead on to another, but they aren't the same thing.
The problem, as I see it, is that computer systems are designed without enough consultation or observance of the people using it. A computer system is installed in order to solve a problem, but without speaking to those who will be using the system, it will never solve the unknown problem.
In the UK, the hospital doctor's time is extremely limited. We want to see relevant information immediately, without having to spend time doing a manual search. In the past, this was achieved by getting the most junior doctor to put the elbow work in to preparing the information for the seniors to view. Nowadays, with effectively less doctors around (i.e. doctors not working 100 hour weeks anymore) with higher standards of care expected, efficiency has to come from somewhere. I would say that computer systems make a huge efficiency saving in my daily work. Where previously I would have had to find and obtain physical X-rays from the department, collate them, and take them to the ward, and then return them, now I can call them up on any computer terminal. The same applies to blood results. The potential for the system can go much further than is realised now.
The problem is that we are not consulted on what we need the system for. Most systems are primarily for the use of junior and middle grade doctors to obtain information on their patients (usually only more experience nurses have access to and interpret radiology or pathology results). Consultant clinicians usually rely on their team to provide the information to them, but they also, on occasion (for example clinics) need access to the same information. And yet, I have never been consulted or shadowed regarding the development or use of these systems. From my perspective, this is a conversation that happens between the managers and the IT department.
At a hospital I worked at recently, a new system was introduced for electronic discharge summaries (paperwork completed by the doctor, which gives a summary of the admission and is sent to the GP/community practitioner). I received an email asking for personal feedback on the system _after_ it was put in place. I wasn't able to give personal feedback, either, because no one in the department had the time to speak to me. The change in the system was disastrous - it was a completely new system which was not intuitive to the doctors who needed to use it. The extra time and stress on the doctors which resulted, added to the risk to patients and detriment of patient care in convoluted ways (think of the butterfly effect).
In the future, I see the computer system eventually becoming a true way to improve patient care. It will do this be reducing the amount of admin work and inefficiencies in the clinical workers day, allowing more time to see the patient, think about the patient and discuss the patient with colleagues. Just in case anyone reading this is happening to be working on the NHS information system here is what I would like to see: (ideally, of course)
1. Instantaneous access. With this comes intuitiveness. Every second wasted is another second lost looking after my patients, and can be crucial in life-threatening situations.
2. 100% reliable.
3. Comprehensive. The more I can access, the less time I will waste using other systems. I want to know the patient details, ward, BP, pulse, respiratory rate, temperature, oral intake, bowel motions, urinary output, any other parameter we might be measuring (see 4) medication (and all their changes and whether they were given), clinicians notes (both recent and old), clinical letters, allergies, radiology - everything!!!!!!
4. Flexible. Hospitals take in everyone with any complaint, and medicine is pretty much infinitely complex, and continually