Digital camera image processing has moved to the 16-bit realm. That's what's keeping me on Windows, although not at all exclusively.
There is Linux support for RAW image processing into 16-bit TIFs (Bayer interpolation from CCD data) for both Canon and Nikon DSLRs, however tools for subsequent processing and printing are lacking.
I don't discount The Gimp, but its strictly 8-bit in all its glory. FilmGimp is beginning to bridge that gap. In fact, it's a credible tool for manipulating 16-bit TIFs. In addition, the ImageMagick package does provide a number of tools for 16-bit TIF processing as well.
Still, I can't get a cutting edge sharpening or noise reduction algorithm for 16-bit TIFs in Linux.
What's available in Windows? Well, more than Photoshop. All sorts of little specialty apps. As an example, here's a free, but not open source sharpening application that draws its algorithms from bleeding-edge medical diagnostics imaging software, with sophisticated edge sharpening and halo controls.
Not only does it output 16-bit images, but intermediate calculations are done in 32-bit for superlative accuracy!
Is ImageMagick evolving in this direction? I hope so.
And what's the future of printer support for 16-bit images?
I'm a graduate of Stanford law school. Certain things don't change. 95% of legal professionals wish they'd pursued a different career. About 80% of my colleagues at a major New York law firm interviewed with investment banks or consulting firms after their first two years, desperate to change professions. (I made the investment banking move, myself). A handful of high profile antitrust cases, the recent wave of "business method" patents and the (now OVER) boom in Internet IPOs have changed little about the dreary life and profession of lawyers in the US. By the way, as far as the money is concerned, salary pressure has abated, as firms have recognized that the massive associate departure for Internet startups last year was a momentary anomoly. As a matter of fact, if you have an ambitions outside of pure patent law, such as litigation or corporate law, your computer science background is of no importance whatsoever, except for what you've learned about "critical reasoning". (A crack philosophy student can whip your behind in this regard). Even in the patent arena, your computer science background is of uncertain value five years from now. Also, keep in mind that there tends to be not a single promotion along the legal career track for seven to ten years, when the "partnership" decision is made... and typically your hours INCREASE.
Absolutely! The T&C is posted as an example of what many users would find unacceptable, if not absurd. But it is buried in the fine print read by few of the participants.
Still, I would ask the question, do you utilize mailing lists? Do you put a license statement below that authorizes just a single redistribution, or limits redistribution to a fixed number of hours or days? If not, you are subject to a possible legal interpretation that redistribution and perhaps archiving is anticipated in the ordinary course, and hence authorized.
Do you would ask that several hundred thousand users give up their rights to their comments, just to participate?
No. What seems to be happening here is that users are retaining rights to single items of content which have little value standing alone, but arguably significant value as a part of a collection of items --- postings by other users in threaded forums. (VA Linux paid a billion US dollars for Andover.net, which counts Slashdot among its assets).
The status quo of majordomo mailing lists and (moreso in the past) USENET has been the whole basis for the open source movement.
The emergence of significant commercial players in the Linux field is a relatively new phenomenon. Its impact is not yet know. You could easily argue that the new order will destabilize many of the relationships, operating procedures and interactions that have been critical to the track record of development and online "volunteer" user support. I don't mean to launch into a discussion of game theory here, but there are reasons to doubt whether fueling the Linux fire with cash necessarily will advance development of the OS. (I'm working on a paper on this subject).
At the very least, the movement to "closed talk" is going to concentrate significant information assets in the hands of the commercial companies, where they have never been before in open source. If the commercial companies didn't think this was likely, they just wouldn't be in the online forum segments of the Linux market. As another user put eloquently here, the movement to web hosted forums, with the typical "nonexclusive" license, actually guarantees the the Web site (aka Sourceforge or Slashdot) will be the only ones who can economically sort, filter, rate, and selectively present the content. No 3rd party will be able to collect up comparable rights, practically.
One of my favorite Terms and Conditions is the postings policy at www.epinions.com:... "you automatically grant to epinions.com (or warrant that the Content owner has granted to Epinions.com), a nonexclusive [emphasis added], royalty-free license to use, modify, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, publish, adapt, create derivative works of, distribute, transfer, or sell any such Content, for any purpose whatsoever, including, without limitation, a commercial purpose, without any compensation to you; and (ii) you agree that you will not publish, submit, or display such Content to or on any other web-site or on-line service (except your own personal web-site) without Epinions.com's prior written consent. [emphasis added, but unnecessary!]
Larry Marso here, again. A few words were dropped from my posting, leaving some ambiguity.
I am proposing that Slashdot and VA Sourceforge immediately make available their web hosted forums via a majordomo style mailing list, with every participant at the web site giving up as many legal rights as any participant in any mailing list. Permit users access to the full ascii content of whatever is posted to forums via e-mail, without ever having to visit the site (except maybe to sign up).
Different 3rd party "mailing list archiving" sites, which use html interfaces (ugh), already take the position they have the inherent right to be one more manner of the redistribution contemplated by the mailing list method of moving content around.
One can squabble about whether this would hold up in court, but let's move back to status quo ante: put web hosted forums on the same playing field as majordomo mailing lists.
This is a much more direct solution than writing a new GPL something or other licence, although maybe that would be useful in the longer term.
You are failing to consider the benefits of combining anti-skip technology and MP3 compression.
In fact, an entire single track could be read off the CDROM in a matter of seconds and held in the antiskip buffer... so that you could be jerking around wildly 90% of the time -- even more (using a 2x, 3x or faster cd player), and still listen to the music with no skipping.
Once again, a portable mp3 player manufacturer makes wildly exaggerated claims about storage capacity.
40 megs = 160 minutes of music?
That's closer to 50 minutes worth of music, substantially less than a full length CD, at MPEG 1 Layer 3 128Kbps.
Like the Rio ad campaign, Samsong is using the assumption that your files are 64 Kbps or less, which is FM radio quality or less.
They may have software that will help you turn 128Kbps files into more highly compressed files. However changing from one compression rate to another can introduce distortions you don't get converting from original source directly to the lower rate.
Hang on for an MP3 player that hold a GIG, possibly a CDROM filled with MP3s. That will be a revolution.
Now that there are utilities to load the Rio with MP3 files, I'm curious about the Rio's memory. It seems like it's been hyped as having 2x its actual storage capacity.
According to Diamond Multimedia web site, the $200 Rio only holds 32 megs in flash rom.
At 128 Kbits/sec, the MPEG 1 Layer 3 compression rate most widely used out there, that's just over 1/2 an hour of music, not an hour.
Do the math:
128Kbits per second = 16K bytes per second = 960K bytes per minute = 57600K bytes per hour = 67200K bytes per 70 minutes
Note that the Linux utilities can't yet access add-on flash ROM, which is about an extra $100 for 32 more MBs.
Slashdot Mirror
Can mod perl really offer the same advantages, e.g. in terms of low overhead, for serving a high volume of dynamically generated web pages?
I've read that php has a significant lead in this regard, but don't know all the details.
Dooming Microsoft Word is not the issue. It's not even an issue.
Reducing or eliminating persistent opportunities for monopoly rents in the Office Productivity segment.
Now that's an issue.Digital camera image processing has moved to the 16-bit realm. That's what's keeping me on Windows, although not at all exclusively.
There is Linux support for RAW image processing into 16-bit TIFs (Bayer interpolation from CCD data) for both Canon and Nikon DSLRs, however tools for subsequent processing and printing are lacking.I don't discount The Gimp, but its strictly 8-bit in all its glory. FilmGimp is beginning to bridge that gap. In fact, it's a credible tool for manipulating 16-bit TIFs. In addition, the ImageMagick package does provide a number of tools for 16-bit TIF processing as well.
Still, I can't get a cutting edge sharpening or noise reduction algorithm for 16-bit TIFs in Linux.
What's available in Windows? Well, more than Photoshop. All sorts of little specialty apps. As an example, here's a free, but not open source sharpening application that draws its algorithms from bleeding-edge medical diagnostics imaging software, with sophisticated edge sharpening and halo controls.
Not only does it output 16-bit images, but intermediate calculations are done in 32-bit for superlative accuracy!
Is ImageMagick evolving in this direction? I hope so.
And what's the future of printer support for 16-bit images?
I'm a graduate of Stanford law school. Certain things don't change. 95% of legal professionals wish they'd pursued a different career. About 80% of my colleagues at a major New York law firm interviewed with investment banks or consulting firms after their first two years, desperate to change professions. (I made the investment banking move, myself). A handful of high profile antitrust cases, the recent wave of "business method" patents and the (now OVER) boom in Internet IPOs have changed little about the dreary life and profession of lawyers in the US. By the way, as far as the money is concerned, salary pressure has abated, as firms have recognized that the massive associate departure for Internet startups last year was a momentary anomoly. As a matter of fact, if you have an ambitions outside of pure patent law, such as litigation or corporate law, your computer science background is of no importance whatsoever, except for what you've learned about "critical reasoning". (A crack philosophy student can whip your behind in this regard). Even in the patent arena, your computer science background is of uncertain value five years from now. Also, keep in mind that there tends to be not a single promotion along the legal career track for seven to ten years, when the "partnership" decision is made ... and typically your hours INCREASE.
Absolutely! The T&C is posted as an example of what many users would find unacceptable, if not absurd. But it is buried in the fine print read by few of the participants.
Impeccable sense.
Still, I would ask the question, do you utilize mailing lists? Do you put a license statement below that authorizes just a single redistribution, or limits redistribution to a fixed number of hours or days? If not, you are subject to a possible legal interpretation that redistribution and perhaps archiving is anticipated in the ordinary course, and hence authorized.
Do you would ask that several hundred thousand users give up their rights to their comments, just to participate?
No. What seems to be happening here is that users are retaining rights to single items of content which have little value standing alone, but arguably significant value as a part of a collection of items --- postings by other users in threaded forums. (VA Linux paid a billion US dollars for Andover.net, which counts Slashdot among its assets).
The status quo of majordomo mailing lists and (moreso in the past) USENET has been the whole basis for the open source movement.
The emergence of significant commercial players in the Linux field is a relatively new phenomenon. Its impact is not yet know. You could easily argue that the new order will destabilize many of the relationships, operating procedures and interactions that have been critical to the track record of development and online "volunteer" user support. I don't mean to launch into a discussion of game theory here, but there are reasons to doubt whether fueling the Linux fire with cash necessarily will advance development of the OS. (I'm working on a paper on this subject).
At the very least, the movement to "closed talk" is going to concentrate significant information assets in the hands of the commercial companies, where they have never been before in open source. If the commercial companies didn't think this was likely, they just wouldn't be in the online forum segments of the Linux market. As another user put eloquently here, the movement to web hosted forums, with the typical "nonexclusive" license, actually guarantees the the Web site (aka Sourceforge or Slashdot) will be the only ones who can economically sort, filter, rate, and selectively present the content. No 3rd party will be able to collect up comparable rights, practically.
One of my favorite Terms and Conditions is the postings policy at www.epinions.com: ... "you automatically grant to epinions.com (or warrant that the Content owner has granted to Epinions.com), a nonexclusive [emphasis added], royalty-free license to use, modify, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, publish, adapt, create derivative works of, distribute, transfer, or sell any such Content, for any purpose whatsoever, including, without limitation, a commercial purpose, without any compensation to you; and (ii) you agree that you will not publish, submit, or display such Content to or on any other web-site or on-line service (except your own personal web-site) without Epinions.com's prior written consent. [emphasis added, but unnecessary!]
I am proposing that Slashdot and VA Sourceforge immediately make available their web hosted forums via a majordomo style mailing list, with every participant at the web site giving up as many legal rights as any participant in any mailing list. Permit users access to the full ascii content of whatever is posted to forums via e-mail, without ever having to visit the site (except maybe to sign up).
Different 3rd party "mailing list archiving" sites, which use html interfaces (ugh), already take the position they have the inherent right to be one more manner of the redistribution contemplated by the mailing list method of moving content around.
One can squabble about whether this would hold up in court, but let's move back to status quo ante: put web hosted forums on the same playing field as majordomo mailing lists.
This is a much more direct solution than writing a new GPL something or other licence, although maybe that would be useful in the longer term.
You are failing to consider the benefits of
... so that
combining anti-skip technology and MP3 compression.
In fact, an entire single track could be read
off the CDROM in a matter of seconds and held
in the antiskip buffer
you could be jerking around wildly 90% of the
time -- even more (using a 2x, 3x or faster cd
player), and still listen to the music with no
skipping.
Once again, a portable mp3 player manufacturer makes wildly exaggerated claims about storage capacity.
40 megs = 160 minutes of music?
That's closer to 50 minutes worth of music,
substantially less than a full length CD, at
MPEG 1 Layer 3 128Kbps.
Like the Rio ad campaign, Samsong is using the
assumption that your files are 64 Kbps or less, which is FM radio quality or less.
They may have software that will help you turn
128Kbps files into more highly compressed files.
However changing from one compression rate to
another can introduce distortions you don't get
converting from original source directly to the
lower rate.
Hang on for an MP3 player that hold a GIG,
possibly a CDROM filled with MP3s. That
will be a revolution.
Now that there are utilities to load the Rio with MP3 files, I'm curious about the Rio's memory. It seems like it's been hyped as having 2x its actual storage capacity.
According to Diamond Multimedia web site, the $200 Rio only holds 32 megs in flash rom.
At 128 Kbits/sec, the MPEG 1 Layer 3 compression rate most widely used out there, that's just over 1/2 an hour of music, not an hour.
Do the math:
128Kbits per second = 16K bytes per second
= 960K bytes per minute
= 57600K bytes per hour
= 67200K bytes per 70 minutes
Note that the Linux utilities can't yet access add-on flash ROM, which is about an extra $100 for 32 more MBs.