This is going to turn into a debate about conservatism vs. liberalism real soon. There are many people that believe thinking outside the box is a bad idea. Sucks, but people are stupid.
I also agree that progress has been limited so far. I thought stealth technology would have been a dramatic invention within the last 30 years, but the SR-71 had that down in the 50's. B-2 bomber? nope. Northrop flying wing from the 40s. VTOL? nope- Baloons/Helicopters already did that, and VTOL jets were designed in the 60's. Hypersonic flight? The X-15 did that in the 50's. X Prize space capsules? Nope- mercury already did that relatively cheaply in the 50's (cheaper than the shuttle...). Space Stations? Nope- Skylab from the 70's. Then I thought cruise missiles/UAV's would have been the most significant invention within the last few decades, but the German V1 did that in the 40s, and I the SR-71 had a piggyback drone that was capable of returning.
I guess progress within the last few decades have been more about refinement and efficiency, and nothing incredibly different or new or revolutionary. Just more of the same.
Yes, all that.. Oh, one more thing.. you also get training and experiences in KILLING PEOPLE.
I guess it's not your fault. You go where the jobs are, regardless of the moral implications of said job. It really should be up to the American people to decide that they shouldn't have to spend $500 billion a year to KILL PEOPLE.
Perhaps that $500 billion could be used for something more productive instead, such as a national IT infrastructure or research/explorations. I personally could use a metro/subway station in my neighborhood.
Whether 100Mbps is fast or not by itself doesn't matter. What matters is that it's 100Mbps more than what other countries, such as the US, have as part of their national infrastructure...
Meanwhile, I take the view that we should let Microsoft do whatever they want. Let them force hardware makers to bundle WMP9 or IE. That'll only force people to build upon non-MS operating systems, such as Linux or MacOS.
The competition exists, and microsoft's 90% share in the marketplace isn't insurmountable, as the leading-edge users are still going to innovate on Linux or Mac.
The only question is how many people are developing for linux or macs vs. windows....
My guess is that Bluetooth device shipments even exceeds the number of 802.11 device shipments already. Consider all the Cell phones and PDAs that have bluetooth now. That's millions of devices right there. Now, how many cell phones and PDA's have 802.11? Not that many...
We're also going to start seeing massive bluetooth shipments when PCs come ready with it to connect their keyboards and mice.
Or like the saying: "Democracy: 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what to eat for dinner"
Really, that's why we have a representative democracy, to prevent absolute mob rule.
In the end, though, everyone is not going to get everything they want. And, a lot of people are stupid. What you think is completely mind blowingly stupid other people are going to find perfectly fine.
I find it actually easier to deal with MP3's versus my large CD collection.
My CD's tend to sit in a shelf or in a large book somewhere, and I tend to only keep about 50 or so CD's from my library in use over the course of a month or so. Mostly recent stuff. The rest of my CD's never get used. Too difficult/pain-in-the-ass to hunt through my CD's to find a song or album I want to hear.
I then started the process of recording CD's onto my hard drive. I now find myself listening to a lot more of my older stuff with a lot more variety. The MP3 players are great at catalogueing the music.
It's just much easier to use MP3 files when you have hundreds or thousands of CDs. My actual CD's are now sitting in storage somewhere in the basement.
Sure I suppose music could still be sold on physical CDs, but for me they're going to be recorded onto the computer anyways.
Now, im sure most of you have read Gabes recent comments regarding the detonator 51.75s, and Nvidia's offical response but I really do have to say, having seen this first hand it confirms to both myself and Veridian that the new detonators are far from a high quality IQ set. Alot of negative publicity is currently surrounding Nvidia, and here at driverheaven we like to remain as impartial and open minded as we possibly can, but after reading all the articles recently such as here coming from good sources and experiencing this ourselves first hand, I can no longer recommend an nvidia card to anyone. Ill be speaking with nvidia about this over the coming days and if I can make anything public I will.
The Detonator 51.75 drivers loses even more details over the 45.33 drivers. Especially note how the green on the foreground landrover is darker than the other two shots. Now, these drivers are beta, and not available to the public, so let's hope by the time they're released, the lowered image quality won't be in them. Because frankly, I'm just shocked how much better the Radeon 9800 Pro looks over the new Detonator 50 drivers on a GeForce FX 5600 Ultra, and any self-respecting gamer will choose the image quality on the Radeon 9800 Pro anyday. The amount of visual quality loss is not worth the, on average, 2-3fps that are shown to have been gained with these drivers in AquaMark 3.
Now we have independent verification of Valve's problem statement of the beta Nvidia drivers for Half-Life 2.
There are other possibilities besides existing business models, and I think technological advances brought forth by the internet should merit a serious rewrite at centuries old copyright laws, even if it is only at the punishment level. For example, are $150,000 fines justifiable for copying one song?
It wouldn't be stealing if we all legalized it. You could repeal copyright laws. At that point, copyright holders would have to find a different business model to survive. Musicians would most likely earn their money from live performances. Software coders would end up using licensing keys. Writers would end up getting paid by advertising sponsors in their stories, or through public appearances.
Who knows maybe none of those ideas are right, but I think it would just be silly to assume existing business models should be kept as is. Yes change is tough, but when 60 million people are set in their ways, you may have no choice but to adapt.
You can also do this with scanning hyperspectral imagery techniques. Use a lens that only records a vertical slit, put a prism behind it so it splits that vertical slit into the spectrum, and record the image onto a 1024x1024 2-D CCD. This records the X-axis in 1024 colors spectrum sample points. To make a 2-D image, scan the lens over a still life. You now have a 2-D image with 1024 actual colors per pixel. Compress the data using various techniques. Enjoy.
All the more important considering that you can get a 10 megasensor Sigma-based Digital SLR for around $1000 nowadays... See the DPReview site to compare this with other 6 Megapixel sensor.
RAW is much more useful than JPEG. For example, you can get about 1 to 1.5 EV additional latitude with RAW files on a good camera. What this means is that after you record the image, you can change the brightness/contrast to bring out details in shadows or highlights.
If I took a picture of a room with a dark area, I see that dark area as a black blob. With that image recorded as a JPEG, if I adjust the contrast/brightness/levels, that black blob becomes a gray blob. With a RAW file, if I adjust the levels, that black blob now becomes a recognizable person sitting in the shadow. RAW can represent the higher dynamic range reality, whereas JPEG represents the more limited dynamic range of what you perceive. Reality has a much higher dynamic range than what your brain can perceive. It's more important to represent reality in case you screw up on your shots, that way you can post-process it later.
Re:full article text, no pass required
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Software Archaeology
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You know, it really isn't fair-use to repost an entire article from another website site.
Does the 2nd amendment preclude me from having my own weapons of mass destruction? Are they not arms that I should have a right to keep and bear? Sure would stop the king of Britain from invading Maryland if each Marylander had their own nuclear bomb. Actually, I would settle for my own B-2 bomber. That would kick ass.
Also as a moral equivalent, would you allow Iraq to have WMD due to your view of the second amendment? Should the second amendment apply to only non-crazy people? Or should crazy people also be allowed to have WMD?
I often use SPEC results to find the fastest CPU for a program. The tasks that I run often can take days of CPU time, and so any additional performance gain I could use, regardless of platform.
The claim that Apple makes in that it is the fastest CPU is clearly incorrect. The Pentium4 is about 50% faster than the PowerPC970 according to the published SPEC Benchmarks on the SPEC website. These official benchark results are meant to find the fastest processor to finish a real world task, and do not care about arbitrary system requirements, such as compiler, bus speed, or so on.
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This is going to turn into a debate about conservatism vs. liberalism real soon. There are many people that believe thinking outside the box is a bad idea. Sucks, but people are stupid.
I also agree that progress has been limited so far. I thought stealth technology would have been a dramatic invention within the last 30 years, but the SR-71 had that down in the 50's. B-2 bomber? nope. Northrop flying wing from the 40s. VTOL? nope- Baloons/Helicopters already did that, and VTOL jets were designed in the 60's. Hypersonic flight? The X-15 did that in the 50's. X Prize space capsules? Nope- mercury already did that relatively cheaply in the 50's (cheaper than the shuttle...). Space Stations? Nope- Skylab from the 70's. Then I thought cruise missiles/UAV's would have been the most significant invention within the last few decades, but the German V1 did that in the 40s, and I the SR-71 had a piggyback drone that was capable of returning.
I guess progress within the last few decades have been more about refinement and efficiency, and nothing incredibly different or new or revolutionary. Just more of the same.
Yes, all that.. Oh, one more thing.. you also get training and experiences in KILLING PEOPLE.
I guess it's not your fault. You go where the jobs are, regardless of the moral implications of said job. It really should be up to the American people to decide that they shouldn't have to spend $500 billion a year to KILL PEOPLE.
Perhaps that $500 billion could be used for something more productive instead, such as a national IT infrastructure or research/explorations. I personally could use a metro/subway station in my neighborhood.
Whether 100Mbps is fast or not by itself doesn't matter. What matters is that it's 100Mbps more than what other countries, such as the US, have as part of their national infrastructure...
"It's the latest in Space travel! We call it .. the 'Ego Trip'"
Meanwhile, I take the view that we should let Microsoft do whatever they want. Let them force hardware makers to bundle WMP9 or IE. That'll only force people to build upon non-MS operating systems, such as Linux or MacOS.
The competition exists, and microsoft's 90% share in the marketplace isn't insurmountable, as the leading-edge users are still going to innovate on Linux or Mac.
The only question is how many people are developing for linux or macs vs. windows....
So why can't you just put a volume knob on that MP3 player?
My guess is that Bluetooth device shipments even exceeds the number of 802.11 device shipments already. Consider all the Cell phones and PDAs that have bluetooth now. That's millions of devices right there. Now, how many cell phones and PDA's have 802.11? Not that many...
We're also going to start seeing massive bluetooth shipments when PCs come ready with it to connect their keyboards and mice.
ephPod works fine for me with iTunes installed.
But then I expect plasma prices to go down a lot over the next few years..
Plasma can draw up to 600 watts power.
Backlit LCDs or OLEDs would have to be the way to go.
In the way of "Good looking people earn more"
Or like the saying: "Democracy: 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what to eat for dinner"
Really, that's why we have a representative democracy, to prevent absolute mob rule.
In the end, though, everyone is not going to get everything they want. And, a lot of people are stupid. What you think is completely mind blowingly stupid other people are going to find perfectly fine.
I find it actually easier to deal with MP3's versus my large CD collection.
My CD's tend to sit in a shelf or in a large book somewhere, and I tend to only keep about 50 or so CD's from my library in use over the course of a month or so. Mostly recent stuff. The rest of my CD's never get used. Too difficult/pain-in-the-ass to hunt through my CD's to find a song or album I want to hear.
I then started the process of recording CD's onto my hard drive. I now find myself listening to a lot more of my older stuff with a lot more variety. The MP3 players are great at catalogueing the music.
It's just much easier to use MP3 files when you have hundreds or thousands of CDs. My actual CD's are now sitting in storage somewhere in the basement.
Sure I suppose music could still be sold on physical CDs, but for me they're going to be recorded onto the computer anyways.
Even if CD's were priced at $3, it would be much easier to download them instead of buying them.
From driverheaven.net:
From 3dgpu.com
Now we have independent verification of Valve's problem statement of the beta Nvidia drivers for Half-Life 2.
Looks like ATI is the way to go this year.
There are other possibilities besides existing business models, and I think technological advances brought forth by the internet should merit a serious rewrite at centuries old copyright laws, even if it is only at the punishment level. For example, are $150,000 fines justifiable for copying one song?
It wouldn't be stealing if we all legalized it. You could repeal copyright laws. At that point, copyright holders would have to find a different business model to survive. Musicians would most likely earn their money from live performances. Software coders would end up using licensing keys. Writers would end up getting paid by advertising sponsors in their stories, or through public appearances.
Who knows maybe none of those ideas are right, but I think it would just be silly to assume existing business models should be kept as is. Yes change is tough, but when 60 million people are set in their ways, you may have no choice but to adapt.
You can also do this with scanning hyperspectral imagery techniques. Use a lens that only records a vertical slit, put a prism behind it so it splits that vertical slit into the spectrum, and record the image onto a 1024x1024 2-D CCD. This records the X-axis in 1024 colors spectrum sample points. To make a 2-D image, scan the lens over a still life. You now have a 2-D image with 1024 actual colors per pixel. Compress the data using various techniques. Enjoy.
All the more important considering that you can get a 10 megasensor Sigma-based Digital SLR for around $1000 nowadays... See the DPReview site to compare this with other 6 Megapixel sensor.
RAW is much more useful than JPEG. For example, you can get about 1 to 1.5 EV additional latitude with RAW files on a good camera. What this means is that after you record the image, you can change the brightness/contrast to bring out details in shadows or highlights.
If I took a picture of a room with a dark area, I see that dark area as a black blob. With that image recorded as a JPEG, if I adjust the contrast/brightness/levels, that black blob becomes a gray blob. With a RAW file, if I adjust the levels, that black blob now becomes a recognizable person sitting in the shadow. RAW can represent the higher dynamic range reality, whereas JPEG represents the more limited dynamic range of what you perceive. Reality has a much higher dynamic range than what your brain can perceive. It's more important to represent reality in case you screw up on your shots, that way you can post-process it later.
You know, it really isn't fair-use to repost an entire article from another website site.
Does the 2nd amendment preclude me from having my own weapons of mass destruction? Are they not arms that I should have a right to keep and bear? Sure would stop the king of Britain from invading Maryland if each Marylander had their own nuclear bomb. Actually, I would settle for my own B-2 bomber. That would kick ass.
Also as a moral equivalent, would you allow Iraq to have WMD due to your view of the second amendment? Should the second amendment apply to only non-crazy people? Or should crazy people also be allowed to have WMD?
You'd figure something this futuristic would use an OLED color screen already...
So you couldn't find any G5 SPEC results that can beat the 1200 for Intel?
I often use SPEC results to find the fastest CPU for a program. The tasks that I run often can take days of CPU time, and so any additional performance gain I could use, regardless of platform.
The claim that Apple makes in that it is the fastest CPU is clearly incorrect. The Pentium4 is about 50% faster than the PowerPC970 according to the published SPEC Benchmarks on the SPEC website. These official benchark results are meant to find the fastest processor to finish a real world task, and do not care about arbitrary system requirements, such as compiler, bus speed, or so on.