Go for it; the world will just continue on without you.
What's the big deal anyway? The ubiquity of MP3 players, the invention of RSS, and the ease with which a person can record audio/video makes the invention of an online audio feed inevitable; it has to be called SOMETHING, and podcast is as good as any.
A podcast is the online equivalent to an independent newspaper, except that the delivery mechanism, the medium, and the subscription are all online.
In this case the lower quality is not because of errors during transmission/reception, but allowances made for how lone a person is willing to wait for a download.
What do you think all this research for the DARPA Grand Challenge is?
1) If nothing else, someone will figure out how to create a remote car, and then the AI will be a human. 2) The first uses will be for unmanned vehicles in city environments such as Farujda in combat, in supply and convoy lines, etc. 3) You don't create a million copies of something that hasn't been tested.
I wonder if knowing those things help? Convolution Matrix: reads a 3x3 or 5x5 area of pixels, 'multiplies' that grid by the convolution matrix, performs a sum of the values, and replaces the central pixel in that 3x3 or 5x5 grid with the cumulative value.
Does not explain at all HOW this produces sharp filters, but that's a convolution matrix.
Unsharp mask: Creates a blurred representation of the image, compares it to the original, and any place that is similar in value remains unchanged. Any place that shows a difference indicates a boundary, and that area is brightened. The point is that you fool the human eye into thinking an image is 'sharper' because the edges are more in focus. This is akin to drawing black lines on a cartoon to make the edge more distinctive.
This doesn't explain of course why radius, amount, and threshold are used.
Gaussian blur: Uses the guassian function to average pixel values (like in the convolution matrix!). The gaussian function is the probability function of the normal distribution.
This doesn't explain how it works either.
What is probably most useful: Convolution matrix: Create a grid of weights that is multiplied against a grid of pixels; the sum of these products is then used to replace the center of the grid, normally 3x3 or 5x5.
Unsharp mask: Increases the contrast around the edges in a picture; threshold limits how blurry an edge can be, radius tells the function how far away to look for an edge, and amount tells the function how much to increase the contrast.
Gaussian blur: Averages the values around a pixel using the Gaussian distribution, otherwise known as a bell curve. The Guassian function is used to populate the grid of a convolution matrix.
It's not diverse at all; if you're going to do image editing/manipulation, there are only really four or five programs out there 'worth their salt', depending of course on what your primary motivations are.
Photoshop, Illustrator, Xara, Paintshop Pro, and a few others.
Notice GIMP isn't listed; not because it isn't any good, but because it hasn't been vetted, or 'peer reviewed' by an industry for several generations.
If your friend wants to use Photoshop, then get a book pertinent to Photoshop.
If later Xara or Illustrator or something else is more pertient, then get that book; the generalities learned in Photoshop will still be relevant, but the specifics will need detailing. It is like you trying to learn Java or Python or Ruby, and a friend saying, "Well, I don't want to get them a language specific tome, so I'll just get them a data structures book and a book on object oriented design and let them figure out the language by themselves."
You can learn about data structures and OOD/OOP using any language, and if you learn those concepts properly you can transplant them into any other language, so don't worry about your friend learning in Photoshop.
Huh? But you said, "If you are an audiophile it is a severe disappointment because the quality in these portable formats is severely compromised by the compression."
You didn't say anything about: 1) Commercially available compressed music 2) DRM compromising those formats
I was merely comparing the audio quality of 320kbps compressed vs CD, without any statement about DRM.
Re:Wish there was internet battle mode
on
Review: Mario Kart DS
·
· Score: 1, Informative
You mean like the one mentioned in the review?
Mario Kart DS has also launched as one of the premier titles utilizing Nintendo's WiFi Connection. If you have access to a compatible WAP, or live near a McDonald's, you can compete with fellow Kart players across the country and around the world.
$1 for one song certainly seems like a much better deal than $12 for one song. I've purchased 'singles' before when I only wanted 2 or 3 songs; $12 for an entire album or $5 for 3 songs, and in the end $5 is still cheaper than $12.
Stand by your original statement, and I will stand by mine: RFID is not about security; RFID is about remote access.
That it can be USED for security is nice, but it also requires diligent design to ensure it cannot be misused in other ways.
He was not, in any nominal sense of the word, violating security procedures by wrapping his badge in foil. He unwrapped it any time he needed to enter a 'secure' area, thereby validating his identity.
Let's put it this way: If you picked up his badge and used it to enter/access secure areas, how is it a 'security' badge when you just used it to violate security?
The badge isn't designed for security. It is first and foremost designed for convenience; to be access remotely, to identify the badge itself, and to display the security access of the wearer.
It is NOT designed to make the wearer safer, nor is it designed to make he conference/rooms/vicinty safer.
If they had stripped out the RFID capability, he would not have wrapped it in foil; his point in doing so was to highlight the fact that because it allowed remote access, it was actually an insecurity badge because it violated the wearer's security without promoting the security of the conference. A magnetic swipe card with thumbprint sensor + bioelectric power and picture would have been a security card; this was an insecure feature tacked onto a picture ID.
Imagine if your next credit card used rfid, or your passport, or your driver's license.
I'm not quite sure I understand why RMS felt that the RFID was a violation of his privacy. It's a SECURITY BADGE. It's whole PURPOSE is to identify the wearer. If he didn't want to wear it, then he shouldn't have attended the event.
RFID's purpose is not to identify the wearer; like Windows RPC, it's purpose is to be usable in a remote, rather than immediate, manner.
Imagine then bombs that blow up when it detects more than 10 US rfid passports in its vicinity. Imagine thieves using rfid sniffers to 'borrow' your credit card when you stand behind them in line. Imagine someone stealing your identity with your credit card and drivers license while at the DMV renewing your car's registration.
Stallman just made a point of uncovering his badge at doors to allow him access, but covering the badge when not in use to protect his privacy. Wouldn't you do the same with your credit cards, driver's license, and passport?
Didn't I say "comparable hybrid", and "hybrid SUV" in my post?
Toyota Highlander is a 33mpg hybrid SUV.
I have no problems with Martha Stewart or Wal-Mart; I do think companies that give Wal-Mart a price cut over, say, Albertson's or Target, are locking themselves into a stupid situation, but that's not Wal-Marts fault.
So I still stand by my assertion: You can replace SUVs with comparable hybrid vehicles and save a lot of gas/environment/whatever.
Except for the fact the parent (no one, really) mentioned bought songs. You're the only one who's talking about it. Which means the context isn't about songs you buy, just songs "managed by iTunes", which I interpreted as "songs that you rip".
WMA is still more closed than AAC (it's a function of degrees, anyway).
Except that EVERYONE who can afford an SUV, sports car, or luxury car can afford a hybrid.
Upgrading from v4->v6 or v6->v8 has a similar markup to buying a hybrid.
So affording a hybrid is not the limiting factor here; the world would be a better place if every unnecessary SUV was replaced with a comparable hybrid (even if it was a hybrid SUV).
How does your computer have a database? iTunes generates it for me; what third party program are you using that generates it for you?
The iPod requires a database as much as your Archos does, the difference seems to be that your Archos generates it's own database; does it then copy the database back onto your computer for you to browse and search and manipulate?
Slashdot Mirror
Go for it; the world will just continue on without you.
What's the big deal anyway? The ubiquity of MP3 players, the invention of RSS, and the ease with which a person can record audio/video makes the invention of an online audio feed inevitable; it has to be called SOMETHING, and podcast is as good as any.
A podcast is the online equivalent to an independent newspaper, except that the delivery mechanism, the medium, and the subscription are all online.
The tiering is quite simple though:
"TV" quality, ~240mb, ~10 minutes
"DVD" quality, ~500mb ~20 minutes
"HDTV" quality, ~1500mb, ~1 hour
In this case the lower quality is not because of errors during transmission/reception, but allowances made for how lone a person is willing to wait for a download.
I dunno, a DVD downsampled to qvga really wouldn't be all that different from a TV show from the iTMS I think :)
Like the music, these videos are supposed to push sales of iPods, not HDTVs. If you want HDTV video, you buy bluray/HD-DVD discs.
Perhaps I should have been more literal then.
Come on, TV quality == analog/over the air
DVD quality == digital/on disc
HD quality == digital/on disc
TV also means RCA/composite, DVD is s-video, and HD is pure digital.
The raw data for TV and DVD may be the same, but the way it is presented is not.
How much effort do you save in not ripping DVDs then encoding them for iPod/iTunes format then?
If a DVD is 4.3gb of data, that itself would take several minutes. Re-encoding to fit an iPod might take several hours.
So $20 for the DVD, and 3 hours to rip and encode vs $1.99 for an episode downloaded in five or ten minutes.
Funny, consumers have already shown that quality for convenience trumps price with regards to the music store:
$0.99 for slightly less than CD quality sans liner and jewelcase.
It hasn't stopped the music jaggernaut any.
What do you think all this research for the DARPA Grand Challenge is?
1) If nothing else, someone will figure out how to create a remote car, and then the AI will be a human.
2) The first uses will be for unmanned vehicles in city environments such as Farujda in combat, in supply and convoy lines, etc.
3) You don't create a million copies of something that hasn't been tested.
Would you pay extra for it?
Money does, after all, talk. $1.99 for TV quality, $2.99 for DVD quality, and $3.99 for HD quality, perhaps?
Why would finding a cause for autism automatically debunk Aspergers?
If autism can be measured across a spectrum, why wouldn't Aspergers just lie on the 'high' end?
Then people with so called Aspergers would show the lightest biological symptom.
I don't disagree, but CinePaint isn't Gimp.
In fact, I would say it's a success despite GIMP.
But that's my opinion of it.
Neither is Xara, but vector illustration is very powerful in conjunction with bit-pushing programs.
There are increasing amounts of vector functions in Photoshop, and likewise I expect an increase in bit-functions in Illustrator.
I wonder if knowing those things help?
Convolution Matrix: reads a 3x3 or 5x5 area of pixels, 'multiplies' that grid by the convolution matrix, performs a sum of the values, and replaces the central pixel in that 3x3 or 5x5 grid with the cumulative value.
Does not explain at all HOW this produces sharp filters, but that's a convolution matrix.
Unsharp mask: Creates a blurred representation of the image, compares it to the original, and any place that is similar in value remains unchanged. Any place that shows a difference indicates a boundary, and that area is brightened. The point is that you fool the human eye into thinking an image is 'sharper' because the edges are more in focus. This is akin to drawing black lines on a cartoon to make the edge more distinctive.
This doesn't explain of course why radius, amount, and threshold are used.
Gaussian blur: Uses the guassian function to average pixel values (like in the convolution matrix!). The gaussian function is the probability function of the normal distribution.
This doesn't explain how it works either.
What is probably most useful:
Convolution matrix: Create a grid of weights that is multiplied against a grid of pixels; the sum of these products is then used to replace the center of the grid, normally 3x3 or 5x5.
Unsharp mask: Increases the contrast around the edges in a picture; threshold limits how blurry an edge can be, radius tells the function how far away to look for an edge, and amount tells the function how much to increase the contrast.
Gaussian blur: Averages the values around a pixel using the Gaussian distribution, otherwise known as a bell curve. The Guassian function is used to populate the grid of a convolution matrix.
It's not diverse at all; if you're going to do image editing/manipulation, there are only really four or five programs out there 'worth their salt', depending of course on what your primary motivations are.
Photoshop, Illustrator, Xara, Paintshop Pro, and a few others.
Notice GIMP isn't listed; not because it isn't any good, but because it hasn't been vetted, or 'peer reviewed' by an industry for several generations.
If your friend wants to use Photoshop, then get a book pertinent to Photoshop.
If later Xara or Illustrator or something else is more pertient, then get that book; the generalities learned in Photoshop will still be relevant, but the specifics will need detailing. It is like you trying to learn Java or Python or Ruby, and a friend saying, "Well, I don't want to get them a language specific tome, so I'll just get them a data structures book and a book on object oriented design and let them figure out the language by themselves."
You can learn about data structures and OOD/OOP using any language, and if you learn those concepts properly you can transplant them into any other language, so don't worry about your friend learning in Photoshop.
Huh? But you said, "If you are an audiophile it is a severe disappointment because the quality in these portable formats is severely compromised by the compression."
You didn't say anything about:
1) Commercially available compressed music
2) DRM compromising those formats
I was merely comparing the audio quality of 320kbps compressed vs CD, without any statement about DRM.
Really? You mean 320kbps AAC doesn't count as top quality and reasonable flexibility?
What's wrong with buying only one song?
$1 for one song certainly seems like a much better deal than $12 for one song. I've purchased 'singles' before when I only wanted 2 or 3 songs; $12 for an entire album or $5 for 3 songs, and in the end $5 is still cheaper than $12.
Stand by your original statement, and I will stand by mine:
RFID is not about security; RFID is about remote access.
That it can be USED for security is nice, but it also requires diligent design to ensure it cannot be misused in other ways.
He was not, in any nominal sense of the word, violating security procedures by wrapping his badge in foil. He unwrapped it any time he needed to enter a 'secure' area, thereby validating his identity.
Let's put it this way: If you picked up his badge and used it to enter/access secure areas, how is it a 'security' badge when you just used it to violate security?
The badge isn't designed for security. It is first and foremost designed for convenience; to be access remotely, to identify the badge itself, and to display the security access of the wearer.
It is NOT designed to make the wearer safer, nor is it designed to make he conference/rooms/vicinty safer.
If they had stripped out the RFID capability, he would not have wrapped it in foil; his point in doing so was to highlight the fact that because it allowed remote access, it was actually an insecurity badge because it violated the wearer's security without promoting the security of the conference. A magnetic swipe card with thumbprint sensor + bioelectric power and picture would have been a security card; this was an insecure feature tacked onto a picture ID.
I think you don't understand rfid.
Imagine if your next credit card used rfid, or your passport, or your driver's license.
I'm not quite sure I understand why RMS felt that the RFID was a violation of his privacy. It's a SECURITY BADGE. It's whole PURPOSE is to identify the wearer. If he didn't want to wear it, then he shouldn't have attended the event.
RFID's purpose is not to identify the wearer; like Windows RPC, it's purpose is to be usable in a remote, rather than immediate, manner.
Imagine then bombs that blow up when it detects more than 10 US rfid passports in its vicinity.
Imagine thieves using rfid sniffers to 'borrow' your credit card when you stand behind them in line.
Imagine someone stealing your identity with your credit card and drivers license while at the DMV renewing your car's registration.
Stallman just made a point of uncovering his badge at doors to allow him access, but covering the badge when not in use to protect his privacy. Wouldn't you do the same with your credit cards, driver's license, and passport?
Because a gas guzzling minivan gets 19/26 mpg while a gas guzzling SUV gets 16/21 mph.
A minivan therefore gets better mileage and is less evil.
Didn't I say "comparable hybrid", and "hybrid SUV" in my post?
Toyota Highlander is a 33mpg hybrid SUV.
I have no problems with Martha Stewart or Wal-Mart; I do think companies that give Wal-Mart a price cut over, say, Albertson's or Target, are locking themselves into a stupid situation, but that's not Wal-Marts fault.
So I still stand by my assertion: You can replace SUVs with comparable hybrid vehicles and save a lot of gas/environment/whatever.
Except for the fact the parent (no one, really) mentioned bought songs. You're the only one who's talking about it. Which means the context isn't about songs you buy, just songs "managed by iTunes", which I interpreted as "songs that you rip".
WMA is still more closed than AAC (it's a function of degrees, anyway).
Except that EVERYONE who can afford an SUV, sports car, or luxury car can afford a hybrid.
Upgrading from v4->v6 or v6->v8 has a similar markup to buying a hybrid.
So affording a hybrid is not the limiting factor here; the world would be a better place if every unnecessary SUV was replaced with a comparable hybrid (even if it was a hybrid SUV).
The parent said SUV, you said car; those Europeans in his anecdote could have bought, easily:
hybrids
sedans
minivans
station wagons
Yet they bought SUVs.
I don't understand, can you enlighten me?
How does your computer have a database? iTunes generates it for me; what third party program are you using that generates it for you?
The iPod requires a database as much as your Archos does, the difference seems to be that your Archos generates it's own database; does it then copy the database back onto your computer for you to browse and search and manipulate?
I don't understand what your situation is.