This means that my customer is not getting the full 1.54mbps bandwidth their SLA guarantees, and by effect neither would I
LOL. You are not guaranteed bandwidth to arbitrary points on the 'net, for obvious reasons. You are guaranteed bandwidth to, essentially, the ISP's router.
If you try to claim you're not getting the full 1.54mbps, I am sure your ISP will be happy to stream its own data to your machine at full 1.54mbps to prove that yes, you have what was promised to you:-)
In the pharma industry, it is a well known fact that no drug company will touch a treatment or compound that doesn't have firm patent protection. Why? To take a starting compound through all the necessary testing and development stages requires 800 million dollars on average. Even for a compound which looks relatively safe and effective, it still costs tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to get through clinical trial testing and FDA approval stages. By design, it's not a cheap or easy process by any means.
You forgot to mention the critical part: "in the USA".
That's a problem with the approval process, which the pharma companies obviously like since it's a huge barrier to entry. A new drug (especially based on traditional plant remedies) should NOT cost $800m to develop and test.
I bet that in a few years some Asian countries with less irrational fears of new drugs will be developing and producing useful new medicines, while the US will be still stuck in the regulatory quagmire...
In Aperture, you have the RAW data in RAM, and display it through a CoreImage pipeline.
Care to show a source for this statement?
Each major manufacturer (Canon, Nikon, etc.) has their own proprietary RAW format, some more than one -- e.g. Canon has.crw and.cr2. More, demosaicing is a non-trivial conversion -- you need to guess and difference between good guessing and bad guessing can be quite noticeable in the final image.
Also, how is data in RAM updated? Are you saying that when I make, e.g. a contrast correction to the image, Aperture throws away the white balance information, converts back to linear gamma, re-mosaics the image back to the Bayer pattern, pulls missing 4 bits out of its ass, and updates the 12-bit greyscale values in RAM..?
Aperture doesn't convert the RAW data as photoshop does when it imports a RAW image. The backing store for what you see on the display IS the RAW data. To get to the display, it goes through a CoreImage pipeline, which is a series of one or more filters that run on the GPU. The result of that mapping is not saved, it is computed by the GPU on the fly.
What do you mean, "doesn't convert"? RAW data is a pre-gamma pre-white-balance collection of 12-bit greyscale values in a Bayer pattern. You seem to think conversion happens only when something gets written to disk. So Aperture convers in memory using the graphic card's cycles, that doesn't mean that conversion does not happen at all:-)
What you are saying is that Aperture converts RAW files on-the-fly. Yes, and? Run Photoshop ACR and watch the image on the screen change as you twiddle the parameters...
I understand what the difference between Aperture and Photoshop is in that if mid-way through my edits I decide that I really would like a different white balance, in Aperture I would just apply it, and in Photoshop I would need to re-convert the file in ACR, a separate step. But that's a difference in an extra step in the workflow, not the difference between working with RAW files and working with something else.
The source is Apple's explanation of what it is doing.
What it allows Apple to do is go back to the RAW data and not rely solely on the rasterized data. For example, RAW rasterization relies on someone/something deciding what white balance to use. Once you've chosen a white balance, you lose some information in the rasterization process. With Aperture, if you change the white balance, the program can go back to the RAW data and recalculate the rasterization with the new white balance, and then re-apply whatever filters you've applied to the image.
What aengblom claimed was that Aperture actually re-mosaics and writes to disk a recreated Bayern pattern file. I am still quite sure that doesn't happen.
As to recalculating from RAW, I can do this now in Photoshop, no? Just convert with a new white balance and then apply the saved edit history. If that's all what Aperture does I stand by my statement that "working directly with RAW files" is nothing more than marketspeak.
It is highly desirable to work directly on RAW files, which as Apple says is "non-destructive", i.e. all of your original sensor data is still there. This is not the case when working with RAW files in Photoshop, which have to be rasterized even before they're actually opened. You can make basic adjustments in Adobe Camera RAW before the file is opened but to do real retouching, you have to rasterize and open in Photoshop itself.
I don't understand what does "working directly on RAW files" mean.
RAW files are raw sensor data. To make any sense out of it you need to at least demosaic first (as well as assign gamma, color temp, etc.). Until you demosaic there is no image you can reasonably work with in an editing program.
Photoshop does this explicitly: first you convert your RAW file to something (either an internal Photoshop format, or a TIFF, or something else) and then you work on the converted image. You can tweak quite a few parameters in the conversion process. This is non-destructive in the sense that your original RAW file is still there and you can re-convert (with the same or other conversion parameters) at any time you want.
Aperture, it seems, does the same thing only non-explicitly -- it converts the RAW file into its own internal format and lets you edit the image. This does *not* mean working directly with RAW images -- you just hid away from the user the conversion step. And I doubt very much that if I, say, make some Curves contrast adjustments Aperture will re-mosaic the image and re-create the Bayer pattern RAW file with my contrast adjustments.
So I am inclined to treat "working directly with RAW images" as nothing but Apple marketspeak with a dose of Steve Jobs' reality distortion field thrown in.
Your content will be encrypted at the source and will only be decrypted by the hardware, at the last possible phase, using your personal key and with proper authorization from the license server.
No, no. You misunderstand. Not "my" content. "Their" content. I am not going to buy that shit with personal keys and license authorizations. I am guessing a lot of people won't, too. They -- the content industry -- can keep *their* songs and movies -- I am not buying.
See, the content industry now believes that it is in the business of protecting their content -- that is, making it harder to access. They are failing miserably, but that's really besides the point. They forgot that their business should be SELLING what they have and that really is hard to do without willing customers (but not impossible -- see e.g. levies on CD-Rs in Canada, etc.)
You also forgot about such obvious things as the analog hole and the fact that one -- a single one -- un-DRMed copy of a song or a movie is all it takes for people to bypass all that key/authorization crap.
I do not foresee having problems with getting un-DRMed content, legally or not, at least throughout my lifetime...
I only use plain-vanilla audio files (.mp3,.ogg, etc.) which are unencumbered by any DRM. I have not and am not going to buy any music in a DRM wrapper.
I haven't experienced any difficulties in playing my music on commonly available hardware on in transfering it between various devices:-)
However knowing how to conserve mana, when to 'flurry' (to borrow a boxing term), what spells to cast to counter, etc... that's the 'skill' I'm talking about. Also skill in a group setting when you're fighting with 20 others in a scaled battle... that's something that takes effort and skill in a different way.
So why are you unhappy with, say, WoW? If you play a more complicated class (eg. a Warlock or a Druid) you very much need to manage your mana, properly time the use of your abilities, know how to counter which threat, etc. etc. And there are reasonably massive fights in battlegrounds (Alterac Valley is what? up to 40 on 40 players?)
I am personally waiting for the game that takes into account the player's skill at the game itself instead of having XXX level will beat XXX-1 level, or YYY class will always defeat YZY class.
When you say "skill", do you really mean hand-eye coordination and quick reflexes? That's the proper skill for Quake, but probably won't get you far in, say, a Civilization game.
Different game genres ask for different skills. I find that in MMORGs like DAoC and WoW player skill is quite important in PvP (PvE anything goes). It's just not the same set of skills as you'd need for FPS games.
Yep, that's right. Just get rid of the whole TLD structure and make people go to.NN where NN is the country code. Let each country control their own country code. There would be.com.NN for the old.com,.org.NN for old.org,.net.NN for old.net, etc.
That's not really getting rid of the TLD structure -- it's just that your new TLDs are country codes.
However there are a number of problems with this obvious idea. Say, I want to go to the main Perl site. Which address should I type into my browser? Is it perl.org.us? Why? Am I supposed to know who Larry Wall is and that he is an American?
This idea tends to come from registrars who would be overjoyed to have to register every trademarked company name in every.cc domain...
It just means that you don't have to use that sucktastic horrble Photosop file browser any more, nor do YOU need to do all the organizing of your photos by hand any longer.
I don't use the PS file browser right now. Yes, it's a horrible piece of crap that needs to die. Fortunately, it can be ignored pretty easily.
As to organizing photos, you still have to do it by hand. Assigning the tags/categories is the most time-consuming task and no software can do it (yet).
that Photoshop does pooooooorly is across multiple pictures...
Learn a little bit of scripting and such problems will go away completely.
But Photoshop does little to nothing to help a pro with hundreds of thousands of pictures get organized...
Agree, but that's not what Photoshop is for. I use iMatch for organizing photos and it works pretty well for my purposes (and doesn't cost $500). Apple clearly wants Aperture to be a be-all-end-all photo application, not a database backend to Photoshop:-)
A product in the same price-class as Photoshop CS, but not the same feature-class... I wonder how that'll fair in the market...
I'd say, badly (and you probably meant "fare", not "fair"). Cut the price to under $100 and things may change.
God knows, Photoshop needs competition, but this isn't it (at least yet). Aperture is in the Photoshop Elements class for photo editing purposes, but it also seems to have useful database/organisation features.
It may turn out to be a decent tool for "serious amateurs":-) but it won't replace Photoshop for professionals.
The camera makers like Canon don't sell rights to make compatible lenses.
Because they don't have them, maybe? There is no special right to make compatible lenses for a specific camera body.
So if you buy a non-Canon lens for your SLR, you are in effect buying a pirated product.
Oh, really? I realize that {RI|MP}AA worked long and hard to make the word "pirated" apply to most everything under the sun, but do tell me -- if I buy, say, a Zeiss lens and through an adapter mount it on my Canon SLR body, in which meaning is this Zeiss lens pirated?
And camera makes change their systems all the time to make them incompatible with lenses by third parties.
That is correct. Canon guarantees that all of its EF series lenses will be compatible with all EOS bodies. Third-party manufacturers cannot guarantee this, thus Canon holds a certain advantage. So?
A manufacturer is not obligated to make its future equipment work with third-party add-ons to its previous equipment. That's just common sense.
Instead Europe is suggesting a way of allowing countries to express their position on internet issues, though the details on how this would happen are vague.
I am sorry, but what exactly prevents countries from expressing their positions on internet issues?
If Iran or China or whoever wants to set up its own root DNS servers it can do it right now, without asking anyone. That's rather suicidal, of course, and I am all for letting them find it out the hard way...
Re:how many people actually _like_ windows?
on
Pepping Up Windows
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Anyone here actually like Windows? I'm not trolling, just want to know. If you do, what do you like about it?
It runs software (from Photoshop to World of Warcraft) that I want to run and does it on generic hardware.
I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to add some code to Windows Vista that refuses to boot if there's a "Non-Trusted" operating system on the same system.
Highly unlikely. Given things like VMware and the clear trend towards virtualization of hardware, such a move would be quite pointless.
Slashdot Mirror
This means that my customer is not getting the full 1.54mbps bandwidth their SLA guarantees, and by effect neither would I
:-)
LOL. You are not guaranteed bandwidth to arbitrary points on the 'net, for obvious reasons. You are guaranteed bandwidth to, essentially, the ISP's router.
If you try to claim you're not getting the full 1.54mbps, I am sure your ISP will be happy to stream its own data to your machine at full 1.54mbps to prove that yes, you have what was promised to you
Why exactly did that handwaving sprinkled with buzzwords make the front page?
Feng Shui on a ballistic trajectory, my ass...
Spend $50 to buy a hardware firewall and the life expectancy of your laptop will skyrocket :-)
In the pharma industry, it is a well known fact that no drug company will touch a treatment or compound that doesn't have firm patent protection. Why? To take a starting compound through all the necessary testing and development stages requires 800 million dollars on average. Even for a compound which looks relatively safe and effective, it still costs tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to get through clinical trial testing and FDA approval stages. By design, it's not a cheap or easy process by any means.
You forgot to mention the critical part: "in the USA".
That's a problem with the approval process, which the pharma companies obviously like since it's a huge barrier to entry. A new drug (especially based on traditional plant remedies) should NOT cost $800m to develop and test.
I bet that in a few years some Asian countries with less irrational fears of new drugs will be developing and producing useful new medicines, while the US will be still stuck in the regulatory quagmire...
In Aperture, you have the RAW data in RAM, and display it through a CoreImage pipeline.
.crw and .cr2. More, demosaicing is a non-trivial conversion -- you need to guess and difference between good guessing and bad guessing can be quite noticeable in the final image.
Care to show a source for this statement?
Each major manufacturer (Canon, Nikon, etc.) has their own proprietary RAW format, some more than one -- e.g. Canon has
Also, how is data in RAM updated? Are you saying that when I make, e.g. a contrast correction to the image, Aperture throws away the white balance information, converts back to linear gamma, re-mosaics the image back to the Bayer pattern, pulls missing 4 bits out of its ass, and updates the 12-bit greyscale values in RAM..?
Aperture doesn't convert the RAW data as photoshop does when it imports a RAW image. The backing store for what you see on the display IS the RAW data. To get to the display, it goes through a CoreImage pipeline, which is a series of one or more filters that run on the GPU. The result of that mapping is not saved, it is computed by the GPU on the fly.
:-)
What do you mean, "doesn't convert"? RAW data is a pre-gamma pre-white-balance collection of 12-bit greyscale values in a Bayer pattern. You seem to think conversion happens only when something gets written to disk. So Aperture convers in memory using the graphic card's cycles, that doesn't mean that conversion does not happen at all
What you are saying is that Aperture converts RAW files on-the-fly. Yes, and? Run Photoshop ACR and watch the image on the screen change as you twiddle the parameters...
I understand what the difference between Aperture and Photoshop is in that if mid-way through my edits I decide that I really would like a different white balance, in Aperture I would just apply it, and in Photoshop I would need to re-convert the file in ACR, a separate step. But that's a difference in an extra step in the workflow, not the difference between working with RAW files and working with something else.
The source is Apple's explanation of what it is doing.
What it allows Apple to do is go back to the RAW data and not rely solely on the rasterized data. For example, RAW rasterization relies on someone/something deciding what white balance to use. Once you've chosen a white balance, you lose some information in the rasterization process. With Aperture, if you change the white balance, the program can go back to the RAW data and recalculate the rasterization with the new white balance, and then re-apply whatever filters you've applied to the image.
What aengblom claimed was that Aperture actually re-mosaics and writes to disk a recreated Bayern pattern file. I am still quite sure that doesn't happen.
As to recalculating from RAW, I can do this now in Photoshop, no? Just convert with a new white balance and then apply the saved edit history. If that's all what Aperture does I stand by my statement that "working directly with RAW files" is nothing more than marketspeak.
I'm pretty sure that this is exactly what Aperture is doing.
I don't think so. That's technically difficult and mind-bogglingly stupid.
Have any sources to back up your opinion?
You're using a $500 software product with a $300 camera? There's something wrong here.
Free your mind from meatspace.
Some people are using a $600 software product (Photoshop) to make images without any cameras -- zero dollars for image-making hardware!
Not to mention that you confuse the price of the tools with the quality of output.
It is highly desirable to work directly on RAW files, which as Apple says is "non-destructive", i.e. all of your original sensor data is still there. This is not the case when working with RAW files in Photoshop, which have to be rasterized even before they're actually opened. You can make basic adjustments in Adobe Camera RAW before the file is opened but to do real retouching, you have to rasterize and open in Photoshop itself.
I don't understand what does "working directly on RAW files" mean.
RAW files are raw sensor data. To make any sense out of it you need to at least demosaic first (as well as assign gamma, color temp, etc.). Until you demosaic there is no image you can reasonably work with in an editing program.
Photoshop does this explicitly: first you convert your RAW file to something (either an internal Photoshop format, or a TIFF, or something else) and then you work on the converted image. You can tweak quite a few parameters in the conversion process. This is non-destructive in the sense that your original RAW file is still there and you can re-convert (with the same or other conversion parameters) at any time you want.
Aperture, it seems, does the same thing only non-explicitly -- it converts the RAW file into its own internal format and lets you edit the image. This does *not* mean working directly with RAW images -- you just hid away from the user the conversion step. And I doubt very much that if I, say, make some Curves contrast adjustments Aperture will re-mosaic the image and re-create the Bayer pattern RAW file with my contrast adjustments.
So I am inclined to treat "working directly with RAW images" as nothing but Apple marketspeak with a dose of Steve Jobs' reality distortion field thrown in.
The fight against DRM cannot be won.
LOL. "Resistance is futile.." yeah, right.
Your content will be encrypted at the source and will only be decrypted by the hardware, at the last possible phase, using your personal key and with proper authorization from the license server.
No, no. You misunderstand. Not "my" content. "Their" content. I am not going to buy that shit with personal keys and license authorizations. I am guessing a lot of people won't, too. They -- the content industry -- can keep *their* songs and movies -- I am not buying.
See, the content industry now believes that it is in the business of protecting their content -- that is, making it harder to access. They are failing miserably, but that's really besides the point. They forgot that their business should be SELLING what they have and that really is hard to do without willing customers (but not impossible -- see e.g. levies on CD-Rs in Canada, etc.)
You also forgot about such obvious things as the analog hole and the fact that one -- a single one -- un-DRMed copy of a song or a movie is all it takes for people to bypass all that key/authorization crap.
I do not foresee having problems with getting un-DRMed content, legally or not, at least throughout my lifetime...
There is a problem?
.ogg, etc.) which are unencumbered by any DRM. I have not and am not going to buy any music in a DRM wrapper.
:-)
I only use plain-vanilla audio files (.mp3,
I haven't experienced any difficulties in playing my music on commonly available hardware on in transfering it between various devices
However knowing how to conserve mana, when to 'flurry' (to borrow a boxing term), what spells to cast to counter, etc... that's the 'skill' I'm talking about. Also skill in a group setting when you're fighting with 20 others in a scaled battle... that's something that takes effort and skill in a different way.
So why are you unhappy with, say, WoW? If you play a more complicated class (eg. a Warlock or a Druid) you very much need to manage your mana, properly time the use of your abilities, know how to counter which threat, etc. etc. And there are reasonably massive fights in battlegrounds (Alterac Valley is what? up to 40 on 40 players?)
I am personally waiting for the game that takes into account the player's skill at the game itself instead of having XXX level will beat XXX-1 level, or YYY class will always defeat YZY class.
When you say "skill", do you really mean hand-eye coordination and quick reflexes? That's the proper skill for Quake, but probably won't get you far in, say, a Civilization game.
Different game genres ask for different skills. I find that in MMORGs like DAoC and WoW player skill is quite important in PvP (PvE anything goes). It's just not the same set of skills as you'd need for FPS games.
Yep, that's right. Just get rid of the whole TLD structure and make people go to .NN where NN is the country code. Let each country control their own country code. There would be .com.NN for the old .com, .org.NN for old .org, .net.NN for old .net, etc.
.cc domain...
That's not really getting rid of the TLD structure -- it's just that your new TLDs are country codes.
However there are a number of problems with this obvious idea. Say, I want to go to the main Perl site. Which address should I type into my browser? Is it perl.org.us? Why? Am I supposed to know who Larry Wall is and that he is an American?
This idea tends to come from registrars who would be overjoyed to have to register every trademarked company name in every
Google, Wal-mart, etc. can track my viewing/purchase/search habits all they like.... Now I'm a security and privacy nut
:-)
No, you're not
In any case, the issue is not what kind of ads you'll be shown. The issue is that information is power.
I recommend reading up on the failed confirmation of Robert Bork for the Supreme Court of the United States...
In other news today the World of Warcraft server Azgalor suddenly got a huge influx of new players, most of them on the Horde side... :-)
It just means that you don't have to use that sucktastic horrble Photosop file browser any more, nor do YOU need to do all the organizing of your photos by hand any longer.
:-)
I don't use the PS file browser right now. Yes, it's a horrible piece of crap that needs to die. Fortunately, it can be ignored pretty easily.
As to organizing photos, you still have to do it by hand. Assigning the tags/categories is the most time-consuming task and no software can do it (yet).
that Photoshop does pooooooorly is across multiple pictures...
Learn a little bit of scripting and such problems will go away completely.
But Photoshop does little to nothing to help a pro with hundreds of thousands of pictures get organized...
Agree, but that's not what Photoshop is for. I use iMatch for organizing photos and it works pretty well for my purposes (and doesn't cost $500). Apple clearly wants Aperture to be a be-all-end-all photo application, not a database backend to Photoshop
A product in the same price-class as Photoshop CS, but not the same feature-class... I wonder how that'll fair in the market...
:-) but it won't replace Photoshop for professionals.
I'd say, badly (and you probably meant "fare", not "fair"). Cut the price to under $100 and things may change.
God knows, Photoshop needs competition, but this isn't it (at least yet). Aperture is in the Photoshop Elements class for photo editing purposes, but it also seems to have useful database/organisation features.
It may turn out to be a decent tool for "serious amateurs"
The camera makers like Canon don't sell rights to make compatible lenses.
Because they don't have them, maybe? There is no special right to make compatible lenses for a specific camera body.
So if you buy a non-Canon lens for your SLR, you are in effect
buying a pirated product.
Oh, really? I realize that {RI|MP}AA worked long and hard to make the word "pirated" apply to most everything under the sun, but do tell me -- if I buy, say, a Zeiss lens and through an adapter mount it on my Canon SLR body, in which meaning is this Zeiss lens pirated?
And camera makes change their systems all the time to make them incompatible with lenses by third parties.
That is correct. Canon guarantees that all of its EF series lenses will be compatible with all EOS bodies. Third-party manufacturers cannot guarantee this, thus Canon holds a certain advantage. So?
A manufacturer is not obligated to make its future equipment work with third-party add-ons to its previous equipment. That's just common sense.
Instead Europe is suggesting a way of allowing countries to express their position on internet issues, though the details on how this would happen are vague.
I am sorry, but what exactly prevents countries from expressing their positions on internet issues?
If Iran or China or whoever wants to set up its own root DNS servers it can do it right now, without asking anyone. That's rather suicidal, of course, and I am all for letting them find it out the hard way...
Anyone here actually like Windows? I'm not trolling, just want to know. If you do, what do you like about it?
It runs software (from Photoshop to World of Warcraft) that I want to run and does it on generic hardware.
I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to add some code to Windows Vista that refuses to boot if there's a "Non-Trusted" operating system on the same system.
Highly unlikely. Given things like VMware and the clear trend towards virtualization of hardware, such a move would be quite pointless.
All your hypotheticals are copyright infringement under the current US copyright law.
I'm sorry, but I have no realistic alternative to buying the CD if I want to listen to music.
ROTFLMAO!!!
I wish I had the points to mod this up as Funny.