The sensor that was designed with a "fast" and "slow" pixel, analogous to film designs (by FujiFilm, Kodak, Konica, Agfa, etc) is exclusively FujiFilm. They've recently updated the design: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08092210fujifilmexr.asp
The concept works, but leads to very large raw files. The wedding market likes this technology (white dresses, black tuxes, unpredictable light), but often shoots in-camera JPEG for file size reasons.
The FujiFilm concept in the link above is to take two photos simultaneously using interleaved pixels, and combine the result to get a high-dynamic-range image.
I took a 30 minute training course on Aperture at Photo Plus Expo in NYC yesterday. Considering we were using version "0.1 dev", the app was quite solid and very responsive (on the G5 towers that were running it). Very, very well-thought-out, and the show was buzzing over the software. "This was clearly designed with the help of pro photographers" was something I heard more than once.
At $499, it's not a cheap program, but if I was an independent pro photographer, this is looking like an essential tool for organizing, editting, and selling images. Lots of goodies like automatically grouping similar images by time, a very slick loupe (magnify) tool, and advanced version control of edits to images.
This is a substantial program. I think most pros will want Photoshop and Aperture. And a G5 tower, which is fine with Apple....
The most impressive thing I saw at the show, which is interesting for a show full of cameras....
But -- I think that digital cameras are still *way* too new for this kind of standardization. Significant true innovation is happening at a frenetic pace, and if we limit RAW formats to a preconceived format we may inadvertantly (or advertantly, I suppose) squelch that innovation.
Some of these concerns are answered by the option of storing the data in a demosaiced rectilinear form. So, the SuperCCDs and X3s of the world can get to DNG, just one step farther away from "true" raw sensor data. In addition, some of the "proprietary extension" information supported could help with the decoding of new things that come along.
I think that waiting to standardize would be a never-ending wait, and a disservice to those struggling to support a myriad formats in a workflow. If a standard can be agreed upon (or reachable through a converter!), it is far easier to mix and match cameras in a workflow. Bad for lock-in to one vendor, good for customer choice.
Ah, the irony of complaining about a band "ripping off" a Led Zeppelin song.... LZ was all about taking old blues songs and turning them into rock-n-roll. Which was a *good* thing, IMHO. As is the song "Bullet the Blue Sky," IMHO.
As for the severe overplaying of Joshua Tree songs by the "machine," I'm completely with you. Commercial radio can run even a good song into the ground by overplaying. Of course, it usually sticks to bad songs to overplay....
...and in Minneapolis, most north-south roads are named alphabetically (each block east uses the next letter to start the name of the road). For uncommon letters, the same name gets used over and over again, leading to a curious abundance of Zinran Avenues and Xerxes Avenues.
The "Real Story" link on JPEGs is quite amusing, to say the least. Saying "look at these images in your web browser -- you can't tell the difference" hardly leads to the conclusion "people never need to use uncompressed images, since there never are visible differences."
I *do* work for a professional imaging company, and here are some of my opinions on "the real story":
- JPEG is designed to compress images in ways that degrade the visibility of compression artifacts as much as possible. It works particularly well for photographic images, since that's what it's designed for. - JPEG compression is often very appropriate for web images. Uncompressed images are often inappropriate for web images, due to their size. - JPEG does produce artifacts, and many are objectionable at high compression levels. - Even mild JPEG compression does visible damage to things like crisp text or sharp lines. This is a function of the compression scheme's photographic emphasis. (And, specifically, a function of the 8x8 pixel blocks and discrete cosine transforms used....) - JPEG2000 (.JP2 or.JPX) is a more sophisticated technique employing wavelets. To my eyes, the artifacts (especially localized ones) are significantly less noticable than standard JPEG at similar compression levels. A technology to watch... - Digital SLR "RAW" files are different than standard uncompressed tiff's. Usually, they represent raw sensor data at higher than 8-bit color depth. As such, they are the digital equivalent of the negative, and various different kinds of post-processing is often applied to the same image, based on situation. - Compression isn't free (as in clock cycles). It takes a lot less time to write the larger RAW file from a DSLR to a CF card than it does to compress it in-camera to a smaller JPG file. This effects burst rate image capture as well as battery life.
Phew. That was long. The conclusion that "there's really no reason to use raws over jpegs" was wrong on so many levels that I had to clear some misconceptions up, I suppose!
It's incorrect Latin, but quite deliberately correct *pseudo-Latin* (see also Mock Swedish). A google search turned up the following historical background. See also the Harvard Band (which uses the even more incorrect "illegitimum" in its motto).
Illegitimi Non Carborundum
"Don't let the bastards grind you down"
According to Safire's New Political Dictionary, this is "a pseudo-Latin phrase meaning 'don't let the bastards grind you down'. Small signs and plaques carrying this message have appeared in U.S. business offices and army posts for at least a generation, since General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell used it as his motto in World War II. Carborundum is a trademark for silicon carbide, a leading commercial grinding substance...In politics, the motto was popularized by 1964 Republican nominee Senator Barry Goldwater, who hung the sign in his office." (--from Safire's New Political Dictionary, p. 353)
Source: Safire, William Safire's New Political Dictionary : The Definitive Guide to the New Language of Politics Random House, New York, 1993.
Not quite.... Following your link to the Adobe fonts page, we see:.... Typeface notes: The Rotis family was designed in 1989 by Otl Aicher for Agfa; his last type design.... Designer: Otl Aicher Rotis is a trademark of Agfa Division, Bayer Corporation.
So, this *is* an Agfa font, licenced to be sold by Adobe. It is just these kinds of licence agreements that Adobe is claiming Agfa and ITC are trying to gain leverage in.
>A simple thing will happen, the "preformer" will > be unable to "make money" with crappy >material, he will barter a deal with the >"composer" (probably for a percentage of the >take) and they will both be happy. Remember, if >either one is crap it doesn't work.
Have you listened to top-40 radio lately? That would seem to be a counterexample to your last sentence.
I will agree that it would be better if what you say was true (and, pot-shots at bad modern music aside, it often is).
If you're running a web server, and you're familiar with setting it up in the Linux world, you'll get better performance and/or can use cheaper/older hardware using Linux.
For consumer desktop use, I'm with you. The unix command line (and the fine job of porting unix tools that's going on) means I won't be looking to install linux on my main box.
On the old 180mhz one, now... linux is still tempting, depending on what I want to do with it. If it's just serving info (to the web or to my iBook via AirPort), linux is a definite consideration.
Ok, here's something I can actually comment on with some authority, since I'm a chemist. Sodium borohydride itself is not that bad. You don't eat it (would you eat gasoline?), and the biggest concern is its water reactivity, which is moderate (think baking soda + vinegar... this is a little more reactive, but by no means as bomb waiting to go off). I've worked with the stuff on numerous occasions -- you can weigh the white powder out on a balance with no extra precautions over what you normally use to handle lab chemicals. The thing is, they're talking about a WATER SOLUTION of NaBH4, which eliminates the main problem in the first place.
Yes, it's a chemical, people. Yes, it can emit hydrogen bubbles under the right conditions. That's kind of the point. At first blush, this is one of the safer sources of hydrogen I've seen discussed.
Since you're delving into MSDS's, take a look at another sodium compound: sodium chloride. Did you know that you have an inhalation hazard in your kitchen cupboard?
On the mac, here's a couple of (older) suggestions:
Oxyd, an interesting marble-rolling puzzle game, which has a two-player cooperative mode.
Bubble Trouble (www.ambrosiasw.com). This is one-player, but for some reason, females tend to do better at it (according to the documentation, and according to my one data point).
As an upstate NY'er, I can confirm that Bully Hill winery is still going strong, although Walter S. T***** passed away recently. The wines have actually steadily improved, and they have a nice restaurant now. The final salvo in the name controversy was that Walter named the road that the winery is on "Greyton H. Taylor road," and he *is* allowed to put the address of his winery on the label. I imagine that at this point Taylor wine is sufficiently sick of the whole thing to not bother trying to sue anyway....
Another in the "name wars" saga is Herrell's ice cream in Boston. Steve Herrell started "Steve's" but then left the business. When he decided to return to the business as a competing ice cream store, he had to name it "Herrell's" for obvious reasons. The question is: is the man on the Steve's logo Steve Herrell? I imagine it used to be when he ran the place, but it would be funny if it still was him!
From the every-spelling-flame-contains-a-speling-error dept.:
"Aluminum" is correct in the US, but the original spelling of the element is "aluminium." Apparently, the discrepancy occurred from a mistranscribed transatlantic telegram way back when. If you think about it, "aluminium" makes a lot more sense, with the ubiquitious "-ium" element suffix.
I was in school, waiting to take the New York State English Regents exam. In the "free essay" portion of the exam, you were asked to pick one of a handful of topics to write on, and one of them was "A Time for Tears." I know several classmates who basically poured out their reaction to the breaking news into this essay. Weird coincidence that such a topic was there.... The teachers were concerned that we'd be too shaken up to take the test, and some TV's were quickly turned off in classrooms, but I imagine that there was some inspired writing on that test, moreso than the usual test blather.
Like many of you, I clearly remember seeing it happen on TV, and it's probably the most "where were you when it happened" moment in my life. The other traumatic events in the running were the shootings of Reagan and Lennon. Here's hoping there won't be many more bad moments like that to remember...
Slashdot Mirror
He's got adrian belew to put any lawnmower, dinosaur, or rhinoceros sounds in his music.
The sensor that was designed with a "fast" and "slow" pixel, analogous to film designs (by FujiFilm, Kodak, Konica, Agfa, etc) is exclusively FujiFilm. They've recently updated the design:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08092210fujifilmexr.asp
The concept works, but leads to very large raw files. The wedding market likes this technology (white dresses, black tuxes, unpredictable light), but often shoots in-camera JPEG for file size reasons.
The FujiFilm concept in the link above is to take two photos simultaneously using interleaved pixels, and combine the result to get a high-dynamic-range image.
Ε‘χετε τν ....
Wiseacre.
I took a 30 minute training course on Aperture at Photo Plus Expo in NYC yesterday. Considering we were using version "0.1 dev", the app was quite solid and very responsive (on the G5 towers that were running it). Very, very well-thought-out, and the show was buzzing over the software. "This was clearly designed with the help of pro photographers" was something I heard more than once.
At $499, it's not a cheap program, but if I was an independent pro photographer, this is looking like an essential tool for organizing, editting, and selling images. Lots of goodies like automatically grouping similar images by time, a very slick loupe (magnify) tool, and advanced version control of edits to images.
This is a substantial program. I think most pros will want Photoshop and Aperture. And a G5 tower, which is fine with Apple....
The most impressive thing I saw at the show, which is interesting for a show full of cameras....
-John in MN
Some of these concerns are answered by the option of storing the data in a demosaiced rectilinear form. So, the SuperCCDs and X3s of the world can get to DNG, just one step farther away from "true" raw sensor data. In addition, some of the "proprietary extension" information supported could help with the decoding of new things that come along.
I think that waiting to standardize would be a never-ending wait, and a disservice to those struggling to support a myriad formats in a workflow. If a standard can be agreed upon (or reachable through a converter!), it is far easier to mix and match cameras in a workflow. Bad for lock-in to one vendor, good for customer choice.
We'll see how this plays out....
-mozo
Ah, the irony of complaining about a band "ripping off" a Led Zeppelin song.... LZ was all about taking old blues songs and turning them into rock-n-roll. Which was a *good* thing, IMHO. As is the song "Bullet the Blue Sky," IMHO.
As for the severe overplaying of Joshua Tree songs by the "machine," I'm completely with you. Commercial radio can run even a good song into the ground by overplaying. Of course, it usually sticks to bad songs to overplay....
-mozo
MochaTalk!
And when they make a little hardware implementation that plugs into a wall socket and detects your stereo system...
MochaTalk Espresso.
Ok, back to work....
-mozo
...and in Minneapolis, most north-south roads are named alphabetically (each block east uses the next letter to start the name of the road). For uncommon letters, the same name gets used over and over again, leading to a curious abundance of Zinran Avenues and Xerxes Avenues.
The Fish? Schindleria Praematurus? :-)
Outboard river bluetail tailfly luther in time...
I must say, such nonsensical lyrics are still better than "I eat at chez nous." Ouch.
Too far off topic, I know.....
The "Real Story" link on JPEGs is quite amusing, to say the least. Saying "look at these images in your web browser -- you can't tell the difference" hardly leads to the conclusion "people never need to use uncompressed images, since there never are visible differences."
.JPX) is a more sophisticated technique employing wavelets. To my eyes, the artifacts (especially localized ones) are significantly less noticable than standard JPEG at similar compression levels. A technology to watch...
I *do* work for a professional imaging company, and here are some of my opinions on "the real story":
- JPEG is designed to compress images in ways that degrade the visibility of compression artifacts as much as possible. It works particularly well for photographic images, since that's what it's designed for.
- JPEG compression is often very appropriate for web images. Uncompressed images are often inappropriate for web images, due to their size.
- JPEG does produce artifacts, and many are objectionable at high compression levels.
- Even mild JPEG compression does visible damage to things like crisp text or sharp lines. This is a function of the compression scheme's photographic emphasis. (And, specifically, a function of the 8x8 pixel blocks and discrete cosine transforms used....)
- JPEG2000 (.JP2 or
- Digital SLR "RAW" files are different than standard uncompressed tiff's. Usually, they represent raw sensor data at higher than 8-bit color depth. As such, they are the digital equivalent of the negative, and various different kinds of post-processing is often applied to the same image, based on situation.
- Compression isn't free (as in clock cycles). It takes a lot less time to write the larger RAW file from a DSLR to a CF card than it does to compress it in-camera to a smaller JPG file. This effects burst rate image capture as well as battery life.
Phew. That was long. The conclusion that "there's really no reason to use raws over jpegs" was wrong on so many levels that I had to clear some misconceptions up, I suppose!
BTW, dido is in the Philippines (not mentioned in the post).
It's incorrect Latin, but quite deliberately correct *pseudo-Latin* (see also Mock Swedish). A google search turned up the following historical background. See also the Harvard Band (which uses the even more incorrect "illegitimum" in its motto).
Illegitimi Non Carborundum
"Don't let the bastards grind you down"
According to Safire's New Political Dictionary, this is "a pseudo-Latin phrase meaning 'don't let the bastards grind you down'. Small signs and plaques carrying this message have appeared in U.S. business offices and army posts for at least a generation, since General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell used it as his motto in World War II. Carborundum is a trademark for silicon carbide, a leading commercial grinding substance...In politics, the motto was popularized by 1964 Republican nominee Senator Barry Goldwater, who hung the sign in his office." (--from Safire's New Political Dictionary, p. 353)
Source: Safire, William Safire's New Political Dictionary : The Definitive Guide to the New Language of Politics Random House, New York, 1993.
Not quite.... ....
Following your link to the Adobe fonts page, we see:
Typeface notes: The Rotis family was designed in 1989 by Otl Aicher for Agfa; his last type design....
Designer: Otl Aicher
Rotis is a trademark of Agfa Division, Bayer Corporation.
So, this *is* an Agfa font, licenced to be sold by Adobe. It is just these kinds of licence agreements that Adobe is claiming Agfa and ITC are trying to gain leverage in.
Am I the only one with a mental image of John Belushi, back in the heyday of Saturday Night Live?
"The producers have told me I can do whatever I want. I will now perform a live DMCA violation on stage."
(voice-over) "Go ahead, Bruce."
"...with a member of the audience."
(voice-over) "Okay, go ahead."
RMS jumps up on stage and... oh never mind.
>A simple thing will happen, the "preformer" will
> be unable to "make money" with crappy
>material, he will barter a deal with the
>"composer" (probably for a percentage of the
>take) and they will both be happy. Remember, if
>either one is crap it doesn't work.
Have you listened to top-40 radio lately? That would seem to be a counterexample to your last sentence.
I will agree that it would be better if what you say was true (and, pot-shots at bad modern music aside, it often is).
That was the excuse they gave you, anyway...
If you're running a web server, and you're familiar with setting it up in the Linux world, you'll get better performance and/or can use cheaper/older hardware using Linux.
For consumer desktop use, I'm with you. The unix command line (and the fine job of porting unix tools that's going on) means I won't be looking to install linux on my main box.
On the old 180mhz one, now... linux is still tempting, depending on what I want to do with it. If it's just serving info (to the web or to my iBook via AirPort), linux is a definite consideration.
Gee, and NOBODY figured out that Padme and the Queen were the same people either.
:-)
Or does NOBODY == EVERYBODY on your planet?
Ok, here's something I can actually comment on with some authority, since I'm a chemist. Sodium borohydride itself is not that bad. You don't eat it (would you eat gasoline?), and the biggest concern is its water reactivity, which is moderate (think baking soda + vinegar... this is a little more reactive, but by no means as bomb waiting to go off). I've worked with the stuff on numerous occasions -- you can weigh the white powder out on a balance with no extra precautions over what you normally use to handle lab chemicals. The thing is, they're talking about a WATER SOLUTION of NaBH4, which eliminates the main problem in the first place.
Yes, it's a chemical, people. Yes, it can emit hydrogen bubbles under the right conditions. That's kind of the point. At first blush, this is one of the safer sources of hydrogen I've seen discussed.
Since you're delving into MSDS's, take a look at another sodium compound: sodium chloride. Did you know that you have an inhalation hazard in your kitchen cupboard?
-john
On the mac, here's a couple of (older) suggestions:
Oxyd, an interesting marble-rolling puzzle game, which has a two-player cooperative mode.
Bubble Trouble (www.ambrosiasw.com). This is one-player, but for some reason, females tend to do better at it (according to the documentation, and according to my one data point).
As an upstate NY'er, I can confirm that Bully Hill winery is still going strong, although Walter S. T***** passed away recently. The wines have actually steadily improved, and they have a nice restaurant now. The final salvo in the name controversy was that Walter named the road that the winery is on "Greyton H. Taylor road," and he *is* allowed to put the address of his winery on the label. I imagine that at this point Taylor wine is sufficiently sick of the whole thing to not bother trying to sue anyway....
Another in the "name wars" saga is Herrell's ice cream in Boston. Steve Herrell started "Steve's" but then left the business. When he decided to return to the business as a competing ice cream store, he had to name it "Herrell's" for obvious reasons. The question is: is the man on the Steve's logo Steve Herrell? I imagine it used to be when he ran the place, but it would be funny if it still was him!
From the every-spelling-flame-contains-a-speling-error dept.:
"Aluminum" is correct in the US, but the original spelling of the element is "aluminium." Apparently, the discrepancy occurred from a mistranscribed transatlantic telegram way back when. If you think about it, "aluminium" makes a lot more sense, with the ubiquitious "-ium" element suffix.
An "old favorite" from the mid-90's is "Oxyd" from Dongleware. It's a fascinating puzzle game that has you navigating a marble around.
The first ten levels were free to try it out, and it should still be out there for download.
Needs to be said:
The English the English the English are best!
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest!
(Flanders and Swann)
The thing is, the song was meant to be a joke, while cyber-vandal's post apparently wasn't....
I was in school, waiting to take the New York State English Regents exam. In the "free essay" portion of the exam, you were asked to pick one of a handful of topics to write on, and one of them was "A Time for Tears." I know several classmates who basically poured out their reaction to the breaking news into this essay. Weird coincidence that such a topic was there.... The teachers were concerned that we'd be too shaken up to take the test, and some TV's were quickly turned off in classrooms, but I imagine that there was some inspired writing on that test, moreso than the usual test blather.
Like many of you, I clearly remember seeing it happen on TV, and it's probably the most "where were you when it happened" moment in my life. The other traumatic events in the running were the shootings of Reagan and Lennon. Here's hoping there won't be many more bad moments like that to remember...