http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html "The Settings Manager is a special control panel that runs on your local computer but is displayed within and accessed from the Adobe website. Adobe does not have access to the settings that you see in the Settings Manager or to personal information on your computer."
Of course, you do have to take their word for it - but it doesn't appear as though a Flash app on Adobe's servers is reading that information in, itself; and presumably that means other Flash apps can't, either.
It's still very, very odd that it is displayed on their site, though - where's the config option in the plug-in / external app / whatever? I have to go online, and access Adbobe's site, in order to change settings? That's just plain weird.
86k... so let's say that debt were to NOT increase any further, and we'll ignore inflation and interest rates and oh my.. all that stuff that makes generalizations on Slashdot largely inaccurate because the sheer number of variables involved would make even the most battle-hardened programmer go *bleep* and find a comfy padded-wall white cell..
where was I...
oh yes, ignoring that... it could all be paid off in a mere 10 years if every family (ignoring the ones who are truly at the poverty line, and ignoring that the truly wealthy can stand to pay much, much more) were to pay $8.6k/year? Sounds doable. Never gonna happen, of course.
I didn't mean to come across as condescending - but to me the basic question of "why would the service provider have to pay?" is one that I couldn't possibly rationalize.. unless...
"If the content providers were required to pay, I would not likely see any benefit of that. I doubt my SMS plan would get any cheaper" Therein lies the crux.. you're not just asking "why would the service provider have to pay?", you're essentially asking "why should both I, myself, have to pay via my SMS plan -and- the service provider as well via per-SMS costs?"
To that, I say, that (which is the plan in the story) is indeed ludicrous.
That doesn't take away, however, that you shouldn't have to pay for these SMS plans having, say, 1,000 free SMS'es (sent OR received). Let's say you only use up 500 of those for sending, and 100 for receiving, 50 of which were spam (note how I'm using something nasty to give my argument weight; but then it's not too far off from the truth with some of the texts I received while in the U.S.). Not only did you pay for 400 SMS that you never used, you paid for 50 you didn't even want.
Now if you, rightly - I'm sure, assume that if these SMS plans were ditched, you'd still be paying just as much.. then yes, I guess you might as well keep them around and pay for receiving text messages. That's good for the sender "like Google" indeed - [slight disclaimer goes here], it's good for the cellular company you're with, and it's good for you because you never see the costs of these received text messages as they're hidden away in your SMS plan. I guess, at least, that's a 'good thing'.
yes, but cell phones typically operate on a 3-strikes-you're-out principle. Sure, you *could* hit the right pass in those three tries, or even on the first try, but it is statistically unlikely. And once you -are- out, you'll need the PUC or PUK ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Unblocking_Code ) to get back in - which is not likely something you have memorized at all.. it'll be on some piece of paper that hopefully you saved and stored away securely. If you don't have that code, then the only way back in (in theory, I should say), is to wipe the device clean; at which point the perp can use your phone, but none of your data is going to be on it anymore.
wireless access points really should act the same way... get the password wrong more than 3 times, and lock the MAC address out. Enable MAC filtering so only known devices can get on in the first place - if the MAC is spoofed.. sure, you can't get on anymore either, but you'll know quite clearly that somebody is spoofing you in your vicinity -and- they were trying to hack your access point. ( this does open up mischief, I suppose - so something a bit more elaborate - while still transparent to the user - might be more appropriate )
``But what if you're trying to take advantage of a "free" SMS service (like Google)? Their problem for being free.
``You're soliciting that SMS response.`` Which they made available as a service to you.
``Why should the content provider pay to respond?`` Because they're the one doing the sending... it's really not that hard to grok. If I send a 'free' SMS to somebody, and that person didn't desire to get that SMS either from that service provider -or- from me as the true 'originating party', then why on earth should that come out of -their- dime?
``They may not be making any money off of that.`` Their problem.
``Making them pay means many of them will simply go away, which I think would be a shame.`` Too bad, so sad.
But here's an idea: *pay* them for that service, or get the service ad sponsored, or... I dunno, you come up with business ideas.
In other words.. if they pay - they'll have to pass on the buck.. If that means that either things get ad-sponsored, -or- you have to start paying for that service, I'd consider that perfectly normal business.
Me asking you $0.03 right now for receiving this SMS, however, is not normal business, and it's only -because- of all those 'free SMS' and 'free minutes' plans that you have in the U.S. that people aren't pondering why they're paying for stuff they don't necessarily even want to receive in the first place.
cool, however... "works by deflecting light from the screen according to its color. Red, green and blue light is deflected in different directions to create left and right eye views in eight adjacent viewing plains."
That sounds like ChromaDepth ( mentioned in my previous post - here's the tech owner's site: http://www.chromatek.com/ ), but without the glasses. Unfortunately, you only get 8 viewpoints (like a lenticular display might) and the color is going to be highly inaccurate; like a rainbow of colors.
I do like the concept of ChromaDepth, however - I've got a bunch of their glasses in a sampler to write software in a 3D application to support it as an output format once; even more fun is looking through them at the world around you.. more fun than polarized glasses (where surfaces appear to fade in/out if they have strong directionality in reflected light), as suddenly all kinds of strongly-colored and high-contrast surfaces seem to float in front of eachother where they really, really shouldn't be:) But for 3D TV? Nah.
- a display much like holograms, but instead with fully moving images (and I don't mean the ones that have moving images when you change the viewing angle) - a holodeck, but confined to the 'space' of a TV.
A lenticular display is cool, but still depends a lot on the viewing angle, very precise registration, etc.
True '3D TV' is quite a long ways out as of yet.. there are plenty of existing and research methods, but all of them have their caveats that make them nowhere near '3D TV' a la "everything actually looks 3D, from any angle, without special glasses required, and without the surfaces appearing translucent, and with no more extreme requirements than a very high-end regular TV now".
red/blue | red/green methods - no color accuracy, need glasses, not actually 3D (fixed viewpoint) chromadepth - no color accuracy, need glasses, not actually 3D (fixed viewpoint) shutter glasses - need glasses (dur), not actually 3D (fixed viewpoint) polarization - need glasses, not actually 3D (fixed viewpoint)
VR glasses - need the big VR goggles.
Lenticular displays - limited viewing angles, not actually 3D (multiple fixed viewpoints - typically on the horizontal plane, MIT's work has the vertical plane covered a bit as well)
Tracking displays - limited viewing angles and, moreover, limited number of viewers (just one.. the person being tracked. Also not really 3D (fixed viewpoints, but with greater 'fluidity' between viewing angles; no actual depth cues (could be combined with a 'glasses' method to overcome this limitation, however). In theory extensible to spherical displays to provide a - albeit awkward - free-viewpoint display).
Collated displays / array of displays - expensive, limited viewing angles (not as limited as lenticular, but if you look at the side of the array of displays, you're not going to see a whole lot), surfaces appear translucent, color inaccurate the deeper 'in' you look.
Spinning surface displays (in various forms) - noisy (even with the spinning surface encased and usually vacuum-sealed; for resistance purposes as well), flickery, surfaces tend to appear translucent although some level of opacity can be attained.
Making the air explode in gorgeous bursts of luminosity - loud. very, very loud.. zero color, not even greyscale; presuming technique perfected to at least allow greyscale (minor vs major bursts, or frequency bursts), surfaces will still appear translucent.
Of all of the above, Lenticular displays are the most commercially successful *right now*, and they're still not mainstream; that might change as more and more 3D movies come out and they start getting stuck on Blu-Ray/whatever, though.
I get the feeling I missed one, but it's likely to have some of the other usual drawbacks.
Overall, VR goggles give the best experience as long as the content is actually 3D.. but people don't like wearing even the little polarized glasses, nevermind a VR headset.
--
On top of that, though... shooting a movie in a stereoscopic format (glasses) is difficult enough; a lot of movie shots only really 'work' from a single angle - think one actor punching another... move a little right/left and it becomes a lot easier to tell that the guy never actually hit him; gets worse when you add in the original viewing angle and you get full 3D depth cues. That's not to mention any effects that have to get replicated in stereo (double the work; easy if it's a 3D feature film, not so easy if it's live-action and some poor artist has to rotoscope an actor's hair not once, but twice, and with stereoscopic cohesion. And that's just stereo.. that's not even the common concept of 3D (cameras all around), nevermind full 3D (being able to look all the way around, instead of just orbiting the scene of interest).
No.. it'll be a long, long while more before 'HoloTV' is something we can all talk about the way we did about flatscreen TVs several years back.
Okay, very well, so we make the distinction that if you're an actual news source business, then you're held to different standards. Fine by me. Now for the next question, then. CNN is clearly affiliated or even owns iReport, but does that automatically make iReport a credible news source as would the main CNN website be? Should it? If so - why?
"Slashdot isn't a ``news site.``" Oh? News for nerds, stuff that matters?
How about this.. would you consider The Druge Report a news site? If so - why? Because it gets referenced a lot? so does slashdot. Because it posts original articles? So does Slashdot...
"Slashdot simply links to stories at other sites"... no, it's not just links - check out reviews, journal entries getting published to frontpage, etc.
How about Google? That really -is- just links. Would you consider that a news site, though? I know I would. News source not so much, but news site - sure.
"I have no expectation that Slashdot will take any steps to verify the facts in them." Why would you expect any differently of any other site? ( On a side-note.. facts don't need verification; otherwise they wouldn't be facts, but - in this context - rumors/unsubstantiated statements;) )
"I still need to consider the source of the story Slashdot links to, any evidence provided to back up the story's claims, and my good 'ol bullshit detector." You should do the same for everything from a geocities website to some random forum to Slashdot to iReport to CNN to AP & Reuters.
"Having something posted on Slashdot isn't a seal of accuracy." Neither is having something posted on iReport, CNN's main page, or even reported by AP / Reuters.
Three hours of doing that may be fun to you, but as you point out - not for most. I wouldn't find it fun at all.. I do like tinkering with my computer, but I prefer tinkering with it from a known-good state, instead of a known-iffy state; that way if I get the thing in an unknown-fubar state, I can go back to known-good instead of back to known-iffy.
That's why I love the projects sprouting up that offer CD/DVD images of distributions that you just pop into the drive, give it a run, and if you like it - install it on the machine permanently. It's not quite 'out-of-the-box', and if you don't have another machine then the lack of "Order your CD/DVD online!" is annoying. But it's much, much, better than messing about with either the crappy pre-installed stuff or a generic distro that you'd still have to tweak left and right.
Both statements are true. "found no evidence" isn't the strongest possible denial, while it -is- still the strongest scientifically justifiable statement. The problem with the former is that you can say it all you want, but you can't ever be 100% sure of it - as you pointed out. The 'problem' with the latter is that we don't know what their scientific justifications are.. or even whether they were scientific. If the investigation was asking a major client if any of their users complained of smells or headaches after installing the machines, and that major client says "nope", you can make the statement that you "found no evidence".. but I wouldn't particularly call it a conclusion reached by scientific procedure.
``They "found no evidence", which, logically, is as strong a denial as can possibly be made.``
No, as strong a denial as can possibly be made is "That is incorrect. It is not true. Our products do not emit the fumes referred to."
All "found no evidence" means that where they looked, using their methods, they couldn't find the fumes.
I'm not saying they -didn't- launch a thorough investigation, but there's nothing in particular to indicate that they did, either. Certainly there's people with complaints.. unless they're all making things up, I suspect that their "[continued] investigation" will dig up some particular packaging material or electronics supplier that happened to have a bad batch.
near's I can tell - no. The GIMP will be taking advantage of GEGL mainly for high bitdepth operations for color and, to an extent, non-destructive operations, in its current form. As I understand it, GEGL -can- do what I was referring to (through much poking about with its APIs) unless they forgot to note this entirely, I don't think The GIMP does any of that.
Speaking of huge image.. I sometime process gigapixel panoramas, and I really wish that The Gimp would fare a bit better with them. Don't get me wrong, it actually loads them and lets me edit them.. but it still works on, essentially, the entire image even when I'm only doing a bit of clone brushing in what is a tiny, tiny little piece of the image.
It's what makes me miss the concept of Macromedia XRes. It basically kept track of whatever you were doing only within the resolution and space of what you were seeing on your screen.. much like Google Maps doesn't load the entire superhighres Earth into your browser, just tiles - and tiles suited to your zoom level at that. That makes working with this sort of thing *much* faster. The only downsides are 1. it has to tile the thing up before you go to work with it and 2. if you performed any actions at levels other than 1:1, it has to 'render' those into your output resolution.. which takes a bit of time. However, I would much prefer the machine chewing on all my actions for half an hour while I go out for lunch, than sit around waiting 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 2 minutes, between operations.. it makes me a lot less productive.
Re:It's still essentially 8-bit.
on
GIMP 2.6 Released
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· Score: 5, Informative
I think that what GP is getting at is that... - Unless you're shooting RAW (DNG, 16-bit TIFF, EXR or whatever your camera supports there), you're not going to get those 12 bits anyway. - Not too long ago, Photoshop didn't do 16bpc itself.. and it still doesn't on a ton of commands. That never stopped anybody from processing photos in the past, why should it now? Clearly it's nice if you -can- work in 16bit, but it's not going to stop hundreds of thousands of people from working with photographs for the sole reason that 16bit is unavailable.
In short, GP's parent poster acts a bit like an audiophile, claiming that every non-goldplated-connector is completely useless for listening to music the moment goldplated-connectors became available.
Oh, and I'm a graphics professional - I work with 32bpc imagery all the time as sometimes that's what you need to run film footage through extensive colorgrading processes without incurring losses.. so yes, I know very *very* well what the advantages are.. and I certainly agree that Ol' Gimpo needs at least 16bpc, but preferable 32bpc, workflow. ( Cursed lack of support for Cinepaint. )
"I don't know the technical term for this type of bump-mapping" Could be normal mapping, could be parallax mapping.. either of those terms will get you to very cool demos and interesting research when punched into google; more likely to be a variation of the latter than the former.
I don't see how it is a matter of liability; every single 'final' software I've come across has something along the lines of (took this one from NSIS): "This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software."
I'm sure that when you sign up for a gmail account you get much the same line somewhere in the usage agreement.
Calling the product 'beta' doesn't change any legal liabilities - if they ever actually had any.
In intermediate: There's more than just the identification string, there's also firmware and sometimes there are actually different chipsets. Suffice to say that just tricking the O/S and software into believing your GeForce is a Quadro does -not-, in fact, make it a Quadro.
That said - I can't think of any good reason that Adobe would limit this to Quadro cards other than for the support factor; they can easily get support from NVidia for their purposes when dealing with Quadro cards.. for consumer cards, where said consumers will install any little driver hack in order to get more FPS in some game.. well, the case just isn't as simple.
Of course it's too expensive - it's what people will pay for it, and it's what people will pay for it because it's the defacto standard and they have no proper choice.
Yes, yes, I know.. you can use The Gimp! Or Paint Shop Pro! And while many home users most certainly could - no, they do not give a rats' ass about CMYK separation - they also hear that it is -the- choice among professionals.. and will thus go for it anyway. And professionals don't really need Photoshop most of the time either. What CG shop uses CMYK? What web developer uses the Panorama stitching function? Come on, give me a few anecdotal cases, and I'll show you thousands that make drop-shadows for buttons. Until something or somebody can break through that defacto standard stuff, Photoshop (as buggy, archaic, and overpriced as it is) will remain the #1 choice... and will remain as expensive as it is.
In fact, things got more expensive... Compared to April 2008 for the same CS3 products ('same' in name, not in featureset, I suppose). CS4 Design Standard: $1399 vs $1199 CS4 Web Premium: $1699 vs $1599 Contribute CS4: $199 vs $169 Photoshop CS4: $699 vs $649
But if you think that's bad, be glad you - at least, if you're in North America/United States - don't have to pay the "You love us so much, we'll let you to pay extra!"-charge. This is for the NL store as of September 22, exchange rate USD / EUR: 0.677620 (xe.net, indicative only), all prices excluding VAT (BTW) sourced from Adobe online store, all prices calculated back to dollars. PRODUCT / USD US / USD NL CS4 Design Standard / $1399 / $1873 CS4 Design Premium / $1799 / $2950 CS4 Web Standard / $999 / $1474 CS4 Web Premium / $1699 / $2507 CS4 Production Premium / $1699 / $2802 CS4 Master Collection / $2499 / $4131 After Effects CS4 / $999 / $1622 Contribute CS4 / $199 / $294 DreamWeaver CS4 / $399 / $663 Fireworks CS4 / $299 / $441 Flash CS4 / $699 / $1032 Illustrator CS4 / $599 / $958 InCopy CS4 / $249 / $367 InDesign CS4 / $699 / $1105 Photoshop CS4 / $699 / $1017 Photoshop CS4 Extended / $999 / $1578 Premiere Pro CS4 / $799 / $1253 Soundbooth CS4 / $199 / $294
On average, that's a price increase that seems to have no good reason* of 53.76% on average, with DreamWeaver CS4 taking the crown at 66% and CS4 Design Standard as the least increase at 34%.
* I should qualify the 'no good reason' bit, as otherwise there will be a slew of responses on why there's a price increase.. localization, local support, bla-dee-bla. Thankfully, I don't have to qualify it myself - another person made an excellent set of pages on this matter, and I suggest those who feel like posting such reasons first read them: http://www.amanwithapencil.com/adobe.html - Adobe is ripping off European (and other non-US) customers It deals with the most common 'reasons' and debunks them. I'll add one - most of the products do not have native Dutch versions and those that do are hardly sold. It's slightly dated (being for the CS3 launch), but the same things still apply. It also gives one very true answer that the author dug up from an interview, and serves as the basis for my earlier "You love us so much" statement:
Burkett said that the second criterion Adobe uses to establish pricing is "market research that establishes the value customers place on the products"; in other words, what the market will bear.
"We do testing in each region and get feedback from customers," Burkett explained. "We have not found that the value fluctuates much over the years. The value associated with CS3 is incredible, and customers react to that. What I've been hearing from customers is that they see the value and appreciate it."
I don't have anything against Adobe, or their products**, but I most certainly do take issue with their pricing in the various markets. Oh, and I also take
If that list is even reasonably accurate, then there's a few in there where "terms of service violation" seems questionable given the video titles - but not being able to see the video, who knows, maybe there was porn in the middle. Then there's the jagex/runescape takedowns that are certainly.. odd. Perhaps it's against -their- ToS to hack and thus they believe posting information about it is a no-no? whatever.. But by far the most takedowns seem to have reasonable cause. WWE SomethingOrOther Night Parts 1 through 16? Yeah, I'm sure -that's- fair use.
I'm honestly surprised to find that by far the removals on that YouTomb list are either likely to be completely valid, or removed 'by the user' (why are those even listed? hrm.)
Doesn't take away the questionable ones, though. Wish there was a little more information than what they've got.. perhaps by automatically sending the video-poster an e-mail asking for clarification.. along with a DMCA counter-notice form if applicable?
"Holding this next generation to a higher standard is hypocritical."
Is it? Aren't we, humanity as a whole, supposed to further ourselves? We'd all still be pillaging, plundering and raping en masse, if generations before ours wouldn't have done so, wouldn't we?
I certainly agree that, at least in the premise of the summary's "guy holding up a beer", lines are being crossed a bit - but at the same time, the kids' prior generation (parents) should be educating them on the damage this can have and offer alternatives. Then it's still up to the kids to decide whether to heed that advice, not heed that advice, or rebel against it - but at least they will be more aware of the big picture.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html
"The Settings Manager is a special control panel that runs on your local computer but is displayed within and accessed from the Adobe website. Adobe does not have access to the settings that you see in the Settings Manager or to personal information on your computer."
Of course, you do have to take their word for it - but it doesn't appear as though a Flash app on Adobe's servers is reading that information in, itself; and presumably that means other Flash apps can't, either.
It's still very, very odd that it is displayed on their site, though - where's the config option in the plug-in / external app / whatever? I have to go online, and access Adbobe's site, in order to change settings? That's just plain weird.
86k... so let's say that debt were to NOT increase any further, and we'll ignore inflation and interest rates and oh my.. all that stuff that makes generalizations on Slashdot largely inaccurate because the sheer number of variables involved would make even the most battle-hardened programmer go *bleep* and find a comfy padded-wall white cell..
where was I...
oh yes, ignoring that... it could all be paid off in a mere 10 years if every family (ignoring the ones who are truly at the poverty line, and ignoring that the truly wealthy can stand to pay much, much more) were to pay $8.6k/year? Sounds doable. Never gonna happen, of course.
I didn't mean to come across as condescending - but to me the basic question of "why would the service provider have to pay?" is one that I couldn't possibly rationalize.. unless...
"If the content providers were required to pay, I would not likely see any benefit of that. I doubt my SMS plan would get any cheaper"
Therein lies the crux.. you're not just asking "why would the service provider have to pay?", you're essentially asking "why should both I, myself, have to pay via my SMS plan -and- the service provider as well via per-SMS costs?"
To that, I say, that (which is the plan in the story) is indeed ludicrous.
That doesn't take away, however, that you shouldn't have to pay for these SMS plans having, say, 1,000 free SMS'es (sent OR received). Let's say you only use up 500 of those for sending, and 100 for receiving, 50 of which were spam (note how I'm using something nasty to give my argument weight; but then it's not too far off from the truth with some of the texts I received while in the U.S.). Not only did you pay for 400 SMS that you never used, you paid for 50 you didn't even want.
Now if you, rightly - I'm sure, assume that if these SMS plans were ditched, you'd still be paying just as much.. then yes, I guess you might as well keep them around and pay for receiving text messages. That's good for the sender "like Google" indeed - [slight disclaimer goes here], it's good for the cellular company you're with, and it's good for you because you never see the costs of these received text messages as they're hidden away in your SMS plan. I guess, at least, that's a 'good thing'.
yes, but cell phones typically operate on a 3-strikes-you're-out principle. Sure, you *could* hit the right pass in those three tries, or even on the first try, but it is statistically unlikely.
And once you -are- out, you'll need the PUC or PUK ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Unblocking_Code ) to get back in - which is not likely something you have memorized at all.. it'll be on some piece of paper that hopefully you saved and stored away securely. If you don't have that code, then the only way back in (in theory, I should say), is to wipe the device clean; at which point the perp can use your phone, but none of your data is going to be on it anymore.
wireless access points really should act the same way... get the password wrong more than 3 times, and lock the MAC address out. Enable MAC filtering so only known devices can get on in the first place - if the MAC is spoofed.. sure, you can't get on anymore either, but you'll know quite clearly that somebody is spoofing you in your vicinity -and- they were trying to hack your access point.
( this does open up mischief, I suppose - so something a bit more elaborate - while still transparent to the user - might be more appropriate )
``But what if you're trying to take advantage of a "free" SMS service (like Google)?
Their problem for being free.
``You're soliciting that SMS response.``
Which they made available as a service to you.
``Why should the content provider pay to respond?``
Because they're the one doing the sending... it's really not that hard to grok.
If I send a 'free' SMS to somebody, and that person didn't desire to get that SMS either from that service provider -or- from me as the true 'originating party', then why on earth should that come out of -their- dime?
``They may not be making any money off of that.``
Their problem.
``Making them pay means many of them will simply go away, which I think would be a shame.``
Too bad, so sad.
But here's an idea: *pay* them for that service, or get the service ad sponsored, or... I dunno, you come up with business ideas.
In other words.. if they pay - they'll have to pass on the buck.. If that means that either things get ad-sponsored, -or- you have to start paying for that service, I'd consider that perfectly normal business.
Me asking you $0.03 right now for receiving this SMS, however, is not normal business, and it's only -because- of all those 'free SMS' and 'free minutes' plans that you have in the U.S. that people aren't pondering why they're paying for stuff they don't necessarily even want to receive in the first place.
Fisheye views have existed for a looooong, long time. I use the Fisheye Tabs FF extension; https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4845
But whether the general idea means that Apple can't patent their specific implementation? I doubt it.
Now let's instead ponder Apple's insistence that only they should have a logo with an apple in it;
http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/10/07/apple.knocks.vsbt.logo/
They have improved, though - they haven't been limited to a monochromatic display for many years now, they can include animation, etc.
e.g. http://www.rabbitholes.com/
They're not 3D TV or Holographic TV, however :)
cool, however...
"works by deflecting light from the screen according to its color. Red, green and blue light is deflected in different directions to create left and right eye views in eight adjacent viewing plains."
That sounds like ChromaDepth ( mentioned in my previous post - here's the tech owner's site: http://www.chromatek.com/ ), but without the glasses. Unfortunately, you only get 8 viewpoints (like a lenticular display might) and the color is going to be highly inaccurate; like a rainbow of colors.
I do like the concept of ChromaDepth, however - I've got a bunch of their glasses in a sampler to write software in a 3D application to support it as an output format once; even more fun is looking through them at the world around you.. more fun than polarized glasses (where surfaces appear to fade in/out if they have strong directionality in reflected light), as suddenly all kinds of strongly-colored and high-contrast surfaces seem to float in front of eachother where they really, really shouldn't be :)
But for 3D TV? Nah.
"HoloTV" conjures up images of...
- a display much like holograms, but instead with fully moving images (and I don't mean the ones that have moving images when you change the viewing angle)
- a holodeck, but confined to the 'space' of a TV.
Benton et al (mostly et al) did great work, but... ...it is neither of the above.
http://people.csail.mit.edu/wojciech/3DTV/index.html
A lenticular display is cool, but still depends a lot on the viewing angle, very precise registration, etc.
True '3D TV' is quite a long ways out as of yet.. there are plenty of existing and research methods, but all of them have their caveats that make them nowhere near '3D TV' a la "everything actually looks 3D, from any angle, without special glasses required, and without the surfaces appearing translucent, and with no more extreme requirements than a very high-end regular TV now".
red/blue | red/green methods - no color accuracy, need glasses, not actually 3D (fixed viewpoint)
chromadepth - no color accuracy, need glasses, not actually 3D (fixed viewpoint)
shutter glasses - need glasses (dur), not actually 3D (fixed viewpoint)
polarization - need glasses, not actually 3D (fixed viewpoint)
VR glasses - need the big VR goggles.
Lenticular displays - limited viewing angles, not actually 3D (multiple fixed viewpoints - typically on the horizontal plane, MIT's work has the vertical plane covered a bit as well)
Tracking displays - limited viewing angles and, moreover, limited number of viewers (just one.. the person being tracked. Also not really 3D (fixed viewpoints, but with greater 'fluidity' between viewing angles; no actual depth cues (could be combined with a 'glasses' method to overcome this limitation, however). In theory extensible to spherical displays to provide a - albeit awkward - free-viewpoint display).
Collated displays / array of displays - expensive, limited viewing angles (not as limited as lenticular, but if you look at the side of the array of displays, you're not going to see a whole lot), surfaces appear translucent, color inaccurate the deeper 'in' you look.
Spinning surface displays (in various forms) - noisy (even with the spinning surface encased and usually vacuum-sealed; for resistance purposes as well), flickery, surfaces tend to appear translucent although some level of opacity can be attained.
Making the air explode in gorgeous bursts of luminosity - loud. very, very loud.. zero color, not even greyscale; presuming technique perfected to at least allow greyscale (minor vs major bursts, or frequency bursts), surfaces will still appear translucent.
Of all of the above, Lenticular displays are the most commercially successful *right now*, and they're still not mainstream; that might change as more and more 3D movies come out and they start getting stuck on Blu-Ray/whatever, though.
I get the feeling I missed one, but it's likely to have some of the other usual drawbacks.
Overall, VR goggles give the best experience as long as the content is actually 3D.. but people don't like wearing even the little polarized glasses, nevermind a VR headset.
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On top of that, though... shooting a movie in a stereoscopic format (glasses) is difficult enough; a lot of movie shots only really 'work' from a single angle - think one actor punching another... move a little right/left and it becomes a lot easier to tell that the guy never actually hit him; gets worse when you add in the original viewing angle and you get full 3D depth cues. That's not to mention any effects that have to get replicated in stereo (double the work; easy if it's a 3D feature film, not so easy if it's live-action and some poor artist has to rotoscope an actor's hair not once, but twice, and with stereoscopic cohesion.
And that's just stereo.. that's not even the common concept of 3D (cameras all around), nevermind full 3D (being able to look all the way around, instead of just orbiting the scene of interest).
No.. it'll be a long, long while more before 'HoloTV' is something we can all talk about the way we did about flatscreen TVs several years back.
Okay, very well, so we make the distinction that if you're an actual news source business, then you're held to different standards. Fine by me. Now for the next question, then. CNN is clearly affiliated or even owns iReport, but does that automatically make iReport a credible news source as would the main CNN website be? Should it? If so - why?
"Slashdot isn't a ``news site.``"
Oh? News for nerds, stuff that matters?
How about this.. would you consider The Druge Report a news site? If so - why? Because it gets referenced a lot? so does slashdot. Because it posts original articles? So does Slashdot...
"Slashdot simply links to stories at other sites" ... no, it's not just links - check out reviews, journal entries getting published to frontpage, etc.
How about Google? That really -is- just links. Would you consider that a news site, though? I know I would. News source not so much, but news site - sure.
"I have no expectation that Slashdot will take any steps to verify the facts in them." ;) )
Why would you expect any differently of any other site?
( On a side-note.. facts don't need verification; otherwise they wouldn't be facts, but - in this context - rumors/unsubstantiated statements
"I still need to consider the source of the story Slashdot links to, any evidence provided to back up the story's claims, and my good 'ol bullshit detector."
You should do the same for everything from a geocities website to some random forum to Slashdot to iReport to CNN to AP & Reuters.
"Having something posted on Slashdot isn't a seal of accuracy."
Neither is having something posted on iReport, CNN's main page, or even reported by AP / Reuters.
Three hours of doing that may be fun to you, but as you point out - not for most. I wouldn't find it fun at all.. I do like tinkering with my computer, but I prefer tinkering with it from a known-good state, instead of a known-iffy state; that way if I get the thing in an unknown-fubar state, I can go back to known-good instead of back to known-iffy.
That's why I love the projects sprouting up that offer CD/DVD images of distributions that you just pop into the drive, give it a run, and if you like it - install it on the machine permanently. It's not quite 'out-of-the-box', and if you don't have another machine then the lack of "Order your CD/DVD online!" is annoying. But it's much, much, better than messing about with either the crappy pre-installed stuff or a generic distro that you'd still have to tweak left and right.
Both statements are true. "found no evidence" isn't the strongest possible denial, while it -is- still the strongest scientifically justifiable statement. The problem with the former is that you can say it all you want, but you can't ever be 100% sure of it - as you pointed out. The 'problem' with the latter is that we don't know what their scientific justifications are.. or even whether they were scientific. If the investigation was asking a major client if any of their users complained of smells or headaches after installing the machines, and that major client says "nope", you can make the statement that you "found no evidence".. but I wouldn't particularly call it a conclusion reached by scientific procedure.
``They "found no evidence", which, logically, is as strong a denial as can possibly be made.``
No, as strong a denial as can possibly be made is "That is incorrect. It is not true. Our products do not emit the fumes referred to."
All "found no evidence" means that where they looked, using their methods, they couldn't find the fumes.
I'm not saying they -didn't- launch a thorough investigation, but there's nothing in particular to indicate that they did, either. Certainly there's people with complaints.. unless they're all making things up, I suspect that their "[continued] investigation" will dig up some particular packaging material or electronics supplier that happened to have a bad batch.
near's I can tell - no. The GIMP will be taking advantage of GEGL mainly for high bitdepth operations for color and, to an extent, non-destructive operations, in its current form. As I understand it, GEGL -can- do what I was referring to (through much poking about with its APIs) unless they forgot to note this entirely, I don't think The GIMP does any of that.
Speaking of huge image.. I sometime process gigapixel panoramas, and I really wish that The Gimp would fare a bit better with them. Don't get me wrong, it actually loads them and lets me edit them.. but it still works on, essentially, the entire image even when I'm only doing a bit of clone brushing in what is a tiny, tiny little piece of the image.
It's what makes me miss the concept of Macromedia XRes. It basically kept track of whatever you were doing only within the resolution and space of what you were seeing on your screen.. much like Google Maps doesn't load the entire superhighres Earth into your browser, just tiles - and tiles suited to your zoom level at that. That makes working with this sort of thing *much* faster. The only downsides are 1. it has to tile the thing up before you go to work with it and 2. if you performed any actions at levels other than 1:1, it has to 'render' those into your output resolution.. which takes a bit of time.
However, I would much prefer the machine chewing on all my actions for half an hour while I go out for lunch, than sit around waiting 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 2 minutes, between operations.. it makes me a lot less productive.
I think that what GP is getting at is that...
- Unless you're shooting RAW (DNG, 16-bit TIFF, EXR or whatever your camera supports there), you're not going to get those 12 bits anyway.
- Not too long ago, Photoshop didn't do 16bpc itself.. and it still doesn't on a ton of commands. That never stopped anybody from processing photos in the past, why should it now? Clearly it's nice if you -can- work in 16bit, but it's not going to stop hundreds of thousands of people from working with photographs for the sole reason that 16bit is unavailable.
In short, GP's parent poster acts a bit like an audiophile, claiming that every non-goldplated-connector is completely useless for listening to music the moment goldplated-connectors became available.
Oh, and I'm a graphics professional - I work with 32bpc imagery all the time as sometimes that's what you need to run film footage through extensive colorgrading processes without incurring losses.. so yes, I know very *very* well what the advantages are.. and I certainly agree that Ol' Gimpo needs at least 16bpc, but preferable 32bpc, workflow. ( Cursed lack of support for Cinepaint. )
"I don't know the technical term for this type of bump-mapping"
Could be normal mapping, could be parallax mapping.. either of those terms will get you to very cool demos and interesting research when punched into google; more likely to be a variation of the latter than the former.
I don't see how it is a matter of liability; every single 'final' software I've come across has something along the lines of (took this one from NSIS):
"This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software."
I'm sure that when you sign up for a gmail account you get much the same line somewhere in the usage agreement.
Calling the product 'beta' doesn't change any legal liabilities - if they ever actually had any.
In short: No
In long: go Google
In intermediate:
There's more than just the identification string, there's also firmware and sometimes there are actually different chipsets. Suffice to say that just tricking the O/S and software into believing your GeForce is a Quadro does -not-, in fact, make it a Quadro.
That said - I can't think of any good reason that Adobe would limit this to Quadro cards other than for the support factor; they can easily get support from NVidia for their purposes when dealing with Quadro cards.. for consumer cards, where said consumers will install any little driver hack in order to get more FPS in some game.. well, the case just isn't as simple.
There's a -lot- of nice 64bit-only instructions that you can use for a lot of common calculation tasks, many of which apply to graphics processing.
Of course it's too expensive - it's what people will pay for it, and it's what people will pay for it because it's the defacto standard and they have no proper choice.
Yes, yes, I know.. you can use The Gimp! Or Paint Shop Pro! And while many home users most certainly could - no, they do not give a rats' ass about CMYK separation - they also hear that it is -the- choice among professionals.. and will thus go for it anyway. And professionals don't really need Photoshop most of the time either. What CG shop uses CMYK? What web developer uses the Panorama stitching function? Come on, give me a few anecdotal cases, and I'll show you thousands that make drop-shadows for buttons.
Until something or somebody can break through that defacto standard stuff, Photoshop (as buggy, archaic, and overpriced as it is) will remain the #1 choice... and will remain as expensive as it is.
In fact, things got more expensive... Compared to April 2008 for the same CS3 products ('same' in name, not in featureset, I suppose).
CS4 Design Standard: $1399 vs $1199
CS4 Web Premium: $1699 vs $1599
Contribute CS4: $199 vs $169
Photoshop CS4: $699 vs $649
But if you think that's bad, be glad you - at least, if you're in North America/United States - don't have to pay the "You love us so much, we'll let you to pay extra!"-charge. This is for the NL store as of September 22, exchange rate USD / EUR: 0.677620 (xe.net, indicative only), all prices excluding VAT (BTW) sourced from Adobe online store, all prices calculated back to dollars.
PRODUCT / USD US / USD NL
CS4 Design Standard / $1399 / $1873
CS4 Design Premium / $1799 / $2950
CS4 Web Standard / $999 / $1474
CS4 Web Premium / $1699 / $2507
CS4 Production Premium / $1699 / $2802
CS4 Master Collection / $2499 / $4131
After Effects CS4 / $999 / $1622
Contribute CS4 / $199 / $294
DreamWeaver CS4 / $399 / $663
Fireworks CS4 / $299 / $441
Flash CS4 / $699 / $1032
Illustrator CS4 / $599 / $958
InCopy CS4 / $249 / $367
InDesign CS4 / $699 / $1105
Photoshop CS4 / $699 / $1017
Photoshop CS4 Extended / $999 / $1578
Premiere Pro CS4 / $799 / $1253
Soundbooth CS4 / $199 / $294
On average, that's a price increase that seems to have no good reason* of 53.76% on average, with DreamWeaver CS4 taking the crown at 66% and CS4 Design Standard as the least increase at 34%.
* I should qualify the 'no good reason' bit, as otherwise there will be a slew of responses on why there's a price increase.. localization, local support, bla-dee-bla. Thankfully, I don't have to qualify it myself - another person made an excellent set of pages on this matter, and I suggest those who feel like posting such reasons first read them:
http://www.amanwithapencil.com/adobe.html - Adobe is ripping off European (and other non-US) customers
It deals with the most common 'reasons' and debunks them. I'll add one - most of the products do not have native Dutch versions and those that do are hardly sold. It's slightly dated (being for the CS3 launch), but the same things still apply. It also gives one very true answer that the author dug up from an interview, and serves as the basis for my earlier "You love us so much" statement:
I don't have anything against Adobe, or their products**, but I most certainly do take issue with their pricing in the various markets. Oh, and I also take
(nokarmabonus due to off-topicishness)
If that list is even reasonably accurate, then there's a few in there where "terms of service violation" seems questionable given the video titles - but not being able to see the video, who knows, maybe there was porn in the middle.
Then there's the jagex/runescape takedowns that are certainly.. odd. Perhaps it's against -their- ToS to hack and thus they believe posting information about it is a no-no? whatever..
But by far the most takedowns seem to have reasonable cause. WWE SomethingOrOther Night Parts 1 through 16? Yeah, I'm sure -that's- fair use.
I'm honestly surprised to find that by far the removals on that YouTomb list are either likely to be completely valid, or removed 'by the user' (why are those even listed? hrm.)
Doesn't take away the questionable ones, though. Wish there was a little more information than what they've got.. perhaps by automatically sending the video-poster an e-mail asking for clarification.. along with a DMCA counter-notice form if applicable?
Playing devil's advocate here for a moment...
"Holding this next generation to a higher standard is hypocritical."
Is it? Aren't we, humanity as a whole, supposed to further ourselves? We'd all still be pillaging, plundering and raping en masse, if generations before ours wouldn't have done so, wouldn't we?
I certainly agree that, at least in the premise of the summary's "guy holding up a beer", lines are being crossed a bit - but at the same time, the kids' prior generation (parents) should be educating them on the damage this can have and offer alternatives. Then it's still up to the kids to decide whether to heed that advice, not heed that advice, or rebel against it - but at least they will be more aware of the big picture.
Perhaps he runs the HR department at a secret service? In that position, I'd go with the guy you can't find -anything- on, too :)