The less informed citizenry tend to reject beneficial technologies that don't sound nice. That's a big reason that there aren't many foods that have been "irradiated" (a harmless process that kills food-borne bacteria).
"Electro-Chemical Activation" sounds a bit harsh. Allow me to suggest "Fuzzy Wuv-Bear's Magic No-Germy Stuff".
MIT's composite image will, no doubt, be seen all over the place now that they won the grant. Anyone who first sees this composite, and then reads the Radix comic might easily assume that Ray Lai stole the idea from MIT, not the other way around. In that respect, Mr. Lai's comic was damaged.
There is also the moral issue of a major university commiting plagiarism (since another person took credit for this image), and the fact that Mr. Lai's work was used to help secure a $50 million contract, without any credit or compensation whatsoever! MIT's arguments that the image was for "academic use" are ludicrous, since the university is a buisiness like any other. Equally ludicrous is the idea that the image was meant for limited distribution. If it is on the internet, the distribution path is, by definition, unlimited!
Let's imagine that the I.P. in question here was program code, not artwork. Would you be outraged? How about the case of Sigma Designs stealing the GPL'd MPEG-4 codec developed by XVID? A lot of people were justifiably outraged about that. A similar case, IMHO.
I'd like to know some more about the technology behind this. It would seem that you couldn't just put up a bunch of images in line and expect them to form a movie. The images would streak together, as if a movie were run through a projector with no shutter or sprocket holes.
It might work if the illuminated panels behind the ads were designed to blink on and off quickly as the train ran by. They would, however, have to blink repeatedly, or else they would only target a small viewership on the train. Apparently they are backlit posters. What form of backlighting can fluctuate so quickly, and cover a poster sized area with even illumination?
"I'm a Lightwave animator, so spare me the 'Linux will solve all your problems' crap."
Ahh, you speak in haste! Newtek has announced ScreamerNet for Linux. Available later this year for free!
And, lest we forget, A/W also released the Maya render daemon for Linux first, the full package a year or two later. Maybe Newtek will follow suit? As a Lightwave animator, I can only hope.
Library patron checks out a book. Barcode inside the cover is scanned in by librarian to register it as "checked out".
Patron hands librarian the cash equivalent of the book, then walks off anonymously.
When patron returns the book, he gets his money back minus late fees, if applicable. The intrest which accrues on the patron's money while it is being held by the library is used for salaries, maintenence, or additional aquisitions.
Anyone can return a checked-out book for cash completely anonymously. All books are checked against a database of books in the library's collection to prevent fraud.
It's not an ideal solution, since libraries should be in the practice of lending books for free, but it would work.
It may be off topic, but Forrest J. Ackerman's marvellous collection of books, artwork, and movie memorabilia is currently being auctioned to bits on Ebay.
Apparently Forrey needs some cash to retire. Sure would be nice if a benefactor could step in and preserve the collection intact. Visit the Ackermansion here.
In this case, I mis-typed. Barney is indeed covered by trademark law rather than copyright law.
I was under the impression that copyright owners also needed to defend their copyright, or else the work would revert to the public domain. It may simply be that failure to formally register a copyrighted work makes it harder to defend in court against claims of public domain status. AFAIK, This is what happened to the guy who made the "Have a Nice Day" smiley-face buttons back in the 70's.
Good point. As an EFF member, I prefer that they focus their efforts on more serious issues.
What the hell is the issue with Barney? It seems that they put some sort of juvenile parody on their site, to which Barney's lawyers responded with a cease and desist order. It may be that the EFF was in the wrong. If so, then just drop it! It seves no purpose to engage in further pointless juvenile behavior.
Doesn't the EFF know that copyright owners are obliged to defend their copyrights? These people are not the enemy. For the most part, they are just honest folks trying to make a buck.
Well, which is it?
on
Gaming Zone?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
A previous story
claimed that video games were bad for the brain because they repressed beta wave activity. This supposedly leads to lower cognitive activity and that's supposed to be a bad thing. Well, zen monks and atheletes lower their cognitive thinking in order to practice their craft and here we call it a good thing: getting in "the Zone".
All this proves is that data can be interpreted in different ways. It has more to do with political "spin" than science. I want to know who is funding these studies. Computer gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry, so there is a lot at stake.
Maybe NASA can tap this lucrative new source of revenue to fund ambitious missions of exploration. I'm hoping that bits of Mars start showing up on Ebay within the decade!
Doesn't that assume that the life forms will be something like us? Terry Bisson has a great perspective on this from his short story/play "They're Made Out of Meat":
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines." "So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact." "They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines." "That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat." "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat." "Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage." "Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?" "Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside." "Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through." "No brain?" "Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!" "So... what does the thinking?" "You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat." "Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!" "Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?" "Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat." "Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
He wrote an article. on the future of digital filmmaking a couple of years back, and echoes some of Alex Cox's points regarding quality. Ebert goes on to describe a new film-based technology called "MaxiVision48". It is essentially a process designed by film-makers (not studios) which looks much better than standard film or digital projection at a much lower cost.
MaxiVision48 can switch on the fly between 24 and 48 frames-per-sec and uses a new film advance mechanism to eliminate jitter. The result is a super clear rock-solid picture. I wonder what became of it.
For my last system, I ended up using steel wire cubical closet shelving instead of a case. These things come in squares which can be joined together with plastic junctions. I opted to join them with plastic "zipper" ties instead, much neater. The shelf units are slightly larger than an AT mobo, and have several advantages:
- No closed case = minimal cooling required. - Components bolt on to the sides of the case directly with plastic eyelet connectors. No hard drive bays. - Cheap. 6 shelf squares per cube, 12 squares per pack, under $20. - Can be broken down and re-purposed for storing socks and underwear.
I don't know what you mean by looking "ropey", but I do agree that the FX in this film generally sucked. The trend in FX heavy films seems to be towards shooting elements of a scene, and combining them in post production. The result is, quite often, a crappy shot like the establishing shot in Spider Man of the cultural festival, where the large balloons look as if they were pasted on as an afterthought. No consideration given to realistic camera placement or naturalistic composition.
While technology allows one to make films without limits, filmmakers need to impose some limits on themselves, or films will lose their believability.
White is by definition the sum of all colors in the visible spectrum. The average of all colors of all the galaxies in the universe is simply a more accurate measure of the value of "white" than has previously been achieved.
The fact that we are perceiving a color to the universe just indicates that we are not properly color balanced!
Ah, you have just exposed another example of the extreme stupidity of the WB marketing executives. Those same geniuses who decided that "The Iron Giant" was not worth promoting also completely fail to appreciate the tremendous demand that exists for a Loony Toons collection on DVD.
For WWII propaganda cartoons, look for a video tape called "Toons Go to War". It contains, among other things, the classic Bob Clampett film "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs" (sic). Brilliant animation, but quite racist as you might guess from the title. Bob Clampett was a colleague of Chuck Jones, and animated the very first Bugs Bunny cartoons.
Not to slight Mr. Quimby but, though I'm sure he was a nice guy, he did not create Tom and Jerry. T&J were created by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. Quimby was an MGM producer who oversaw the production, but really had very little creative input.
Slashdot Mirror
This is required reading.
The less informed citizenry tend to reject beneficial technologies that don't sound nice. That's a big reason that there aren't many foods that have been "irradiated" (a harmless process that kills food-borne bacteria).
"Electro-Chemical Activation" sounds a bit harsh. Allow me to suggest "Fuzzy Wuv-Bear's Magic No-Germy Stuff".
MIT's composite image will, no doubt, be seen all over the place now that they won the grant. Anyone who first sees this composite, and then reads the Radix comic might easily assume that Ray Lai stole the idea from MIT, not the other way around. In that respect, Mr. Lai's comic was damaged.
There is also the moral issue of a major university commiting plagiarism (since another person took credit for this image), and the fact that Mr. Lai's work was used to help secure a $50 million contract, without any credit or compensation whatsoever! MIT's arguments that the image was for "academic use" are ludicrous, since the university is a buisiness like any other. Equally ludicrous is the idea that the image was meant for limited distribution. If it is on the internet, the distribution path is, by definition, unlimited!
Let's imagine that the I.P. in question here was program code, not artwork. Would you be outraged? How about the case of Sigma Designs stealing the GPL'd MPEG-4 codec developed by XVID? A lot of people were justifiably outraged about that. A similar case, IMHO.
I'd like to know some more about the technology behind this. It would seem that you couldn't just put up a bunch of images in line and expect them to form a movie. The images would streak together, as if a movie were run through a projector with no shutter or sprocket holes.
It might work if the illuminated panels behind the ads were designed to blink on and off quickly as the train ran by. They would, however, have to blink repeatedly, or else they would only target a small viewership on the train. Apparently they are backlit posters. What form of backlighting can fluctuate so quickly, and cover a poster sized area with even illumination?
"I'm a Lightwave animator, so spare me the 'Linux will solve all your problems' crap."
Ahh, you speak in haste! Newtek has announced ScreamerNet for Linux. Available later this year for free!
And, lest we forget, A/W also released the Maya render daemon for Linux first, the full package a year or two later. Maybe Newtek will follow suit? As a Lightwave animator, I can only hope.
It's not an ideal solution, since libraries should be in the practice of lending books for free, but it would work.
3D lenticular displays without glasses? Wasn't this done last year?
I sure hope cool technology like this doesn't get held up in a struggle over who owns the patent.
This is just another revenue path for the motion picture industry to milk the suckers... er, I mean fans.
Pay once, maybe twice, to see it in the theaters.
Pay again to see it on DVD.
Pay again for the special edition DVD.
Pay again to see the director's cut.
Pay yet again for the digitally remastered Drew Barrymore let's-get-rid-of-all-the-guns cut.
And pay one last time to see it on the IMAX screen.
Have I missed any?
It may be off topic, but Forrest J. Ackerman's marvellous collection of books, artwork, and movie memorabilia is currently being auctioned to bits on Ebay.
Apparently Forrey needs some cash to retire. Sure would be nice if a benefactor could step in and preserve the collection intact. Visit the Ackermansion here.
In this case, I mis-typed. Barney is indeed covered by trademark law rather than copyright law.
I was under the impression that copyright owners also needed to defend their copyright, or else the work would revert to the public domain. It may simply be that failure to formally register a copyrighted work makes it harder to defend in court against claims of public domain status. AFAIK, This is what happened to the guy who made the "Have a Nice Day" smiley-face buttons back in the 70's.
Good point. As an EFF member, I prefer that they focus their efforts on more serious issues.
What the hell is the issue with Barney? It seems that they put some sort of juvenile parody on their site, to which Barney's lawyers responded with a cease and desist order. It may be that the EFF was in the wrong. If so, then just drop it! It seves no purpose to engage in further pointless juvenile behavior.
Doesn't the EFF know that copyright owners are obliged to defend their copyrights? These people are not the enemy. For the most part, they are just honest folks trying to make a buck.
A previous story claimed that video games were bad for the brain because they repressed beta wave activity. This supposedly leads to lower cognitive activity and that's supposed to be a bad thing. Well, zen monks and atheletes lower their cognitive thinking in order to practice their craft and here we call it a good thing: getting in "the Zone".
All this proves is that data can be interpreted in different ways. It has more to do with political "spin" than science. I want to know who is funding these studies. Computer gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry, so there is a lot at stake.
You want a mouse mod? I got yer mouse mod right HERE.
And HERE.
The Body Mouse creator's website.
Maybe NASA can tap this lucrative new source of revenue to fund ambitious missions of exploration. I'm hoping that bits of Mars start showing up on Ebay within the decade!
Doesn't that assume that the life forms will be something like us? Terry Bisson has a great perspective on this from his short story/play "They're Made Out of Meat":
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat."
"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!"
"So... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
Read the rest here (it's very short).
MaxiVision48 can switch on the fly between 24 and 48 frames-per-sec and uses a new film advance mechanism to eliminate jitter. The result is a super clear rock-solid picture. I wonder what became of it.
For my last system, I ended up using steel wire cubical closet shelving instead of a case. These things come in squares which can be joined together with plastic junctions. I opted to join them with plastic "zipper" ties instead, much neater. The shelf units are slightly larger than an AT mobo, and have several advantages:
- No closed case = minimal cooling required.
- Components bolt on to the sides of the case directly with plastic eyelet connectors. No hard drive bays.
- Cheap. 6 shelf squares per cube, 12 squares per pack, under $20.
- Can be broken down and re-purposed for storing socks and underwear.
Ugly as hell, but who cares?
See "cage.jpg" here
I don't know what you mean by looking "ropey", but I do agree that the FX in this film generally sucked. The trend in FX heavy films seems to be towards shooting elements of a scene, and combining them in post production. The result is, quite often, a crappy shot like the establishing shot in Spider Man of the cultural festival, where the large balloons look as if they were pasted on as an afterthought. No consideration given to realistic camera placement or naturalistic composition.
While technology allows one to make films without limits, filmmakers need to impose some limits on themselves, or films will lose their believability.
> This will DESTROY their IT infrastructure! Their economy will collapse! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!
You mean because their little third world web server just got Slashdotted?
Thanks for the info and the link, witten. Those readers who wish to bypass the high-bandwidth, flash-intensive opening page can use these links:
http://www.henson.com/hdps/media1.html
http://www.henson.com/hdps/media2.html
http://www.henson.com/hdps/media3.html
http://www.henson.com/hdps/media4.html
http://www.henson.com/hdps/media5.html
http://www.henson.com/hdps/media6.html
White is by definition the sum of all colors in the visible spectrum. The average of all colors of all the galaxies in the universe is simply a more accurate measure of the value of "white" than has previously been achieved.
The fact that we are perceiving a color to the universe just indicates that we are not properly color balanced!
And programmers should forget about Xemacs and just be content with "Notepad". I love The GIMP, BTW, but then I'm not doing print graphics.
;-)
double
Ah, you have just exposed another example of the extreme stupidity of the WB marketing executives. Those same geniuses who decided that "The Iron Giant" was not worth promoting also completely fail to appreciate the tremendous demand that exists for a Loony Toons collection on DVD.
For WWII propaganda cartoons, look for a video tape called "Toons Go to War". It contains, among other things, the classic Bob Clampett film "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs" (sic). Brilliant animation, but quite racist as you might guess from the title. Bob Clampett was a colleague of Chuck Jones, and animated the very first Bugs Bunny cartoons.
Not to slight Mr. Quimby but, though I'm sure he was a nice guy, he did not create Tom and Jerry. T&J were created by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. Quimby was an MGM producer who oversaw the production, but really had very little creative input.
Hey, at least Tuvok is still able to find work after Voyager.