Memetic: "Its a lot faster to develop this way than more traditional methods (HDL's) as its so easy to iterate, for example being able to drag code back and forth to optimise the flow between a processor on your board and an FPGA being used as a custom parallell coprocessor is pretty cool."
Cool, perhaps, but real hardware designers won't touch a C-based HDL with a ten-foot pole. Unless, of course, the product can support a huge FPGA device (costing huge $$$).
C-based hardware designs are nowhere near as efficient as an HDL-based design flow and good floorplanning. You can get much higher clock rates, using much less FPGA real estate, if you avoid the C-based tools and stick to real HDLs.
And it's "faster" only for the software guy that doesn't understand hardware design, and doesn't want to learn a real HDL.
Raytracing at 50 MHz? Phooey. A real hardware designer can take proper advantage of the chip architecture and quadruple the clock rate.
"It's also not clear that CDs are really being killed by online music. I live near a CD store by a college campus, and it's always busy."
Yep, that's true in many places. The Amoeba stores in SF and Berkeley are ALWAYS packed. The Zia stores here in Tucson are always busy, too. As long as interesting music is being created, there will always be a market for it.
There will also always be a market if the artists -- and the indie labels and record stores that support them -- are comfortable selling, oh, 25,000 records instead of needing to sell 2 million to break even. Think about it.
The truth is that there are still tons of music fans who have no problem paying for their music. We know that buying music enables the musicians to keep making music. We also like the fact that you can hold it in your hand -- it's permanent. [OK: I'm old enough to remember haunting record stores looking for elpees...]
Also, MP3s just don't sound good. And how do you know that the MP3 you just downloaded is what the artist originally recorded? Who knows how many edits/compressions/decompressions/alterations have been done to the song?
"The industry being down 11% is meaningless. No business grows forever and ever. So they're down 11% after growing 200% in the last decade. Does that matter? Look at how much the entire stock market has dropped in the last few years! And now they're only making _billions_ of dollars instead of billions + 11%. Hmmm. I'd take that."
That's right, and this downturn is meaningless because their growth projections were meaningless as well!
The major record labels have been digging their own graves for years. Rather than allowing career artists to develop over the course of a couple of albums, the whole game has been reduced to opening-week sales, exactly like the movie biz. [NB: Dreamworks is a record label AND a movie studio. So is Sony. Hmmmm...] So, if the record doesn't hit big the first week, the label thinks it's a dud and pulls promotion, thus guaranteeing failure. Their short-sightedness is unrivalled.
So, what you're saying is that I should just be quiet, and pay extraordinarily high taxes to support everyone else???
No, what I'm saying is that if I have to pay taxes, I'd much rather it go towards something proven to be beneficial -- healthcare -- rather than have it go towards some pie-in-the-sky "defense" system that's so far proven not to work.
A missile-defense system benefits only the defense contractors who get paid to "implement" it. I don't consider a false sense of security to be beneficial to the average America.
Let's see what the vaunted missile defense system does when a terrorist parks a Ryder truck full of, oh, fertilizer in front of a Federal Building and detonates it.
Or when a terrorist puts loads of exposives on a few of those train-car containers that are shipped by the thousands from overseas ports. The terrorists can either set off the bombs when the containers are in one of our major ports, thus fucking shipping for years to come, or as the ship goes through the Panama Canal, or one of the other major shipping lanes. Or, they could be clever and simply wait until the containers are on trains, heading towards your hometown, before setting them off.
The Terminator goes back in time and tries to stop James Cameron from making any more movies, but instead kills Jerry Bruckenheimer and Michael Bay in the process.
Those gawdawful high taxes go to pay for services the citizens of the country actually use. You know, things like healthcare.
NOT things like a Missile Defense System that has been proven not to work, and even Secretary of War Rumsfeld admits that it won't be workable any time in the near future.
Kinda like the NJ law regarding "Safe Guns."
The main difference being that the Federal Government is spending BILLIONS of YOUR tax dollars on the unworkable Missile Defense.
Yep, you just lost a whole group of voters Jim. I do live in NJ. I AM a gun owner, and this type of "political BS grandstanding law enactment" is just the excuse I needed to vote for your competition next election. Brilliant, you boob.
I seriously doubt that you voted for him in the first place, you witless Republican apologist.
Deadgoon: The purpose of taking away our gun rights is not to protect children, ourselves, potential burglers, etc. The government takes away our gun rights to protect themselves. The purpose of the second amendment to the US constitution was to guarantee that the People would be able to defend themselves against the government should that government get out of control.
Hmmmm! I'll agree -- to a point. The gov't, in the form of the current administration (which was installed partly with the support of the NRA), is doing its utmost to trample on the citizens' rights.
Funny. I don't see a militia rising to revolt against the government. In fact, I see just the opposite. A majority of citizens don't even bother to vote. The numbskull in the White House is going to proclaim himself God Emperor and the vast number of sheep are out in the fields, grazing aimlessly, while the transformation from democracy (errr, rather republic) to fascist police state happens right before their glassy tv eyes.
One can only assume the following. Either
all of the gun-totin' he-men actually ENJOY the fact that the gov't is tapping their phones, reading their mail (e- and otherwise) and waging war in far-off lands simply to enrich the Rich White Men at the top; or
all of the gun-totin' he-men are actually PUSSIES and aren't going to rise up against the government at all. It's just bluster.
I moved from NJ to Arizona. When I lived in NJ, I wasn't afraid that the nitwit who cut me off on the Turnpike had a gun. Here in AZ, I assume that everyone has a gun, so I have to be extra careful while entering the highway, lest I get shot for my efforts. Do I feel safer here in the desert? FUCK NO. I'm just waitin' for some redneck with a small brain and a smaller dick (and a huge truck to compensate) to open fire.
Ron Bennett: Fortunately, NJ is a relatively small state...I always try to fuel up before entering NJ to have enough fuel to get me through the state...
The funny thing is that gasoline is cheaper in NJ than in the surrounding states.
From what I understand the general public liscence for linux restricts any type of modification and redistribution for profit so what good will it do for microsoft to produce linux software if they cant make money on it...unless they have some outrageous shiping charges. Hmmm a free os with a $200 shipping charge. can someone explain to me how this is feesable for microsoft?
You're a fuckwit. They can sell their version of Linux for the same price that RedHat sells Linux.
When talking about the 8254, yes (but that part's not really not a "CPU"), but in this case, we're talking about something like Microchip's PIC family of gizzies, which are usually called "Programmable Integrated Controllers" or "Peripheral Integerated Controllers."
ahhh, acronyms...
Re:Mortgage points and auto loan 'doc prep fees'
on
Add-Ons Add Up
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
r2ravens: "Points have always pissed me off. Points are extortion charged by the lender to convince them to make you a loan - even if you have good credit. Another little advantage to this scheme is that they are the equivalent of interest charged up front. Each point is equal to 1/8 of a percent of interest on the loan amount, and it's paid up front."
Ahhhh, points are nothin' compared to the REAL extortion by home-mortgage lenders: the so-called PMI -- "Private Mortgage Insurance." Get this: if your down payment is less than (typically) 20% of the mortgage amount, the lender requires YOU (the borrower) to pay the premiums for insurance indemnifying THEM (the lender) if you fail to pay them.
Such a racket. The PMI payment on my mortgage is about the same as my principal payment (the loan interest, of course, is much much more). So, think how much faster you could pay off the loan if you weren't paying the PMI.
Now, the thing is, typically, you're not required to carry PMI if your equity in the house is greater than 20% of the loan principal. The thing is that YOU (the borrower) need to keep track of how much principal you've paid (your statements give you the details), and when you've reached that threshold, you should contact the lender and demand that you shouldn't have to pay for PMI. Also, if you get your house re-assessed, you may discover that the equity in your house is greater than it was due to market conditions, and you can use that info to demand the end of PMI payments.
The sick thing is that the mortgage lenders seem to think that they're doing you a favor. See here, for example. They know that it's almost impossible to save up for a 20% downpayment on a typical $200K (yikes!) house in today's overpriced rental market, so it's an effective way for them to screw you.
When someone asks me what computer to buy, I ask them: "What would you like to do?" (NOT "What applications do you want to run?" -- there's a significant distinction).
Me, I want to design electronics, so I need various electronics-CAD packages. You know, PCB layout, VHDL/Verilog synthesis and simulation, FPGA implementation, 8051 C compiler, PIC development stuff, etc.
These tools also need to be "affordable." I can buy best-in-class PCB and FPGA tools that run on Solaris (and in some cases, even Linux), but I'd have to mortgage the house to get them. All of the reasonably-priced tools run under Windows.
I've looked. There simply aren't any usuable, affordable (less than, say, $2K) Linux-based PCB or schematic-capture tools. The Keil 8051 compiler beats the pants off of sdcc in so many ways that it's not funny. My EPROM programmer is Windows-only. And on and on.
Until the tools exist for Linux (or Mac, I don't care), I need to keep a Windows machine.
Oh, and when I was at Stevens tech, they had a whole slew of introductory courses that *everyone* was required to take. Courses like calc 1 and 2, mechanics, E&M, chem 1 and 2, philosophy, literature... and comp sci classes. The first semester had the comp sci topic actually broken into two sections. The first covered the basics of how hardware functioned, the second semester was some very basic programming in visual basic. All simple stuff, but Stevens wanted to introduce you to this, and noone was exempt except for those who went into the "advanced" versions of the course.
Back when I was at Stevens, we were required to take a three-credit humanities course every semester (avg load each semester: 20 credits). In retrospect, it seems like it was an excellent requirement. I could have done without MGT 442, the class where they taught you what sort of tie to wear to job interviews.
Stevens certainly did offer a well-rounded engineering curriculum. You touched on every discipline: mechanical, civil, chemical, electrical, pure physics, pure chemistry, pure mathematics. I only wish there was more in terms of practical stuff; the EE labs were typically non-challenging.
Of course, this was back when the DEC Pro350 was what we were required to purchase:) ASIC synthesis tools weren't taught because they didn't exist.
This paper is just fear-mongering since it requires you to make the leap that DRM will be embedded into everything, which makes no sense at all. You can easily reproduce this arguement for nearly any technology, since almost nothing will be appropriate everywhere.
Re-read his article. He makes a very valid point -- that the economics of scale mean that components originally designed to be used in personal computers and consumer electronics gizmos end up being used in other applications, simply because they're cheap.
There are arguments I could use against his train-of-thought. The most obvious is that if you ever look at IC databooks (or PDF datasheets), there's ALWAYS a disclaimer stating that use of the part in a circuit or system such as life-support (or other system where failure can reasonably cause death or serious injury) is expressly forbidden w/out the written consent of the chip vendor's president.
Also, to counter his example of the grunts in the foxhole reprogramming the targetting computer, and having the patches rejected by the DRM agent: while gov't contractors are demanding COTS equipment, you can bet that they will write contracts specifically forbidding any sort of DRM bullshit in the equipment they buy.
"I routined fly through 100+ photo's in the time I would still be on the first 24 on a role of normal film. Since the card can be rewritten for free, I am not concerned about the costs involved with wasting `bits,' as opposed to wasting frames of film, which are of a limited quantity."
Yeah, but are the 100+ pix any good?
Will you look at any of them again, next week, next month, next year?
The one lesson from a pro photographer that's stayed with me has nothing to do with technique, equipment or any of that stuff. It's a simple matter of attitude. It's this:
Don't take the picture if you don't think you'll ever look at it again.
If what you're photographing isn't compelling, why bother? Train yourself to see what you're looking at.
Digital cameras make lousy photographers more prolific. A good photographer will choose digital or film (and film size and speed) based on the specific needs of what's being photographed./p?
"There are plenty of reasons to shoot slide film, but a supposed wide exposure latitude isn't one of them. The wide exposure latitude of negative film may still have an advantage for the moment, but digital imaging technology is rapidly closing the gap with its analog counterparts in terms of exposure latitude, and I expect film's latitude to be exceeded by consumer quality CCDs within a few years. It's already happening in the digital video arena, Sony claims that their DVW-700 camera has 11-stops of exposure latitude (on par with the best negative stock), and directors of photography have managed to get at least 7-stops from the latest professional video equipment."
Quick: go back and re-read your copy of Ansel Adams' The Negative. He talks about exposure latitude, specifically with respect to B+W films, but it's applicable to all films.
Basically, there's no such thing as "exposure latitude." There's ONE exposure that's correct for any scene -- if your intent is to capture the full range of tones in the scene.
When someone talks about "exposure latitude," they usually mean, "my metering can be off by three stops and I still get an acceptable photograph." Keyword: acceptable. "Acceptable," to Adams' eye, differs greatly from "Excellent." And, of course, Adams strived to make excellent photographs.
"Interesting, but then how come the final result from the 1Ds looks better on both screen and print than 35mm shots? Also, does the lower noise/grain of digital not count for anything?"
Well, what 35mm camera was used? What film? Was a print made from the film and then scanned, or was the film scanned on a drum scanner? What compression was used to create the on-line images?
Gotta love 11,000 DPI scans you can get from a Tango drum scanner.
Slashdot Mirror
Memetic: "Its a lot faster to develop this way than more traditional methods (HDL's) as its so easy to iterate, for example being able to drag code back and forth to optimise the flow between a processor on your board and an FPGA being used as a custom parallell coprocessor is pretty cool."
Cool, perhaps, but real hardware designers won't touch a C-based HDL with a ten-foot pole. Unless, of course, the product can support a huge FPGA device (costing huge $$$).
C-based hardware designs are nowhere near as efficient as an HDL-based design flow and good floorplanning. You can get much higher clock rates, using much less FPGA real estate, if you avoid the C-based tools and stick to real HDLs.
And it's "faster" only for the software guy that doesn't understand hardware design, and doesn't want to learn a real HDL.
Raytracing at 50 MHz? Phooey. A real hardware designer can take proper advantage of the chip architecture and quadruple the clock rate.
"It's also not clear that CDs are really being killed by online music. I live near a CD store by a college campus, and it's always busy."
Yep, that's true in many places. The Amoeba stores in SF and Berkeley are ALWAYS packed. The Zia stores here in Tucson are always busy, too. As long as interesting music is being created, there will always be a market for it.
There will also always be a market if the artists -- and the indie labels and record stores that support them -- are comfortable selling, oh, 25,000 records instead of needing to sell 2 million to break even. Think about it.
The truth is that there are still tons of music fans who have no problem paying for their music. We know that buying music enables the musicians to keep making music. We also like the fact that you can hold it in your hand -- it's permanent. [OK: I'm old enough to remember haunting record stores looking for elpees...]
Also, MP3s just don't sound good. And how do you know that the MP3 you just downloaded is what the artist originally recorded? Who knows how many edits/compressions/decompressions/alterations have been done to the song?
"The industry being down 11% is meaningless. No business grows forever and ever. So they're down 11% after growing 200% in the last decade. Does that matter? Look at how much the entire stock market has dropped in the last few years! And now they're only making _billions_ of dollars instead of billions + 11%. Hmmm. I'd take that."
That's right, and this downturn is meaningless because their growth projections were meaningless as well!
The major record labels have been digging their own graves for years. Rather than allowing career artists to develop over the course of a couple of albums, the whole game has been reduced to opening-week sales, exactly like the movie biz. [NB: Dreamworks is a record label AND a movie studio. So is Sony. Hmmmm...] So, if the record doesn't hit big the first week, the label thinks it's a dud and pulls promotion, thus guaranteeing failure. Their short-sightedness is unrivalled.
Adam Rightmann: "You would be better off using an AT&T branch of SYSV UNIX, at least people in New Jersey believe in God."
Not all of us.
-- bm59
"Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine." -- Patti SmithMustang Matt: I can't possibly see them putting this into every tire... It would raise the cost too much making them uncompetitive.
Which morons modded this post up to "5, Insightful?" They oughta be smacked with a stick.
The whole point is that the RFID tags are dirt cheap -- no more than a few cents -- so they won't affect the tire price at all.
Paraflyer,
So, what you're saying is that I should just be quiet, and pay extraordinarily high taxes to support everyone else???
No, what I'm saying is that if I have to pay taxes, I'd much rather it go towards something proven to be beneficial -- healthcare -- rather than have it go towards some pie-in-the-sky "defense" system that's so far proven not to work.
A missile-defense system benefits only the defense contractors who get paid to "implement" it. I don't consider a false sense of security to be beneficial to the average America.
Let's see what the vaunted missile defense system does when a terrorist parks a Ryder truck full of, oh, fertilizer in front of a Federal Building and detonates it.
Or when a terrorist puts loads of exposives on a few of those train-car containers that are shipped by the thousands from overseas ports. The terrorists can either set off the bombs when the containers are in one of our major ports, thus fucking shipping for years to come, or as the ship goes through the Panama Canal, or one of the other major shipping lanes. Or, they could be clever and simply wait until the containers are on trains, heading towards your hometown, before setting them off.
Wow!
Such a thoughtful, and meaningful reply.
Ahnuld: I'm old. Vote for me.
Thank G-d he wasn't born in this country.
The Terminator goes back in time and tries to stop James Cameron from making any more movies, but instead kills Jerry Bruckenheimer and Michael Bay in the process.
Oooooh! I'd pay to see that.
Could somebody please explain this fetish people have for blue LEDs?
It's the same exact fetish people have for blue M&Ms!
Clearly, history is not your strong suit.
Those gawdawful high taxes go to pay for services the citizens of the country actually use. You know, things like healthcare.
NOT things like a Missile Defense System that has been proven not to work, and even Secretary of War Rumsfeld admits that it won't be workable any time in the near future.
Kinda like the NJ law regarding "Safe Guns."
The main difference being that the Federal Government is spending BILLIONS of YOUR tax dollars on the unworkable Missile Defense.
I just LOVE hypocrisy.
Another Anonymous coward wrote:
Yep, you just lost a whole group of voters Jim. I do live in NJ. I AM a gun owner, and this type of "political BS grandstanding law enactment" is just the excuse I needed to vote for your competition next election. Brilliant, you boob.
I seriously doubt that you voted for him in the first place, you witless Republican apologist.
Deadgoon: The purpose of taking away our gun rights is not to protect children, ourselves, potential burglers, etc. The government takes away our gun rights to protect themselves. The purpose of the second amendment to the US constitution was to guarantee that the People would be able to defend themselves against the government should that government get out of control.
Hmmmm! I'll agree -- to a point. The gov't, in the form of the current administration (which was installed partly with the support of the NRA), is doing its utmost to trample on the citizens' rights.
Funny. I don't see a militia rising to revolt against the government. In fact, I see just the opposite. A majority of citizens don't even bother to vote. The numbskull in the White House is going to proclaim himself God Emperor and the vast number of sheep are out in the fields, grazing aimlessly, while the transformation from democracy (errr, rather republic) to fascist police state happens right before their glassy tv eyes.
One can only assume the following. Either
I moved from NJ to Arizona. When I lived in NJ, I wasn't afraid that the nitwit who cut me off on the Turnpike had a gun. Here in AZ, I assume that everyone has a gun, so I have to be extra careful while entering the highway, lest I get shot for my efforts. Do I feel safer here in the desert? FUCK NO. I'm just waitin' for some redneck with a small brain and a smaller dick (and a huge truck to compensate) to open fire.
Ron Bennett: Fortunately, NJ is a relatively small state...I always try to fuel up before entering NJ to have enough fuel to get me through the state...
The funny thing is that gasoline is cheaper in NJ than in the surrounding states.
Yup, Mel's released the fucking fury!
gTsiros:
PIC stands for Programmable Interrupt Controller.
When talking about the 8254, yes (but that part's not really not a "CPU"), but in this case, we're talking about something like Microchip's PIC family of gizzies, which are usually called "Programmable Integrated Controllers" or "Peripheral Integerated Controllers." ahhh, acronyms...
r2ravens: "Points have always pissed me off. Points are extortion charged by the lender to convince them to make you a loan - even if you have good credit. Another little advantage to this scheme is that they are the equivalent of interest charged up front. Each point is equal to 1/8 of a percent of interest on the loan amount, and it's paid up front."
Ahhhh, points are nothin' compared to the REAL extortion by home-mortgage lenders: the so-called PMI -- "Private Mortgage Insurance." Get this: if your down payment is less than (typically) 20% of the mortgage amount, the lender requires YOU (the borrower) to pay the premiums for insurance indemnifying THEM (the lender) if you fail to pay them.
Such a racket. The PMI payment on my mortgage is about the same as my principal payment (the loan interest, of course, is much much more). So, think how much faster you could pay off the loan if you weren't paying the PMI.
Now, the thing is, typically, you're not required to carry PMI if your equity in the house is greater than 20% of the loan principal. The thing is that YOU (the borrower) need to keep track of how much principal you've paid (your statements give you the details), and when you've reached that threshold, you should contact the lender and demand that you shouldn't have to pay for PMI. Also, if you get your house re-assessed, you may discover that the equity in your house is greater than it was due to market conditions, and you can use that info to demand the end of PMI payments.
The sick thing is that the mortgage lenders seem to think that they're doing you a favor. See here, for example. They know that it's almost impossible to save up for a 20% downpayment on a typical $200K (yikes!) house in today's overpriced rental market, so it's an effective way for them to screw you.
When someone asks me what computer to buy, I ask them: "What would you like to do?" (NOT "What applications do you want to run?" -- there's a significant distinction).
Me, I want to design electronics, so I need various electronics-CAD packages. You know, PCB layout, VHDL/Verilog synthesis and simulation, FPGA implementation, 8051 C compiler, PIC development stuff, etc.
These tools also need to be "affordable." I can buy best-in-class PCB and FPGA tools that run on Solaris (and in some cases, even Linux), but I'd have to mortgage the house to get them. All of the reasonably-priced tools run under Windows.
I've looked. There simply aren't any usuable, affordable (less than, say, $2K) Linux-based PCB or schematic-capture tools. The Keil 8051 compiler beats the pants off of sdcc in so many ways that it's not funny. My EPROM programmer is Windows-only. And on and on.
Until the tools exist for Linux (or Mac, I don't care), I need to keep a Windows machine.
Oh, and when I was at Stevens tech, they had a whole slew of introductory courses that *everyone* was required to take. Courses like calc 1 and 2, mechanics, E&M, chem 1 and 2, philosophy, literature... and comp sci classes. The first semester had the comp sci topic actually broken into two sections. The first covered the basics of how hardware functioned, the second semester was some very basic programming in visual basic. All simple stuff, but Stevens wanted to introduce you to this, and noone was exempt except for those who went into the "advanced" versions of the course.
Back when I was at Stevens, we were required to take a three-credit humanities course every semester (avg load each semester: 20 credits). In retrospect, it seems like it was an excellent requirement. I could have done without MGT 442, the class where they taught you what sort of tie to wear to job interviews.
Stevens certainly did offer a well-rounded engineering curriculum. You touched on every discipline: mechanical, civil, chemical, electrical, pure physics, pure chemistry, pure mathematics. I only wish there was more in terms of practical stuff; the EE labs were typically non-challenging.
Of course, this was back when the DEC Pro350 was what we were required to purchase :) ASIC synthesis tools weren't taught because they didn't exist.
This paper is just fear-mongering since it requires you to make the leap that DRM will be embedded into everything, which makes no sense at all. You can easily reproduce this arguement for nearly any technology, since almost nothing will be appropriate everywhere.
Re-read his article. He makes a very valid point -- that the economics of scale mean that components originally designed to be used in personal computers and consumer electronics gizmos end up being used in other applications, simply because they're cheap.
There are arguments I could use against his train-of-thought. The most obvious is that if you ever look at IC databooks (or PDF datasheets), there's ALWAYS a disclaimer stating that use of the part in a circuit or system such as life-support (or other system where failure can reasonably cause death or serious injury) is expressly forbidden w/out the written consent of the chip vendor's president.
Also, to counter his example of the grunts in the foxhole reprogramming the targetting computer, and having the patches rejected by the DRM agent: while gov't contractors are demanding COTS equipment, you can bet that they will write contracts specifically forbidding any sort of DRM bullshit in the equipment they buy.
Yeah, but are the 100+ pix any good?
Will you look at any of them again, next week, next month, next year?
The one lesson from a pro photographer that's stayed with me has nothing to do with technique, equipment or any of that stuff. It's a simple matter of attitude. It's this:
Don't take the picture if you don't think you'll ever look at it again.
If what you're photographing isn't compelling, why bother? Train yourself to see what you're looking at.
Digital cameras make lousy photographers more prolific. A good photographer will choose digital or film (and film size and speed) based on the specific needs of what's being photographed./p?
"There are plenty of reasons to shoot slide film, but a supposed wide exposure latitude isn't one of them. The wide exposure latitude of negative film may still have an advantage for the moment, but digital imaging technology is rapidly closing the gap with its analog counterparts in terms of exposure latitude, and I expect film's latitude to be exceeded by consumer quality CCDs within a few years. It's already happening in the digital video arena, Sony claims that their DVW-700 camera has 11-stops of exposure latitude (on par with the best negative stock), and directors of photography have managed to get at least 7-stops from the latest professional video equipment."
Quick: go back and re-read your copy of Ansel Adams' The Negative. He talks about exposure latitude, specifically with respect to B+W films, but it's applicable to all films.
Basically, there's no such thing as "exposure latitude." There's ONE exposure that's correct for any scene -- if your intent is to capture the full range of tones in the scene.
When someone talks about "exposure latitude," they usually mean, "my metering can be off by three stops and I still get an acceptable photograph." Keyword: acceptable. "Acceptable," to Adams' eye, differs greatly from "Excellent." And, of course, Adams strived to make excellent photographs.
"Interesting, but then how come the final result from the 1Ds looks better on both screen and print than 35mm shots? Also, does the lower noise/grain of digital not count for anything?"
Well, what 35mm camera was used? What film? Was a print made from the film and then scanned, or was the film scanned on a drum scanner? What compression was used to create the on-line images?
Gotta love 11,000 DPI scans you can get from a Tango drum scanner.
Dude: "Do you think the D-76 should have been 1:1?" Jeez, you should be using HC-110. Or the Ilford stuff; it's much better.