Movie film is made and developed with a pretty crappy process. It's nowhere near as good as Kodak or Fuji 35mm slide film. So while 35mm may have a theoretical max data of ~30Mpixels a frame, the movie film definately hurts this, at probably by about 1/2. Add to that the degrading effects of multiple copies and wear tear on the film in the theatre and the actual resolution starts to get pretty close to HD.
I really don't expect there to be anything but hobby film equipment by 2020 at the very outside. Which irritates me because I love film cameras.
Question though: Why does someone (Nikon) not produce a truly modular upgradable digital SLR camera?
The D1 is a step in the right direction, but it's too big and way too expensive.
CCD's should be replacable like film backs on film cameras, so that you don't have to throw the whole camera away, just replace your 3Mp back with an 8, then a 12 etc.
And interchangable lenses, preferably standard F mount, for Christ's sakes people. You can't do serious photography with crappy builtin zooms.
My dream camera would be an updated Nikon F3, but with upgradable digital backs, and an option for an LCD screen, but not built in.
Exactly, one of the huge things that companies have been able to miss (although I have no idea how) is that most people are honest, but you can push them to far. If they feel they are being cheated, or otherwise screwed-over, they lose their moral hang-ups over breaking the law. The real answer to this is to create a few open, easily used formats. DVD is about right, although macrovision should be removed, since it's a pain. I'd also favor widespread use of a 3in DVD format like the Gamecube media, for the purposes CDs are currently used for.
Widespread paranoia over piracy is completely unfounded, the only example of an unprotected format, the CD, was wildly successful, while overly protected ones have failed miserably. I would even go so far as to attribute DVDs success to the cracking of its copy-protection.
The media industry now faces a choice, they can either listen to consumers and release unprotected, recordable, easy to use formats, or die, as consumers turn to other (possibly illegal) sources for the products they want.
I've come to really love this document. According to it, so many things governments do are in direct violation of international law.
I think it can be argued that these liscenses are in direct violation from two points:
Article 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
and
Article 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Together these sections clearly show that I have the right to travel to any country in world, and if I have purchased the right to use software (e.g. a liscense) this cannot be taken away from me within the time limit of the liscense. Because I *DO* *OWN* the right to *USE* the software even if I do not own the software itself.
Therefore region coding and limitations are crap, and in direct violation of International law.
Any person sufficiently motivated can do so without a gun. Granted, a significant percentage would not occur if a gun was not handy, but do we really care? I'm quite inclined to be complete pragmatic about this: they want to die, more power to 'em.
America has ridiculously high suicide rates anyway, second only to Japan, I beleive, indicative that the problem is something entirely different from guns.
(*Note: Japan's rate is higher, but guns are nowhere near as common, ergo where is the connection?)
Back to my original point, so guns can be used for suicide, so what? Will you outlaw knives as well? How about rope? Automobiles? Any of these can be used for that purpose, it all goes back to intent.
How did this tell us anything we didn't already know? Aside from the "visible" spectrum being a small and arbitrary slice of the pie (woo, it's what humans can see, it must be important) we already knew that the majority of stars are massive bright blue ones, because the universe isn't out of large clouds of hydrogen for massive stars to form yet. Therefore it's obvious that the average of all visible light would be greenish.
This discovery is like proclaiming the "average" of all the atoms currently existing is carbon or oxygen, its moronic.
I have to say I honestly liked Quake 3. Quake 3 Deathmatch was most certainly fun. I think it depends on your expectations. If you're getting sick of DM, CTF, and all the other basic fragging fun, I seriously doubt one could enjoy Unreal Tournament either.
If you want profound plots go play an RPG (Planescape: Torment). If you want an edge of your seat thriller play System Shock 2 (Why did nobody buy that game?!). There is nothing wrong with games that are simple, addictive, and fun, who trashed pacman, tetris, gauntlet, etc for these reasons?
Am I the only one to suspect this is going to happen? I think the web is destined to die nearly completely due to its business model (or rather lack thereof).
Content dies as it gains popularity, in a complete reversal from other media. Only content that is fairly "unpopular" survives. Its almost darwinian natural selection, the web breeds media that avoids detection.
I think within another five years or so the web will be completely commercial, this will be accompanied by a peak, and then decline of web use.
This is not to say I think the internet will die, quite the contrary, I think we'll probably see a resurgence of usenet and other systems.
Just my two cents
Who decides who gets to rule? And "who shall watch the guardians?"
Great difficulties arise economically as the system becomes larger as well. Who will deny that money exhibits an effect similar to gravity? It tends to clump and the clumps to grow larger. It is very very difficult to counteract this effect without catastrophies. The evolution of America and Europe hold as evidence to this. It would be far far better in my opinion, for the major governments of the world to collapse, and instead smaller states exist. This would, at least, help facilitate revolution, and "churn" in terms of the ruling classes. Which would present greater opportunity for those with real talent and capability to rise, as opposed to foolish descendents of those who gained power.
Slashdot Mirror
Movie film is made and developed with a pretty crappy process. It's nowhere near as good as Kodak or Fuji 35mm slide film. So while 35mm may have a theoretical max data of ~30Mpixels a frame, the movie film definately hurts this, at probably by about 1/2. Add to that the degrading effects of multiple copies and wear tear on the film in the theatre and the actual resolution starts to get pretty close to HD.
Question though: Why does someone (Nikon) not produce a truly modular upgradable digital SLR camera?
The D1 is a step in the right direction, but it's too big and way too expensive.
CCD's should be replacable like film backs on film cameras, so that you don't have to throw the whole camera away, just replace your 3Mp back with an 8, then a 12 etc.
And interchangable lenses, preferably standard F mount, for Christ's sakes people. You can't do serious photography with crappy builtin zooms.
My dream camera would be an updated Nikon F3, but with upgradable digital backs, and an option for an LCD screen, but not built in.
Widespread paranoia over piracy is completely unfounded, the only example of an unprotected format, the CD, was wildly successful, while overly protected ones have failed miserably. I would even go so far as to attribute DVDs success to the cracking of its copy-protection.
The media industry now faces a choice, they can either listen to consumers and release unprotected, recordable, easy to use formats, or die, as consumers turn to other (possibly illegal) sources for the products they want.
I think it can be argued that these liscenses are in direct violation from two points:
Article 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
and
Article 17.
(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Together these sections clearly show that I have the right to travel to any country in world, and if I have purchased the right to use software (e.g. a liscense) this cannot be taken away from me within the time limit of the liscense. Because I *DO* *OWN* the right to *USE* the software even if I do not own the software itself.
Therefore region coding and limitations are crap, and in direct violation of International law.
America has ridiculously high suicide rates anyway, second only to Japan, I beleive, indicative that the problem is something entirely different from guns.
(*Note: Japan's rate is higher, but guns are nowhere near as common, ergo where is the connection?)
Back to my original point, so guns can be used for suicide, so what? Will you outlaw knives as well? How about rope? Automobiles? Any of these can be used for that purpose, it all goes back to intent.
This discovery is like proclaiming the "average" of all the atoms currently existing is carbon or oxygen, its moronic.
I have to say I honestly liked Quake 3. Quake 3 Deathmatch was most certainly fun. I think it depends on your expectations. If you're getting sick of DM, CTF, and all the other basic fragging fun, I seriously doubt one could enjoy Unreal Tournament either.
If you want profound plots go play an RPG (Planescape: Torment). If you want an edge of your seat thriller play System Shock 2 (Why did nobody buy that game?!). There is nothing wrong with games that are simple, addictive, and fun, who trashed pacman, tetris, gauntlet, etc for these reasons?
Am I the only one to suspect this is going to happen? I think the web is destined to die nearly completely due to its business model (or rather lack thereof). Content dies as it gains popularity, in a complete reversal from other media. Only content that is fairly "unpopular" survives. Its almost darwinian natural selection, the web breeds media that avoids detection. I think within another five years or so the web will be completely commercial, this will be accompanied by a peak, and then decline of web use. This is not to say I think the internet will die, quite the contrary, I think we'll probably see a resurgence of usenet and other systems. Just my two cents
Who decides who gets to rule? And "who shall watch the guardians?" Great difficulties arise economically as the system becomes larger as well. Who will deny that money exhibits an effect similar to gravity? It tends to clump and the clumps to grow larger. It is very very difficult to counteract this effect without catastrophies. The evolution of America and Europe hold as evidence to this. It would be far far better in my opinion, for the major governments of the world to collapse, and instead smaller states exist. This would, at least, help facilitate revolution, and "churn" in terms of the ruling classes. Which would present greater opportunity for those with real talent and capability to rise, as opposed to foolish descendents of those who gained power.