About the only features one could consider frivolous on it are a few games and text messaging. Monochrome screen, crappy ringtones, no frills. Good reception, compact, solid (I don't even know how many times I've dropped it) and of course you can't get it anymore. I'm going to use mine until it breaks or AT&T shuts down their TDMA network.
The problem is that when you can get a "free" cameraphone with a color screen and polyphonic ringtones and downloadable games, why would anyone want something that does less? God forbid any company should make a phone with excellent reception and battery life and advertise it as such, because we certainly don't want that.
Each pixel on the sensor is dedicated to one color each, and typically a bayer pattern is used, which looks like this: RGRGRGRG GBGBGBGB RGRGRGRG GBGBGBGB The eye is more sensitive to green, so green is captured in greater detail. Lower detail in reds and even lower detail in blues is acceptable to the human eye, and in most cases this sort of setup looks pretty good once the data is processed and interpolation is performed. But considering that JPEG would throw away the extra red and blue chrominance detail anyway, a consumer camera using a chip that captures red, green, and blue for each pixel would be pretty pointless right now given the fact that uncompressed formats are too inconvenient (RAW conversion and/or huge file size with RAW and TIFF) for most peoples' purposes. But NASA is not using JPEG compression, and their needs are considerably different from an earth photgrapher's. I am still puzzled by the article, though, considering that any picture at that resolution, reduced to 1MP, would never be "IMAX quality."
You have to focus on different colors differently because red, green, and blue light are all different wavelengths and therefore are refracted slightly differently by your eye (shorter wavelengths, i.e. blue, refract more, longer wavelengths - red - refract less). You have to focus closer in on a red light than a blue light for it to be sharp, if you can even do so.
Something I don't understand is that blue light seems to exaggerate my mild astigmatism; I have a Logitech mouse that drives me crazy if I try to focus on the blue taillight. Red lights I can focus on quite clearly and from further away (I am also nearsighted) than any other color lights.
Fun related trivia bit (and forgive me if this is common knowledge): If you have a decent old 35mm SLR camera with a normal lens (other lenses may have this too) look at the focus ring. There is a marker for where to line up the focus ring in normal conditions, and then there should also be a little red dot a fraction of an inch to the side of it to show where to line up the ring when shooting on infrared film. You have to focus the lens closer for infrared than for visible light, because longer wavelengths refract less.
This is all related the prism rainbow effect, too.
I am so tired of people equating their desire to have a deafening computer with there somehow being a "need" for it. In August I built a box for a friend with an Athlon XP 2800+ using the stock heatsink and the 120mm fan and power supply that came with the $50 Antec case, and it's extremely quiet and plenty cool. My own computer is an Athlon XP 1700+ in a Lian Li case and it's a little louder but cooler still. AMD processors do not have thermal issues that I know of.
I'm no economist, but I can tell you almost no one would buy Windows for $1000. People would either a) stick with what they have on their computers or b) actively seek out alternatives. Microsoft is in a nice place right now, where they are gouging customers but not so much that most will do anything about it. Most people get Windows with their new computer and never upgrade anyway, so the $299 price applies only to people who enjoy throwing their money at MS.
The key thing here is that most companies won't write software for Linux because there's not much of a market for it. Therefore people don't use Linux because their favorite program doesn't run on it (it's also a hassle to switch OSes). Windows is only the most common desktop OS today because it already is. I could say it got there by MS's trickery and evil ways, but I'm really not well-versed enough in this to claim that. The point is that now it's extremely hard to come up with a viable competitor to their OS or their Office software (open file formats, anyone? With the next version of Office, it sounds that way, but don't bet on it) and MS will continue to make it hard. And because they make it hard, people are discouraged from switching, and feel forced to pony up the dough for the latest upgrade to Windows which so earnestly promises to fix the problems every previous version of the software had. And then it doesn't. But people truly believe it will turn out to have been worth it, and all their past suffering will not have been in vain.
I guess what I'm saying is MS is using the fact that people act like addicted gamblers against us. We always want to believe the next version (roll of the dice, spin of the roulette wheel) will be the winner, and even when it's not, we still find another few hundred bucks to waste in the hope that we'll hit the jackpot the next time.
And here's the link.
Actually, MSNBC has been interesting to behold. They had a very positive review of Lycoris Linux not too long ago, reported that MSN Internet has low customer satisfaction, and a May review of Abiword proclaimed it to be "Wonderful," "a success" and said "you should try it."
Seems objective to me.
As I write this, I am connected using Morpheus v1.3.3 and am downloading a file from another MusicCity member. Anyone know why this is?
I had no internet access for about the last week so I missed all this Morpheus madness, and now that I am back (albeit on dial-up) it seems slower (naturally) but otherwise it's all right.
Even so, I'm downloading Gnucleus.
I was able to see Toy Story 2 on a digital screen in Irvine, CA. It was nice, but nothing earth-shattering. The pixels were a bit noticeable, but as compared to regular film grain they weren't a big deal. Still, picture quality isn't the real reason for digital movie theaters. Painless, nearly free distribution and no loss of quality as time goes on are the real reasons. I seriously doubt Attack of the Clones will blow me away in digital format any more than it would on film in a good theater.
The order the shows are listed in is the order in which they originally aired. The numbers attached to each refer to the order in which they were filmed. For example, Symbiosis (123) was filmed after Skin of Evil (122) and Denise Crosby appears in both, despite Yar's death in Skin of Evil. If the shows were in order of production there would be many more continuity problems to whine about. The first season is generally the worst about this sort of thing; later seasons were filmed more or less in order.
Am I crazy, or does the ReplayTV 4000 series seem perfect for video on demand? If licensing and legal issues were dealt with (and that is perhaps a very big if) it would be nearly ideal. It would require a software update, but the Replays are already planned to have the capability of downloading content directly to the box and playing it back with digital audio and 480p output, if so equipped. SonicBlue could be sitting on a goldmine if the new boxes take off.
With file trading exploding as it is, those who stand to gain from VOD should get hopping now, and making use of the Replay would be a good start. Just my two cents.
Slashdot Mirror
About the only features one could consider frivolous on it are a few games and text messaging. Monochrome screen, crappy ringtones, no frills. Good reception, compact, solid (I don't even know how many times I've dropped it) and of course you can't get it anymore. I'm going to use mine until it breaks or AT&T shuts down their TDMA network.
The problem is that when you can get a "free" cameraphone with a color screen and polyphonic ringtones and downloadable games, why would anyone want something that does less? God forbid any company should make a phone with excellent reception and battery life and advertise it as such, because we certainly don't want that.
Each pixel on the sensor is dedicated to one color each, and typically a bayer pattern is used, which looks like this:e eye is more sensitive to green, so green is captured in greater detail. Lower detail in reds and even lower detail in blues is acceptable to the human eye, and in most cases this sort of setup looks pretty good once the data is processed and interpolation is performed.
RGRGRGRG
GBGBGBGB
RGRGRGRG
GBGBGBGB
Th
But considering that JPEG would throw away the extra red and blue chrominance detail anyway, a consumer camera using a chip that captures red, green, and blue for each pixel would be pretty pointless right now given the fact that uncompressed formats are too inconvenient (RAW conversion and/or huge file size with RAW and TIFF) for most peoples' purposes.
But NASA is not using JPEG compression, and their needs are considerably different from an earth photgrapher's.
I am still puzzled by the article, though, considering that any picture at that resolution, reduced to 1MP, would never be "IMAX quality."
You have to focus on different colors differently because red, green, and blue light are all different wavelengths and therefore are refracted slightly differently by your eye (shorter wavelengths, i.e. blue, refract more, longer wavelengths - red - refract less). You have to focus closer in on a red light than a blue light for it to be sharp, if you can even do so.
Something I don't understand is that blue light seems to exaggerate my mild astigmatism; I have a Logitech mouse that drives me crazy if I try to focus on the blue taillight. Red lights I can focus on quite clearly and from further away (I am also nearsighted) than any other color lights.
Fun related trivia bit (and forgive me if this is common knowledge):
If you have a decent old 35mm SLR camera with a normal lens (other lenses may have this too) look at the focus ring. There is a marker for where to line up the focus ring in normal conditions, and then there should also be a little red dot a fraction of an inch to the side of it to show where to line up the ring when shooting on infrared film. You have to focus the lens closer for infrared than for visible light, because longer wavelengths refract less.
This is all related the prism rainbow effect, too.
I am so tired of people equating their desire to have a deafening computer with there somehow being a "need" for it. In August I built a box for a friend with an Athlon XP 2800+ using the stock heatsink and the 120mm fan and power supply that came with the $50 Antec case, and it's extremely quiet and plenty cool. My own computer is an Athlon XP 1700+ in a Lian Li case and it's a little louder but cooler still. AMD processors do not have thermal issues that I know of.
(mostly due to the egregious misspelling)
If you don't mind refurbished products, Klipsch has this system for $149 at their store. Supposed to be excellent, and a steal at this price.
I'm no economist, but I can tell you almost no one would buy Windows for $1000. People would either a) stick with what they have on their computers or b) actively seek out alternatives. Microsoft is in a nice place right now, where they are gouging customers but not so much that most will do anything about it. Most people get Windows with their new computer and never upgrade anyway, so the $299 price applies only to people who enjoy throwing their money at MS.
The key thing here is that most companies won't write software for Linux because there's not much of a market for it. Therefore people don't use Linux because their favorite program doesn't run on it (it's also a hassle to switch OSes). Windows is only the most common desktop OS today because it already is. I could say it got there by MS's trickery and evil ways, but I'm really not well-versed enough in this to claim that. The point is that now it's extremely hard to come up with a viable competitor to their OS or their Office software (open file formats, anyone? With the next version of Office, it sounds that way, but don't bet on it) and MS will continue to make it hard. And because they make it hard, people are discouraged from switching, and feel forced to pony up the dough for the latest upgrade to Windows which so earnestly promises to fix the problems every previous version of the software had. And then it doesn't. But people truly believe it will turn out to have been worth it, and all their past suffering will not have been in vain.
I guess what I'm saying is MS is using the fact that people act like addicted gamblers against us. We always want to believe the next version (roll of the dice, spin of the roulette wheel) will be the winner, and even when it's not, we still find another few hundred bucks to waste in the hope that we'll hit the jackpot the next time.
Hush, little baby, don't say a word, momma's gonna sue for reckless prosecution...
Did anyone really fly to this thing, or did they all drive their Saturns there?
Oh, c'mon. You know they did.
And here's the link.
Actually, MSNBC has been interesting to behold. They had a very positive review of Lycoris Linux not too long ago, reported that MSN Internet has low customer satisfaction, and a May review of Abiword proclaimed it to be "Wonderful," "a success" and said "you should try it."
Seems objective to me.
As I write this, I am connected using Morpheus v1.3.3 and am downloading a file from another MusicCity member. Anyone know why this is? I had no internet access for about the last week so I missed all this Morpheus madness, and now that I am back (albeit on dial-up) it seems slower (naturally) but otherwise it's all right. Even so, I'm downloading Gnucleus.
I was able to see Toy Story 2 on a digital screen in Irvine, CA. It was nice, but nothing earth-shattering. The pixels were a bit noticeable, but as compared to regular film grain they weren't a big deal. Still, picture quality isn't the real reason for digital movie theaters. Painless, nearly free distribution and no loss of quality as time goes on are the real reasons. I seriously doubt Attack of the Clones will blow me away in digital format any more than it would on film in a good theater.
The order the shows are listed in is the order in which they originally aired. The numbers attached to each refer to the order in which they were filmed. For example, Symbiosis (123) was filmed after Skin of Evil (122) and Denise Crosby appears in both, despite Yar's death in Skin of Evil. If the shows were in order of production there would be many more continuity problems to whine about. The first season is generally the worst about this sort of thing; later seasons were filmed more or less in order.
Am I crazy, or does the ReplayTV 4000 series seem perfect for video on demand? If licensing and legal issues were dealt with (and that is perhaps a very big if) it would be nearly ideal. It would require a software update, but the Replays are already planned to have the capability of downloading content directly to the box and playing it back with digital audio and 480p output, if so equipped. SonicBlue could be sitting on a goldmine if the new boxes take off.
With file trading exploding as it is, those who stand to gain from VOD should get hopping now, and making use of the Replay would be a good start. Just my two cents.