"So far the researchers have only worked through the mathematics to prove that the device is plausible. The practicalities of making one have yet to be solved."
What happens if you DO get the implant and have some kind of inflammatory reaction, maybe something long term like a form of arthritis? Who is liable? The implantor or the "requiror" of implants?
Quick: 35mm... Consider buying used... Don't be seduced by telephoto lenses- you'll probably fall in love with a good very wide angle and a nice macro lens... Shoot LOTS of pictures and expect to throw most of them away.
Details: The 35mm format has survived all sorts of technical and market challenges- 35mm film is going to be available for quite some time at very convenient locations. The same cannot be said for 120, 220, 70mm, 4x5 (sigh, I love 4x5)...
Used equipment is indeed a gamble, but there are plenty of reputable sources and some good bargains. Asahi and Honeywell Pentaxes come to mind. These have an older, screw-type, lens mount (not the same as newer Pentaxes) so you'll have to forage for lenses too. The Takumar lenses (Pentax) are very well respected.
MANY NEWER CAMERAS USE PLASTIC PARTS. Plastic just does not wear as well as metal. If you buy used, you are buying "used" (as in worn). If you buy low-end new, you are buying "used very soon." Of course, are you buying an heirloom or a useful tool (even if short term)?
Believe it or not, most professional photographers lease their equipment. Even the much vaunted, tank-like Hasselblads do not last long in the professional environment. The combination of use and sheer abuse quickly does in any product.
Cameras are a bit like manual razors: the razor-handle/camera-body is what you buy and the blades/lenses are what you get scammed on. Telephoto lenses are the sexy products, but except for certain applications, they are not very useful. For 35mm photography, I like a very wide angle lens (low 20's in focal length) and a macro lens (able to focus close up). The only longer lenses I could recommend would be a 100mm (good for portraits) and, optionally-ONLY, something much longer.
Quality control is not what you might expect. Several tests have shown that the variance between different samples of the same brand of lens is such that it completely obscures any differences between brands themselves.
And that brings me to "mind set." One of the greatest photographers is Cartier Bresson. Go look him up and check out his pictures. He uses a very simple outfit that is reputed to be just a "normal" lens on a manual 35mm camera (admittedly a primo Leica, but he started with a cardboard box camera). I am not sure he uses even a light meter. His brilliance is in being able to see the picture just before it happens and to "be there" to catch it. When you think about it, he's kind of like a great baseball player- he reflexively positions himself to snare the moment.
How did he get to be so good? Certainly there is inate talent there. It was sharpened by shooting a gazillion images. That's what you have to do.
Conclusions- Do your homework. Pick a camera that has a reasonable reputation for some reliability (don't be flim-flammed by gadgetry). Buy it. Shoot a LOT of pictures and throw most of them away. The remainder should form quite a collection of gems. If you have to throw the camera away in a few years, do so- you bought it once, you can do so again. At least you'll have the images, you'll have developed an eye, an d you'll have a great time.
Best!
Prior Art: I tried to patent "breathing" but discovered that Mad Magazine had already tried too... Just think of the royalties!
Even More Prior Art: Didn't Asimov describe just such a device in the original Foundation story? Middle 1940's, wasn't it? The only glitch: Asimov said the device was worn from long use - today's devices wouldn't last long enough to get that kind of wear.
Thomas! Calculus and Analytic Geometry
Look in used book stores. If you find an original edition (two volumes) look for the infamous problem whose "solution is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer" (the problem is worth of a PhD's thesis).
I love Thomas CnAC. It is one of the few books that is complete, rigorous and yet still accessible.
If anybody knows how to obtain a VHS (NTSC) or DVD of If I had a Million, please give me a shout. I suspect that the film itself has disintegrated and the movie is indeed lost. It has a fabulous scene of WC Fields leading a convoy of used cars in a seek-and-destroy mission against bad drivers - "Take that, you great snorting road-hog!"
The Mighty Orbots was a short lived TV cartoon only slightly less inane than The Transformers. However, it had remarkable industrial design.
Don't the patents on GIF89a run out early next year? While I'm confident that the morass of additional patents on GIF don't (nobody uses those "features" anyway), the base stuff becomes public domain soon... I think. Also, would a subset of DjVu/PNG/MNG as a "Basic Image Format" take off? A lot of the resistance to new formats (even at MS) is not evil-empire stuff but simple, low-level management scheduling angst: unless it is required by the market or is REALLY easy to implement, it just isn't going to be in the product.
I have a page about the Julian Day Number at
http://webpages.charter.net/webmartians/Studies/As tronomy/JDN/index.htm that includes C code for a JDN module with a wide domain and small footprint. I'd very much appreciate comments: the main page (http://webpages.charter.net/webmartians/) has an eMail link. Thanks!
Check out Brix Networks at http://www.brixnet.com
Brix has a set of boxes and hardware whose sole purpose is the accurate analysis and measurement of far flung networks. The "Brix Boxes" HAVE to keep accurate time in order to measure delays between nodes... EVEN ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE PLANET! Their use of GPS, NTP, and "controlled drifting" of clocks is pretty sweet....some good ideas there...
The Geezer remembers a presentation at IBM when it decided to make FS ("Future System)... about 1980...
We were shown slides of how the OS would link multiple machines and faults could be automatically tolerated and hardware hot-swapped for repairs. Plasma panels would provide fully bitmapped presentations. A new language (PLAS) would make bugs a thing of the past. We thought it was pretty cool.
THEN, we were told that this is EXACTLY THE SAME SHOW (slides and all... except for PLAS) as was presented for the System/360... and THAT WAS EXACTLY THE SAME show as presented for the 7090... and THAT WAS EXACTLY THE SAME SHOW... Dumb as we were, we did realize that we hadn't done crap and that all the plans had come to naught.
So... now that it's 2002, where're the flying cars I was promised would be here by 2000!?!?
Slashdot Mirror
"So far the researchers have only worked through the mathematics to prove that the device is plausible. The practicalities of making one have yet to be solved."
c hers-invent-completely-transparent-material/
http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/02/japanese-resea
What happens if you DO get the implant and have some kind of inflammatory reaction, maybe something long term like a form of arthritis? Who is liable? The implantor or the "requiror" of implants?
Quick: 35mm... Consider buying used... Don't be seduced by telephoto lenses- you'll probably fall in love with a good very wide angle and a nice macro lens... Shoot LOTS of pictures and expect to throw most of them away. Details: The 35mm format has survived all sorts of technical and market challenges- 35mm film is going to be available for quite some time at very convenient locations. The same cannot be said for 120, 220, 70mm, 4x5 (sigh, I love 4x5)... Used equipment is indeed a gamble, but there are plenty of reputable sources and some good bargains. Asahi and Honeywell Pentaxes come to mind. These have an older, screw-type, lens mount (not the same as newer Pentaxes) so you'll have to forage for lenses too. The Takumar lenses (Pentax) are very well respected. MANY NEWER CAMERAS USE PLASTIC PARTS. Plastic just does not wear as well as metal. If you buy used, you are buying "used" (as in worn). If you buy low-end new, you are buying "used very soon." Of course, are you buying an heirloom or a useful tool (even if short term)? Believe it or not, most professional photographers lease their equipment. Even the much vaunted, tank-like Hasselblads do not last long in the professional environment. The combination of use and sheer abuse quickly does in any product. Cameras are a bit like manual razors: the razor-handle/camera-body is what you buy and the blades/lenses are what you get scammed on. Telephoto lenses are the sexy products, but except for certain applications, they are not very useful. For 35mm photography, I like a very wide angle lens (low 20's in focal length) and a macro lens (able to focus close up). The only longer lenses I could recommend would be a 100mm (good for portraits) and, optionally-ONLY, something much longer. Quality control is not what you might expect. Several tests have shown that the variance between different samples of the same brand of lens is such that it completely obscures any differences between brands themselves. And that brings me to "mind set." One of the greatest photographers is Cartier Bresson. Go look him up and check out his pictures. He uses a very simple outfit that is reputed to be just a "normal" lens on a manual 35mm camera (admittedly a primo Leica, but he started with a cardboard box camera). I am not sure he uses even a light meter. His brilliance is in being able to see the picture just before it happens and to "be there" to catch it. When you think about it, he's kind of like a great baseball player- he reflexively positions himself to snare the moment. How did he get to be so good? Certainly there is inate talent there. It was sharpened by shooting a gazillion images. That's what you have to do. Conclusions- Do your homework. Pick a camera that has a reasonable reputation for some reliability (don't be flim-flammed by gadgetry). Buy it. Shoot a LOT of pictures and throw most of them away. The remainder should form quite a collection of gems. If you have to throw the camera away in a few years, do so- you bought it once, you can do so again. At least you'll have the images, you'll have developed an eye, an d you'll have a great time. Best!
Prior Art: I tried to patent "breathing" but discovered that Mad Magazine had already tried too... Just think of the royalties!
Even More Prior Art: Didn't Asimov describe just such a device in the original Foundation story? Middle 1940's, wasn't it? The only glitch: Asimov said the device was worn from long use - today's devices wouldn't last long enough to get that kind of wear.
Thomas! Calculus and Analytic Geometry Look in used book stores. If you find an original edition (two volumes) look for the infamous problem whose "solution is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer" (the problem is worth of a PhD's thesis). I love Thomas CnAC. It is one of the few books that is complete, rigorous and yet still accessible.
If anybody knows how to obtain a VHS (NTSC) or DVD of If I had a Million, please give me a shout. I suspect that the film itself has disintegrated and the movie is indeed lost. It has a fabulous scene of WC Fields leading a convoy of used cars in a seek-and-destroy mission against bad drivers - "Take that, you great snorting road-hog!"
The Mighty Orbots was a short lived TV cartoon only slightly less inane than The Transformers. However, it had remarkable industrial design.
Seriously, I wonder if this thing can juggle or deal (and collect) cards? That would be a killer display.
Don't the patents on GIF89a run out early next year? While I'm confident that the morass of additional patents on GIF don't (nobody uses those "features" anyway), the base stuff becomes public domain soon... I think. Also, would a subset of DjVu/PNG/MNG as a "Basic Image Format" take off? A lot of the resistance to new formats (even at MS) is not evil-empire stuff but simple, low-level management scheduling angst: unless it is required by the market or is REALLY easy to implement, it just isn't going to be in the product.
I have a page about the Julian Day Number at http://webpages.charter.net/webmartians/Studies/As tronomy/JDN/index.htm that includes C code for a JDN module with a wide domain and small footprint. I'd very much appreciate comments: the main page (http://webpages.charter.net/webmartians/) has an eMail link. Thanks!
Check out Brix Networks at http://www.brixnet.com Brix has a set of boxes and hardware whose sole purpose is the accurate analysis and measurement of far flung networks. The "Brix Boxes" HAVE to keep accurate time in order to measure delays between nodes... EVEN ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE PLANET! Their use of GPS, NTP, and "controlled drifting" of clocks is pretty sweet. ...some good ideas there...
The Geezer remembers a presentation at IBM when it decided to make FS ("Future System)... about 1980...
We were shown slides of how the OS would link multiple machines and faults could be automatically tolerated and hardware hot-swapped for repairs. Plasma panels would provide fully bitmapped presentations. A new language (PLAS) would make bugs a thing of the past. We thought it was pretty cool.
THEN, we were told that this is EXACTLY THE SAME SHOW (slides and all... except for PLAS) as was presented for the System/360... and THAT WAS EXACTLY THE SAME show as presented for the 7090... and THAT WAS EXACTLY THE SAME SHOW... Dumb as we were, we did realize that we hadn't done crap and that all the plans had come to naught.
So... now that it's 2002, where're the flying cars I was promised would be here by 2000!?!?