But of course, you don't hear anything about the OTHER laser printer companies exploiting THEIR printer flaws, even though we all KNOW they're doing it.
Yet another sad commentary on the rampant cover-ups of the true nature of the pseudo-hologram industry.
Good point. Is it possible to mod the article -1 Troll? Seriously; I've never heard of a DVD that had a bad picture when compared to VHS.
Then you didn't see the Highlander: Director's Cut THX Widescreen DVD. I was so psyched when I bought this, and it looks SO FUCKING BAD in some places it's abominable. Find the worst JPEG artifacted pictures you can find, then film them at 24 frames a second onto Super 8 film, run sandpaper over it, then project it onto a dirty bedsheet while videotaping it, then run a magnet over the cassette while you're transferring it to DVD. I also had a VHS version of the movie, and it is MUCH better than this DVD. It's a shame when watching a movie on a 19" TV looks better than on a 65" TV.
No, it wasn't the player or TV, Lawrence of Arabia was utterly flawless.
I just found a story about that, and it seems Weta DID accidentally insert a shot of the Titanic, spinning propellors and all, with Gollum falling into them and being mangled. But, Peter Jackson said it wasn't true to the book, so they did cut it out. I guess he did enough of those shots in Braindead.:)
I still like how Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes) came up with a better name for the Big Bang: The Horrendous Space Kablooey! Astronomers need to come up with more names like that.
A debugger does nothing to improve software, commercial, professional, or otherwise. All you have to do is look at Bugtraq to prove it.
The best way to learn how to write bug-free code is to NOT use a debugger at all. Every programmer should begin writing code in Notepad or some other basic, no-frills text editor. Just like everyone should learn how to type on a typewriter and not a computer. It forces you to NOT make mistakes, instead of correcting them (you don't have to "debug" a program if you don't put the bugs in in the first place!) It forces you to slow down and think about what you're doing, instead of blasting through a procedure and then run the debugger on it. If everyone programmed for at least a year without ever using a debugger, the quality of their code will improve far greater than any fancy IDE debugger will improve it.
Amazingly, Wal-Mart won't carry M-rated games because they feel they're inappropriate, but they still sell guns (leave that particular hipocrisy aside for now) Now, SOMEHOW they manage to regulate their gun sales so that minors can't buy them. Is it so hard to extend that to videogames too? Parents can still buy a hunting rifle for their kids if they so choose, so why not M-rated videogames?
Hmmm, so the actors in the Star Wars films are responding to something isn't there, and that makes them bad actors? I guess there are no good stage actors then?
Ummmm, stage actors have an audience to react to. You have heard of the concept of an "audience" right? It's not the same as a camera crew either, and yes, I've done both stage and film/video work, I know what I'm talking about.
And when you have a good actor, like, say, Bob Hoskins, and you have a good director like, say, Robert Zemeckis, you end up with a movie like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, where the actor is able to convince EVERYONE that the characters he's supposed to interact with are actually there. I've seen several stage actors perform who were also that compelling, that gripping, on stage, without any special effects or even props for that matter. Stage acting has always been better and more convincing than film acting. I only wish George Lucas would realize this and hire more stage actors and actually let them act.
It's funny how the double standard works. LOTR uses heavy amounts of CG to create CG crowds, when arguably they could have filmed with extras in costumes and makeup (even just a few and replicated and composited to create a crowd)
ILM has done this (not Lucas AFAIK) in The Mummy Returns, and it looked terrible. They shot about 50 guys on horseback and cloned them into something like 8000. They also did CGI versions of the Anubis warrior swarms, they weren't a helluva lot better, but they were more consistent and beliveable.
[WETA] is heralded by many, but have Lucas do the same with the Clones and many complaing about the fakeness, coldness, overkill, or some other nonesense by many others.
George Lucas's philosophy is more about the fact that he CAN do something, not whether he SHOULD. He hates to shoot film because he cannot change it as easily as a digital image. He hates the traditional production process because he was always an editor first, a director second, third, fourth, hell, maybe even never. He lives in the editing room where the film is assembled, and if he wants to change something now he can call it up on the computer and just drop it in. He can change his mind 24 times a second and never have to commit to an idea or an image. For Christ's sake, he shoots with actors for a couple of hours, gets 4 or 5 takes, then has some CG plebe compositor spend days cutting and pasting one take's eyes over another take's nose over yet a third take's mouth, instead of SHOOTING ANOTHER TAKE and DIRECTING the actor to do it the way he wants! And the actors know this; it's no wonder the performances blow, they're not motivated to do better because they know George will just cut their heads off and paste it onto another body. The same applies to the fully CG characters; CG Yoda can jump and spin and slash with the best of them, but he can't evoke emotion because Frank Oz wasn't there on the set to provide it, and the other actors don't get the benefit of that feedback. Look back at Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi; for all their faults, they felt a lot more real because George & Co. had to do it for real, the old-fashioned way, and make a decision and stick with it.
Peter Jackson, OTOH, will do another take, or 10, to get the right performance from a real actor. He'll construct a (partial) set for them to perform in, instead of standing around a blue stage with blue cubes substituting for furniture. He'll have a stand-in or the real voice actor on stage to do the scene instead of having the actors look at a ping pong ball on a stick. He will push technology to deliver new images, but he will stick with an image that works and not change it because he can. He doesn't complain about shooting film or working on a year-long shooting schedule, or make elaborate, bullshit excuses for not doing something the old way, or self-aggrandizing statements about how he's changing the entire industry for the better. He has 100 times the respect for the art of filmmaking that George Lucas has, and won't abandon a perfectly good tradition simply because there's a new way to do something.
And think about this: by the time Episode III is done (2 years after LOTR is), the two trilogies will have cost about the same, but LOTR will also have a real STORY with real CHARACTERS played by real, talented, motivated ACTORS, something that CGI cannot deliver. Nor, it seems, George Lucas.
He can't win can he;-).
Dunno, he seems to have the most toys, maybe they've been lying to us about that.:-)
And personally, I would've loved it if David Lean were still alive; he would've hired 100,000 extras in costumes and filmed it FOR REAL!:)
I call bullshit! It's IMPOSSIBLE to make a lens that's lower than 1.0
Well, that might explain why you don't work for Zeiss or Angenieux, cause they did make faster lenses. I happened to use a 0.95 lens in college and it was excellent, except for the shallow depth of field when it was wide open. Since the lens was a wide-angle the depth wasn't too bad, but you definitely have to be right on with the focus.
And there are 0.7 lenses out there, I believe NASA had a few made by Zeiss for the Apollo missions.
Actually, most motion picture projectors use a three-bladed shutter, which result in 72 flashes per second with a 24 fps film. This reduces the flickering of the image. I'm not sure about IMAX projectors though, as they are custom-built around a specialized film format, but they do run at 24 fps.
As far as higher frame rate projection, IMAX also used a 48 fps system for some productions, but it seems to have been discontinued, probably due to the need for more specialized equipment and for practical reasons (used too much film and was more troublesome)
There is also the MaxiVision format. It uses standard 35mm motion picture film, but with a special frame size that's larger than the typical film frame, and can be filmed and projected at either 24 or 48 fps. The image quality at 48 fps is substantially better, even greater than the difference between regular video and HDTV. I can only imagine what IMAX at 48 fps would look like!
And last but not least, there was the Showscan process, which used 70mm film exposed and projected at 60 fps with a single bladed shutter. The image is much crisper and brighter; the faster frame rate reduced motion blur and also provided more image information (and the 70mm film image has higher definition). The image was smaller than an IMAX image though, but the quality was at least as good.
When Douglas Trumbull was developing the Showscan process, he had extensive tests done to determine the optimal projection rate, up to at least 72 fps and possibly 100 fps. 60 fps was found to be the best rate; anything higher had very little improvement in image quality or perception of motion, and would merely use more film than necessary. I've read articles that some scientists have experimented on determining the "frame rate" of human vision, and it seems to be close to the rate used by Showscan (can't remember the exact number, but it was around 60-70 fps, and very few people could perceive anything higher than 80 fps)
Sadly, Showscan never caught on as well as IMAX did and the Showscan corporation went into receivership. If you never got to see it, it was extremely impressive: I saw the Niagara Falls film and it's pretty amazing to see single individual drops of water in the Falls in 70mm at 60 fps! HDTV (and by extension SW:AOTC) looks like an old Super 8 home movie in comparison. It truly was more vivid than being there...the theater was located a few hundred yards from the Falls themselves so it was an easy comparison to make. The only thing close to it would be to see IMAX at 48 fps, but even IMAX's new DMR process is simply up-rezzing 35mm and HDTV images. While it's pretty damn good (I saw Apollo 13 and it was amazing, I'm sure AOTC will be too) it doesn't quite capture the exquisiteness of an original 70mm IMAX or Showscan frame.
With all of the impetus towards cutting costs, using digital production techniques, and consolidating on lesser-quality but universal digital formats, it's unlikely that anyone will continue to produce films in special, high-quality film formats, especially since most of them require special projectors and/or theaters.
All great discoveries that have ever existed have been because of small, previously unrelated pure mathematical works
Unless I'm mistaken, Archimedes invented the screw pump while taking a bath, and wasn't thinking about the intricacies of helical structures before then. Certainly the mathematics of the time weren't sufficient to fully describe that structure either...it was a purely practical device for a purely practical application, and definitely WAS one of the great discoveries of all time.
Not to mention the discovery of the word "Eureka!":-)
Slashdot Mirror
...if Slashdot fixed the links to their own stories.
But if he changes the story, and makes all the Watchmen epileptic, then it'll balance itself out.
Shit, don't bother writing it first, just patent something!
The REAL Great Ape
Proper spelling would force you to spell GRAMMAR properly.
Yet another sad commentary on the rampant cover-ups of the true nature of the pseudo-hologram industry.
Only if it includes GNotepad for X written in GNU.Net, and an MS-Ogg version of the Free Software Song sung by Bill Gates.
Then you didn't see the Highlander: Director's Cut THX Widescreen DVD. I was so psyched when I bought this, and it looks SO FUCKING BAD in some places it's abominable. Find the worst JPEG artifacted pictures you can find, then film them at 24 frames a second onto Super 8 film, run sandpaper over it, then project it onto a dirty bedsheet while videotaping it, then run a magnet over the cassette while you're transferring it to DVD. I also had a VHS version of the movie, and it is MUCH better than this DVD. It's a shame when watching a movie on a 19" TV looks better than on a 65" TV.
No, it wasn't the player or TV, Lawrence of Arabia was utterly flawless.
Although I'm not too surprised NASA lost when you consider that a piece of FOAM took down the most advanced air/spacecraft that ever flew.
I just found a story about that, and it seems Weta DID accidentally insert a shot of the Titanic, spinning propellors and all, with Gollum falling into them and being mangled. But, Peter Jackson said it wasn't true to the book, so they did cut it out. I guess he did enough of those shots in Braindead. :)
SCO = Sue Companies Omnivorously
...in only 80 lines of code? That's pretty efficient.
I still like how Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes) came up with a better name for the Big Bang: The Horrendous Space Kablooey! Astronomers need to come up with more names like that.
http://www.theonion.com/onion3311/microsoftpatents .html
I mean hell, I haven't almost been killed by my faulty stove in over a week, let me start brewing up highly reactive rocket fuel in my sink now.
The best way to learn how to write bug-free code is to NOT use a debugger at all. Every programmer should begin writing code in Notepad or some other basic, no-frills text editor. Just like everyone should learn how to type on a typewriter and not a computer. It forces you to NOT make mistakes, instead of correcting them (you don't have to "debug" a program if you don't put the bugs in in the first place!) It forces you to slow down and think about what you're doing, instead of blasting through a procedure and then run the debugger on it. If everyone programmed for at least a year without ever using a debugger, the quality of their code will improve far greater than any fancy IDE debugger will improve it.
Just a thought...
He had left the Navy however, and was a civilian test pilot (with NACA/NASA) at the time he joined the astronaut program.
Ummmm, stage actors have an audience to react to. You have heard of the concept of an "audience" right? It's not the same as a camera crew either, and yes, I've done both stage and film/video work, I know what I'm talking about.
And when you have a good actor, like, say, Bob Hoskins, and you have a good director like, say, Robert Zemeckis, you end up with a movie like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, where the actor is able to convince EVERYONE that the characters he's supposed to interact with are actually there. I've seen several stage actors perform who were also that compelling, that gripping, on stage, without any special effects or even props for that matter. Stage acting has always been better and more convincing than film acting. I only wish George Lucas would realize this and hire more stage actors and actually let them act.
ILM has done this (not Lucas AFAIK) in The Mummy Returns, and it looked terrible. They shot about 50 guys on horseback and cloned them into something like 8000. They also did CGI versions of the Anubis warrior swarms, they weren't a helluva lot better, but they were more consistent and beliveable.
[WETA] is heralded by many, but have Lucas do the same with the Clones and many complaing about the fakeness, coldness, overkill, or some other nonesense by many others.
George Lucas's philosophy is more about the fact that he CAN do something, not whether he SHOULD. He hates to shoot film because he cannot change it as easily as a digital image. He hates the traditional production process because he was always an editor first, a director second, third, fourth, hell, maybe even never. He lives in the editing room where the film is assembled, and if he wants to change something now he can call it up on the computer and just drop it in. He can change his mind 24 times a second and never have to commit to an idea or an image. For Christ's sake, he shoots with actors for a couple of hours, gets 4 or 5 takes, then has some CG plebe compositor spend days cutting and pasting one take's eyes over another take's nose over yet a third take's mouth, instead of SHOOTING ANOTHER TAKE and DIRECTING the actor to do it the way he wants! And the actors know this; it's no wonder the performances blow, they're not motivated to do better because they know George will just cut their heads off and paste it onto another body. The same applies to the fully CG characters; CG Yoda can jump and spin and slash with the best of them, but he can't evoke emotion because Frank Oz wasn't there on the set to provide it, and the other actors don't get the benefit of that feedback. Look back at Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi; for all their faults, they felt a lot more real because George & Co. had to do it for real, the old-fashioned way, and make a decision and stick with it.
Peter Jackson, OTOH, will do another take, or 10, to get the right performance from a real actor. He'll construct a (partial) set for them to perform in, instead of standing around a blue stage with blue cubes substituting for furniture. He'll have a stand-in or the real voice actor on stage to do the scene instead of having the actors look at a ping pong ball on a stick. He will push technology to deliver new images, but he will stick with an image that works and not change it because he can. He doesn't complain about shooting film or working on a year-long shooting schedule, or make elaborate, bullshit excuses for not doing something the old way, or self-aggrandizing statements about how he's changing the entire industry for the better. He has 100 times the respect for the art of filmmaking that George Lucas has, and won't abandon a perfectly good tradition simply because there's a new way to do something.
And think about this: by the time Episode III is done (2 years after LOTR is), the two trilogies will have cost about the same, but LOTR will also have a real STORY with real CHARACTERS played by real, talented, motivated ACTORS, something that CGI cannot deliver. Nor, it seems, George Lucas.
He can't win can he ;-).
Dunno, he seems to have the most toys, maybe they've been lying to us about that. :-)
And personally, I would've loved it if David Lean were still alive; he would've hired 100,000 extras in costumes and filmed it FOR REAL! :)
Well, that might explain why you don't work for Zeiss or Angenieux, cause they did make faster lenses. I happened to use a 0.95 lens in college and it was excellent, except for the shallow depth of field when it was wide open. Since the lens was a wide-angle the depth wasn't too bad, but you definitely have to be right on with the focus.
And there are 0.7 lenses out there, I believe NASA had a few made by Zeiss for the Apollo missions.
As far as higher frame rate projection, IMAX also used a 48 fps system for some productions, but it seems to have been discontinued, probably due to the need for more specialized equipment and for practical reasons (used too much film and was more troublesome)
There is also the MaxiVision format. It uses standard 35mm motion picture film, but with a special frame size that's larger than the typical film frame, and can be filmed and projected at either 24 or 48 fps. The image quality at 48 fps is substantially better, even greater than the difference between regular video and HDTV. I can only imagine what IMAX at 48 fps would look like!
And last but not least, there was the Showscan process, which used 70mm film exposed and projected at 60 fps with a single bladed shutter. The image is much crisper and brighter; the faster frame rate reduced motion blur and also provided more image information (and the 70mm film image has higher definition). The image was smaller than an IMAX image though, but the quality was at least as good.
When Douglas Trumbull was developing the Showscan process, he had extensive tests done to determine the optimal projection rate, up to at least 72 fps and possibly 100 fps. 60 fps was found to be the best rate; anything higher had very little improvement in image quality or perception of motion, and would merely use more film than necessary. I've read articles that some scientists have experimented on determining the "frame rate" of human vision, and it seems to be close to the rate used by Showscan (can't remember the exact number, but it was around 60-70 fps, and very few people could perceive anything higher than 80 fps)
Sadly, Showscan never caught on as well as IMAX did and the Showscan corporation went into receivership. If you never got to see it, it was extremely impressive: I saw the Niagara Falls film and it's pretty amazing to see single individual drops of water in the Falls in 70mm at 60 fps! HDTV (and by extension SW:AOTC) looks like an old Super 8 home movie in comparison. It truly was more vivid than being there...the theater was located a few hundred yards from the Falls themselves so it was an easy comparison to make. The only thing close to it would be to see IMAX at 48 fps, but even IMAX's new DMR process is simply up-rezzing 35mm and HDTV images. While it's pretty damn good (I saw Apollo 13 and it was amazing, I'm sure AOTC will be too) it doesn't quite capture the exquisiteness of an original 70mm IMAX or Showscan frame.
With all of the impetus towards cutting costs, using digital production techniques, and consolidating on lesser-quality but universal digital formats, it's unlikely that anyone will continue to produce films in special, high-quality film formats, especially since most of them require special projectors and/or theaters.
Unless I'm mistaken, Archimedes invented the screw pump while taking a bath, and wasn't thinking about the intricacies of helical structures before then. Certainly the mathematics of the time weren't sufficient to fully describe that structure either...it was a purely practical device for a purely practical application, and definitely WAS one of the great discoveries of all time.
Not to mention the discovery of the word "Eureka!" :-)