Even a dye sub will only print 256 increments of grey, which is nothing compared to the infinite value possibilities you get in the darkroom.
Sounds convincingly mediocre, until you consider that film's "infinite value possibilities" are in fact nothing of the sort. Film grain can only record 2 levels- black and white- and the "greys" are effectively just dithering. (*)
Of course, in practice this doesn't matter; film generally gives very high quality results and smooth gradients to the human eye. And I'm not claiming that a dye sub is necessarily better because it has more levels- actually, it's going to have to do pretty well to beat film.
My point is that film doesn't suffer from its theoretical quantisation, so it's unfair to criticise dye subs from the same theoretical perspective. Better to judge them on real world performance.
(*) Incidentally, this is why comparing film's quality to digital's using test charts of high contrast lines isn't necessarily the best test. Here, the image is either "on" (white) or "off" (black) and film can record at full "per-grain" resolution. However, most real life subjects incorporate grey, which results in a dither of black and white grains, reducing the effective resolution.
"If everyone runs in one direction [i.e. digital photography], it creates a niche market in the other."
Uh, no, not if EVERYONE runs in one direction.
You're being wilfully pedantic. Large corporations whose business models revolve around the mass market will often stop supporting a field when "everyone" (read; the vast majority of people) leaves it. While they may not be interested in serving the small number of remaining users, smaller businesses more focused on niches may be perfectly capable of making decent money from them.
Either way, it's pretty much a retarded business decision. [snip]
Your opinion of why Polaroid sucks might or might not be true, but has no bearing on whether or not it's a "retarded business decision". If it's clear that they can get enough nostalgics (stupid or otherwise) to buy it that they'll make a nice profit, then it's not a "retarded business decision".
Google indexes everything, its just you dont get to see the results.
The noindex meta tag could really be called "the noshowresults meta tag"
Customers get to see all the web, consumers dont. So yes all the fun you had back in the 1970's 80's will come back to haunt you, if your boss pays for a real search.
Are you saying that Google will make available "noindex"-excluded information if people pay for a search?
[citation needed]
And I'd like to hear about the legal implications of retaining and showing information that the owner has specifically and explicitly requested not be indexed via a widely-accepted mechanism that Google themselves use.
If all the humans were to be recorded and punished for every criminal action they make we would still live in a feudal environment. In order to progress we have to make mistakes and hopefully learn from them.
Of course, if the majority of people were living under a system of law that punished them in such a way- effectively permanently oppressing them- they'd have little to lose by supporting the overturn of the regime that supported it, making revolution *more* likely.
This is public information that was published publicly, there is no expectation [my emphasis] that it would become private after some time.
See, you talk about "expectation", but the Internet- or anything like it- wasn't on anyone's horizon in 1983 (I doubt that even the academics that used it knew it would be so important and all-pervasive 25 years later).
What you say is technically correct, but doesn't account for how the Internet changed the implications of something being "public"- and *that* is what people would not have expected back then.
At the time, reports would have appeared in newspapers and been prominent for a short while. They would have remained "public", but without any simple way to search them, let alone easily available to any random person with a cheap computer, they wouldn't have been found without good reason and some work.
My point being while you can argue whether or not "our mistakes [being] serious enough" should warrant them becoming "a matter of public record", but you can't deny the fact that after 25 years the Internet has changed the fundamental implications of something being on the "public record", even- or especially- things that became public before the Internet was a factor, in ways which wouldn't have been considered back then.
Maybe a "FIRST POST" comment should automatically be attached to every article?
then people would race for "Second post"
Maybe a convincing-looking autogenerated fake "first post" should be added randomly to around 50% of articles. Thus making it unclear which is the "true" first post and reducing the appeal.
Put in 4/0 (four divided by zero) and you get a divide by zero error, which breaks the page and outputs a bunch of database junk. They didn't think of this?
That's nothing, I just asked it a simple question and their server had an electronic breakdown and started billowing smoke. The question was...
"Why?"
(This may have been a "General" protection fault, ho ho ho...)
Yeah....it must be the unions. Can't have anything to do with the fact that on the whole, non-americans consider cars made by GM, Chrysler etc. to be big ugly unreliable inefficient heaps of crap. That can't go around corners.
Not really. I don't know about the rest of the world, but as far as Europe goes, GM doesn't really have that bad reputation.
This is probably because GM's European line-up (mainly Vauxhalls/Opels, along with Saabs and some ex-Daewoos that are now marketed as "Chevrolet") is quite different to the much-maligned models sold in the US. Not saying that they're all considered the best in their class, or that everyone loves them, but- like most manufacturers nowadays- their European cars probably go from "reasonable" to "very good". (As someone pointed out recently, there are very few outright bad models sold here nowadays).
Although you didn't mention them, it's similar for Ford, whose American models seem to be held in generally low regard (both for design and construction quality). No such problem with the models built and sold in Europe.
Can't really comment on Chrysler because they don't have a significant European market share. They tried during the 60s and 70s, and ended up pulling out. Aside from the Chrysler Neon a few years back- which didn't exactly set the market on fire- most of their models sold here are niche ones.
Describing yourself as "a gaming fan" is quite generous, considering the GP2X was successful and you have never heard of it..
Not really; as I was about to point out (but this comment has already mentioned), the GP2X isn't really a direct competitor for the DS and PSP, at least not in most of the world. It's primarily marketed towards homebrewers; those not interested in that could quite conceivably have missed it, though I'm still slightly surprised that he/she has *never* heard of it at all.
Oh, that's another good one, yes. It's essentially the same problem as you get with webcams. Until they find a way to integrate the camera with the screen *and* have it such that you looking at the part of the screen with the other person's face on it comes across to them as if you're looking at them... then it's going to be a problem.
Actually the iPhone sold well because it is an apple product. The phone itself sucks balls.
That is silly. Most of the people buying the iPhone, in terms of numbers, would probably be too young to have an idea of what is Apple Inc. [..] They probably think of the iPhone as the mobile phone version of iPod, without realizing what is the name of the company behind it.
That's pretty unlikely- I suspect that the vast majority certainly *do* "know" who Apple is. Yes, that's almost certainly via the success of the iPod, and it's quite probable that a significant number neither know nor care that Apple produces the Mac.
Still, however it got there, Apple is well-known and associated with fashionable technology.
While the majority of iPod/iPhone buyers almost certainly aren't as obsessed with Apple as the disproportionately vocal fanboy contingent, most of the potential audience will know Apple and associate them with "cool".
FWIW, I don't think that the iPhone sold solely because it was an Apple.
IMHO calling it a "phone" is also misleading. The iPhone is essentially a modern PDA with communications facilities; it's not really seen as such because PDAs fell out of favour a few years back and the iPhone arrived there via the phone route. But I suspect that had PDAs continued to sell and evolve, we'd have arrived in a similar place in 2009. No-one would buy the iPhone if it was simply just a phone, even a souped-up one with some nice tweaks.
although there is a minority of people that like to have the latest technologies, most resist change. When it comes to the phone, it is particularely true. Video calls have been around for a long time now... how many people use them?
There are some very good and perfectly valid *non-technical* reasons that people might not want video calling- and they're nothing to do with "resisting change".
For one thing, there's the issue of appearance. Someone calls you on the phone, you don't have to worry about how you look. On video- that's an issue. Perhaps you just got out of bed and look very rough. Perhaps you just aren't dressed in a manner you'd consider appropriate for the person you're speaking to. Even if you're in a "presentable" state, you might still have to make yourself ready.
Yes, you can turn the video off, but then it becomes an issue. Why do you have it turned off?
(Are you really late at the office or hanging about outside the pub? Yeah, maybe he *is*... and he doesn't want the girlfriend/wife to know that!)
Video also restricts what you can do while you're on the phone. Aside from the fact that people do many things- e.g. work, etc.- while speaking normally on the phone that would come across as both rude on video (because you're not paying attention to them) and impractical (if you have to be holding and/or looking at the camera, it restricts what you can do).
Video calling is one of those things people have thought would be cool for decades; why *wouldn't* you want to have it? Well, when it actually becomes possible and we're forced to consider the implications of using it in our day-to-day lives, there are actually plenty of reasons to prefer old-fashioned voice-only calls.
I can't count the number of people complaining about lost exclusives and lack of obtaining them
Can't count them but I'd estimate their number to be less than 5% of people who are annoyed by exclusives. You have to be REALLY into the pointless console wars to crow that people like you who bought console A get to play a game before people who bought console B. Most gamers actually aren't.
Exactly; fanboys always overestimate their own importance and how much of the market they make up. Or they think they "deserve" something for this downright sad and uni-directional loyalty to some corporate entity and a piece of hardware.
Some people will latch onto anything for the tiniest sense of tribalism, but that doesn't make it any less pitiful.
And if someone whines because their own pathetic sense of self-worth by proxy (not that it's about the console really anyway- that's just a means to an end) needs artificially boosting by such means, then fuck 'em.
I was stationed in South Korea for 18 months in the US Army. I knew Korean fluently, so I know a little about it. If NK was "liberated" as you say, South Korea would fill the governmental void in a nanosecond, no less than West Germany did for East Germany in the 1990's.
You rather missed the point; I wasn't discussing who would rule the country, or who would be prepared to shell out for the reconstruction.
I was specifically talking about *how* you govern a people who have lived and built their lives around a system of lies and propaganda and *how* they deal with that once it's taken away.
I've always thought it would be interesting to take someone that lived in the jungle their whole life into a movie theater, and show them the latest movie. How would they react? Would they be able to tell it was just a movie, or would they hit the floor?
I remember hearing something about indians who had lived in the jungle all their lives and never seen wide open space. Apparently when they first saw this, they saw distant animals (cows or something) and couldn't grasp that they weren't smaller animals much closer.
My memory of this is vague, and I can't remember enough about where this came from to tell whether this sounded plausible at the time or not.
(as a side benefit) the North Korean people will love us!
Joking aside, were it to happen, I believe that liberation of the North Korean people would open a massive can of worms.
Given that they've lived under an all-encompassing veil of propaganda and likely have a totally skewed worldview, can you imagine what would happen if the government fell and (e.g.) UN forces went in?
What do you tell these people? How will they react? How will you govern them?
Would it be necessary to exploit the existing propaganda machine to create the false impression that Kim Jong-Il is in power, gradually weaning them off their leaders over a period of years by pretending that these moves have been endorsed by their "beloved" leader and/or his "legitimate" successors until it converges with the real situation?
Of course, once they're truly weaned off the leader, the controlling forces would have to admit what had actually happened- a double mindfuck.
Let's not forget that war is (supposed to be) a means to an end- and that the US's support of Western Europe after WWII probably bought them *way* more strategic power and influence against the Russians than any amount of wars could have.
As someone who lives in the UK, I'm not complaining; the arrangement was good for us- but it was also good for the US. Even if you don't give a flying fuck about Europe, it's enlightened self-interest; a win-win situation, and one that didn't *need* a war. In truth, it makes as much sense to count the wars that the US *hasn't* needed to fight.
(BTW, The OP was obviously trolling, but there are plenty of genuinely stupid, smug, loudmouthed idiots who think that way.)
Couldn't Google et al just block the UK instead of paying the tax?
I wonder what would happen if the entire island was unable to access any search engines.
We were talking about the (IMHO very unlikely) possibility of Google blocking UK access to search engines, not ads.
Except that if Yahoo, MSN etc. are willing to pay the tax they'll gain lots of market-share.
They already have market share, where would they get more?
Can't work out if this is meant to be a smartass reply, or you're actually missing the point that if Google threw a strop and refused to serve the UK then the remaining major search engines would be able to occupy that vacant market share.
Unfortunately, the Beeb doesn't make nearly enough from the licence fee to fund the programming they make (and, some say, to attract the talent they need)
Perhaps part of the problem is with them attracting such overpaid "talent" as the stunningly mediocre Jonathan Ross.
Slashdot Mirror
Even a dye sub will only print 256 increments of grey, which is nothing compared to the infinite value possibilities you get in the darkroom.
Sounds convincingly mediocre, until you consider that film's "infinite value possibilities" are in fact nothing of the sort. Film grain can only record 2 levels- black and white- and the "greys" are effectively just dithering. (*)
Of course, in practice this doesn't matter; film generally gives very high quality results and smooth gradients to the human eye. And I'm not claiming that a dye sub is necessarily better because it has more levels- actually, it's going to have to do pretty well to beat film.
My point is that film doesn't suffer from its theoretical quantisation, so it's unfair to criticise dye subs from the same theoretical perspective. Better to judge them on real world performance.
(*) Incidentally, this is why comparing film's quality to digital's using test charts of high contrast lines isn't necessarily the best test. Here, the image is either "on" (white) or "off" (black) and film can record at full "per-grain" resolution. However, most real life subjects incorporate grey, which results in a dither of black and white grains, reducing the effective resolution.
"If everyone runs in one direction [i.e. digital photography], it creates a niche market in the other."
Uh, no, not if EVERYONE runs in one direction.
You're being wilfully pedantic. Large corporations whose business models revolve around the mass market will often stop supporting a field when "everyone" (read; the vast majority of people) leaves it. While they may not be interested in serving the small number of remaining users, smaller businesses more focused on niches may be perfectly capable of making decent money from them.
Either way, it's pretty much a retarded business decision. [snip]
Your opinion of why Polaroid sucks might or might not be true, but has no bearing on whether or not it's a "retarded business decision". If it's clear that they can get enough nostalgics (stupid or otherwise) to buy it that they'll make a nice profit, then it's not a "retarded business decision".
That is business.
(Above comment was posted by me, should have been logged in but wasn't...)
Google indexes everything, its just you dont get to see the results. The noindex meta tag could really be called "the noshowresults meta tag" Customers get to see all the web, consumers dont. So yes all the fun you had back in the 1970's 80's will come back to haunt you, if your boss pays for a real search.
Are you saying that Google will make available "noindex"-excluded information if people pay for a search?
[citation needed]
And I'd like to hear about the legal implications of retaining and showing information that the owner has specifically and explicitly requested not be indexed via a widely-accepted mechanism that Google themselves use.
And don't forget all the revolutions.
If all the humans were to be recorded and punished for every criminal action they make we would still live in a feudal environment. In order to progress we have to make mistakes and hopefully learn from them.
Of course, if the majority of people were living under a system of law that punished them in such a way- effectively permanently oppressing them- they'd have little to lose by supporting the overturn of the regime that supported it, making revolution *more* likely.
This is public information that was published publicly, there is no expectation [my emphasis] that it would become private after some time.
See, you talk about "expectation", but the Internet- or anything like it- wasn't on anyone's horizon in 1983 (I doubt that even the academics that used it knew it would be so important and all-pervasive 25 years later).
What you say is technically correct, but doesn't account for how the Internet changed the implications of something being "public"- and *that* is what people would not have expected back then.
At the time, reports would have appeared in newspapers and been prominent for a short while. They would have remained "public", but without any simple way to search them, let alone easily available to any random person with a cheap computer, they wouldn't have been found without good reason and some work.
My point being while you can argue whether or not "our mistakes [being] serious enough" should warrant them becoming "a matter of public record", but you can't deny the fact that after 25 years the Internet has changed the fundamental implications of something being on the "public record", even- or especially- things that became public before the Internet was a factor, in ways which wouldn't have been considered back then.
Maybe a "FIRST POST" comment should automatically be attached to every article?
then people would race for "Second post"
Maybe a convincing-looking autogenerated fake "first post" should be added randomly to around 50% of articles. Thus making it unclear which is the "true" first post and reducing the appeal.
Put in 4/0 (four divided by zero) and you get a divide by zero error, which breaks the page and outputs a bunch of database junk. They didn't think of this?
That's nothing, I just asked it a simple question and their server had an electronic breakdown and started billowing smoke. The question was...
"Why?"
(This may have been a "General" protection fault, ho ho ho...)
Yeah....it must be the unions. Can't have anything to do with the fact that on the whole, non-americans consider cars made by GM, Chrysler etc. to be big ugly unreliable inefficient heaps of crap. That can't go around corners.
Not really. I don't know about the rest of the world, but as far as Europe goes, GM doesn't really have that bad reputation.
This is probably because GM's European line-up (mainly Vauxhalls/Opels, along with Saabs and some ex-Daewoos that are now marketed as "Chevrolet") is quite different to the much-maligned models sold in the US. Not saying that they're all considered the best in their class, or that everyone loves them, but- like most manufacturers nowadays- their European cars probably go from "reasonable" to "very good". (As someone pointed out recently, there are very few outright bad models sold here nowadays).
Although you didn't mention them, it's similar for Ford, whose American models seem to be held in generally low regard (both for design and construction quality). No such problem with the models built and sold in Europe.
Can't really comment on Chrysler because they don't have a significant European market share. They tried during the 60s and 70s, and ended up pulling out. Aside from the Chrysler Neon a few years back- which didn't exactly set the market on fire- most of their models sold here are niche ones.
That's a funny name. I would've called it The Ministry of Spaceborne Chazzwozzers.
So you're suggesting that we don't call it "Bruce" then? That's going to cause a bit of confusion. Mind if we call it "Bruce" to keep things clear?
Describing yourself as "a gaming fan" is quite generous, considering the GP2X was successful and you have never heard of it..
Not really; as I was about to point out (but this comment has already mentioned), the GP2X isn't really a direct competitor for the DS and PSP, at least not in most of the world. It's primarily marketed towards homebrewers; those not interested in that could quite conceivably have missed it, though I'm still slightly surprised that he/she has *never* heard of it at all.
Oh, that's another good one, yes. It's essentially the same problem as you get with webcams. Until they find a way to integrate the camera with the screen *and* have it such that you looking at the part of the screen with the other person's face on it comes across to them as if you're looking at them... then it's going to be a problem.
Actually the iPhone sold well because it is an apple product. The phone itself sucks balls.
That is silly. Most of the people buying the iPhone, in terms of numbers, would probably be too young to have an idea of what is Apple Inc. [..] They probably think of the iPhone as the mobile phone version of iPod, without realizing what is the name of the company behind it.
That's pretty unlikely- I suspect that the vast majority certainly *do* "know" who Apple is. Yes, that's almost certainly via the success of the iPod, and it's quite probable that a significant number neither know nor care that Apple produces the Mac.
Still, however it got there, Apple is well-known and associated with fashionable technology.
While the majority of iPod/iPhone buyers almost certainly aren't as obsessed with Apple as the disproportionately vocal fanboy contingent, most of the potential audience will know Apple and associate them with "cool".
FWIW, I don't think that the iPhone sold solely because it was an Apple.
IMHO calling it a "phone" is also misleading. The iPhone is essentially a modern PDA with communications facilities; it's not really seen as such because PDAs fell out of favour a few years back and the iPhone arrived there via the phone route. But I suspect that had PDAs continued to sell and evolve, we'd have arrived in a similar place in 2009. No-one would buy the iPhone if it was simply just a phone, even a souped-up one with some nice tweaks.
although there is a minority of people that like to have the latest technologies, most resist change. When it comes to the phone, it is particularely true. Video calls have been around for a long time now... how many people use them?
There are some very good and perfectly valid *non-technical* reasons that people might not want video calling- and they're nothing to do with "resisting change".
For one thing, there's the issue of appearance. Someone calls you on the phone, you don't have to worry about how you look. On video- that's an issue. Perhaps you just got out of bed and look very rough. Perhaps you just aren't dressed in a manner you'd consider appropriate for the person you're speaking to. Even if you're in a "presentable" state, you might still have to make yourself ready.
Yes, you can turn the video off, but then it becomes an issue. Why do you have it turned off?
(Are you really late at the office or hanging about outside the pub? Yeah, maybe he *is*... and he doesn't want the girlfriend/wife to know that!)
Video also restricts what you can do while you're on the phone. Aside from the fact that people do many things- e.g. work, etc.- while speaking normally on the phone that would come across as both rude on video (because you're not paying attention to them) and impractical (if you have to be holding and/or looking at the camera, it restricts what you can do).
Video calling is one of those things people have thought would be cool for decades; why *wouldn't* you want to have it? Well, when it actually becomes possible and we're forced to consider the implications of using it in our day-to-day lives, there are actually plenty of reasons to prefer old-fashioned voice-only calls.
If you are able to ignore your voicemail, then YOU aren't important enough.
Funny, isn't it normally the other way round?
I can't count the number of people complaining about lost exclusives and lack of obtaining them
Can't count them but I'd estimate their number to be less than 5% of people who are annoyed by exclusives. You have to be REALLY into the pointless console wars to crow that people like you who bought console A get to play a game before people who bought console B. Most gamers actually aren't.
Exactly; fanboys always overestimate their own importance and how much of the market they make up. Or they think they "deserve" something for this downright sad and uni-directional loyalty to some corporate entity and a piece of hardware.
Some people will latch onto anything for the tiniest sense of tribalism, but that doesn't make it any less pitiful.
And if someone whines because their own pathetic sense of self-worth by proxy (not that it's about the console really anyway- that's just a means to an end) needs artificially boosting by such means, then fuck 'em.
I was stationed in South Korea for 18 months in the US Army. I knew Korean fluently, so I know a little about it. If NK was "liberated" as you say, South Korea would fill the governmental void in a nanosecond, no less than West Germany did for East Germany in the 1990's.
You rather missed the point; I wasn't discussing who would rule the country, or who would be prepared to shell out for the reconstruction.
I was specifically talking about *how* you govern a people who have lived and built their lives around a system of lies and propaganda and *how* they deal with that once it's taken away.
I've always thought it would be interesting to take someone that lived in the jungle their whole life into a movie theater, and show them the latest movie. How would they react? Would they be able to tell it was just a movie, or would they hit the floor?
I remember hearing something about indians who had lived in the jungle all their lives and never seen wide open space. Apparently when they first saw this, they saw distant animals (cows or something) and couldn't grasp that they weren't smaller animals much closer.
My memory of this is vague, and I can't remember enough about where this came from to tell whether this sounded plausible at the time or not.
(as a side benefit) the North Korean people will love us!
Joking aside, were it to happen, I believe that liberation of the North Korean people would open a massive can of worms.
Given that they've lived under an all-encompassing veil of propaganda and likely have a totally skewed worldview, can you imagine what would happen if the government fell and (e.g.) UN forces went in?
What do you tell these people? How will they react? How will you govern them?
Would it be necessary to exploit the existing propaganda machine to create the false impression that Kim Jong-Il is in power, gradually weaning them off their leaders over a period of years by pretending that these moves have been endorsed by their "beloved" leader and/or his "legitimate" successors until it converges with the real situation?
Of course, once they're truly weaned off the leader, the controlling forces would have to admit what had actually happened- a double mindfuck.
I think he said something along the lines of: MS hates it when Windows is pirated, but if an OS has to be pirated, they'd rather it be Windows.
You can bet your life that MS would still prefer someone was running a pirate copy of Windows to a free- and legitimate- Linux distribution.
Let's not forget that war is (supposed to be) a means to an end- and that the US's support of Western Europe after WWII probably bought them *way* more strategic power and influence against the Russians than any amount of wars could have.
As someone who lives in the UK, I'm not complaining; the arrangement was good for us- but it was also good for the US. Even if you don't give a flying fuck about Europe, it's enlightened self-interest; a win-win situation, and one that didn't *need* a war. In truth, it makes as much sense to count the wars that the US *hasn't* needed to fight.
(BTW, The OP was obviously trolling, but there are plenty of genuinely stupid, smug, loudmouthed idiots who think that way.)
soon slashdot users will be harvested for their ink :)
I would hate to be in the small, but very vulnerable intersection of Slashdot readers and squids.
Couldn't Google et al just block the UK instead of paying the tax? I wonder what would happen if the entire island was unable to access any search engines.
We were talking about the (IMHO very unlikely) possibility of Google blocking UK access to search engines, not ads.
Except that if Yahoo, MSN etc. are willing to pay the tax they'll gain lots of market-share.
They already have market share, where would they get more?
Can't work out if this is meant to be a smartass reply, or you're actually missing the point that if Google threw a strop and refused to serve the UK then the remaining major search engines would be able to occupy that vacant market share.
Unfortunately, the Beeb doesn't make nearly enough from the licence fee to fund the programming they make (and, some say, to attract the talent they need)
Perhaps part of the problem is with them attracting such overpaid "talent" as the stunningly mediocre Jonathan Ross.