also, not all last-gen consoles could play dvd That's irrelevant, they'd "never owned a gaming console".
the "but it doesn't play dvd!" excuse is a load of crap, seeing as how you can go to walmart and buy a pint-sized dvd player for less than many special edition dvd releases! Yeah, but it's still another annoying separate little box, and another set of leads. And since he only has one connection, he has to change that manually, or fsck about with a switch box, or.... whatever. You can rationalise away that kind of hassle if you're that much into TV/DVD/games/etc, but if you're not, it's the sort of thing that can quickly make an audiovisual setups more of a PITA then it's worth.
In other words, I totally sympathise with the original poster. For people like us, the convenience of having stuff integrated is relatively important. The fewer boxes/leads the better.
Yes; I see what you're saying, and it's a philosophical can of worms.:-)
The issue you raise is interesting, and of course important, but somewhat distinct from the point I was trying to make. That is, even if we assume that the experience of two trichromats with broadly equivalent optical sensors (i.e. eyes) is the "same" for a given colour, or- to make it even simpler- if we only care about our own experience of colour, there is still no way for a normal trichromat person to "imagine" the sensation of colour produced by a fourth set of (e.g.) UV cones in the eye.
In other words, even if we (arbitrarily) assume that it is possible (or valid) to map the colour-experiences of trichromats, this doesn't help one of us in trying to understand what colour sensations an R/G/B/UV tetrachromat might experience. "Understand" is probably the wrong word anyway, because I don't "understand" red when I see or imagine it...
The problem with discussing this is that it raises very philosophical issues about what "experiencing" colours is, what the human concept of "colour" in itself is (as distinct from the simple frequency of light), and given this what the "true" meaning of certain words are.
Regarding proof, we have to make reasonable assumption that the guy is not lying, and trust that he is competent to judge that what he is "experiencing" is the *sensation* of colour, even though this sensation has not been produced as a result of input through the eyes.
Anyway, to be clear about this again (although I think you see what I am trying to say now); this guy has never *seen* the "missing" colour(s) physically- i.e. through his eyes. In other words, he has never experienced these colours in the real world, only the sensation of them via synesthaesia. Of course, these experiences are "false" in the same way that someone who tastes chicken when he hears the word "ball" isn't actually eating, or even in contact with chicken. Nevertheless, the sensation itself is real.
And yes, we're taking the guy's word for it; but we do this a lot of the time.
Doesn't seem hard to me. We know exactly where it exists on the spectrum. It would simply be a higher-frequency version/shade of purple/violet. No, I meant imagine that you can see UV as a distinct colour; in other words, if you had a fourth set of separate UV cones in addition to red, green and blue-sensitive ones. If it were simply a case of the short-wavelength (blue/violet) cones' sensitivity extending into the UV, you'd be able to "see" it, but not differentiate it from blue (i.e. experience it as a distinct colour). This has happened with people who've had cataract surgery, and they report sensing the UV simply as intense purple.
On the other hand, if you had a distinct fourth set of cones sensitive to UV, how would you experience the colour?
Let me put it this way; imagine that your eyes contained yellow filters that blocked anything shorter than green, and had done since birth. You've never developed the mental concept or sensation of blue, let alone seen it. How would you explain blue to such a person? Are they even capable of imagining what "blue" must be like in an abstract sense? This is a very philosophical question, but fundamental to the issue.
Put it another way; if someone lacked a sense of smell, and had never experienced the sensation of smell, how would you put it across to them? Sure, you could try to "explain" it logically, but you could *never* give them the sensation of what it is like to smell in that way.
Does the haze that fills the room when only the blacklights are on count? I've not actually observed that phenomenon, but I'd assume that it was down to the dust or smoke particles (the latter more likely in a club setting) fluorescing, which wouldn't count.
On the other hand, I believe that some people have limited UV sensitivity, and there's an interesting comment elsewhere from someone who had a cataract operation that altered the filter of the retina, and can now see UV quite well.
I don't know about these 'martian colours' but from what I understand of normal colour blind people, they really don't have a concept of the what the other colors are. True; but it should be noted that this guy had synesthaesia, which most people don't have to any notable degree.
I had the cataract surgery in one eye. This involved ultrasonic emulsification and removal of the crystallized contents of the capsule of the lens... the capsule now contains salt water. Near-UV wavelengths that were previously filtered can now pass to the retina in that eye.
The brain adapted instantly. Black lights are directly visible. Many flowers show up as an intense purple. That's interesting, but I assume that you don't actually perceive any genuinely "new" colour sensations as such; you say yourself that flowers show up as intense "purple" (a colour which we already perceive). Then again, I wouldn't expect to; it's not like you suddenly developed a new fourth set of sensors, it's just that the response of the short-wavelength set has changed.
According to this article (which I believe to be about the same guy), he'd been colourblind since birth; although I suppose it's theoretically possible that the colourblindness may have developed shortly after he was born, which would make his case somewhat less strange (but still interesting).
If we look at people that are red-green colorblind, are 1/3rd of their receptors dead? No, they fire off as usual. It's the backend that doesn't differentiate them, but they could detect colors in some other way, e.g. Martian colors. For the third time, in this particular case (where I came across the term "martian colors") the guy was genuinely colourblind and could not see/differentiate these colours in the real world; he could only experience the abstract (or not-so-abstract) sensation via synesthaesia. See this reply and this reply.
Most importantly, I don't know whether the person in question was able to demonstrate that his "martian colours" actually enabled him to discriminate between objects of different colour No, NO, NO!!!!! As I already said to the AC above.... the whole point was that the guy could neither see nor differentiate these colours in the real world. In other words, he was born with a genuine colour blindness to certain parts of the spectrum and could not differentiate such colours in the real world.
There was no magic going on with his eyes; he genuinely couldn't perceive this colour. What he *could* do was to experience the "unattached" sensation of red (or whatever the missing colour was) through synesthaesia; but he wasn't "seeing" it in a physical sense.
I found a reference to what may be the same guy; see this article, and search for "martian colors".
Quit with your synesthaesia, if his photoreceptors are only capable of picking up a greatly limited spectrum of colors there's no magical 6th sense which will tell him what the other colors are. That's not what I said.
Synesthaesia is the blending of senses, such that (e.g.) hearing a certain sound may trigger the sensation of taste or colour. In this case, the guy couldn't actually see the "missing" colours (via his eyes) at all. Yet he could "experience" the sensation of those colours via his synesthaesia.
One issue I find interesting in this context is the guy who was colour-blind (that is, he couldn't differentiate colours in certain parts of the spectrum). This guy had synesthaesia, and although he couldn't physically see certain colours, he could experience them through his synesthaesia. He referred to them as "Martian colours".
The interesting implication here is that the GM mice's brains apparently developed with the ability to process the new colours. It would be fair to assume that ordinary mice's brains did not even contain the "concept" or "perception" of red hardwired in, since what would the point be?
Thus, if the converse is true, and human brains develop the same way as mice's, it could be assumed that the brains of people with the *physical* inability to detect certain colours from birth would never develop the mental concept/sensation of those colours. (*) But then, now does this explain "Martian colours"?
(*) (If you're having trouble understanding what I mean, try to imagine what ultraviolet "looks" like. Darklight (UV lamp) special effects don't count; that's *visible* light produced when UV hits special fluorescing material. And you can't "cheat" by imagining in terms of false colours (since that, by definition, is *converting* UV to visible-range colours). No, I want you to try to imagine what colour actual UV light would look like... and you'll fail because you've never directly seen UV light, and the concept isn't wired into your brain).
Photo aggregator sites like Corbis serve one purpose and one purpose only - Tagging. For the purpose of small-scale private web designers, he could almost certainly get what he wanted from the likes of Flikr, if it didn't take so much effort to find, for example, "a young brunette woman getting out of a blue sedan in front of a hotel, shot from the second story across the street" Uh, no. As far as I know, even the CC-licensed images on Flickr don't normally come with a model release, and you could end up in all sorts of hot water if you used them in certain ways without that. IANAL, so don't ask me about the implications, but please be aware that model releases *are* a major issue.
Also, although Flickr has a lot of *very* high-quality images, I'm sure that there are certain situations where it's hard to find something that fits exactly. Stock photography can be generic and bland (and is often obvious for being such), but since it's not customised, it *has* to be that way; it's designed with its end purpose in mind. I suspect you'd find it much harder than you think to get innocuous "business-type" images for a website from Flickr.
Ah, but you would nicely steal their images? The fact is, you *did* steal their images. If we take him at his word, he didn't; he inadvertently left some images (which he was legally allowed to use for offline preview) in the site when it went online. I'd say that theft implied that it was intentional.
I agree with the others who replied; you clearly aren't familiar with the concept of stock photography.
The images having a value in and of it self is subjective, and also highly abstract No, the value of an image is what people are willing to pay for it.
I would like to believe the photo was taken to meet some need, and that need was not to be copyrighted. If the implication is that the photo was taken purely for copyright purposes, I find that even worse. Why? Just because you dislike copyright, or does it offend some other fundamental principle that you hold? Do you get annoyed that shops are full of goods that weren't produced with someone specific in mind? Do you believe that the market for intellectual property should be reliant on one-off customised productions?
I appreciate that this isn't going to help the guy in question, but would it make sense to lightly deface each image with (e.g.) an 'X' across the picture? Not enough to destroy it, just (a) to be clearly visible as a non-licensed image and (b) if it did accidentally leak, it might (IANAL) work in your favour, as you could correctly point out that this would look bad on any real website, and thus did not benefit you (and replace a correctly-licensed image) and was clearly an oversight.
The defacing would have to be sufficient for the above, whilst not destroying the accuracy of the impression given by the offline preview.
As I just clarified in another reply, the hard plastic "housing" was damaged -- a big fat hole in it. There could be junk in there already, etc. And once one has burned discs, or even over time as one stores the new stack on a shelf, dust will get in because of the hole in the container. Dust will hinder burning, and reduce reading accuracy. Not good, not desirable, and not was a new product would do. Jesus, did you go on about all this stuff to the manager? He probably didn't want to spend half his afternoon in a pointless discussion over bits of ******* fluff getting inside a DVD cake box just to sell some DVDs at half price when he knew that some sod would probably buy them next Friday when they were short of stock anyway.
Have you ever seen something offered on a store shelf that was ripped open, __damaged__ and otherwise not new and pristine, yet wasn't offered at a reduced price? Yep; personally if it was something I wasn't too bothered about, and it was the last one in stock, I'd probably buy it anyway.
At any rate, I'd personally have discounted the undamaged (as you said yourself) discs 10%, and figured that someone who wasn't bothered about the case would snap them up. But you're still making a mountain out of a molehill of this situation. And if the case is so crucially important, why did you want them anyway?!!
At a minimum, what bothers me is (1) they are quite happy passing off damaged goods as new No, you said that the discs themselves were unharmed, and the damage to the case was (we can assume) clearly visible. Anyone buying them knew what they were getting.
(2) the DVD holder is needed after one burns DVDs -- this was damaged and so there was damage to the package/product as a whole yet he was saying there was not. Not necessarily; I keep many of mine in wallets.
and these point towards "cheaper is better". You assume that "burns faster" means "better". I wouldn't, personally.
I think it is very strange that "16x" Verbatim, or whatever they were, You're vague on whether you meant that they were probably Verbatim, or whether you meant that they were just "some major brand like Verbatim".
Most "major" companies, including Memorex, Fuji, Emtec and even (IIRC) TDK just rebrand other companies' stuff, which can often be quite mediocre. Verbatim (owned by Mitsubishi) at least make their own stuff (except for one brief period during which they got a lot of criticism). They have a generally high reputation.
burned VERY slowly (2.4x or something) and produced numerous coasters, but the Staples ones and this latest no name el-cheapo batch burn at full speed and zero coasters. Maybe Staples got some good discs, maybe the firmware in your drive was just designed with them in mind. And maybe the "big-brand" discs you had were just some rebranded mediocrities. The problem is that next week Staples may change their supplier, and you could end up with totally different discs.
That's true; but I'm saying that if you take Gates' CS achievements (or at least those relating to IT) versus his business achievements, the latter are the most significant. Or put another way, viewed in isolation, would his fame be anything like as great viewed solely on the basis of his CS work?
I know here in slashdot more than 50% of people do not like him but I think overall, after he dies he will be nicely remembered as the guy who introduced computers to the masses. Undoubtedly the ability to run MS-DOS (and later Windows) on generic hardware contributed to competition in the PC market and the corresponding freefall in prices. Whether this was Gates' intent is debatable; sure, he may have had the reselling of MS-DOS in mind when he signed the deal with IBM, but was he thinking "Hmm... this'll result in competition, bringing more powerful computers to the masses?" Or was he just thinking he'd be able to sell more copies of Windows.
I'm not even sure if Gates knew that PC clones would become a significant part of the market; he certainly sold *versions* of MS-DOS to other companies in the early days, which was probably his intent, but these machines weren't PC-compatible as such. So they weren't competition for IBM.
And the price of computers are such now that even a cut-price Windows "tax" can make up a significant proportion of their cost. If anything, using Linux would make the most significant difference now, particularly in developing countries. Sure, Linux has issues; thing is, many of them are support, and the reason Linux is less supported is that Windows has a near-monopoly on the desktop- chicken and egg. Haven't MS taken action (direct or surreptitious) against manufacturers too enthusiastically supporting Linux?
You say that like its funny... True, but in the words of Homer Simpson, "It's funny because it's true". I haven't come across anyone asking for that specific Vista experience, but I've certainly seen companies making equally ludicrous demands.
He paws over them before intoning "There is no damage to the discs so there is no discount". Sounds a bit stingy, but not unreasonable; after all, it's the discs themselves that you're buying, and it's probably not worth his time arguing if he thinks someone else will buy them.
I'm not defending their practices, just looking at it from their cynical point-of-view.
I needed a stack of blank DVDs badly enough to drop in there on the way somewhere else. You evidently didn't need them that badly if you ended getting them on mail order anyway. And if that were the case, I wouldn't settle on some overpriced rebranded low-end DVDs.
Side note: I find that the cheapest, most no-name blank DVDs burn the fastest (with the least coasters). Yes, but do they last? Personally, I'd try to buy Taiyo Yuden (if available) or Mitsubishi/Verbatim. Or at least some decently-reputable company such as Ricoh that produce their own. With many other companies, they play silly buggers rebranding other people's stuff (often mediocre) and change suppliers so you don't know what you're going to get. If you're buying a lot of discs you might be able to save a bit of money by researching which brand/case-style/phase-of-the-moon gets you a particular manufacturer, but I don't use enough disks to make playing such silly buggers worth my while; I just buy the good stuff where possible.
It's distracting as all hell - your students will spend all their time customizing/scoping out each others' avatars Whereas a hallful of students in their late-teens/early-twenties wouldn't be leching over each other in real life?
Then again, not so likely if we're discussing a real-life CS/IT/Videogaming degree with more than its fair share of pasty-faced under/overweight male geeks.:-)
He'll never be able to get a CS job with that! No, but he's one of the few people who might conceivably be able to meet such job requirements as "Window Vista (5 years experience)"...
it's discouraging that such a top figure in computing really never had anything inspirational to say - at least pertaining the field. Gates' major achievements are as a businessman, not as a computer scientist. Not saying that he's stupid in that area; quite the opposite (e.g. given the speed he apparently designed MS BASIC with, he clearly has skill). However, he didn't actually invent BASIC (as a language) or even write MS-DOS originally. On the other hand, who can deny that he's a very skilled businessman?
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In other words, I totally sympathise with the original poster. For people like us, the convenience of having stuff integrated is relatively important. The fewer boxes/leads the better.
Yes; I see what you're saying, and it's a philosophical can of worms. :-)
The issue you raise is interesting, and of course important, but somewhat distinct from the point I was trying to make. That is, even if we assume that the experience of two trichromats with broadly equivalent optical sensors (i.e. eyes) is the "same" for a given colour, or- to make it even simpler- if we only care about our own experience of colour, there is still no way for a normal trichromat person to "imagine" the sensation of colour produced by a fourth set of (e.g.) UV cones in the eye.
In other words, even if we (arbitrarily) assume that it is possible (or valid) to map the colour-experiences of trichromats, this doesn't help one of us in trying to understand what colour sensations an R/G/B/UV tetrachromat might experience. "Understand" is probably the wrong word anyway, because I don't "understand" red when I see or imagine it...
The problem with discussing this is that it raises very philosophical issues about what "experiencing" colours is, what the human concept of "colour" in itself is (as distinct from the simple frequency of light), and given this what the "true" meaning of certain words are.
Regarding proof, we have to make reasonable assumption that the guy is not lying, and trust that he is competent to judge that what he is "experiencing" is the *sensation* of colour, even though this sensation has not been produced as a result of input through the eyes.
Anyway, to be clear about this again (although I think you see what I am trying to say now); this guy has never *seen* the "missing" colour(s) physically- i.e. through his eyes. In other words, he has never experienced these colours in the real world, only the sensation of them via synesthaesia. Of course, these experiences are "false" in the same way that someone who tastes chicken when he hears the word "ball" isn't actually eating, or even in contact with chicken. Nevertheless, the sensation itself is real.
And yes, we're taking the guy's word for it; but we do this a lot of the time.
On the other hand, if you had a distinct fourth set of cones sensitive to UV, how would you experience the colour?
Let me put it this way; imagine that your eyes contained yellow filters that blocked anything shorter than green, and had done since birth. You've never developed the mental concept or sensation of blue, let alone seen it. How would you explain blue to such a person? Are they even capable of imagining what "blue" must be like in an abstract sense? This is a very philosophical question, but fundamental to the issue.
Put it another way; if someone lacked a sense of smell, and had never experienced the sensation of smell, how would you put it across to them? Sure, you could try to "explain" it logically, but you could *never* give them the sensation of what it is like to smell in that way.
On the other hand, I believe that some people have limited UV sensitivity, and there's an interesting comment elsewhere from someone who had a cataract operation that altered the filter of the retina, and can now see UV quite well.
According to this article (which I believe to be about the same guy), he'd been colourblind since birth; although I suppose it's theoretically possible that the colourblindness may have developed shortly after he was born, which would make his case somewhat less strange (but still interesting).
There was no magic going on with his eyes; he genuinely couldn't perceive this colour. What he *could* do was to experience the "unattached" sensation of red (or whatever the missing colour was) through synesthaesia; but he wasn't "seeing" it in a physical sense.
I found a reference to what may be the same guy; see this article, and search for "martian colors".
Synesthaesia is the blending of senses, such that (e.g.) hearing a certain sound may trigger the sensation of taste or colour. In this case, the guy couldn't actually see the "missing" colours (via his eyes) at all. Yet he could "experience" the sensation of those colours via his synesthaesia.
One issue I find interesting in this context is the guy who was colour-blind (that is, he couldn't differentiate colours in certain parts of the spectrum). This guy had synesthaesia, and although he couldn't physically see certain colours, he could experience them through his synesthaesia. He referred to them as "Martian colours".
The interesting implication here is that the GM mice's brains apparently developed with the ability to process the new colours. It would be fair to assume that ordinary mice's brains did not even contain the "concept" or "perception" of red hardwired in, since what would the point be?
Thus, if the converse is true, and human brains develop the same way as mice's, it could be assumed that the brains of people with the *physical* inability to detect certain colours from birth would never develop the mental concept/sensation of those colours. (*) But then, now does this explain "Martian colours"?
(*) (If you're having trouble understanding what I mean, try to imagine what ultraviolet "looks" like. Darklight (UV lamp) special effects don't count; that's *visible* light produced when UV hits special fluorescing material. And you can't "cheat" by imagining in terms of false colours (since that, by definition, is *converting* UV to visible-range colours). No, I want you to try to imagine what colour actual UV light would look like... and you'll fail because you've never directly seen UV light, and the concept isn't wired into your brain).
Also, although Flickr has a lot of *very* high-quality images, I'm sure that there are certain situations where it's hard to find something that fits exactly. Stock photography can be generic and bland (and is often obvious for being such), but since it's not customised, it *has* to be that way; it's designed with its end purpose in mind. I suspect you'd find it much harder than you think to get innocuous "business-type" images for a website from Flickr.
Hang on, looks like someone already had a similar idea.
I appreciate that this isn't going to help the guy in question, but would it make sense to lightly deface each image with (e.g.) an 'X' across the picture? Not enough to destroy it, just (a) to be clearly visible as a non-licensed image and (b) if it did accidentally leak, it might (IANAL) work in your favour, as you could correctly point out that this would look bad on any real website, and thus did not benefit you (and replace a correctly-licensed image) and was clearly an oversight.
The defacing would have to be sufficient for the above, whilst not destroying the accuracy of the impression given by the offline preview.
Have you ever seen something offered on a store shelf that was ripped open, __damaged__ and otherwise not new and pristine, yet wasn't offered at a reduced price? Yep; personally if it was something I wasn't too bothered about, and it was the last one in stock, I'd probably buy it anyway.
At any rate, I'd personally have discounted the undamaged (as you said yourself) discs 10%, and figured that someone who wasn't bothered about the case would snap them up. But you're still making a mountain out of a molehill of this situation. And if the case is so crucially important, why did you want them anyway?!!
Most "major" companies, including Memorex, Fuji, Emtec and even (IIRC) TDK just rebrand other companies' stuff, which can often be quite mediocre. Verbatim (owned by Mitsubishi) at least make their own stuff (except for one brief period during which they got a lot of criticism). They have a generally high reputation. burned VERY slowly (2.4x or something) and produced numerous coasters, but the Staples ones and this latest no name el-cheapo batch burn at full speed and zero coasters. Maybe Staples got some good discs, maybe the firmware in your drive was just designed with them in mind. And maybe the "big-brand" discs you had were just some rebranded mediocrities. The problem is that next week Staples may change their supplier, and you could end up with totally different discs.
I'm not even sure if Gates knew that PC clones would become a significant part of the market; he certainly sold *versions* of MS-DOS to other companies in the early days, which was probably his intent, but these machines weren't PC-compatible as such. So they weren't competition for IBM.
And the price of computers are such now that even a cut-price Windows "tax" can make up a significant proportion of their cost. If anything, using Linux would make the most significant difference now, particularly in developing countries. Sure, Linux has issues; thing is, many of them are support, and the reason Linux is less supported is that Windows has a near-monopoly on the desktop- chicken and egg. Haven't MS taken action (direct or surreptitious) against manufacturers too enthusiastically supporting Linux?
I'm not defending their practices, just looking at it from their cynical point-of-view. I needed a stack of blank DVDs badly enough to drop in there on the way somewhere else. You evidently didn't need them that badly if you ended getting them on mail order anyway. And if that were the case, I wouldn't settle on some overpriced rebranded low-end DVDs. Side note: I find that the cheapest, most no-name blank DVDs burn the fastest (with the least coasters). Yes, but do they last? Personally, I'd try to buy Taiyo Yuden (if available) or Mitsubishi/Verbatim. Or at least some decently-reputable company such as Ricoh that produce their own. With many other companies, they play silly buggers rebranding other people's stuff (often mediocre) and change suppliers so you don't know what you're going to get. If you're buying a lot of discs you might be able to save a bit of money by researching which brand/case-style/phase-of-the-moon gets you a particular manufacturer, but I don't use enough disks to make playing such silly buggers worth my while; I just buy the good stuff where possible.
Then again, not so likely if we're discussing a real-life CS/IT/Videogaming degree with more than its fair share of pasty-faced under/overweight male geeks.