I saw The Hobbit at 48 FPS 3D over the weekend. My thoughts:
That it looks like video tape: Exaggerated. The film was a little too sharp, and that combined with the lack of motion blur makes it look a little video-tapish, but not enough to distract from the film. It took mere minutes to get used to the presentation, not "a half hour" like some have claimed.
Depth of field issues (everything in focus, no visual cues to direct the viewer to the object the director wants you to look at): Partially true, mostly in the indoor scenes. I wonder, though, how much of that was due to the forced perspective used to get the size of the characters right. It did seem like the director sometimes slapped forehead and said to himself "Depth of field! Foreground out of focus, now!" and suddenly it would be so. But I don't think this is necessarily an artifact of the technology. Rather, it seemed to be a director's unfamiliarity with the new equipment, something that should improve with time.
Vertigo: Pretty much the opposite. 3D movies make my wife nauseous, and this is the first 3D movie she could watch without feeling sick. The increased frame rate is a definite win for 3D. However, we were both a little wobbly walking out of the theater. It might be a good idea to wait until the end of the credits to allow one's self to recapture one's equilibrium.
On the lack of motion blur, I don't think we're quite there yet. Yes, there was no discernible motion blur, and the clarity of action scenes took some getting used to. However, there was still an occasional, noticeable judder in the action, (about once every 7 or 8 seconds when a lot of things were happening) that looks exactly like a computer that isn't quite keeping up with the data rate required for the video, or a graphics card suddenly loading a lot of textures, which makes me wonder if the theaters were truly prepared to show this film.
All in all, neither a shining experience nor a total mess, but elements of both. I saw it as an experiment, and won't necessarily pay extra for 48 FPS unless I thought the movie would really benefit from it. (But I'm not a big fan of 3D either.)
> 'A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offense.'
...but that's exactly what a pardon is for -- forgiveness of a crime. It's acknowledgement that a crime was committed, and that the crime is forgiven. How does "properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offense" have any bearing at all?
Selling $500 iPods while paying workers $.20 an hour is hardly unsatisfactory.
...for the business owners, yes. But what I was addressing was outsourcing IT support, where personnel have to deal with complex problems and be able to communicate effectively with users. I think what they're proving is that company savings plus outsource company overhead plus outsource profit margin leaves so little for actual wages that it's unlikely the personnel will have the necessary expertise to effectively provide the service. And as soon as they do get that expertise, they move on to better jobs. And I don't blame them for that. Who would work in a hell hole if they had the ability to better themselves?
I think that manufacturing and assembly in China is a little different. First, it's manufacturing and assembly. They may be putting together tech toys, but after setup there's not a lot to do that one would call deeply technical. Second, it's China. Word is, there isn't a lot of advancement opportunities.
> Ok, you say, Indians and Chinese are lousy administrators. Frankly, that's not always true.
Absolutely, that is not always true. I've worked with some absolutely brilliant people from India. Like, "I want to be you when I grow up" good. That isn't the problem.
The problem is the business model for outsourced IT providers. To make the model profitable, both for the outsource company and the company buying the service, personnel are structured with a few brilliant workers doing the sales engineering and high level support, and a huge mass of untrained former rickshaw drivers and store clerks doing the helpdesk and first level support. The first level support is handed a big stack of procedures and talking scripts, and let loose on the unsuspecting customer. So shortly after cutover, when the big brains go off to another contract, chaos ensues when the customer realizes that they're talking to someone with an old laptop balanced on a TV tray who doesn't know the difference between NFS and a gecko.
But wait, one might say, a savvy customer might train up the offshore support people and get a better result, right? Tried that. And at first it appeared to work. Most of the offshore personnel were grateful for any training we could give them. (At our expense, but never mind.)
However, the business model doesn't work unless they get paid starvation wages, and there's always someone willing to hire an experienced admin. So as soon as they get some training, they're gone. Replaced by another store clerk who doesn't understand that "your account has been disabled due to 26 bad login attempts" means that YOUR ACCOUNT HAS BEEN DISABLED DUE TO 26 BAD LOGIN ATTEMPTS and you NEED TO FIND SOMEONE WITH ROOT ACCESS TO FIX IT. Sorry. Deep breaths....
And it's not ever evereverever going to get better, because that would break the business model.
Oh, outsourcing will seem cool at first, because they will have absolutely brilliant people doing the demo. But you will be disappointed with the long term results, if you manage to stay in business.
> I don't know if tech in the West is feeling all the same pressures, but in the expensive parts of Asia, outsourcing is killing the job market dead.
Welcome to our world. Don't come to the US, it's just as bad.
...because Lord knows, that's what I always look for in a movie. A presentation that is weird and distracting as hell.
Yeah, I hate those new Talkies as well...
It's not clear that you even read the rest of my post, but oh well.
There's this old old musical called "Singin' in the Rain". It deals with the transition from silent films to talkies, and although the examples may have been exaggerated a bit, it does demonstrate some of the issues encountered when transitioning to a different method of presentation.
It comes down to why one is there, in the seat, munching on stale popcorn-like substance covered in butter flavored oil. Are you there to see a movie; to have a cinematic experience, or are you there to see what new geeky technology is being used? (It's ok to say "both", but just be aware that you're twice as likely to have feelings of disappointment.)
A new technology may be a novelty or may be the next big direction of cinema. It's hard to tell from first efforts. As geeks, we tend to embrace first technological efforts even if they largely fail. It's important to be aware that not all cinema fans are geeks. They are there to see a movie, not drool over the specs of the latest Red camera.
In most companies the only reply allowed for either question is, "They worked here from Date-X to Date-Y." A lot of companies won't even allow supervisors to give a personal recommendation even if they're your best friend outside of work, much less a work recommendation. The legal liability for that has gotten ridiculous.
It was a real world question. I worked for a manager who, three months after he started, called us into a meeting and told us point blank that we would never transfer out of his department, and that if we quit he'd do what he could to prevent us getting a job elsewhere. He then gave a demonstration of how one could use tone of voice and marginally allowed language to answer the question and give either a positive or negative impression of an ex-employee and still remain within the letter of the law.
It was a total dominance game, and thank Fudd I don't work for him anymore, but it serves to indicate that there is wiggle room in the law as it stands, and people willing to exploit that. You probably don't want to work for a person who would do this, as there are probably other traits you won't like. For instance, a manager that uses the first two or three months to be friendly, seemingly open, and interested in their employee's personal life. Then using that information against his employees at a later time. It was a learning experience.
> The 48 fps version of The Hobbit is weird, that's true. It's distracting as hell, yes yes yes.
...because Lord knows, that's what I always look for in a movie. A presentation that is weird and distracting as hell.
That said, like 3D, you do get a choice, so no harm, no foul. We will be seeing the film in 2D, 24 FPS, because 3D gives my wife migraines and because of reports in New Zealand of motion sickness - like symptoms amongst viewers there.
Parenthetically, I predict that of the people who love 48 FPS will contain a high percentage of people who can play first person shooters for hours without motion sickness, and conversely, the people who don't like it will be those who can't. Although I don't think anyone is collecting this metric, sadly.
I will see the film at the faster frame rate (and in 3D because I believe that's your only choice at 48 FPS) but I want to see it "normal" first.
I don't feel qualified to judge the technology not having viewed it yet, but the most interesting criticisms that have come out of advanced showings so far is that the sets look more like sets, which disrupts one's ability to suspend disbelief, and that the depth of field tends to be very deep, with everything in focus, which makes things look weird (because the human eye doesn't see that way). Speed Racer did the same thing, intentionally. (Speaking of which, it appears that I'm the only one who liked Speed Racer.)
...which brings me to my point. This doesn't make the film any less artistic. In actual fact, Jackson's use of the technology is an artistic choice. It may not be a choice that everyone likes, and it may disrupt what we've come to believe are common artistic choices (directing audience attention through depth of field, motion blur to indicate movement, softer focus for effect) but that doesn't make it any less artistic. Now, whether it's a *commercial* success, that remains to be seen. I strongly suspect that the 48 FPS showings will be crowded because it's a new thing. Whether people will flock to the next film in that forum remains to be seen.
You can still generate your own power in the event of a blackout if you open the main breaker and install a bypass to connect your generation (solar or diesel) directly to the load side (not the network) of the breaker. There's no risk of backfeed since the breaker is open. When the power from the street is restored, you'd need to remove the bypass and close the main breaker.
But that is not a typical setup. The standard package solar installations that attach to the grid do not have these features. You and I know about them, and can perhaps find the parts and get an independent electrician to install same, but the rank and file are going to go with the standard package, which provides no protection for outages. Keep in mind that the great majority of homeowners don't know or care how solar works, what an inverter does, or how phase matching is accomplished. They'll buy a standard installation, and at the next hurricane, they'll still go dark.
The problem is, solar panel systems designed to tie into the grid are specifically by regulation designed to power down in the event the grid loses power, to avoid the situation where solar is providing power to lines that need work during an outage. It's considered a safety thing. So you have solar installed, cool. Whatever power you don't use you can sell back to the power company. Even more cool. But when the grid goes down, you still go dark, by design.
Typically the systems that provide true independent power aren't connected to the grid at all. Which is still ok, (that's what I have) but you can't sell power back to the grid, you need electrical storage for when the sun isn't available (lots of batteries) and you're limited to what you can generate. (There are hybrid setups where some circuits are solar only and some are grid only, but that is beyond the scope of this article.)
I've had to interview a prospective boss a few times, and it seldom goes well. All you end up doing is weeding out people who don't interview well. The ones left are either (a) the manager of your dreams, or (b) a total sociopath bent on making your life a living hell, and it's impossible to tell the difference during the actual interview.
There are a lot of good questions here, and all things being equal, one could put together a strategy to single out the best candidate. The problem is, the truly career-destroying candidate has learned to give the same answers.
Tell the cast that the survivor will be Ultimate Ruler of all New Jersey and have a fragrance named after them. That should work. (You may have to explain what "ultimate" means, or use simpler words.) Of course, the twist at the end is that there are no survivors.
Welllll, I freely admit I'm not the most brilliant of conversationalists, but I'm pretty sure there's a fairly wide range of topics that aren't cheese or puerile reality shows.
But if you want to talk about how Jersey Shore could be merged with Final Destination, I might be interested.
"A valuable employee leaves your group. You get a call from an employer verifying period of employment. What do you say?"
Follow up with: "An employee with unsatisfactory performance leaves your group. You get a call from an employer verifying period of employment. What do you say?"
Slashdot Mirror
Most of anything fails to deliver on time. Precisely meeting delivery dates is overrated, if what you deliver is junk.
I strongly suspect that most product development doesn't deliver at all. It seems like Kickstart is doing much better than average in that respect.
Whatever it was, it's less now.
I'm thinking, because that would have made him a target.
> And so closes another chapter of "We Let Lawyers Write a Legal Document and The Internet Freaked Out."
Well, yeah, because we know how lawyers think.
I am not an Instagram user (and that looks unlikely now) but I'm hoping that someone checks the revamped agreement.
I saw The Hobbit at 48 FPS 3D over the weekend. My thoughts:
That it looks like video tape: Exaggerated. The film was a little too sharp, and that combined with the lack of motion blur makes it look a little video-tapish, but not enough to distract from the film. It took mere minutes to get used to the presentation, not "a half hour" like some have claimed.
Depth of field issues (everything in focus, no visual cues to direct the viewer to the object the director wants you to look at): Partially true, mostly in the indoor scenes. I wonder, though, how much of that was due to the forced perspective used to get the size of the characters right. It did seem like the director sometimes slapped forehead and said to himself "Depth of field! Foreground out of focus, now!" and suddenly it would be so. But I don't think this is necessarily an artifact of the technology. Rather, it seemed to be a director's unfamiliarity with the new equipment, something that should improve with time.
Vertigo: Pretty much the opposite. 3D movies make my wife nauseous, and this is the first 3D movie she could watch without feeling sick. The increased frame rate is a definite win for 3D. However, we were both a little wobbly walking out of the theater. It might be a good idea to wait until the end of the credits to allow one's self to recapture one's equilibrium.
On the lack of motion blur, I don't think we're quite there yet. Yes, there was no discernible motion blur, and the clarity of action scenes took some getting used to. However, there was still an occasional, noticeable judder in the action, (about once every 7 or 8 seconds when a lot of things were happening) that looks exactly like a computer that isn't quite keeping up with the data rate required for the video, or a graphics card suddenly loading a lot of textures, which makes me wonder if the theaters were truly prepared to show this film.
All in all, neither a shining experience nor a total mess, but elements of both. I saw it as an experiment, and won't necessarily pay extra for 48 FPS unless I thought the movie would really benefit from it. (But I'm not a big fan of 3D either.)
> 'A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offense.'
Selling $500 iPods while paying workers $.20 an hour is hardly unsatisfactory.
I think that manufacturing and assembly in China is a little different. First, it's manufacturing and assembly. They may be putting together tech toys, but after setup there's not a lot to do that one would call deeply technical. Second, it's China. Word is, there isn't a lot of advancement opportunities.
Nod. Our CIO bailed less than a year after cutover. Now we're struggling with the mess.
> Ok, you say, Indians and Chinese are lousy administrators. Frankly, that's not always true.
Absolutely, that is not always true. I've worked with some absolutely brilliant people from India. Like, "I want to be you when I grow up" good. That isn't the problem.
The problem is the business model for outsourced IT providers. To make the model profitable, both for the outsource company and the company buying the service, personnel are structured with a few brilliant workers doing the sales engineering and high level support, and a huge mass of untrained former rickshaw drivers and store clerks doing the helpdesk and first level support. The first level support is handed a big stack of procedures and talking scripts, and let loose on the unsuspecting customer. So shortly after cutover, when the big brains go off to another contract, chaos ensues when the customer realizes that they're talking to someone with an old laptop balanced on a TV tray who doesn't know the difference between NFS and a gecko.
But wait, one might say, a savvy customer might train up the offshore support people and get a better result, right? Tried that. And at first it appeared to work. Most of the offshore personnel were grateful for any training we could give them. (At our expense, but never mind.)
However, the business model doesn't work unless they get paid starvation wages, and there's always someone willing to hire an experienced admin. So as soon as they get some training, they're gone. Replaced by another store clerk who doesn't understand that "your account has been disabled due to 26 bad login attempts" means that YOUR ACCOUNT HAS BEEN DISABLED DUE TO 26 BAD LOGIN ATTEMPTS and you NEED TO FIND SOMEONE WITH ROOT ACCESS TO FIX IT. Sorry. Deep breaths....
And it's not ever ever ever ever going to get better, because that would break the business model.
Oh, outsourcing will seem cool at first, because they will have absolutely brilliant people doing the demo. But you will be disappointed with the long term results, if you manage to stay in business.
> I don't know if tech in the West is feeling all the same pressures, but in the expensive parts of Asia, outsourcing is killing the job market dead.
Welcome to our world. Don't come to the US, it's just as bad.
> Tech has been steadily moving jobs overseas to lower costs.
...because Lord knows, that's what I always look for in a movie. A presentation that is weird and distracting as hell.
Yeah, I hate those new Talkies as well...
It's not clear that you even read the rest of my post, but oh well.
There's this old old musical called "Singin' in the Rain". It deals with the transition from silent films to talkies, and although the examples may have been exaggerated a bit, it does demonstrate some of the issues encountered when transitioning to a different method of presentation.
It comes down to why one is there, in the seat, munching on stale popcorn-like substance covered in butter flavored oil. Are you there to see a movie; to have a cinematic experience, or are you there to see what new geeky technology is being used? (It's ok to say "both", but just be aware that you're twice as likely to have feelings of disappointment.)
A new technology may be a novelty or may be the next big direction of cinema. It's hard to tell from first efforts. As geeks, we tend to embrace first technological efforts even if they largely fail. It's important to be aware that not all cinema fans are geeks. They are there to see a movie, not drool over the specs of the latest Red camera.
In most companies the only reply allowed for either question is, "They worked here from Date-X to Date-Y." A lot of companies won't even allow supervisors to give a personal recommendation even if they're your best friend outside of work, much less a work recommendation. The legal liability for that has gotten ridiculous.
It was a real world question. I worked for a manager who, three months after he started, called us into a meeting and told us point blank that we would never transfer out of his department, and that if we quit he'd do what he could to prevent us getting a job elsewhere. He then gave a demonstration of how one could use tone of voice and marginally allowed language to answer the question and give either a positive or negative impression of an ex-employee and still remain within the letter of the law.
It was a total dominance game, and thank Fudd I don't work for him anymore, but it serves to indicate that there is wiggle room in the law as it stands, and people willing to exploit that. You probably don't want to work for a person who would do this, as there are probably other traits you won't like. For instance, a manager that uses the first two or three months to be friendly, seemingly open, and interested in their employee's personal life. Then using that information against his employees at a later time. It was a learning experience.
I have teeth marks on my eyelids!
> The 48 fps version of The Hobbit is weird, that's true. It's distracting as hell, yes yes yes.
That said, like 3D, you do get a choice, so no harm, no foul. We will be seeing the film in 2D, 24 FPS, because 3D gives my wife migraines and because of reports in New Zealand of motion sickness - like symptoms amongst viewers there.
Parenthetically, I predict that of the people who love 48 FPS will contain a high percentage of people who can play first person shooters for hours without motion sickness, and conversely, the people who don't like it will be those who can't. Although I don't think anyone is collecting this metric, sadly.
I will see the film at the faster frame rate (and in 3D because I believe that's your only choice at 48 FPS) but I want to see it "normal" first.
I don't feel qualified to judge the technology not having viewed it yet, but the most interesting criticisms that have come out of advanced showings so far is that the sets look more like sets, which disrupts one's ability to suspend disbelief, and that the depth of field tends to be very deep, with everything in focus, which makes things look weird (because the human eye doesn't see that way). Speed Racer did the same thing, intentionally. (Speaking of which, it appears that I'm the only one who liked Speed Racer.)
You can still generate your own power in the event of a blackout if you open the main breaker and install a bypass to connect your generation (solar or diesel) directly to the load side (not the network) of the breaker. There's no risk of backfeed since the breaker is open. When the power from the street is restored, you'd need to remove the bypass and close the main breaker.
But that is not a typical setup. The standard package solar installations that attach to the grid do not have these features. You and I know about them, and can perhaps find the parts and get an independent electrician to install same, but the rank and file are going to go with the standard package, which provides no protection for outages. Keep in mind that the great majority of homeowners don't know or care how solar works, what an inverter does, or how phase matching is accomplished. They'll buy a standard installation, and at the next hurricane, they'll still go dark.
The problem is, solar panel systems designed to tie into the grid are specifically by regulation designed to power down in the event the grid loses power, to avoid the situation where solar is providing power to lines that need work during an outage. It's considered a safety thing. So you have solar installed, cool. Whatever power you don't use you can sell back to the power company. Even more cool. But when the grid goes down, you still go dark, by design.
Typically the systems that provide true independent power aren't connected to the grid at all. Which is still ok, (that's what I have) but you can't sell power back to the grid, you need electrical storage for when the sun isn't available (lots of batteries) and you're limited to what you can generate. (There are hybrid setups where some circuits are solar only and some are grid only, but that is beyond the scope of this article.)
"Processed cheese" is not cheese. I think it's a petroleum product.
I've had to interview a prospective boss a few times, and it seldom goes well. All you end up doing is weeding out people who don't interview well. The ones left are either (a) the manager of your dreams, or (b) a total sociopath bent on making your life a living hell, and it's impossible to tell the difference during the actual interview.
There are a lot of good questions here, and all things being equal, one could put together a strategy to single out the best candidate. The problem is, the truly career-destroying candidate has learned to give the same answers.
Tell the cast that the survivor will be Ultimate Ruler of all New Jersey and have a fragrance named after them. That should work. (You may have to explain what "ultimate" means, or use simpler words.) Of course, the twist at the end is that there are no survivors.
Welllll, I freely admit I'm not the most brilliant of conversationalists, but I'm pretty sure there's a fairly wide range of topics that aren't cheese or puerile reality shows.
But if you want to talk about how Jersey Shore could be merged with Final Destination, I might be interested.
Thanks. That question has been keeping me up nights.
Ok, you're right. You've changed my mind. I hope Apple is crushed by this verdict. Because that's how the law works.
"A valuable employee leaves your group. You get a call from an employer verifying period of employment. What do you say?"
Follow up with: "An employee with unsatisfactory performance leaves your group. You get a call from an employer verifying period of employment. What do you say?"
"I have discovered the answer to the Fermi paradox. Civilization rises to the point where television is invented. Then it collapses." (me)