I'm all for this, really. It's easy to pick on the Star Wars prequels for egregious use of digital effects (and justified, in my opinion) but it wasn't just that. The technique was genuinely being overused in the industry, and I'm really glad to see a return to practical effects.
That said, I have to wonder if at least part of the motivation for the return of practical effects is that the cost of digital tools and render time has gotten so low that pretty much anyone can do it. You've all seen web series and demo reels and short films and even fake newsreels that contain remarkable digital effects done for cheap. They're not wholly the domain of Hollywood and their big bucks anymore. A return to practical effects and their perhaps greater production costs may be yet another way to differentiate big budget productions from kitchen table projects.
On the other hand, I'm so sick of the overuse of digital effects that I'll *take* that. As someone in this discussion wisely said, when everything is fake, anything is possible, and it becomes boring. That's exactly the thing.
Was not intended to be funny. I was attempting to point out that under those criteria, practically anything with which the subject disagrees could be defined as harassment.
Computers made ten years ago will do the things that currently available computers can do, with a vanishingly few exceptions. Currently available computers can't do 100% of current things either. ("cost effective" computers and high end games, for instance.) I'm writing this on a seven year old Dell laptop. My computer at home is a ten year old motherboard in an enclosure from the turn of the century. Yet I make a small living as a photographer running the current Adobe suite on that machine.
There are a few people who have exceptional needs. For the great majority, there just isn't anything they do that requires a leap in resources. We have long ago reached the flat end of the curve.
But go ahead and replace your perfectly good unit that has resources you don't fully utilize for a more powerful computer that will have even more resources you don't fully utilize. You're helping to prop up the computer industry so the rest of us don't have to.
Technology has long surpassed most people's computing requirements. There's currently no "killer app" that requires a leap in processing power or other resources. Build quality and longevity are reasonable selling points. If you want something small and trendy, there's always the tablet. If you have to have the latest white hot technology, there's always Alienware and the like.
I recently did an ssd upgrade on my nine year old Latitude, and it still fits my needs. The hardware or case will fail long before I outgrow it.
> Such blocks are not something that can go unnoticed in the noise of everyday activity.
Although it can probably never be proven, occam's razor indicates that money changed hands. It's a more logical conclusion than this level of incompetence amongst the necessary number of employees.
> Shrugs shoulders. I never owned a mac so I can't talk but I am picky on color and buy premium hardware for Windows pcs like my MS Surface tablet. If I were a photographer it would be an investment. Not a status symbol.
Enh. This is a definition of "premium" which I personally don't understand. The Surface Pro (any model or generation) has modest cpu and memory for the price. Using a PC for content creation (processing photos in my case) vs content consumption, takes a more careful selection of components. Number of cores becomes important, as does the amount of supported memory and the number/speed of drive ports. Having a magnetic detachable keyboard and snazzy appearance is way WAY down on the list. As is trendy brushed aluminum and a fruit logo. A pox on both of them. I'm just trying to get work done.
When CFLs first came out, they really did last as long as advertised, but as time went on they started to burn out faster and faster.
Do CFLs at the same price point from the same companies burn out faster? Intially, CFLs were only manufactured by a few companies, for a relatively high price; nowadays you can buy cheap CFLs from unknown Chinese companies for dirt cheap, but no surprise, they don't last very long. The same thing is happening with LEDs; you can still get Cree and Philips LEDs and they're damn solid, but now you've also got your $3.50 Walmart lights, or your even cheaper Alibaba bulbs.
Fair enough, we're known for outsourcing our pollution to China, (google "china" "cfl" and "mercury poisoning") and so far they've been happy to accept it. And actually, the more expensive incandescents ("rough use" bulbs) will last a lot longer (I have a case of them out in the garage) than the 25 cent bulbs that you can't get anymore. Quality does cost more. But you have to ask yourself -- what are Fred and Ethyl Non-geek going to buy? The premium bulbs, or the Costco eight-count blister pack? And when the bulbs die, are Fred and Ethyl really going to take them over to the recycling center, or just throw them in the trash? Side note: The need to properly recycle lightbulbs didn't just go away with LEDs. There's nasty stuff -- lead, arsenic -- in those also.
>But after a disastrous stab at Windows 8 (fought with it for three weeks, ended up reloading 7) I've come to the conclusion that Microsoft has lost the ability to write an operating system. I have no intention to ever go to 10.
Oddly enough, some of the most exciting developments in operating systems I've read about recently have come from Microsoft Labs. The Midori project was interesting, with some really good ideas coming out of it: http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/1...
Really smart guys working on it, and they managed to pull off some really impressive feats with it.
Microsoft killed Midori, though, so there you go.
Fair enough. Please allow me to rephrase. I've come to the conclusion that Microsoft has lost the ability to deliver an operating system.
> LED bulbs are superior to everything else, prove me wrong. (you can't)
They are, at this time, for most applications. (There's a reason "hard use" incandescents are still made.) But wait a few years, and LEDs will be "value engineered" down to crappy lifetimes just like CFLs were.
What's the lifetime of the new incandescent bulb? Do they still burn out as fast as they used to? Or does recycling the heat cause them to take longer to burn out. The major advantage I find in LEDs is that they last a long time. And with the plummeting prices (picked some up for $3.50 a piece at Walmart last week), It's going to be hard for incandescent bulbs to compete. If this was such a good solution, it could probably be used for LED lights as well, since they throw off a non-negligible amount of heat as well.
It'll be interesting to see how LEDs fare in a couple years. When CFLs first came out, they really did last as long as advertised, but as time went on they started to burn out faster and faster. Now they don't last any longer than the old incandescents did. One of my three original CFLs purchased in the 1990's is still working. CFLs I purchase nowdays last maybe a year to 18 months.
I just purchased my first LED three months ago. As the CFLs fail I intend to replace them with LEDs. I expect the first batch to last a good long time, and replacements bought years down the road to last about 18 months. It's not a technology question, it's a manufacturing question. We'll see.
Something that worries me -- Metro in my area switched to LED stop lights a few years back, and seeing them partly burned out or flickering wildly is very common these days. Maybe because the city bought from the lowest bidder?
> I don't even bother to change the bulbs any more until two of the three go out, and I'm still replacing bulbs every year, as fast as I was with 25 cent incandescent lamps.
I looked at Aftershot Pro 2 for Linux, and it seems to meet my needs. Thanks very much. I'm planning to order a copy tonight.
I also ran across "Gimpshop", which uses the Gimp engine with a more Photoshop-compliant GUI. It's apparently so close to Photoshop in controls and terminology that most Photoshop tutorials will work with it. (Where has this been all my life??)
Sorry, Adobe. I and others have been pleading for years for a Linux port, and we keep being told that there just isn't enough of a user base to warrant it. You had your chance.
If you need professional grade photography and color calibration why don't you consider a Mac? Yes, they are expensive but it supports colors that only Windows and MacOSX due and full Adobe support
I was on a G4 at one time. I switched to Windows partly because I felt Macs were overpriced, and partly because Apple and Adobe were at the time engaged in a pissing contest about, among other things, how a touchpad should operate. (In my opinion, it's not a good business plan to piss off the vendor of your signature application, but maybe Apple thought Aperture and iPhoto would take over the world? How did that work out?)
But also, I gave up on Apple partly because I became increasingly uncomfortable with the unreasoning fanaticism of the Apple fan base. Let's face it, it got creepy. And I became less and less happy with being associated with it.
So I built a Windows box, for a fraction of the cost of an Apple box, and have been using it ever since. There are things I don't like about it, but it's not necessary to like everything about a product.
> For home: Windows 10 and beyond will be my official gaming platform. I could give two-shits about any of the rest of the crap.
Good point. I'm not a gamer, but I can see the logic. You use Windows for a single purpose. Your use of Windows reflects that.
> In fact, just fork it and make it an "XBox PC OS"; all I need is core functionality for gaming.
I thought I read somewhere that Microsoft is doing exactly that -- porting a stripped down Windows 10 to the XBOX, as part of their "windows 10 everywhere" project.
I should mention that, Mint boots significantly faster, is a lot snappier on the same hardware, and appears to have a much smaller memory footprint. (Test by: Install mint on existing hard drive on old laptop. Wow, that's fast. Ok, lessee.... what else can we do... swap in a solid state drive, reinstall Mint. OH MY GOD.) This was a laptop I used to take into the field, and now I think I will be using it again for that purpose.
I'm not a Microsoft fan, far from it. But I am a Windows user, for the simple reason that the software I need to use runs on Windows. (Or in some cases, runs best on Windows). There are probably alternatives I could use (open source packages that do similar things, or Windows apps on WINE) but frankly, it's too much trouble. I'm not a zealot. I just want to get my work done.
But after a disastrous stab at Windows 8 (fought with it for three weeks, ended up reloading 7) I've come to the conclusion that Microsoft has lost the ability to write an operating system. I have no intention to ever go to 10.
I thought I had a few years before 7 expires, giving Microsoft time to maybe come to their senses, but now I'm getting plagued with these "upgrade to 10! It's fun!) popups and have heard rumors of some machines just upgrading themselves without a decision made by the user.
And I'm done.
I brought up Mint on a laptop I take into the field (I'm a photographer and make extensive use of the Adobe suite) and after fixing the inevitable wifi and other sundry problems that Linux never seems to be able to get right out of the box, had a machine that ran surprisingly fast, and was surprisingly capable. (It was my first experience with Mint. It was over the 2014 holidays, so probably 17.2. I see that 17.3 has just been released.) And then -- the acid test -- I actually got Adobe Lightroom running on Mint under Wine. Ok, I said once, in this very forum I think, that if Lightroom ever ran reasonably well on Linux, I'd drop Windows and never look back. Time to make good on that. My only remaining problem is that although the base version 5 installs and runs, the update (5.7.1) installs but does not run. I'm now experimenting with open source alternatives like lightzone (installs, but doesn't run correctly) and Darktable (no problems so far, but it's early).
So anyway, the takeaways from all of this:
1) Windows 8 has soured me to any new Windows OS for the immediate future.
2) I *was* content with 7, but:
3) Microsoft's os-so-clever nagware to upgrade to Windows 10 is getting on my nerves. And so:
4) As a result, I finally made time to try Mint.
5) I like Mint.
6) I don't have a clear alternative to the apps I use regularly on Windows, but I'm a *lot* (repeat LOT) closer than I've ever been.
7) Screw Microsoft. No, really. What the hell were they thinking.
A Boeing 787 bound for Paris from New York mysteriously landed instead at Reykjavik, Iceland today. Boeing pilots say that there was no indication of failure of onboard navigation systems. "It's a mystery" commented one Boeing engineer.
When asked to comment, an Airbus representative opined "Tough luck for Boeing".
In other words, this is a (probably rare) legitimate application of copyright law, that hinges on whether the music company had the right to offer the song to CBS.
Yes
Seems fairly straightforward.
I take it you haven't dealt much with the US legal system then.
In other words, this is a (probably rare) legitimate application of copyright law, that hinges on whether the music company had the right to offer the song to CBS. Seems fairly straightforward.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm all for this, really. It's easy to pick on the Star Wars prequels for egregious use of digital effects (and justified, in my opinion) but it wasn't just that. The technique was genuinely being overused in the industry, and I'm really glad to see a return to practical effects.
That said, I have to wonder if at least part of the motivation for the return of practical effects is that the cost of digital tools and render time has gotten so low that pretty much anyone can do it. You've all seen web series and demo reels and short films and even fake newsreels that contain remarkable digital effects done for cheap. They're not wholly the domain of Hollywood and their big bucks anymore. A return to practical effects and their perhaps greater production costs may be yet another way to differentiate big budget productions from kitchen table projects.
On the other hand, I'm so sick of the overuse of digital effects that I'll *take* that. As someone in this discussion wisely said, when everything is fake, anything is possible, and it becomes boring. That's exactly the thing.
Was not intended to be funny. I was attempting to point out that under those criteria, practically anything with which the subject disagrees could be defined as harassment.
Computers made ten years ago will do the things that currently available computers can do, with a vanishingly few exceptions. Currently available computers can't do 100% of current things either. ("cost effective" computers and high end games, for instance.) I'm writing this on a seven year old Dell laptop. My computer at home is a ten year old motherboard in an enclosure from the turn of the century. Yet I make a small living as a photographer running the current Adobe suite on that machine.
There are a few people who have exceptional needs. For the great majority, there just isn't anything they do that requires a leap in resources. We have long ago reached the flat end of the curve.
But go ahead and replace your perfectly good unit that has resources you don't fully utilize for a more powerful computer that will have even more resources you don't fully utilize. You're helping to prop up the computer industry so the rest of us don't have to.
Technology has long surpassed most people's computing requirements. There's currently no "killer app" that requires a leap in processing power or other resources. Build quality and longevity are reasonable selling points. If you want something small and trendy, there's always the tablet. If you have to have the latest white hot technology, there's always Alienware and the like.
I recently did an ssd upgrade on my nine year old Latitude, and it still fits my needs. The hardware or case will fail long before I outgrow it.
"I demand a safe space where I can act like an asshole."
Watch people's head explode.
Harassment is everything said, done after you have been told No or stop.
"I'm sorry , you haven't done any of the work, I have to fail you for this class."
No. Stop.
> Such blocks are not something that can go unnoticed in the noise of everyday activity.
Although it can probably never be proven, occam's razor indicates that money changed hands. It's a more logical conclusion than this level of incompetence amongst the necessary number of employees.
> Shrugs shoulders. I never owned a mac so I can't talk but I am picky on color and buy premium hardware for Windows pcs like my MS Surface tablet. If I were a photographer it would be an investment. Not a status symbol.
Enh. This is a definition of "premium" which I personally don't understand. The Surface Pro (any model or generation) has modest cpu and memory for the price. Using a PC for content creation (processing photos in my case) vs content consumption, takes a more careful selection of components. Number of cores becomes important, as does the amount of supported memory and the number/speed of drive ports. Having a magnetic detachable keyboard and snazzy appearance is way WAY down on the list. As is trendy brushed aluminum and a fruit logo. A pox on both of them. I'm just trying to get work done.
When CFLs first came out, they really did last as long as advertised, but as time went on they started to burn out faster and faster.
Do CFLs at the same price point from the same companies burn out faster? Intially, CFLs were only manufactured by a few companies, for a relatively high price; nowadays you can buy cheap CFLs from unknown Chinese companies for dirt cheap, but no surprise, they don't last very long. The same thing is happening with LEDs; you can still get Cree and Philips LEDs and they're damn solid, but now you've also got your $3.50 Walmart lights, or your even cheaper Alibaba bulbs.
Fair enough, we're known for outsourcing our pollution to China, (google "china" "cfl" and "mercury poisoning") and so far they've been happy to accept it. And actually, the more expensive incandescents ("rough use" bulbs) will last a lot longer (I have a case of them out in the garage) than the 25 cent bulbs that you can't get anymore. Quality does cost more. But you have to ask yourself -- what are Fred and Ethyl Non-geek going to buy? The premium bulbs, or the Costco eight-count blister pack? And when the bulbs die, are Fred and Ethyl really going to take them over to the recycling center, or just throw them in the trash? Side note: The need to properly recycle lightbulbs didn't just go away with LEDs. There's nasty stuff -- lead, arsenic -- in those also.
>But after a disastrous stab at Windows 8 (fought with it for three weeks, ended up reloading 7) I've come to the conclusion that Microsoft has lost the ability to write an operating system. I have no intention to ever go to 10.
Oddly enough, some of the most exciting developments in operating systems I've read about recently have come from Microsoft Labs. The Midori project was interesting, with some really good ideas coming out of it:
http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/1...
Really smart guys working on it, and they managed to pull off some really impressive feats with it.
Microsoft killed Midori, though, so there you go.
Fair enough. Please allow me to rephrase. I've come to the conclusion that Microsoft has lost the ability to deliver an operating system.
Just like those cheap Christmas light strings from years ago.
Except a lot more expensive.
> LED bulbs are superior to everything else, prove me wrong. (you can't)
They are, at this time, for most applications. (There's a reason "hard use" incandescents are still made.) But wait a few years, and LEDs will be "value engineered" down to crappy lifetimes just like CFLs were.
What's the lifetime of the new incandescent bulb? Do they still burn out as fast as they used to? Or does recycling the heat cause them to take longer to burn out. The major advantage I find in LEDs is that they last a long time. And with the plummeting prices (picked some up for $3.50 a piece at Walmart last week), It's going to be hard for incandescent bulbs to compete. If this was such a good solution, it could probably be used for LED lights as well, since they throw off a non-negligible amount of heat as well.
It'll be interesting to see how LEDs fare in a couple years. When CFLs first came out, they really did last as long as advertised, but as time went on they started to burn out faster and faster. Now they don't last any longer than the old incandescents did. One of my three original CFLs purchased in the 1990's is still working. CFLs I purchase nowdays last maybe a year to 18 months.
I just purchased my first LED three months ago. As the CFLs fail I intend to replace them with LEDs. I expect the first batch to last a good long time, and replacements bought years down the road to last about 18 months. It's not a technology question, it's a manufacturing question. We'll see.
Something that worries me -- Metro in my area switched to LED stop lights a few years back, and seeing them partly burned out or flickering wildly is very common these days. Maybe because the city bought from the lowest bidder?
> I don't even bother to change the bulbs any more until two of the three go out, and I'm still replacing bulbs every year, as fast as I was with 25 cent incandescent lamps.
It's called "value engineering".
I looked at Aftershot Pro 2 for Linux, and it seems to meet my needs. Thanks very much. I'm planning to order a copy tonight.
I also ran across "Gimpshop", which uses the Gimp engine with a more Photoshop-compliant GUI. It's apparently so close to Photoshop in controls and terminology that most Photoshop tutorials will work with it. (Where has this been all my life??)
Sorry, Adobe. I and others have been pleading for years for a Linux port, and we keep being told that there just isn't enough of a user base to warrant it. You had your chance.
If you need professional grade photography and color calibration why don't you consider a Mac? Yes, they are expensive but it supports colors that only Windows and MacOSX due and full Adobe support
I was on a G4 at one time. I switched to Windows partly because I felt Macs were overpriced, and partly because Apple and Adobe were at the time engaged in a pissing contest about, among other things, how a touchpad should operate. (In my opinion, it's not a good business plan to piss off the vendor of your signature application, but maybe Apple thought Aperture and iPhoto would take over the world? How did that work out?)
But also, I gave up on Apple partly because I became increasingly uncomfortable with the unreasoning fanaticism of the Apple fan base. Let's face it, it got creepy. And I became less and less happy with being associated with it.
So I built a Windows box, for a fraction of the cost of an Apple box, and have been using it ever since. There are things I don't like about it, but it's not necessary to like everything about a product.
Thanks very much. Will look into that.
> For home: Windows 10 and beyond will be my official gaming platform. I could give two-shits about any of the rest of the crap.
Good point. I'm not a gamer, but I can see the logic. You use Windows for a single purpose. Your use of Windows reflects that.
> In fact, just fork it and make it an "XBox PC OS"; all I need is core functionality for gaming.
I thought I read somewhere that Microsoft is doing exactly that -- porting a stripped down Windows 10 to the XBOX, as part of their "windows 10 everywhere" project.
I should mention that, Mint boots significantly faster, is a lot snappier on the same hardware, and appears to have a much smaller memory footprint. (Test by: Install mint on existing hard drive on old laptop. Wow, that's fast. Ok, lessee.... what else can we do... swap in a solid state drive, reinstall Mint. OH MY GOD.) This was a laptop I used to take into the field, and now I think I will be using it again for that purpose.
Oh, really good point. Has someone notified the authorities?
I'm not a Microsoft fan, far from it. But I am a Windows user, for the simple reason that the software I need to use runs on Windows. (Or in some cases, runs best on Windows). There are probably alternatives I could use (open source packages that do similar things, or Windows apps on WINE) but frankly, it's too much trouble. I'm not a zealot. I just want to get my work done.
But after a disastrous stab at Windows 8 (fought with it for three weeks, ended up reloading 7) I've come to the conclusion that Microsoft has lost the ability to write an operating system. I have no intention to ever go to 10.
I thought I had a few years before 7 expires, giving Microsoft time to maybe come to their senses, but now I'm getting plagued with these "upgrade to 10! It's fun!) popups and have heard rumors of some machines just upgrading themselves without a decision made by the user.
And I'm done.
I brought up Mint on a laptop I take into the field (I'm a photographer and make extensive use of the Adobe suite) and after fixing the inevitable wifi and other sundry problems that Linux never seems to be able to get right out of the box, had a machine that ran surprisingly fast, and was surprisingly capable. (It was my first experience with Mint. It was over the 2014 holidays, so probably 17.2. I see that 17.3 has just been released.) And then -- the acid test -- I actually got Adobe Lightroom running on Mint under Wine. Ok, I said once, in this very forum I think, that if Lightroom ever ran reasonably well on Linux, I'd drop Windows and never look back. Time to make good on that. My only remaining problem is that although the base version 5 installs and runs, the update (5.7.1) installs but does not run. I'm now experimenting with open source alternatives like lightzone (installs, but doesn't run correctly) and Darktable (no problems so far, but it's early).
So anyway, the takeaways from all of this:
1) Windows 8 has soured me to any new Windows OS for the immediate future.
2) I *was* content with 7, but:
3) Microsoft's os-so-clever nagware to upgrade to Windows 10 is getting on my nerves. And so:
4) As a result, I finally made time to try Mint.
5) I like Mint.
6) I don't have a clear alternative to the apps I use regularly on Windows, but I'm a *lot* (repeat LOT) closer than I've ever been.
7) Screw Microsoft. No, really. What the hell were they thinking.
A Boeing 787 bound for Paris from New York mysteriously landed instead at Reykjavik, Iceland today. Boeing pilots say that there was no indication of failure of onboard navigation systems. "It's a mystery" commented one Boeing engineer.
When asked to comment, an Airbus representative opined "Tough luck for Boeing".
In other words, this is a (probably rare) legitimate application of copyright law, that hinges on whether the music company had the right to offer the song to CBS.
Yes
Seems fairly straightforward.
I take it you haven't dealt much with the US legal system then.
Ok, relatively straightforward.
In other words, this is a (probably rare) legitimate application of copyright law, that hinges on whether the music company had the right to offer the song to CBS. Seems fairly straightforward.