Taking it to Starbucks, (at least where I live) means using Wifi. It really isn't possible they've implemented usable Wifi support in their LiveCD is it? Usually getting wireless to work on linux means finding windows drivers, utilizing NDISWrapper, etc.
My Spidey senses are telling me that you've never tried to use OpenBSD with a supported wireless card.
If a card is supported, it is typically supported from a driver built into the GENERIC OpenBSD kernel and "just works" like any other supported NIC.
In fact it is so good, that you can even bond your wired NIC to your wireless NIC as a trunk and then if you unplug your network cable to move yourself and your laptop away from your desk, your current connections are retained and continue to function. Your downloads keep downloading, your ssh sessions are still alive, etc.
If you like to use UNIX like operating systems and wireless, give OpenBSD a try. As long as you're using a supported wireless NIC (probably from a company proud and confident enough to back thier products up with open documentation) then you might be surprised to find it works easier than Windows XP! My PRISM2.5 based Demarc Technologies DT200 card requires a driver download to work in Windows XP, yet OpenBSD sees it as a usable NIC by default.
Check out the list of OpenBSD i386 supported wireless cards (BTW, OpenBSD do not use the word "supported" loosely). That is not the entire list either. For example my supported card is not on that list. One caveat though, is that some manufacturers choose to completely change thier card designs while retaining the exact same model number. Making wireless card purchase a minefield for anybody buying for a non Windows machine. Sure you can use an NDIS wrapper on OS which support that, but I'd rather return the product for a refund to try my luck again with another card. There are always the options to buy cards from vendors who advertise the exact chipset used too. Which I choose to do to get specific cards which are supported and have excellent receive sensitivity and decent variable transmit power.
This would be a classic post of missing the point and focusing on the 'wording' used, instead of what the person was meaning...
I have not missed the point, I have just merely not addressed it as a whole. Instead I simply focused on one very specific point which interested me.
I didn't realise conversations were not allowed to branch off at all into any related area. I don't know how I can possibly see the day out with this terrible burden I have brought onto myself. I hope the slashdot readership will be able to forgive me.
Didn't CISC really die with the advent of the Pentium Pro? Hasn't every x86 since then been a shallow CISC interface to a RISC core?
Seems silly to me for anyone to be flying a CISC flag these days when the majority of CISC CPU's in desktops and servers are not really CISC at the core.
That's why I can take pictures quite happily after removing the batteries on my F2 or FE2?
Dave you have good taste. ; ) I have an F2AS and an FE2. Without the battery, from memory the FE2 is limited to the non-quartz timed flash sync shutter speed of 1/250 sec (or 1/200 sec if you have the older model) and bulb. From memory if you try to take a photo without the battery on any other speeds the mirror will go up and stay up but the shutter won't operate.
The F2 though will of course allow you to use any selected shutter speed without any batteries. In fact the F2 has infinitely variable shutter speeds which snap into the marked speeds only due to the notching in the selection mechanism.
you nincompoop - yes it does. all SLR's, film or digital, need batteries, to cock/release the mirror and shutter.
Ah, my Nikon F2AS will cock and release the mirror and shutter without any batteries at all. In fact, to get that I have to use the add-on motor drive. Except there it is just cocking and not releasing, since like many other cameras the releasing of the mirror and shutter is merely a release of spring tension from a mechanical trigger.
I've taken 30,000 images this year on my digital SLR, which would have cost $6,667 in film.
You have taken a photo every 58 seconds since January 1st? Pro 35mm cameras, including the pro digital 35mm replacements, are typically built for 250,000 cycles of the shutter. At the rate you are going, if you purchased that camera on January 1st and it is one of those pro models, it will be dead some time this year. If it is not one of the pro models, start searching for your warrantee card and receipt of purchase now.
I should qualify everything I wrote here that I am specifically comparing against 35mm film. I should have specified 35mm a few more times because for example the last sentence is wrong without it. Large format, etc. ; )
Wrong again. The average 35mm SLR camera with an average roll of film still comes out with a resolution equivalent to a 25 megapixel digital shot, which you can't find anywhere.
Sorry but this 25 megapixel value you claim is untrue. Years ago I measured for myself some fine grain films and came out roughly to 15 megapixels. However here a fellow has measured this in a more scientific manner than I did. According to him the best film peaks at about 16 megapixels. Yet Canon make a 16.7 megapixel camera.
Here you can see that camera producing photos which are comparable to 4x5 MEDIUM FORMAT and certainly better than that film in 35mm format. Here the older 11 megapixels version of that camera really shows how great digital can be with low noise and the resolution even at 11 megapixels is fantastic even against a 6x7! Here is another. Here is another again. Look at the detail of the tiles on the roof of the windmill. Here the excellent contrast of digital stands out. And here something which I expected, medium format transparency looking a lot better than the "35mm" digital.
Now consider that this 16.7 megapixel is at least comparable with some medium format images! 35mm film has no chance against the 16.7 megapixel digital.
That 25-30 megapixel number that is thrown around is a load of garbage.
PS, this is my current primary camera. There has certainly been no bias towards digital for me. However I imagine I'll be making the move in the next few years. Only because a Canon's best DSLR is WAY too expensive for me at the moment.
Nope, they are not. Comparable has a different meaning for professional photographer than an average joe.
I am someone who loves older Nikon 35mm cameras and top quality Nikkor prime lenses. The sort of person who cringes at seeing a Nikon body with some crappy after market lens, or worse still an after market zoom lens. I tend to use fine grain, slow films with a tripod where ever I can. I have been dreading the march of digital, because I loved film so very much. My favourite camera is a 30 year old mechanical manual Nikon F2AS and every Nikon body and Nikkor lens I own has been appreciating in value since production of those models stopped. So that should set the scene that I am not some digital zealot. I love computing and have done so for 25 years or so, but when it comes to photography, film was it for me.
I have manually counted grains across and down on a small projected square of some really fine grain films and multiplied up to the full frame to get an effective "mega-grains" value and from memory that was about 15 million grains at best. Years ago, back when people were talking about 4M pixel cameras having film quality, I was cringing and arguing with friends about that, who believed that tripe. Back then and with current consumer grade digital cameras it is true that they have not quite passed the highest quality you could expect from the best film can offer.
However, enter Canon's 17 megapixel digital SLR. Now you have a whole new ball game.
That camera actually DOES surpass the best you can expect from the best films. It has higher resolution, dynamic range, colour linearity and much less noise (in film this could be compared with random size, sensitivity and placement of grains, causing visible noise).
I measured and compared for myself and can say that digital SLR's have gone past 35mm film at that point.
PS, I have scanned 35mm film with some cheap film scanners and nowdays they provide such incredibly high resolution that they can actually show detailed shape of the actual film grains of fine films. You CANNOT ask for more than that when it comes to resolution. At that point you have gone well beyond the limits of film.
Expensive colour laser printers are usually for corporate interests. Printing graphs and colour speadsheets, etc really fast. They rarely print photos well.
I have been to MANY photographic exhibitions at galleries where digital printed VERY LARGE images were on display and most people simply would not know. People who know what to look for, still have good eyesight and are willing to walk right up close to the image specifically to look for the very fine dithering can notice it. But who cares? Step back and the photos look even more incredible than dark room made prints. Find a photo printer in your area which specifically caters to professional photographers and pay them a visit. You might not even be able to tell that the images they have on display, showcasing thier abilities, are actually digital.
BTW, often the worst thing about digital compact cameras are the lenses. Step up to digital SLR and see the MASSIVE jump in quality. Compare the most expensive digital compact you can find, to a DSLR of comparable price and see that the DSLR provides images which are MANY TIMES better than the compact. I have looked at ALL the digital compacts and they ALL have crap optics. One thing people can look for is chromatic aberration. Chromatic aberration is the problem where red and blue do not focus on the same point. So what you get is a seperation of colours in the image. A bright white vertical line in the image may show a halo of red on one side and another halo of blue on the other, because they don't focus at the same point. This will get worse towards the edges. Every single digital compact I have looked at, no matter how expensive or prestigious the brand name, shows this and show it baddly. They also never seem to attain critical focus.
Forget digital compacts if you want decent quality. However with really good optics and a good sensor, I believe that 17M pixels goes past the best of film. Film can't come close to 30M pixel, however one day digital will be there too and then beyond.
Of course there is also that 'number of writes' issue.
True. However they can be used practically as system disks. I've been using CF cards for diskless firewalls for more than a year now. With OpenBSD I use softdeps and noatime and I've had no problems. I know of others who have done the same for years.
The difference between gigabit and gigabyte needs to be explained on Slashdot about as much as the difference between the Moon and the Sun needs to be explained to astronomers.
Now just you hang on there a dang second Mr. Byproduct. Slow down with all the scientamific techno mumbo jumbo. Moon? Sun? Give it to us slowly.
Did VR really pass? When I was at college all those years ago and VR was a chosen subject of mine, VR was considered to have roles in visualization (medical, architectural, etc), simulation (flight, driving, etc) and games.
I think it has been with us the whole time. Certainly 3D goggles make the emersion into a virtual reality more realistic, but I don't think goggles are required for something to qualify as being VR.
Battlefield 2 sure gets my heart racing at times. Even without the stereo component of depth perception.
It's unlikely they'll solve the headache problem real soon. It's a result of your eyes having to focus on a screen a couple of cm away while your brain is interpreting the scene as being remote.
The optics in these sorts of units are supposed to present you with an image that would require your eyes to focus at the equivalent of some reasonable distance. 10ft to infinity, for example.
Like when I look through my SLR viewfinder at the focusing screen. In reality I am focusing on a small screen 3cm away, but optically it is the equivalentof a large screen much further away.
Having said that, those optical systems are fixed, yet the depth perception of objects is constantly changing, so I guess that could give you eye strain. Your brain would be saying focus in or focus out when an object is moving closer or further away, but the resulting out of focus image coming back would be confusing your brain into compensating for something that is not expected. So your eyes would be constantly making small focus corrections, I guess causing eye strain and I wonder if the confusion would also be giving you a headache?
I'll be using your sig for a while, because damn that is a bad name.
Seriously, who the hell thunk that one up? It is terrible. Lovely machine, ugly name. I also will plain refuse to call it a bloody "MacBook Pro".
From now on I will call it "the new intel Powerbook". Assuming of course, that this could be considered the new Powerbook. Maybe it is really the new iBook and once the G4 Powerbooks are phased out, the new Powerbooks will come in with their names retained. Either way, if the "MacBook Pro" is an iBook or Powerbook, it is a crap name.
The 100 year archival quality CD's were only the pressed CD-ROMs made with high quality dies... not the mass procuced CDs that AOL ships out and especially not CD-Rs.
I have definitely seen 100 year claims on CDR "archival" media. As have other people as is evident in the comments here under this story. Now I am not claiming that they can actually do it, I am just stating the claims of some manufacturers.
The real question would be who is marketing and specing CD-R manufacturing for archival quality CDs and have specs guarenteeing that they will last 10+ years without failing? There must be somebody out there doing that, but I don't know of them myself.
I dunno but for the extra ~$550, I could get a much faster laptop than the MacBook *or* I could get the Gateway and have the money in my pocket. Many speculated as to the actual Apple premium, but they couldn't directly compare the PPC Apples to the x86 notebooks. Now we can and the premium is at least $550. I would have guessed it would be $200 to $300, but now we know for sure.
Will you be able to run OSX on that Gateway without worrying that you won't be able to get updates or otherwise an update might break the install? Some people would actually like a fast laptop to run OSX on. The fact that you could also run Windows, Linux, BSD's, etc multi-booting is nice too.
I spec'd that Gateway as close as I could to the higher end MacBook, with CPU, RAM, Screen, Warrantee, Creative web cam, (removed Office 2003), etc and came out to $2,023.96.
A $475 difference, so close to your difference on the lower end. Yet the Apple has:
o A decent built-in high res camera. o Built in remote control sensor and supplied remote. o It appears to be metal, like older powerbooks. o Can take 2GB of RAM. o Has a premium (quality and price) Mobility X1600. o And the R&D that makes it, the OS and apps seemlessly integrated and stable like Microsoft could only dream of (XP Pro SP2 blue screened on me just 2 days ago when I installed a driver. I have never seen OSX die on me).
So some of that will come out of that $475 and what could we be left with? Thinking Apple are terrible for charging a little extra for what looks like yet another fantastic product which fits into the experience they provide?
BTW, I am writing this in WinXP Pro on a comparably priced (when I bought it) Sony VAIO VGN-A49GP (with a PuTTY screen of OpenBSD in the background watching pflog0 and all the zombie Windows machines hitting my perimeter, plus a switched off Mac mini to my right and a crap load of Sun's;). So I am not some raving Mac zealot. Truth be told, I am usually inside a BSD in a sparc64. That's where I like to be, then my Mac for surfing, email and movies and then Windows when I don't have a choice.
For a LOT of people, the small extra cost is well worth the ability to run OSX officially on a fast laptop while getting the Apple experience and support, even if it is just periodical updates. I've been using PC's for about 17 years now (Apples and Commodores before that) and newer Apples for a few years now. I bought this Sony because I needed fast memory and lots of it (2GB) in a portable, however my money was intended for a decent Powerbook which just did not come in time. I think Apple is worth the small premium when it meets your requirements. G4 didn't for me, but this seems like it would.
BTW, my $5,000 AU Sony is plastic and feels it. When I open and close the screen it creaks like it's about to break. Just like all the other shitty plastic x86 laptops I've used. When I open and close PowerBooks in the stores, I just want to sob. There is a huge difference with the WHOLE experience and I don't think it is fair to sum it all up against a couple hundred bucks.
That's just my opinion. Now toodle off and go finish that Gateway purchase. God I am so glad they have left Australia. Ever tried to deal with Gateway support? Last time I rang them to get some RAMBUS memory upgrade for a client of mine, they asked for the serial number, which I gave and then they confirmed with me the owner and model spec details. I ordered more RAM and I figured since they knew the machine model and config they sold, that they would know to send TWO modules totalling our desired upgrade size. Was that unreasonable to expect? When they ask first for the serial number and then confirm the exact model and configuration? Well apparently it was. The Indian "help"desk guy sent ONE module, so we had to later order another. What was the point of referencing the serial number against the configured spec? It never ceases to amaze me how computer companies don't use COMPUT
I have stacks of CDR's written by the first CD burner I ever used. A Kodak (Mitsui or was it a Mitsumi) back around 1997/1998. 8 or 9 years and I'm sure many others have media going back that far and further.
I do have some very cheapo CDR's which are exhibiting what looks like corrosion at the inner and outer edges of the reflective substrate (looks like a stain working its way in), but they're still reading fine. I would not bet that those will be lasting much longer, but after all these years the only discs I have actually had fail are those that were physically damaged. Dropped or scratched. The Kodak Gold CDR's that I have had for the longest time are exhibiting no visually apparent degradation at all. Besides the slight scratching that gets picked up over the years.
If he is an expert, then he needs to get back into the real World every now and then, so that he does not make embarrassing claims that can be easily refuted by anyone.
Maybe this just all has something to do with the fact that IBM's (the company he works for) storage products above the low end CD/DVD and HDD offerings cost a crap load more. Frighten that money out of people!
I'm sure CD/DVD is closest to the lowest end of the archival quality scale. But a maximum of 5 years for the better quality media is just not true. I've gone WAY past that without even trying. In fact, some of those old CDR's have been lying in tall stacks of CDR's and CDRW's on my various desks without cases or spindles. There have even been times when my cat Chomsky has knocked them over onto my lino floor during one of his late night covert hacking sessions. Those are not that important to me (really old software, etc), yet except for those that get wrecked in a instant, the rest are fine. Point being that I am not exactly taking the best care of these discs, with proper storage out of light, humidity, temperature fluctuations, etc.
If I were using some of these 100 year archival CDR's which I have seen advertised, handled them with clean hands or gloves and then stored them appropriately, I would not be surprised if they lasted more than 10 times what mine already have with dodgy treatment.
I had BBE on an old AIWA cassette walkman type portable.
For those that don't know, BBE undoes the waveform inversion which occurs multiple times throughout the audible range when playing through typical transducers (speakers and headphones cause this problem). BBE performs the same inversion at the appropriate frequencies, so when the speakers/headphones do it, they are actually undoing that unwanted effect.
The sound difference between switching BBE on and off for me was like night and day. I never had it switched off it was so good.
Anyone with a BBE enabled COWON can confirm the effectiveness in their unit?
What I really want is a portable disk-based audio-player that has a completely normal USB harddisk interface to the computer, and that supports ogg vorbis, musepack, flac, and other common formats. But I guess there's no market for that, people really want to limit their choices to the iTunes I guess, and never have a need for portable harddisks in the same unit...
It is a completely normal USB harddisk (40GB). Supports ogg vorbis, MP3, WMA, ASF and WAV. Can record direct to MP3 from line-in, internal microphone and also from the built in FM radio.
I wish it supported FLAC, but alas it does not. However soon the Rockbox open firmware will support this player, bringing FLAC amongst other things with it. Awesome!
If your an "audiofile" then listen to lossless or a cd or even better "VYNL RECORDS".
Vinyl exhibits some really difficult to remedy problems. First of all, TWO channels are encoded into ONE analog track. This causes terrible channel seperation (you can hear the left channel in the right and vice versa) and also kills to some degree the stereo effect. That analog encoding and then decoding of two channels into one also has the undesired effect of adding more distortion and noise, typically done in the analog domain for these so called "purists". The more you play a vinyl album, the more you loose the high frequencies. The reason for this, is that above about 15kHz gets RUBBED AWAY by the needle more and more each time you play it. The needle gets VERY hot from friction against the moving vinyl and if you are silly enough to stop the player before picking the needle arm up off the vinyl, the needle MELTS a small hole into the track where it has stopped. That causes a pop the next time you play that point of the album.
To get super high quality out of vinyl, you have to spend MEGA bucks and still not come close to a top end CD player.
I strongly reject the idea of audiophiles having "golden ears". I think in reality, audiophile is really another word for arrogant.
Years ago I saw some audiophile dorks on television, testing out the idea that CD's should be placed in the freezer prior to listening. The theory was that when they were manufactured, cracks in the plastic form due to changes in temperature. They claim that freezing the CD's brought these cracks back together and got rid of errors in the digital audio. So here we could see a bunch of dorks on a lounge, listening to some frozen CD and some nodding together agreeingly to some perceived higher quality.
I wish I could have been in that room to ask them why the hell this issue does not create great problems for CDROM media.
It is all about perception.
The whole point of portable MP3 is to carry as many songs in as small a space. If people wanted perfect CD quality in a portable package they'd buy mini-disc. But they didn't. However people want good->excellent quality and small files.
Mini-disc uses lossy compression.
BTW, I can hold about 60 uncompressed albums on my iRiver H340 as it stands now. If I had double the HDD size, I would probably decide to just put my whole collection on it uncompressed. For me and I imagine many others, the whole point of portable MP3 is to carry MY entire collection. If I could fit it as uncompressed or lossless compressed, I would.
I've had my ipod over 1.5 years. I listen to it almost every day for 4+ hours. I carry it all over the place. I've dropped it once (on carpet, whew). Still works like a champ.
Oh man, I dropped my iRiver H340 from one metre onto hard lino floor. The pain. Luckily that was months ago and it has not shown any signs of damage.
I love my H340. I can also listen to the radio and record it to MP3. But apparently nobody wants to do that. I must be strange or something. Steve? Are you listening?
Yeah, that's what I meant. And think of this: a pretty nice MP3 CD player can be had for $70. A 4GB iPod nano is $200. I can buy a whole lot more than 4GB worth of blank CDs for $130;)
I considered an MP3 CD player, but when I saw this, I fell in love and had to have it. ; )
Slashdot Mirror
Taking it to Starbucks, (at least where I live) means using Wifi. It really isn't possible they've implemented usable Wifi support in their LiveCD is it? Usually getting wireless to work on linux means finding windows drivers, utilizing NDISWrapper, etc.
My Spidey senses are telling me that you've never tried to use OpenBSD with a supported wireless card.
If a card is supported, it is typically supported from a driver built into the GENERIC OpenBSD kernel and "just works" like any other supported NIC.
In fact it is so good, that you can even bond your wired NIC to your wireless NIC as a trunk and then if you unplug your network cable to move yourself and your laptop away from your desk, your current connections are retained and continue to function. Your downloads keep downloading, your ssh sessions are still alive, etc.
If you like to use UNIX like operating systems and wireless, give OpenBSD a try. As long as you're using a supported wireless NIC (probably from a company proud and confident enough to back thier products up with open documentation) then you might be surprised to find it works easier than Windows XP! My PRISM2.5 based Demarc Technologies DT200 card requires a driver download to work in Windows XP, yet OpenBSD sees it as a usable NIC by default.
Check out the list of OpenBSD i386 supported wireless cards (BTW, OpenBSD do not use the word "supported" loosely). That is not the entire list either. For example my supported card is not on that list. One caveat though, is that some manufacturers choose to completely change thier card designs while retaining the exact same model number. Making wireless card purchase a minefield for anybody buying for a non Windows machine. Sure you can use an NDIS wrapper on OS which support that, but I'd rather return the product for a refund to try my luck again with another card. There are always the options to buy cards from vendors who advertise the exact chipset used too. Which I choose to do to get specific cards which are supported and have excellent receive sensitivity and decent variable transmit power.
This would be a classic post of missing the point and focusing on the 'wording' used, instead of what the person was meaning...
I have not missed the point, I have just merely not addressed it as a whole. Instead I simply focused on one very specific point which interested me.
I didn't realise conversations were not allowed to branch off at all into any related area. I don't know how I can possibly see the day out with this terrible burden I have brought onto myself. I hope the slashdot readership will be able to forgive me.
CISC processors sucked
Didn't CISC really die with the advent of the Pentium Pro? Hasn't every x86 since then been a shallow CISC interface to a RISC core?
Seems silly to me for anyone to be flying a CISC flag these days when the majority of CISC CPU's in desktops and servers are not really CISC at the core.
So isn't CISC mostly just a legacy?
That's why I can take pictures quite happily after removing the batteries on my F2 or FE2?
Dave you have good taste. ; ) I have an F2AS and an FE2. Without the battery, from memory the FE2 is limited to the non-quartz timed flash sync shutter speed of 1/250 sec (or 1/200 sec if you have the older model) and bulb. From memory if you try to take a photo without the battery on any other speeds the mirror will go up and stay up but the shutter won't operate.
The F2 though will of course allow you to use any selected shutter speed without any batteries. In fact the F2 has infinitely variable shutter speeds which snap into the marked speeds only due to the notching in the selection mechanism.
you nincompoop - yes it does. all SLR's, film or digital, need batteries, to cock/release the mirror and shutter.
Ah, my Nikon F2AS will cock and release the mirror and shutter without any batteries at all. In fact, to get that I have to use the add-on motor drive. Except there it is just cocking and not releasing, since like many other cameras the releasing of the mirror and shutter is merely a release of spring tension from a mechanical trigger.
I've taken 30,000 images this year on my digital SLR, which would have cost $6,667 in film.
You have taken a photo every 58 seconds since January 1st? Pro 35mm cameras, including the pro digital 35mm replacements, are typically built for 250,000 cycles of the shutter. At the rate you are going, if you purchased that camera on January 1st and it is one of those pro models, it will be dead some time this year. If it is not one of the pro models, start searching for your warrantee card and receipt of purchase now.
I should qualify everything I wrote here that I am specifically comparing against 35mm film. I should have specified 35mm a few more times because for example the last sentence is wrong without it. Large format, etc. ; )
Wrong again. The average 35mm SLR camera with an average roll of film still comes out with a resolution equivalent to a 25 megapixel digital shot, which you can't find anywhere.
Sorry but this 25 megapixel value you claim is untrue. Years ago I measured for myself some fine grain films and came out roughly to 15 megapixels. However here a fellow has measured this in a more scientific manner than I did. According to him the best film peaks at about 16 megapixels. Yet Canon make a 16.7 megapixel camera.
Here you can see that camera producing photos which are comparable to 4x5 MEDIUM FORMAT and certainly better than that film in 35mm format.
Here the older 11 megapixels version of that camera really shows how great digital can be with low noise and the resolution even at 11 megapixels is fantastic even against a 6x7!
Here is another.
Here is another again. Look at the detail of the tiles on the roof of the windmill.
Here the excellent contrast of digital stands out.
And here something which I expected, medium format transparency looking a lot better than the "35mm" digital.
Now consider that this 16.7 megapixel is at least comparable with some medium format images! 35mm film has no chance against the 16.7 megapixel digital.
That 25-30 megapixel number that is thrown around is a load of garbage.
PS, this is my current primary camera. There has certainly been no bias towards digital for me. However I imagine I'll be making the move in the next few years. Only because a Canon's best DSLR is WAY too expensive for me at the moment.
Nope, they are not. Comparable has a different meaning for professional photographer than an average joe.
I am someone who loves older Nikon 35mm cameras and top quality Nikkor prime lenses. The sort of person who cringes at seeing a Nikon body with some crappy after market lens, or worse still an after market zoom lens. I tend to use fine grain, slow films with a tripod where ever I can. I have been dreading the march of digital, because I loved film so very much. My favourite camera is a 30 year old mechanical manual Nikon F2AS and every Nikon body and Nikkor lens I own has been appreciating in value since production of those models stopped. So that should set the scene that I am not some digital zealot. I love computing and have done so for 25 years or so, but when it comes to photography, film was it for me.
I have manually counted grains across and down on a small projected square of some really fine grain films and multiplied up to the full frame to get an effective "mega-grains" value and from memory that was about 15 million grains at best. Years ago, back when people were talking about 4M pixel cameras having film quality, I was cringing and arguing with friends about that, who believed that tripe. Back then and with current consumer grade digital cameras it is true that they have not quite passed the highest quality you could expect from the best film can offer.
However, enter Canon's 17 megapixel digital SLR. Now you have a whole new ball game.
That camera actually DOES surpass the best you can expect from the best films. It has higher resolution, dynamic range, colour linearity and much less noise (in film this could be compared with random size, sensitivity and placement of grains, causing visible noise).
I measured and compared for myself and can say that digital SLR's have gone past 35mm film at that point.
PS, I have scanned 35mm film with some cheap film scanners and nowdays they provide such incredibly high resolution that they can actually show detailed shape of the actual film grains of fine films. You CANNOT ask for more than that when it comes to resolution. At that point you have gone well beyond the limits of film.
Expensive colour laser printers are usually for corporate interests. Printing graphs and colour speadsheets, etc really fast. They rarely print photos well.
I have been to MANY photographic exhibitions at galleries where digital printed VERY LARGE images were on display and most people simply would not know. People who know what to look for, still have good eyesight and are willing to walk right up close to the image specifically to look for the very fine dithering can notice it. But who cares? Step back and the photos look even more incredible than dark room made prints. Find a photo printer in your area which specifically caters to professional photographers and pay them a visit. You might not even be able to tell that the images they have on display, showcasing thier abilities, are actually digital.
BTW, often the worst thing about digital compact cameras are the lenses. Step up to digital SLR and see the MASSIVE jump in quality. Compare the most expensive digital compact you can find, to a DSLR of comparable price and see that the DSLR provides images which are MANY TIMES better than the compact. I have looked at ALL the digital compacts and they ALL have crap optics. One thing people can look for is chromatic aberration. Chromatic aberration is the problem where red and blue do not focus on the same point. So what you get is a seperation of colours in the image. A bright white vertical line in the image may show a halo of red on one side and another halo of blue on the other, because they don't focus at the same point. This will get worse towards the edges. Every single digital compact I have looked at, no matter how expensive or prestigious the brand name, shows this and show it baddly. They also never seem to attain critical focus.
Forget digital compacts if you want decent quality. However with really good optics and a good sensor, I believe that 17M pixels goes past the best of film. Film can't come close to 30M pixel, however one day digital will be there too and then beyond.
I cannot believe you didn't call in sick!
I can't believe this is (Score:5, Funny) when it should really be (Score:5, Insightful)!
Of course there is also that 'number of writes' issue.
True. However they can be used practically as system disks. I've been using CF cards for diskless firewalls for more than a year now. With OpenBSD I use softdeps and noatime and I've had no problems. I know of others who have done the same for years.
The difference between gigabit and gigabyte needs to be explained on Slashdot about as much as the difference between the Moon and the Sun needs to be explained to astronomers.
Now just you hang on there a dang second Mr. Byproduct. Slow down with all the scientamific techno mumbo jumbo. Moon? Sun? Give it to us slowly.
VR is a thing that passed by I guess.
Did VR really pass? When I was at college all those years ago and VR was a chosen subject of mine, VR was considered to have roles in visualization (medical, architectural, etc), simulation (flight, driving, etc) and games.
I think it has been with us the whole time. Certainly 3D goggles make the emersion into a virtual reality more realistic, but I don't think goggles are required for something to qualify as being VR.
Battlefield 2 sure gets my heart racing at times. Even without the stereo component of depth perception.
It's unlikely they'll solve the headache problem real soon. It's a result of your eyes having to focus on a screen a couple of cm away while your brain is interpreting the scene as being remote.
The optics in these sorts of units are supposed to present you with an image that would require your eyes to focus at the equivalent of some reasonable distance. 10ft to infinity, for example.
Like when I look through my SLR viewfinder at the focusing screen. In reality I am focusing on a small screen 3cm away, but optically it is the equivalentof a large screen much further away.
Having said that, those optical systems are fixed, yet the depth perception of objects is constantly changing, so I guess that could give you eye strain. Your brain would be saying focus in or focus out when an object is moving closer or further away, but the resulting out of focus image coming back would be confusing your brain into compensating for something that is not expected. So your eyes would be constantly making small focus corrections, I guess causing eye strain and I wonder if the confusion would also be giving you a headache?
It is a Powerbook. It is NOT a "MacBook Pro".
I'll be using your sig for a while, because damn that is a bad name.
Seriously, who the hell thunk that one up? It is terrible. Lovely machine, ugly name. I also will plain refuse to call it a bloody "MacBook Pro".
From now on I will call it "the new intel Powerbook". Assuming of course, that this could be considered the new Powerbook. Maybe it is really the new iBook and once the G4 Powerbooks are phased out, the new Powerbooks will come in with their names retained. Either way, if the "MacBook Pro" is an iBook or Powerbook, it is a crap name.
The 100 year archival quality CD's were only the pressed CD-ROMs made with high quality dies... not the mass procuced CDs that AOL ships out and especially not CD-Rs.
I have definitely seen 100 year claims on CDR "archival" media. As have other people as is evident in the comments here under this story. Now I am not claiming that they can actually do it, I am just stating the claims of some manufacturers.
The real question would be who is marketing and specing CD-R manufacturing for archival quality CDs and have specs guarenteeing that they will last 10+ years without failing? There must be somebody out there doing that, but I don't know of them myself.
Here are the claims:
Delkin CDR 300 years!
Delkin DVDR 100 years.
TDK CDR 100 years.
Memorex CDR 100 years.
Claims of Fuji CDR 70-100 years and Kodak 100-200 years!
Some brand I've never heard of with 100 year CDR's but 1 year warrantee. ; )
Verbatim CDR 100 years.
Etc, etc, etc.
Someone else posted here that some company provides a 100 year warrantee and I have also seen that TDK once made such a ridiculous offer too.
Whatever the deal is, it is certainly WELL over the 5 year maximum that "expert" claims.
I dunno but for the extra ~$550, I could get a much faster laptop than the MacBook *or* I could get the Gateway and have the money in my pocket. Many speculated as to the actual Apple premium, but they couldn't directly compare the PPC Apples to the x86 notebooks. Now we can and the premium is at least $550. I would have guessed it would be $200 to $300, but now we know for sure.
;). So I am not some raving Mac zealot. Truth be told, I am usually inside a BSD in a sparc64. That's where I like to be, then my Mac for surfing, email and movies and then Windows when I don't have a choice.
Will you be able to run OSX on that Gateway without worrying that you won't be able to get updates or otherwise an update might break the install? Some people would actually like a fast laptop to run OSX on. The fact that you could also run Windows, Linux, BSD's, etc multi-booting is nice too.
I spec'd that Gateway as close as I could to the higher end MacBook, with CPU, RAM, Screen, Warrantee, Creative web cam, (removed Office 2003), etc and came out to $2,023.96.
A $475 difference, so close to your difference on the lower end. Yet the Apple has:
o A decent built-in high res camera.
o Built in remote control sensor and supplied remote.
o It appears to be metal, like older powerbooks.
o Can take 2GB of RAM.
o Has a premium (quality and price) Mobility X1600.
o And the R&D that makes it, the OS and apps seemlessly integrated and stable like Microsoft could only dream of (XP Pro SP2 blue screened on me just 2 days ago when I installed a driver. I have never seen OSX die on me).
So some of that will come out of that $475 and what could we be left with? Thinking Apple are terrible for charging a little extra for what looks like yet another fantastic product which fits into the experience they provide?
BTW, I am writing this in WinXP Pro on a comparably priced (when I bought it) Sony VAIO VGN-A49GP (with a PuTTY screen of OpenBSD in the background watching pflog0 and all the zombie Windows machines hitting my perimeter, plus a switched off Mac mini to my right and a crap load of Sun's
For a LOT of people, the small extra cost is well worth the ability to run OSX officially on a fast laptop while getting the Apple experience and support, even if it is just periodical updates. I've been using PC's for about 17 years now (Apples and Commodores before that) and newer Apples for a few years now. I bought this Sony because I needed fast memory and lots of it (2GB) in a portable, however my money was intended for a decent Powerbook which just did not come in time. I think Apple is worth the small premium when it meets your requirements. G4 didn't for me, but this seems like it would.
BTW, my $5,000 AU Sony is plastic and feels it. When I open and close the screen it creaks like it's about to break. Just like all the other shitty plastic x86 laptops I've used. When I open and close PowerBooks in the stores, I just want to sob. There is a huge difference with the WHOLE experience and I don't think it is fair to sum it all up against a couple hundred bucks.
That's just my opinion. Now toodle off and go finish that Gateway purchase. God I am so glad they have left Australia. Ever tried to deal with Gateway support? Last time I rang them to get some RAMBUS memory upgrade for a client of mine, they asked for the serial number, which I gave and then they confirmed with me the owner and model spec details. I ordered more RAM and I figured since they knew the machine model and config they sold, that they would know to send TWO modules totalling our desired upgrade size. Was that unreasonable to expect? When they ask first for the serial number and then confirm the exact model and configuration? Well apparently it was. The Indian "help"desk guy sent ONE module, so we had to later order another. What was the point of referencing the serial number against the configured spec? It never ceases to amaze me how computer companies don't use COMPUT
I have stacks of CDR's written by the first CD burner I ever used. A Kodak (Mitsui or was it a Mitsumi) back around 1997/1998. 8 or 9 years and I'm sure many others have media going back that far and further.
I do have some very cheapo CDR's which are exhibiting what looks like corrosion at the inner and outer edges of the reflective substrate (looks like a stain working its way in), but they're still reading fine. I would not bet that those will be lasting much longer, but after all these years the only discs I have actually had fail are those that were physically damaged. Dropped or scratched. The Kodak Gold CDR's that I have had for the longest time are exhibiting no visually apparent degradation at all. Besides the slight scratching that gets picked up over the years.
If he is an expert, then he needs to get back into the real World every now and then, so that he does not make embarrassing claims that can be easily refuted by anyone.
Maybe this just all has something to do with the fact that IBM's (the company he works for) storage products above the low end CD/DVD and HDD offerings cost a crap load more. Frighten that money out of people!
I'm sure CD/DVD is closest to the lowest end of the archival quality scale. But a maximum of 5 years for the better quality media is just not true. I've gone WAY past that without even trying. In fact, some of those old CDR's have been lying in tall stacks of CDR's and CDRW's on my various desks without cases or spindles. There have even been times when my cat Chomsky has knocked them over onto my lino floor during one of his late night covert hacking sessions. Those are not that important to me (really old software, etc), yet except for those that get wrecked in a instant, the rest are fine. Point being that I am not exactly taking the best care of these discs, with proper storage out of light, humidity, temperature fluctuations, etc.
If I were using some of these 100 year archival CDR's which I have seen advertised, handled them with clean hands or gloves and then stored them appropriately, I would not be surprised if they lasted more than 10 times what mine already have with dodgy treatment.
I've only seen Applecentres in Australia (which are just redistributors), not Apple Stores.
Sorry, you are quite right.
I just noticed that the iAUDIO U3 supports BBE!
I had BBE on an old AIWA cassette walkman type portable.
For those that don't know, BBE undoes the waveform inversion which occurs multiple times throughout the audible range when playing through typical transducers (speakers and headphones cause this problem). BBE performs the same inversion at the appropriate frequencies, so when the speakers/headphones do it, they are actually undoing that unwanted effect.
The sound difference between switching BBE on and off for me was like night and day. I never had it switched off it was so good.
Anyone with a BBE enabled COWON can confirm the effectiveness in their unit?
What I really want is a portable disk-based audio-player that has a completely normal USB harddisk interface to the computer, and that supports ogg vorbis, musepack, flac, and other common formats. But I guess there's no market for that, people really want to limit their choices to the iTunes I guess, and never have a need for portable harddisks in the same unit...
Howdy joto,
I have an iRiver H340 and love it.
It is a completely normal USB harddisk (40GB).
Supports ogg vorbis, MP3, WMA, ASF and WAV.
Can record direct to MP3 from line-in, internal microphone and also from the built in FM radio.
I wish it supported FLAC, but alas it does not. However soon the Rockbox open firmware will support this player, bringing FLAC amongst other things with it. Awesome!
If your an "audiofile" then listen to lossless or a cd or even better "VYNL RECORDS".
Vinyl exhibits some really difficult to remedy problems. First of all, TWO channels are encoded into ONE analog track. This causes terrible channel seperation (you can hear the left channel in the right and vice versa) and also kills to some degree the stereo effect. That analog encoding and then decoding of two channels into one also has the undesired effect of adding more distortion and noise, typically done in the analog domain for these so called "purists". The more you play a vinyl album, the more you loose the high frequencies. The reason for this, is that above about 15kHz gets RUBBED AWAY by the needle more and more each time you play it. The needle gets VERY hot from friction against the moving vinyl and if you are silly enough to stop the player before picking the needle arm up off the vinyl, the needle MELTS a small hole into the track where it has stopped. That causes a pop the next time you play that point of the album.
To get super high quality out of vinyl, you have to spend MEGA bucks and still not come close to a top end CD player.
I strongly reject the idea of audiophiles having "golden ears". I think in reality, audiophile is really another word for arrogant.
Years ago I saw some audiophile dorks on television, testing out the idea that CD's should be placed in the freezer prior to listening. The theory was that when they were manufactured, cracks in the plastic form due to changes in temperature. They claim that freezing the CD's brought these cracks back together and got rid of errors in the digital audio. So here we could see a bunch of dorks on a lounge, listening to some frozen CD and some nodding together agreeingly to some perceived higher quality.
I wish I could have been in that room to ask them why the hell this issue does not create great problems for CDROM media.
It is all about perception.
The whole point of portable MP3 is to carry as many songs in as small a space. If people wanted perfect CD quality in a portable package they'd buy mini-disc. But they didn't. However people want good->excellent quality and small files.
Mini-disc uses lossy compression.
BTW, I can hold about 60 uncompressed albums on my iRiver H340 as it stands now. If I had double the HDD size, I would probably decide to just put my whole collection on it uncompressed. For me and I imagine many others, the whole point of portable MP3 is to carry MY entire collection. If I could fit it as uncompressed or lossless compressed, I would.
I've had my ipod over 1.5 years. I listen to it almost every day for 4+ hours. I carry it all over the place. I've dropped it once (on carpet, whew). Still works like a champ.
Oh man, I dropped my iRiver H340 from one metre onto hard lino floor. The pain. Luckily that was months ago and it has not shown any signs of damage.
I love my H340. I can also listen to the radio and record it to MP3. But apparently nobody wants to do that. I must be strange or something. Steve? Are you listening?
And there are only Apple Stores in US, UK and Japan.
There are Apple stores also in Australia.
Yeah, that's what I meant. And think of this: a pretty nice MP3 CD player can be had for $70. A 4GB iPod nano is $200. I can buy a whole lot more than 4GB worth of blank CDs for $130 ;)
I considered an MP3 CD player, but when I saw this, I fell in love and had to have it. ; )
Thanks to WoW, I no longer have the game excuse.
Wizard of Wor?
Though I should probably wait for the second generation.
I certainly will be waiting for the verdict at least. I'd wait a few months and read the forums and newsgroups before laying down the cash.