Well, the Microsoft contracts with OEMs that forbade them from offering alternate OSes (or Netscape) preinstalled (on pain of huge penalties in Windows pricing) seems to be a pretty straightforward example of abusing monopoly power to stifle competition (with government in no way involved). In fact, I think you'd have to be pretty selective with your facts not to be able to see monopolies abusing their power. The prices only go up AFTER the market is solidified, by the way, so 'supercompetitive' is a misunderstanding. Capitalism stops working when it's impossible to enter the market with a competing product.
Also, what kind of article are you writing when you seem to be unaware of monopoly abuses and remedies from the Gilded Age through the Roosevelt administration?
Finally, plenty of 'good products' have been crushed by MS in underhanded ways. The DR-DOS lawsuit, and the demise of Lotus 1-2-3, OS/2, and Wordperfect come to mind.
I'm still giving you the benefit of the doubt, but the needle on the troll meter is twitching a bit.
Besides the fact that that's not much of a refutation, how about:
Carnegie Steel (Hired a private army to 'settle' the Homestead Strike)
The railroads of the mid to late 19th century (charging 'what the market will bear' and reneging on shipping contracts ruined countless farmers)
Bell Telephone. You could not purchase (only lease) a telephone, nor hook up any device you owned (like an answering machine or modem) to a phone line until the bell breakup.
It should also be noted that 720p and 1080i contain roughly the same amount of information.
Not exactly. The reason 1080i exists is for sports broadcasts, where smooth motion/higher temporal resolution is more desirable than higher spatial resolution at a lower frame rate (1080p).
While many movies will probably be released in 1080p, they are originally shot at 24 FPS, which means they will actually contain less information thatn a full 720p signal
720p24 and 1080p24 are HD modes specifically for movies that display at 24 fps (@ 72Hz scan frequency where relevant), avoiding the need for 3-2 pulldown. It's not really a question of how much 'information' is in the image, it has more to do with the 'feel' of the format. An Xbox isn't 'better' than a movie because it delivers a higher fps, just different. In the video world, smooth motion is associated with shooting on video, which is associated with "cheap," (compare the look of any daytime soap opera to that of Desperate Housewives)so 'more information' can actually be a negative.
I don't know if there are any tv-series shot in higher resolution than 720p, but I'm sure there aren't many.
Actually, most higher-budget series are shot on film, so if the network wants to go back and re-telecine the footage (or if they were planning ahead for an HD release down the road and scanned at 1080 to begin with), they could get whatever resolution they want.
"We have good, critical film reviewers, why is the game review industry flooded with exuberant fanatics?"
A film reviewer can afford their own movie tickets, can see all of a film in 2 hours, and has about a century of established canon of both source material and criticism to draw from.
1. Lots of people work with larger data sets than you do.
2. Lots of people (photographers, lawyers, accountants, etc.) might want to share their work without sharing all the steps that went into creating that work.
3. Lots of people might see a need to share data using something with limited bandwidth/storage.
Not only that, some of the newer ROM pit reviews are for games that actually weren't bad, but either suck on a particular platform or the reviewer couldn't figure out how to play. I mean, Dark Castle and Captain Comic are in there. Sheesh.
Then again, so is Bird Week, and that makes it all worthwhile.
how do I know if when I create a training video and burn it with their software, I dont propagate their root kit on that CD/DVD?
Because all DVD architect creates is VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders per the DVD spec. You can examine the file structure yourself, both before and after burning. If you're going to be paranoid, at least know what you're talking about.
I upgraded to vegas 6.0c about 3 days before the rootkit story broke. I checked my system for the $sys$ rootkit according to the Sysinternals site and found nothing.
1. You've been going to the wrong theaters. For an extreme example, try an IMAX screening of Harry Potter this coming weekend.
2. Again, you've been going to the wrong theaters. Plus, I'd argue that MPEG compression is way more noticeable than the generation loss between film negative and release print (besides, when have you EVER seen something with less generation loss than a release print projected, unless you were working on post-production for the film in question). Furthermore, with DLP projection from digital source, which is starting to spread, you can't make that argument at all.
3. I don't see how.
4. Again, I don't see how. A movie telecined to D5 tape and projected with a DLP looks fine, and that's somewhere around 1080 res, IIRC. Your CRT, plasma, or LCD Hidef set is going to have a lower contrast ratio, but that should improve mattters, not make them worse.
Yeah, Chicago will never flood.... Try Phoenix or (assuming the Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams fail gradually due to silt buildup rather than catastrophically) Las Vegas.
But isn't that a result of TV makeup/lighting practices needing to catch up, rather than a shift in which celebrities are bankable? I mean, it's all artifice, after all.
Glass is fluid and will gradually flow down in its frame until a critical point is reached and it shatters.
Sorry, that's elementary school science bullshit. We have intact glass vessels from the Romans. A couple hundred year-old windowpane didn't flow, it was wedge-shaped to begin with and installed in the stongest possible way.
The overall gist of your comment is pretty right on, though.
Aren't most of those people famous for being shot on 35mm film stock and projected onto enormous screens at what's effectively 2k or 4k resolution? If the makeup can hold up at the movies, why not in hi-def?
I've seen several comments along those lines, but what those words coming out of a 19-year old in a written statement say to me is that he has a bit of a screw loose.
Well, they've broken ground, and are allegedly progressing at a floor per week, so I'd say it's about 2 years out for completion of the structure. As for not getting it blown up, that's as much or more of a concern for the other two as well.
The most obvious example is actually looking at Manhattan from the east or west. Skyscrapers in lower Manhattan and midtown, much lower buildings in between. Makes a decent graph of bedrock depth.
It may be harmful in the short term to certain profit-seeking enterprises in the industry, but in the long term the discussion will have positive repercussions.
Stimulating discussion and raising awareness is a good thing, so long as it's understood this must never be allowed to actually pass. Remember the Comics Code? The Hollywood Production Code that preceded the rating system? Censorship is a Bad Thing, and censors always, always, always look foolish in hindsight.
And can I add, if your friend is the least bit interested in color correction, add any edition of Dan Margulis' Professional Photoshop to the list. It's basically an entire book about the curves command, and written in an engaging style that doesn't read like a computer book.
The guy's an iconoclast, and lots of people disagree vehemently with him, but his skillz are indisputable, and anyone who taught a colorblind person to color correct, and can use Bob Dylan and Emily Dickinson to explain color separations is worth reading.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, what kind of article are you writing when you seem to be unaware of monopoly abuses and remedies from the Gilded Age through the Roosevelt administration?
Finally, plenty of 'good products' have been crushed by MS in underhanded ways. The DR-DOS lawsuit, and the demise of Lotus 1-2-3, OS/2, and Wordperfect come to mind.
I'm still giving you the benefit of the doubt, but the needle on the troll meter is twitching a bit.
Besides the fact that that's not much of a refutation, how about:
Carnegie Steel (Hired a private army to 'settle' the Homestead Strike)
The railroads of the mid to late 19th century (charging 'what the market will bear' and reneging on shipping contracts ruined countless farmers)
Bell Telephone. You could not purchase (only lease) a telephone, nor hook up any device you owned (like an answering machine or modem) to a phone line until the bell breakup.
Not exactly. The reason 1080i exists is for sports broadcasts, where smooth motion/higher temporal resolution is more desirable than higher spatial resolution at a lower frame rate (1080p).
While many movies will probably be released in 1080p, they are originally shot at 24 FPS, which means they will actually contain less information thatn a full 720p signal
720p24 and 1080p24 are HD modes specifically for movies that display at 24 fps (@ 72Hz scan frequency where relevant), avoiding the need for 3-2 pulldown. It's not really a question of how much 'information' is in the image, it has more to do with the 'feel' of the format. An Xbox isn't 'better' than a movie because it delivers a higher fps, just different. In the video world, smooth motion is associated with shooting on video, which is associated with "cheap," (compare the look of any daytime soap opera to that of Desperate Housewives)so 'more information' can actually be a negative.
I don't know if there are any tv-series shot in higher resolution than 720p, but I'm sure there aren't many.
Actually, most higher-budget series are shot on film, so if the network wants to go back and re-telecine the footage (or if they were planning ahead for an HD release down the road and scanned at 1080 to begin with), they could get whatever resolution they want.
A film reviewer can afford their own movie tickets, can see all of a film in 2 hours, and has about a century of established canon of both source material and criticism to draw from.
1. Lots of people work with larger data sets than you do.
2. Lots of people (photographers, lawyers, accountants, etc.) might want to share their work without sharing all the steps that went into creating that work.
3. Lots of people might see a need to share data using something with limited bandwidth/storage.
Then again, so is Bird Week, and that makes it all worthwhile.
OK, if you're that paranoid, burn the master image once it's prepped with something else like Nero or Roxio. It's a hierarchy of folders, not an ISO.
how do I know if when I create a training video and burn it with their software, I dont propagate their root kit on that CD/DVD? Because all DVD architect creates is VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders per the DVD spec. You can examine the file structure yourself, both before and after burning. If you're going to be paranoid, at least know what you're talking about.
I upgraded to vegas 6.0c about 3 days before the rootkit story broke. I checked my system for the $sys$ rootkit according to the Sysinternals site and found nothing.
2. Again, you've been going to the wrong theaters. Plus, I'd argue that MPEG compression is way more noticeable than the generation loss between film negative and release print (besides, when have you EVER seen something with less generation loss than a release print projected, unless you were working on post-production for the film in question). Furthermore, with DLP projection from digital source, which is starting to spread, you can't make that argument at all.
3. I don't see how.
4. Again, I don't see how. A movie telecined to D5 tape and projected with a DLP looks fine, and that's somewhere around 1080 res, IIRC. Your CRT, plasma, or LCD Hidef set is going to have a lower contrast ratio, but that should improve mattters, not make them worse.
Yeah, Chicago will never flood.... Try Phoenix or (assuming the Glen Canyon and Hoover Dams fail gradually due to silt buildup rather than catastrophically) Las Vegas.
But isn't that a result of TV makeup/lighting practices needing to catch up, rather than a shift in which celebrities are bankable? I mean, it's all artifice, after all.
Sorry, that's elementary school science bullshit. We have intact glass vessels from the Romans. A couple hundred year-old windowpane didn't flow, it was wedge-shaped to begin with and installed in the stongest possible way.
The overall gist of your comment is pretty right on, though.
Aren't most of those people famous for being shot on 35mm film stock and projected onto enormous screens at what's effectively 2k or 4k resolution? If the makeup can hold up at the movies, why not in hi-def?
I've seen several comments along those lines, but what those words coming out of a 19-year old in a written statement say to me is that he has a bit of a screw loose.
Well, they've broken ground, and are allegedly progressing at a floor per week, so I'd say it's about 2 years out for completion of the structure. As for not getting it blown up, that's as much or more of a concern for the other two as well.
Well, it's all pretty much moot anyway. Neither will have much of a claim for long.
The most obvious example is actually looking at Manhattan from the east or west. Skyscrapers in lower Manhattan and midtown, much lower buildings in between. Makes a decent graph of bedrock depth.
Well, you could give these nice persons some hits.
Stimulating discussion and raising awareness is a good thing, so long as it's understood this must never be allowed to actually pass. Remember the Comics Code? The Hollywood Production Code that preceded the rating system? Censorship is a Bad Thing, and censors always, always, always look foolish in hindsight.
I think less, not more, caffeine is the answer...
And can I add, if your friend is the least bit interested in color correction, add any edition of Dan Margulis' Professional Photoshop to the list. It's basically an entire book about the curves command, and written in an engaging style that doesn't read like a computer book.
The guy's an iconoclast, and lots of people disagree vehemently with him, but his skillz are indisputable, and anyone who taught a colorblind person to color correct, and can use Bob Dylan and Emily Dickinson to explain color separations is worth reading.
Or some could do each. It's not like they're hard up for programmers or salaries.
I bet you were the one who got this implemented.
$0.25 in 1980 is $0.63 today. Arcade games (at least the little ones) are cheaper now.