This could become the SUSTAIN platform the USMC has asked for. Spacedrop a squad of Marines anywhere in the world within 40 minutes. The main question though is whether the crewed X37 will include commercial access or is this military only?
Sure. As long as your missions are limited to places with a 12000 foot runway that happens to be located right next to whatever the squad of Marines was supposed to invade / explode / save.
How likely is it that the Air Force already has this developed and is just bringing this out of the closet?
Define 'develop'. If you mean "here's the spacecraft, can we launch it" - not very likely.
If you mean "have some people play around with the blueprints and put some acceleration couches in it and type up a bunch of documentation" then, well, you have TFA. What the Air Force would really need is a justification for astronauts. Other than launching a few big Keyhole satellites and some Star Wars type laser tests, there isn't much for a pure AIr Force astronaut to do.
This caught my attention immediately, and I think you are right. He loaded different parameters for each photo, leading me to believe that there was a significant amount of pre-processing done even before the "analysis" step he demonstrated.
Wouldn't be surprising. Most filters in Photoshop have a fair amount of control for both artistic and practical reasons. During a demo, you don't want to be fiddling around moving sliders back and forth on a 'slow computer' (his complaint - I mean really Adobe, can't you buy some fast laptops for a demo?). So the smart thing to do would be to save at least some of your parameters (like you can do with most Photoshop filters) and push a button and make your audience swoon.
IIRC, Focus Magic did not correct for motion blur - it was a pretty neat program otherwise. I've not seen a commercial program that actually does what this thing does - tracks the motion blur - then corrects for it.
And motion is the real killer on a number of real world shots. If you're not using a good tripod you have it. May not be visible, but it's there.
But it seemed to work well and I will go out on a limb to say it will be one of two useful additions to Photoshop 6 (along with six hundred minor fixes, 1800 new bugs and a dozen UI changes). Oh, and a $200 - $1000 upgrade fee.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about what happens when the money runs out. Exchange harsh words, create nice pictures, have a few of the sheep kill a few other sheep and the money starts flowing again. From the US, and from Saudi, respectively.
And here we have it folks. Six thousand years of conflict distilled into three profound sentences. And here on Slashdot!
Did you actually look at the video or are you just barking? He clearly shows photographers interacting with the 'rioters' - smiling, joking, moving about. Much more the staged movie set than a happenstance 'conflict' photo.
The take home point is that you get an entirely different feel for the scene when you step back and show the photographers taking pictures of the 'conflict' scene. It's visceral. It's actually pretty well done. Go look at TFA.
No, he means staged the same way you do - just different connotations. The act of putting your eye into a camera's viewfinder 'stages' the scene. You decide what to include / exclude - same as if you cloned out something in Photoshop. The act is the same, only the technical details differ. That is exactly the point of the OP's statement.
Yes. Always this. Photography isn't 'reality' - it's a portion thereof. That is pretty much the whole point of being a photographer - to determine what portion of reality you want to capture to create a certain effect. Whether it's cropping the souvenir stand at a National Park or tightening the crop onto a teenage 'rioter' and ignoring the rest of the pastoral street scene, it's what photographer's DO. The other stuff, the camera, lens, exposure, post processing is just details.
The problem is that people in general think that photography is canonical and 'real'. They need to get outside more, methinks.
I wonder if there is a significant market for retro test equipment. With real, quality buttons and switches. And green high persistence phosphors. And RS-232 ports. And tubes (er, valves for you strange people that drive on the wrong side of the road).
Well you mention a 'private organization who shares your goals' and I'd like to subscribe to their newsletter. Giving some tax deferred money to the government department of your choice, be it NASA, the DEA or whatever floats your boat is a wonderful idea. Some states use that method to fund parks and such. I doubt it would give you as much money as a dedicated lottery however (now that's an idea, a NASA lottery. You get some money, you push the 'launch' button).
But the kind of money we're talking about to get out of LEO is going to be well beyond anything other than a government. Sad but true. I suppose IBM, Microsoft and Apple could collectively go insane and take all their money and dump it into space exploration, but I find that less credible than a Sarah Palin presidency, if quite a bit more palatable.
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter....
But I'm not giving you a dime until you come up with some sort of not-insane business plan. Too bad you can't. There IS NO economic justification for space exploration as of yet. The technology is nowhere near advanced enough. Now, go find some Unobtanium and maybe that will change things. But absent that, it will be governments doing it for government reasons - only a small bit of that will be the advancement of mankind.
We need a credible enemy. Either the Chinese or aliens, take your pick. I personally prefer the latter since we can control them with decades old hardware.
Interesting. I dropped my two disk plan + streaming for a one disk plan because streaming sucked. Lousy selection that changed from day to day. Lousy compression artifacts (on a 3 Mbs DSL link). Dropped down to 1 disk because there is actually very little that my wife and I found we were interested in watching. After you spend a year going through the classics, then there isn't a whole lot left....
And don't get me started on the 15 previews per disk.... The best user experience I've had is ripping the DVD down to the hard disk and playing it from there. No stutters from the scratches. No previews. Now I'm just one step from going to the Pirate Bay for content.
Slashdot Mirror
This could become the SUSTAIN platform the USMC has asked for. Spacedrop a squad of Marines anywhere in the world within 40 minutes. The main question though is whether the crewed X37 will include commercial access or is this military only?
Sure. As long as your missions are limited to places with a 12000 foot runway that happens to be located right next to whatever the squad of Marines was supposed to invade / explode / save.
How likely is it that the Air Force already has this developed and is just bringing this out of the closet?
Define 'develop'. If you mean "here's the spacecraft, can we launch it" - not very likely.
If you mean "have some people play around with the blueprints and put some acceleration couches in it and type up a bunch of documentation" then, well, you have TFA. What the Air Force would really need is a justification for astronauts. Other than launching a few big Keyhole satellites and some Star Wars type laser tests, there isn't much for a pure AIr Force astronaut to do.
I don't think it counts as art though, unless you think a pile of stuff is art....
Careful. You just insinuated that an octopus could be a modern artist
A normal-sized octopus arranged these vertebrae into a giant tentacle pattern just to freak out everyone
A normal-sized JAPANESE octopus arranged these vertebrae into a giant tentacle pattern just to freak out everyone.
Fixed it for you.
Windows only. Grrr.
I miss Focus Magic. May have to try Topaz....
No, the big lenses are to impress the chicks.
... will never ever need this feature.
Assuming they always bring and use their tripods and every single interesting subject happens to occur on a bright sunny day.
And good photographers never, ever make mistakes when the once in a lifetime Elvis-lands-in-a-flying-saucer photo op appears.
This caught my attention immediately, and I think you are right. He loaded different parameters for each photo, leading me to believe that there was a significant amount of pre-processing done even before the "analysis" step he demonstrated.
Wouldn't be surprising. Most filters in Photoshop have a fair amount of control for both artistic and practical reasons. During a demo, you don't want to be fiddling around moving sliders back and forth on a 'slow computer' (his complaint - I mean really Adobe, can't you buy some fast laptops for a demo?). So the smart thing to do would be to save at least some of your parameters (like you can do with most Photoshop filters) and push a button and make your audience swoon.
Thats all true. Real men use hammers, not nailguns.
But professionals use nail guns, photoshop and whatever other tool they find useful to create a high quality product in a reasonable amount of time.
"Real men" argue about which carbon reinforced fiberglass wrapped tungsten coated hammer is better.
IIRC, Focus Magic did not correct for motion blur - it was a pretty neat program otherwise. I've not seen a commercial program that actually does what this thing does - tracks the motion blur - then corrects for it.
And motion is the real killer on a number of real world shots. If you're not using a good tripod you have it. May not be visible, but it's there.
But it seemed to work well and I will go out on a limb to say it will be one of two useful additions to Photoshop 6 (along with six hundred minor fixes, 1800 new bugs and a dozen UI changes). Oh, and a $200 - $1000 upgrade fee.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about what happens when the money runs out. Exchange harsh words, create nice pictures, have a few of the sheep kill a few other sheep and the money starts flowing again. From the US, and from Saudi, respectively.
And here we have it folks. Six thousand years of conflict distilled into three profound sentences. And here on Slashdot!
Give bytesex a hand!
Did you actually look at the video or are you just barking? He clearly shows photographers interacting with the 'rioters' - smiling, joking, moving about. Much more the staged movie set than a happenstance 'conflict' photo.
The take home point is that you get an entirely different feel for the scene when you step back and show the photographers taking pictures of the 'conflict' scene. It's visceral. It's actually pretty well done. Go look at TFA.
No, he means staged the same way you do - just different connotations. The act of putting your eye into a camera's viewfinder 'stages' the scene. You decide what to include / exclude - same as if you cloned out something in Photoshop. The act is the same, only the technical details differ. That is exactly the point of the OP's statement.
Then the only thing allowed in France is the Google Street Maps car?
I rather doubt that.
Yes. Always this. Photography isn't 'reality' - it's a portion thereof. That is pretty much the whole point of being a photographer - to determine what portion of reality you want to capture to create a certain effect. Whether it's cropping the souvenir stand at a National Park or tightening the crop onto a teenage 'rioter' and ignoring the rest of the pastoral street scene, it's what photographer's DO. The other stuff, the camera, lens, exposure, post processing is just details.
The problem is that people in general think that photography is canonical and 'real'. They need to get outside more, methinks.
The sooner you stop thinking there is an 'us' and 'them' when it comes to the two parties, the better off you will be.
Nah. He's screwed either way. Give him his little delusion, won't hurt.
On AirNews
The kernel in Windows 9 will be Linux.
Steve Jobs will be reincarnated as a Pony.
Obama will get us out of Afghanistan, balance the budget and move Wall Street to a FEMA trailer court outside of Biluxi, Mississippi.
I wonder if there is a significant market for retro test equipment. With real, quality buttons and switches. And green high persistence phosphors. And RS-232 ports. And tubes (er, valves for you strange people that drive on the wrong side of the road).
Just think, your results would be so much warmer.
Nurse says it's nap time. Gotta go.
Well you mention a 'private organization who shares your goals' and I'd like to subscribe to their newsletter. Giving some tax deferred money to the government department of your choice, be it NASA, the DEA or whatever floats your boat is a wonderful idea. Some states use that method to fund parks and such. I doubt it would give you as much money as a dedicated lottery however (now that's an idea, a NASA lottery. You get some money, you push the 'launch' button).
But the kind of money we're talking about to get out of LEO is going to be well beyond anything other than a government. Sad but true. I suppose IBM, Microsoft and Apple could collectively go insane and take all their money and dump it into space exploration, but I find that less credible than a Sarah Palin presidency, if quite a bit more palatable.
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter....
But I'm not giving you a dime until you come up with some sort of not-insane business plan. Too bad you can't. There IS NO economic justification for space exploration as of yet. The technology is nowhere near advanced enough. Now, go find some Unobtanium and maybe that will change things. But absent that, it will be governments doing it for government reasons - only a small bit of that will be the advancement of mankind.
We need a credible enemy. Either the Chinese or aliens, take your pick. I personally prefer the latter since we can control them with decades old hardware.
I'd hit it.
Something big is about to happen.
Yep, the iPhone 5 is coming. Just hang on guys.
Interesting. I dropped my two disk plan + streaming for a one disk plan because streaming sucked. Lousy selection that changed from day to day. Lousy compression artifacts (on a 3 Mbs DSL link). Dropped down to 1 disk because there is actually very little that my wife and I found we were interested in watching. After you spend a year going through the classics, then there isn't a whole lot left....
And don't get me started on the 15 previews per disk.... The best user experience I've had is ripping the DVD down to the hard disk and playing it from there. No stutters from the scratches. No previews. Now I'm just one step from going to the Pirate Bay for content.
Way to go, folks!
What's the difference between The Onion and mainstream media? Everyone at The Onion knows their product is 100% fictional.
Oh, everyone at Fox (and MSNBC / ABC / CBS / etc.) knows what they do is fictional. The Onion is the only one that admits it.
This is why I have one folder called "work stuff" where everything I save goes.
Mine's called 'Trash'. Works really well.