And eps does? no problem, can produce that as well, need some other file format? Seldom is that going to be the problem.
You are right that lack of support of CMYK in the Gimp is a major problem for using it for creating print ready material.
That was however nto the argument I replied to, that argument was about producing file formats that the publisher can read.
If you can produce it with the Gimp (which you obviously cannot when needing CMYK, so that is really a non argument here when talking about file formats) and you can save it with the Gimp, then you can usually read it with Photoshop and the like.
The problem with Dreamweaver and any equivalent tools is that while it makes your design job a bit more efficient, this is at the price of making the site less efficient for every visitor. Your design work is a one time thing, unless you expect only one visitor, the inefficiency for them is nto a one time thing, and it causes direct cost for those running the site as well.
A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a clothes designer who needs a website. After having looked at some things I made for others, she was wondering what I was using to build websites. She had noticed that while I use some of the things so common to sites designed in dreamweaver, that what I had made was a lot faster and smaller, and worked on every browser she tried (including the one on her mobile phone).
I'm sure you can make decent sites in dreamweaver as well, but for me any such tools are usefull for making a layout in a visual way, but not for producing the actual code that is going to be used on a website.
I guess that the reason I care at all is because I also host the sites I design, and it makes the hosting quite a bit less costly, resulting in better proffit.
but interact with other companies that use "industry standard" (read: Photoshop) document formats. For example, my company exchanges files with some of the biggest ad agencies in the world - if you think you're going to use a Linux desktop and force a designer at (insert ad agency here) to change, you're f'in crazy.
The last time I made something for publishing in print (made a picture based on some mandelbrot fractal for an art callender), the publisher had no trouble whatsoever using the tiff and tga files I produced, he didn't even know whatever program I used to produce them and assumed it was photoshop according to a later conversation.
So, what document format is it exactly that you are talking about here? because I believe that document/file formats are a non-issue in this case.
It's obviously not made for print due to the lack of CMYK-support
It seems that Adobe and their patents play a role in that, but its true of course that this is a serious limitation for those whoms work is going to be used in print.
and for web production.. well, compare Photoshops "Save for web"-module vs GIMP's "Select a JPEG compression percentage please"-prompt.
If you are doing graphics work professionally, is it too much to ask that you have some idea about how different compression levels work out? This is pretty equivalent to knowing how different kinds of paper work out when you profession is printing.
I am not a graphics artist, but I do run some websites that are used by graphics artists for publication. I had to tell each of them to stop using the bloody 'save for web' module for their pictures because the result of it is crap. Rather, they should be using jpegs in 1280x1024 resolution or better, compressed at 90% quality or better. The website will do recompression when needed. Of course the recompression by the website is why you should feed it high quality sources, but the 'save for web' confuses the hell out of those graphics artists exactly because it explicitly hides what it is doing from the user.
..but can produce better pictures BY GIVING you more control,
It can first of all produce better pictures due to having better color accuracy and giving more control, no need to rephrase really.
What is more, you'd be better of when th esensor implements this curve in a purely analog way and produces 8buit data directly instead of producing 10 bit data and then 'mapping' it to 8 bits because no matter how good your algorithm for doing this 'mapping', it will at best just throw away the extra information, and when it doesn't, it will by definition introduce extra noise (the resampling in 8 bits of originally 10 bit data will cause this)
Now in that case, you do need more bits to represent the data, but not in the way normally thought of. A 10-bit converter will still map the white point to 0xFFFF and the black point to 0x0000, and get the job done, but as range increases that leaves you with larger gaps (posterization) between individual points in the range. A 12-bit A/DC will fill in those gaps and give you smoother transitions.
A small detail maybe, but it would between 0x00 and 0xFF for 8 bit data.
Of course you are completely right about sensors, if they can't capture a bigger dynamic range then there is no way to get a bigger dynamic range.
At any rate, the only way to simulate 'shoulder' is by creating headroom by reserving a part of your dynamic range for it, one way or another. The only way to do that without losing accuracy is by increasing the number of bits you use for representation of each color in a pixel.
Using a 10 bit a/d conversion and then 'mapping' it in 8 bits allows for using a nice 'curve' for this 'mapping' to simulate the 'shoulder' of analog film, but the above still applies. Actually getting the 10 bits of information without any such mapping taking place would undo this effect but can produce better pictures, and gives you more control.
So to rephrase my line: The current crop of DSLR's surpass 35mm film in every way, for MY work.
I bet they do.. they do for quite a few people.
Technically however, DSLRs do not surpass a decent 35mm camera with good film, at best they get near enough to make the difference irrelevant. Good reproduction of analog film requires expensive manual prints however, and that is where it goes wrong in many cases, and why it is easy to get better results from a digicam.
Digital photography of course has advantages that at a certain point outweight the possible quality loss.
The interface/menus on most cameras suck (especially P&S cameras - those menus are like a fucking maze, and what about the impossible to remember button combinations for anything non-trivial?)
Something that was solved quite some time ago by the early Camedia cameras from Olympus and anything similar to it.
Dynamic Range. I don't want more megapixels, and current noise levels are about as good as they'll ever get (compromises). But I *WANT* more dynamic range already - even better, a film-like "shoulder" in the response curve (in the highlights) - without having to combine pictures. It's annoying to have to combine shots all the time (even if one uses ND grads). This is perhaps the biggest issue with regards to digital photography right now.
The lack of 'shoulder' is inherent to using a digital representation of an inherently analog thing. It is the same as why too loud sounds clip in digital recordings. Analog fails gracefully when overstretched, digital doesn't.
You can get your 'shoulder' by adding more external light and then turning down brightness in your camera a few stops, so you are less close to the limits of your sensor without adding too much noise, but at the cost of less detail in shadowy areas.
An increase in dynamic range would be nice, 12bits/color would be a good start really, but any 'shoulder' you'd get from that will be artificial, and will always reduce the ability to do details in dark areas because the only way to create such a 'shoulder' is by reserving a part of the dynamic range for this 'shoulder'.
The only solution here is for the photographer to realize that there are inherent differences between analog and digital photography, and that both have their merrits depending on the situation and the desired result.
What about that four thirds "universal" system they used to talk so much about? I don't want to sell all my Nikon glass (several thousand $'s worth) to be able to use a Canon camera, or what if I wanted to use a Canon lens on my Nikon? This was supposed to let you do it by swapping a mount/adapter. Absolute freedom! No more system lock-in!
Ah, that would be so cool to have indeed. Seeing how thios never happened in a few decades of film SLRs, I don't see it happen with their digital equivalent for some time to come however.
The lighting system on most cameras is quickly becoming a mess. Forget about tried and working "real" TTL (matrix, color matrix or whatever). Now you need special oddball not-quite-TTL (dTTL/eTTL/iTTL) flashes for every new camera they put out... It's getting more complicated as you try to use things like plain TTL strobes and such... CCDs made this harder, and they try to make you believe it's better now, but it isn't.
No comment on this other then that every camera is different in this, and it is a bloody mess indeed.
There is not a specific RGB value for each pixel at this point, though there is a specific luminance value for every pixel, chrominance (color) is interpolated, much like it is with NTSC television.
In other words, similar to how jpeg doesn't encode a rgb value for each pixel, rather, it uses a yuv colorspace with some information being there for each pixel (luminance) and some information being there only for every 2 or 4 pixels (chroma)...
When not introducing all kinds of 'intelligent' interpolation, conversion betwwen a luminance/chroma based system and RGB values is pretty trivial, and does not introduce 'loss'. Also, while it does take a bit of 'intelligence' to recognize which pixels are covered by the same chroma data, it is quite possible to convert back and get the same as the original.
What you may get in a.RAW file that you can't easily store as part of a picture in other formats is information about camera settings and measurements. When using TIFF however it would be possible to store this information as well, TIFF allows for adding custom data in a 'custom tag' that will be used by programs that understand it, and ignored by those that don't.
You know so much about LCDs, yet you ignore the Bayer mask technique most every camera uses. This by definition is not a raster format--where each pixel is defined by an RGB value.
Ah yes, so jpeg is not a raster format either, and frames in an mpeg file are not in a raster format either..
And yes, you have a point, but that point is not very likely to convince the individual or small business developing software commerically. It will do a lot better with the kind of company that actually has the funds to fight such things.
Individuals and small businesses are responsible for a disproportionally large part of innovation in software, at times being succesfull, and when being succesfull at the expense of some of the big companies in the field, not seldom finding themselves with the choice between attacking more patents then they can possibly fight, or pay the barrier to market fee being demanded.
While many of the programs you use today may have some bigname company logo, the actual concepts behind many of them were thought up by some individual developer or small company.
I think that explains part of why many in the software industry have a problem with patents applying to their 'field', despite there also being some things in software development that may be worthy of a patent.
I see a clear problem in the current way 'obviousness' is tested, while patent law clearly says that an invention should not be obvious to someone practised in the field. The current practise does not match what that says. I uderstand the practical problems, and I don't know the solution, but I do know that that is not correct.
I also see in the field of software development that many problems arrise due to patents, and that often that is the result of combining some already known things (ie, prior art) in ways that are either already known and used, but cannot be found by the prior art search of the USPTO, or is obvious when you want to address the actual problem at hand.
Also, for all kinds of 'software' it can be said to be true that comming up with the idea to do something in a certain way is not the difficult part, it is getting a working implementation that is the difficult part, and that may be considered for protection as intended by the constitution. Actually, it is.. by copyright.
As you correctly assume I am not against patents in general, and not even against the concept of patents on software, but I do see that the current tests for obviousness play a role in the structural problems that the patent system seems to have. It is not the only thing playing a role tho.
What structural problems?
For example:
- Allowing a fast developing field of technology to quickly turn into a minefield for any small or new party entering the market.
- Allowing for a substantial number of silly, misguided and at times simply bad patents
- Strongly favors big business over small businesses and individual inventors
Fix those issues and I can quite live with the idea of patents.
Do I have a solution? no. Can I say that the current system is broken? quite. Would we be better off with a much stripped down system or none at all? likely. A system that actually works would be better still however.
Hmm... I wonder if that has anything to do with my prefence for the trackball for GUIs...
Hehe, I doubt it.. I never got hooked on Missile Command, yet I have the same preference for trackballs for GUIs (and many games)..
Interestingly, most people who spent a couple of hours playing video games here, or used my computer for a somewhat longer time otherwise, got themselves a trackball as well..
That's why I save. That's why I prepay for insurance. That's why I live in the safest places I can, and that's why I build relationships of trust and accountability with people all over my community and the world. I help those, and I hope they'll help me.
And guess what, in many countries that have a welfare system that actually somewhat works, it is a 'collective insurance', which can quite be held accountable. Now you may not like a mandatory 'collective insurance', and I can see some reasons for not liking that, but it works a lot better then you seem to believe. If all you have ever seen is the USA welfare system I can't entirely blame you, but the problems are with the implementation, not with the idea of welfare itself.
Again, I don't think you are wrong with regards to the problems you are seeing, but I believe your solutions are wrong. Fix the problems instead of getting rid completely of the thing in which those problems may occur.
When I lived in Ft. Lauderdale I was "poor" -- I had no savings and lived paycheck to paycheck.
You have no clue what poverty means if you think that that makes you 'poor'.
Come back with 'not having enough to even live from paycheck to paycheck' or 'not having a paycheck at all' and you get a little bit closer already.
After yet another hurricane, I moved to the Midwest because I couldn't handle the risk. The rewards were terrible. How did I afford the move? I worked an extra job and I saved.
Congratulations, and I completely agree that if you have that option, you should take it, and not blame others when you don't. Having that oppertunity is a luxory that many in such a situation won't have.
I suggest you go try run your own business someday (talk about own responsibility) and then get it destroyed by a hurricane or whatever. Oh, and try doing another job besides running a (fulltime) business. Some peopel can, some can't. It depends on the situation, and applying your situation to everyone is not going to work.
Moving from anywhere in the country to anywhere else to start over is not as costly as you think, and there are opportunities everywhere I travel in starting over.
Unfortunately, many people who lived on welfare were afraid to move or couldn't because the welfare organizations seem to create dependencies instead of building responsibilities. This is to be considered the norm as I have seen it.
Let me tell you a few things..
First of all, I don't live in the USA, I live in western Europe, where most countries have much more expanded welfare systems then the USA has ever had.
Now, I have actually lived on welfare for a short time, after first having payed some 13 years for it. I lived on it only for a limited time because depending on the state doesn't make me very happy, achieving something does. Additionally, the system was enforcing rules that did not help me achieve anything, rather, to some extent it prevented me from doing anything.
That said, it was a great help to get through a somewhat difficult time, and I'm gladly paying again for maintaining that system for everyone who needs it.
Own responsibility is about making the right choices for yourself and not blaming others for your choices. It is NOT about judging someone elses conditions.
Can you define "non-obviousness"? It doesn't really matter what field, since the definition is not technology-dependent, but if that makes you more comfortable, be my guest.
Hmm, the law talks about 'not obvious to someone practised in the field', and yet the 'field' is not relevant?
I know that that is indeed the opinion of many who are deeply involved in the patent system.
Obviousness in patent law has been reduced to 'combination of prior art together with pre-existing documented motivation to combine that prior art', which is utter bullshit.
Obviousness as per dictionary definitions is something that is easy to come up with, regardless of what parts were pre-existing.
That patent law intends the dictionary definition should be clear from the simple fact that prior art is dealt with seperately, or are you trying to suggest that patent law was written by complete idiots who didn't realize they covered the same thing twice?
So yes, the field is important, for the simple reason that the law says so. That judges have ignored that for the reason of it being somewhat difficult to deal with in court doesn't change that at all.
The problem with 'obviousness' in court is simple, wether something is easy or not to come up with is not something you can determine easily, and it is usually easy to find 'experts' arguing either side.
That does not change what the law says and intends to achieve, and the current practise has nothing to do with either letter or intention of that law.
So, give me a good explanation based on actual reason as to why we simply should ignore the fact that the law explicitly says it should not be obvious to someone practised in the field?
And yet, we can accomplish much more as a group then as a bunch of individuals. If it wasn't for actually putting aside some of that egocentrism, we would not have gotten anywhere, we wouldn't even have survived long enough to get to make the first tools.
Realizing humans have an egocentric tendency is good, but then just accepting that and not lookign any further is just stupid and ignorant of human history.
I have no problem with others performing jobs I should be doing if I can hold them accountable for the jobs they do on my behalf. Government has no accountability beyond voting, and voting is restrictive and not very productive in setting guidelines and mandates. I don't vote, and I don't appreciate any government because I want accountability.... skipping lots of stuff to come to the conclusion....
I have no desire to help those who will not be accountable to me while I am taking care of them and helping them get out of the hole they put themselves into. Everything that happens to us is based on decisions we previously made. Life is very fair, it is only when others force their beliefs on us that life is unfair -- and only government has the power to truly force anyone to do anything, legally.
Your problem is accountability, the obvious solution is to strive for accountability, not for extreme egocentrism.
In theory, the government is accountable, if that is not the case then the solution is to make it such. Discussing how much power a government should have is legitimate. Assuming that it can have no power because it will just abuse it or use it in ways it can't be held accountable for is either pointing at a very bad government and bad laws, or at complete and utter stupidity of the person making that claim, at least, a few thousand years of documented history seem to suggest so.
Why do a few thousand years of history suggest so? because followinbg your model has never got peopel beyond stone age conditions unless those conditions were there to begin with. Why? because individuals can't be bothered to do enough for the common good so there won't be the resources needed to get any further.
Last but not least, I'd refuse your help if that comes with religious and political fanatism as well, thanks.
The story you had about that family is a good one, and I agree with the principe you are pointing out there, if someoen receives help, they are also accountable for what they do with that help.
If you believe life is completely fair however and use that as justification for your actions then I suggest you tell us what decision of people causes hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis and so on? Which individual people decided on those things that caused those, and why are there so many who didn't make those choiuces but became the victim of it anyway?
I don't want anything bad to happen to you, but I hope for your own sake that some day you will find yourself in the situation of needing outside help. I also hope you can find it. You may learn a very big lesson from it.
And my point is that poverty-stricken people (or any people who are unable to care for a child) should not be having children, and anything that results from that lack of planning is their own damn fault.
So, how are they going to protect themselves? oh right, you are gonna say they shouldn't exist to begin with?
The GP seemed to've been justifying lax parenting with poverty, and that doesn't fly with me.
Please read a bit better next time.
GP pointed at the fact that poverty exists and that it can revent people from protecting themselves, and that it can also prevent them from protecting their children, simply because they cannot afford the means to do so.
When peoplke fail that, it quickly becomes a problem for society as a whole, and it leaves you 2 options:
1. accept it and do nothing (extreme Libertarian way) 2. deal with the problem (about everyone else)
Now, if you see that argument being made and you just go on about ones own responsibility, and completely ignore the impossibility of it, then don't be surprised that people consider you an extreme libertarian, and may even consider you someone who is extremely egocentric (as long as I can be safe, the rest of the world can die, I don't care)
Dead pixels happen still at least at times. If thatr is a problem really depends.
One or two pixels just staying dark somewhere at the extreme border of the screen is not something I find troublesome for text editing. A few pixels being stuck in 2 or 3 colors and near the center of the screen can be annoying however.
You will find the first situation more often then the later in my experience, but I have had no problem returning displays that had the later and getting a replacement.
On most displays that I have seen in the last 1 or 2 years however there are no noticable dead pixels (doesn't mean they have none, but when they do, it is usually in an out of the way place and they are usually stuck in a single color or black)
When you are not bothered by the 2 thin lines on a trinitron display, I am confident that one or two pixels stuck in black or red somewhere near the edges of the screen are not going to be bothersome either, and as someone else already mentioned, it is becomming more and more rare that those occur also.
A video card can easily help out by providing a few services that are usefull to most video codecs out there, most important are: - hardware scaling - colorspace translation
There is a standard for this on X, the xv extension.
The x.org drivers for ati and nvidia cards support it, and so do the proprietary drivers from ati and nvidia.
Most modern video players on Linux and other systems that use X support it as well.
In my experience the proprietary drivers do it a bit better and faster, but the x.org drivers are definitely usable for most situations.
First of all, I just love tinitron displays for the picture they produce, esp. for gaming (black level and variable refresh with vsync), video (black level, variable refresh with vsync, 'analog scaling' and depending on your display, native interlaced video) and graphics work where it is important that colors on your screen get as close to 'real' as possible. I have a small collection of them from 15" upto 30"
For heavy text editing and the like however I really do prefer a large TFT screen. Why? all the things a trinitron CRT is good at and typical consumer TFT screens not won't matter for text editing at all while a TFT screen has some real advantages for it:
What you say about refresh rate and eye strain is true, but somewhat specific to CRT and similar technology, but doesn't apply to TFT screens.
Because there is no beam tracing lines on a screen, all the pixels are being displayed at the same time, there is some time involved in pixels having to change color, but the traditional flickering of a CRT simply does not occur at all, resulting in a stable and flicker free picture.
Then, a TFT screen doesn't have to deal with a whole bunch of inherently analog electronics to control and aim a beam of electrons, While a TFT screen is quite complex to make, it is surprisingly simple in its operation, and there is a lot less that can go wrong with again the result of a more stable picture.
Add DVI to the things above and you end up with a result that is pretty much impossible to match with a traditional CRT with regards to again getting a stable picture.
If you have to work with text a lot, do yourself the favor of trying one for a while if you can.
Well, in my book 'exclusive right for a limited term' is not even near absolute property rights, rather, it is a temporary grant from society. That implies that from the start, 'society' owns the invention, how else can they give such a grant on it?
Ok, sorry about the confusion, its indeed at the top level, and specifically answers the 'does wol work with linux' question being put up. That said, your post is informative in itself of course and maybe more an answer to the article then to my post about this wol + linux thiny? Ah well, it doesn't really matter anyway.
What you describe is how exactly the system can be turned on upon receiving a network packet. Of course you can do a bit more with this then just receiving a 'wake up call'. I f you can respond to that and given you have access to the correct registers, you can do a lot in response to any specific network packet.
That there needs to be some intelligence for actually responding to such a packet seems somewhat obvious to me. What kind of 'intelligence' this is I never mentioned, it is relevant to the main article because it is going to say something about power consumption (tho according to my measurements, the power use of wake on lan is pretty low), it however has nothing to do with the post I replied to which asked about using WOL with Linux.
At any rate, I have implemented WOL on a wide variety of hardware, and the only cases where the OS matters at all are those where the OS needs to re-enable WOL after boot. Those are the exception and not the rule. Provided you can boot it at all on your machine and your machine properly supports wake on lan, you could power it up and have it boot DOS 2.0 or such with wake on lan no problem.
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And eps does? no problem, can produce that as well, need some other file format? Seldom is that going to be the problem.
You are right that lack of support of CMYK in the Gimp is a major problem for using it for creating print ready material.
That was however nto the argument I replied to, that argument was about producing file formats that the publisher can read.
If you can produce it with the Gimp (which you obviously cannot when needing CMYK, so that is really a non argument here when talking about file formats) and you can save it with the Gimp, then you can usually read it with Photoshop and the like.
Indeed only suitable for cases where RGB will do.
The problem with Dreamweaver and any equivalent tools is that while it makes your design job a bit more efficient, this is at the price of making the site less efficient for every visitor. Your design work is a one time thing, unless you expect only one visitor, the inefficiency for them is nto a one time thing, and it causes direct cost for those running the site as well.
A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a clothes designer who needs a website. After having looked at some things I made for others, she was wondering what I was using to build websites. She had noticed that while I use some of the things so common to sites designed in dreamweaver, that what I had made was a lot faster and smaller, and worked on every browser she tried (including the one on her mobile phone).
I'm sure you can make decent sites in dreamweaver as well, but for me any such tools are usefull for making a layout in a visual way, but not for producing the actual code that is going to be used on a website.
I guess that the reason I care at all is because I also host the sites I design, and it makes the hosting quite a bit less costly, resulting in better proffit.
but interact with other companies that use "industry standard" (read: Photoshop) document formats. For example, my company exchanges files with some of the biggest ad agencies in the world - if you think you're going to use a Linux desktop and force a designer at (insert ad agency here) to change, you're f'in crazy.
The last time I made something for publishing in print (made a picture based on some mandelbrot fractal for an art callender), the publisher had no trouble whatsoever using the tiff and tga files I produced, he didn't even know whatever program I used to produce them and assumed it was photoshop according to a later conversation.
So, what document format is it exactly that you are talking about here? because I believe that document/file formats are a non-issue in this case.
It's obviously not made for print due to the lack of CMYK-support
It seems that Adobe and their patents play a role in that, but its true of course that this is a serious limitation for those whoms work is going to be used in print.
and for web production.. well, compare Photoshops "Save for web"-module vs GIMP's "Select a JPEG compression percentage please"-prompt.
If you are doing graphics work professionally, is it too much to ask that you have some idea about how different compression levels work out? This is pretty equivalent to knowing how different kinds of paper work out when you profession is printing.
I am not a graphics artist, but I do run some websites that are used by graphics artists for publication. I had to tell each of them to stop using the bloody 'save for web' module for their pictures because the result of it is crap. Rather, they should be using jpegs in 1280x1024 resolution or better, compressed at 90% quality or better. The website will do recompression when needed. Of course the recompression by the website is why you should feed it high quality sources, but the 'save for web' confuses the hell out of those graphics artists exactly because it explicitly hides what it is doing from the user.
..but can produce better pictures BY GIVING you more control,
It can first of all produce better pictures due to having better color accuracy and giving more control, no need to rephrase really.
What is more, you'd be better of when th esensor implements this curve in a purely analog way and produces 8buit data directly instead of producing 10 bit data and then 'mapping' it to 8 bits because no matter how good your algorithm for doing this 'mapping', it will at best just throw away the extra information, and when it doesn't, it will by definition introduce extra noise (the resampling in 8 bits of originally 10 bit data will cause this)
Now in that case, you do need more bits to represent the data, but not in the way normally thought of. A 10-bit converter will still map the white point to 0xFFFF and the black point to 0x0000, and get the job done, but as range increases that leaves you with larger gaps (posterization) between individual points in the range. A 12-bit A/DC will fill in those gaps and give you smoother transitions.
A small detail maybe, but it would between 0x00 and 0xFF for 8 bit data.
Of course you are completely right about sensors, if they can't capture a bigger dynamic range then there is no way to get a bigger dynamic range.
At any rate, the only way to simulate 'shoulder' is by creating headroom by reserving a part of your dynamic range for it, one way or another. The only way to do that without losing accuracy is by increasing the number of bits you use for representation of each color in a pixel.
Using a 10 bit a/d conversion and then 'mapping' it in 8 bits allows for using a nice 'curve' for this 'mapping' to simulate the 'shoulder' of analog film, but the above still applies. Actually getting the 10 bits of information without any such mapping taking place would undo this effect but can produce better pictures, and gives you more control.
So to rephrase my line: The current crop of DSLR's surpass 35mm film in every way, for MY work.
I bet they do.. they do for quite a few people.
Technically however, DSLRs do not surpass a decent 35mm camera with good film, at best they get near enough to make the difference irrelevant. Good reproduction of analog film requires expensive manual prints however, and that is where it goes wrong in many cases, and why it is easy to get better results from a digicam.
Digital photography of course has advantages that at a certain point outweight the possible quality loss.
The interface/menus on most cameras suck (especially P&S cameras - those menus are like a fucking maze, and what about the impossible to remember button combinations for anything non-trivial?)
Something that was solved quite some time ago by the early Camedia cameras from Olympus and anything similar to it.
Dynamic Range. I don't want more megapixels, and current noise levels are about as good as they'll ever get (compromises). But I *WANT* more dynamic range already - even better, a film-like "shoulder" in the response curve (in the highlights) - without having to combine pictures. It's annoying to have to combine shots all the time (even if one uses ND grads). This is perhaps the biggest issue with regards to digital photography right now.
The lack of 'shoulder' is inherent to using a digital representation of an inherently analog thing. It is the same as why too loud sounds clip in digital recordings. Analog fails gracefully when overstretched, digital doesn't.
You can get your 'shoulder' by adding more external light and then turning down brightness in your camera a few stops, so you are less close to the limits of your sensor without adding too much noise, but at the cost of less detail in shadowy areas.
An increase in dynamic range would be nice, 12bits/color would be a good start really, but any 'shoulder' you'd get from that will be artificial, and will always reduce the ability to do details in dark areas because the only way to create such a 'shoulder' is by reserving a part of the dynamic range for this 'shoulder'.
The only solution here is for the photographer to realize that there are inherent differences between analog and digital photography, and that both have their merrits depending on the situation and the desired result.
What about that four thirds "universal" system they used to talk so much about? I don't want to sell all my Nikon glass (several thousand $'s worth) to be able to use a Canon camera, or what if I wanted to use a Canon lens on my Nikon? This was supposed to let you do it by swapping a mount/adapter. Absolute freedom! No more system lock-in!
Ah, that would be so cool to have indeed. Seeing how thios never happened in a few decades of film SLRs, I don't see it happen with their digital equivalent for some time to come however.
The lighting system on most cameras is quickly becoming a mess. Forget about tried and working "real" TTL (matrix, color matrix or whatever). Now you need special oddball not-quite-TTL (dTTL/eTTL/iTTL) flashes for every new camera they put out... It's getting more complicated as you try to use things like plain TTL strobes and such... CCDs made this harder, and they try to make you believe it's better now, but it isn't.
No comment on this other then that every camera is different in this, and it is a bloody mess indeed.
There is not a specific RGB value for each pixel at this point, though there is a specific luminance value for every pixel, chrominance (color) is interpolated, much like it is with NTSC television.
.RAW file that you can't easily store as part of a picture in other formats is information about camera settings and measurements. When using TIFF however it would be possible to store this information as well, TIFF allows for adding custom data in a 'custom tag' that will be used by programs that understand it, and ignored by those that don't.
In other words, similar to how jpeg doesn't encode a rgb value for each pixel, rather, it uses a yuv colorspace with some information being there for each pixel (luminance) and some information being there only for every 2 or 4 pixels (chroma)...
When not introducing all kinds of 'intelligent' interpolation, conversion betwwen a luminance/chroma based system and RGB values is pretty trivial, and does not introduce 'loss'. Also, while it does take a bit of 'intelligence' to recognize which pixels are covered by the same chroma data, it is quite possible to convert back and get the same as the original.
What you may get in a
You know so much about LCDs, yet you ignore the Bayer mask technique most every camera uses. This by definition is not a raster format--where each pixel is defined by an RGB value.
Ah yes, so jpeg is not a raster format either, and frames in an mpeg file are not in a raster format either..
..since copying costs nobody anything.
/. excuse for stealing software.
argh, again with typical
That is not an excuse for anything, it is a matter of fact.
Now I think of it, we have had some earlier discussion on this.. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=145368&thresho ld=-1&commentsort=0&tid=155&mode=nested&cid=121724 07 and http://soapbox.bartsplace.net/article.php/20050416 0032461
And yes, you have a point, but that point is not very likely to convince the individual or small business developing software commerically. It will do a lot better with the kind of company that actually has the funds to fight such things.
Individuals and small businesses are responsible for a disproportionally large part of innovation in software, at times being succesfull, and when being succesfull at the expense of some of the big companies in the field, not seldom finding themselves with the choice between attacking more patents then they can possibly fight, or pay the barrier to market fee being demanded.
While many of the programs you use today may have some bigname company logo, the actual concepts behind many of them were thought up by some individual developer or small company.
I think that explains part of why many in the software industry have a problem with patents applying to their 'field', despite there also being some things in software development that may be worthy of a patent.
I see a clear problem in the current way 'obviousness' is tested, while patent law clearly says that an invention should not be obvious to someone practised in the field. The current practise does not match what that says. I uderstand the practical problems, and I don't know the solution, but I do know that that is not correct.
I also see in the field of software development that many problems arrise due to patents, and that often that is the result of combining some already known things (ie, prior art) in ways that are either already known and used, but cannot be found by the prior art search of the USPTO, or is obvious when you want to address the actual problem at hand.
Also, for all kinds of 'software' it can be said to be true that comming up with the idea to do something in a certain way is not the difficult part, it is getting a working implementation that is the difficult part, and that may be considered for protection as intended by the constitution. Actually, it is.. by copyright.
As you correctly assume I am not against patents in general, and not even against the concept of patents on software, but I do see that the current tests for obviousness play a role in the structural problems that the patent system seems to have. It is not the only thing playing a role tho.
What structural problems?
For example:
- Allowing a fast developing field of technology to quickly turn into a minefield for any small or new party entering the market.
- Allowing for a substantial number of silly, misguided and at times simply bad patents
- Strongly favors big business over small businesses and individual inventors
Fix those issues and I can quite live with the idea of patents.
Do I have a solution? no. Can I say that the current system is broken? quite. Would we be better off with a much stripped down system or none at all? likely. A system that actually works would be better still however.
Hmm... I wonder if that has anything to do with my prefence for the trackball for GUIs...
Hehe, I doubt it.. I never got hooked on Missile Command, yet I have the same preference for trackballs for GUIs (and many games)..
Interestingly, most people who spent a couple of hours playing video games here, or used my computer for a somewhat longer time otherwise, got themselves a trackball as well..
Oh, something I forgot in my previous post...
That's why I save. That's why I prepay for insurance. That's why I live in the safest places I can, and that's why I build relationships of trust and accountability with people all over my community and the world. I help those, and I hope they'll help me.
And guess what, in many countries that have a welfare system that actually somewhat works, it is a 'collective insurance', which can quite be held accountable. Now you may not like a mandatory 'collective insurance', and I can see some reasons for not liking that, but it works a lot better then you seem to believe. If all you have ever seen is the USA welfare system I can't entirely blame you, but the problems are with the implementation, not with the idea of welfare itself.
Again, I don't think you are wrong with regards to the problems you are seeing, but I believe your solutions are wrong. Fix the problems instead of getting rid completely of the thing in which those problems may occur.
When I lived in Ft. Lauderdale I was "poor" -- I had no savings and lived paycheck to paycheck.
You have no clue what poverty means if you think that that makes you 'poor'.
Come back with 'not having enough to even live from paycheck to paycheck' or 'not having a paycheck at all' and you get a little bit closer already.
After yet another hurricane, I moved to the Midwest because I couldn't handle the risk. The rewards were terrible. How did I afford the move? I worked an extra job and I saved.
Congratulations, and I completely agree that if you have that option, you should take it, and not blame others when you don't. Having that oppertunity is a luxory that many in such a situation won't have.
I suggest you go try run your own business someday (talk about own responsibility) and then get it destroyed by a hurricane or whatever. Oh, and try doing another job besides running a (fulltime) business. Some peopel can, some can't. It depends on the situation, and applying your situation to everyone is not going to work.
Moving from anywhere in the country to anywhere else to start over is not as costly as you think, and there are opportunities everywhere I travel in starting over.
Unfortunately, many people who lived on welfare were afraid to move or couldn't because the welfare organizations seem to create dependencies instead of building responsibilities. This is to be considered the norm as I have seen it.
Let me tell you a few things..
First of all, I don't live in the USA, I live in western Europe, where most countries have much more expanded welfare systems then the USA has ever had.
Now, I have actually lived on welfare for a short time, after first having payed some 13 years for it. I lived on it only for a limited time because depending on the state doesn't make me very happy, achieving something does. Additionally, the system was enforcing rules that did not help me achieve anything, rather, to some extent it prevented me from doing anything.
That said, it was a great help to get through a somewhat difficult time, and I'm gladly paying again for maintaining that system for everyone who needs it.
Own responsibility is about making the right choices for yourself and not blaming others for your choices. It is NOT about judging someone elses conditions.
Can you define "non-obviousness"? It doesn't really matter what field, since the definition is not technology-dependent, but if that makes you more comfortable, be my guest.
Hmm, the law talks about 'not obvious to someone practised in the field', and yet the 'field' is not relevant?
I know that that is indeed the opinion of many who are deeply involved in the patent system.
Obviousness in patent law has been reduced to 'combination of prior art together with pre-existing documented motivation to combine that prior art', which is utter bullshit.
Obviousness as per dictionary definitions is something that is easy to come up with, regardless of what parts were pre-existing.
That patent law intends the dictionary definition should be clear from the simple fact that prior art is dealt with seperately, or are you trying to suggest that patent law was written by complete idiots who didn't realize they covered the same thing twice?
So yes, the field is important, for the simple reason that the law says so. That judges have ignored that for the reason of it being somewhat difficult to deal with in court doesn't change that at all.
The problem with 'obviousness' in court is simple, wether something is easy or not to come up with is not something you can determine easily, and it is usually easy to find 'experts' arguing either side.
That does not change what the law says and intends to achieve, and the current practise has nothing to do with either letter or intention of that law.
So, give me a good explanation based on actual reason as to why we simply should ignore the fact that the law explicitly says it should not be obvious to someone practised in the field?
The thing is that we, as humans, ARE egocentric.
... skipping lots of stuff to come to the conclusion ....
And yet, we can accomplish much more as a group then as a bunch of individuals. If it wasn't for actually putting aside some of that egocentrism, we would not have gotten anywhere, we wouldn't even have survived long enough to get to make the first tools.
Realizing humans have an egocentric tendency is good, but then just accepting that and not lookign any further is just stupid and ignorant of human history.
I have no problem with others performing jobs I should be doing if I can hold them accountable for the jobs they do on my behalf. Government has no accountability beyond voting, and voting is restrictive and not very productive in setting guidelines and mandates. I don't vote, and I don't appreciate any government because I want accountability.
I have no desire to help those who will not be accountable to me while I am taking care of them and helping them get out of the hole they put themselves into. Everything that happens to us is based on decisions we previously made. Life is very fair, it is only when others force their beliefs on us that life is unfair -- and only government has the power to truly force anyone to do anything, legally.
Your problem is accountability, the obvious solution is to strive for accountability, not for extreme egocentrism.
In theory, the government is accountable, if that is not the case then the solution is to make it such. Discussing how much power a government should have is legitimate. Assuming that it can have no power because it will just abuse it or use it in ways it can't be held accountable for is either pointing at a very bad government and bad laws, or at complete and utter stupidity of the person making that claim, at least, a few thousand years of documented history seem to suggest so.
Why do a few thousand years of history suggest so? because followinbg your model has never got peopel beyond stone age conditions unless those conditions were there to begin with. Why? because individuals can't be bothered to do enough for the common good so there won't be the resources needed to get any further.
Last but not least, I'd refuse your help if that comes with religious and political fanatism as well, thanks.
The story you had about that family is a good one, and I agree with the principe you are pointing out there, if someoen receives help, they are also accountable for what they do with that help.
If you believe life is completely fair however and use that as justification for your actions then I suggest you tell us what decision of people causes hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis and so on? Which individual people decided on those things that caused those, and why are there so many who didn't make those choiuces but became the victim of it anyway?
I don't want anything bad to happen to you, but I hope for your own sake that some day you will find yourself in the situation of needing outside help. I also hope you can find it. You may learn a very big lesson from it.
And my point is that poverty-stricken people (or any people who are unable to care for a child) should not be having children, and anything that results from that lack of planning is their own damn fault.
So, how are they going to protect themselves? oh right, you are gonna say they shouldn't exist to begin with?
"Poverty" is not a valid excuse.
Not when living in an utopia, which we don't.
The GP seemed to've been justifying lax parenting with poverty, and that doesn't fly with me.
Please read a bit better next time.
GP pointed at the fact that poverty exists and that it can revent people from protecting themselves, and that it can also prevent them from protecting their children, simply because they cannot afford the means to do so.
When peoplke fail that, it quickly becomes a problem for society as a whole, and it leaves you 2 options:
1. accept it and do nothing (extreme Libertarian way)
2. deal with the problem (about everyone else)
Now, if you see that argument being made and you just go on about ones own responsibility, and completely ignore the impossibility of it, then don't be surprised that people consider you an extreme libertarian, and may even consider you someone who is extremely egocentric (as long as I can be safe, the rest of the world can die, I don't care)
Dead pixels happen still at least at times. If thatr is a problem really depends.
One or two pixels just staying dark somewhere at the extreme border of the screen is not something I find troublesome for text editing. A few pixels being stuck in 2 or 3 colors and near the center of the screen can be annoying however.
You will find the first situation more often then the later in my experience, but I have had no problem returning displays that had the later and getting a replacement.
On most displays that I have seen in the last 1 or 2 years however there are no noticable dead pixels (doesn't mean they have none, but when they do, it is usually in an out of the way place and they are usually stuck in a single color or black)
When you are not bothered by the 2 thin lines on a trinitron display, I am confident that one or two pixels stuck in black or red somewhere near the edges of the screen are not going to be bothersome either, and as someone else already mentioned, it is becomming more and more rare that those occur also.
A video card can easily help out by providing a few services that are usefull to most video codecs out there, most important are:
- hardware scaling
- colorspace translation
There is a standard for this on X, the xv extension.
The x.org drivers for ati and nvidia cards support it, and so do the proprietary drivers from ati and nvidia.
Most modern video players on Linux and other systems that use X support it as well.
In my experience the proprietary drivers do it a bit better and faster, but the x.org drivers are definitely usable for most situations.
First of all, I just love tinitron displays for the picture they produce, esp. for gaming (black level and variable refresh with vsync), video (black level, variable refresh with vsync, 'analog scaling' and depending on your display, native interlaced video) and graphics work where it is important that colors on your screen get as close to 'real' as possible. I have a small collection of them from 15" upto 30"
For heavy text editing and the like however I really do prefer a large TFT screen.
Why? all the things a trinitron CRT is good at and typical consumer TFT screens not won't matter for text editing at all while a TFT screen has some real advantages for it:
What you say about refresh rate and eye strain is true, but somewhat specific to CRT and similar technology, but doesn't apply to TFT screens.
Because there is no beam tracing lines on a screen, all the pixels are being displayed at the same time, there is some time involved in pixels having to change color, but the traditional flickering of a CRT simply does not occur at all, resulting in a stable and flicker free picture.
Then, a TFT screen doesn't have to deal with a whole bunch of inherently analog electronics to control and aim a beam of electrons, While a TFT screen is quite complex to make, it is surprisingly simple in its operation, and there is a lot less that can go wrong with again the result of a more stable picture.
Add DVI to the things above and you end up with a result that is pretty much impossible to match with a traditional CRT with regards to again getting a stable picture.
If you have to work with text a lot, do yourself the favor of trying one for a while if you can.
Well, in my book 'exclusive right for a limited term' is not even near absolute property rights, rather, it is a temporary grant from society. That implies that from the start, 'society' owns the invention, how else can they give such a grant on it?
Ok, sorry about the confusion, its indeed at the top level, and specifically answers the 'does wol work with linux' question being put up. That said, your post is informative in itself of course and maybe more an answer to the article then to my post about this wol + linux thiny? Ah well, it doesn't really matter anyway.
What you describe is how exactly the system can be turned on upon receiving a network packet. Of course you can do a bit more with this then just receiving a 'wake up call'. I f you can respond to that and given you have access to the correct registers, you can do a lot in response to any specific network packet.
That there needs to be some intelligence for actually responding to such a packet seems somewhat obvious to me. What kind of 'intelligence' this is I never mentioned, it is relevant to the main article because it is going to say something about power consumption (tho according to my measurements, the power use of wake on lan is pretty low), it however has nothing to do with the post I replied to which asked about using WOL with Linux.
At any rate, I have implemented WOL on a wide variety of hardware, and the only cases where the OS matters at all are those where the OS needs to re-enable WOL after boot. Those are the exception and not the rule. Provided you can boot it at all on your machine and your machine properly supports wake on lan, you could power it up and have it boot DOS 2.0 or such with wake on lan no problem.