Hear, hear! I came to a similar conclusion when I was at SIGGRAPH years ago. I saw the US branch of the MIT Medialab had a booth (I never knew there was European branch until reading this story). The booth was stuck in the basement with all the dregs of the show, doing demos that looked like they were out of the 70s or even earlier. They had this one demo involving "Choco" the parrot, and you had to interact with it somehow. Felt like a 1960s graphics and interactivity demo, seriously. It was disgusting. The only thing about their booth that attracted anyone was the name, and once you got close enough, it was clear that was all they had (and they plastered said name on nearly every square inch of that booth too, let me tell you!)
Nobody. Call it an assumption. A bit of digging reveals it to be a correct assumption, though.
Oh really? What, exactly? I challenge you to produce any evidence that I was born in the United States or have even lived a majority of my life there.
Because the people who did that have no motivation to do anything otherwise. It's conceivable to me that there's another reason, but "mistake" is the obvious one. Just like if you showed me something that looked like a potato, I'd say it's "obviously" a potato, even though it's conceivable that it's actually a plastic model of a potato.
I can think of no reason, under any circumstances, why a lawsuit should be pursued first, before you even ask for the change.
A lawsuit will publicly discourage other muicipalities from trying the same tactics. Asking nicely is not going to get a city like Sacramento to give up $4.3 million a year in revenues.
Who said I'm a yank? Why is it "obviously" a mistake? Can you think of any reasons why a lawsuit might be more useful than simply asking, particularly when people in other US cities decide to pressure their local governments to fix their traffic lights?
Document it, preferably with video and multiple witnesses. Sue the city. Offer to settle if they:
Reprogram all lights in the city to be as efficient for drivers as possible
Implement "sunshine" regulations to keep traffic and traffic light data as open to the public as possible
(insert other sensible stuff here)
In your lawsuit, don't demand money, demand a solution. (Yes, I realize I just made another post in in this story in which I advocated demanding money. I was kidding there, but I am serious now.)
If you are going the speed limit you should have no trouble making that stop safely.
Sure about that? When I was in middle school, a girl in my class did a science fair project in which she timed yellow lights around the city. Looking at the posted speed limit, 30% of traffic lights surveyed did not give enough time to stop safely according to the table of "safe stopping distances" for various speeds found in the state's own driver handbook. And this was before the red light cameras even existed. Now that those cameras are everywhere, do you suppose it's gotten better or worse?
A person could potentially make a lot of money with a lawsuit based on a repeat of the girl's science fair project. It takes a lot of free time to do surveys like that, but it can be done. Maybe I should set aside some time and do it myself. If someone's going to get rich off this, it might as well be me!
Don't forget using LCD goggles and headphones to watch video. It would be a personal mini-theater. Great for working out on a treadmill or long plane trips.
Yes, but there is no doubt that companies have spent way too much on IT over the years, buying software they don't need, upgrading hardware that didn't need to be upgraded, spending large amounts employing in-house admins to babysit poor quality software.
I think corporate America has gotten a wake-up call about spending too much money on computers, and is finally being smarter about it. That's a good thing really, despite the displaced workers.
Also, see some of the threads over at film-tech.com (a website/forum for projectionists). Most of them think it's neat, although there is some (probably not unjustified) worry that it could start a trend that would quickly grow out of control. Just image a year from now Disney or Fox decides to put their logo in a corner of the screen and keep it there through the whole movie, like those translucent logos that show up on the majority of cable TV channels. Yuk. Hopefully that won't happen, though.
It's also the first movie to CREEP ME THE FUCK OUT just by watching the trailers. When the train conductor winks, I just want to run away. I'm surpirsed the kid doesn't.
Train conductor: "All that matters is if ya get on..." *wink*
Kid: "AAAAAAAHH!! Get away from me!!!" *runs off screaming*
Does the term "uncanny valley" ring a bell? I get a first hand experience of it every time I see that trailer. No way in hell I'm sitting through two hours of THAT.
No way. This will be a case of "Ok, since you're a big, rich corporation, we'll make an exception for YOU, but all the little people will still get their faces ground into the dust by the system."
I work with 24 bit DSPs all the time (Motorola 56301), and frequently have to use the 48 bit long-long format in the core of my routines to prevent overflow. If they were 32 bit DSPs, that would greatly simplify my life.
And just think how many applications out there use 24-bit DSP and don't bother doing the long-long trick to avoid losing precision. Yeccch.
Hell, if you go to a lot of multinational companies' websites, the first thing they do is find out what country you are in. Canon, JVC, Sony all have prominent links on their front pages for various nation-specific versions of their home pages, all hosted on nation-specific servers. Eliminating top level domains would just elminiate that step, as people would just type in the correct country as part of the domain.
Everyone is too used to doing it the old way, though, so I doubt it would ever happen.
The "close the blast door" line was there in 1977, just not in all prints. It was in the 35mm mono mix, but not the 70mm 6-track mix. See here and here for more info.
The only change made to ANH in the 80s was to add the "Episode IV" text to the opening crawl (references here and here). The rest of the movie was untouched until 1997.
He missed quite a few changes, most notably SFX shots in the final battle scene which were redone with computer animation for the 1997 version.
Not to mention the changes in color saturation and resolution he notes have more to do with the screenhots of the earlier versions being pulled (presumably) from Laserdisc and VHS, and the screenhots of the newest version being pulled from DVD, and less to do with Lowry's restoration.
I told that to a guy I know recently (the kind of "copyright is evil, info wants to be free" dipshit you see on slashdot all the time), and his repsonse was just "I've got more stuff than I would ever want anyway." He had a shitload of TV and movies on his hard drives, and didn't seem to give a crap that people weren't getting paid for it, or that they would stop creating new content someday.
Funny thing is, the same guy had a shitload of video games that he had BOUGHT AND PAID FOR and probably would balk at the idea of using burned copies. He didn't really believe in any advanced principles, just didn't feel like paying for movies.
Thank you for posting a little common sense. Last time there was one of these stories, there were a bunch of people posting about how a bunch of small independents were going to use these "revolutionary" new tools to demolish the Hollywood monopoly. What a load.
I agree with the original poster, application bake-offs are the most important measure at the end of the day. But your comment illustrates something: I wish Apple would just stop using Photoshop in bake offs entirely. People have gotten so used to dismissing them they don't even pay attention anymore. Apple showed several other application comparisons on stage in addition to the Photoshop stuff, but everyone ignores them and just says "Photoshop tests don't matter, LOL". If they dropped Photoshop completely and went entirely with things like video and audio encoding, 3D rendering, etc. that might get people's attention. (Although there will always be a group of people ready to explain away the results with a handwave no matter what.)
Not only that, but there is Steve Jobs' personality to consider. He is not the sort of person to go for a sneaky, "viral" marketing approach with fake leaks and so forth. He is definitely the frontal assault type. Make a big splash, on stage, with the whole world watching -- that is Steve's style.
This was clearly a mistake.
The "real-proper" SVCD version of Matrix Reloaded that everyone was BTing at that time also has keystoning. Just look at the opening titles: the matrix code is falling in diagonal lines, when they should be exactly vertical.
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Hear, hear! I came to a similar conclusion when I was at SIGGRAPH years ago. I saw the US branch of the MIT Medialab had a booth (I never knew there was European branch until reading this story). The booth was stuck in the basement with all the dregs of the show, doing demos that looked like they were out of the 70s or even earlier. They had this one demo involving "Choco" the parrot, and you had to interact with it somehow. Felt like a 1960s graphics and interactivity demo, seriously. It was disgusting. The only thing about their booth that attracted anyone was the name, and once you got close enough, it was clear that was all they had (and they plastered said name on nearly every square inch of that booth too, let me tell you!)
He may have joined the FCC under Clinton in 1997, but he didn't become chairman until he was appointed so by Bush, in 2001.
Who said I'm a yank? Why is it "obviously" a mistake? Can you think of any reasons why a lawsuit might be more useful than simply asking, particularly when people in other US cities decide to pressure their local governments to fix their traffic lights?
- Reprogram all lights in the city to be as efficient for drivers as possible
- Implement "sunshine" regulations to keep traffic and traffic light data as open to the public as possible
- (insert other sensible stuff here)
In your lawsuit, don't demand money, demand a solution. (Yes, I realize I just made another post in in this story in which I advocated demanding money. I was kidding there, but I am serious now.)Sure about that? When I was in middle school, a girl in my class did a science fair project in which she timed yellow lights around the city. Looking at the posted speed limit, 30% of traffic lights surveyed did not give enough time to stop safely according to the table of "safe stopping distances" for various speeds found in the state's own driver handbook. And this was before the red light cameras even existed. Now that those cameras are everywhere, do you suppose it's gotten better or worse?
A person could potentially make a lot of money with a lawsuit based on a repeat of the girl's science fair project. It takes a lot of free time to do surveys like that, but it can be done. Maybe I should set aside some time and do it myself. If someone's going to get rich off this, it might as well be me!
End users do not pay for software, unless we're talking about games.
Don't forget using LCD goggles and headphones to watch video. It would be a personal mini-theater. Great for working out on a treadmill or long plane trips.
They only fall back to reporting Yahoo results when their own results are not available.
I think corporate America has gotten a wake-up call about spending too much money on computers, and is finally being smarter about it. That's a good thing really, despite the displaced workers.
Leave out the "ratty old clothes" next time and see what effect that has.
Also, see some of the threads over at film-tech.com (a website/forum for projectionists). Most of them think it's neat, although there is some (probably not unjustified) worry that it could start a trend that would quickly grow out of control. Just image a year from now Disney or Fox decides to put their logo in a corner of the screen and keep it there through the whole movie, like those translucent logos that show up on the majority of cable TV channels. Yuk. Hopefully that won't happen, though.
Train conductor: "All that matters is if ya get on..." *wink*
Kid: "AAAAAAAHH!! Get away from me!!!" *runs off screaming*
Does the term "uncanny valley" ring a bell? I get a first hand experience of it every time I see that trailer. No way in hell I'm sitting through two hours of THAT.
No way. This will be a case of "Ok, since you're a big, rich corporation, we'll make an exception for YOU, but all the little people will still get their faces ground into the dust by the system."
32-bit audio hardware will be good thing, agreed.
Everyone is too used to doing it the old way, though, so I doubt it would ever happen.
The only change made to ANH in the 80s was to add the "Episode IV" text to the opening crawl (references here and here). The rest of the movie was untouched until 1997.
Not to mention the changes in color saturation and resolution he notes have more to do with the screenhots of the earlier versions being pulled (presumably) from Laserdisc and VHS, and the screenhots of the newest version being pulled from DVD, and less to do with Lowry's restoration.
Funny thing is, the same guy had a shitload of video games that he had BOUGHT AND PAID FOR and probably would balk at the idea of using burned copies. He didn't really believe in any advanced principles, just didn't feel like paying for movies.
It's all about the free shit.
Here ya go.
I can't believe that shithead fragmaster actually managed to write something funny for once.
Thank you for posting a little common sense. Last time there was one of these stories, there were a bunch of people posting about how a bunch of small independents were going to use these "revolutionary" new tools to demolish the Hollywood monopoly. What a load.
I agree with the original poster, application bake-offs are the most important measure at the end of the day. But your comment illustrates something: I wish Apple would just stop using Photoshop in bake offs entirely. People have gotten so used to dismissing them they don't even pay attention anymore. Apple showed several other application comparisons on stage in addition to the Photoshop stuff, but everyone ignores them and just says "Photoshop tests don't matter, LOL". If they dropped Photoshop completely and went entirely with things like video and audio encoding, 3D rendering, etc. that might get people's attention. (Although there will always be a group of people ready to explain away the results with a handwave no matter what.)
Not only that, but there is Steve Jobs' personality to consider. He is not the sort of person to go for a sneaky, "viral" marketing approach with fake leaks and so forth. He is definitely the frontal assault type. Make a big splash, on stage, with the whole world watching -- that is Steve's style. This was clearly a mistake.
The "real-proper" SVCD version of Matrix Reloaded that everyone was BTing at that time also has keystoning. Just look at the opening titles: the matrix code is falling in diagonal lines, when they should be exactly vertical.