I'm curious, as I thought 24 bit displays had been standard on computers for well over a decade now - is it common for laptops to have an 18 bit display, or is it only Apple that have decided to take us back to the 1990s?
What the video card does, what the monitor interface understands, and what the actual LCD panel itself can do are not always the same thing. The difference arises in the choice of panel. The manufacturer can use an 8BPP panel on its 24 bit displays and produce 24 bit color. Or, the manufacturer can use a much less expensive 6BPP panel and have the circuitry take 24 bit input and approximate it in 18 bits.
Another consideration is that 6 bit panels are generally much faster than 8 bit panels. That's why you see faster TN panels on the displays advertising under-5ms response times. You can get more accurate color and put up with ghosting during motion, or you can get dithered color with really fast response times. Since video is a large part of Apple's push, it would make sense for them to use faster panels.
Having said that, some manufacturers are much better at doing the approximation than others. Samsung's x06BW series, for example, actually does predictive analysis to get 2ms grey-to-grey response times. Black-to-white is still 5ms, but their software makes all the difference. They do use 6 bit panels, but the better the dithering algorithm, the less apparent it is. For what it's worth, the Samsung's dithering is pretty darn good.
Nice straw man you are building there... What I actually suggested was that rather than posting a 2 sentence "argument" on slashdot ( as you then proceed to do ) it would be a lot more useful if people actually went and read up on the subject.
As I read it, you were warning people not to take Slashdot discussions on the subject seriously (as you then proceeded to do.)
If you have already decided global warming is just left-wing propaganda without even trying to read up on it from any credible source ( peer reviewed journals are quite publicly available you know ), then quite frankly you just proved my point.
Frankly, I don't recall posting an opinion on the subject one way or another. Weren't you the one decrying the use of unsupported assertions? Any opinion you've ascribed to me is most likely just a product of your own zealotry on the subject.
At the end of the day the issue is so complex that the only one-liner that has even the slightest legitimacy is "this is what the vast majority of experts on the topic believe" and even that one requires credible references ( as so many sceptics will contest it ).
Damn straight! The whole issue is just way too complicated for us common folk to grasp. We should just shut up and do whatever the high priests tell us to, lest we risk drawing the anger of the Great and Powerful Oogy-boogy weather gods.
Now go find me a virgin SUV and two incandescent light bulbs to toss on the altar.
While EMI says they are willing, they, along with everyone else, are unlikely to embrace DRM free media until the idea of DRM free and profit being mutually exclusive is out of there heads. Once the day comes when a company can connect the dots and forecast long term profit off a DRM free scheme, it will be so.
Dammit, I've done it myself! I sold a thousand paper copies of a novel, not in spite of, but because of the fact that it was (and still is) available online for free. Sure, that's small change to someone like EMI, but for cryin' out loud it's not that big a mental leap. Treat your customers like adults and most of them will act like adults. Of the ones that don't, enough will act like billboards that it pays off in the end.
You must forgive the GP, he's drunk the bottle labeled "The Market Can Do No Wrong,"
mistaking this as an antidote to the bottle labeled "The Government Is Necessarily Evil."
Nope. I've got the bottle right here. It clearly reads "On Average, the Market is Going to Do Less Harm than the Government". The assumption I inherited from the previous post was that we needed a strong national ID. If that's a given, who would you trust with the keys to the kingdom? The folks who gave you warrantless wiretaps? The folks who gave you Japanese internment camps? The folks who brought you Homeland Security? Yeah, I thought so.
Market failures can be corrected. Government failures just go on and on and on.
Having some sort of 2 factor ID mechanism is fine by me.
I would mind the concept a lot less if it weren't some government-operated identification monopoly. What's wrong with licensing privately-owned, competitive "ID Verification Entities"? Make them bonded, audited, and financially liable for security failures. You could use third-party verification "gateways" in much the same way that retailers use credit card payment services.
At least you'd have competition to ramp up the quality of service and security, and have a much easier time enforcing the need for a court order when the feds come knocking.
No, because the value of a company's stock is based on real assets, liabilities, and income
That's only true at liquidation time. At any other time, the value of a company's stock is equal to its price: whatever the market is willing to pay for it. For the most part, that makes the stock market roughly equivalent to betting on the horses.
Democracy is where every "person" being governed has an equal say in the governing of society. Needless to say, it doesn't scale well.
Not only does it not scale well, but it's decidedly evil. It is, in every sense of the term, mob rule. A representative republic, while unwieldy in some circumstances, at least stands a chance of guarding some fundmental set of principles.
I would too, however unless specified somewhere, than "emergency conditions" is literally "whatever they declare them to be".
That's the difficulty involved in writing laws (or constitutions). They aren't binary. It's practically impossible to write them in such a way that Tab A will always fit into Slot B. That's why the US legal system has judges. Congress writes the law. Enforcement acts according to their interpretation, lawyers argue their interpretations, and judges apply their interpretations. Sometimes the interpretation stands and sometimes congress goes back and tries to fine tune things.
That's why civil disobedience is such an important part of the culture. Intentionally violating an unjust law can create a test case which forces another long look at a law's interpretation.
The gist of the discussion was we "had to have" a file menu, and it had to be on the top left of the application even though there was no notion of "File" for this application. The rationale? Because that's the way Microsoft did all of their applications.
There's a big advantage, though, to having some generalized standards to the interface, even if they're just conventions. Users are comfortable that any Web browser is likely to have an icon in the upper-right corner with visual feedback for activity. It will probably have a "Back" button that carries with it certain expectations that it will take you to the previous page.
The "File" menu is where I expect to find the "Exit" command. I also expect to be able to get there with "ALT-F X". Over twenty years of common usage have reduced that concept to instinct. User expectations should only be thwarted with great care, even if the change is demonstrably "for the better".
I have no idea whether industry convention or US law mandates that the turn signal lever be on the left side of the steering column in cars, or that the clutch-brake-gas pedal order be kept that way, but I'm glad they're consistent. It would be a serious problem if the driving public had to learn how to drive all over again every time an auto company wanted the marketing hype associated with a "radical revision" of the driving experience.
Science is responsible for many, many important things, and it is damned well something we need to emphasize more in schools. It is not, in my opinion, the end-all, be-all of humanity
No, but reason is, and the two are (or at least should be) closely linked.
Meanwhile there are plenty of stories around where so-called 'security' cameras were abused to invade on people's privacy.
Oh good grief! There are plenty of stories around about the misuse of all kinds of things, from broomsticks to basketballs. Should we ban them all?
Thinking you can control behavior by controlling access to technology is just absurd. The concept of "privacy through obscurity" doesn't work any better than "security through obscurity" does. A lack of security cameras sure kept Hoover from building dossiers on all sorts of private citizens, didn't it?
Try these concepts:
So-called 'security' cameras should be banned because they can be used to invade privacy.
So-called P2P file 'sharing' programs should be banned because they can be used to violate copyrights.
So-called Web 'forums' should be banned because terrorists might use them to plot crimes.
f it is true what you say and indeed this is the first time that the killer was actually caught *because of* the cameras, this only shows how ineffective cameras are for security purposes.
It shows no such thing. The cameras involved weren't put there to catch serial killers. Catching this monster was nothing but a happy accident. In fact, TFA only mentions one set of government owned cameras involved: the ones at the scene of the murder. Those images, while helpful, were inadequate. The cameras involved in catching the guy were primarily those of private businesses. I'm sure those businesses could have refused the police requests to view the footage on the moral grounds of protecting privacy rights.
In fact, the final identification came from a bus company employee. Do we ban eyes next? After all, they've been used to violate privacy too.
How does this have anything to do with my rights online?
Because now you have a lot fewer of those rights.
Yeah, what with being forced to use Google and all.
I mean, seriously, which right was violated here? The right to use a search engine without records? The right to use someone's wireless network without records?
The only question is, what is the best approach to encourage more honorable folks to run for office?
That's easy. Make it a more honorable calling. Lessen the position's power and profitability, and the sharks will find other waters in which to swim, leaving room for the civic-minded Mr. Smiths. Sadly, that's never going to happen. Tyrants don't yield power willingly.
In the old days, people had to hire armies and intimidate peasants in order to be major-league thugs with their own little fiefdoms. Now they just have to get elected.
Welcome to a world that lacks accountability and responsibility for your actions.
Yes, but it goes further than that. Once it's officially a disease, the money kicks in.
Grant money to study it. Federal money to treat it. The big insurance boondoggle over covering its treatment. Of course, labor will insist that you can't be fired for catching a cold, right? Then you get the ADA brigade insisting that the poor sufferers of this disease should have "fair access" to strip clubs, restaurants, and sporting events without being harassed by constant reminders of the presence of alcohol. We'll get telethons and benefit concerts (Sot-Aid '09) and special in-school programs ("Why Can't Johnny Drink?") and maybe vomit-colored ribbons for Hollywood celebrities to wear on awards shows ("Here's to you, Mel") and high-profile lawsuits against makers of cold medicine, mouth wash, and vanilla extract for "negligently" slipping alcohol into their products and PC-police storm troopers excoriating writers for writing crass, insensitive drunk jokes based on taboo stereotypes ("Not all drunks puke on their shoes, you know!").
Yes, but I can still extract Hydrogen from mud, so what's your point? Why are you commenting on the lack of clean water for hydrating animals as if its relates to energy economics?
Maybe because buried within the crowd that is genuinely concerned with environmental issues and sustainable energy is another group with very different goals. Cut open a lousy argument, and you'll often find a rotten, political core.
When there was only the iPod as a really good portable player, iTunes was the only game in town.
Either you're rewriting history a little bit, or you're using a very different definition of really good than I would. The iPod was a relative latecomer to the digital audio player market, and to someone like me, who fancies himself something of an audiophile, it's still not really good. At most, Apple pedestrianized the DAP, introducing the concept to people outside of the techie and audiophile markets that already existed. It supports limited formats, has a lame, non-parametric equalizer, and a poor final stage.
What it does have is gorgeous styling, a comfortable UI, and a brilliantly smooth end-to-end player-to-software-to-store arrangement. To me, that makes it a popular portable player, not necessarily a really good one.
Still inexcusable, but I just wonder if Deibold et al just suck, and aren't malicious.
Do you really have to wonder? Let's see. On the one hand, they could rig their proprietary software to diddle the vote count in completely unnoticeable ways, thus accomplishing their goal and getting away clean. On the other hand, they could mess around with the touch screen interface to intentionally shift it's registration in whatever direction it needs to go to slide the dem votes towards the reps (just read the screen buffer, I suppose), while still being careful to count the total misses as rep votes, thus accomplishing the goal _IF_ enough people don't notice which candidate is actually selected, _AND_ not enough of those who do notice raise a ruckus, _AND_ they have enough cash on hand to pay the judges necessary to swing the inevitable court case their way.
Seems like a no-brainer to me. Shoddy equipment and idiotic design highlighted by equally shoddy and idiotic "reporting." The Register should just come out of the tabloid closet and go with the "My Wife is an Alien Wolf-Girl with Two Heads!!!!!" kind of story. It might actually improve its journalistic reputation.
I agree that this is perhaps THE most pressing issue right now for Americans, but is it really ethical to distribute this kind of information? At what point do you take responsibility for what you post, and NOT diseminate information that, in the wrong hands, will cause what you are trying to prevent?
If it were a matter of public safety, or even the personal safety of some segment of the public, I might agree with you. But in this case, it is no more harmful than refusing to give up a seat on a bus or burning a draft card. Bigger, maybe. More tumultuous. But no more harmful.
Disseminating such information helps set the stage for a very real court challenge, one that will hopefully force the courts, lawmakers, and the public to focus on the very real mess that this can become. If one court in one state determines that some legal standard, say blood-alcohol tests, for example, are unreliable, that decision can then be used as precedent in future cases. Similarly, if one court in one jursidiction determines that electronic voting systems are too vulnerable unless X, Y, and Z steps are taken, it becomes a matter of public record and can be used to force a more rigorous security standard on such systems without which the results are automatically suspect.
This is the exact type of argument that I believe cannot win without an unnecessarily long legal battle. Consider an analogy; record companies sell licenses to radio stations allowing them to distribute music... radio stations provide the music over the air for all to hear for free in some aggregated block of music programming time (really simple syndication), and they make money through ads. The record companies are happy with this because the radio stations both pay for the right to play the music, and drive spending by promoting the music... it's win-win, with a doubleplusbig win for the record company which effectively gets paid twice.
This analogy falls apart sooner than you state, though. The RSS feed is already stripped down to content only. If the radio station were somehow putting out a separate stream of nothing but the music, without chatter or ads, that would be equivalent to an RSS feed.
RSS feeds don't currently match existing models. In the publishing model, to get reprint rights for a print article, you go to the rights holder and pay for a license. There's a gate-keeping function in place at which the rights holder can collect revenue.
In the broadcast model, the ads and source ID are inserted directly into the stream. The equivalent of a republisher in this model would be a restaurant or retail store that replays that stream in their establishment. Technically, they're supposed to pay a license fee to do so, such as when a sports bar shows events. There's no gate-keeping function, but then again, the ads are inserted into the stream.
If content producers want to match those models, they'll have to match the mechanism of those models. They can either insert text-based, editorial-style ads directly into the stream (similar to "sponsored results" in search engine results), or they can use a feed mechanism that includes authentication to provide some kind of gate-keeping function at which revenue can be collected for subscriptions.
Outside of those solutions, forget it. The Internet will continue to do what the Internet does. If you put a free, unrestricted feed of your content out there, it's going to be out there. If you want the traffic to come to your site, limit your feed to "teaser" portions of the articles including a linkback to the original. Otherwise, just accept it. "You can't stop the signal, Mal."
Slashdot Mirror
What the video card does, what the monitor interface understands, and what the actual LCD panel itself can do are not always the same thing. The difference arises in the choice of panel. The manufacturer can use an 8BPP panel on its 24 bit displays and produce 24 bit color. Or, the manufacturer can use a much less expensive 6BPP panel and have the circuitry take 24 bit input and approximate it in 18 bits.
Another consideration is that 6 bit panels are generally much faster than 8 bit panels. That's why you see faster TN panels on the displays advertising under-5ms response times. You can get more accurate color and put up with ghosting during motion, or you can get dithered color with really fast response times. Since video is a large part of Apple's push, it would make sense for them to use faster panels.
Having said that, some manufacturers are much better at doing the approximation than others. Samsung's x06BW series, for example, actually does predictive analysis to get 2ms grey-to-grey response times. Black-to-white is still 5ms, but their software makes all the difference. They do use 6 bit panels, but the better the dithering algorithm, the less apparent it is. For what it's worth, the Samsung's dithering is pretty darn good.
As I read it, you were warning people not to take Slashdot discussions on the subject seriously (as you then proceeded to do.)
Frankly, I don't recall posting an opinion on the subject one way or another. Weren't you the one decrying the use of unsupported assertions? Any opinion you've ascribed to me is most likely just a product of your own zealotry on the subject.
Damn straight! The whole issue is just way too complicated for us common folk to grasp. We should just shut up and do whatever the high priests tell us to, lest we risk drawing the anger of the Great and Powerful Oogy-boogy weather gods.
Now go find me a virgin SUV and two incandescent light bulbs to toss on the altar.
Clearly, they don't read Slashdot. Want a music example? Maybe they should read Slashdot.
Dammit, I've done it myself! I sold a thousand paper copies of a novel, not in spite of, but because of the fact that it was (and still is) available online for free. Sure, that's small change to someone like EMI, but for cryin' out loud it's not that big a mental leap. Treat your customers like adults and most of them will act like adults. Of the ones that don't, enough will act like billboards that it pays off in the end.
Hmmm, let's see.
Weird Abbreviations Specifically To Emaphasize Technology In Media Environments
About five minutes.
Nope. I've got the bottle right here. It clearly reads "On Average, the Market is Going to Do Less Harm than the Government". The assumption I inherited from the previous post was that we needed a strong national ID. If that's a given, who would you trust with the keys to the kingdom? The folks who gave you warrantless wiretaps? The folks who gave you Japanese internment camps? The folks who brought you Homeland Security? Yeah, I thought so.
Market failures can be corrected. Government failures just go on and on and on.
I would mind the concept a lot less if it weren't some government-operated identification monopoly. What's wrong with licensing privately-owned, competitive "ID Verification Entities"? Make them bonded, audited, and financially liable for security failures. You could use third-party verification "gateways" in much the same way that retailers use credit card payment services.
At least you'd have competition to ramp up the quality of service and security, and have a much easier time enforcing the need for a court order when the feds come knocking.
That's only true at liquidation time. At any other time, the value of a company's stock is equal to its price: whatever the market is willing to pay for it. For the most part, that makes the stock market roughly equivalent to betting on the horses.
Not only does it not scale well, but it's decidedly evil. It is, in every sense of the term, mob rule. A representative republic, while unwieldy in some circumstances, at least stands a chance of guarding some fundmental set of principles.
An old Jedi mind trick:
Its apostrophe is missing, because it's been moved over here.
That's the difficulty involved in writing laws (or constitutions). They aren't binary. It's practically impossible to write them in such a way that Tab A will always fit into Slot B. That's why the US legal system has judges. Congress writes the law. Enforcement acts according to their interpretation, lawyers argue their interpretations, and judges apply their interpretations. Sometimes the interpretation stands and sometimes congress goes back and tries to fine tune things.
That's why civil disobedience is such an important part of the culture. Intentionally violating an unjust law can create a test case which forces another long look at a law's interpretation.
There's a big advantage, though, to having some generalized standards to the interface, even if they're just conventions. Users are comfortable that any Web browser is likely to have an icon in the upper-right corner with visual feedback for activity. It will probably have a "Back" button that carries with it certain expectations that it will take you to the previous page.
The "File" menu is where I expect to find the "Exit" command. I also expect to be able to get there with "ALT-F X". Over twenty years of common usage have reduced that concept to instinct. User expectations should only be thwarted with great care, even if the change is demonstrably "for the better".
I have no idea whether industry convention or US law mandates that the turn signal lever be on the left side of the steering column in cars, or that the clutch-brake-gas pedal order be kept that way, but I'm glad they're consistent. It would be a serious problem if the driving public had to learn how to drive all over again every time an auto company wanted the marketing hype associated with a "radical revision" of the driving experience.
Sweet, huh? It's almost like they can remember it for us--for free!
No, but reason is, and the two are (or at least should be) closely linked.
Oh good grief! There are plenty of stories around about the misuse of all kinds of things, from broomsticks to basketballs. Should we ban them all?
Thinking you can control behavior by controlling access to technology is just absurd. The concept of "privacy through obscurity" doesn't work any better than "security through obscurity" does. A lack of security cameras sure kept Hoover from building dossiers on all sorts of private citizens, didn't it?
Try these concepts:
It shows no such thing. The cameras involved weren't put there to catch serial killers. Catching this monster was nothing but a happy accident. In fact, TFA only mentions one set of government owned cameras involved: the ones at the scene of the murder. Those images, while helpful, were inadequate. The cameras involved in catching the guy were primarily those of private businesses. I'm sure those businesses could have refused the police requests to view the footage on the moral grounds of protecting privacy rights.
In fact, the final identification came from a bus company employee. Do we ban eyes next? After all, they've been used to violate privacy too.
Okay. In Soviet Russia, Windows runs you. Oh, wait. . . .
Kudos on the post's headline being more accurate than TFA's headline.
The article's headline says: "Google searches nab wireless hacker," but the article actually says:
That may seem like simple semantics, but it's actually a pretty big difference.
Yeah, what with being forced to use Google and all.
I mean, seriously, which right was violated here? The right to use a search engine without records? The right to use someone's wireless network without records?
That's easy. Make it a more honorable calling. Lessen the position's power and profitability, and the sharks will find other waters in which to swim, leaving room for the civic-minded Mr. Smiths. Sadly, that's never going to happen. Tyrants don't yield power willingly.
In the old days, people had to hire armies and intimidate peasants in order to be major-league thugs with their own little fiefdoms. Now they just have to get elected.
Yes, but it goes further than that. Once it's officially a disease, the money kicks in.
Grant money to study it. Federal money to treat it. The big insurance boondoggle over covering its treatment. Of course, labor will insist that you can't be fired for catching a cold, right? Then you get the ADA brigade insisting that the poor sufferers of this disease should have "fair access" to strip clubs, restaurants, and sporting events without being harassed by constant reminders of the presence of alcohol. We'll get telethons and benefit concerts (Sot-Aid '09) and special in-school programs ("Why Can't Johnny Drink?") and maybe vomit-colored ribbons for Hollywood celebrities to wear on awards shows ("Here's to you, Mel") and high-profile lawsuits against makers of cold medicine, mouth wash, and vanilla extract for "negligently" slipping alcohol into their products and PC-police storm troopers excoriating writers for writing crass, insensitive drunk jokes based on taboo stereotypes ("Not all drunks puke on their shoes, you know!").
Good times ahead.
Maybe because buried within the crowd that is genuinely concerned with environmental issues and sustainable energy is another group with very different goals. Cut open a lousy argument, and you'll often find a rotten, political core.
Either you're rewriting history a little bit, or you're using a very different definition of really good than I would. The iPod was a relative latecomer to the digital audio player market, and to someone like me, who fancies himself something of an audiophile, it's still not really good. At most, Apple pedestrianized the DAP, introducing the concept to people outside of the techie and audiophile markets that already existed. It supports limited formats, has a lame, non-parametric equalizer, and a poor final stage.
What it does have is gorgeous styling, a comfortable UI, and a brilliantly smooth end-to-end player-to-software-to-store arrangement. To me, that makes it a popular portable player, not necessarily a really good one.
Do you really have to wonder? Let's see. On the one hand, they could rig their proprietary software to diddle the vote count in completely unnoticeable ways, thus accomplishing their goal and getting away clean. On the other hand, they could mess around with the touch screen interface to intentionally shift it's registration in whatever direction it needs to go to slide the dem votes towards the reps (just read the screen buffer, I suppose), while still being careful to count the total misses as rep votes, thus accomplishing the goal _IF_ enough people don't notice which candidate is actually selected, _AND_ not enough of those who do notice raise a ruckus, _AND_ they have enough cash on hand to pay the judges necessary to swing the inevitable court case their way.
Seems like a no-brainer to me. Shoddy equipment and idiotic design highlighted by equally shoddy and idiotic "reporting." The Register should just come out of the tabloid closet and go with the "My Wife is an Alien Wolf-Girl with Two Heads!!!!!" kind of story. It might actually improve its journalistic reputation.
If it were a matter of public safety, or even the personal safety of some segment of the public, I might agree with you. But in this case, it is no more harmful than refusing to give up a seat on a bus or burning a draft card. Bigger, maybe. More tumultuous. But no more harmful.
Disseminating such information helps set the stage for a very real court challenge, one that will hopefully force the courts, lawmakers, and the public to focus on the very real mess that this can become. If one court in one state determines that some legal standard, say blood-alcohol tests, for example, are unreliable, that decision can then be used as precedent in future cases. Similarly, if one court in one jursidiction determines that electronic voting systems are too vulnerable unless X, Y, and Z steps are taken, it becomes a matter of public record and can be used to force a more rigorous security standard on such systems without which the results are automatically suspect.
This analogy falls apart sooner than you state, though. The RSS feed is already stripped down to content only. If the radio station were somehow putting out a separate stream of nothing but the music, without chatter or ads, that would be equivalent to an RSS feed.
RSS feeds don't currently match existing models. In the publishing model, to get reprint rights for a print article, you go to the rights holder and pay for a license. There's a gate-keeping function in place at which the rights holder can collect revenue.
In the broadcast model, the ads and source ID are inserted directly into the stream. The equivalent of a republisher in this model would be a restaurant or retail store that replays that stream in their establishment. Technically, they're supposed to pay a license fee to do so, such as when a sports bar shows events. There's no gate-keeping function, but then again, the ads are inserted into the stream.
If content producers want to match those models, they'll have to match the mechanism of those models. They can either insert text-based, editorial-style ads directly into the stream (similar to "sponsored results" in search engine results), or they can use a feed mechanism that includes authentication to provide some kind of gate-keeping function at which revenue can be collected for subscriptions.
Outside of those solutions, forget it. The Internet will continue to do what the Internet does. If you put a free, unrestricted feed of your content out there, it's going to be out there. If you want the traffic to come to your site, limit your feed to "teaser" portions of the articles including a linkback to the original. Otherwise, just accept it. "You can't stop the signal, Mal."