They do still exist. I was setting up a win8 machine a while back and it kept blue screening. It seems that the manufacturer installed AV was fighting with Microsoft's security and would bring the whole machine down. I removed the AV and suggested only connecting to the internet for updates (system was a mission critical laptop running medical software)
In my case (and I would think many other photographers, videographers, graphic designers, etc) I often deal with files over 100 MB and occasionally deal with files approaching 1GB. Wifi would suck in these instances.
And since I work interactively with the files, I could not just upload them, let the servers work on them, and download the finished product. I admit that there are has been some advances in working with a virtual file, then just rendering the final file on output, but none of these are perfect yet.
Yes it is. My desktop (which I am planning to upgrade soon) has 12 GB of RAM, and 4 TB of on board storage (another 6 TB of external storage not including removable backup disks)
I use my machine mainly for photography. I would really find it lacking if I were to get into video.
A phone that had anywhere near this performance would be power hungry, large, and heavy. Until we come up with a way to realistically use external RAM, a phone will not be able to compete with a real workstation...
and add perspective control. One of the biggest disadvantages of cell phones is lack of a good zoom lens. And no, a zoom lens is not used just to get you visually closer to your subject.
I have been offered jobs away from my (then) current position. Every employer has been impressed that I want to give two weeks notice, even if the current employer is known to be a douchebag. It shows a level of integrity and honesty that is more important than any hard skills you may have.
...y human contact with wild Orcas is extremely rare...
There is an entire whale (orca) watching tourist sector here in the Pacific Nothwest to GUARANTEE you will spot some orcas. Granted you will not be swimming with them, but there are many companies with multiple trips daily. This doesn't include private boats or kayaks. Many people, including scientists, say the wild orcas have a real sense of curiosity, and will come up to the boats to see what is going on. If they really were that aggressive, it would be too easy for them to grab a snack or two.
I think you and I disagree on a fundamental point.
You feel that disasters happen, and that you should be prepared (by having insurance)
I feel that disasters are rare. Most (not all) disasters are also avoidable IMNSHO.
As an example, my car has been broken into twice in the last 15 years. (my car is very easily broken into...) On the first occasion, they got a laptop and some other stuff, on the second occasion they got about $5.00 in parking change. Let's say the two thieves got away with $1000 in goods and $500 in damage (I am probably being generous...). So $1500 in 15 years, or $100 per year. I pay way more than that in insurance. Oh, and insurance did not cover any of the expenses. I could have fought it, but the deductible was $200, and my rates would have gone up. How is this a good idea for me again?
so in other words, insurance motivates you to do things you should do anyway. And for the privilege of this knowledge you get to pay them less.
The other alternative is to do these things anyway....
Yes I know that, in theory, insurance can be a way to balance risk over a wider group. However, much modern insurance is a money grabbing scam. Most people are way over insured, and pay more in premiums that the realistic risk.
I am not a fan of insurance in general. In essence, you are betting against yourself.
For the case of this article, why don't you take the money you pay in insurance premiums and invest it in securing your systems... Seems like a better bet to me.
Yes I am using a small underpowered smartphone (I got it because I don't want to carry around a huge slab of a phone).
As mentioned below, there are a number of sites that don't allow zooming (and I tend to avoid those sites when I find them), also things like images do not gain clarity when zoomed in.
I used to have VERY good eyes, but some sites use very small thin fonts, and even on my desktop screen, they are a bit difficult to read. Sometimes designers thing form trounces function...
Tell me your secret, Facebook seems to have more mediocre to fair (ignoring the poor) while magazines have fair to good (and occasionally great) , or maybe I am more selective in my magazines (not a big reader of newspapers, which I guess proves your point)
As a photographer and an occasional photography teacher I often divide photography along a spectrum. At one end are the basic scientific or insurance type shots. All they are meant to do is show that something exists. As you move along the spectrum through snapshots and portraits more emotion is conveyed in the image until eventually you get to abstract fine art images that convey emotion over content.
At the record shot end of this spectrum, modern cameras are very good at getting the technical details "correct" and all you really have to do is point the camera in roughly the right direction*
It is much more difficult to evoke emotion (and the emotion you want to evoke). The background, light, composition, exposure, motion, and many other aspects come into play, each contributing to the image as a whole. This is the difficult stuff, and this is what talented (whether amateur or pro) photographers and artists strive for. Even the pros who are paid large sums of money fail far more often than they succeed in producing something that stands out.
*I do admit that pointing the camera "in the right direction" can be very hard with elusive subjects like atoms, or with very rare subjects like endangered wildlife, however the point of the photo is the subject matter
Riiignt. and it doesn't matter if you just use code monkeys to write the programs you use everyday, or it doesn't matter if you just grab some guy off the street to change the brakes on your car, etc.
Some people are better at some skills than others. If all you want is a facebook quality snapshot of an event, why even bother? There is much more to photojournalism than just snapping a shot. Try it sometime... I am a (quite good) photographer, but I could not work as a photojournalist. Same way I have set up a server in my living room. I am not a Network Administrator...
Slashdot Mirror
They do still exist. I was setting up a win8 machine a while back and it kept blue screening. It seems that the manufacturer installed AV was fighting with Microsoft's security and would bring the whole machine down. I removed the AV and suggested only connecting to the internet for updates (system was a mission critical laptop running medical software)
Windows 8, a f**king frowny face saying something is wrong... WTF
And since I work interactively with the files, I could not just upload them, let the servers work on them, and download the finished product. I admit that there are has been some advances in working with a virtual file, then just rendering the final file on output, but none of these are perfect yet.
or even if you kept your server room, could you afford the bandwidth to use the server power to process anything but trivial files?
Over 2GB of RAM is limited? 64GB of disk?
Yes it is. My desktop (which I am planning to upgrade soon) has 12 GB of RAM, and 4 TB of on board storage (another 6 TB of external storage not including removable backup disks)
I use my machine mainly for photography. I would really find it lacking if I were to get into video.
A phone that had anywhere near this performance would be power hungry, large, and heavy. Until we come up with a way to realistically use external RAM, a phone will not be able to compete with a real workstation...
You, sir, get the internet prize today...
I met a guy once who had a V8 motorcycle. Why? Because he could... He admitted he was too scared to open it up...
My thoughts exactly. Couldn't we also say it is raining graphene? Graphene is the golden child of the carbon family lately.
this comment needs to be modded up
and add perspective control. One of the biggest disadvantages of cell phones is lack of a good zoom lens. And no, a zoom lens is not used just to get you visually closer to your subject.
Oh for mod points...
There should be a "sad but true" mod...
^^ This^^
Exactly... My favourite (naive, admittedly) quote: "for an ideal society, don't bug anybody, and don't be easily bugged"
I have been offered jobs away from my (then) current position. Every employer has been impressed that I want to give two weeks notice, even if the current employer is known to be a douchebag. It shows a level of integrity and honesty that is more important than any hard skills you may have.
...y human contact with wild Orcas is extremely rare...
There is an entire whale (orca) watching tourist sector here in the Pacific Nothwest to GUARANTEE you will spot some orcas. Granted you will not be swimming with them, but there are many companies with multiple trips daily. This doesn't include private boats or kayaks. Many people, including scientists, say the wild orcas have a real sense of curiosity, and will come up to the boats to see what is going on. If they really were that aggressive, it would be too easy for them to grab a snack or two.
I think you and I disagree on a fundamental point.
You feel that disasters happen, and that you should be prepared (by having insurance)
I feel that disasters are rare. Most (not all) disasters are also avoidable IMNSHO.
As an example, my car has been broken into twice in the last 15 years. (my car is very easily broken into...) On the first occasion, they got a laptop and some other stuff, on the second occasion they got about $5.00 in parking change. Let's say the two thieves got away with $1000 in goods and $500 in damage (I am probably being generous...). So $1500 in 15 years, or $100 per year. I pay way more than that in insurance. Oh, and insurance did not cover any of the expenses. I could have fought it, but the deductible was $200, and my rates would have gone up. How is this a good idea for me again?
so in other words, insurance motivates you to do things you should do anyway. And for the privilege of this knowledge you get to pay them less. The other alternative is to do these things anyway.... Yes I know that, in theory, insurance can be a way to balance risk over a wider group. However, much modern insurance is a money grabbing scam. Most people are way over insured, and pay more in premiums that the realistic risk.
I am not a fan of insurance in general. In essence, you are betting against yourself. For the case of this article, why don't you take the money you pay in insurance premiums and invest it in securing your systems... Seems like a better bet to me.
Yes I am using a small underpowered smartphone (I got it because I don't want to carry around a huge slab of a phone). As mentioned below, there are a number of sites that don't allow zooming (and I tend to avoid those sites when I find them), also things like images do not gain clarity when zoomed in. I used to have VERY good eyes, but some sites use very small thin fonts, and even on my desktop screen, they are a bit difficult to read. Sometimes designers thing form trounces function...
you can use a 2 finger "stretch" gesture to zoom in.
Only works for some things and some sites...
This is the most scary thing I have read all day...
Tell me your secret, Facebook seems to have more mediocre to fair (ignoring the poor) while magazines have fair to good (and occasionally great) , or maybe I am more selective in my magazines (not a big reader of newspapers, which I guess proves your point)
As a photographer and an occasional photography teacher I often divide photography along a spectrum. At one end are the basic scientific or insurance type shots. All they are meant to do is show that something exists. As you move along the spectrum through snapshots and portraits more emotion is conveyed in the image until eventually you get to abstract fine art images that convey emotion over content. At the record shot end of this spectrum, modern cameras are very good at getting the technical details "correct" and all you really have to do is point the camera in roughly the right direction* It is much more difficult to evoke emotion (and the emotion you want to evoke). The background, light, composition, exposure, motion, and many other aspects come into play, each contributing to the image as a whole. This is the difficult stuff, and this is what talented (whether amateur or pro) photographers and artists strive for. Even the pros who are paid large sums of money fail far more often than they succeed in producing something that stands out. *I do admit that pointing the camera "in the right direction" can be very hard with elusive subjects like atoms, or with very rare subjects like endangered wildlife, however the point of the photo is the subject matter
Riiignt. and it doesn't matter if you just use code monkeys to write the programs you use everyday, or it doesn't matter if you just grab some guy off the street to change the brakes on your car, etc. Some people are better at some skills than others. If all you want is a facebook quality snapshot of an event, why even bother? There is much more to photojournalism than just snapping a shot. Try it sometime... I am a (quite good) photographer, but I could not work as a photojournalist. Same way I have set up a server in my living room. I am not a Network Administrator...