Now, half my tech items are over-priced and underpowered sony products.
Sony? SONY??? You would buy computer equipment from a company with a history of rooting its paying customers' computers, removing features you already paid for, and storing sensitive customer information in a plain-text internet-facing database?
I'm a geezer, so when I say "kids" I'm usualoloy referring to folks under 30. There was an intersting comment in this thread by a researcher, who said that it doesn't just affect kids but can cause strabismus ("lazy eye" or crossed eyes) in adults as well as kids.
Polarized 3-D glasses only became practical after the invention of Polaroid plastic sheet polarizers by Edwin Land, who was privately demonstrating their use for projecting and viewing 3-D images in 1934.[6] They were first used to show a 3-D movie to the general public at "Polaroid on Parade", a New York Museum of Science and Industry exhibit that opened in December 1936.
For instance having no out of focus elements in the video might not have been possible then.
Depth of field is controlled by the size of the aperture. The smaller the aperture, the longer the depth of field. F22 will give you almost infinite depth of field, and this was available with the very first cameras.
For instance having no out of focus elements in the video might not have been possible then. In the analog age the kind of higher speed equipment needed for high frame rates likely was too expensive to be in common use
Yes, in the analog era doubling the frame rate meant twice as much film. It would have been doable in the first part of the 20th century, but would not have been cost-effective. 24 fps was the minimum amount of film needed for a smooth movie.
The eye doesn't have some sort of six sense telling it the light didn't really come from that far away.
No "sixth sense" but part of how the brain processes the eye's signals, which includes how much pressure the muscles must exert to bring an object into focus (this is not something you consciously notice). And when watching a movie, your eyes are focused on the screen no matter whether the object appears to be in front of, behind, or at the screen.
When it comes to brains I'm a layman as well, but I know computers down to the logic gates and they don't work anything like a brain. For one thing, digital computers generate rounding errors; what's one divided by three? What's the exact value of pi? A brain can lay three pencils on the table and say one is exactly 1/3 of the pile, while a digital computer will say it's 33.33333333333% and still is inaccurate. A computer can't do fractions, but fractions come easy to brains.
A digital computer is an abacus with billions of wires and one bead per wire. How many beads does it need before it becomes self-aware?
When they replay that mouse's thoughts on a screen and a speaker I'll be impressed. Until then, not one little bit. Thought consists of many different types of synapses and neurons that rewire themselves, as well as many different chemical reactions (dopamine, serutonin, glutimates, etc). Good luck modeling every single chemical reaction in every single molecule.
There are an awful lot of people out of work who would love to have my job. Too bad for them, because even though I'm eligible to retire and would really like to, I can't afford it until I'm eligible for SS.
It isn't just for my security, it's job security for the younger folks. If I had to work until I died it would be a while before my job opens up. Now it's next year (2014).
Young people should thank me for collecting SS because it gives them a job.
The way to make it sustainable is actually what you said -- more going in. SS is capped at $75k/year income, so someone earning ten million a year pays the same SS tax as you probably do. The answer is to keep the caps on payouts, but collect the full percentage from everybody (yeah, I know, the Dems wouldn't like that and the Repubs probably wouldn't either).
For now, yes, but I agree their hold won't last forever. W8 could push some manufacturers to use a different OS, and Google could (possibly) dethrone them in the office space.
It was clumsy, expensive, and didn't look good, which is why it wasn't used widely. Technicolor Process 3 came about in 1928. The followingis from wikipedia and explains why it was in the fifties before color film became popular:
Technicolor's advantage over most early natural-color processes was that it was a subtractive synthesis rather than an additive one. Technicolor prints could run on any projector; unlike other additive processes, it could represent colors clearly without any special projection equipment or techniques. More importantly, Technicolor held the best balance between a quality image and speed of printing, compared to other subtractive systems of the time.
One major drawback of Technicolor's three-strip process was that it required a special, bulky, and very heavy Technicolor camera. Film studios could not purchase Technicolor cameras, only rent them for their productions, complete with camera technicians and a "color supervisor" to ensure sets, costumes and makeup didn't push beyond the limitations of the system.
Kodachrome was the first commercially successful application of monopack multilayer film, introduced in 1935. For professional motion picture photography, Kodachrome Commercial, on a 35mm BH-perforated base, was available exclusively from Technicolor, as its so-called "Technicolor Monopack" product.
Eastmancolor, introduced in 1950,[18] was Kodak's first economical, single-strip 35 mm negative-positive process incorporated into one strip of film. This rendered Three-Strip color photography relatively obsolete, even though, for the first few years of Eastmancolor, Technicolor continued to offer Three-Strip origination combined with dye-transfer printing (150 titles produced in 1953, 100 titles produced in 1954 and 50 titles produced in 1955, the very last year for Three-Strip). The first commercial feature film to use Eastmancolor was the documentary Royal Journey, released in December 1951. Hollywood studios waited until an improved version of Eastmancolor negative came out in 1952 before using it, perhaps most notably in This is Cinerama, which employed three separate and interlocked strips of Eastmancolor negative. This is Cinerama was initially printed on Eastmancolor positive, but its significant success eventually resulted in it being reprinted by Technicolor, using dye-transfer.
I'm of the opinion that digital works shouldn't be copyrightable, both because of what you say and because digital is hardly "affixed in a tangible medium" as copyright law proscribed until the Bono Act (which should never have been passed and should be repealed).
Yes, it does. Generally, if you start out with myopia due to curvature of your cornea, as you get older, you develop presbyopia as well as the lenses in your eye lose elasticity due to aging, and you end up with vision that is not normally correctible to perfect vision via LASIK.
I suppose a misshapen cornea could produce myopia or presbyopia, but most causes of those conditions is that the eyball isn't perfectly round. With myopia it's elongated, myopic enough and you're in danger of a retinal detachment (which I've suffered).
The eye's focusing lens (not he cornea) does lose elasticity in middle age, I thought you were referring to young folk's vision. I've known older folks who wear contact lenses like you mention.
Glasses are expensive, and used to be more so. I never could afford a second pair, and often was the stereotypical nerd with taped glasses.
So you only read books by authors with whom you're already familiar?
I only buy books from authors I know I enjoy. The rest I read FOR FREE from the public library. None of your books are in the library? I won't be reading any, then.
I make my old Boardwatch columns and articles freely available on my web site.
Columns and articles are no indication of how good a book by that author will be. I saw lots of Cory Doctorow's columns and articles and thought they were garbage, but I enjoy his books. I enjoy Jerry Pournelle's articles but his books bore the hell out of me.
Oh, and I'm the former president of the Friends of the El Cerrito Library.
From your bloviation I would have thought you'd want to burn down all the libraries.
No, the tech for 3D was commercially available in 1922, and the tech for polaroid 3D (what they use today) was 1939. I was surprised when I looked that one up, I'd thought polaroid 3D came out in the seventies. I was wrong, it's far older.
Eight tracks and cassettes came out at almost the same time, 8 tracks in 1963 and cassettes in 1964. Your graph should look more like this:
Tapes don't fit, since the cassette and eight track never replaced the LP, they supplimented them. Most people never bought a single pre-recorded tape, what they'd do was record the LP to tape so they could play it in the car.
In an episode of the 1960s "The Prisoner" a computer explodes because #6 asks it "why?" But of course, both are fiction and both are completely impossible, unless your computer is set up like Die Hard IV.
So you appear to be confusing 11 years with 30 years.
Yes, you're correct about that. I'd thought it was 1948. But still, it was 11 years after stereo that LZII came out. Between the two dates were the Yardbirds (Jimmy Page's old band) and a ton of other bands, including the Trashmen, whose "Surfin' bird", perhaps the world's first punk rock song since every punk band afterwards covered it, didn't do that. And the 11 year later effects in "Whole Lotta Love actually worked from an artistic standpoint.
I know most of the vinyl I have from the 60s has either "also available in mono" or "also available in stereo"
Actually, no. Stereophonic LPs were backwards compatible with mono. Played on a monophonic record player, both channels played from the single speaker. I thought the way they did it was a great design hack; the up and down motions of the needle represented both channels while the sideways motion represented a single channel. It was fed both into the amplifier and mixed with the up and down channel phased to cancel it out for the other channel.
However, there were still a lot of monophonic-only records in the '60s. But if there was a stereo version, there was no mono version, because it was unnecessary. It's possible that a mono record was re-recorded in stereo later (it would have to be completely redone by the band unless the mono record was produced using a stereo tape).
As to stereo being popular, it was popular quickly. My folks bought a big stereo in 1964, and we were far from rich. Cheap stereo record players only cost slightly more than monophonic ones.
However, perhaps the message from the audio world is that such gimicks will last for the best part of a decade before people grow out of them.
I do see one indication that 3D may some day take off -- quadraphonics. It came out sometime around 1970 iirc and was soundly trounced in the marketplace, because of the cost. You needed twice the speakers and amps, and the speaker is the most expensive part, especially woofers. So a $500 stereo sounded far better than a $500 quad setup. Cheap electronics and the advent of "subwoofers" made Surround Sound possible, so it may be that a similar change in 3D could make it viable.
The only significant public money going to railroads is to build crossings for car traffic.
Nope, both federal and state money is going to high speed rail in Illinois. It's slated to be finished in 2015 and they already have some stretches finished. Citation here.
Any sufficiently articulate reviewer can give me very valuable insight that helps me decide whether I'll likely enjoy a science fiction book from an author I've never read, for example.
There's no way I'll buy a book or anything else based on a review, period. If someone recommends a book, I'll check it out from the library. If I like it, only then will the author get any money from me, when I buy another of his books.
No, here's the problem: globalization. Twenty years ago that kid would have not gotten that book at all, nor would he have his $300 job because they'd be making the stuff in the US or Europe.
They can outsourse our jobs, what's wrong with outsourcing their books? Charging different prices for different people is immoral. "Sale on steak, $2 a pound. Offer not good for Mexicans."
Utter bullshit. Getting paid to do something doesn't make that something more valuable. Reviews are only good if the reviewer shares your tastes.
I used to watch Siskers and Ebert, and when they reccomended a movie, that was a movie I did NOT want to see. How did the reviewers rate The Terminator?
And the old generation just constantly bitches at these new-fangled 'computers', 'bookfaces' and all that oranges^H apples.
Stereoscopic movies have been around for ninety years, polaroid 3D for seventy. It isn't new tech, and the old generation is refusing it... yet again, because we already saw it the first time and it sucked when we were young as bad as it sucks now.
The problem is dumb kids thinking every new thing is good and every old thing is bad and if it's new you HAVE to have it. And guess what? I was like that once. Me, when holographic movies come out, THEN I'll be impressed, but not with this tech that's even older than me that they've fooled you kids into thinking is new.
... of trying to apply copyright and property like rights when applied to non-scarce information.
The irony here is you can't copyright information. "John's dog is brown" is information. Say that phrase is enough to get copyrighted, saying "John has a brown dog" doesn't infringe, yet it's the same information.
The way the information is presented is copyrightable, the information itself is not.
If you have differences in depth of field for your eyesight, particularly if you've had your eyes lasered into monovision
I'm not quite sure what you're saying. "Depth of field" is a photography tem referring to how much of a scene is in focus. A smaller aperture leads to a larger depth of field, and vice-versa. Are you referring to one eye being at a different focal length than the other? And if that's the case, you're going to be wearing corrective lenses bringing both eyes to the same focal length (or your eye doctor is incompetent).
And what do you mean by "lasered into monovision?" LASIK doesn't affect your stereoscopic vision at all, unless you poke one of your eyes out with the laser.
if your eyesight is bad enough you need correction in a movie theater in the first place, you are likely already carrying around a second pair of corrective lenses
Son, my eyes were 20/400 most of my life; extremely nearsighted. I couldn't focus farther than my elbow, but only had one pair of glasses. Sorry, but it sounds like you don't really have much of a clue what you're talking about.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, half my tech items are over-priced and underpowered sony products.
Sony? SONY??? You would buy computer equipment from a company with a history of rooting its paying customers' computers, removing features you already paid for, and storing sensitive customer information in a plain-text internet-facing database?
There's no fool like an old fool, I guess.
I'm a geezer, so when I say "kids" I'm usualoloy referring to folks under 30. There was an intersting comment in this thread by a researcher, who said that it doesn't just affect kids but can cause strabismus ("lazy eye" or crossed eyes) in adults as well as kids.
This is not good tech.
Viewing goes back 30+ years
More than twice that.
Polarized 3-D glasses only became practical after the invention of Polaroid plastic sheet polarizers by Edwin Land, who was privately demonstrating their use for projecting and viewing 3-D images in 1934.[6] They were first used to show a 3-D movie to the general public at "Polaroid on Parade", a New York Museum of Science and Industry exhibit that opened in December 1936.
For instance having no out of focus elements in the video might not have been possible then.
Depth of field is controlled by the size of the aperture. The smaller the aperture, the longer the depth of field. F22 will give you almost infinite depth of field, and this was available with the very first cameras.
For instance having no out of focus elements in the video might not have been possible then. In the analog age the kind of higher speed equipment needed for high frame rates likely was too expensive to be in common use
Yes, in the analog era doubling the frame rate meant twice as much film. It would have been doable in the first part of the 20th century, but would not have been cost-effective. 24 fps was the minimum amount of film needed for a smooth movie.
The eye doesn't have some sort of six sense telling it the light didn't really come from that far away.
No "sixth sense" but part of how the brain processes the eye's signals, which includes how much pressure the muscles must exert to bring an object into focus (this is not something you consciously notice). And when watching a movie, your eyes are focused on the screen no matter whether the object appears to be in front of, behind, or at the screen.
When it comes to brains I'm a layman as well, but I know computers down to the logic gates and they don't work anything like a brain. For one thing, digital computers generate rounding errors; what's one divided by three? What's the exact value of pi? A brain can lay three pencils on the table and say one is exactly 1/3 of the pile, while a digital computer will say it's 33.33333333333% and still is inaccurate. A computer can't do fractions, but fractions come easy to brains.
A digital computer is an abacus with billions of wires and one bead per wire. How many beads does it need before it becomes self-aware?
When they replay that mouse's thoughts on a screen and a speaker I'll be impressed. Until then, not one little bit. Thought consists of many different types of synapses and neurons that rewire themselves, as well as many different chemical reactions (dopamine, serutonin, glutimates, etc). Good luck modeling every single chemical reaction in every single molecule.
There are an awful lot of people out of work who would love to have my job. Too bad for them, because even though I'm eligible to retire and would really like to, I can't afford it until I'm eligible for SS.
It isn't just for my security, it's job security for the younger folks. If I had to work until I died it would be a while before my job opens up. Now it's next year (2014).
Young people should thank me for collecting SS because it gives them a job.
The way to make it sustainable is actually what you said -- more going in. SS is capped at $75k/year income, so someone earning ten million a year pays the same SS tax as you probably do. The answer is to keep the caps on payouts, but collect the full percentage from everybody (yeah, I know, the Dems wouldn't like that and the Repubs probably wouldn't either).
For now, yes, but I agree their hold won't last forever. W8 could push some manufacturers to use a different OS, and Google could (possibly) dethrone them in the office space.
I haven't seen a 3D movie since the early eighties at EPCOT. Fortunately for me, I didn't have the bad effects many get.
I was only 12, that's almost fifty years. I remember the show, but not its name.
Color motion picture film was around in 1899
It was clumsy, expensive, and didn't look good, which is why it wasn't used widely. Technicolor Process 3 came about in 1928. The followingis from wikipedia and explains why it was in the fifties before color film became popular:
Technicolor's advantage over most early natural-color processes was that it was a subtractive synthesis rather than an additive one. Technicolor prints could run on any projector; unlike other additive processes, it could represent colors clearly without any special projection equipment or techniques. More importantly, Technicolor held the best balance between a quality image and speed of printing, compared to other subtractive systems of the time.
One major drawback of Technicolor's three-strip process was that it required a special, bulky, and very heavy Technicolor camera. Film studios could not purchase Technicolor cameras, only rent them for their productions, complete with camera technicians and a "color supervisor" to ensure sets, costumes and makeup didn't push beyond the limitations of the system.
Kodachrome was the first commercially successful application of monopack multilayer film, introduced in 1935. For professional motion picture photography, Kodachrome Commercial, on a 35mm BH-perforated base, was available exclusively from Technicolor, as its so-called "Technicolor Monopack" product.
Eastmancolor, introduced in 1950,[18] was Kodak's first economical, single-strip 35 mm negative-positive process incorporated into one strip of film. This rendered Three-Strip color photography relatively obsolete, even though, for the first few years of Eastmancolor, Technicolor continued to offer Three-Strip origination combined with dye-transfer printing (150 titles produced in 1953, 100 titles produced in 1954 and 50 titles produced in 1955, the very last year for Three-Strip). The first commercial feature film to use Eastmancolor was the documentary Royal Journey, released in December 1951. Hollywood studios waited until an improved version of Eastmancolor negative came out in 1952 before using it, perhaps most notably in This is Cinerama, which employed three separate and interlocked strips of Eastmancolor negative. This is Cinerama was initially printed on Eastmancolor positive, but its significant success eventually resulted in it being reprinted by Technicolor, using dye-transfer.
I'm of the opinion that digital works shouldn't be copyrightable, both because of what you say and because digital is hardly "affixed in a tangible medium" as copyright law proscribed until the Bono Act (which should never have been passed and should be repealed).
It isn't the first time and won't be the last. The mods must have had some really good weed yesterday.
No, I mean "depth of field", as in...
OK, that makes sense.
Yes, it does. Generally, if you start out with myopia due to curvature of your cornea, as you get older, you develop presbyopia as well as the lenses in your eye lose elasticity due to aging, and you end up with vision that is not normally correctible to perfect vision via LASIK.
I suppose a misshapen cornea could produce myopia or presbyopia, but most causes of those conditions is that the eyball isn't perfectly round. With myopia it's elongated, myopic enough and you're in danger of a retinal detachment (which I've suffered).
The eye's focusing lens (not he cornea) does lose elasticity in middle age, I thought you were referring to young folk's vision. I've known older folks who wear contact lenses like you mention.
Glasses are expensive, and used to be more so. I never could afford a second pair, and often was the stereotypical nerd with taped glasses.
So you only read books by authors with whom you're already familiar?
I only buy books from authors I know I enjoy. The rest I read FOR FREE from the public library. None of your books are in the library? I won't be reading any, then.
I make my old Boardwatch columns and articles freely available on my web site.
Columns and articles are no indication of how good a book by that author will be. I saw lots of Cory Doctorow's columns and articles and thought they were garbage, but I enjoy his books. I enjoy Jerry Pournelle's articles but his books bore the hell out of me.
Oh, and I'm the former president of the Friends of the El Cerrito Library.
From your bloviation I would have thought you'd want to burn down all the libraries.
Three strikes - and you're stupid.
Way to get more readers, dumbass.
No, the tech for 3D was commercially available in 1922, and the tech for polaroid 3D (what they use today) was 1939. I was surprised when I looked that one up, I'd thought polaroid 3D came out in the seventies. I was wrong, it's far older.
Eight tracks and cassettes came out at almost the same time, 8 tracks in 1963 and cassettes in 1964. Your graph should look more like this:
Wax cylinder->shellack platter->vinyl platter->LP->Stereo->CD->Mp3
Tapes don't fit, since the cassette and eight track never replaced the LP, they supplimented them. Most people never bought a single pre-recorded tape, what they'd do was record the LP to tape so they could play it in the car.
In an episode of the 1960s "The Prisoner" a computer explodes because #6 asks it "why?" But of course, both are fiction and both are completely impossible, unless your computer is set up like Die Hard IV.
So you appear to be confusing 11 years with 30 years.
Yes, you're correct about that. I'd thought it was 1948. But still, it was 11 years after stereo that LZII came out. Between the two dates were the Yardbirds (Jimmy Page's old band) and a ton of other bands, including the Trashmen, whose "Surfin' bird", perhaps the world's first punk rock song since every punk band afterwards covered it, didn't do that. And the 11 year later effects in "Whole Lotta Love actually worked from an artistic standpoint.
I know most of the vinyl I have from the 60s has either "also available in mono" or "also available in stereo"
Actually, no. Stereophonic LPs were backwards compatible with mono. Played on a monophonic record player, both channels played from the single speaker. I thought the way they did it was a great design hack; the up and down motions of the needle represented both channels while the sideways motion represented a single channel. It was fed both into the amplifier and mixed with the up and down channel phased to cancel it out for the other channel.
However, there were still a lot of monophonic-only records in the '60s. But if there was a stereo version, there was no mono version, because it was unnecessary. It's possible that a mono record was re-recorded in stereo later (it would have to be completely redone by the band unless the mono record was produced using a stereo tape).
As to stereo being popular, it was popular quickly. My folks bought a big stereo in 1964, and we were far from rich. Cheap stereo record players only cost slightly more than monophonic ones.
However, perhaps the message from the audio world is that such gimicks will last for the best part of a decade before people grow out of them.
I do see one indication that 3D may some day take off -- quadraphonics. It came out sometime around 1970 iirc and was soundly trounced in the marketplace, because of the cost. You needed twice the speakers and amps, and the speaker is the most expensive part, especially woofers. So a $500 stereo sounded far better than a $500 quad setup. Cheap electronics and the advent of "subwoofers" made Surround Sound possible, so it may be that a similar change in 3D could make it viable.
The only significant public money going to railroads is to build crossings for car traffic.
Nope, both federal and state money is going to high speed rail in Illinois. It's slated to be finished in 2015 and they already have some stretches finished. Citation here.
Any sufficiently articulate reviewer can give me very valuable insight that helps me decide whether I'll likely enjoy a science fiction book from an author I've never read, for example.
There's no way I'll buy a book or anything else based on a review, period. If someone recommends a book, I'll check it out from the library. If I like it, only then will the author get any money from me, when I buy another of his books.
Only a fool buys a pig in a poke.
I saw the submission and didn't recognize the name, but I do remember some sci-fi puppetry when I was about 12. I'm sure it's the same guy.
Wow. Been a long time.
No, here's the problem: globalization. Twenty years ago that kid would have not gotten that book at all, nor would he have his $300 job because they'd be making the stuff in the US or Europe.
They can outsourse our jobs, what's wrong with outsourcing their books? Charging different prices for different people is immoral. "Sale on steak, $2 a pound. Offer not good for Mexicans."
Utter bullshit. Getting paid to do something doesn't make that something more valuable. Reviews are only good if the reviewer shares your tastes.
I used to watch Siskers and Ebert, and when they reccomended a movie, that was a movie I did NOT want to see. How did the reviewers rate The Terminator?
Nonsense, good ideas are a dime a dozen. It's a good implimentation of a good idea that's rare.
And the old generation just constantly bitches at these new-fangled 'computers', 'bookfaces' and all that oranges^H apples.
Stereoscopic movies have been around for ninety years, polaroid 3D for seventy. It isn't new tech, and the old generation is refusing it... yet again, because we already saw it the first time and it sucked when we were young as bad as it sucks now.
The problem is dumb kids thinking every new thing is good and every old thing is bad and if it's new you HAVE to have it. And guess what? I was like that once. Me, when holographic movies come out, THEN I'll be impressed, but not with this tech that's even older than me that they've fooled you kids into thinking is new.
... of trying to apply copyright and property like rights when applied to non-scarce information.
The irony here is you can't copyright information. "John's dog is brown" is information. Say that phrase is enough to get copyrighted, saying "John has a brown dog" doesn't infringe, yet it's the same information.
The way the information is presented is copyrightable, the information itself is not.
If you have differences in depth of field for your eyesight, particularly if you've had your eyes lasered into monovision
I'm not quite sure what you're saying. "Depth of field" is a photography tem referring to how much of a scene is in focus. A smaller aperture leads to a larger depth of field, and vice-versa. Are you referring to one eye being at a different focal length than the other? And if that's the case, you're going to be wearing corrective lenses bringing both eyes to the same focal length (or your eye doctor is incompetent).
And what do you mean by "lasered into monovision?" LASIK doesn't affect your stereoscopic vision at all, unless you poke one of your eyes out with the laser.
if your eyesight is bad enough you need correction in a movie theater in the first place, you are likely already carrying around a second pair of corrective lenses
Son, my eyes were 20/400 most of my life; extremely nearsighted. I couldn't focus farther than my elbow, but only had one pair of glasses. Sorry, but it sounds like you don't really have much of a clue what you're talking about.