The U.S.'s war in Afghanistan has killed thousands of civilians.
Don't claim this as documented fact, as it's not even close to one. In a conflict where the enemy does not conveniently dress in uniforms, it can be hard to tell the difference. But I do encourage you to read this: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/11/nationcha llenged/11AFGH.html
I quote: 'The joy of one group of 10- to 12-year-olds, sitting on the floor, was infectious, and a visitor had only to ask whom they credited for their change of fortune to set off a cheerful chorus.
"America! America! America!" they cried, and then, "George W. Bush!"'
'In Ghazni, the headmaster, Abdul Samad, 56, beamed as he listened to the girls bubbling with enthusiasm for America. But then took a visitor aside to offer a sober sentiment: "Please tell America we feel very sorry for happened on Sept. 11, because thousands of innocent people were killed. But please tell them, too, that Sept. 11, for us, was a starting point, and not the end.
"This time, we need America to stay with us, and not to run away."'
What the what!?! Amidst all this lagal brick-a-brack and industry association B.S. a company is actually doing something that reflects a real consumer market?
Nope, it's $3.99 for a video you can view for only 24 hours, after spending the downloading time. Compare this to a $4 5 day rental at Blockbuster, or buying it on DVD for $16.99, it doesn't look so good. Whose kid is only ever going to want to watch it once, and in most cases on a computer screen (TV out isn't *that* common)?
Unrestricted, it would make sense. For a lot of movies, they'd make up in volume what they'd lose in per-copy prices. (The $16.99 includes distributor and vendor markups.) Harry Potter might be one of a few where this isn't the case, simply because so high a percentage of the potential purchasers are buying it already.
I think this is just intended to fail. "Look, we offered stuff over the net, but they've already pirated it and refuse to buy it."
Me, I like to make SVCDs of the VHS tapes I own so I can eventually get rid of my VCR.
I'm planning to do that, although I might just use big honkin' hard drives. What do you use to capture the video? I'm picky about quality, but I see fairly few reviews of image quality for capture cards. Also, do any encodings/encoders allow for closed captioning info to be brought along?
I just sold about 30 items on Ebay and almost all of the inquiry e-mails I received contained the line "Do you accept PayPal? That's the only way I can bid."
As someone who bids and buys on e-bay, I look for either PayPal or ebay's payment system. Western Union's fees are outrageous, and sending a check is such a hassle for a small transaction.
Now, if instead there was a way for me to send you a number, which is an encrypted one-time code for transferring a set amount from my bank account to yours, I'd love to just e-mail that instead. But as far as I know, there's nothing even close to that anywhere.
People always say that you shouldn't convert from one compressed format to another- it will be horrible etc., but when you think about it, that is what is going on when you rip a DVD to divx.
It's not so much one compressed format to another, it's more that you'll get better results with a higher quality original. The original WAV is higher quality than than an MP3 or OGG made from that WAV. But an OGG made from a 320kbps MP3 will sound better than an OGG made from a 64kbps MP3.
Right, what I meant to say was: Is are the phosphors (sp?) used to actually display the colors responsive enough to make 48bpp/64bpp worthwhile?
Yes. There's a question of how much we would be able to see, but I've seen banding on 24-bit images. 30 bits (10 bits per pixel) would probably be sufficient to hide any banding from the human visual system.
CRTs are inherently analog in their signaling. The RAMDACs on graphics cards convert the digital output into analog signal levels (thus DAC, digital->analog conversion) which then go along your video cable. If the DAC was capable of converting 16-bit inputs, and the graphics card fed it 16-bits/color, you could have effectively 48-bit color.
DVI signals are digital, and thus (in all specs so far, AFAIK) 8 bits/color or less.
I dunno about anyone else, but I don't understand what you just said.
I think his theory is that the anonymous donor may be a corporation (or a high-level executive) in the telecom industry, who sees this $1 million as a cheap way to try and get the value of IP reduced. (The MPAA, RIAA et al are trying to get stronger laws to protect their IP and thus their profit margin.) If Napster was legal, the total value of copyrighted music goes down, and telecoms can pay less to buy IP to distribute over their networks.
Yes, but in the article, it shows he filed the patent in 1995, was granted it in 1998, and E-Bay contacted him to talk about licensing it in 2000. This does not sound like some johnny-come-lately trying to cash in on someone else's work.
Except that it's fundamentally obvious that ebay had no knowledge of Woolson's ideas, and thus his patent was not non-obvious -- since someone else thought of it out of the blue.
Regardless, I was running auctions over USENET (for myself, admittedly, but others auctioned stuff for others) in the late 80's. This patent should never have been granted.
I don't think you are right. [3-D glasses are] just an extra bit of hardware, like a mouse or kbd.
The biggest problem with polarized or shutter glasses, as I understand it, is that there's enough "leak-through" of the other eye image to damage the 3-D illusion.
Head-mounted displays have no problems in this respect, but have the problem of making the focal distance far enough away from the viewer that they don't cause eye fatigue or destroy the illusion of distance to the objects.
Have you ever seen a movie? Doesn't it look 3D?
Apparently the video release of "Gosford Park" used some sort of post-processing on its images to try to enhance the 3-D feel of the movie. I watched it and can't say it really jumped out at me, but I would have liked to have seen split-screen or before and after demonstrations of the effect to get a better sense of what it did and how effective it was.
Why would the military be interested in a cheap cart-mounted projection system?
Note that the military does have interests in 3-D beyond HMD displays for troops in combat. I interviewed for a job at NRL, and one of their experimental projects was work on 3-D displays for battlefield viewing/planning. Elevations, positions of air cover, etc. are important tactical and strategic considerations.
And for games, why would you think you'd get rid of your monitor?
I'd be interested in using big-screen TV tech to play games, just as many console players do now. What I'd love to see is something like DTI3D.com's 3-D display tech applied to big-screen plasma displays for an effective 3-D effect. DTI3D uses a specialized backlight for their 3-D LCDs, which isn't applicable to plasma, but perhaps some sort of LCD lines to channel light from alternating pixels from one eye or the other is possible. (LCD because you want to be able to turn it off for 2-D viewing at full horizontal resolution.)
No, it's an excuse to get your boss to buy you one of these high-end cards, instead of a TNT2 or something else ancient. "I need it to run compiles faster."
Not allowing laptops to be carried aboard would be a very drastic measure.
Couldn't they have detectors instead? Seems like that's what's really needed to fix the problem, detect problematic signals coming from the cabin. A blanket ban is neither necessary -- since most laptops don't put out the offending signals -- nor sufficient, because some laptops may be missed, or there may be UWB devices that don't look like laptops.
Unfortunately, that would involve importing the movie onto your computer and exporting it back to tape/DVD, which not everyone has the equipment to do.
Seems to me a computer with a DVD drive could do this without the import/export process. (Heck, all DVD players are computers of a sort, but most don't have any way to specify the EDL.
Re:One of my favourite quotes...
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
There are also several bits of evidence connecting Iraq to the 9/11 attacks (Iraqi intelligence meeting with Mohommad Atta is one)
No, there aren't. It didn't happen. There is no evidence that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with or any knowledge of 9/11.
It's not like Saddam has initated two wars of aggression or anything.
We threw out Hussein, and put the dictatorial Emir back in (killing 10s of thousands of Iraqis in the process). What a blow for democracy. Kept the oil prices low, though...
After the recent story, I made sure I had an OGG encoder for CDEx, and an OGG decoder for WinAmp, and I generated an OGG file. It won't play in WinAmp. Is it the encoder? The decoder? I don't know, but in the absence of a good way to tell, I doubt I'll be converting too soon...
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I just bought a //e for $12 /me thinks back to summer long ago spent working to be able to buy a $1600 Apple //e...
$12? [SOB!]
The U.S.'s war in Afghanistan has killed thousands of civilians.
a llenged /11AFGH.html
Don't claim this as documented fact, as it's not even close to one. In a conflict where the enemy does not conveniently dress in uniforms, it can be hard to tell the difference. But I do encourage you to read this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/11/nationch
I quote:
'The joy of one group of 10- to 12-year-olds, sitting on the floor, was infectious, and a visitor had only to ask whom they credited for their change of fortune to set off a cheerful chorus.
"America! America! America!" they cried, and then, "George W. Bush!"'
'In Ghazni, the headmaster, Abdul Samad, 56, beamed as he listened to the girls bubbling with enthusiasm for America. But then took a visitor aside to offer a sober sentiment: "Please tell America we feel very sorry for happened on Sept. 11, because thousands of innocent people were killed. But please tell them, too, that Sept. 11, for us, was a starting point, and not the end.
"This time, we need America to stay with us, and not to run away."'
What the what!?! Amidst all this lagal brick-a-brack and industry association B.S. a company is actually doing something that reflects a real consumer market?
Nope, it's $3.99 for a video you can view for only 24 hours, after spending the downloading time. Compare this to a $4 5 day rental at Blockbuster, or buying it on DVD for $16.99, it doesn't look so good. Whose kid is only ever going to want to watch it once, and in most cases on a computer screen (TV out isn't *that* common)?
Unrestricted, it would make sense. For a lot of movies, they'd make up in volume what they'd lose in per-copy prices. (The $16.99 includes distributor and vendor markups.) Harry Potter might be one of a few where this isn't the case, simply because so high a percentage of the potential purchasers are buying it already.
I think this is just intended to fail. "Look, we offered stuff over the net, but they've already pirated it and refuse to buy it."
Me, I like to make SVCDs of the VHS tapes I own so I can eventually get rid of my VCR.
I'm planning to do that, although I might just use big honkin' hard drives. What do you use to capture the video? I'm picky about quality, but I see fairly few reviews of image quality for capture cards. Also, do any encodings/encoders allow for closed captioning info to be brought along?
I just sold about 30 items on Ebay and almost all of the inquiry e-mails I received contained the line "Do you accept PayPal? That's the only way I can bid."
As someone who bids and buys on e-bay, I look for either PayPal or ebay's payment system. Western Union's fees are outrageous, and sending a check is such a hassle for a small transaction.
Now, if instead there was a way for me to send you a number, which is an encrypted one-time code for transferring a set amount from my bank account to yours, I'd love to just e-mail that instead. But as far as I know, there's nothing even close to that anywhere.
People always say that you shouldn't convert from one compressed format to another- it will be horrible etc., but when you think about it, that is what is going on when you rip a DVD to divx.
It's not so much one compressed format to another, it's more that you'll get better results with a higher quality original. The original WAV is higher quality than than an MP3 or OGG made from that WAV. But an OGG made from a 320kbps MP3 will sound better than an OGG made from a 64kbps MP3.
Right, what I meant to say was: Is are the phosphors (sp?) used to actually display the colors responsive enough to make 48bpp/64bpp worthwhile?
Yes. There's a question of how much we would be able to see, but I've seen banding on 24-bit images. 30 bits (10 bits per pixel) would probably be sufficient to hide any banding from the human visual system.
Can CRTs do better than 24 bit color?
CRTs are inherently analog in their signaling. The RAMDACs on graphics cards convert the digital output into analog signal levels (thus DAC, digital->analog conversion) which then go along your video cable. If the DAC was capable of converting 16-bit inputs, and the graphics card fed it 16-bits/color, you could have effectively 48-bit color.
DVI signals are digital, and thus (in all specs so far, AFAIK) 8 bits/color or less.
I dunno about anyone else, but I don't understand what you just said.
I think his theory is that the anonymous donor may be a corporation (or a high-level executive) in the telecom industry, who sees this $1 million as a cheap way to try and get the value of IP reduced. (The MPAA, RIAA et al are trying to get stronger laws to protect their IP and thus their profit margin.) If Napster was legal, the total value of copyrighted music goes down, and telecoms can pay less to buy IP to distribute over their networks.
Having all the array cold will decrease the thermal noise generated by the array itself.
Not to mention they can overclock all their processors, woo hoo!
Yes, but in the article, it shows he filed the patent in 1995, was granted it in 1998, and E-Bay contacted him to talk about licensing it in 2000. This does not sound like some johnny-come-lately trying to cash in on someone else's work.
Except that it's fundamentally obvious that ebay had no knowledge of Woolson's ideas, and thus his patent was not non-obvious -- since someone else thought of it out of the blue.
Regardless, I was running auctions over USENET (for myself, admittedly, but others auctioned stuff for others) in the late 80's. This patent should never have been granted.
I don't think you are right. [3-D glasses are] just an extra bit of hardware, like a mouse or kbd.
The biggest problem with polarized or shutter glasses, as I understand it, is that there's enough "leak-through" of the other eye image to damage the 3-D illusion.
Head-mounted displays have no problems in this respect, but have the problem of making the focal distance far enough away from the viewer that they don't cause eye fatigue or destroy the illusion of distance to the objects.
Have you ever seen a movie? Doesn't it look 3D?
Apparently the video release of "Gosford Park" used some sort of post-processing on its images to try to enhance the 3-D feel of the movie. I watched it and can't say it really jumped out at me, but I would have liked to have seen split-screen or before and after demonstrations of the effect to get a better sense of what it did and how effective it was.
You may not be aware of this, but there have been 3D porn movies for some time.
Anyone know if any (many?) of the major computer video formats (AVI, QuickTime, MPG, etc.) have specific support for 3-D?
Why would the military be interested in a cheap cart-mounted projection system?
Note that the military does have interests in 3-D beyond HMD displays for troops in combat. I interviewed for a job at NRL, and one of their experimental projects was work on 3-D displays for battlefield viewing/planning. Elevations, positions of air cover, etc. are important tactical and strategic considerations.
And for games, why would you think you'd get rid of your monitor?
I'd be interested in using big-screen TV tech to play games, just as many console players do now. What I'd love to see is something like DTI3D.com's 3-D display tech applied to big-screen plasma displays for an effective 3-D effect. DTI3D uses a specialized backlight for their 3-D LCDs, which isn't applicable to plasma, but perhaps some sort of LCD lines to channel light from alternating pixels from one eye or the other is possible. (LCD because you want to be able to turn it off for 2-D viewing at full horizontal resolution.)
This looks like an example of stealth marketing.
Yeah, but I showed them -- I didn't bother to click on the links, I went straight to the comments. Hah!
Voila, you now have a super-secret calculator that you check how badly your 401k is tanking.
I think most of us will prefer to do that *without* the glasses on...
The flourescent inks in use today by many artists are not "glow-in-the-dark", they are blacklight responsive inks.
Maybe fireflies could be harvested for their organs, and diabetics would blink when their sugar levels are off?
Isn't this a bit wasteful?
No, it's an excuse to get your boss to buy you one of these high-end cards, instead of a TNT2 or something else ancient. "I need it to run compiles faster."
Not allowing laptops to be carried aboard would be a very drastic measure.
Couldn't they have detectors instead? Seems like that's what's really needed to fix the problem, detect problematic signals coming from the cabin. A blanket ban is neither necessary -- since most laptops don't put out the offending signals -- nor sufficient, because some laptops may be missed, or there may be UWB devices that don't look like laptops.
I downloaded Winamp 3.0, and now have OGGs a-playin'. So it was Winamp not being happy with the plug-in, not CDEx, thanks.
Unfortunately, that would involve importing the movie onto your computer and exporting it back to tape/DVD, which not everyone has the equipment to do.
Seems to me a computer with a DVD drive could do this without the import/export process. (Heck, all DVD players are computers of a sort, but most don't have any way to specify the EDL.
There are also several bits of evidence connecting Iraq to the 9/11 attacks (Iraqi intelligence meeting with Mohommad Atta is one)
No, there aren't. It didn't happen. There is no evidence that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with or any knowledge of 9/11.
It's not like Saddam has initated two wars of aggression or anything.
We threw out Hussein, and put the dictatorial Emir back in (killing 10s of thousands of Iraqis in the process). What a blow for democracy. Kept the oil prices low, though...
Chicken and the egg problem.
Or perhaps chicken and the ogg?
After the recent story, I made sure I had an OGG encoder for CDEx, and an OGG decoder for WinAmp, and I generated an OGG file. It won't play in WinAmp. Is it the encoder? The decoder? I don't know, but in the absence of a good way to tell, I doubt I'll be converting too soon...
After a few days, one of the guys I knew in the IT department told me off the record that when they saw my bid they questioned my ability.
Admittedly, if you don't know the market rate for your services, you may be ignorant in other aspects of the business.
There may also be a certain amount of belief that someone is less likely to blow off a $15,000 contract than a $5,000 one.
As for the processor, it takes 10 minutes to build the whole project and 2 minutes to just build the part I'm working on.
Ooo, you lucky bastard.
I just got "Build Time 4:16.5" for a one-line change.