>>>my first ISP cost me 80 per month for 80 hours, way back when
Holy crap. I only spent $15 a month for AOL/Quantum Link back in the 80s. What ISP were you paying off? To date I've never paid more than $19 a month for internet, and hope I never need to in the future.
As for "welfare for the rich" I think that's a good description. Back when I bought my 80mpg Honda Hybrid the state gave a $2000 rebate for sales tax, the US gave me $2000 for it being electric, and I was earning $90,000. I don't consider myself rich, but I'm not poor either. I should not have received any assistance.
There should be a cutoff where if you earn over a certain amount of money (say $50,000) you are ineligible to receive any EV Rebates from the government.
Back in the 80's AOL did not have Internet. They also charged extra per minute (on top of the $10 or $15 or $20 or $25 depending on what special or CD you got). By the time "they" (ummmm.... US at UUNet FOR them, who billed YOU a crapload) did supply actual Internet connectivity, it was still years before they added a flat rate service. That was the 90's. So... your recollection is a decade off. Then again, the WWW didnt really "exist" (to the general public) until 1991. And it didnt take off until the mid to late 90's.
Just figured I would point that out.
As for the rest, what may be better is if the government gave the subsidies to the car manufacturers instead, helping to still reduce costs, while putting a little back towards research. Anyway, I am sure you can donate your $4K to some charity if you really think you shouldnt have received any assistance.
Too bad the Toyota can't work it's way up a hill worth a shit compared to the Ford or Mazda. The Toyota can last as long as it wants, but if I can't step on the gas and get to speed in reasonable time, it's useless to me. And that's my experience with every Toyota I have ever driven. I'll take the car that doesn't last as long any day.
Hi troll... since I dont haves mod points today, I'll reply. My Toyota (Camry) with it's 2.2L engine can handle hills quite fine and quite speedily. It's a 1992, making it already 18 years old with just shy of 270,000 miles. It STILL gets up hills pretty zippily, and STILL gets 30mpg highway (and almost indistinguishably close in "city" driving... about 29.2).
How many miles do you drive? Is it more skewed to highway or city?
Lower maintenance vs higher insurance costs for a more expensive vehicle.
What sort of interest rate can you get? How do you value the cost of the capital? Where do you figure gasoline is going to go?
Here, do the math for me for this... and throw in an EV (let's say the Model S or the forthcoming BlueStar) at pennies a mile.
I used to drive (till CompUSA closed) 50,000 miles a year... that's a little over 40,000 to and from work 6 days a week (and assumes no travel for lunch, etc), plus 10,000 a year for recreational driving. 65 miles each way to work, just in case you want to check my math. Then, assume it's all city driving. That's right... ALL of the 50,000 miles. The local recreational driving is, as most such driving is... and as for the work driving, it's 2.5 hours for 65 miles with constant stop and go (rush hour in NY) both ways.
So, what does the math say then?
Now, I suspect there are MILLIONS (I dont suspect it... I know.... you can check the DOT's stats if you want) of people who have similar commutes in the NY Metro area and other areas like it. With that sort of savings, and as battery prices drop, it becomes quite a savings for a hybrid or an EV.
To be honest, the MS UNBLUR images are clearly better thant SHARP 1 and SHARP 2, at least for me. Their method allows the software to user more data than any post-processing filter, data that will not be preserved in the image itself.
For some people, unless if it adds a substantial fee to a phone or small cam, it is a benefit that cannot be replaced by a simple filter.
While their method allows it, it doesnt yet fully utilize it. There are things about both the filtered images and theirs that is not desirable. Theirs does a little better with contrasting blur (look at the bright spot on the car door - doubled in the sharp (filter) image (and original). But then again, their method currently adds ghosting (in some cases serious ghosting) to the image. Look at the cars in the parking lot and you will notice an "aura" around them.
Both methods equally have issues. But then again, I also did no edge enhance, no smart filter, no nothing special. I am sure I could have gotten better results (than theirs) by firing up some real filters on the original image - all stuff still accomplishable in camera.
That aside, anyone (that I've ever known) who uses such a camera, will either use a tripod for shots that need to be steady, or some other suitable rig, or be capable of holding a camera steady.
Microsoft Research puts out a lot of really interesting and successful research. They aren't the people programming the OS or office applications.
Yes, but I just took two of the images, for research purposes, and applied a simple Sharp mask to them (two different levels), and it seems the results are pretty comparable. If I actually spent more than 2 mouse clicks to try to properly sharpen them, I betcha the results would be even better, and not require additional hardware. As a matter of fact, the results they get can easily be duplicated with IN CAMERA filters and thus save a boatload of dev costs, and a bunch of money.
These (SHARP 1 and SHARP 2) were done using PMView from the blurry image. Filters -> Sharpen (mild) and Sharpen (moderate). Adding "Edge Enhance" to it makes the car one look even better. Now, these are very very very very basic filters that have been surpassed ages ago by filters easily runnable on a camera or cell phone.
So, I find nothing interesting or successful about this. I find this will be something that makes cameras and cell phones cost more money, while not providing any benefits that a simple filter or two in the cam/phone can accomplish.
Sorry about the scrolling... but just something quick I threw together in 2 seconds which does the job). MS, if you want the research comparison taken down, email me at first name dot last name at google dot com.
Ballmer seems incapable of directing his company to do anything innovative. It's like he only sees a product category as valid when it's already been defined by someone else.
Apple defined a new category of tablet device with the iPad. Now Ballmer has MS chasing after it madly...
Ya know, I have a TON of Microsoft idiocy and horror stories I can relate, but in this case, I hate to say it, but if these actions by Microsoft are deliberate, then they may be very smart choices.
Microsoft has (especially recently) copied the success, look and feel and/or ideas of others to be a late entry into a marketplace (or to try to re-enter one in a "rebranded" way). This allows them to sit back and let someone else establish a market, determine if there is a market, and test to see what works and what doesnt (interface wise, functionality wise, marketing wise, and so on). Then, Microsoft can leverage their customer base/os base/whatever to enter that market leaning on the experiences of others to hopefully prevent them from making similar mistakes to the competition or to help them avoid entering into (or trying to create) a dead market.
In some cases, there has been some success (xBox/xBox 360, or their gaming acquisitions after the companies proved they were writing things people wanted). In others (Kin, Zune, WinMo), they took the wrong lessons from the game and lost or barely made it anywhere.
Simple fact is, any company like Microsoft is about making money. NOT about innovation (unless it means making money). Regardless, as they have done in the past, they can always claim anything they release (copycatted or not) is an "innovation" (even if it wasnt theirs).
There are many product lines that are very very profitable that have not had any innovation in years (or decades?) but keep getting more profitable. For instance, ask Exxon. Businesses are (usually - or most often) in business to make money - innovation is simply a by-product of that or an "as needed, and only when needed or when it will not affect our profits negatively"
You're missing the point. There's a reliable, affordable midpoint between the big, cheap but, as per your experience, highly unreliable SATA drives and a server-class SAS or UltraSCSI disk and that's the Enterprise SATA drives I mentioned.
Used em, killed em. Star Trek New Voyages: Phase 2, filming Kitumba. 3 of 8. Took two weeks.
No... no I shouldnt. All of our servers run on enterprise grade SAS or SCSI.
The drives I am discussing were for customer machines. We do PC repair. We are NOT sticking an SAS drive in a piece o crap Dell Dimension.
Please read the post I first responded to. I was responding to someone else who thought that an $80 cheapo SATA drive was a valid choice of hardware to use in an enterprise storage solution, to which I responded (paraphrased) "no way, we buy tons of them and most have failed"
Sorry I didnt clarify that we buy them for regular PC repairs and use only SAS or SCSI for real stuff (or maybe I kinda did).
First of all, a 2TB hard drive costs no more to run than an 80gb hard drive.
I would never use the $80 2TB hard drives sold today for serious storage - that's a ridiculous proposal. SAS or regular SCSI only for me. I've ordered 10 2TB drives, and 2 1.5TB drives in the last 5 months. More than half are on their way back (or already shipped back). of the 7 drives being shipped back, 4 were DOA. One lasted a whopping 4 hours of use (and 26 hours uptime). And none of the other ones lasted more than 4 months (the most "reliable" of the dead drives has been sitting here for a month waiting for me to get around to shipping it back). All from NewEgg, unopened, new in box. Seagates and Western Digitals.
So, now, look up SAS for high end server/storage solutions (or SCSI) and hardware based redundancy, or a true enterprise class hardware/software combination, and you will find that 2TB costs far more than $80.
The free exercise of religion is sufficient reason on it's own for organ donation to be an opt-in affair.
Last I checked (hmmm... a few months ago when I renewed my license), the "opt-in" option was not an "opt-in" option.
It was a checkbox to select one or the other. Not sure how this new law (if it passes) changes things. Do the checkboxes get re-ordered?
Even if my memory is faulty (which it very well may be - and I am too lazy to go to the NYS DMV site and download an app to check - no pun intended), then Instead of reading "Would you like to be an organ donor" and not checking it, how difficult is it to check "Would you NOT like to be an organ donor?"
Really, for anyone who can read, I think this is a big non-issue. It is pretty simple to put an x or checkmark on a box - or choose not to.
There was never a time when all ATMs ran OS/2. Besides, OS/2 had its own problems.
Hmmm... if you knew anything about OS/2, you would realize that the COMPUTER (hardware) had a problem - not OS/2. A Trap 000e is generally a RAM error (as in a failed memory module), and the rest of the time, it is a failure of some component that gets mapped as RAM (such as the memory on a video card, or some device being accessed as memory).
So... you may wish to find a better example. Without the correct hardware (like let's say an IBM Netfinity or IBM eServer xSeries) with RAID memory mirroring enabled, when a memory module fails (especially on the relatively cheap hardware used in an ATM), then ANY PC operating system I currently know of goes down with it.
On a well built machine running OS/2, problems are few and far between.I just rebooted a machine at an ambulance company we support (runs eComstation v1.2MR) that was up for 1 month short of two years, continuously running web, MySQL, FTP and a variety of other services that get heavy access every day. It was rebooted because (1) I upgraded some system components (a couple DLLs and MySQL), and (2) it was long overdue to be opened and dusted out.
Simultaneously you mean? That leaves the vendor no time to fix the flaw.
Simultaneously you mean? That forces Microsoft to fix the flaw, instead of letting it stew for years or decades.
Fixed that for ya!:-)
Sarcasm (even if true) aside, the simple fact is, the largest problem with any of these scenarios is the ill will Microsoft has caused in the security community. Regardless of who wants to argue about it being caused by the complexity of the products, or the lack of willingness of Microsoft to fix issues, or a combination of both, the simple fact is, Microsoft has, in the past, made too many statements about fixing things that were never fixed, or ignoring things that needed to be fixed (until an exploit was made public and got a lot of exposure - at which time, it suddenly was possible to fix the exploit in a few days to a week.
There lies the problem. We've been promised a number of times that.NET was fixed, only to find it wasnt really (and only a patch was written to mitigate a particular issue in a gaping hole that wasnt really patched) - and that was after it took months or years. We've been promised over the years similar things related to the various buffer overflow issues in Windows and IE, with similar abysmal results. We've watched things like the Click Once exploit be ignored until it made the mainstream media (and then get patched in a couple weeks).
Perception, thus, is the key. And in that respect, the public's perception of Microsoft's flaws in dealing with such things is quite horribly tarnished - which has no bearing on whether it's simply because Microsoft has had no intentions of fixing things timely or because the complexity of the underlying code is the cause of the issue - or a combination thereof.
What makes things worse is that, even after Microsoft's claims of having replaced 80% plus of the code in Windows Vista (and thus the same amount or more in Windows 7) when compared to Windows XP, many of the exploits that have recently came out target all variants of Windows from 2000 onwards - which would indicate that they key, exploitable components are still largely the same ones that have existed since the Windows 2000 days (or inotherwords, of the 80%+ code replaced, the key exploitable/broken sections are not in that 80% of code). That makes public perception even worse.
Problem is, none of us will know the true problems behind this, and whether the perceptions out there are warranted. Problem is, it's been proven that once these exploits are released to the public, Microsoft somehow manages patches in a very quick fashion - while on the other hand (when not announced, or in their responses to Google's 60 day time frame) they claim such is not possible without more time due to OS complexity. Both situations are at odds and on the opposite end of the spectrum. That makes it seem like the reason more time is needed is solely because (a) Microsoft does not want to spend the money (ie: developer and research time) to release such things timely, or (b) Microsoft simply has no interest in spending the money (ie: time, etc) on fixing any issue that isnt widely known and affecting their (already tarnished) reputation in this area. Again, that may not be the reality of the situation, but it is the perceptions that their actions cause.
The fact that they CAN release a patch very quickly, when being pressured because the exploit was released to the public furthers this scenario, and creates even more ill will - especially when various researchers who submit such information (see earlier/. stories on these subjects from the last week or two), are not given a mitigation date, or arent even given an indication that Microsoft intends to fix things.
That begs the question of whether Microsoft deserves different treatment in an effort to force them to get the ball rolling on such things. By the perceptions they have caused, ye
Microsoft should not be the ones that set the writing to law when it comes to any security issue. They have an extremely poor reputation as it is. What Microsoft defines should have little weight in the community where these issues are discovered and discussed. Over the years those that have uncovered these security issues have been well restrained. They seem significantly better equipped to deal with how and when they should be disclosed. If not for them, discovered issues would likely never be disclosed to the public, and the public would not be exerting enough pressure to get them fixed (let alone prioritized).
Agreed, it would be called a "conflict of interests" since their efforts in such regards would solely be to protect their interests, and not their locked in users to any extent not required to maintain their monopoly.
But, that has never stopped companies from buying laws in the past... sadly.:-(
No, a LOT more two faced. Anyone with even the slightest networking knowledge knows that any ISP such as this, who runs their own DNS server can simply drop the bad domains into the DNS servers and have them point to one of their own servers which will present a "This site has been blocked for... " page.
A simple example of something similar (in implementation) are the "not found" redirects that many ISPs are doing now, that bring you to one of their customized search pages.
They dont need to monitor what users are doing since they are not building a list of bad sites - they are (supposedly) comparing users' surfing to an already existing list.
Except for a few factors... (1) Nintendo already paid off their initial investment (as Microsoft has not), (2) Microsoft has either killed (or is trying desperately to kill) cross platform games (see recent news on that subject on Engadget and elsewhere) and I am sure other places.
Simple fact is, others (Nintendo being one) have figured out how to do it - Microsoft has not yet reached that point, and is gaining nothing of that much value. While *we* may have gained something of value (assuming the PS3 was instrumental to whatever extent in deciding the format wars), Microsoft *lost* in that respect and "bet on the wrong horse"
The 360 used to lose money, but I believe that it is now profitable. Overall, it still has yet to cover all of the costs, but it is now on its way to doing so.
The funny thing about how math works is, that means, it is not profitable yet. Amortizing the costs of something does not make that item magically profitable because in a quarter or two, it takes in more than that quarter's expenses. It means, as you noted, it has yet to cover all it's costs - even when including all the add-ons that get sold due to it (subscriptions, games and game fees, etc).
It's in the fucking server room! Do you really leave the initial install of software on your servers? If you do you're a fool.
Fuck. What am I talking about. This is Slashdot. You probably don't even work in a real server room! The fact that they're bundled means that it will work with the server. That's all that's important. No real admin wants them to install the OS anyway.
I am guessing Windows Server Admins are not server admins then? In certain cases, I would tend to agree, but as a generalization, I would not. And no, I am not a Windows Server admin, except where I have Windows Servers to administrate at customer locations where they were already installed.
As for me not working in a real server room, not just have I and do I, but I have also worked for UUNet and done far more (including being one of the support engineers for AlterDial, their ISDN products, "Microsoft's" (err... UUNet's rented by MS) connections and backbone, AOL's dialup and more...
If I buy a server, I've always installed the OS myself. But, I also want to know the OS has been installed, tested, and works beforehand. Getting a set of disks does not in any way convince me that such has been done. Getting disks and a machine that has already had the OS installed and configured, on the other hand, goes a lot further to convincing me that the manufacturer has some real experience in getting the (non-Windows) OS to run on their hardware - regardless of whether I plan on wiping the machine and re-installing on my own or not.
Regardless, a machine that comes with OS disks (and no OS on the machine) is NOT a machine that comes with OS on the machine, as was originally alluded to. Many companies want an out of the box scenario to save time and money - this helps prevent these *nix offerings from ever being taken into consideration for such needs.
Anyway, keep hiding behind your AC status... it's a great shield for you being nasty, contrary simply for the sake of being contrary, generalizing, and idiotic. Or... grow up. Or whatever - I really dont care, so take those suggestions as you will. I, on the other hand, no matter what I have to post, log in first - whether I turn out to be right or wrong. I also simply admit if I am wrong. In this case though, I think I simply am looking at the larger picture, instead of simply what you would do, or what I would do.
You forget how many server admins are out there who should probably never be allowed into the server room - much less near the server itself. One cannot change what is - instead, if Dell were really interested in increasing market share for it's Linux offerings, it would take that into account, in the same fashion that it does not sell Windows machines with no OS installed and a set of disks so the user could do it themselves. After all, there will always be server admins (or server "admins" if you prefer) who want an out of the box solution - as a matter of fact, there will likely always be an increasing number of them.
I'm an iPhone user and have minimal experience with Android. Does HTC make any statements about how long they will upgrade certain phones?
ie, obviously the Incredible will be supported for awhile, as it's only been out, what--2 months? What about older models?
I'm assuming you're saying the iPhone is different from Android because you can root/flash some models of Android phones, regardless of official support, while with Apple it's not as simple (though people have obviously jailbroken and done many things)? Apple afterall has released iOS4 for the iPhone 3g but not the original -- so two years of support at least (even though there are mixed reports of how well iOS4 runs)
Hi Moridineas, that too is a factor. My G1, though ancient, and with little chance of an official upgrade to Android 2.x, can be upgraded pretty easily to v2.0, v2.1 or v2.2 - the most difficult step (and only dangerous one) is replacing the bootloader - this is not an issue with other Android phones because they already run a newer bootloader that enables the various capabilities needed in newer ROMs (such as SD card as phone memory/storage).
For that reason (and because other G1 owners are reporting that both of the most popular unofficial 2.1 and 2.2 are actually faster than 1.6 on the G1), I (who was considering a new phone) will probably be sticking with my G1 for quite some time - unless I brick it (though a total newbie to such things just reported on the TMobile forums that he (with some minor instructions from other forum members) just successfully rooted and upgraded his G1 to v2.1).
I love the "newest and fastest" - but am also happy to save/spend that money elsehwere if my current phone can do virtually all of what the newer phones can do with reasonable response time/performance.
And, as you noted, since it is very easy to re-ROM an Android phone, find custom Android builds for most or all phones, I just dont have a reason to buy another (yet).
When I got my phone, the camera was pretty unusable, video wasnt possible. Google Maps barely ran. Google Voice and Google Contacts didnt exist for it (that I know of), gMail left a bit to be desired, performance was "eh"
With no hardware changes, I now have a working camera, video recording support (via camera), YouTube support, a faster web browser, Google Voice and Contacts, a working Google Maps, and Google Navigation - as well as a lot of OS/interface improvements and tweaks. My phone is already many times more capable than when I bought it, and it's the very first Android phone sold to the public. That too is a good reason to not upgrade.
As for HTC's statement(s) about which phones they will or will not upgrade past a certain point, that seems dependent on Google first releasing a new version of Android, and then HTC determining whether they can comfortably get it to run on the phone. It seems that the phones with bootloaders newer than the G1s will be receiving official upgrades. Phone owners with the G1's bootloader need to refer to the ROM community if they want to upgrade.
While there are those who complain (most notably the G1 community), there honestly isn't too much to complain about - it is pretty rare that one buys a product with one list of features, and in it's lifetime that product gets a lot more features and tweaks without the owner spending a single penny. That too, I think makes a difference in who chooses to buy a new phone. For big enhancements in the iPhone line, one is required to buy a new iPhone most of the time. In the G1 (and to a slightly lesser extent Android-as-a-whoele) line, one simply needs to accept the newest OTA upgrade and start playing with the new features as soon as they come in.
Now... I wouldnt mind upgrading to a new phone that had a higher resolution camera with a better CCD - or one that has a camera flash or headphone jack... or one with a fast enough processor to run Adobe Flash... so, there will always be some hardware reasons to upgrade. But for me, I can hold off for a while on those "needs" - especially since my phone currently does (with no mods) much more than the day I bought it.
Buried in the penultimate paragraph is the somewhat alarming note that "77% of iPhone owners say they'll buy another iPhone, compared to 20% of Android customers who say they'll buy another Android phone."
What exactly does that mean? I will be one of the 20% who buys another Android phone - but that is simply because I own a G1 which is getting long in the tooth. On the other hand, let's say I owned the HTC Droid Incredible, then I doubt I would be getting a new Android phone - I'd simply keep accepting the OTA Android upgrades. Most top of the line Android phones cause no reason to upgrade the hardware - while the iPhone line is a little different in that respect.
There are a ton of other factors that can come into play, not the least of which being how the question itself was worded.
The list of targets picked by that entity is pretty impressive. Even though the article accurately notes that some big names are missing, it almost reads like a Who Is Who of the industry. Sort of duck shooting, but the really big ones...
Which may be exactly what's needed to at the very least have their patent invalidated and them driven out of business. At least, so I am hoping.
Oh... you mean the NOT Factory Installed options? Or Novell's solution. Every other solution on the servers I have checked out are NOT installed by Dell. How is that an option if you dont get it?
RHEL 4.8AS 1Year RH Network Subscription with Media, NOT FACTORY INSTALLED [Included in Price]
RHEL 4.8AS 3Year RH Network Subscription with Media, NOT FACTORY INSTALLED [add $1,800.00]
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>>>my first ISP cost me 80 per month for 80 hours, way back when
Holy crap. I only spent $15 a month for AOL/Quantum Link back in the 80s. What ISP were you paying off? To date I've never paid more than $19 a month for internet, and hope I never need to in the future.
As for "welfare for the rich" I think that's a good description. Back when I bought my 80mpg Honda Hybrid the state gave a $2000 rebate for sales tax, the US gave me $2000 for it being electric, and I was earning $90,000. I don't consider myself rich, but I'm not poor either. I should not have received any assistance.
There should be a cutoff where if you earn over a certain amount of money (say $50,000) you are ineligible to receive any EV Rebates from the government.
Back in the 80's AOL did not have Internet. They also charged extra per minute (on top of the $10 or $15 or $20 or $25 depending on what special or CD you got). By the time "they" (ummmm.... US at UUNet FOR them, who billed YOU a crapload) did supply actual Internet connectivity, it was still years before they added a flat rate service. That was the 90's. So... your recollection is a decade off. Then again, the WWW didnt really "exist" (to the general public) until 1991. And it didnt take off until the mid to late 90's.
Just figured I would point that out.
As for the rest, what may be better is if the government gave the subsidies to the car manufacturers instead, helping to still reduce costs, while putting a little back towards research. Anyway, I am sure you can donate your $4K to some charity if you really think you shouldnt have received any assistance.
Too bad the Toyota can't work it's way up a hill worth a shit compared to the Ford or Mazda. The Toyota can last as long as it wants, but if I can't step on the gas and get to speed in reasonable time, it's useless to me. And that's my experience with every Toyota I have ever driven. I'll take the car that doesn't last as long any day.
Hi troll... since I dont haves mod points today, I'll reply. My Toyota (Camry) with it's 2.2L engine can handle hills quite fine and quite speedily. It's a 1992, making it already 18 years old with just shy of 270,000 miles. It STILL gets up hills pretty zippily, and STILL gets 30mpg highway (and almost indistinguishably close in "city" driving... about 29.2).
*Shrugs*
I used the cars the GP mentioned.
The math all depends on your figures.
How many miles do you drive? Is it more skewed to highway or city? Lower maintenance vs higher insurance costs for a more expensive vehicle. What sort of interest rate can you get? How do you value the cost of the capital? Where do you figure gasoline is going to go?
Here, do the math for me for this... and throw in an EV (let's say the Model S or the forthcoming BlueStar) at pennies a mile.
I used to drive (till CompUSA closed) 50,000 miles a year... that's a little over 40,000 to and from work 6 days a week (and assumes no travel for lunch, etc), plus 10,000 a year for recreational driving. 65 miles each way to work, just in case you want to check my math. Then, assume it's all city driving. That's right... ALL of the 50,000 miles. The local recreational driving is, as most such driving is... and as for the work driving, it's 2.5 hours for 65 miles with constant stop and go (rush hour in NY) both ways.
So, what does the math say then?
Now, I suspect there are MILLIONS (I dont suspect it... I know.... you can check the DOT's stats if you want) of people who have similar commutes in the NY Metro area and other areas like it. With that sort of savings, and as battery prices drop, it becomes quite a savings for a hybrid or an EV.
To be honest, the MS UNBLUR images are clearly better thant SHARP 1 and SHARP 2, at least for me. Their method allows the software to user more data than any post-processing filter, data that will not be preserved in the image itself. For some people, unless if it adds a substantial fee to a phone or small cam, it is a benefit that cannot be replaced by a simple filter.
While their method allows it, it doesnt yet fully utilize it. There are things about both the filtered images and theirs that is not desirable. Theirs does a little better with contrasting blur (look at the bright spot on the car door - doubled in the sharp (filter) image (and original). But then again, their method currently adds ghosting (in some cases serious ghosting) to the image. Look at the cars in the parking lot and you will notice an "aura" around them.
Both methods equally have issues. But then again, I also did no edge enhance, no smart filter, no nothing special. I am sure I could have gotten better results (than theirs) by firing up some real filters on the original image - all stuff still accomplishable in camera.
That aside, anyone (that I've ever known) who uses such a camera, will either use a tripod for shots that need to be steady, or some other suitable rig, or be capable of holding a camera steady.
Microsoft Research puts out a lot of really interesting and successful research. They aren't the people programming the OS or office applications.
Yes, but I just took two of the images, for research purposes, and applied a simple Sharp mask to them (two different levels), and it seems the results are pretty comparable. If I actually spent more than 2 mouse clicks to try to properly sharpen them, I betcha the results would be even better, and not require additional hardware. As a matter of fact, the results they get can easily be duplicated with IN CAMERA filters and thus save a boatload of dev costs, and a bunch of money.
These (SHARP 1 and SHARP 2) were done using PMView from the blurry image. Filters -> Sharpen (mild) and Sharpen (moderate). Adding "Edge Enhance" to it makes the car one look even better. Now, these are very very very very basic filters that have been surpassed ages ago by filters easily runnable on a camera or cell phone.
So, I find nothing interesting or successful about this. I find this will be something that makes cameras and cell phones cost more money, while not providing any benefits that a simple filter or two in the cam/phone can accomplish.
deBlur and Sharpen
Sorry about the scrolling... but just something quick I threw together in 2 seconds which does the job). MS, if you want the research comparison taken down, email me at first name dot last name at google dot com.
Ballmer seems incapable of directing his company to do anything innovative. It's like he only sees a product category as valid when it's already been defined by someone else.
Apple defined a new category of tablet device with the iPad. Now Ballmer has MS chasing after it madly...
Ya know, I have a TON of Microsoft idiocy and horror stories I can relate, but in this case, I hate to say it, but if these actions by Microsoft are deliberate, then they may be very smart choices.
Microsoft has (especially recently) copied the success, look and feel and/or ideas of others to be a late entry into a marketplace (or to try to re-enter one in a "rebranded" way). This allows them to sit back and let someone else establish a market, determine if there is a market, and test to see what works and what doesnt (interface wise, functionality wise, marketing wise, and so on). Then, Microsoft can leverage their customer base/os base/whatever to enter that market leaning on the experiences of others to hopefully prevent them from making similar mistakes to the competition or to help them avoid entering into (or trying to create) a dead market.
In some cases, there has been some success (xBox/xBox 360, or their gaming acquisitions after the companies proved they were writing things people wanted). In others (Kin, Zune, WinMo), they took the wrong lessons from the game and lost or barely made it anywhere.
Simple fact is, any company like Microsoft is about making money. NOT about innovation (unless it means making money). Regardless, as they have done in the past, they can always claim anything they release (copycatted or not) is an "innovation" (even if it wasnt theirs).
There are many product lines that are very very profitable that have not had any innovation in years (or decades?) but keep getting more profitable. For instance, ask Exxon. Businesses are (usually - or most often) in business to make money - innovation is simply a by-product of that or an "as needed, and only when needed or when it will not affect our profits negatively"
You're missing the point. There's a reliable, affordable midpoint between the big, cheap but, as per your experience, highly unreliable SATA drives and a server-class SAS or UltraSCSI disk and that's the Enterprise SATA drives I mentioned.
Used em, killed em. Star Trek New Voyages: Phase 2, filming Kitumba. 3 of 8. Took two weeks.
No... no I shouldnt. All of our servers run on enterprise grade SAS or SCSI.
The drives I am discussing were for customer machines. We do PC repair. We are NOT sticking an SAS drive in a piece o crap Dell Dimension.
Please read the post I first responded to. I was responding to someone else who thought that an $80 cheapo SATA drive was a valid choice of hardware to use in an enterprise storage solution, to which I responded (paraphrased) "no way, we buy tons of them and most have failed"
Sorry I didnt clarify that we buy them for regular PC repairs and use only SAS or SCSI for real stuff (or maybe I kinda did).
No... these were just generic replacement drives for regular computers.
First of all, a 2TB hard drive costs no more to run than an 80gb hard drive.
I would never use the $80 2TB hard drives sold today for serious storage - that's a ridiculous proposal. SAS or regular SCSI only for me. I've ordered 10 2TB drives, and 2 1.5TB drives in the last 5 months. More than half are on their way back (or already shipped back). of the 7 drives being shipped back, 4 were DOA. One lasted a whopping 4 hours of use (and 26 hours uptime). And none of the other ones lasted more than 4 months (the most "reliable" of the dead drives has been sitting here for a month waiting for me to get around to shipping it back). All from NewEgg, unopened, new in box. Seagates and Western Digitals.
So, now, look up SAS for high end server/storage solutions (or SCSI) and hardware based redundancy, or a true enterprise class hardware/software combination, and you will find that 2TB costs far more than $80.
and whatever religious or superstitial concerns may arise,
Nothing personal, but I just wanted to point out the redundancy in this statement. ;-)
That's between me and whatever Gods I believe in.
The free exercise of religion is sufficient reason on it's own for organ donation to be an opt-in affair.
Last I checked (hmmm... a few months ago when I renewed my license), the "opt-in" option was not an "opt-in" option.
It was a checkbox to select one or the other. Not sure how this new law (if it passes) changes things. Do the checkboxes get re-ordered?
Even if my memory is faulty (which it very well may be - and I am too lazy to go to the NYS DMV site and download an app to check - no pun intended), then Instead of reading "Would you like to be an organ donor" and not checking it, how difficult is it to check "Would you NOT like to be an organ donor?"
Really, for anyone who can read, I think this is a big non-issue. It is pretty simple to put an x or checkmark on a box - or choose not to.
I'd mod you "+10 Fucking Awesome" but sadly, Slashdot has no such mod. Hope my intent is worth as much as the action /. wont let me perform.
... all the ATMs were running OS/2.
There was never a time when all ATMs ran OS/2. Besides, OS/2 had its own problems.
Hmmm... if you knew anything about OS/2, you would realize that the COMPUTER (hardware) had a problem - not OS/2. A Trap 000e is generally a RAM error (as in a failed memory module), and the rest of the time, it is a failure of some component that gets mapped as RAM (such as the memory on a video card, or some device being accessed as memory).
So... you may wish to find a better example. Without the correct hardware (like let's say an IBM Netfinity or IBM eServer xSeries) with RAID memory mirroring enabled, when a memory module fails (especially on the relatively cheap hardware used in an ATM), then ANY PC operating system I currently know of goes down with it.
On a well built machine running OS/2, problems are few and far between.I just rebooted a machine at an ambulance company we support (runs eComstation v1.2MR) that was up for 1 month short of two years, continuously running web, MySQL, FTP and a variety of other services that get heavy access every day. It was rebooted because (1) I upgraded some system components (a couple DLLs and MySQL), and (2) it was long overdue to be opened and dusted out.
Simultaneously you mean? That leaves the vendor no time to fix the flaw.
Simultaneously you mean? That forces Microsoft to fix the flaw, instead of letting it stew for years or decades.
Fixed that for ya! :-)
Sarcasm (even if true) aside, the simple fact is, the largest problem with any of these scenarios is the ill will Microsoft has caused in the security community. Regardless of who wants to argue about it being caused by the complexity of the products, or the lack of willingness of Microsoft to fix issues, or a combination of both, the simple fact is, Microsoft has, in the past, made too many statements about fixing things that were never fixed, or ignoring things that needed to be fixed (until an exploit was made public and got a lot of exposure - at which time, it suddenly was possible to fix the exploit in a few days to a week.
There lies the problem. We've been promised a number of times that .NET was fixed, only to find it wasnt really (and only a patch was written to mitigate a particular issue in a gaping hole that wasnt really patched) - and that was after it took months or years. We've been promised over the years similar things related to the various buffer overflow issues in Windows and IE, with similar abysmal results. We've watched things like the Click Once exploit be ignored until it made the mainstream media (and then get patched in a couple weeks).
Perception, thus, is the key. And in that respect, the public's perception of Microsoft's flaws in dealing with such things is quite horribly tarnished - which has no bearing on whether it's simply because Microsoft has had no intentions of fixing things timely or because the complexity of the underlying code is the cause of the issue - or a combination thereof.
What makes things worse is that, even after Microsoft's claims of having replaced 80% plus of the code in Windows Vista (and thus the same amount or more in Windows 7) when compared to Windows XP, many of the exploits that have recently came out target all variants of Windows from 2000 onwards - which would indicate that they key, exploitable components are still largely the same ones that have existed since the Windows 2000 days (or inotherwords, of the 80%+ code replaced, the key exploitable/broken sections are not in that 80% of code). That makes public perception even worse.
Problem is, none of us will know the true problems behind this, and whether the perceptions out there are warranted. Problem is, it's been proven that once these exploits are released to the public, Microsoft somehow manages patches in a very quick fashion - while on the other hand (when not announced, or in their responses to Google's 60 day time frame) they claim such is not possible without more time due to OS complexity. Both situations are at odds and on the opposite end of the spectrum. That makes it seem like the reason more time is needed is solely because (a) Microsoft does not want to spend the money (ie: developer and research time) to release such things timely, or (b) Microsoft simply has no interest in spending the money (ie: time, etc) on fixing any issue that isnt widely known and affecting their (already tarnished) reputation in this area. Again, that may not be the reality of the situation, but it is the perceptions that their actions cause.
The fact that they CAN release a patch very quickly, when being pressured because the exploit was released to the public furthers this scenario, and creates even more ill will - especially when various researchers who submit such information (see earlier /. stories on these subjects from the last week or two), are not given a mitigation date, or arent even given an indication that Microsoft intends to fix things.
That begs the question of whether Microsoft deserves different treatment in an effort to force them to get the ball rolling on such things. By the perceptions they have caused, ye
Microsoft should not be the ones that set the writing to law when it comes to any security issue. They have an extremely poor reputation as it is. What Microsoft defines should have little weight in the community where these issues are discovered and discussed. Over the years those that have uncovered these security issues have been well restrained. They seem significantly better equipped to deal with how and when they should be disclosed. If not for them, discovered issues would likely never be disclosed to the public, and the public would not be exerting enough pressure to get them fixed (let alone prioritized).
Agreed, it would be called a "conflict of interests" since their efforts in such regards would solely be to protect their interests, and not their locked in users to any extent not required to maintain their monopoly.
But, that has never stopped companies from buying laws in the past... sadly. :-(
No, a LOT more two faced. Anyone with even the slightest networking knowledge knows that any ISP such as this, who runs their own DNS server can simply drop the bad domains into the DNS servers and have them point to one of their own servers which will present a "This site has been blocked for... " page.
A simple example of something similar (in implementation) are the "not found" redirects that many ISPs are doing now, that bring you to one of their customized search pages.
They dont need to monitor what users are doing since they are not building a list of bad sites - they are (supposedly) comparing users' surfing to an already existing list.
I call massive bullshit on the part of TalkTalk.
Except for a few factors... (1) Nintendo already paid off their initial investment (as Microsoft has not), (2) Microsoft has either killed (or is trying desperately to kill) cross platform games (see recent news on that subject on Engadget and elsewhere) and I am sure other places.
Simple fact is, others (Nintendo being one) have figured out how to do it - Microsoft has not yet reached that point, and is gaining nothing of that much value. While *we* may have gained something of value (assuming the PS3 was instrumental to whatever extent in deciding the format wars), Microsoft *lost* in that respect and "bet on the wrong horse"
The 360 used to lose money, but I believe that it is now profitable. Overall, it still has yet to cover all of the costs, but it is now on its way to doing so.
The funny thing about how math works is, that means, it is not profitable yet. Amortizing the costs of something does not make that item magically profitable because in a quarter or two, it takes in more than that quarter's expenses. It means, as you noted, it has yet to cover all it's costs - even when including all the add-ons that get sold due to it (subscriptions, games and game fees, etc).
It's in the fucking server room! Do you really leave the initial install of software on your servers? If you do you're a fool.
Fuck. What am I talking about. This is Slashdot. You probably don't even work in a real server room! The fact that they're bundled means that it will work with the server. That's all that's important. No real admin wants them to install the OS anyway.
I am guessing Windows Server Admins are not server admins then? In certain cases, I would tend to agree, but as a generalization, I would not. And no, I am not a Windows Server admin, except where I have Windows Servers to administrate at customer locations where they were already installed.
As for me not working in a real server room, not just have I and do I, but I have also worked for UUNet and done far more (including being one of the support engineers for AlterDial, their ISDN products, "Microsoft's" (err... UUNet's rented by MS) connections and backbone, AOL's dialup and more...
If I buy a server, I've always installed the OS myself. But, I also want to know the OS has been installed, tested, and works beforehand. Getting a set of disks does not in any way convince me that such has been done. Getting disks and a machine that has already had the OS installed and configured, on the other hand, goes a lot further to convincing me that the manufacturer has some real experience in getting the (non-Windows) OS to run on their hardware - regardless of whether I plan on wiping the machine and re-installing on my own or not.
Regardless, a machine that comes with OS disks (and no OS on the machine) is NOT a machine that comes with OS on the machine, as was originally alluded to. Many companies want an out of the box scenario to save time and money - this helps prevent these *nix offerings from ever being taken into consideration for such needs.
Anyway, keep hiding behind your AC status... it's a great shield for you being nasty, contrary simply for the sake of being contrary, generalizing, and idiotic. Or... grow up. Or whatever - I really dont care, so take those suggestions as you will. I, on the other hand, no matter what I have to post, log in first - whether I turn out to be right or wrong. I also simply admit if I am wrong. In this case though, I think I simply am looking at the larger picture, instead of simply what you would do, or what I would do.
You forget how many server admins are out there who should probably never be allowed into the server room - much less near the server itself. One cannot change what is - instead, if Dell were really interested in increasing market share for it's Linux offerings, it would take that into account, in the same fashion that it does not sell Windows machines with no OS installed and a set of disks so the user could do it themselves. After all, there will always be server admins (or server "admins" if you prefer) who want an out of the box solution - as a matter of fact, there will likely always be an increasing number of them.
I'm an iPhone user and have minimal experience with Android. Does HTC make any statements about how long they will upgrade certain phones?
ie, obviously the Incredible will be supported for awhile, as it's only been out, what--2 months? What about older models?
I'm assuming you're saying the iPhone is different from Android because you can root/flash some models of Android phones, regardless of official support, while with Apple it's not as simple (though people have obviously jailbroken and done many things)? Apple afterall has released iOS4 for the iPhone 3g but not the original -- so two years of support at least (even though there are mixed reports of how well iOS4 runs)
Hi Moridineas, that too is a factor. My G1, though ancient, and with little chance of an official upgrade to Android 2.x, can be upgraded pretty easily to v2.0, v2.1 or v2.2 - the most difficult step (and only dangerous one) is replacing the bootloader - this is not an issue with other Android phones because they already run a newer bootloader that enables the various capabilities needed in newer ROMs (such as SD card as phone memory/storage).
For that reason (and because other G1 owners are reporting that both of the most popular unofficial 2.1 and 2.2 are actually faster than 1.6 on the G1), I (who was considering a new phone) will probably be sticking with my G1 for quite some time - unless I brick it (though a total newbie to such things just reported on the TMobile forums that he (with some minor instructions from other forum members) just successfully rooted and upgraded his G1 to v2.1).
I love the "newest and fastest" - but am also happy to save/spend that money elsehwere if my current phone can do virtually all of what the newer phones can do with reasonable response time/performance.
And, as you noted, since it is very easy to re-ROM an Android phone, find custom Android builds for most or all phones, I just dont have a reason to buy another (yet).
When I got my phone, the camera was pretty unusable, video wasnt possible. Google Maps barely ran. Google Voice and Google Contacts didnt exist for it (that I know of), gMail left a bit to be desired, performance was "eh"
With no hardware changes, I now have a working camera, video recording support (via camera), YouTube support, a faster web browser, Google Voice and Contacts, a working Google Maps, and Google Navigation - as well as a lot of OS/interface improvements and tweaks. My phone is already many times more capable than when I bought it, and it's the very first Android phone sold to the public. That too is a good reason to not upgrade.
As for HTC's statement(s) about which phones they will or will not upgrade past a certain point, that seems dependent on Google first releasing a new version of Android, and then HTC determining whether they can comfortably get it to run on the phone. It seems that the phones with bootloaders newer than the G1s will be receiving official upgrades. Phone owners with the G1's bootloader need to refer to the ROM community if they want to upgrade.
While there are those who complain (most notably the G1 community), there honestly isn't too much to complain about - it is pretty rare that one buys a product with one list of features, and in it's lifetime that product gets a lot more features and tweaks without the owner spending a single penny. That too, I think makes a difference in who chooses to buy a new phone. For big enhancements in the iPhone line, one is required to buy a new iPhone most of the time. In the G1 (and to a slightly lesser extent Android-as-a-whoele) line, one simply needs to accept the newest OTA upgrade and start playing with the new features as soon as they come in.
Now... I wouldnt mind upgrading to a new phone that had a higher resolution camera with a better CCD - or one that has a camera flash or headphone jack... or one with a fast enough processor to run Adobe Flash... so, there will always be some hardware reasons to upgrade. But for me, I can hold off for a while on those "needs" - especially since my phone currently does (with no mods) much more than the day I bought it.
Buried in the penultimate paragraph is the somewhat alarming note that "77% of iPhone owners say they'll buy another iPhone, compared to 20% of Android customers who say they'll buy another Android phone."
What exactly does that mean? I will be one of the 20% who buys another Android phone - but that is simply because I own a G1 which is getting long in the tooth. On the other hand, let's say I owned the HTC Droid Incredible, then I doubt I would be getting a new Android phone - I'd simply keep accepting the OTA Android upgrades. Most top of the line Android phones cause no reason to upgrade the hardware - while the iPhone line is a little different in that respect.
There are a ton of other factors that can come into play, not the least of which being how the question itself was worded.
The list of targets picked by that entity is pretty impressive. Even though the article accurately notes that some big names are missing, it almost reads like a Who Is Who of the industry. Sort of duck shooting, but the really big ones...
Which may be exactly what's needed to at the very least have their patent invalidated and them driven out of business. At least, so I am hoping.
Oh... you mean the NOT Factory Installed options? Or Novell's solution. Every other solution on the servers I have checked out are NOT installed by Dell. How is that an option if you dont get it?
RHEL 4.8AS 1Year RH Network Subscription with Media, NOT FACTORY INSTALLED [Included in Price]
RHEL 4.8AS 3Year RH Network Subscription with Media, NOT FACTORY INSTALLED [add $1,800.00]
Sorry, I assumed the bold smiley face would indicate it was an attempt at humor.