Posts by hammarbtyp 1522 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Nov 2007
Wildlife photography is an area where a good camera and an excellent lens is always going to be paramount and a mobile phone is never going to cut it. Sport photography is another area, although I have known of some sport photographers using phones in certain situations, partly because of their superior upload capabilities.
However these are relatively niche and edge uses, and not really applicable to most peoples general experience of photography.
One professional area where phones are more likely to be used is in street photography, because people are less disturbed by them and you stand out less.
@iron
So you are saying that a camera can connect to the internet.
As long as you have a phone.
That's like saying that man can fly unaided. As long as he is flapping on an aircraft.
On my phone I can most major processing from simple changes to cloning and selective adjustments with a combination of LR and snapseed. I have never seen a DSLR where you can do anything more than a tiny bit of post processing largely because most cameras the touch screens (if they have one) just are not optimised for that sort of operation
Of course you could upload the photo to a phone and do it there......
So what were your advantages of a smartphone camera again?
Yes an average DSLR or bridge can often take better images, but with caveats.
Firstly in good light and as long as the subject is not to far away, you will struggle to see much difference. However in lower light the differences become more pronounced, however 80% of the time the differences will only be important to photographic enthusiasts and not to the majority of users.
Add to that the smartphone advantage. Its light portable, and almost always with you.Its always on, while most dedicated cameras have slow startup times. It is always connected to the net, so you can upload easily to social media and the cloud. Also you can do post processing on the device itself.
Its easy to become snobbish about phone cameras, but the truth is outside the canon <sic> of camera nerds the camera advantages are far less that the academic. paper exercises will have you beleive
well yes, but why does it need to be manned to do that?
There does not seem to be many good technological reasons to send people to the moon, apart from inspiration. Most jobs would and can be done by robots, cheaper and at less risk
That is not to say i am against the idea. The original Apollo program inspired me and many in my generation, and i would love to recapture that spirit, however we have to be honest for the purpose and not invent spurious reasons that don't stand up to scrutony
I live close to a site of major heavy rock festival. During the 4 days we often have festival goers pop into town for breakfast, beer (and quite often unfortunately wellies and new rain coats).
Generally they are really nice bunch of people, who cause far less trouble than the usual Friday night lot and are a pleasure to be around. However this is because the average heavy metal fan nowadays seems to be roughly 40-50, and are often here to take time off from their family responsibilities, relive their youth and let their hair down (those who have any left).
While initially intimidating, once you dig past the thin veneer of leather, chains, dog collars and offensive t-shirts, you find IT technicians, middle ranking managers, shoe salesmen etc. They are as likely to cause issues as you average COS play super villain is to blow up the universe.
(Disclaimer - I have no direct evidence on the behavior of Pharrell Williams fans, its just that generally most of the people who are happy all the time seem only one step away from either joining a cult or serious mental breakdown)
Ok you make some fair points, but the ruling itself shows a lack of understanding of the basis of software API's.
The biggest one is the 11.500 lines of code allegedly copied by Google. That sounds to a layman like a slam dunk case. However when you analyse it as a software developer it is less so.
What are the 11500 lines of code
The Java library code consists of 2.86 million lines of code, therefore Oracles case rests on 0.4% of the code base being copied. Basically those 11500 lines are the Java 2 API headings, virtually everything else is Google's own work . Google's purpose was to to create a language that was familiar to Java developers but fitted in with Android. To most software developers, there is nothing wrong with that. If i want to use C ion a new hardware, I would recreate the C standard library and write the back-end. Or say I wanted to write my own version of SQL, like a small company like Oracle did way back.
I cannot see where the court gets 170 lines from. How would you write a compatible JAVA library using 170 lines?
Its a bit like Collins claiming copyright over oxford dictionaries, because they used the same word headings even though the definitions were totally original.
The rulling is a total mis-representation of software API's and opens the door to any other corporate vulture claiming ownership over software re-use
Some good and some pointless questions
- Do you get a free toaster with the loan you have to get to finance it?
Sounds a lot, but this is not meant for joe consumer. It is for the those with money to burn who must have the latest and greatest. It certainly stands out compared to the latest iphone. Remember to some this is the same cost as a bottle of dinner wine
- What is the software update plan, delay, and how long before they stop issuing updates after sales fail?
Same as any other android phone i'm guessing
- Looks fragile.
Probably no more than your average iphone. However there is probably no way to add screen protectors, which could be an issue
- The screen warp at the seam (watch some of the launch demo videos)
I'm sure that will get better as technology improves
- Too big to put in a pocket.
Depends how big your pockets are, and a damn sight more convenient than carrying a tablet around as well. As someone who used to carry a Psion 5 knows , its small enough
- How does it hold up to scratches?
Again lack of screen protector is an issue. Presumably it has to be flexible material, so there will be some damage
- Is it IP67/68?
Don't see why not
- Can't put a case on it and still use it.
Probably not
- How much does it cost to replace a cracked screen?
Probably a lot. However if you can spend 2 grand on a phone, that is not going to be a major concern.
- Contains two batteries that could become an IED.
Now we are just getting silly. It is still far smaller than a tablet or a laptop
- Contains 5G, which means you have potentially cellular level alternating, millimeter wave antenna. (https://www.saferemr.com/2017/08/5g-wireless-technology-millimeter-wave.html)
Now we are just getting into paranoia. This phone is no different to any other 5g device that will be coming out in the next few year, and almost certainly will have to operate as a 4G device until the infrastructure is out there. While i know there are some concerns on 5g wavelengths there has been no peer reviewed evidence on any issues, just speculation and alarmist headlines.
I don't see the use case given all the drawbacks. Just because you can, does not mean you should.
On that basis we should still be hiding in caves, scavenging fruit and any meat we can scavenge. Progress means pushing in all directions. If we knew where to go we would already be there. Although I doubt I will ever have one I salute the technology pioneers who wish to go first
Dear Mr Grayling
I have been requested by the Nigerian Space Agency to contact you for assistance in resolving the matter of access to GPS. The Nigerian Space has recently acquired a satellite onto which a GPS alternative could be placed. Unfortunately due to international restrictions, we cannot help you until funding has been made available. Please to facilitate this wire £100 million to the attached agency back account, and we will launch your new GPS system for you
Yours Faithfully
Prince Boateng III (Acting head of NSA)
P.S My brother also owns are large number of RORO ferries. I would be please to make these available for another £100 million
Unfortunately this again proves that there is no one fits solution to big problems.
In a realistic world, federal dollars would be used to pay for a public optical high speed backbone that anyone can use to create local services.
But this is America, and that sort of thing smacks of Communism, so they will leave it to the market, who will then cherry pick the best areas, ensure that any competition is squashed and you will end up with a expensive hodge podge which suits no one apart from the monopolies controlling it. Best of all for them everyone in the US will pay for it. But hey it's the American way dammit.
If the interstate network was being built today, and not in Rossevelt's socialist new deal era. Most major highways would stop about 50 miles outside major cities with rural and the poor being forced to use the dirt track back roads
A lot of cargo aircraft are old passenger aircraft. I live near a cargo hub, and you see aircraft, that were retired from passenger use years ago, such as MD-11, old Ilyushins.
Modern passenger aircraft are pretty tough. However the economic costs of their use for passenger use becomes harder to justify as they get older. I don't see Emirates using them for their full life span
One thing not mentioned about the A380 freight version was that it was actually just too big. Basically by the time you hit the weight limit it was only 60% full, meaning it was not as efficient as the 747 freighter. However we might see a version for carrying very large objects when they start coming out of service.
Also RR will take a hit, since the Trent 900 was the primary engine used on the type
The main issue would be, as far as I see it, remediation, If the UK is allowed to maintain the same data relationship with the EU, what happens if that relationship is taken advantage of by the UK, against EU rules. Since the governmment is adamant that they will nor be beholden to any EU judicial body or any sort of joint oversight, it is hard to see how a data sharing framework could be managed and policed
@10forcash
Well my wife's a geologist and she great respect for climate science.
Climate scientist do work with geosciences. For example they rely on ice cores to measure temperature variation over near history. This is why they can show that the present rate of warming is unprecedented and is correlated with the rise in CO2 levels.
However normal geology is not going to tell you a lot, because the normal rate of rock deposition means that they tend to work in periods of 100 of thousands of years which is to long to measure any climate data, especially if we are talking about the last 100 years. However they can show times of volcanic activity and other extreme events that can be tied back to the climate records.
(of course you could argue that most geologists work for the petro-chemical industries or mining and therefore it is in their best interests to dismiss climate change, but generally I have better respect for science professionals and the scientific method than someone who terms "consensus2 as "cabaal")
History of science has consistently shown that when you push the boundaries not only do we find the things we were looking for, but lots we didn't realise existed.
The space race purpose was to get to the moon, the rest came as a by-product of that attempt.
I'm sure some will say that the money spent would be better off spent solving world hunger or cancer research. However this ignores that science is inextricably linked, and a discovery in one area could affect another.
The problem is, if we knew what we were going to find, there is no point looking for it. And once we found something, there may be many many ways to apply it. For example the original quantum research, was purely theoretical and many would of said pointless, yet know we are using the quantum realm in electroncs, computing and starting to look at biological processes in a new way
Same thing happened to me. Kept getting emails from the states about someones car. Needs Service, etc. For while it was amusing, but then I started getting fault reports and i thought what would I want to do in that situation? So I decided tp contact the provider to indicate a mistake had been made.
1 problem. No contact email address. So instead I put a sarcastic tweet with the companies handle. It worked and they messaged me. Great I thought, getting somewhere. So i told them the issue, they said they would sort it. Finally I thought.
Until yesterday
"Dear Tonya, Car VIN number, model number has low pressure in front left tyre"
So I contacted the company again. The response was. Sorry about that. Can you give us your pin number and we will sort it....<Sound of banging head against wall>
It makes you wonder why you bother
I think that's unlikely since the MS Queen Elizabeth (90,000 tonnes) have them compared to the Queen Elizabeth Class (65,000 tonnes ).
The reasons are more likely a) reduction in draught b) Easier to protect from torpedo attack c) The lack of a need to do close maneuvering such as sailing up and down fjords, so there is no need for the extra complication
(MS Queen Elizabeth has them so that it can dock in small Caribbean islands without the need of tug support and sometimes its useful to maintain station, for example if passengers want to go Jet skiing )
Arm-like big.LITTLE architecture
Interesting because where I stand it appears that Intel have pretty well left the embedded space. If you want to run a fanless x86 processor of any reasonable power you have AMD and that's it. Intel just don't care. Whether such a SoC processor would allow them to get back into the game is questionable.
Integrated GPUs no longer second-class citizens
I may be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure it is largely Intel integrated GPU's that have sucked. AMD with their in-house Radeon expertise have always been better
Just to add that you also have to balance "risk and cost of not achieving anything" against "potential benefits and possible spin offs"
So
strong AI, cure to cancer, fusion are strong categories in the latter column, while driverless and flying cars are more in the former camp (although crack AI, and you have driverless cards anyway).
Quantum computing is in the latter camp. Yes we may not achieve the final goal, but in doing so we gain a greater understanding of the quantum world. However if it is managed on a commercial scale, the benefits extend way beyond encryption. remember that most of the progress in the last 30 years has been due to increase in computing power, a curve which using present technologies may well have to stop
This seems a common thread in science.
Scientists are single minded, never see the big picture, and are only interested in funding.
this is normally put forward by people who have no specialist knowledge in a particular area, but latch onto the summary of a outlying research paper.
University research tends to be pretty open to new ideas. Proving that quantum computing is not possible would almost as big a break through as proving it is.
I'm pretty sure there are many quantum computing researchers who are aware of the paper and are taken it into account and are more qualified to understand its applicability and ramifications.
Saying that when commercial concerns get involved there is a a tendency to downgrade any information which stops the pork barrel funding, so you need to differentiate between basic research and commercial application
The question is, when this situation occurs, do we want some computer to make the call,
I think the question is whether you want the computer to make the call or Steve, who passed his driving test last week, is driving back after an all night party and is concentrating on trying to tune his radio
The only way to make safe driverless vehicles would be to put them on special lanes, perhaps specifically designed to avoid sharp angles; possibly with a system to keep them on trajectory at all times, like, some manner of metal railing?
I think they are called roads
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