Posts by Don Casey
20 posts • joined Tuesday 1st January 2008 19:56 GMT
Solved that problem
Was thinking Capture NX2 wasn't up to a (very) few things I needed to do with my images, and maybe I should move on to Photoshop.
Nope; think I'll be staying with NX2. Maybe with enough Adobe defections Nikon will start enhancing it.
Re: Blown out
Canon 10D - introduced 10 years ago
Re: This doesn't kill "the cloud" for me
Cloud vendors are interested in your business (the money you pay them), not your Business (what you do to have people pay you money).
They don't know your wants/needs/tolerance for outages, etc. etc. If commodity is all you need from IT, then fine.
If IT is mission critical to you (and that is an ever-expanding universe) then you have to think twice about giving up even indirect control over what happens to the infrastructure running your Business.
Outsourcing is one thing; you have a direct line of communication to people who should understand your Business and can react accordingly when making changes and when things go sideways.
Going to The Cloud completely removes you from the decision makers and actors, you have no control over the how and when and all you can do is hope your business is enough to keep them competent enough so they don't screw up your Business.
Facebook on wheels?
Anybody else find it spooky that the car had that much information about the journey? Is this normal for Teslas, or did this particular car have special logging systems installed.
Trivia
At the time, Cullinet (makers of IDMS, later absorbed into CA) was developing an integrated desktop application called Goldengate, which included Word/Excel/PPT equivalents (my memory is hazy on the latter).
On bit of this was the ability to upload/download mainframe database data from an IDMS facility known as the Information DataBase (some packaged IDMS facilities that provided a quasi-relational database).
Apple and Cullinet were in joint development, until Apple (as I hear it) pulled out of their side. Cullinet went on to develop the product for the PC side of things, where it pretty much underwhelmed, in spite of being arguably revolutionary.
I still have my square "Lisa/Cullinet: the Intelligent Link" button.
Re: PeXdant Alert!
sigh.
That's what a UC Berkeley education gets you... although in my defense the major was Computer Science, not English.
Go Bears!
Pendant Alert!
There is no "California University". There are two systems, the California State University system, including semi-independent campuses such as "California State University - Chico" (AKA "Chico State) and the University of California system, including campuses such as UC Berkeley (AKA "Cal"), UCLA, etc.
This appears to be the product of the UC, as opposed to the CSU system. There is NO CU system.
missing the point
It doesn't matter if Wordperfect was doomed anyway... Microsoft could have let market forces drive it to the final death.
The issue and question is; did Microsoft illegally hasten that death? Seems like the votes are 23 for, one against.
Posted in Mythbusters cannonball ‘myth-fires’
Closer yet
I believe the Calavaras fault is the closest to Dublin... maybe a mile or two.
Has been known to generate magnitude 6 quakes.
A Moment of Zen
IDMS structure diagrams used to be referred to as "Bachman Diagrams". Problem was, Charlie didn't create the gory details of the structure diagram... each Record box on the diagram was subdivided into about a number of sub-boxes (Record name, location mode, Area name, etc). These were extensions to the classic E-R diagram; CulCorp even used to give away rubber stamps with the Record block so people could draw their diagrams (I still have mine).
On tech conference Charlie was invited as a guest, and my region had created t-shirts that featured a portion of a database diagram on the front.
Your zen moment: watching the head of West Coast Field Education explain to Charlie Bachman the "Bachman Diagram" on his tshirt.
I suspect
Microsoft's problem is if they distribute an app with a GPL3 type license, then effectively they are cutting off their ability to sue anybody over any code found later to exist in that app.
They will, in effect, be granting to the world a license to use any code so distributed, whether they knew it or not.
Like if somebody included the Linux kernel in such an app.
oopsie
not to mention....
Aside from the photo, her image ITSELF is in many jurisdictions copyrighted; a photographer cannot use an image of a person for a commercial work unless there is a release, or the image falls into the "educational or editorial" category. Neither applies here.
Defendant most definately screwed (and should be).
au contraire...
Any number of people have come up with a fix; declare software patents null and void.
Posted in San Francisco's rogue BOFH is guilty
Been there, heard that
Having spent a day on jury duty recently, I can confirm the rules are:
1) No talking about a trial while it is going on
2) After the verdict is delivered, fair game
Fortunately as a consulant who doesn't get paid if I'm not working, I didn't get picked for an actual trial so I'll just take my coat and head back to work.
Why I photographic inanimate objects
I love photography, but shooting people is just too icky. First off, if you shoot a person or small group you really ought to ask, but I'm on the shy side. Secondly, if you intend to use the photo in some commercial setting, you need to ask for/negotiate/get a "model release". Too much hassle.
That said, the inclusion of people in photographs makes them that much more engaging to those who view photographs: people. Landscapes are pretty, but people draw you in.
I just don't want the aggravation that comes with 'candid' shots of people, so I live with shooting rocks, trees and buildings, and hope the local gendarmerie are looking for terrorists somewhere else.
Of course, you can get hassled for shooting somebodies building too, so really rocks are about all you have left that are at all safe.
sigh
Stupid move
I hope they get destroyed; (*&$ing trolls!
They've chosen to sue somebody who is rich, popular, and articulate... who also likes taking up causes. If Oprah decides to fight this watch out.
Can you imaging Oprah in front of a jury? She'd have them crying in their seats.
Posted in RFID could kill you
Here's why hospitals NEED this technology
The number of deaths due to incorrect medicine and/or dosing is non-trivial. If each container of pills was tagged (passive tag) then read when dispensing for each patient (and automatically checked against the patient database) the occasional fatal error would likely be caught.
The issue (as pointed out) will be with the radiation emitted by the reader, as passive tags don't transmit, they "reflect", and active tags are not appropriate for most hospital applications.
Posted in Apple sued over iPhone caller ID
A little time on Google shows....
This patent is valid, and the likes of Nokia/etc HAVE licensed it.
While US patents USED to be valid for only 17 years, GATT changed that aways back and it's now 20, applied retroactively.
So why should Apple get for free something Nokia, Motorola are paying for?
As to whether or not one SHOULD be allowed to patent an idea rather than a thing... that's another rant. This strikes me as rather too obvious to be patented (system design 101, use a database to match incoming transaction data and do something with it), but then the USPTO seems unequiped to detect "obvious", at least when it comes to IT.
Where is all that electricity going to come from?
I don't know about the rest of you, but I live in California (which is fairly green. for the US), and I remember the electicity blackouts and brownouts of a few years ago. And I watch every summer the ISO website showing how close we come to hitting capacity.
If you take a large percentage of internal-combustion vehicles off the road in this state, and replace them with electrics, exactly where is that electricity going to come from?
Also, I wonder about all the economic analysis based on electric charges of a few pennies; my marginal kWh rate is over $0.35!
