Posts by Rampant Spaniel

Re: Maybe the rat is a mutant,

They need to check the car park for a pink ford anglia with a hamster in the passenger seat!

Re: Nuclear mutant rats wreaking havoc?

It sounds more like the Whales outsourced their revenge!

Re: wow

@ ac

I did for 30 years. Right now I would be very happy to have a nuclear reactor on island, all we have is an oil burning power station and a token wind farm.

So you are saying people did die and it got hushed up? How very convienient for your point of view. Yes there may be long term health problems but the point I was making was that it could have been far worse and if commercial interests hadn't been allowed to compromise the safety of the plant in the first place it could have been lots better.

It certainly is not as bad as some people would like to make it out to be. The reality is that we will be using nuclear for a while, it is better to focus on improving security and safety than wage an impossible battle to stop it.

Re: wow

Leaving cost aside, is nuclear actually all that dangerous in practice? Look at Fukushima, how many people have died? How bad would have the incident been originally if some nerp hadn't fudged the books over the height of the wall required?

I'm not a huge fan of nuclear, but I think for now it has a place as part of our overall strategy for energy generation alongside gas \ wind \ solar \ tidal \ geothermal etc. The sanity of putting nuclear power stations in areas with a history of earthquakes \ tsunamis etc if questionable at best and the continued use of nuclear necessitates an entirely new look at how safety is implemented and monitored so commercial interests cannot fudge things again. Having said that, nuclear isn't as shocking as some people make out and until something better comes along to take up its share it will probably continue to be used.

Re: Make voting compulsory.

Very true. I don't think we could get close to requiring voting unless there was a genuine option for dissent \ protest voting. I think in recent years turnout has been between 60 and 70 percent for general elections, I know stateside it can be really low for county elections.

The current buggers have it far too easy. If one lot screws up badly they get sin binned for 4-8 years then they are back again. Look at how many got caught with dodgy expense accounts and carried on, and not just carried on but deliberately found a way around the rules by renting houses to each other. I'm sorry but it's insane. They have to be dealt with properly. If I included an invalid expense on my bill to a client I wouldn't work again, at least not in the same job. Yet they can do it publically, repeatedly and all they have to do is some pseudo catholic confession on tv routine, a quick hand through the candle, a hail tony and all is forgiven.

I do think it's our duty to vote, I respect thats old fashioned and unpopular, but we have a duty to try and keep improving. Right now the system is just fundamentally flawed with very little chance of repair.

Re: Make voting compulsory.

@m gale

Thanks! I wasn't suggesting locking people up nor forcing them to vote for any party. My thought was actually the opposite, capturing the 'they're all scum, drown the buggers' vote.

My reasoning was basically that right now a big chunk of people don't vote for various reasons, some because they can't be arsed (but usually manage to complain the most) but a lot because none of the options are any good. Thats a really valid vote, 'none of the above' needs to be recorded and frankly if the count is high enough then they have to start over with new candidates \ policies.

As it stands you don't get a free vote. You get a chance to vote for one of 3 main parties (at least for your vote to count) and the leader they select. What if 50% of the population think they're all crap and doesn't vote, one of them still gets in as that opinion isn't counted. I do think we need to take some steps to address voter apathy and ensure our leaders are selected by a genuine majority. It might make them start to behave.

Again thank your for explaining your point!

Re: Make voting compulsory.

You'd hope! Depends how long the queue is and how long your shifts are. With a solid postal \ electronic voting system, decent poll hours and capacity it shouldn't be an issue but lets face it, we aren't talking about people known for their ability to coordinate a pissup in a brewery. It's crazy over here, huge queues, not enough ballot papers, none of it is innocent. Politicians take every chance to try and sway the vote by making it harder for people who aren't in their parties demographic to vote. Then if they do manage to get to the station there can be huge queues which doesn't work if you only have 2 hours to vote in. Never underestimate how low this lot will stoop.

Re: Make voting compulsory.

Theres 30-40% of people don't bother to vote, I bet they don't bother to stop bitching about things they disagree with. If you implement a none of the above option then compulsory voting is fair. Some countries have it already. As long as people have time off work to vote there aren't many reasons why people shouldn't vote. If you want a protest vote then tick none of the above and maybe the duck house gets a little higher!

Just curious but why wouldn't you want compulsory voting (with an exception for those not capable of voting for reasons of mental handicap \ illness etc).

I guess they were created after labour pissed away a fortune during the 'good years'. Not that the tories and their minions in yellow are any better.

It could all be fixed petty easily. Make voting compulsory. Add a none of the above box. If more than 40% of people select none of the above you drown the theavin gits and start over. If you like poetic justice drown them in a taxpayer funded moat and bury them under a duck house.

No kidding, a return ticket would have been cheaper as well! I don't know whats worse, the fact that such a basic attempt at espionage nearly worked, or that he was employed in the first place. If this isn't some kind of double agent scenario I hope a few folks at spook central and NASA take a long walk off a short pier.

Re: Getting modern - they just don't get it

Exactly, not every business needs a website or can sell their wares online. If there is a sound financial argument for an online presence then it's likely a firm already has one or has reservations about it that are unlikely to be nullified by a quick course. The govt doesn't have money to waste, they are supposed to be using that cash for infrastructure, something people will benefit from, not lining pockets. There are plenty of free or cheap courses \ books etc about the internet and how to take advantage of it.

Re: fanny-packs

ghee is clarified butter, used in Indian cooking (amongst others). You basically heat up butter, remove the foam off the top, continue to heat until it starts to turn a bit brown (but not burnt) then filter. It has a nice buttery taste but can tolerate a far higher heat without burning. At least if I'm remembering it right! Haven't made it in a while.

Re: Heaven

No kidding, the mrs and I have a game, seeing who can get in and out of officemax or home depot without being asked if we need help.

It's not the staffs fault, just moronic management policies.

Re: Agree totally on the Take-Aways

It depends where you go, there are great Chinese takeaways in the UK. Actually run by Chinese people as well, unlike the US where pretty much every kitchen, no matter what the cuisine, is staffed by Mexicans. If anything it's impressive how versatile they are, but saying Chinese takeaways are stuffed full of msg is pretty 1970's. If any country has a thing for salt, sugar and lard it's the country that invented using deep fried chicken in place of a bread bun, and lets not overlook the 72oz soda cups.

One issue many folks overlook is that China is a pretty large place and it's not certain different countries will have a majority of Chinese immigrants from the same province.

I picked 200gb because I was pretty sure sony had a prototype 200gb bluray, not sure if it was rewriteable. I can't remember if it was pioneer or toshiba but someone was working on a 400gb and 1tb blurays. No idea which will come to market, maybe none but the tech is out there :-)

As for players, cables and tv's. Yes to all 3 most likely, although its going to be a newer hdmi cable capable of higher rates. Version 1.4 of hdmi supports 4k. I'm not running out to buy 4k, but my next video camera will most likely be 4k even if it is a few years before the TV is, did the same with HD and it worked out well. I guess everyone makes their own choice that suits them best.

As for whats on it, couldn't agree more! It really pisses me off when I pay good money for a bluray just to be forced to watch anti piracy messages and adverts for other movies.

Re: Back-of-napking calculations @Annihilator

In teh early days that was very valid, processors alone (and to a lesser extent still) didn't stand a chance alone. Red developed the red rocket as a hardware assist for realtime decoding, debayering, output and encoding of red raw footage. Adobe also updated ppro (cs 6 maybe?) with the mercury engine which uses your graphics card for realtime editing at full res, its absolutely lethal with a top range nvidia card. Not sure about avid \ sony etc but where theres a problem with money behind it someone will come along.

I honestly can't see any huge issues that haven't been solved already besides networking.

Re: Rough calculation on RAW storage costs

Some bitrates from 4k (some 422 in there probably, some 444)

Redcode36 is 36MBps so 288mbps?

Sony is using between 240mbps (24p) and 600mbps (60p) on the f55. The f65 has a native stream of 19gbps compressed to between 1.5gbps and 5gbps (iirc).

Canon's 1dc is 500mbps.

These are all in use today, the hobbit used red cameras and seem to be likely to break even :-) Storage costs just isn't an issue. It's still going to be far cheaper than film.

Re: Rough calculation on RAW storage costs

8 bits per pixel? And your bistromath is using 8k not 4k. Just out of interest do you work with video or are you just basing this off guesswork and teh interwebs? See my post above for a more realistic calculation based on what is already being used in the industry.

Re: Is there any point at the consumer end?

Not for everyone, it's certainly a desire not a need, but so is HD. It's a subjective call, go to a store, watch them side by side and see if you think the 4k is worth the extra funds (be fair and do this when it is more established, right now it makes a lot less sense).

Once the viewsonic 4k's cost less than a car I will have one for editing but thats a niche requirement. Once there is a 4k ecosystem then I'll make the call for our home. Can I 'see' the difference between hd and 4k, sure but I haven't seen a truly unbiased test so I'm waiting.

Re: Back-of-napking calculations

Studios may only store RAW, but RAW does not have to be uncompressed. REDCODE compresses somewhere between 8 and 12 to one depending on which you pick although it is lossy (red claims visually lossless).

Prores is pretty popular at about 220mbps for 4:2:2 1080p, prores 4444 seems to be the closest for figuring our a real storage requirement, 264mbps for 4:4:4 at 1080 24p so x4 and it should be below 1056mbps for 4k. Thats 132mb per second or about half a TB an hour of footage. Not exactly insane requirements. 512GB SSD's could easily top an hours footage and cope with the speed so we aren't talking warp drive technology.

Re: Back-of-napking calculations

In effect it does the same thing, nd filter = less light = longer shutter time, just at the other end of the shutterspeed range, I just gave one example. Using an ND filter does not increase the depth of field! In video it is used to facilitate the opposite if anything, using a shallower dof for a given gain & shutter.

Re: Back-of-napking calculations

Nothing to do with maintaining a 180 degree shutter in bright light with a wide aperture then? You are right to some degree about the fetishism, but in the stills world at least it is driven by clients not the togs.

I am curious how a ND filter stops down a lens and changes it's hyper focal range? :) Please do share! In stills they are used to effectively extend an exposure for example to get a dreamy water effect. Video \ Film is very sensitive to the shutter speed so this is fixed. Then you add any grads required or polarisers. Next you fix your ap as determined by the required depth of field. Then you see where that leaves the gain, you see if you need to add or reduce the light.

Re: Back-of-napking calculations

AFAIK (I'm a stills guy, rarely do video), but broadcast TV was stated in vertical resolution, cinema film \ digital in horizontal resolution. It's not so much a move from one to the other overall, it;s just a move in content i.e. cinema at home and a convergence.

Re: Hollywood stops making films, digital storage too unreliable/expensive

Maybe we should club together and help upgrade them to 750mb zip drives.

Sony have a prototype 200gb bluray. That coupled with h265 (as you mention) should fit a feature film at 4k on a single disc. Streaming will benefit, netflixesque streaming should run around 20mbps so in a while we can see that more mainstream.

8k is more of an issue. We aren't really in a place to make 33mp video sensors mainstream just yet, although a triple ccd solution could work if we have the accuracy to mount them. It will happen at some point, although I'm not sure it will make financial sense for a long time (so about 5-10 years then!).

Re editing and storage, I don't think it's so much an issue for small scale houses, it is more an issue for larger productions where the networking gets very expensive but mostly I think this is just whining to justify a price hike or a reluctance to adopt because they haven't milked the last generation tech enough.

I thought the same! It's not like apple give any of their supplies any credit at all (think corning gorilla glass). Other companies would use it as a selling point but thats not Apples way (which is fine, it's their game), it's special apple glass. Apple may have brought volume but so did RIM (although they did use some intel 386 chips for a while?) with xscale chips.

Re: Fix for Chinese Bureaucracy

True, but having dealt with the local fiefdom the states is no better, at least not here. Campaign donations and outright brown bagging is pretty much the only economical way to get anything done at a county level (and that is when you ARE complying with laws \ statutes and just need permission to do something entirely legal). It's the same the world over, since 'we' elect politicians based on who can tell the most lies on TV which requires money, their arses are for sale to the highest bidder.

Re: IPTV is complementary.

Did you read my post? Ever watch netflix on your mobile? Ever seen a caravan with a sat dish? Not portable my arse!

If it was structured correctly you could probably get darn close to 100% coverage using mobile or satellite to fill the gaps. The biggest issue with mobile for that is national parks or areas of outstanding natural beauty where masts (but apparently not foreign military bases & huge ass radar installations) are verboten or highly restricted.

3-5mbps using lte with a shedload of spectrum, especially with fixed installations in houses with the potential to use boosters \ directional aerials \ link aggregation etc should be possible for nearly everyone and would finally get us off the merry go round of shuffling shit about a bit at a time. The vast majority of homes could have 50-1000mbps and a mobile service with decent coverage and 20-40mbps over most areas. That should be good enough for a while and most home installations shouldn't have an issue with 4k streaming.