Eh, not bad at first glance, but I can't be on board with zapping time zones. As someone who deals with international locations across the globe every single day, its a ton easier to find out "oh, they're 8 hours behind us" vs "Hmm, its 0900 Global. We just had lunch... what are they doing in New York at this time? Its 0900 there too - I think its still dark, but I don't know if its close to dawn or if they just woke up."

Sounds good in theory, but god it would suck.

I said the same thing about "old movies", and for the most part, you're right.

But there are exceptions. The BR remaster of Sound of Music is, in a word... stunning. Video, audio, etc.

More than any action flicks I have, thats probably the best looking movie I have right now. I never thought I'd ever say that.

Wizard of Oz, also a nice improvement. Not as awesome, and you could probably get away with the remaster on DVD and it'd be about the same.

son of a bitch, all that work and setup for a lame joke, and I forgot to even log on.

Except that all the drivers are pretty much unified, so it comes down to detuned hardware... and I suspect manufacturing tolerances these days is such that the detuned hardware isn't as out of spec as it might once have been.

I have no citation, but I remember when the PS3 first came out, Sony admitted to having a 10 year cycle. I was skeptical at the time, but it looks like they'll blow past 5 years at least.

I lived there for 2 and a half years... it never snowed, rained on occasion during the winter... and hailed a few times in spring (Both times, around mid-April.)

Or the car is alarmed when the doors are locked, while the garage is not alarmed.

Just a use case for locking both.

And I've lived in places where its prudent to deadbolt both the front door and the (reinforced) bedroom door.

Just saying that just because your security scenario doesn't deem it necessary, doesn't mean its not appropriate for someone out there.

if thats so... I don't want one (or four?). I want larger contact patches for better stopping. Screw 1 MPG, I don't want to hit that kid / dog / train that ran out in front of me.

I think we can agree that its complex. I'm not arguing for or against IP. And I agree that the threshold is a fuzzy one. Companies demanding that they take down a home video of a kid dancing, merely because a song they produced is playing in the background illustrates how fuzzy that is.

(To address your building issue though - the architect certainly did have a large amount of creative control when designing the building. But he was commissioned by a company that funded the construction of the building. The architects did their job, were compensated for it, and has no more say. The company that owns the building may try to restrict the _act_ of photography, but they can't very well say "You're not allowed to record photons that bounced off our building - those records belong to us."

But thats besides the point - I wasn't arguing about who has control over a photograph. I was objecting to the idea that there was no creative input into the taking of the photograph. )

But I think the same thing applies to peopl in a crowd. If the people in the crowd had any legal rights over any image they appear in, then security cameras, images of sporting events, of concerts, and of general life, would all be sued into oblivion.

Laws aside, I believe that if someone doesn't want to be photographed, then you shouldn't out of respect, especially if they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. But if someones in a public place, the photog is not bound to get permission from each and every person who crosses his viewfinder. Ethically, if the photog expects to make money or widely distribute the photo, then maybe an attempt should be made to gain consent before, or after the photo, if possible. But IMHO that's more of a gentleman's agreement than anything that should be morally or legally required.

On the contrary - tweaking the fstop has an effect on depth of field (basically, the distance in front of, and distance behind, the measured point of focus.) For examples, landscapes often use a small aperture (high fstop) to increase the depth of field, ensuring that the foreground and background are all in focus at once. Portraits and macro-photography often use a low fstop (large aperture) to get everything but the subject out of focus, which forces your eye to the subject. And then, when you get into shallow depths of field, some people then start to get into "bokeh", which is basically defined as "what things look like when they're out of focus."

OK, so I got into the details again. :) sorry.

Here's the thing: You can't overcome technical limitations. Cameras (digital or film) simply cannot capture what the human eye can see. The creative part of photography is manipulating those limitations to your advantage.

A good photographer DOESN'T want to capture the shot realistically. For example - For a long time, I was very careful about getting my colors to match reality as best I could. I'd capture harsh lighting - maybe I'd increase the contrast in post, but I tried to faithfully reproduce what I saw. Only recently, did I discover that adjusting the colors (either in post, or with a color filter) makes images so much more pleasing to the eye, even if they get a bit warmer. In fact, I think the reason I'm harping on this article is because I *JUST* made this discovery for myself, and I'm a bit excited :)

Sweat isn't... but the effect of that sweat is. If someone sweats to get an experience, and then shares that experience (via photography, film, or writing a book), then that is copyrightable. And if someone else takes a billion photographs, and one happens to be identical... guess what - all BILLION of those photographs are copyrightable by the second person. It would be an interesting legal battle if the first sued the second on account of the identical photo, but I believe the 2nd person is within their rights. Know why? Because outside of a completely controlled environment, you won't ever get the same photo. Lighting changes. Shadows change. Clouds change. Sun position changes.

I personally believe that "different paths to the same thing" is perfectly OK and intellectually honest, and encourages innovation - be it software patents, algorithms or brute-forcing a photograph.

I'm not arguing that all photography is creative. I'm not arguing that all photography is legal, or morally right. I"m not arguing "pro-copyright".

I'm simply objecting to the idea that photography is simply "Just being there with a camera", and thus takes no creativity. Whether such creativity is protected by law, or the various edge cases challenging such an idea, those are beyond me.

Because, per my post above, they made creative choices that went into the photograph, both before the shutter opened, how the shutter opened and closed, and in post-production.

Not to mention that a photographer spent their resources in obtaining the equipment to take and process the photograph, and also the resources to travel to the site where the photograph was taken, possibly waiting until a particular time of day for lighting to be better or more dramatic.

Resources, effort, and creative decisions went into the capturing of photons that otherwise would have just bounced off a sidewalk had the camera lens not been in the way.

If anyone's going to have a claim to control, its the photog.

I disagree you not seeing any creative work going into photography. Or maybe you don't know much about the creativity involved in photography and post production. (I didn't, until I recently started learning.) You've narrowed it down to three items, which is great if you're shooting with your iPhone. If it were that simple, then all I'd have to do is be in the right place at the right time with a camera, and I can be the next Ansel Adams.

But in reality, its not that simple - I've realized, since I started playing around more and more, that even with a digital camera, photography is analog in nature. How do you frame a certain shot? Does the image capture a large depth of field? Does it capture motion or freeze it? What kind of lens was used? What kind of exposure did the photographer want? Was a flash used to fill the scene? Was the flash softened? What kind of filters are used to create the effect? What kind of white-balance is the photog using? How is the light being metered for the correct exposure? Is there exposure compensation? Film or digital? Now, don't forget - as you say, time is a factor - the photographer may have an instant or two to figure this out - he may have gone through a significant amount of work to get the shot he wants (wake up pre-dawn to catch shadows just so as people are commuting to work.)

What kind of post-processing is done? Is it retouched, colors adjusted? If film, how was it developed? What kind of cropping choices did the artist make? Is the artist doing HDR processing of multiple exposures?

My point, is that photography does have a creative aspect to it, where the outcome is dependent on the photogs creative choices along the way, along with skill to actually have those choices made and dialed in before the shot they want comes and goes.