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Comment 3D Scene Reconstruction (Score 1) 307

As some have stated already on here; with enough angles we can reconstruct the scene and understand it; i.e. thinking a gun was pointed at someone in one angle only to see it was not in another angle.

Well, let's take technology one step further; with multiple angles, can we develop something to auto construct a 3D representation of a scene and play it back? If you have 3 or more cameras it should be fairly accurate...

Comment Not enough credit (Score 2) 138

Civ 2 : England discovers Pottery?

I honestly think we underestimate our ancestors sometimes who should've been just as smart and tenacious as we are. They maybe appear primitive simply because we have the benefit of a long history of discoveries to build on. And where their technology branched off in ways we don't care about, there could be even more secrets to be had...

Comment Re:Why hasn't this pushed the stock price up? (Score 1) 300

It could be because the majority of people interested in the stock believe that the deal isn't likely to go through, perhaps? But otherwise yes, I've seen the prices usually go right to the buyout price. If the deal should go through the price should instantly rise to that amount and the Bollinger Bands (which measure standard deviation) would immediately narrow.

Comment Re:Well damn. (Score 1) 404

"He's dead." I think that's the problem. He's revered so much like a god at Apple, you *can't* go against his last wishes. You'd be branded a traitor or an infidel. You cannot counter a god's last dying wish. The only one who could would be Steve Jobs himself and well, he's dead!

That's the theory at least. Hopefully it won't be like this but I think we're all wondering how much of a corporate cult Apple had turned into.

Comment Re:Open Source Analogy (Score 1) 83

Hmm... I'm familiar with this having played first and second violin in at least one very good orchestra as well. The idea being that the conductor is there to alter the performance as he sees fit. I remember us being told not to rush, or to play other passages in a certain way. However, the whole reason for doing this was that we were going to put forth a live performance, where we had only one (per performance) chance to play it as close to as directed.

However, what I'm proposing is slightly different. Think of it as instead of a theatrical performance, it's a movie, where people can do as many takes as necessary and you can actually do each take slightly different and the director can put it together differently later. (Or even worse, alter your performance with CG! heh) In this way, you could perform once and screw up, and then submit a better performance (or partial performance) later. It would be a continual iterative process, and thus the Open Source analogy.

I think we sort of already do this though, especially with those boy bands who can't sing; they get auto-tuned until it sounds in tune. You can get better music with less skill. As awful as that sounds... 8) Maybe it's better to say that we can extend the skills of even the best of us and allow people to choose.

By the way, in terms of remote conducting, they did already try this with a Russian conductor in Vancouver conducting an orchestra in Moscow Red Square in real-time during the closing ceremony of the Vancouver Olympics. http://mariinsky.rt.com/news/gergiev-orchestra.html I don't think it worked out just 'okay' but it would be interesting to explore how technology can continue to influence something like classical music.

Anyways, thanks for the discussion from everyone. This has been very fascinating.

Comment Re:Open Source Analogy (Score 1) 83

So, a system that can do this would also deliver more information than just the tempo. And in addition, there may be further information that's required by the concert master, or other leaders of other sections. Actually, this may require special people who can conduct without hearing the music first. And that may not be an easy thing to do, although it doesn't sound like an unsurmountable challenge.

In any case, whether this turns out as Frankenmusic or good music, we won't know until we try it. And then perhaps fix it.

I've heard enough poor student orchestras or even extremely famous conductors screw up so badly I have a feeling I wouldn't mind listening to something like this.

Comment Re:Open Source Analogy (Score 1) 83

By composer, you mean the guy who compiles the ensemble, rather than the more traditional meaning of composer, right?

I imagine that over time the performance would continue to get better with people's contributions. So indeed an initial musician can play the entire part, but someone can come in and re-edit his performance. Or cut in parts where other people have played it better. This does feel like Frankenmusic to me when I first think about it though, but I believe the continuous improvement (assuming there's enough interest) should help.

I would think that the composer part is the same too. People would create 'ensembles' from the various tracks and other people would vote or create their own. It's all about crowd-sourced, open and continuous improvement.

Comment Re:Open Source Analogy (Score 1) 83

I was just thinking about this problem too. And I think the solution is that the 'Conductor' would also be one of the 'pieces' that are required to put together the entire ensemble. This would essentially be the framework with which all the other performances can time themselves to; by watching a video of the conductor at work.

Now this would be a bit harder than real conducting; either the conductor would have to listen to another performance and 'conduct' or conduct while imagining the music. The video doesn't have to be continuous; it can be spliced together too, nor does it even have to have any semblance of prettiness, only that the timing is plainly obvious. In fact the conductor doesn't even need to be human; it could be a bouncing ball, with some words to indicate who and where people should play with what flavor.

The open source analogy would be a framework with which other developers can use, but I think a more appropriate analogy would be the use of an animatic while making an animation. (Or some movies these days also use it.) An animatic consists of the entire movie compiled together but with rough draft or even quickly sketched scenes. The scenes are slowly replaced with the finals until the movie comes together. In this way, the director can already see how the movie will play out, especially with respect to time. (A storyboard gives a good indication to story, but gives no indication with time. That would be like just having the sheet music, for example.)

Comment Open Source Analogy (Score 1) 83

I was wondering if the Open Source analogy is correct and then I had this idea.

If we're talking about free collaboration, which is what Open Source is supposed to mean (rather than copyright-less or public domain works) then could we have say an entire orchestral piece played one instrument at a time by individual musicians. When you put all the tracks together, excluding weaker performances and always including stronger performances (based on individual tastes, of course) then... isn't this the ideal Open Sourced Music method?

This would probably be a cool idea...

Comment Psychological? (Score 4, Interesting) 607

"THE HOBBIT, frankly, did not look cinematic."

Is it because we are conditioned that the low frames per second represent a 'movie?' I remember seeing an FPS one time at 60 fps, not realizing right away that it was supposed to be a FPS and not a movie and my first and immediate response my brain gave me is, "wtf is this?!" It seems different frame rates make me think it's a different 'experience' of sorts, a game, a TV broadcast, etc. (Even say the 60fps black and white from back awhile ago... was it 60fps?) So I think I understand the feeling, even though I tell myself that I prefer the 48 frames per second. Because I then see the action in some other movies, say, Gladiator, at 24 fps and I see just how bad the action is represented.

I really *do* want to see more motion/information on the screen and I'm willing to put myself through reconditioning to do so.
But I'm not sure everyone else will, or even understands it this way.

Has anyone else noticed this effect?

Comment Just one problem... (Score -1, Troll) 199

"There's just one, small, minor problem. It causes cancer," the researches have admitted. "But we think sales for this will take off in the next 2-3 years. We've already applied for the patents and I've already bought my yacht." .. I think I'm just being paranoid here. But there's always this feeling that any new material or substance will 'cause cancer,' most likely caused by reading too much junk news on bad reported science. 8)

Comment Re:What is generating their gigawatts now??? (Score 1) 267

By the way, I didn't notice this earlier, but for what it's worth, it seems they are reducing the use of coal and replacing it with liquefied natural gas, which is a little bit better, sorta. Although for most purposes both values are stilkl really large, around the 50M ton mark for each.

What is worrying to me is the near doubling of fuel oil and the *more than double* of crude oil. Let's hope they can find a way to keep that down. Although LNG reliance means more reliance on Russia, I believe.

Comment Re:What is generating their gigawatts now??? (Score 1) 267

They were talking about how much more Liquid Natural Gas Japan was burning last year just yesterday. There's some stats about how much more oil and coal they were burning too this year.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-16/japan-utilities-use-record-lng-in-2011-on-idle-reactors.html

Natural gas may be a bit cleaner, but the other two, oil and coal won't be nice to the environment in Japan. I wonder what effects this will have on the health of people as well.

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