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Comment Re:Google Cardboard (Score 1) 198

Turning it on its side and putting it into the Google Cardboard (or similar) stereoptic holder gives you about a 1440x1250 display per eye. Looks right to me.

Now if (as I suggested in the Cardboard item) they installed two cameras on the phone back, separated by about eye distance, you'd have a camera that could take and display stereoptic pictures and/or do augmented reality without losing the scene's depth.

Comment Retina display and dual cameras... (Score 4, Interesting) 42

This is a great use for the (otherwise excessively) high-resolution cellphone displays such as Apple's "retina".

Also: This is a strong argument for putting TWO cameras on a cellphone's backside - separated by about the typical distance between a person's eyes and equally speced relative to the centerline of the phone. That would enable the formation of a stereoscopic augmented reality display showing the correct image of the background. (It would also enable taking stereoptic pictures.)

Comment Able to grow crops now grown a bit farther south. (Score 0) 567

Even some of the more extreme estimates of the amount of temperature change expected just mean, to a farmer, that his great grandsons might do better if they switch to crops that are currently grown a couple hundred miles closer to the equator or a couple hundred feet lower on the hillside. (Something like they did during the Medieval Warm Period, when Iceland had lots more cropland and grapes were grown on a large scale in Britain.)

So even if you convince them that global warming is real, don't expect anything but a cheer from the farmers of Sweden.

There are a lot of steps between "It looks like the average temperature might go up four or five degrees C in the next couple centuries." to "We must take drastic action RIGHT NOW to AVERT DISASTER!". Like figuring out whether such a temperature rise is really a threat - or might even be a boon. We're still working on "Is it real?"

Except, of course, for politicians, who can use that last claim to increase their power, or (like Al Gore) make billions off a "carbon credit exchange" built on anti-global-warming legislation.

Comment No way I'd accept that. (Score 2) 131

The last thing I need, if I'm injured in a way that disfigures my face, is a car that won't let me start it to drive to the emergency room.

That's right up there with the federal experiment, back in the '60s or so, with mandating seatbelt and seat weight sensors that interlocked with the starter, so you can't start it if all the passengers aren't belted in.

(I, and about five of my friends, were very luck my car dated from before that mandate, the time we were visiting a friend who worked in a trainyard, my car stalled across a track, a train came {slowly but inexorably} around the sharp curve, and my right-front passenger unbelted in preparation to bail if I couldn't get it going again. We didn't have enough time to all bail ...)

Comment Privacy? In The Cloud? (Score 1) 214

So apple is retiring a photo editing software product and expects their customers to switch to their cloud photo editing service. They're replacing images stored locally with images stored externally.

Ignoring Snowden and the NSA for the moment, let's look at LEGAL seizure of your pictures to be used as evidence by government agencies, in rule enforcement, investigation, and criminal prosecution.

Not only are files under your physical control y'harder to get to physically than those transmitted over the Internet and stored in a vendor's server farm, they're also on better legal ground. The Supreme Court seems bent on treating electronic files, under your control, just like paper files locked in a safe at home. Just three days ago they ruled that police can't even search information stored on a cellpone carried by an arrestee without first coming up with probable cause and obtaining a warrant.

The last I heard, though, they considered information you stored on some vendor's servers to have been disclosed - that you have "no expectation of privacy" with respect to it. The police can go fishing through it just by asking, without jepoardizing prosecutions that result from what they fiind. Even if the third party cloud service demands paperwork rather than just giving access, a company like Apple has far less interest in protecting your data from fishing expeditions than you do.

Given the rat's nest of laws in the US, the prevalance of false or mistaken prosecutions, and the deliberate use of the legal and tax systems to punish those disliked by those in power (at all levels), I'd think nio sane person would put any personal information onto a cloud service (without at least encrypting it locally first with a key unknown to the service), let alone in a form that could be manipulated on the service. Photos are a particular risk, for a number of reasons I don't think I need to enumerate.

So I'd think that, both for personal use and for professional photographers, the substitution of a cloud service for a local tool working on locally stored data, would be unacceptable.

Comment Re:So what you're saying... (Score 1) 66

Not my "meme." I rarely, if ever, refer to it.

But, it's true. Capitalism relies on private control and a free, competitive market. Crony capitalism is government control and a resulting non-free market by explicitly decreasing competition.

I mean, sure, you can call it whatever you want to, but when I say "capitalism works" and someone says "crony capitalism is proof it doesn't," that's just stupid, because crony capitalism flatly violates some of the primary tenets of capitalism.

Comment Re:So what you're saying... (Score 1) 66

It was a different fork of this thread.

So you admit you lied.

Crony capitalism ... can also happen when a purchased politician prevents regulations from occurring, to improve profitability.

False, but telling that you think such a stupid thing. To you, there's no difference between freedom, and not-freedom. It's just two different options, neither better than the other.

It is also noted that you have still failed to produce an example of a federal regulation that actually impedes profitability of health insurance companies.

a. I never saw you ask that. It might've been in the comment I replied to, and I didn't see it, because after your massive whopper about what you want people to think crony capitalism is, I stopped reading.

b. Why would I produce an example of something I never asserted? Once again: holy shit, you're retarded.

Comment Re:Big "if" (Score 1) 66

For example, does state law say you cannot participate in GOP runoff if you participated in Dem primary?

I think that's the case McDaniel is making, and I haven't heard it refuted.

I haven't seen the case strongly made. If you have a link, I'd be obliged. Stories I saw all handwaved at it.

You don't seem to understand that in modern America, "having rules and enforcing them" == "voter suppression".

But they are Republicans. Voter suppression is expected. It's OK.

Check the mirror and see if you don't notice a big ol' raaaaacist in there, or something. :-)

Only because I see YOU STANDING BEHIND ME. What the fuck, man?!?

Comment Whatever (Score 2) 359

I was an Emacs dude for a long time and still use it. Then I tried RubyMine, and eventually upgraded to IDEA. The IDE features are sometimes handy. I also use vi very regularly for quick edits of small scripts.

I would no more stick to one editor than I would stick to one programming language. Right tool for the job is the key.

Comment Re:Big "if" (Score 1) 66

Nice, except you said "altruism," which is an illusion. True, Cochran is not altruistic, but no one ever is.

This is the first I've heard of this. I want to know specifics. For example, does state law say you cannot participate in GOP runoff if you participated in Dem primary? And is that what happened? If so, then yes, Cochran should lose, but really, MS screwed up, because they should have disallowed those Dem primary voters from participating.

Comment Re:So what you're saying... (Score 1) 66

Fuck everyone who wants to use government to push "fairness." "Fairness" isn't a real thing: nothing is inherently fair or unfair, except for someone violating your rights (unfair) or you exercising your rights (fair). There is no other objective concept of fairness. So when someone is pushing "fairness" through the government -- except in those limited senses of protecting individual rights -- they are really pushing their own private moral judgments on everyone else, taking away our freedoms even more.

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