Comment Re:Far Cry? (Score 1) 114
Oh man, I just watched the trailer for it. Looks soooooo bad.
Comment Re:Support was the biggest problem for Apple Serve (Score 1) 304
I always found the phone support was great. And on the two occasions I needed parts, they had them to me the next morning, all covered by apple care.
Comment Which one should you choose? (Score 2, Insightful) 379
Neither.
Comment Re:What if we could see the originals? (Score 1) 512
Food shots are retouched. But (at least here in the US) there are truth in advertising laws. So if you see a shot of a McDonalds hamburger, it made from the same ingredients and materials that you would get at the restaurant. The difference is that what you get at McD's has been slapped together by a line worker, while the photo-ed one was assembled by a food stylist who took their time and made it look edible (or as edible as a McDonalds burger can look).
Comment Re:Ethics of photomanipulation (Score 1) 512
Photojournalism and commercial photography are two completely different beasts. Without getting into any theoretical arguments about what is photographic truth, photojournalism tries to convey the facts of an event where as commercial photography want to convey an idea. Reality and truth don't matter. After over a decade in this business, more and more I think of it as image making through photographic processes.
And for the record every, and I mean EVERY photo you see in an ad, editorial spread, billboard etc... has been manipulated. This has been true since the dawn of photography. Even Ansel Adams would quite literally move boulders to get the shot he wanted. How is manipulating the scene before hand any different than doing it after.
Submission + - Comcast disables Tivo Serial Port channel changing (google.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Across New England, updates have apparently been rolled out to Comcast's Motorola cable boxes that disable the serial port so that Tivo can no longer change channels. My dual-tuner Tivo can still access non-digital channels, but I have to use the cable remote to access HBO and the like. If you're a Comcast user with a Tivo, please let Comcast know you're displeased with this behavior — although they may be working with Motorola to back-out the change. New cable boxes with functioning serial ports will have the serial port disabled after automatically downloading this update. Asking tech support for a "Factory Default Reset" might help for some boxes. Comcast claims to have been unaware of the update and blames Motorola for pushing it out — begging the question of why a service provider would allow a hardware vendor to make changes to their customers' devices without so much as a heads-up?
Submission + - Why are blue feathers blue? [pics] (scienceblogs.com)
grrlscientist writes: "How birds grow colored plumages, especially violet, blue and white.
From the story: Because blue light have very short wavelengths, it is reflected more easily than other colors of light with longer wavelengths. This was first understood in 1869, when scientist John Tyndall noted that miniscule particles in earth's atmosphere preferentially scattered blue light resulting in the familiar "sky blue" of a clear summer day. Shortly afterward, Rayleigh demonstrated that Tyndall's "fine particles" are actually gas molecules in Earth's atmosphere, specifically, nitrogen and oxygen. Tyndall's contribution is widely recognized by describing this phenomenon as "Tyndall scattering" and referring to structural blue colors as "Tyndall Blues.""
From the story: Because blue light have very short wavelengths, it is reflected more easily than other colors of light with longer wavelengths. This was first understood in 1869, when scientist John Tyndall noted that miniscule particles in earth's atmosphere preferentially scattered blue light resulting in the familiar "sky blue" of a clear summer day. Shortly afterward, Rayleigh demonstrated that Tyndall's "fine particles" are actually gas molecules in Earth's atmosphere, specifically, nitrogen and oxygen. Tyndall's contribution is widely recognized by describing this phenomenon as "Tyndall scattering" and referring to structural blue colors as "Tyndall Blues.""
Submission + - How to Take Down the Power Grid
An anonymous reader writes: Ira Winkler, a security expert, writes about how hacking into the control systems set up by utility companies is frighteningly easy on the recently launched Website Internet Evolution. In his article he describes how he broke into a power company's internal network through a vulnerability on its Website, and proceeded to gain access to everything on its internal network, from the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system that controls the grid, to the personnel records of the CIO and CEO. Winkler's suggested solution to the problem is legislation from Congress forcing power companies to enforce more rigid security. However, he says he's not holding his breath for such laws to be passed. "Congress is impotent, as the power grid remains incredibly vulnerable, and people need to be outraged," he says. Is Winkler really right about how laughably easy it is to hack to grid? Should we be worried?
