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Comment: the nook has always done it. (Score 1) 150

by dada21 (#37934904) Attached to: Amazon Launching eBook Lending Program, Publishers Unenthusiastic

I have two B&N nooks, and I've always been able to share any of the books I buy with friends.

There's a limitation (8 weeks or something), and you can't loan the same book to the same friend twice.

I can also "check out" books from my local library via their website, and I've done that before trips where I won't have good Internet coverage.

How does B&N get away with being able to do it, but Amazon can't?

Comment: Why not add sponsored results as an option? (Score 4, Interesting) 141

by dada21 (#37907656) Attached to: Google Maps To Charge For API Usage

If they would let the developers choose to add sponsored results within the map (with a category to pick so as not to compete), maybe they can offset the price.

I wouldn't have a problem if my map showed Taco Bell or Red Box locations.

Of course, I guess the app or website could filter the sponsored results out, but I'm sure Google's smart spiders and human TOS verifiers could detect it and remove the free access. If only 0.35% of their API users are affected, it's not like they've got that much work to confirm proper TOS compliance.

Comment: Re:For example, this is dangerous for women (Score 1) 286

by dada21 (#37571018) Attached to: Cloud-Powered Facial Recognition Is Terrifying

I think a lot of a woman's security has to do with city and neighborhood, too. I have a few friends who are college educated or better and who also have entered the amateur porn field (here in Chicago there are plenty of jobs and they pay well) -- none of them feel the least bit afraid of stalkers and fans. One gal I know has been performing mostly solo work (full nudity, though) and she has guys come up to her at bars and during the day and are all really nice.

On the other hand, practically EVERY waitress I know who works a late shift (diner or bar) has people follow her home -- even in the dead of Chicago's winter.

Comment: Re:Totally Legit, Easily Abused (Score 2) 151

by dada21 (#37253916) Attached to: The Pirate Bay Founders Go Legit With <em>BayFiles</em>

I run a print shop and we constantly need to snag installers for old software that is no longer supported by the manufacturers. One example RIP program that we use (and paid over $5000 for, mind you) no longer works with the dongle key that came with it.

So we traveled over to the dark side of the software world and snagged a great cracked copy. Works wonders. A year later our install was corrupted and we lost the installer, so I went back and downloaded it again (thanks, MegaUpload!). No issues.

Today, we lost our install again, went back to the forum to grab the link and MegaUpload had nuked it because the copyright owner asked to remove it. Thankfully I found a USB key from a year ago with the installer and we're back in service -- "pirating" software I've already paid $5000 for plus around $3000 for all the annual support subscriptions. The copyright owner, who has little reason to actively attack this old software, still spends time trolling the bootleg forums to specifically find these links.

And that's how it will continue to be -- companies with high cost software definitely troll the many bootleg forums to report to the content sharing hosts and have the ISOs removed. This said software is probably 10 years old (older?), and is sub-par compared to all the modern apps available. Yeah, I should probably get a new license and upgrade, but we're using it on a 12 year old printer that we run maybe twice a month, and it works just fine with the old software I paid for and want to run.

Hopefully, TPB does a better job at UX/UI versus MegaUpload and RapidShare, who have some of the most annoying interfaces imaginable.

Comment: Re:Working on the right features, I see (Score 4, Interesting) 403

by dada21 (#37178986) Attached to: The GIMP Now Has a Working Single-Window Mode

16bits per channel is really important.

I own some print shops, we take artist original prints and paintings and produce reproductions, a la Giclée. We scan as high res as possible, with as many bits per color channel as possible.

Since no scanner is eprfectly color accurate, we do some post production work in Photoshop. 8bits per channel does bring some loss to saturation, contrast and gradients during post production. 16 bits per channel lessens these effects.

Do we use 32 bits? Almost never, but it does come in handy in *rare* instances. Recently we had to scan a painting with metallic inks. 32 bits per channel actually allowed us to properly map the metallic colors to our metalic ink on our printer.

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