12-bits of color will not increase the number of stops of light your camera can capture. In the case you described, there are physical limits. If you exceed that, your SOL without combining multiple exposures. So you could use a medium format digital which is better at grabbing more light than small format digital or use medium or large format film and use the zone system to compress the high values and bring in more "stops of light".

"It crash when the picture is big (4000x3000) tested in 2 distros..."

Did you change the default memory requirements in the preference? I scan 6x7 (cm) and 4x5 (inch) negatives and get 12000x10000ish images and edit them in the GIMP all the time. No crashes. Yes, I still shoot medium and large format BW film.

"That's a bit of a limitation when my camera can shoot in 12-bit color..."

Not a limitation at all. If you need 16-bit color to manipulate the hell out of your picture to reduce color round off error, then maybe capturing a good shot to begin with will solve that problem. And most devices to view that picture are low dynamic range anyway. So, gee, just think how MUCH better your picture would be in 128-bit floating point color!!! Hardly, you can't even see all the color differences of 16-bit.

What about all those proprietary codecs in these cameras? It seems every manufacture is playing with the GOP too in HDV.

The editor is part of the battle. The other is capturing the video off the cameras. When I select capture video in FCP, I get a list of choices a mile long.

Correction, constant latitude.

"At the equator only... If you fly "around the world" at a higher latitude (longitude?), the diameter is much smaller and the required speed to stay in the sunlight is much lower."

Everyone assumes to fly around the World means flying at a constant longitude. At any latitude you can fly "around the world" equal in distance to the circumference of the Earth (assuming the earth is a sphere) at the equator by flying the arc of a great circle (remember your spherical trigonometry?).

Or a double-fork.

"...This is /. and here "children" means the process you get from a fork() call, not some vaguely remembered bio-science concept that has something to do with a strange experience that no true /.er ever really knows."

Not some vaguely remembered bio-science concept? Not true. We all know that children generated from dysfunctional parents create Zombies!

"The post behind this joke. [slashdot.org] Here it is:"

Thanks for that post. The typical /. comments were fun to read with the benefit of hindsight. It's amazing the similarity with the posts here. And as the saying goes that past performance is no guarantee of future results. But no doubt it will be interesting to read all the comments in this post 10 years from now too.

"Yup, I've have even cheap plastic ones go though the washer and dryer more than once and they still work."

Well, I can tell you with first-hand experience to not try that with your cell phone even once.

What a deal. All he has to do is go up there and get it and he can sell it for 10X what he paid for it on Ebay!! Oh, wait a minute...

"As a married guy, I have experienced "lust in my heart" from time to time. Is that the same as cheating?"

I dunno. Tell your wife about those lustful desires and if you end up sleeping on the couch tonight you'll know!

I still have 10.5.X so I wouldn't know. And, besides, wow, finally in just the recent months does not make up for years!