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istvanp

99 karma · joined September 5, 2010

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istvanp··on Mozilla rejects Google's WebP image format
Striving for a lower file size is inherently a good thing, but as disk space is becoming cheaper and cheaper and it's not as important anymore. Judging from the comparison gallery at http://code.google.com/speed/webp/gallery.html, it's not very impressing. The result is much more blocky and there is significant loss in detail in detail-concentrated areas.

Case in point: the first image of a landscape has two major noticeable artifacts: the shadow of the mountain (mid-right) reveals the blocky compression of WebP. Second, the compression algorithm tends to smooth out a lot of detail. Observe how the vegetation gets mushed out. The clouds as well (mostly on the top left).

Great for video, not so much for images (from the gallery above anyway). I would like to see a better comparison with WebP vs JPEG but compressed to about the same file size and with a RAW source (to remove any compression bias).

istvanp··on W now 6 years old (in the swedish alphabet) thanks to "Webb"
In French they do call it "double V". I wonder why in English it's U though.
istvanp··on My winter break project — Silk
Perhaps I missed it but is there a way to export the result into an image?

I've seen it done in a similar canvas project called Harmony (http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/)

It would be nice to have an infinite amount of Silk wallpapers that you created yourself or by others :)

istvanp··on Why Groupon is not in Australia (domain squatter)
I don't know about Australian registrars but I found a Japanese registrar that allows you to register a .jp domain (and other Japanese TLDs) without having a local business address/number there which would normally be required. I'm willing to bet other ones like this exist for other markets.
istvanp··on PHP 5.3.3 hangs on numeric value 2.2250738585072011e-308
Might be true in general, but when the creator of PHP says it's a compiler issue it's hard to 2nd guess.

He also later added:

  We still need to fix the code to make it immune to compiler switches.
istvanp··on PHP 5.3.3 hangs on numeric value 2.2250738585072011e-308
Rasmus Lerdorf just tweeted that it's a gcc optimizer issue:

  Works fine with -O0 but not -O2
http://twitter.com/rasmus/statuses/22212610308964353
istvanp··on 10 Internet Giants, 10 Years ago
My comment was not directed at you. I was simply stating a general fact. In this context it also took me a second to realize it was an ad.
istvanp··on 10 Internet Giants, 10 Years ago
It mas most likely an ad (image) made to look like it was part of the page. Those are still around and still fool neophytes.
istvanp··on Introducing Word Lens
I live in Montreal and you are right that you would need to understand some French but only to read signalization, some store names and public advertisement. Signalization of course is important if you are driving but an app like this won't help you (you are holding the wheel I hope). Besides that, almost any store or institution has bilingual staff (and when they don't most French speakers will understand basic English). Don't let that hold you back... unless you hate snow and cold winters ;)
istvanp··on Best captcha ever
Press submit and you get a different (and more offensive) CAPTCHA... http://www.geee.net/contact2.htm?Submit=Submit
istvanp··on Japan's Latest Rock Star Is A 3D Hologram - Draws Huge Crowds
You input the lyrics, notes, scale, tempo and dynamics; the software will produce a voice based on those parameters. Then you can record it to share it as an audio file. Here's a quick FAQ on the official site: http://www.vocaloid.com/en/technical_faq.html
istvanp··on Review my app for making server stacks social
This looks like a great idea but I have a few concerns/questions about it:

1) As others have mentioned, there needs to be transparency on what each script does to make sure that it is not malicious. Is there a way to inspect the code without running it?

2) How do you protect the communication between stackfu and the user's servers? I saw in the video that you provide some keys, but is the connection thoroughly secured to prevent any potential spoofing? What about a potential attack that would come through the site itself and potentially access all users' activated servers? I would be very cautious to have stackfu installed as a daemon on a production server without knowing it's secure inside out -- even if I only enable it when I need it.

3) Did you consider developing a stackfu shell client? Using the command line client, you could provide some basic features like searching and running scripts. Since the scripts are started from the server itself this might be more secure. Although, you still need to make sure that the scripts are actually coming from stackfu (in case it was somehow spoofed), similar to package distribution systems (yum, apt, etc.). Another utility for the client could be to allow/disallow queued scripts sent from stackfu and maybe even a monitoring tool (see the output, previous logs, etc.).

4) How do you handle different *nix configurations? Do script authors need to make different scripts for each distribution? Do you provide a facility to only search for scripts that are compatible with your server(s)?

5) Aside from the number of deployments, do you have a rating system? Script failure and success rates? The number of deployments is hardly enough for me to choose from say 20 different Wordpress installation scripts.

istvanp··on Review my app for making server stacks social
That typically means there is a monetary component. I don't think that's the intended purpose.
istvanp··on The Asian domain-name extortion scam
If it was a courtesy email it would of been written in Engrish.
istvanp··on My Experience as a Single Founder
I am a "single" founder myself who is still in the early stages of my web publishing platform but this sounds already like what I am (and will be) doing. I am a developer and a designer at heart so maybe, just maybe, I might have a bit easier road than you =P

I don't have founder related questions but I do want to ask you about the MagCloud platform (http://www.magcloud.com/) your are using for publishing your magazine. I never heard about it before (and surprised HP does this but thinking about it it's not the first publishing platform they do: there is also http://www.tabbloid.com/).

1) How did you come up with the pricing? Do you break even? From the site I see that MagCloud charges 20 cents per page and for 90 pages that's $18. If you charge $19.50 your profit is $1.50. Is that enough to build a business upon?

What I do know from working for a niche magazine publisher for over two years is that there isn't revenue to be seen when you take into account printing costs, distribution and returns of issues that were not sold. (Which is why it ceased to exist.)

2) I see that some other publishers place ads within their magazine. Are you doing that or have you considered doing that?

I could see a publisher charging much less for the magazine if they can offset the printing cost (and salaries, if applicable) and even possibly turn a profit with advertisement alone. However, I can't see this kind of platform raking in as much readers (or circulation in publishing-speak) as regular off the shelf magazines which basically means less advertisement money and harder to get advertisement opportunities.

3) I see they are offering an iPad app which allows you to view complete magazines. It's more akin to a closed-garden PDF reader (which might explain the 1.5 star app rating) but that's besides the point I am getting at... At the moment they only support publishers who wish to publish their magazine for free -- which you don't seem to do since I can't find you in their iPad store. Would you make your magazine available for free provided you can support yourself with advertising only? If so, do you think you alienate any hard copy purchase? At 20$/100 page + shipping (>=$3) it isn't really a steal for most readers and even for the materialistic ones when they know they can get the content for free (provided they have an iPad of course).

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