Driver to drive?

[Spehro Pefhany]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 21:19:25 +0000, the renowned Martin Brown
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

All the cameras I have ever had would mount as mass storage and most of
them would automagically transfer new images to the PC on request. And
that applies right back to my original Kodak DC-120.

It's a good point that the feature is switchable on a lot of cameras.

My bigger Nikons have switchable interface. This newfangled one that
lets the benighted vomit their unedited photos out directly to a
cartridge-sucking inkjet printer is probably to blame.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

 

[josephkk]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 14:53:46 -0500, Tim Wescott <tim@seemywebsite.really>
wrote:

On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 21:29:33 -0700, jurb6006 wrote:

"Back it goes."

I agree 1,000%. Whne they do shit like that there is a reason and I
would bet it has something to do with planned obsolescence.

Why else ?

Because the Chinese don't want to spend money on engineering. They want
to buy chips for which the engineering has already been done.

I can't say this for sure, but I'll bet that Microsoft makes it really
easy to get cheap embedded code that only works with Microsoft junk on
the other end.

Bingo. They subsidize it.

?-)

 

[Martin Brown]

On 25/03/2014 05:13, Spehro Pefhany wrote:

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 21:19:25 +0000, the renowned Martin Brown
|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:


All the cameras I have ever had would mount as mass storage and most of
them would automagically transfer new images to the PC on request. And
that applies right back to my original Kodak DC-120.

It's a good point that the feature is switchable on a lot of cameras.

And that the default might not be what the end user wants...

My bigger Nikons have switchable interface. This newfangled one that
lets the benighted vomit their unedited photos out directly to a
cartridge-sucking inkjet printer is probably to blame.

I agree it could well be a conspiracy by the inkjet printer makers to
get the great unwashed to use more extortionately priced ink. ISTR OEM
cartridges the price per gram for ink is higher than for refined heroin!
(and the ink is mostly solvent!!!)

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Neon John]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 08:33:49 -0700, John Larkin
>Hey, did you get the sand?

Yes, got it on Saturday when I trekked out of the mountains to the PO
box. Thanks so much.

It's not hot enough to tickle any of my instruments. I don't have my
gamma spec set up again yet but the pancake probe GM detector is
pretty sensitive.

I have it parceled out to interested parties. Fortunately one of the
guys has a low background HpGe detector so we'll get some high detail
results.

I'll post the results when they come in.

Thanks again,
John

John DeArmond
http://www.neon-john.com
http://www.fluxeon.com
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
See website for email address

 

[John Larkin]

On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 19:12:29 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

I got a Fuji AX650 as a cheap vacation type camera.

My older Fuji cam didn't need driver installs, and just opened on any PC as a
generic USB memory stick, with the images inside. This new one needs a driver
install to work on any PC. Once that is done, images will only open into the
stupid Microsoft media viewer. You can't even drag/drop a jpeg file into
Irfanview. Why would they do that?

Back it goes.

Anybody know which brands/cams operate rationally, as a plain memory stick
interface on any PC?

It could be that the SD card that I got with the camera is formatted
exFAT, and that lets Microsoft do their Windows nasties.

I wonder if most cameras will work with a flash card that's programmed
FAT32, and if they would act like a plain memory stick if so. Anybody
know?


--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:

I wonder if most cameras will work with a flash card that's programmed
FAT32, and if they would act like a plain memory stick if so. Anybody
know?

I don't *know*. I don't have a camera that supports exFAT.

My *guess* is that the filesystem on the card is independent of which
interface the camera presents to the host system. Typically, I would
expect the camera to support just one filesystem on the card; if you
plug in a card with any other filesystem, the camera will probably be
confused.

If the camera supports more than one interface to the host system, I
would expect that choice to be in the setup menus somewhere. I also
wouldn't expect support for more than one interface on a pointy-shoot
camera; it would be more of a DSLR thing.

There appears to still be some traffic at news:rec.photo.digital and
they might know. On the other hand, a web forum might be better.
http://www.steves-digicams.com/ used to be a good review site, and it
has forums, but now they apparently sell cameras as well, so any review
is suspect. http://www.dpreview.com/ also has reviews and forums.

Standard disclaimers apply: I don't get money or other consideration
from any companies mentioned.

Matt Roberds

 

[Martin Brown]

On 26/03/2014 10:57, mroberds@att.net wrote:

John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:
I wonder if most cameras will work with a flash card that's programmed
FAT32, and if they would act like a plain memory stick if so. Anybody
know?

I don't *know*. I don't have a camera that supports exFAT.

exFAT is too new for there to be many of them about. I'd expect a new
model to accept suitable sized old FAT32 memory cards as well. It might
offer to format them as exFAT though zapping any data that is present.

My *guess* is that the filesystem on the card is independent of which
interface the camera presents to the host system. Typically, I would
expect the camera to support just one filesystem on the card; if you
plug in a card with any other filesystem, the camera will probably be
confused.

More likely it will offer to reformat it as exFAT if it is fussy. Most
stuff is usually backwards compatible to save on customer support calls.

If the camera supports more than one interface to the host system, I
would expect that choice to be in the setup menus somewhere. I also
wouldn't expect support for more than one interface on a pointy-shoot
camera; it would be more of a DSLR thing.

Most cameras will present a mass storage device interface and a Twain
one - I expect there are plenty of exceptions to this rule though. There
are newer whizzy interfaces about mainly for consumer kit.

Usually there are config settings in either the camera settings menu or
the PC driver software (or both) to determine the default action when
the camera is plugged into the PC. Typical options being:

Do nothing
Open a directory listing (and set default thumbnail properties)
Download all new images

Pretty much like you get offered as the defaults for plugging in a thumb
drive containing particular playable media. You can override the
defaults if you want to by selecting another action/player as default.

The camera needs to be set to behave like a mass storage device if you
don't want to take advantage of the smart download features. The latter
may also include choices to have separate directories used for each
day/week/month (day being the default on most cameras I have seen).

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Robert Baer]

Maynard A. Philbrook Jr. wrote:

In article<flKXu.79472$tD4.36781@fx25.iad>, robertbaer@localnet.com
says...

I have the following code that works to a point:
script
// discover if browser is crappy Opera or crappy Safari
str=navigator.userAgent; // Agent is unique for our purposes
var sf=str.indexOf("Safari"); // found if browser is Chrome or Safari
var ch=str.indexOf("Chrome"); // not found if browser is Safari
var op=str.indexOf("Opera"); // unique for Opera
var opt=1; // alternate shown below but not used
ovar=window.opera; // is undefined if browser is not Opera
if (!ovar) { opt=-1; } // unique for Opera
// Safari gives sf=91,ch=-1; Opera gives sf=-1,op=7; Chrome gives
sf=-1,ch>0.
// Jump to different markup if crappy browser
if (sf>0&& ch<0 || op>=0) { window.location.replace('Mobile.html'); }
// ** NOTE treat crap as if mobile phone **
// Code is a one-pager; there are mobile phones that struggle and die with
// message "Page too large" "open media site"

var isIE=str.indexOf("IE"); // not found in other browsers
if (isIE>0) { window.location.replace('PCbase.html'); }
var isMozilla=str.indexOf("Mozilla"); // Presumes in all variants;
includes Netscape
if (isMozilla>=0) { window.location.replace('PCbase.html'); }
if (ch>=0) { window.location.replace('PCbase.html'); } // for Chrome

document.write(str+"<BR>");
document.write("At this point, browser is not Safari, Chrome, Opera or
IE or Mozilla"+"<BR>");
// So, ASSuME we have mobile phone browser
// window.location.replace('Mobile.html');
// -----^ always executes; previous valid .replace somehow bypassed
/script

If i un-comment that last window.location.replace line, the proper
execution of going to PCbase.html fails, and i get Mobile.html instead.

How can this be fixed?

Wouldn't it be better if you can acquire the users client area size?

I gave up years ago trying to force users into using a small font and a
minimum screen size, just to make my app look ok.

You need to quarry the screen data to make these choices.

Jamie

Have no clue as how one can do that.
Ideas?

 

[Wayne Chirnside]

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 07:27:13 -0700, John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 04:35:49 GMT, Wayne Chirnside
w.faux@doentexist.com&gt; wrote:

On Sun, 23 Mar 2014 19:50:28 -0700, Don Lancaster wrote:

On 3/23/2014 7:12 PM, John Larkin wrote:
I got a Fuji AX650 as a cheap vacation type camera.

My older Fuji cam didn't need driver installs, and just opened on any
PC as a generic USB memory stick, with the images inside. This new
one needs a driver install to work on any PC. Once that is done,
images will only open into the stupid Microsoft media viewer. You
can't even drag/drop a jpeg file into Irfanview. Why would they do
that?

Back it goes.

Anybody know which brands/cams operate rationally, as a plain memory
stick interface on any PC?




EyeFi simplified things for a while, but I seem to have problems with
it lately.

For a while there, you simply set most any camera near a USB port and
the uploads were automatic.

Sir: thank you VERY much for your books TTL Logic and CMOS logic.
They introduced me to digital electronics as well as my eagerly looking
forward to your section in Popular Electronics.

just stumbled in and recognized your address.

Active Filter Cookbook is great.

I got the one by Carl Yung.

 

[Maynard A. Philbrook Jr.]

In article &lt;QgPYu.80134$TT7.23777@fx23.iad&gt;, robertbaer@localnet.com
says...

I gave up years ago trying to force users into using a small font and a
minimum screen size, just to make my app look ok.

You need to quarry the screen data to make these choices.

Jamie

Have no clue as how one can do that.
Ideas?

That last time I did this I had a JS script to run on the client
side which it then posted back information about needed things, like
the screen object etc..

Some good reading here.
http://www.html5rocks.com/en/mobile/cross-device/

and look here

http://css-tricks.com/make-client-side-data-available-server-side/


Jamie

 

[Jasen Betts]

On 2014-03-27, Robert Baer &lt;robertbaer@localnet.com&gt; wrote:

You need to quarry the screen data to make these choices.

Jamie

Have no clue as how one can do that.
Ideas?

probabll window.innerheight and window.innerwidth are what you want.

http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/obj_window.asp

the other pages on that site are also full of useful info.


--
umop apisdn


--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---

 

[Don Lancaster]

On 3/27/2014 9:55 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:

On 2014-03-27, Robert Baer &lt;robertbaer@localnet.com&gt; wrote:

You need to quarry the screen data to make these choices.

The screen will usually shatter if you try this.

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster voice phone: (928)428-4073
Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml email: don@tinaja.com

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

 

[Maynard A. Philbrook Jr.]

In article &lt;bpootsFbu47U1@mid.individual.net&gt;, don@tinaja.com says...

On 3/27/2014 9:55 PM, Jasen Betts wrote:
On 2014-03-27, Robert Baer &lt;robertbaer@localnet.com&gt; wrote:

You need to quarry the screen data to make these choices.


The screen will usually shatter if you try this.

Yup, most likely would. Guess I should pay closer attention
to what I send next time..

Jamie

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Wednesday, 2 April 2014 17:21:52 UTC+11, Jan Panteltje wrote:

On a sunny day (Tue, 01 Apr 2014 18:48:52 -0700) it happened John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com&gt; wrote in
6qqmj9lonuas3t75ditfsakk1fh7efvifb@4ax.com&gt;:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10738343/Forecasters-find-new-formula-for-long-range-weather.html?utm_source=dlvr
.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter

Thing is, it's easy to build a model that "simulates" past data. That can be
done with extreme accuracy... by polynomial curve fitting, for example. Heck,
Excel can do that. The more challenging thing to do is create a model that
predicts the unknown future.

Thing is, it will be some time before this model is proven wrong. And when it's proven wrong, somebody will announce an improved version.

Its the usual quack.

quote

The latest British model, which simulates the climate on a more detailed scale, was shown to be 62 per cent accurate at giving a broadbrush prediction of winter conditions when it was tested on 20 years of retrospective data, the Times reports.

end quote

So 38 % of the time it will be 100 % wrong
'broadbrush' for the rest of the time.

Look up the 'butterfly effect'.

Don't. The butterfly effect applies to making detailed weather predictions for specific places at specific times.

Broad brush predictions - how much rain will fall over province over a month - are more tightly constrained by thermodynamics and are less susceptible to the butterfly effect. Farmers have been relying on this since we started get serious about agriculture - we don't know when it is going to rain but we can be fairly sure that there will be enough rain over the growing season to make the crops grow.

&gt; But I am nearly broadbrush 62 per cent certain some gov will use this to predict stunning glow ball worming in the next years, and use it to raise taxes.

Because you don't know what you are talking about.

&lt;snipped the rest&gt;

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Martin Brown]

On 02/04/2014 02:48, John Larkin wrote:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10738343/Forecasters-find-new-formula-for-long-range-weather.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter

You should be aware that the Telegraph science is written by people with
almost no understanding of the subject. One of their previous science
journalists couldn't even plagiarise text books reliably!

Thing is, it's easy to build a model that "simulates" past data. That can be
done with extreme accuracy... by polynomial curve fitting, for example. Heck,

Only by a mathematical ignoramus like you who futzes with the numbers.
Overfitting data is one of *the* most common mistakes and you have
previously demonstrated that you don't understand why it goes haywire.

UK Met Office know what they are doing and their forecasting models are
world leading. How else would you propose to train up a forecasting
system other than by comparing its results against historical data (and
then with new data as and when it is observed)?

Excel can do that. The more challenging thing to do is create a model that
predicts the unknown future.

Strictly the Excel charting polynomial fit in all versions apart from
out-of-the-box XL2007 can create accurate polynomial fits. The version
used in the spreadsheet is intrinsically numerically unstable and almost
never gives a correct least squares fit even for a cubic. It isn't
massively far out unless you have an X axis with data that starts well
away from the origin (calendar dates for instance).

Microsofts official response was "business users do not care".

Thing is, it will be some time before this model is proven wrong. And when it's
proven wrong, somebody will announce an improved version.

You don't get on with maths do you? Science is all about building and
testing predictive models of the world to determine how it all works.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[John Fields]

On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 18:48:52 -0700, John Larkin
&lt;jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com&gt; wrote:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10738343/Forecasters-find-new-formula-for-long-range-weather.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter

Thing is, it's easy to build a model that "simulates" past data. That can be
done with extreme accuracy... by polynomial curve fitting, for example. Heck,
Excel can do that. The more challenging thing to do is create a model that
predicts the unknown future.

---
As opposed to the known future?
---

Thing is, it will be some time before this model is proven wrong. And when it's
proven wrong, somebody will announce an improved version.

---
So what's your point?

It happens all the time in the real world; just take a look at how
Einstein's work overshadows Newton's where Newton couldn't go.

 

[John Fields]

On Tue, 1 Apr 2014 19:29:20 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
&lt;bill.sloman@gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On Wednesday, 2 April 2014 12:48:52 UTC+11, John Larkin wrote:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10738343/Forecasters-find-new-formula-for-long-range-weather.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter

Thing is, it's easy to build a model that "simulates" past data. That can be
done with extreme accuracy... by polynomial curve fitting, for example. Heck,
Excel can do that. The more challenging thing to do is create a model that
predicts the unknown future.

Thing is, it will be some time before this model is proven wrong. And when it's proven wrong, somebody will announce an improved version.

The Daily Telegraph is another rubbishy right-wing newspaper, and its science reporters are British science reporters, who don't know anything about science.

Even so, if you read the article, rather than look at the headlines, you will note that the new model is only achieving 62% accuracy on predicting weather that has already happened from the data available before it happened, which is pretty close to useless. There is a comment to the effect that the investigators hope to improve the accuracy to 80% with further work, which might be more useful, if it happens (which is unlikely).

In other words, it's the usual PR splash that has been taken more seriously than it deserves by a newspaper with a long history of getting science wrong.

We know why John Larkin was silly enough to re-post it here - it's one of his less-than-charming habits. What is puzzling is why he can't learn from experience that this is a habit he ought to break.

---
Perhaps he thinks that randomly winning a skirmish will expiate the
errors made by conscious decisions leading to lost past battles.

John Fields

 

On Wednesday, April 2, 2014 4:22:54 AM UTC-4, John Fields wrote:

On Tue, 01 Apr 2014 18:48:52 -0700, John Larkin wrote:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10738343/Forecasters-find-new-formula-for-long-range-weather.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter

Thing is, it's easy to build a model that "simulates" past data. That can be
done with extreme accuracy... by polynomial curve fitting, for example. Heck,
Excel can do that. The more challenging thing to do is create a model that
predicts the unknown future.

---
As opposed to the known future?
---

Obviously. Lots of things are predictable, knowable, and known.

Cheers,
James Arthur

 

On Wednesday, April 2, 2014 12:54:30 AM UTC-4, Sylvia Else wrote:

On 2/04/2014 3:40 PM, Sylvia Else wrote:

I have the circuit whose LTSPICE text is given below. The voltage

sources and voltage controlled switches are only there to set the

initial voltages on the capacitors. Thus the circuit of interest

consists of two capacitors and two resistors.



I've been trying to determine an equation that describes the voltage on

C2 as it varies with time, but with my limited mathematical skill,

haven't been able to. I end up with differential equations that contain

the voltage on C1 as well, in a way that I can't substitute for.



Any thoughts?



Sylvia.



Actually, never mind. It involves solving simultaneous differential

equations. I'll just have to read up on that.



Sylvia.

SPICE has an initial condition function for what you want:

The .ic directive allows initial conditions for transient analysis to be specified. Node voltages and inductor currents may be specified. A DC solution is performed using the initial conditions as constraints. Note that although inductors are normally treated as short circuits in the DC solution in other SPICE programs, if an initial current is specified, they are treated as infinite-impedance current sources in LTspice.

Syntax: .ic [V(&lt;n1&gt=&lt;voltage&gt;] [I(&lt;inductor&gt=&lt;current&gt;]

Example: .ic V(in)=2 V(out)=5 V(vc)=1.8 I(L1)=300m

 

[John Larkin]

On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 08:44:37 +0100, Martin Brown
&lt;|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk&gt; wrote:

On 02/04/2014 02:48, John Larkin wrote:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10738343/Forecasters-find-new-formula-for-long-range-weather.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter

You should be aware that the Telegraph science is written by people with
almost no understanding of the subject. One of their previous science
journalists couldn't even plagiarise text books reliably!

How about Met Office, via the Times?

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/article4051876.ece

Thing is, it's easy to build a model that "simulates" past data. That can be
done with extreme accuracy... by polynomial curve fitting, for example. Heck,

Only by a mathematical ignoramus like you who futzes with the numbers.
Overfitting data is one of *the* most common mistakes and you have
previously demonstrated that you don't understand why it goes haywire.

Done right, it doesn't go haywire. A good curve fit can beautifully predict the
past.

UK Met Office know what they are doing and their forecasting models are
world leading. How else would you propose to train up a forecasting
system other than by comparing its results against historical data (and
then with new data as and when it is observed)?

How do you know that it's not effectively curve fitting? But to answer your
question, publish its daily weather forcasts and see how it does.

Excel can do that. The more challenging thing to do is create a model that
predicts the unknown future.

Strictly the Excel charting polynomial fit in all versions apart from
out-of-the-box XL2007 can create accurate polynomial fits. The version
used in the spreadsheet is intrinsically numerically unstable and almost
never gives a correct least squares fit even for a cubic. It isn't
massively far out unless you have an X axis with data that starts well
away from the origin (calendar dates for instance).

Microsofts official response was "business users do not care".

Thing is, it will be some time before this model is proven wrong. And when it's
proven wrong, somebody will announce an improved version.

You don't get on with maths do you? Science is all about building and
testing predictive models of the world to determine how it all works.

Predictive models should predict! Thses sorts of things get publicity now, and
nobody remembers years later.


--

John Larkin Highland Technology Inc
www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com

Precision electronic instrumentation