Does media-agnostic include EyeTV libraries? I need something that can stream EyeTV content from a central HD archive to another TV in the house.
Currently, I have two media rooms - one casual family room and one home theatre room. The casual family room has a re-purposed iMac RevA running EyeTV and a TV Tuner/Encoder box, using a 1TB RAID1 array for storage of recorded analog cable programming, pira-ahem downloaded content, and ripped DVDs. EyeTV can be coaxed into encoding programming for our iPod with Video. Audio out is connected to a stereo Receiver which drives zone music thruout the house, so instead of a monster 400-disc CD changer, we just rip the CDs and use iTunes. When it's not in use, we tuck away the wireless keyboard and mouse, and the iPhoto library screensaver runs.
Since the iMac was a hand-me-down, it was all rather inexpensive (except for the 1TB array) and it all works wonderfully as an attractive media-agnostic (and copyright-agnostic) PVR and central media center... except for one problem: I can't share content with my home theatre setup.
The home theatre room has just a VCR, DVD player and A/V amplifier. I need an inexpensive box that can access the 1TB drive and playback content on a composite or S-video output. It needs to be capable of full access to EyeTV libraries, Mac filesystem libraries, and iTunes libraries over a wireless network.
Currently the only way I can see to do this is put a Mac Mini running EyeTV in the theatre room and use the TV as a monitor. But the cost of a Mini and the clumsiness of using a TV as its only display are both discouraging factors.
I'm not holding my breath for Apple's "iTV" to fill this gap. The Sling press release does not mention EyeTV at all. But considering how well the G5 iMac serves as a PVR at the end of its life, a new Intel Mac Mini would do a smashing job... except for the need for a) yet another monitor, or b) an upgrade to an HDTV with a mac video interface.
My job is building hi-rel batteries for launch vehicles and spacecraft, so let me share some facts that seem to be in confusion in this forum.
First, The distinction of Li-Poly from the general chemistry of Li-Ion is in the electrolyte. Instead of a liquid or gel electrolyte, the Li-Poly cell uses a thin sheet of conductive polymer doped with ionic compounds. Now while this polymer electrolyte has less mobility than a liquid, resulting in a lower energy density (J/cm^3) and power density (W/cm^3), in practice the manufactured shapes can be more complex than the coin or cylindrical shapes imposed by liquid electrolytes. Therefore more "battery cell" can be stuffed into otherwise unused volumes, and in many applications this maximizes the effective energy density beyond what can be achieved using cylindrical cells.
Second, any Lithium chemistry cell using a Cobalt-alloy cathode (virtually all of them on the market today) is subject to a thermal runaway condition if the internal cell temperature exceeds 130C. This includes Li-Poly cells.
Valence corp has patented a Lithium-Iron-Phosphate cathode chemistry that has less energy density, similar to NiCd, however the change to a Iron cathode eliminates the thermal runaway possiblity, making the cells much safer. These will soon be available commercially from DeWalt as battery packs for their cordless power tools. Here is a press release... note that Valence later bought the company referenced therein, A123 Systems. (I wonder if there's been a delay somewhere - DeWalt was marketing this much more heavily just a few months ago, now you have to do a search on their site to find any reference of it.)
Another company, Altair Nanotechnologies, has patented a Litium Titanate Spinel anode technology that also claims to eliminate the risk of fire and improve on both the Energy Density and Power Density of vanilla Li-Ion. However they have yet to actually deliver cells (to me anyway, despite many requests). And this chemistry is not exclusive to the Iron Phosphate cathode, meaning someone with all of the proper patent licenses could combine the two and make a high energy-density, non-exploding laptop battery that does even better than the Li-Poly battery I'm using in my MacBook Pro right now.
Finally, here's a link to the "Safety Concerns" page of the "Battery University" site which is an excellent user's reference for Li-Ion secondary batteries, among others. And here is a link to a Valence Corp white paper that describes their LIP cells. Lastly, here is a PDF of Altair Nano's marketing material describing their claims of safety advantages their Titanium spinel material offers to commercial batteries.
Let's take away yet more functionality due to spam! That's a great idea. Seriously, I hate SPAM because spammers' abuse of many useful features of SMTP has ruined many useful features of SMTP.
There. Fixed that logic for ya.
(Mods: Not a troll. The alternative was flaming him for blaming the victim.)
Most people don't understand these details, and they thing "OMG Comuters. Hackers. Everybody Panic!" Including the editors and reporters in the media.
Even their sources say there is no credible threat, but the mainstream media sensationalizes it anyway. And the average joe FOX/Oprah/MTV viewer gets another dose of anxiety-inducing semiotics.
That is why "warnings" like this have their desired effect. FUD.
My pet peeve are flip phones. Every one I've had busted the hinge eventually.
Well, god forbid that something fail at its weakest point.
I've seen people use their Razrs by hauling over and slamming the cover open and closed like they're Captain Kirk calling Scotty for a beam-me-up or something -- even engineers, who should know better.
I have a 15-month-old Razr V3 and it's as good as new except for one or two minor scratches on the external bezel. It receives appropriate-but-not-obsessive care, and keeping it in a holster (not a clip-on case) is a large part of why it still looks new. I wanna know what the author of the CNet article does with his Razr before condemning the entire product line.
My wife attempted to do her Xmas shopping on Amazon last nite, putting about 12 items in her cart, mostly CDs, but also some books, minor cookware and a board game.
All of the items were listed "In Stock," but none of them, except for two of the CDs and the cookware, were able to be shipped before 21 Dec 2006.
So I told her to go to Borders.com and try there. Same deal... three weeks just to ship stuff that we could have bought at Target and brought home the same day.
WTF? If the online retailers are all geared up for "Cyber Monday," then why are they so atypically slow to actually deliver the goods? All of my many Amazon, TigerDirect and PC Connection orders this past year all shipped the same day, except for one item (a new-to-market leather iPod case).
In which case, they cannot restrict free speech in the form of posting opinion pieces on personal webpages.
In the example given, Glenn Greenwald's blog, his entries are no different than letters to the editor published by the NYT, or live appearances on programs such as Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
I doubt this ruling would stand up to challenge. Perhaps lawyer/bloggers could be required to remove mention of their legal practices from their blog, or change their outlet to a third-party operated blog like Instapundit or Salon, but they cannot be forbidden from expressing their professional opinions.
The part I find most disturbing is the fact that the violation of individual citizens' 4th amendment rights against unreasonable seizure was not an issue.
But once the privacy and intellectual property of corporate ubercitizens is being threatened, all of a sudden it's an issue that needs to be addressed.
It just proves, yet again, that individuals' rights in the USA have eroded to nearly nothing, and the rights of fictitious entities have become paramount.
You know, last Friday I would have been excited about this news.
But Saturday I gave up waiting and ordered a 2.0GHz MBP 15", and paid for a RAM upgrade to 1GB. If I could have upgraded to Firewire 800, I would have paid for that, too.
I am literally expecting DHL to ring the doorbell within the next hour to put it in my sweaty hands.
And now I read this.
You know, with respect to computer purchases I've learned to be happy by making the best choice among the options available at the time, but this really SUCKS. I don't even get ONE DAY of being on the top of the curve.
Yea, I concur. In fact, I first parsed the/. headline as "Yahoo Warns of Internet Advertising Slowing your Systems."
Because my CPU usage pegs at 100% whenever I leave a browser window open showing one of those inane ads depicting a lactating sow with 50 teats, and a suckling piglet for each state of the USA.
I could easily make do without those kinds of Internet Advertising, TYVM.
They espouse minimal government libertarian principles applied to business and commerce. In other words, anti-regulatory, free market, pure unfettered capitalism.
You know, the kind of libertarianism that got us this far down the slippery slope to fascism on which we find ourselves today.
People keep talking about the "popularity" of the Warcraft series, but WoW attracted so many players so fast due to the quality of those games.
I can think of only one other series of games that has a reputation for quality that matches Blizzard's Warcraft/Starcraft/Diablo -- the Sid Meier's Civilization series.
Imagine a Civ MMO. Assume for a moment that the mechanics and ruleset and persistance problems were worked out, and then imagine the mass appeal factor the brand would have.
I disagree. As an avid Roleplayer -- both on paper and online -- for over 25 years, I feel that WoW's class system is not a "good mix." It is an example of going entirely too far down the road of class-defined roles.
As a WoW character advances, it is able to purchase every skill and spell available from the trainer, limited only by available funds. Eventually, as the character reaches the level cap, every one is indeed trained, even the ones the player may seldom use. I know of very few systems like this - the only one that comes to mind is 1st Ed. AD&D.
The only variability in WoW comes in its "Talent" system, which is in fact just a second tier of skills. In this case, there is a restriction of available talent points, forcing the player to choose a "build" of talent point allocations to available talents. But as it turns out, there is only a small set of practical builds that are quickly identified by class affecianados, and enforced by social factors.
In the cases of some classes (Priests, Warlocks, Paladins) the choice of functional builds available to the player is as few as one or two general patterns, and sometimes dominated by one very successful build. If the player attempts to explore non-traditional (or even unpopular) builds, he or she faces a distinct lack of competitive ability as well as ridicule from peers. This is especially true in endgame PvP and Raid play.
So the characteristic of the game that emerges is one in which a character's class strictly defines its role, with some minor variation available thru talent specialization and professions, and those are limited both practically and socially. The simplicity is an advantage only to the Devs (and to the conformist element of the player community), so of course they favor it. But to an experienced, creative, independant roleplayer it's a hindrance. And eventually, as the larger online gamer audience matures and becomes more exerienced, they will outgrow your game.
My question is, "Why do developers have to reinvent a ruleset for every new title?" Yea, everybody wants to design a ruleset. But 30 years of tabletop RPGs have produced a variety of successful, balanced, extensively playtested rulesets, spanning the class-vs-skill continuum from GURPS to Rolemaster to AD&D. Use those and put your effort into content development.
In my experience, AD&D 2nd edition (specifically 2.5, including the Class Handbooks and Skills and Powers) had far more variability available to the player than does WoW. However it had many unbalanced exploits.
I suggest the authors look at Simutronics games, which are far more skill oriented and, yes, force the players to plan ahead and spend their talent points wisely. But in my experience with such systems online (Gemstone III, DragonRealms), the player community will assist and advise its own. That's what guilds and class societies are for. And if the system is designed around low level development of a core set of class talents (the basic combat, spell and technical abilities every member of a class will need) augmented by specialization and supplemental talents at mid-to-high levels, then new players will be able to learn the ropes of a class before being required to min-max a character's talent build to avoid crippling it at the level cap.
You want to build a successful enterprise that keeps players subscribed for a decade? Use a tested ruleset that allows for individuality, and put your labor into the content. Your players are maturing, therefore so must your games.
I would NOT recommend using vaseline in any disc player you value, and particularly not in one that runs warm...
Vaseline (aka White Petrolatum) liquifies at just about 100F (see its MSDS), so any player that runs warm to the touch will cause the vaseline to liquify. The centrifugal effect of the spinning disk will then coat the inside of your CD/DVD tray with wank lube.
Of course, chances are that rental DVD you're attempting to view already has traces of petrolatum on it anyway.
McCarthy's evaluations of our ability to deal with some of these threats, as a society, are rather optimistic. For instance:
The US has perhaps a year supply of food for us gluttons in various kinds of storage. In an emergency we would ration food and avoid waste. Past famines have been more associated with inability to transport food to where it was needed than with an absolute lack of food. Today, because of modern shipping, the whole world can share food, so a food emergency would have to be prolonged and worldwide to kill a substantial fraction of the population.
The real shame is that Herbert never got any wide recognition (outside of SF fandom) for his other novels, e.g., The Doasadi Experiment, Whipping Star, The Santaroga Barrier, Destination: Void / The Jesus Experiment, etc., which were at least as thought-provoking and inspired as Dune.
If Dune had never been written, he'd still be a star of classic SF.
The sequels to Dune were sheer hack in comparison./herbertfan
You can already get this information via the radio in most metropolitan markets, so what's the point?
The point is that when you can poll the traffic sensors via Google, rather than wait for "Traffic On The Ones" there's no race condition.
It seems to happen far too frequently that just as the traffic report comes on, I enter a tunnel or some other AM interference zone and miss the 5 second mention of my particular route.
Or, another all too common situation: I'm three minutes from a highway junction for an alternate route that I could take to avoid congestion on my main route. However, the next traffic report is in five minutes.
Traffic data on demand is one way to eliminate these frustrations. That's the point.
So, that's basically just a long-winded, analytically exhaustive way of proving that Best Buy's end user site support staff is misnamed, and should more accurately be called the Dweeb Squad.
Their cars and uniforms certainly support your case.
Glossy surfaces and fine-pitched uniform patterns confuse optical mouse, yes.
When that happens to me, I find that a clipboard and a pad of paper make a perfectly suitable playground for my optical rodent.
If you feel you need to spend a minor fortune on a 100% ideal mousing surface, go right ahead, but I find that a clean sheet of smooth bond paper meets 90% of performance requirements and 99% of economical ones, and since it's paper, the aesthetics are 100% up to you.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the interesting link, Morric.
Currently, I have two media rooms - one casual family room and one home theatre room. The casual family room has a re-purposed iMac RevA running EyeTV and a TV Tuner/Encoder box, using a 1TB RAID1 array for storage of recorded analog cable programming, pira-ahem downloaded content, and ripped DVDs. EyeTV can be coaxed into encoding programming for our iPod with Video. Audio out is connected to a stereo Receiver which drives zone music thruout the house, so instead of a monster 400-disc CD changer, we just rip the CDs and use iTunes. When it's not in use, we tuck away the wireless keyboard and mouse, and the iPhoto library screensaver runs.
Since the iMac was a hand-me-down, it was all rather inexpensive (except for the 1TB array) and it all works wonderfully as an attractive media-agnostic (and copyright-agnostic) PVR and central media center... except for one problem: I can't share content with my home theatre setup.
The home theatre room has just a VCR, DVD player and A/V amplifier. I need an inexpensive box that can access the 1TB drive and playback content on a composite or S-video output. It needs to be capable of full access to EyeTV libraries, Mac filesystem libraries, and iTunes libraries over a wireless network.
Currently the only way I can see to do this is put a Mac Mini running EyeTV in the theatre room and use the TV as a monitor. But the cost of a Mini and the clumsiness of using a TV as its only display are both discouraging factors.
I'm not holding my breath for Apple's "iTV" to fill this gap. The Sling press release does not mention EyeTV at all. But considering how well the G5 iMac serves as a PVR at the end of its life, a new Intel Mac Mini would do a smashing job... except for the need for a) yet another monitor, or b) an upgrade to an HDTV with a mac video interface.
Googlephonic.
Because you know... it, too, will sound like shit.
A: Finding half a bug!
First, The distinction of Li-Poly from the general chemistry of Li-Ion is in the electrolyte. Instead of a liquid or gel electrolyte, the Li-Poly cell uses a thin sheet of conductive polymer doped with ionic compounds. Now while this polymer electrolyte has less mobility than a liquid, resulting in a lower energy density (J/cm^3) and power density (W/cm^3), in practice the manufactured shapes can be more complex than the coin or cylindrical shapes imposed by liquid electrolytes. Therefore more "battery cell" can be stuffed into otherwise unused volumes, and in many applications this maximizes the effective energy density beyond what can be achieved using cylindrical cells.
Second, any Lithium chemistry cell using a Cobalt-alloy cathode (virtually all of them on the market today) is subject to a thermal runaway condition if the internal cell temperature exceeds 130C. This includes Li-Poly cells.
Valence corp has patented a Lithium-Iron-Phosphate cathode chemistry that has less energy density, similar to NiCd, however the change to a Iron cathode eliminates the thermal runaway possiblity, making the cells much safer. These will soon be available commercially from DeWalt as battery packs for their cordless power tools. Here is a press release... note that Valence later bought the company referenced therein, A123 Systems. (I wonder if there's been a delay somewhere - DeWalt was marketing this much more heavily just a few months ago, now you have to do a search on their site to find any reference of it.)
Another company, Altair Nanotechnologies, has patented a Litium Titanate Spinel anode technology that also claims to eliminate the risk of fire and improve on both the Energy Density and Power Density of vanilla Li-Ion. However they have yet to actually deliver cells (to me anyway, despite many requests). And this chemistry is not exclusive to the Iron Phosphate cathode, meaning someone with all of the proper patent licenses could combine the two and make a high energy-density, non-exploding laptop battery that does even better than the Li-Poly battery I'm using in my MacBook Pro right now.
Finally, here's a link to the "Safety Concerns" page of the "Battery University" site which is an excellent user's reference for Li-Ion secondary batteries, among others. And here is a link to a Valence Corp white paper that describes their LIP cells. Lastly, here is a PDF of Altair Nano's marketing material describing their claims of safety advantages their Titanium spinel material offers to commercial batteries.
There. Fixed that logic for ya.
(Mods: Not a troll. The alternative was flaming him for blaming the victim.)
Even their sources say there is no credible threat, but the mainstream media sensationalizes it anyway. And the average joe FOX/Oprah/MTV viewer gets another dose of anxiety-inducing semiotics.
That is why "warnings" like this have their desired effect. FUD.
It depends on what you call yourself...
Well, god forbid that something fail at its weakest point.
I've seen people use their Razrs by hauling over and slamming the cover open and closed like they're Captain Kirk calling Scotty for a beam-me-up or something -- even engineers, who should know better.
I have a 15-month-old Razr V3 and it's as good as new except for one or two minor scratches on the external bezel. It receives appropriate-but-not-obsessive care, and keeping it in a holster (not a clip-on case) is a large part of why it still looks new. I wanna know what the author of the CNet article does with his Razr before condemning the entire product line.
My wife attempted to do her Xmas shopping on Amazon last nite, putting about 12 items in her cart, mostly CDs, but also some books, minor cookware and a board game.
All of the items were listed "In Stock," but none of them, except for two of the CDs and the cookware, were able to be shipped before 21 Dec 2006.
So I told her to go to Borders.com and try there. Same deal... three weeks just to ship stuff that we could have bought at Target and brought home the same day.
WTF? If the online retailers are all geared up for "Cyber Monday," then why are they so atypically slow to actually deliver the goods? All of my many Amazon, TigerDirect and PC Connection orders this past year all shipped the same day, except for one item (a new-to-market leather iPod case).
Altogether a rather Craptacular Monday, I'd say.
In the example given, Glenn Greenwald's blog, his entries are no different than letters to the editor published by the NYT, or live appearances on programs such as Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
I doubt this ruling would stand up to challenge. Perhaps lawyer/bloggers could be required to remove mention of their legal practices from their blog, or change their outlet to a third-party operated blog like Instapundit or Salon, but they cannot be forbidden from expressing their professional opinions.
The part I find most disturbing is the fact that the violation of individual citizens' 4th amendment rights against unreasonable seizure was not an issue.
But once the privacy and intellectual property of corporate ubercitizens is being threatened, all of a sudden it's an issue that needs to be addressed.
It just proves, yet again, that individuals' rights in the USA have eroded to nearly nothing, and the rights of fictitious entities have become paramount.
I'd do it if I knew how long it would take them to get the new models -and- I wanted to be an early adopter of the new mobo and superdrive.
The reason I waited this long was to let the bugs shake out.
I'll call Apple and see what they say, but I'll probably just talk myself into being happy with this one. Thanks for your advice and sympathy, though!
But Saturday I gave up waiting and ordered a 2.0GHz MBP 15", and paid for a RAM upgrade to 1GB. If I could have upgraded to Firewire 800, I would have paid for that, too.
I am literally expecting DHL to ring the doorbell within the next hour to put it in my sweaty hands.
And now I read this.
You know, with respect to computer purchases I've learned to be happy by making the best choice among the options available at the time, but this really SUCKS. I don't even get ONE DAY of being on the top of the curve.
What a fucking buzzkill!
Because my CPU usage pegs at 100% whenever I leave a browser window open showing one of those inane ads depicting a lactating sow with 50 teats, and a suckling piglet for each state of the USA.
I could easily make do without those kinds of Internet Advertising, TYVM.
They espouse minimal government libertarian principles applied to business and commerce. In other words, anti-regulatory, free market, pure unfettered capitalism.
You know, the kind of libertarianism that got us this far down the slippery slope to fascism on which we find ourselves today.
People keep talking about the "popularity" of the Warcraft series, but WoW attracted so many players so fast due to the quality of those games.
I can think of only one other series of games that has a reputation for quality that matches Blizzard's Warcraft/Starcraft/Diablo -- the Sid Meier's Civilization series.
Imagine a Civ MMO. Assume for a moment that the mechanics and ruleset and persistance problems were worked out, and then imagine the mass appeal factor the brand would have.
If anyone could do it, "Sid Meier" could.
As a WoW character advances, it is able to purchase every skill and spell available from the trainer, limited only by available funds. Eventually, as the character reaches the level cap, every one is indeed trained, even the ones the player may seldom use. I know of very few systems like this - the only one that comes to mind is 1st Ed. AD&D.
The only variability in WoW comes in its "Talent" system, which is in fact just a second tier of skills. In this case, there is a restriction of available talent points, forcing the player to choose a "build" of talent point allocations to available talents. But as it turns out, there is only a small set of practical builds that are quickly identified by class affecianados, and enforced by social factors.
In the cases of some classes (Priests, Warlocks, Paladins) the choice of functional builds available to the player is as few as one or two general patterns, and sometimes dominated by one very successful build. If the player attempts to explore non-traditional (or even unpopular) builds, he or she faces a distinct lack of competitive ability as well as ridicule from peers. This is especially true in endgame PvP and Raid play.
So the characteristic of the game that emerges is one in which a character's class strictly defines its role, with some minor variation available thru talent specialization and professions, and those are limited both practically and socially. The simplicity is an advantage only to the Devs (and to the conformist element of the player community), so of course they favor it. But to an experienced, creative, independant roleplayer it's a hindrance. And eventually, as the larger online gamer audience matures and becomes more exerienced, they will outgrow your game.
My question is, "Why do developers have to reinvent a ruleset for every new title?" Yea, everybody wants to design a ruleset. But 30 years of tabletop RPGs have produced a variety of successful, balanced, extensively playtested rulesets, spanning the class-vs-skill continuum from GURPS to Rolemaster to AD&D. Use those and put your effort into content development.
In my experience, AD&D 2nd edition (specifically 2.5, including the Class Handbooks and Skills and Powers) had far more variability available to the player than does WoW. However it had many unbalanced exploits.
I suggest the authors look at Simutronics games, which are far more skill oriented and, yes, force the players to plan ahead and spend their talent points wisely. But in my experience with such systems online (Gemstone III, DragonRealms), the player community will assist and advise its own. That's what guilds and class societies are for. And if the system is designed around low level development of a core set of class talents (the basic combat, spell and technical abilities every member of a class will need) augmented by specialization and supplemental talents at mid-to-high levels, then new players will be able to learn the ropes of a class before being required to min-max a character's talent build to avoid crippling it at the level cap.
You want to build a successful enterprise that keeps players subscribed for a decade? Use a tested ruleset that allows for individuality, and put your labor into the content. Your players are maturing, therefore so must your games.
I mean, people with titles like The Lord of the Dead tend to take such things rather personally.
Vaseline (aka White Petrolatum) liquifies at just about 100F (see its MSDS), so any player that runs warm to the touch will cause the vaseline to liquify. The centrifugal effect of the spinning disk will then coat the inside of your CD/DVD tray with wank lube.
Of course, chances are that rental DVD you're attempting to view already has traces of petrolatum on it anyway.
FEMA couldn't have rationalized better.
The real shame is that Herbert never got any wide recognition (outside of SF fandom) for his other novels, e.g., The Doasadi Experiment, Whipping Star, The Santaroga Barrier, Destination: Void / The Jesus Experiment, etc., which were at least as thought-provoking and inspired as Dune.
/herbertfan
If Dune had never been written, he'd still be a star of classic SF.
The sequels to Dune were sheer hack in comparison.
The point is that when you can poll the traffic sensors via Google, rather than wait for "Traffic On The Ones" there's no race condition.
It seems to happen far too frequently that just as the traffic report comes on, I enter a tunnel or some other AM interference zone and miss the 5 second mention of my particular route.
Or, another all too common situation: I'm three minutes from a highway junction for an alternate route that I could take to avoid congestion on my main route. However, the next traffic report is in five minutes.
Traffic data on demand is one way to eliminate these frustrations. That's the point.
Their cars and uniforms certainly support your case.
When that happens to me, I find that a clipboard and a pad of paper make a perfectly suitable playground for my optical rodent.
If you feel you need to spend a minor fortune on a 100% ideal mousing surface, go right ahead, but I find that a clean sheet of smooth bond paper meets 90% of performance requirements and 99% of economical ones, and since it's paper, the aesthetics are 100% up to you.