Not sure I follow, but that MS Word is a de facto standard in itself is my point. I've used MS Word since around version 4.0, and with the exception of new features I never really noticed my work flow to change much over the iterations. I might have been lucky in that respect though. If you were asking whether I was saying Microsoft upgrades = standards, then yeah, why not? One thing Windows and Office instilled in me over the years is this constant psychological need to upgrade. It's an illness for which the only cure is Macintosh. *wink*
It lacks nothing a junior would need, but it's still a tough call. I feel schools have a duty to give children the skills they will need in order to make it. In this era, I think that means having rudimentary word processing skills. Maybe I'm off-base. MS Office is a de facto standard for business communications, and so forcing students to learn it and develop skills in it is a good thing. We're not talking about merely teaching kids to type documents on a computer. Were that the case, DOS and PFS First Choice would suffice... Man, I hated that program. Still, this decision has an unfortunate effect of steering potentionally new and uninformed computer users straight to Microsoft, and it forces parents to spend a lot of money on a product their kids really don't need.
I would have standardized on an output format, and then provide a list of applications capable of producing output to that standard. If you're capable of writing a term paper to spec using an old edition of Adobe PageMaker, all power to you. But what do I know, I'm only a scientist who things about shit like this all the time. The decision makers at the school district don't think about these things, and probably only considered Word Perfect as an alternative. We're dealing with an audience that likely buys all of their software shrink-wrapped, so it makes sense that OO.o wasn't chosen.
I've been thinking about this subject a lot since the 2000 election. I am against electronic ballots with no paper trail, but I now wonder whether a paper ballot can guarantee more than a warm fuzzy.
Spot checking N% of precincts as you suggest sounds good to me. How will these checks be implemented across the country? Could a Federal election rule be made to force all states to perform a check? If so, would states have the freedom to decide the process for performing a check? Were it left to the individual states, would state governments vote to make spot checks mandatory in every election, or would the checks be required only when a losing candidate challenges the results? And what of the candidates? Should a candidate be trusted with the right to not challenge? Some candidates will accept results out of the spirit of good sportsmanship, but if since we are talking about the will of the people here, maybe a candidate should never be trusted to speak on behalf of voters, even those who supported him/her.
Slipping on the tin foil hat for a moment... If what we fear is voting machine software which will change or drop votes, then we must also fear that the paper trail can be forged by that same software; telling the voter one thing, but telling election officials another. This assumes that any recount would be made by analysing a printed record of votes taken from the machine by the election officials, and not by going around the community and collecting printed reciepts voters leave the polls with.
"Are we to assume that if forensics can't understand it then it is automatically incriminating?"
That would seem to be the logic. This can lead to some scary scenarios. The grandparent posed the question about using a rare filesystem. How about using a file format that isn't rare in itself, but just uncommon to the forensics analyst's computer platform? If all my home videos and audio recordings are Matroskas and Apple Lossless's as opposed to being WMVs and MP3s, is it incriminating? Damn, better convert those.IFFs I've been storing.
Seems a bit silly though. At some point forensics has to go back and say they found data which they do not understand, and then law enforcement can ask the suspect to cooperate and reveal what that data is; and if the suspect has nothing to hide, he will gladly do his patriotic duty and explain that data regardless of how embarrassing and unrelated it is to the investigation. If he refuses, then he has something to hide and floats on water; therefore he is a witch.
Hmmm. I always wondered what a live action Robotech would be like. The child Robotech fan in me still thinks it wouldn't suck. I just saw Robotech: Shadow Chronicles. It is CG animated, and it looks pretty good, although the mecha looks a little too CG for my tastes. It's a good sign for future Robotech projects. Maybe they'll revive Robotech II: The Sentinels. I bet there won't be remakes though, partly because of the origins of the original show, and partly cause Harmony Gold can still make a lot of money reselling me new DVD versions of the same fscking original series!
I am actually in the market for a DVR, and I'm very displeased with what the last and current lines of SKUs have to offer. All of them from LG through Samsung, RCA, and Panasonic require you to make major sacrifices: flaky firmware that will cause the machine to spaz out vs superior recording quality, shoddy build quality vs low price, DVD-RAM support vs no fscking tuner (not an issue if you always use a cable receiver), or good quality recording vs slow performance and crap software interface.
With the likelihood that after 2009 all the major cable companies will lock down the analog channels so that you must use their receiver to even get CBS over coax, it would be nice to have an alternative way to get these channels through the DVR. What if Tivo evolves into a video provider of its own, streaming channels over broadband into its Tivo deck. That is something I would be interested in. There would be a bandwidth issue I think, especially if you want to stream HD. Not everyone blindly lusts after anything labelled HD though. I have several HD channels that look worse than their analog standard def counterparts because the networks don't get that crap in = crap out. Tivo could become an alternative to DirecTV if it could offer a satellite service, preferably one that didn't require an external dish since many consumers can't mount such things.
When I first heard the rumors about an AppleTV, I was ecstatic at what I thought would be an STB which would stream channels from ABC to TechTV/G4 over the Internet and display them on my TV, and then allow me to archive my downloads. I am pretty sure I wasn't alone in hoping for this. I would be willing to pay a fair subscription fee to stream in 480p video with commercials.
Not just OEM Vista, they are surely including OEM installs of every version of Windows. I own Windows 98 four times over despite the fact that I never wanted or even used it, Windows 95 three times, XP Pro once, and XP Home four times.
Nah, Congress does too know what a PC is. They knew what Doom was when the Columbine shootings happened, and before that, they knew about the original Grand Theft Auto. I don't remember Phantasmagoria being criticized for its violence though. PC gaming is every bit as susceptible to attacks from politicians.
This is perhaps why many of us are still dedicated to Usenet and to a lesser extent, Internet Relay Chat. Usenet still feels very much like the wild Internet I remember in the late '80s and early '90s, except for the increase in spam. Still, even with that, I am filtering less on Usenet than I am on the Web; plus you can be as much of a total dick as you want to whomever you want, and the most that anyone can do is individually killfile you -- moderation as it should be.
"Zombies" Heeehee. I remember them purely as pedestrians although they were called gremlins. Yes, Deathrace was a discreet logic game made using a transister-transister logic ciruit. No game ROM. There are several classic games like this. I don't know enough about the electronics behind TTLs but is there any way to save games like Deathrace?
The PS3 isn't a bad Blu-Ray player; however it is a loud Blu-Ray player which justifies not using it as your sole BD/DVD player in a home theater setup. That said, ignore quips over component input. Ask real videophiles what they think about HDMI and you'll get a pretty big mix of responses. Most people I know who share my love of video believe HDMI is convenient at best. I still prefer component myself for a number of reasons.
That will never happen. The bar has already been set. Every game console for now on will have convergence. Nintendo will probably be the leader when it comes to being the least integrated with your entire multimedia lifestyle.
The future of Xbox and PS is a combination of smart appliance that can manage your home's lighting and climate control, and maybe feed your pet; and all-in-one Tivo/Apple TV device. You'll be able to record the shows you missed while you were playing games. You'll also be able to download AVC or Windows Media versions of television programs if you want things commercial free.
However, Sony will lead the way in integrating the PS4 with its 80s era Betamax decks, allowing you to program your VCR while playing Resident Evil 6. In fact, this will be a mini-game. You will also be able to send and receive text messages with either Xbox 720 or PS4. This way, you can stalk your ex comfortably from your couch. There will be tighter integration between both consoles and satellite nav services like Google Earth and Maps. This way you can look at all the places you could be travelling too if you left your house. The web browser in PS4 will support SSL so you can safely conduct banking on your PS4. One must pay to have electricity right? Oh, and unlike the Xbox, PS4 will call 911 once it detects you have died in front of your TV after 3 weeks of non-stop gaming... for free. Sadly, Xbox owners will be prompted on screen to have Xbox 720 call on their behalf, but they will be required to click OK, which won't be possible for the obvious reason. But on the upside, the Xbox Dead will lead the way in contacting your next of kin in the unfortunate event of your death or fragging.
I am a movie buyer rather than a renter, and I rely heavily on Amazon. The Blu-Ray releases sold there are obviously more numerous than what I can find in my local retail chains, but I'm still facing prices in the range of $26-31 for a movie. For me that's too much. I rarely pay more than $19 for a movie these days. For $30+ I expect to be getting a special edition that comes with a bonus disc, or a full season of a TV series... or anime. Christ, anime is expensive, especially Furi Kuri. Has anyone seen retail prices for any anime Blu-Ray releases yet? Also, not counting resolution, what does a Blu-Ray edition of a movie offer over a recent DVD edition of the same film? Even more features maybe?
Then in your case, waiting is good and wise. I bought my PS3 a couple of months after launch, so there were just 12 or so titles available. Of that 12, I was only interested in three games. Only Resistance was exclusive to the PS3. The other two are allegedly better on the 360, which I don't own. This doesn't bother me so much because I am a hardware junkie and a video nut, and I like integration. For me, the PS3 is a dream despite its annoyances. But I am still biding my time until GTAIV, Resident Evil, and hopefully Dead Rising comes.
I came into the Xbox strictly for gaming, and with 3 years of full steam Xbox marketing left in the life cycle. That was a smart move I think, cause it meant a lower price all across the board. I had a substantial software choice and I was able to save money on building my game library by taking advantage of online discounts, retail markdowns, and so-called "greatest hits" special editions. The only thing I gave up by not buying the Xbox at launch was bragging rights... but since I like girls, that wasn't a loss.
No, the Pyramids got an honorary status and was removed from voting... "The New7Wonders Foundation designates the Pyramids of Giza the only remaining of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World as an Honorary New7Wonders Candidate, and removed it from the voting." More here..
Which means Giza is SUCH a loser, that they had to grandfather it in out of respect. In other words, Giza got a lifetime achievement award because some Egyptian screamed conspiracy!
I truly love that the very same mechanism for selecting the next American Idol was used to selecting the new Seven Wonders... that fact in itself should count as the 8th Wonder. Still. The whole Wonders of the World thing has always been extraordinary superficial. It has never been a list compiled by the greatest cultural and scientific minds of their representative era. It has always been about politics, patriotism, a healthy amount of ethnocentrism, and on a few occasions, the complete inability to travel to the other side of the world to see an even better Wonder. Even in the ancient times and the Middle Ages, there have been several Wonders lists. Yes, it's sad that it's so blatantly comical in this era when the traditional barriers to making a truly pure list have been thought overcome by such things as satellite photography, the Internet, and global travel. But it is what it is, and what it is, is a list no more substantial than my pick for the greatest guitarists in rock n roll, or the best crime films in cinema history.
The poster who suggested The Internet, the electric grid, and the Human Genome Project, is has done a better job at constructing a list from a knee-jerk reaction than these pinheads who text messaged their... oops, gotta go, time for me to vote for my favorite chef on Hells Kitchen.
This is where Windows and OS X work better. Don't even think about what versions are in your "repositories" -- just grab the damn thing and install it. Under OS X, programs are self-contained so you can just grab new releases at any time. And they don't explode files all over your filesystem, unlike in Linux.
Parent deserves to be modded up.
I do prefer the way Mac OS X handles applications as bundles better than the way things are done on *nix and to an extent, Windows. I would love a Linux that didn't have software installs explode all over the filesystem. But the Mac has its own downside. I use several different video transcoders and players. Most of them are based on a various combinations of the same core apps: ffmpeg, mplayer, gpac, x264, etc.. The result is that I have at least five copies of the mplayer binary installed somewhere in/Applications not including the version I compiled from scratch in/usr/local/bin. In this era of 500GB hard drives, this probably isn't important; but add in the number of times ffmpeg and other programs appear, and it adds up to a really inefficient use of space. Still, I never have dependency problems, and my/Applications isn't as messy as my/usr/local.
Good points. I think there is a major hump Linux will have to get out before we get to the issue of selling the public on formatting their hard drives though: marketing Linux as an appealing brand. A consumer-friendly version of Linux will never succeed unless it is marketed properly. It won't matter how great the system is; it will just be another BeOS without a serious marketing campaign that speaks to dads and non-techie girlfriends. CNN won't touch it unless it's sexy or really fun. In order to achieve that Linux has to become something less like Windows and more like Mac OS X. A consumer-friendly Linux that has an amazingly innovative interface and which offers seamless integration with all your consumer electronics from your DAP to your camcorder, and hell your HDTV is something that is very needed. And it must feel polished. In 2007, no one wants an alternative OS that is like Windows 98.
The other night I was looking at Yellow Dog Linux for the PS3. Terra Soft who makes YDL has a series of superb video ads that I would love to see running on television. Look here. The commercials don't talk in geek terms. They feature a cute little girl, an attractive young woman, and a little boy sneaking in game time during his homework. The commercials talk about being free and independent, and having fun. Absent product marketing that makes Linux desirable to hipsters, I suppose the next best thing is to get Linux tied to a really sexy piece of hardware. If the next semi-translucent iPhone-looking all-in-one desktop or laptop ran an uber-sexy Linux, half your marketing work is done.
Definitely have to agree. I had access to an Apple ][ as a kid, and that gave me an initial interest in computers beyond my Atari VCS. Then I got to use the Amiga and the C-64. I didn't get a PC until I was in college, and by that time I was doing a lot of programming in BASIC. I do credit the PC and specifically Turbo C++ for DOS in giving me an interest in programming languages. Without it, I would be chugging away with FORTRAN and BASIC. However, it was UNIX that exposed me to other languages like Perl and Java, and made me think deeper about computing. As for my Mac... well, back then everyone knew Macs were just for games and nifty art programs, unlike those crappy PCs that could only run word processors.;-)
Nah, the shame is on the litigant who made the video in the first place, suing. No one cares if you watched sex on tape... really, no one does. But if you film it, now that's news. I doubt Best Buy will get many lawsuits - as many as they richly deserve, cause the injured consumer probably doesn't want their personal files entered as publically documented evidence.
Moral of the story, keep all your personal files on a portable drive and learn to fix your own equipment. Yes, yes... easier said than done.:D
I'm not sure. I own a PS3. With the latest firmware, the PS3 gives me upscaling DVD and PS2 support as well as H.264 High Profile. I just encoded some video H.264/AAC and it looks and sounds awesome... but that's all I have been doing lately, video experiments. I am certainly using the PS3 as Sony intended since I am taking advantage of all of the PS3's features. However, at hundreds less, I own an Oppo reference deck that blows away most high end video components, including the PS3. Blu-Ray is nice, but at $30 a title, the next gen video formats don't thrill me. Once again, you get more from a quality upscaling DVD player that outputs to HDMI than you will out of trying to replace your video collection with Blu-Ray/HD-DVD.
I'll return to PS3 gaming once GTA and Resident Evil come out, and once Home launches. I think Nintendo and Microsoft understand better that gamers want options. Discounting the PS2 support, the PS3 only gives you a choice between genres. Wii and Xbox 360 gives you a choice between genres and then more specifically between different titles within the genre you chose. I think a typical game consumer will want that strong set of options, and will happily live without the PS3's other features. As the PS2 fan said to the Xbox fan, "It's all about the games."
I do love my PS3... but I can't help but feel that for the second time in my life, I own a Neo Geo while everyone else owns a Sega or a Super Nintendo. I think Microsoft will only be afraid once PS3 titles start challenging the 360 for storespace. I think so far the Wii is the winner. Aside from idiots tossing the wands into their TV sets, I've heard of no one with Wii-grets.
A simple Google search brings up a bunch of small "cheap gas" tracking sites. Spotting cheap gas has become a bit of a national past time now. I have met people though who will drive across town to get gas that's as much as 8 cents cheaper per gallon. Maybe if one were driving an extremely fuel efficient car, it would make sense, but watching people chase down cheap gas in their SUVs gives me a giggle.
Having grown up connected to the engineering side of the music business, and having been a strong music lover for so long, I learned that there is a large segment of the music business for which it makes sense to focus on singles. Certain genres of popular music naturally coalesce around the creation of albums as standalone musical experiences: album-oriented rock and heavy metal, and especially jazz. But pop, especially synthpop and dance music, is its own beast.
A typical pop album today is produced from tracks written by one or more professional songwriters that may or may not have collaborated with the popstar on more than a superficial level. So you get 8-12 tracks that are completely isolated from each other except for what work the album's producer did in order to create a cohesive arrangement and a common musical sound.
It just makes sense from every perspective for certain types of music to be distributed as singles. It makes zero sense to distribute singles on CD even after you factor in wonderous joy that might be a really cool B-side. Digital distribution is the most sensible medium for such artists... of course, if that distribution is in anything less than a lossless format... *grin*
As for the types of music that do deserve being distributed as albums; I think things will be okay. Maybe some kid downloads "Blackboard Sky" and discovers the lyrical mastery that was Wall of Voodoo. Downloadable singles may become the gateway drug to great albums by The Beatles, Pink FLoyd, Rough Cutt... okay, maybe not Rough Cutt. If not, no real harm done, because the fans are certain to download the full album. Anyway, this is really most relative to pop music. Rock fans and jazz fans tend to put a lot more attention into things like the physical media on which the music is distributed, the production values put into the album artwork and liner notes, and total runtimes.
Prince is actually one of my favorite guitarists, although most of his non-rocking music escapes me. I had the pleasure of witnessing his earlier rock performances in The Revolution. I would be compelled to buy his new one especially to stick it to the label because it would be criminal if an artist of his caliber were shut out of the marketplace due to some label or musicseller being on a childish vendetta.
But that won't happen. The rules of the market are immutable, and I have sneaking suspicion that any hint of retaliation is based solely on a desire to get activist fans to rush out and buy multiple copies to pick up for any theorectical loss in sales a store would suffer. No big music chain will give up on a million sales of Prince's new album just cause they missed out on the first two million. And I seriously doubt that any musicseller or record exec will be so injured by this that they decide to quit their job and move into a profession where the artist shows the distributor the proper respect... such as drug trafficking. I wouldn't worry too much about Prince. History shows he always lands on his feet in better position than when he started.
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Not sure I follow, but that MS Word is a de facto standard in itself is my point. I've used MS Word since around version 4.0, and with the exception of new features I never really noticed my work flow to change much over the iterations. I might have been lucky in that respect though. If you were asking whether I was saying Microsoft upgrades = standards, then yeah, why not? One thing Windows and Office instilled in me over the years is this constant psychological need to upgrade. It's an illness for which the only cure is Macintosh. *wink*
It lacks nothing a junior would need, but it's still a tough call. I feel schools have a duty to give children the skills they will need in order to make it. In this era, I think that means having rudimentary word processing skills. Maybe I'm off-base. MS Office is a de facto standard for business communications, and so forcing students to learn it and develop skills in it is a good thing. We're not talking about merely teaching kids to type documents on a computer. Were that the case, DOS and PFS First Choice would suffice... Man, I hated that program. Still, this decision has an unfortunate effect of steering potentionally new and uninformed computer users straight to Microsoft, and it forces parents to spend a lot of money on a product their kids really don't need.
I would have standardized on an output format, and then provide a list of applications capable of producing output to that standard. If you're capable of writing a term paper to spec using an old edition of Adobe PageMaker, all power to you. But what do I know, I'm only a scientist who things about shit like this all the time. The decision makers at the school district don't think about these things, and probably only considered Word Perfect as an alternative. We're dealing with an audience that likely buys all of their software shrink-wrapped, so it makes sense that OO.o wasn't chosen.
I've been thinking about this subject a lot since the 2000 election. I am against electronic ballots with no paper trail, but I now wonder whether a paper ballot can guarantee more than a warm fuzzy.
Spot checking N% of precincts as you suggest sounds good to me. How will these checks be implemented across the country? Could a Federal election rule be made to force all states to perform a check? If so, would states have the freedom to decide the process for performing a check? Were it left to the individual states, would state governments vote to make spot checks mandatory in every election, or would the checks be required only when a losing candidate challenges the results? And what of the candidates? Should a candidate be trusted with the right to not challenge? Some candidates will accept results out of the spirit of good sportsmanship, but if since we are talking about the will of the people here, maybe a candidate should never be trusted to speak on behalf of voters, even those who supported him/her.
Slipping on the tin foil hat for a moment... If what we fear is voting machine software which will change or drop votes, then we must also fear that the paper trail can be forged by that same software; telling the voter one thing, but telling election officials another. This assumes that any recount would be made by analysing a printed record of votes taken from the machine by the election officials, and not by going around the community and collecting printed reciepts voters leave the polls with.
"Are we to assume that if forensics can't understand it then it is automatically incriminating?" That would seem to be the logic. This can lead to some scary scenarios. The grandparent posed the question about using a rare filesystem. How about using a file format that isn't rare in itself, but just uncommon to the forensics analyst's computer platform? If all my home videos and audio recordings are Matroskas and Apple Lossless's as opposed to being WMVs and MP3s, is it incriminating? Damn, better convert those .IFFs I've been storing.
Seems a bit silly though. At some point forensics has to go back and say they found data which they do not understand, and then law enforcement can ask the suspect to cooperate and reveal what that data is; and if the suspect has nothing to hide, he will gladly do his patriotic duty and explain that data regardless of how embarrassing and unrelated it is to the investigation. If he refuses, then he has something to hide and floats on water; therefore he is a witch.
Hmmm. I always wondered what a live action Robotech would be like. The child Robotech fan in me still thinks it wouldn't suck. I just saw Robotech: Shadow Chronicles. It is CG animated, and it looks pretty good, although the mecha looks a little too CG for my tastes. It's a good sign for future Robotech projects. Maybe they'll revive Robotech II: The Sentinels. I bet there won't be remakes though, partly because of the origins of the original show, and partly cause Harmony Gold can still make a lot of money reselling me new DVD versions of the same fscking original series!
I am actually in the market for a DVR, and I'm very displeased with what the last and current lines of SKUs have to offer. All of them from LG through Samsung, RCA, and Panasonic require you to make major sacrifices: flaky firmware that will cause the machine to spaz out vs superior recording quality, shoddy build quality vs low price, DVD-RAM support vs no fscking tuner (not an issue if you always use a cable receiver), or good quality recording vs slow performance and crap software interface. With the likelihood that after 2009 all the major cable companies will lock down the analog channels so that you must use their receiver to even get CBS over coax, it would be nice to have an alternative way to get these channels through the DVR. What if Tivo evolves into a video provider of its own, streaming channels over broadband into its Tivo deck. That is something I would be interested in. There would be a bandwidth issue I think, especially if you want to stream HD. Not everyone blindly lusts after anything labelled HD though. I have several HD channels that look worse than their analog standard def counterparts because the networks don't get that crap in = crap out. Tivo could become an alternative to DirecTV if it could offer a satellite service, preferably one that didn't require an external dish since many consumers can't mount such things. When I first heard the rumors about an AppleTV, I was ecstatic at what I thought would be an STB which would stream channels from ABC to TechTV/G4 over the Internet and display them on my TV, and then allow me to archive my downloads. I am pretty sure I wasn't alone in hoping for this. I would be willing to pay a fair subscription fee to stream in 480p video with commercials.
Not just OEM Vista, they are surely including OEM installs of every version of Windows. I own Windows 98 four times over despite the fact that I never wanted or even used it, Windows 95 three times, XP Pro once, and XP Home four times.
Nah, Congress does too know what a PC is. They knew what Doom was when the Columbine shootings happened, and before that, they knew about the original Grand Theft Auto. I don't remember Phantasmagoria being criticized for its violence though. PC gaming is every bit as susceptible to attacks from politicians.
This is perhaps why many of us are still dedicated to Usenet and to a lesser extent, Internet Relay Chat. Usenet still feels very much like the wild Internet I remember in the late '80s and early '90s, except for the increase in spam. Still, even with that, I am filtering less on Usenet than I am on the Web; plus you can be as much of a total dick as you want to whomever you want, and the most that anyone can do is individually killfile you -- moderation as it should be.
"Big McLargeHuge" Love that line.
"Zombies" Heeehee. I remember them purely as pedestrians although they were called gremlins. Yes, Deathrace was a discreet logic game made using a transister-transister logic ciruit. No game ROM. There are several classic games like this. I don't know enough about the electronics behind TTLs but is there any way to save games like Deathrace?
The PS3 isn't a bad Blu-Ray player; however it is a loud Blu-Ray player which justifies not using it as your sole BD/DVD player in a home theater setup. That said, ignore quips over component input. Ask real videophiles what they think about HDMI and you'll get a pretty big mix of responses. Most people I know who share my love of video believe HDMI is convenient at best. I still prefer component myself for a number of reasons.
That will never happen. The bar has already been set. Every game console for now on will have convergence. Nintendo will probably be the leader when it comes to being the least integrated with your entire multimedia lifestyle.
The future of Xbox and PS is a combination of smart appliance that can manage your home's lighting and climate control, and maybe feed your pet; and all-in-one Tivo/Apple TV device. You'll be able to record the shows you missed while you were playing games. You'll also be able to download AVC or Windows Media versions of television programs if you want things commercial free.
However, Sony will lead the way in integrating the PS4 with its 80s era Betamax decks, allowing you to program your VCR while playing Resident Evil 6. In fact, this will be a mini-game. You will also be able to send and receive text messages with either Xbox 720 or PS4. This way, you can stalk your ex comfortably from your couch. There will be tighter integration between both consoles and satellite nav services like Google Earth and Maps. This way you can look at all the places you could be travelling too if you left your house. The web browser in PS4 will support SSL so you can safely conduct banking on your PS4. One must pay to have electricity right? Oh, and unlike the Xbox, PS4 will call 911 once it detects you have died in front of your TV after 3 weeks of non-stop gaming... for free. Sadly, Xbox owners will be prompted on screen to have Xbox 720 call on their behalf, but they will be required to click OK, which won't be possible for the obvious reason. But on the upside, the Xbox Dead will lead the way in contacting your next of kin in the unfortunate event of your death or fragging.
I am a movie buyer rather than a renter, and I rely heavily on Amazon. The Blu-Ray releases sold there are obviously more numerous than what I can find in my local retail chains, but I'm still facing prices in the range of $26-31 for a movie. For me that's too much. I rarely pay more than $19 for a movie these days. For $30+ I expect to be getting a special edition that comes with a bonus disc, or a full season of a TV series... or anime. Christ, anime is expensive, especially Furi Kuri. Has anyone seen retail prices for any anime Blu-Ray releases yet? Also, not counting resolution, what does a Blu-Ray edition of a movie offer over a recent DVD edition of the same film? Even more features maybe?
Then in your case, waiting is good and wise. I bought my PS3 a couple of months after launch, so there were just 12 or so titles available. Of that 12, I was only interested in three games. Only Resistance was exclusive to the PS3. The other two are allegedly better on the 360, which I don't own. This doesn't bother me so much because I am a hardware junkie and a video nut, and I like integration. For me, the PS3 is a dream despite its annoyances. But I am still biding my time until GTAIV, Resident Evil, and hopefully Dead Rising comes.
I came into the Xbox strictly for gaming, and with 3 years of full steam Xbox marketing left in the life cycle. That was a smart move I think, cause it meant a lower price all across the board. I had a substantial software choice and I was able to save money on building my game library by taking advantage of online discounts, retail markdowns, and so-called "greatest hits" special editions. The only thing I gave up by not buying the Xbox at launch was bragging rights... but since I like girls, that wasn't a loss.
No, the Pyramids got an honorary status and was removed from voting... "The New7Wonders Foundation designates the Pyramids of Giza the only remaining of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World as an Honorary New7Wonders Candidate, and removed it from the voting." More here..
Which means Giza is SUCH a loser, that they had to grandfather it in out of respect. In other words, Giza got a lifetime achievement award because some Egyptian screamed conspiracy!
I truly love that the very same mechanism for selecting the next American Idol was used to selecting the new Seven Wonders... that fact in itself should count as the 8th Wonder. Still. The whole Wonders of the World thing has always been extraordinary superficial. It has never been a list compiled by the greatest cultural and scientific minds of their representative era. It has always been about politics, patriotism, a healthy amount of ethnocentrism, and on a few occasions, the complete inability to travel to the other side of the world to see an even better Wonder. Even in the ancient times and the Middle Ages, there have been several Wonders lists. Yes, it's sad that it's so blatantly comical in this era when the traditional barriers to making a truly pure list have been thought overcome by such things as satellite photography, the Internet, and global travel. But it is what it is, and what it is, is a list no more substantial than my pick for the greatest guitarists in rock n roll, or the best crime films in cinema history.
The poster who suggested The Internet, the electric grid, and the Human Genome Project, is has done a better job at constructing a list from a knee-jerk reaction than these pinheads who text messaged their... oops, gotta go, time for me to vote for my favorite chef on Hells Kitchen.
Parent deserves to be modded up.
I do prefer the way Mac OS X handles applications as bundles better than the way things are done on *nix and to an extent, Windows. I would love a Linux that didn't have software installs explode all over the filesystem. But the Mac has its own downside. I use several different video transcoders and players. Most of them are based on a various combinations of the same core apps: ffmpeg, mplayer, gpac, x264, etc.. The result is that I have at least five copies of the mplayer binary installed somewhere in /Applications not including the version I compiled from scratch in /usr/local/bin. In this era of 500GB hard drives, this probably isn't important; but add in the number of times ffmpeg and other programs appear, and it adds up to a really inefficient use of space. Still, I never have dependency problems, and my /Applications isn't as messy as my /usr/local.
Good points. I think there is a major hump Linux will have to get out before we get to the issue of selling the public on formatting their hard drives though: marketing Linux as an appealing brand. A consumer-friendly version of Linux will never succeed unless it is marketed properly. It won't matter how great the system is; it will just be another BeOS without a serious marketing campaign that speaks to dads and non-techie girlfriends. CNN won't touch it unless it's sexy or really fun. In order to achieve that Linux has to become something less like Windows and more like Mac OS X. A consumer-friendly Linux that has an amazingly innovative interface and which offers seamless integration with all your consumer electronics from your DAP to your camcorder, and hell your HDTV is something that is very needed. And it must feel polished. In 2007, no one wants an alternative OS that is like Windows 98.
The other night I was looking at Yellow Dog Linux for the PS3. Terra Soft who makes YDL has a series of superb video ads that I would love to see running on television. Look here. The commercials don't talk in geek terms. They feature a cute little girl, an attractive young woman, and a little boy sneaking in game time during his homework. The commercials talk about being free and independent, and having fun. Absent product marketing that makes Linux desirable to hipsters, I suppose the next best thing is to get Linux tied to a really sexy piece of hardware. If the next semi-translucent iPhone-looking all-in-one desktop or laptop ran an uber-sexy Linux, half your marketing work is done.
Definitely have to agree. I had access to an Apple ][ as a kid, and that gave me an initial interest in computers beyond my Atari VCS. Then I got to use the Amiga and the C-64. I didn't get a PC until I was in college, and by that time I was doing a lot of programming in BASIC. I do credit the PC and specifically Turbo C++ for DOS in giving me an interest in programming languages. Without it, I would be chugging away with FORTRAN and BASIC. However, it was UNIX that exposed me to other languages like Perl and Java, and made me think deeper about computing. As for my Mac... well, back then everyone knew Macs were just for games and nifty art programs, unlike those crappy PCs that could only run word processors. ;-)
Nah, the shame is on the litigant who made the video in the first place, suing. No one cares if you watched sex on tape... really, no one does. But if you film it, now that's news. I doubt Best Buy will get many lawsuits - as many as they richly deserve, cause the injured consumer probably doesn't want their personal files entered as publically documented evidence.
Moral of the story, keep all your personal files on a portable drive and learn to fix your own equipment. Yes, yes... easier said than done. :D
I'm not sure. I own a PS3. With the latest firmware, the PS3 gives me upscaling DVD and PS2 support as well as H.264 High Profile. I just encoded some video H.264/AAC and it looks and sounds awesome... but that's all I have been doing lately, video experiments. I am certainly using the PS3 as Sony intended since I am taking advantage of all of the PS3's features. However, at hundreds less, I own an Oppo reference deck that blows away most high end video components, including the PS3. Blu-Ray is nice, but at $30 a title, the next gen video formats don't thrill me. Once again, you get more from a quality upscaling DVD player that outputs to HDMI than you will out of trying to replace your video collection with Blu-Ray/HD-DVD.
I'll return to PS3 gaming once GTA and Resident Evil come out, and once Home launches. I think Nintendo and Microsoft understand better that gamers want options. Discounting the PS2 support, the PS3 only gives you a choice between genres. Wii and Xbox 360 gives you a choice between genres and then more specifically between different titles within the genre you chose. I think a typical game consumer will want that strong set of options, and will happily live without the PS3's other features. As the PS2 fan said to the Xbox fan, "It's all about the games."
I do love my PS3... but I can't help but feel that for the second time in my life, I own a Neo Geo while everyone else owns a Sega or a Super Nintendo. I think Microsoft will only be afraid once PS3 titles start challenging the 360 for storespace. I think so far the Wii is the winner. Aside from idiots tossing the wands into their TV sets, I've heard of no one with Wii-grets.
A simple Google search brings up a bunch of small "cheap gas" tracking sites. Spotting cheap gas has become a bit of a national past time now. I have met people though who will drive across town to get gas that's as much as 8 cents cheaper per gallon. Maybe if one were driving an extremely fuel efficient car, it would make sense, but watching people chase down cheap gas in their SUVs gives me a giggle.
Having grown up connected to the engineering side of the music business, and having been a strong music lover for so long, I learned that there is a large segment of the music business for which it makes sense to focus on singles. Certain genres of popular music naturally coalesce around the creation of albums as standalone musical experiences: album-oriented rock and heavy metal, and especially jazz. But pop, especially synthpop and dance music, is its own beast.
A typical pop album today is produced from tracks written by one or more professional songwriters that may or may not have collaborated with the popstar on more than a superficial level. So you get 8-12 tracks that are completely isolated from each other except for what work the album's producer did in order to create a cohesive arrangement and a common musical sound.
It just makes sense from every perspective for certain types of music to be distributed as singles. It makes zero sense to distribute singles on CD even after you factor in wonderous joy that might be a really cool B-side. Digital distribution is the most sensible medium for such artists... of course, if that distribution is in anything less than a lossless format... *grin*As for the types of music that do deserve being distributed as albums; I think things will be okay. Maybe some kid downloads "Blackboard Sky" and discovers the lyrical mastery that was Wall of Voodoo. Downloadable singles may become the gateway drug to great albums by The Beatles, Pink FLoyd, Rough Cutt... okay, maybe not Rough Cutt. If not, no real harm done, because the fans are certain to download the full album. Anyway, this is really most relative to pop music. Rock fans and jazz fans tend to put a lot more attention into things like the physical media on which the music is distributed, the production values put into the album artwork and liner notes, and total runtimes.
Prince is actually one of my favorite guitarists, although most of his non-rocking music escapes me. I had the pleasure of witnessing his earlier rock performances in The Revolution. I would be compelled to buy his new one especially to stick it to the label because it would be criminal if an artist of his caliber were shut out of the marketplace due to some label or musicseller being on a childish vendetta.
But that won't happen. The rules of the market are immutable, and I have sneaking suspicion that any hint of retaliation is based solely on a desire to get activist fans to rush out and buy multiple copies to pick up for any theorectical loss in sales a store would suffer. No big music chain will give up on a million sales of Prince's new album just cause they missed out on the first two million. And I seriously doubt that any musicseller or record exec will be so injured by this that they decide to quit their job and move into a profession where the artist shows the distributor the proper respect... such as drug trafficking. I wouldn't worry too much about Prince. History shows he always lands on his feet in better position than when he started.