There plenty of answers to"why do I need so many different connections"
The quickest answer I can think of is legacy. Many people have VCRs (for example) which are most likely coax and/or RCA. That is because when the technology was developed, that was the best that was the cheapest. Since people don't want to replace a VCR or any other piece of hardware when they buy a new TV, the TV manufacturer will provide those ports.
The next answer is that the technology has gotten better. Since this is the case, there will be the video and audiophiles who will want to have the best signals from their periferals as possible. Coax and RCA evolved to component and S video. With the advent of HDTV, a higher bandwidth signal was needed to push all of the information required to generate the HD picture. Also note that the outputs from the HDMI is digital. DVI is just another interface that your TV can use. And to be honest, if you look at the back of the TV, they have made it quite idiot proof on figuring out what is supposed to connect to what.
The concept of the "HDMI to DVI to bypass the HDCP" is not that hard to understand either. Ideally, content providers want to restrict access to their product. HDCP (High definition content protocol I believe is what it stands for) is a means to restrict this access. Think macrovision for DVDs and you get the idea. If the handshake is not verified, then the HD information should not be sent. Somehow, this appears to confirm/bypass the handshake. I haven't read the article describing how this bypasses, so I don't know much about it.
The ARRL has plenty of books on how to study for the FCC exams. I recently just received my technicians license, which is the most basic license. There are books there that will teach you all of the requirements that you need to learn to pass the FCC exam. However, if you want to learn about electronics, then any Ham will tell you to pick up a copy of the ARRL Handbook.
I own the Handbook and am an electrical engineer by trade. The Handbook is certainly a book that will give you examples of how to build radios yourself without bogging the explanations down with a lot of math. If you like explanations with more mathematical rigor, then you will have to go elsewhere. However, the book does an effective job of explaining circuits with some very creative examples.
The ARRL web site also has a directory of local clubs and events. Usually there is a point of contact associated with the club and they can give you a hand.
I know what the acronym stood for. Thanks for elucidating that for me.
I guess my point is why do they need to be seperate? Would it be possible to make a single player game and have a multiplayer aspect to it? What about bundling the game as a single player game, and if you want to play the game online, then you could charge a subscription fee?
I know that these games are getting larger and more expensive to produce. The best way to get a return of investment is to charge a monthly fee to recoup these costs, since game companies are becoming so risk adverse and see this as an assured way for 'easy' income to assuage the risk. Unfortunately, I only see this trend in gaming growing, which as my time for gaming shrinks, then I cannot justify the cost (even at $15/mth).
Let think of it this way. Doing some math, a $50 initial investment and 1 year of a $15/mth subscription fee means $230 over the year. While I can afford this, I am not willing to sink that much money into a single game. Especially considering how much time I have to actually play the game. However, if this game was a single player game, then I would almost certainly buy it.
IS it just me, or am I the only one who doesn't like today's model of MMOG? It's not the online part so much as the additional subscription cost to play the game online. I just don't have that much dedicated time to spend on a game while I am at home. I thought games like Diablo 2 and Half-LIfe were the perfect examples of a good solo game which had a great multiplayer interface. I have only played one of the Fallout games, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. However, if they make this game an online game strictly, then I will have to pass.
What's sad here is that no politican will vote against this. It would be political suicide. I could see whoever is running against him using this to smear him in the next election. "Representative Smith is weak on sex offenders! He voted no on a bill protecting your children!" yada yada yada...
It's not like I didn't consider this before writing my comment, but the sales clerk has to know something about when they will be getting any sort of shipment. SOMETHING. Instead, they seemed to have a general disdain in my even asking them. Sure, it might get a bit repetitive telling the 100th customer that they are out, but that is still one customer that was about to drop $300+ in their store. Myself and others can easily take their money elsewhere when treated poorly by the sales team.
I recently (Wednesday) tried to get a Wii myself at a Walmart. On Monday a co-worker of mine gave me a tip that Walmart was going to be selling on Wednesday. Later that day, I went to the electronics department at Walmart and directly asked one of the salesmen and her verified this. I unfortunately didn't buy one since I was 7 people too late for the quantaties that they had,which was 19 total:(
From my experience, Walmart didn't feed me the line 'we don't know when we are going to get more.' crap like I received at places like Gamestop. Ultimately, I would just call around to different places and see if they have a set date which they will be selling the Wii, and treat it like it was a new release date (sort of). The Walmart that I was at, the first person in line was there at 4:30 am for a 7am ticket distribution. If you had a ticket, you could then buy the Wii. I showed up at ~6:15, but if I was there about 15 minutes earlier, I am certain I would have received one.
While the data is interesting, what is the point? Given that the supplies for both the PS3 and Wii were limited by manufacturing, hence their smaller sales, I would believe that those numbers would be much larger. The only possible inference that can be made from the data is that the 360 is getting out sold by the devices which ultimately cost significantly less than the XBox 360. I would have to think that if Microsfot reduced the price on the 360, their sales would be more comperable to the ps2 and DS lite.
The details from the artcle (which is certainly very little) do not say how this will help in radio astronomy applications. Of all the things that I can think of that would help weak signal detection, it certainly isn't the microprocessor. Assuming that they will use a digitized radio scheme, which seems likely based on the information provided in the article, the worst device to detect weak signals is the ADC which typically have noise figures in excess of 10 dB. The next biggest culprit in RF chains are mixers. Should they not be working on improving these weakness es instead? Otherwise, the only benefit that I see is that they essentially building a type of DSP which will optimize the FFTs and digital filtering that would allow them to compute the data faster, but not really detect anything weaker.
Improving the RF chain prior to the ADC will be the biggest help in detecting the weak signals. Now if they said that these microprocessors were also used to perform clustered computing for antenna gain computations, then that could help (since this would improve the RF chain).
Actually, camera manufacturers do make camera bodies that are compatible with certain lenses. It is just a way to create a lock in. In your example of a Canon lens, it probably won't fit on Nikon body.
I wonder what companies like eMachines and others would do? Companies like these build very cheap, but functional boxes. I bought one of these at a reasonable price and had full intentions of upgrading it when purchased since the sum of the parts was cheaper than I could assemble had I bought everything separate. This type of upgrade limiting OS would put the stop to my main methods for buying PCs. I would have to guess that I am not the only one to buy computers like this.
I would have to think that these companies are content to sell these deep discount machines. Although I am sure that they would prefer it I bought a high end computer where the mark up is more, but I am not part of their target market when selling those machines.
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There plenty of answers to"why do I need so many different connections"
The quickest answer I can think of is legacy. Many people have VCRs (for example) which are most likely coax and/or RCA. That is because when the technology was developed, that was the best that was the cheapest. Since people don't want to replace a VCR or any other piece of hardware when they buy a new TV, the TV manufacturer will provide those ports.
The next answer is that the technology has gotten better. Since this is the case, there will be the video and audiophiles who will want to have the best signals from their periferals as possible. Coax and RCA evolved to component and S video. With the advent of HDTV, a higher bandwidth signal was needed to push all of the information required to generate the HD picture. Also note that the outputs from the HDMI is digital. DVI is just another interface that your TV can use. And to be honest, if you look at the back of the TV, they have made it quite idiot proof on figuring out what is supposed to connect to what.
The concept of the "HDMI to DVI to bypass the HDCP" is not that hard to understand either. Ideally, content providers want to restrict access to their product. HDCP (High definition content protocol I believe is what it stands for) is a means to restrict this access. Think macrovision for DVDs and you get the idea. If the handshake is not verified, then the HD information should not be sent. Somehow, this appears to confirm/bypass the handshake. I haven't read the article describing how this bypasses, so I don't know much about it.
The ARRL has plenty of books on how to study for the FCC exams. I recently just received my technicians license, which is the most basic license. There are books there that will teach you all of the requirements that you need to learn to pass the FCC exam. However, if you want to learn about electronics, then any Ham will tell you to pick up a copy of the ARRL Handbook.
I own the Handbook and am an electrical engineer by trade. The Handbook is certainly a book that will give you examples of how to build radios yourself without bogging the explanations down with a lot of math. If you like explanations with more mathematical rigor, then you will have to go elsewhere. However, the book does an effective job of explaining circuits with some very creative examples.
The ARRL web site also has a directory of local clubs and events. Usually there is a point of contact associated with the club and they can give you a hand.
I know what the acronym stood for. Thanks for elucidating that for me.
I guess my point is why do they need to be seperate? Would it be possible to make a single player game and have a multiplayer aspect to it? What about bundling the game as a single player game, and if you want to play the game online, then you could charge a subscription fee?
I know that these games are getting larger and more expensive to produce. The best way to get a return of investment is to charge a monthly fee to recoup these costs, since game companies are becoming so risk adverse and see this as an assured way for 'easy' income to assuage the risk. Unfortunately, I only see this trend in gaming growing, which as my time for gaming shrinks, then I cannot justify the cost (even at $15/mth).
Let think of it this way. Doing some math, a $50 initial investment and 1 year of a $15/mth subscription fee means $230 over the year. While I can afford this, I am not willing to sink that much money into a single game. Especially considering how much time I have to actually play the game. However, if this game was a single player game, then I would almost certainly buy it.
IS it just me, or am I the only one who doesn't like today's model of MMOG? It's not the online part so much as the additional subscription cost to play the game online. I just don't have that much dedicated time to spend on a game while I am at home. I thought games like Diablo 2 and Half-LIfe were the perfect examples of a good solo game which had a great multiplayer interface. I have only played one of the Fallout games, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. However, if they make this game an online game strictly, then I will have to pass.
What's sad here is that no politican will vote against this. It would be political suicide. I could see whoever is running against him using this to smear him in the next election. "Representative Smith is weak on sex offenders! He voted no on a bill protecting your children!" yada yada yada...
It's not like I didn't consider this before writing my comment, but the sales clerk has to know something about when they will be getting any sort of shipment. SOMETHING. Instead, they seemed to have a general disdain in my even asking them. Sure, it might get a bit repetitive telling the 100th customer that they are out, but that is still one customer that was about to drop $300+ in their store. Myself and others can easily take their money elsewhere when treated poorly by the sales team.
I recently (Wednesday) tried to get a Wii myself at a Walmart. On Monday a co-worker of mine gave me a tip that Walmart was going to be selling on Wednesday. Later that day, I went to the electronics department at Walmart and directly asked one of the salesmen and her verified this. I unfortunately didn't buy one since I was 7 people too late for the quantaties that they had ,which was 19 total :(
From my experience, Walmart didn't feed me the line 'we don't know when we are going to get more.' crap like I received at places like Gamestop. Ultimately, I would just call around to different places and see if they have a set date which they will be selling the Wii, and treat it like it was a new release date (sort of). The Walmart that I was at, the first person in line was there at 4:30 am for a 7am ticket distribution. If you had a ticket, you could then buy the Wii. I showed up at ~6:15, but if I was there about 15 minutes earlier, I am certain I would have received one.
While the data is interesting, what is the point? Given that the supplies for both the PS3 and Wii were limited by manufacturing, hence their smaller sales, I would believe that those numbers would be much larger. The only possible inference that can be made from the data is that the 360 is getting out sold by the devices which ultimately cost significantly less than the XBox 360. I would have to think that if Microsfot reduced the price on the 360, their sales would be more comperable to the ps2 and DS lite.
The details from the artcle (which is certainly very little) do not say how this will help in radio astronomy applications. Of all the things that I can think of that would help weak signal detection, it certainly isn't the microprocessor. Assuming that they will use a digitized radio scheme, which seems likely based on the information provided in the article, the worst device to detect weak signals is the ADC which typically have noise figures in excess of 10 dB. The next biggest culprit in RF chains are mixers. Should they not be working on improving these weakness es instead? Otherwise, the only benefit that I see is that they essentially building a type of DSP which will optimize the FFTs and digital filtering that would allow them to compute the data faster, but not really detect anything weaker.
Improving the RF chain prior to the ADC will be the biggest help in detecting the weak signals. Now if they said that these microprocessors were also used to perform clustered computing for antenna gain computations, then that could help (since this would improve the RF chain).
Actually, camera manufacturers do make camera bodies that are compatible with certain lenses. It is just a way to create a lock in. In your example of a Canon lens, it probably won't fit on Nikon body.
I wonder what companies like eMachines and others would do? Companies like these build very cheap, but functional boxes. I bought one of these at a reasonable price and had full intentions of upgrading it when purchased since the sum of the parts was cheaper than I could assemble had I bought everything separate. This type of upgrade limiting OS would put the stop to my main methods for buying PCs. I would have to guess that I am not the only one to buy computers like this. I would have to think that these companies are content to sell these deep discount machines. Although I am sure that they would prefer it I bought a high end computer where the mark up is more, but I am not part of their target market when selling those machines.