> We have RDS in the states, you just need a tuner that can handle the piggy-backed data
Yes, and practically none are available here in the US, and hence use by radio stations is very limited. In Europe just about all digital radios have it, even in lowly rental econoboxes. And while RDS and the FCCs proposal differ technically, they can be employed for many of the same uses. In the end I predict that the same thing will happen as in Europe: traffic info is boring and unlucrative, and eventually the data stream will be sold for advertising. That LCD on the dash will just be a scrolling billboard.
> the functionality in Office 97 is sufficient for most users
Office 97??? Dude, around here there are still people discovering the hidden powers and depths of Notepad. Word Wrap? Status bar? What will they think of next?
That's exactly what I thought. With MEMS you could be storing bits as some tiny rods, and then you can literally talk about pushing bits around. Of course by that time flash will probably be equally dense and cheap (or expensive), so there you go.
> Perhaps the world's top 10 economies is just not impressive enough for you.
I assume somewhere in there you mean that Spain is the 10th-largest economy. Which of course doesn't mean anything. If France and England--number two and three in Europe--couldn't make it pay, despite very vigorous trade with the continent, what makes you think Spain can? If it's meant as a pure prestige project, after the completion of which they lie down and die, fair enough. I simply don't see them making it profitable. Right now it smacks of Aznar egomania and nothing more.
I seriously doubt Europe does enough trade with Africa to make another Chunnel pay for itself. If I'm not mistaken not even the first one is paying for itself yet, and that's between two prosperous and vigorously trading nations. Here we're talking about Spain and Morocco!
> profound decision that could significantly affect the next couple of years of my life
Dude, if you think selecting a Bluetooth cell phone is profound, just wait until you graduate high school or get laid for the first time.
Anyway, if you don't want a color phone or want something cheap with lots of features (without bothering with pesky rebates), check out the Sony Ericsson R520m. A couple of years behind the curve, but it's got every major new feature and a nice legible b/w display. Plus they usually come unlocked, so you can hop carriers at any moment.
Who carries that Coolermaster case in the US? Looks pretty nice. I've also seen a stylish case at NewEgg, athough $229 is a bit rich for just a case without even a PS. I'm considering just using an old CD player case, which is really cheap and would look even more integrated in the rack.
Also, you really need 256MB for MythTV, but that's only a few $ more. And it seems I'd rather spend that $80 on a beefier processor than the TV card, since with a 2+GHz you definitely shouldn't have performance problems and the extra power comes in handy with other things as well.
> So why not support current bands with similar styles?
Because it takes too much effort . I mainly listen to the radio in the car, and when I hear a piece I like it's often a pain to track down what it was, so I don't usually bother. The lack of breadth in number the bands I like (or know) is astonishing. OTOH I have no problem listening to all the albums of a particular band ten times in a row, which kind of fills up my music listening time.
You can check over at http://www.mini-itx.com, that's the sort of stuff discussed. But you don't necessarily need MiniITX, you can also go with a MicroATX board and case, they're quite small too and cheaper. A 1.6GHz Duron is around $40 and should work fine with MythTV, plus you can overclock the hell out of it.
I'd recommend digital, too, because it tightens the feedback loop considerably. If you get one with sufficient manual settings ("film" speed, shutter speed, aperture, manual focus can be nice, too, though is often implemented idiotically), you can experiment with the effects all these settings have on the final picture much more easily, since you get instant results. With film you always have the processing delay, and even if you keep a good log, you still lose a certain amount of feel for what is really going on because your thoughts and instincts at the moment you took the shot have faded. I believe digital cameras can also make better film photographers if propertly used.
> hen I buy merchandise from the band, it's like I'm saying, > "Hey, I like your band. Keep making good music.
Yeah, except I mostly like 70s bands that aren't anymore. I sure hope my buying Genesis' early stuff doesn't encourage them to get back together and churn out more of their later crap.
> There are good reasons to consider this sort of storage.
Not enough to motivate even cheap Chinese manufacturers to bother. The cost/GB notwithstanding, the jukebox approach has too many disadvantages. The three from a home user's perspective would be:
1. concurrent use 2. speed 3. reliability
Since pretty much the only kind of data that would take that much space is multimedia, you have to look at its usage patterns. If you were to store your MP3, movie and pr0n collection on there, you'd have a system that only one user could use at a time. If your S.O. were listening to some music, you couldn't do the same, and you couldn't watch a movie, and you couldn't even release your resulting frustration the natural way;->
Assuming you live alone (not a big assumption here), you would still get frustrated with how long it takes to change MP3 tracks across disks. And every once in a while a CD would get jammed (like in those stereo jukeboxes), or be unreadable for reasons only CDs know, just when you're in the middle of being good to yourself. Now wouldn't that suck?
So why would I want to store my data in a jukebox again?
This equation only holds for relatively short periods. Historically few mediums have managed to keep up with hard drives cost-wise, and that is certainly going to continue. In a couple of years (probably the time it will take him to download/burn those 400 DVD-Rs anyway) you can probably get 1TB drives for the cost of today's 300GB drives, while at the same time the blue laser DVD will probably only just start hitting the market. So for a short time, sure, optical will be cheaper, but you have to wonder if it's worth the bother long-term. Backing up those hundreds of disks is a M A J O R piece of work, while if you had them on HD it would be a matter of minutes or hours at worst.
> comparable hard drive rig woul dbe like 2000 bucks.
Yeah, except he hasn't got anything on DVD-R yet, so why bother even starting? Archive straight to HD, which is a much more sensible thing to do anyway. A lot more reliable than CD/DVD, and can be backed up (to another HD) unattended and very quickly. There's really no excuse to "archive" to CD-R or DVD-R.
> Yea, the only problem with harddrives is they inevitably fail.
Well, guess what? Your original CDs are still there, as a "backup". Sorry, no matter which way you toss and turn it, the HD solution comes out making more sense. No CD jukebox is going to be as reliable long-term: CDs can get jammed and scratched, the fairly delicate mechanism can break, there's wear and tear on the CDs even if everything works smoothly, and you end up with a system that is SLOW and can only handle ONE CD AT A TIME. A 200GB drive will run you $150 and can hold around 300 CD images, so two drives and a RAID controller still come in under the $400 figure. And you can serve up multiple CDs at the same time.
> Barring price flooring (retail prices cant drop below a certain amount) > on Apple's end, it just might be that the current prices reflect the > most profit for the stores
Well, according to alleged retail insiders posting in this thread, Apple does indulge in that practice, so the price doesn't mean anything then. That Apple still can't keep up with production merely means that it's a very hot product, but there's no telling how much hotter it would be at a lower price. Of course, if Apple has no intention or capability to ramp up production, that doesn't really matter.
And which is why I bought a Rio Riot. For $130 for a 20GB player I can live with its (many) limitations, because after all it fulfills its main function--to play music and hold a sh!tload of albums. The rest is just candy, and candy is bad for you anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
> We have RDS in the states, you just need a tuner that can handle the piggy-backed data
Yes, and practically none are available here in the US, and hence use by radio stations is very limited. In Europe just about all digital radios have it, even in lowly rental econoboxes. And while RDS and the FCCs proposal differ technically, they can be employed for many of the same uses. In the end I predict that the same thing will happen as in Europe: traffic info is boring and unlucrative, and eventually the data stream will be sold for advertising. That LCD on the dash will just be a scrolling billboard.
> Can anyone think of any act, any act at all, where a United States citizen is guaranteed privacy by law?
Stealing, murder, ana1 s3x in 34 of the 50 states...the list goes on.
> 60 pieces of data sounds like a lot
What really puzzled them was the request for movie watching and shopping habits.
> the functionality in Office 97 is sufficient for most users
Office 97??? Dude, around here there are still people discovering the hidden powers and depths of Notepad. Word Wrap? Status bar? What will they think of next?
> Israelies invented ICQ, PHP, the UAV, A couple of smart bombs and some [more killing tech]
That's "developed" more than "invented", though one might argue where one stops and the other begins.
> Don't refer to Israel as third world country. Please.
Well, South Africa is very similar to Isreal in those areas, yet it's also still struggling to get some respect.
That's exactly what I thought. With MEMS you could be storing bits as some tiny rods, and then you can literally talk about pushing bits around. Of course by that time flash will probably be equally dense and cheap (or expensive), so there you go.
> Perhaps the world's top 10 economies is just not impressive enough for you.
I assume somewhere in there you mean that Spain is the 10th-largest economy. Which of course doesn't mean anything. If France and England--number two and three in Europe--couldn't make it pay, despite very vigorous trade with the continent, what makes you think Spain can? If it's meant as a pure prestige project, after the completion of which they lie down and die, fair enough. I simply don't see them making it profitable. Right now it smacks of Aznar egomania and nothing more.
I seriously doubt Europe does enough trade with Africa to make another Chunnel pay for itself. If I'm not mistaken not even the first one is paying for itself yet, and that's between two prosperous and vigorously trading nations. Here we're talking about Spain and Morocco!
The question is, shipping what and to whom?
> profound decision that could significantly affect the next couple of years of my life
Dude, if you think selecting a Bluetooth cell phone is profound, just wait until you graduate high school or get laid for the first time.
Anyway, if you don't want a color phone or want something cheap with lots of features (without bothering with pesky rebates), check out the Sony Ericsson R520m. A couple of years behind the curve, but it's got every major new feature and a nice legible b/w display. Plus they usually come unlocked, so you can hop carriers at any moment.
Who carries that Coolermaster case in the US? Looks pretty nice. I've also seen a stylish case at NewEgg, athough $229 is a bit rich for just a case without even a PS. I'm considering just using an old CD player case, which is really cheap and would look even more integrated in the rack.
Also, you really need 256MB for MythTV, but that's only a few $ more. And it seems I'd rather spend that $80 on a beefier processor than the TV card, since with a 2+GHz you definitely shouldn't have performance problems and the extra power comes in handy with other things as well.
> So why not support current bands with similar styles?
Because it takes too much effort . I mainly listen to the radio in the car, and when I hear a piece I like it's often a pain to track down what it was, so I don't usually bother. The lack of breadth in number the bands I like (or know) is astonishing. OTOH I have no problem listening to all the albums of a particular band ten times in a row, which kind of fills up my music listening time.
You can check over at http://www.mini-itx.com, that's the sort of stuff discussed. But you don't necessarily need MiniITX, you can also go with a MicroATX board and case, they're quite small too and cheaper. A 1.6GHz Duron is around $40 and should work fine with MythTV, plus you can overclock the hell out of it.
I'd recommend digital, too, because it tightens the feedback loop considerably. If you get one with sufficient manual settings ("film" speed, shutter speed, aperture, manual focus can be nice, too, though is often implemented idiotically), you can experiment with the effects all these settings have on the final picture much more easily, since you get instant results. With film you always have the processing delay, and even if you keep a good log, you still lose a certain amount of feel for what is really going on because your thoughts and instincts at the moment you took the shot have faded. I believe digital cameras can also make better film photographers if propertly used.
> hen I buy merchandise from the band, it's like I'm saying,
> "Hey, I like your band. Keep making good music.
Yeah, except I mostly like 70s bands that aren't anymore. I sure hope my buying Genesis' early stuff doesn't encourage them to get back together and churn out more of their later crap.
> Make one!
That would go against the programmer's motto: why make/write something if someone else can do it for you?
> what i'd REALLY like would be a cdrom booting distro
Even better, one small enough to fit on a 128MB or less CF card. Using a CF-to-IDE adapter you could then have a nice solid state router.
Finally, sleep with the manager of your local power plant to get a sweetheart deal on all that electricity.
> There are good reasons to consider this sort of storage.
;->
Not enough to motivate even cheap Chinese manufacturers to bother.
The cost/GB notwithstanding, the jukebox approach has too many disadvantages. The three from a home user's perspective would be:
1. concurrent use
2. speed
3. reliability
Since pretty much the only kind of data that would take that much space is multimedia, you have to look at its usage patterns. If you were to store your MP3, movie and pr0n collection on there, you'd have a system that only one user could use at a time. If your S.O. were listening to some music, you couldn't do the same, and you couldn't watch a movie, and you couldn't even release your resulting frustration the natural way
Assuming you live alone (not a big assumption here), you would still get frustrated with how long it takes to change MP3 tracks across disks. And every once in a while a CD would get jammed (like in those stereo jukeboxes), or be unreadable for reasons only CDs know, just when you're in the middle of being good to yourself. Now wouldn't that suck?
So why would I want to store my data in a jukebox again?
This equation only holds for relatively short periods. Historically few mediums have managed to keep up with hard drives cost-wise, and that is certainly going to continue. In a couple of years (probably the time it will take him to download/burn those 400 DVD-Rs anyway) you can probably get 1TB drives for the cost of today's 300GB drives, while at the same time the blue laser DVD will probably only just start hitting the market. So for a short time, sure, optical will be cheaper, but you have to wonder if it's worth the bother long-term. Backing up those hundreds of disks is a M A J O R piece of work, while if you had them on HD it would be a matter of minutes or hours at worst.
> comparable hard drive rig woul dbe like 2000 bucks.
Yeah, except he hasn't got anything on DVD-R yet, so why bother even starting? Archive straight to HD, which is a much more sensible thing to do anyway. A lot more reliable than CD/DVD, and can be backed up (to another HD) unattended and very quickly. There's really no excuse to "archive" to CD-R or DVD-R.
> Yea, the only problem with harddrives is they inevitably fail.
Well, guess what? Your original CDs are still there, as a "backup". Sorry, no matter which way you toss and turn it, the HD solution comes out making more sense. No CD jukebox is going to be as reliable long-term: CDs can get jammed and scratched, the fairly delicate mechanism can break, there's wear and tear on the CDs even if everything works smoothly, and you end up with a system that is SLOW and can only handle ONE CD AT A TIME. A 200GB drive will run you $150 and can hold around 300 CD images, so two drives and a RAID controller still come in under the $400 figure. And you can serve up multiple CDs at the same time.
> the iPod's interface is just excellent. The Zen's isn't.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
> Barring price flooring (retail prices cant drop below a certain amount)
> on Apple's end, it just might be that the current prices reflect the
> most profit for the stores
Well, according to alleged retail insiders posting in this thread, Apple does indulge in that practice, so the price doesn't mean anything then. That Apple still can't keep up with production merely means that it's a very hot product, but there's no telling how much hotter it would be at a lower price. Of course, if Apple has no intention or capability to ramp up production, that doesn't really matter.
> which is why I bought a Nomad.
And which is why I bought a Rio Riot. For $130 for a 20GB player I can live with its (many) limitations, because after all it fulfills its main function--to play music and hold a sh!tload of albums. The rest is just candy, and candy is bad for you anyway.