If anything, this could very well mean a good thing for the west, with a more secular and broader government of this huge power in the middle east. Of course, uncertainty doesn't make everyone in the different western governments jump up in joy (even though they arguably should) by this uprising. That said, it would obviously speed things up enormously if the Egypt military would throw their weight behind the protest, and the first signs to that end are already there.
I think they fixed it... or maybe it's a browser dependent bug. The box I'm typing in right now is fine. This entire message fits in the first line just fine.
I would like to correct a mistake prevalent here and in the news summary: common camera's do NOT get 1 (or 2) stops of light information (the difference between black and white). In fact, camera's like the Canon 7D have about 11 stops of dynamic range [source] and professional video camera's like the Red One have about 13 1/2 stops of difference between black and white [source]. Still, as X stops means 2^X times the light difference, going from 13 1/2 to 20 stops is a pretty huge deal.
Another misconception: the amount of bits per channel only indicates precision, not dynamic range. Of course, when the researchers in the article created a 20 stops camera, they needed much better precision to get similar quality in the same range as the current camera's, which leads to the quoted 42 GB per minute uncompressed video stream.
(Please note: DSLR camera's like the Canon 7D can detect and save more dynamic range than is apparent from the JPG's they create and the extra information is saved in the RAW file, which allows you to change exposure settings at least 1 stop in post processing without (noticeable) drop in quality.)
I would agree if these laws are in fact "[...] to set rules that are ultimately beneficial to everyone. [...]"... but they obviously aren't, at the very least to the convicted and his previous customers. So you probably meant "to everyone" *not breaking those laws*... which is a very dangerous line of thinking.
Let's first take this line of thinking to the extreme. We all know enough exercise is beneficial, so why not make a law making it 1 hour a day mandatory? (Though physically disabled can file for an exemption of course.) We all know alcohol is bad, so why not make a law making drinking more than 1 glass a day illegal?
Of course, you could (rightfully) argue, that "beneficial" is relative... which is kind of my point. And more importantly, *no* business model should get protection from the state in my opinion... they're not called *business* models for nothing -> they should abide by the law, never the other way around.
Even if there really was a business model that really does benefit everyone, any *break of contract* should be a civil matter, never a criminal matter. Criminal offences should be limited to matters that dangerous to society, not because you have to settle for a 20 dollar noname phone instead of a 20 dollar Samsung phone (but actually made by the same Chinese production company). You do realize that people are landing in jail for our need to get a 50 dollar discount on a phone right?
If Ford offered me a contract to buy a car at half the price running only on Ford-fuel and I "jailbrake" it to run on regular fuel, it should be seen as a break of contract that should go before a civil court. If Ford sells me a car at half price without a contract that only runs on Ford-fuel and I'm able to "jailbrake" it to run on regular fuel, they shouldn't have sold it to me in the first place. Criminal laws are not something that should be created for convenience.
I'd like to redirect you to a great question asked earlier: Great, why?
When the Telco's found out that prepaid phones could be unlocked, they should've said: damn, the businessmodel of subsidizing prepaid phones isn't going to work. Instead, laws were put in place to protect their failing businessmodel and people are not just responsible for damages (as this should clearly be a civil matter), but actually land in jail. I'm amazed this kind of thing doesn't cause much more of an outrage than it does. (Especially because you can legally get simple unlocked feature phones for cheap anyway, but even if you couldn't it's the wrong way around of how law should work.)
Exacty, and I don't understand why more people aren't asking the same question. How is this not outrages?
Why is it illegal to legally purchase items, do something with them, then resell? (If the car industry worked this way, I know at least a couple of car companies that would go out of business.) And even more ridiculous: why is this a criminal offence opposed to a civil matter?
I know some people have a weird idea about ownership, but the *only* reason I see for this is to keep a broken businessmodel working... and without any good reason too. If the phone is subsidized, there should a legally binding contract attached that forces the buyer to (for instance) also have subscription X for Y months. That's it.
Can someone please tell me why jailbreaking / unlocking phones (even for commercial gain) should be a criminal offence?
I say, let nature take it's course, there are more important issue's at hand then to postpone the death (whether or not this is permanent or not) of humans isn't one of them.
Ah, so we should stop all research that isn't absolutely necessary for the survival for our species? I mean, why research into medicine / treatment for cancer when so many people are still dying from hunger? Why put money in research for that new super (quantum) computer? Why build telescopes or even take time to look into the origin of the universe and where it's going? Etc. etc.
An intelligent species would focus on this issue prior to try & cook up an anti-aging drug.
Probably, but our species' drive to know everything seldom works that way, and I'd even say it's silly to get worked up about it. GP is even saying the bigger the incentive to solve a problem, the more likely it is we actually will. So in a way, the anti-aging drug could very well be the final push we need to get to work on those other problems.
This fear of death is not healthy, it prevents you to fully enjoy life itself, and that's a shame, because you only get one shot at it.
I'm not sure how you got from what GP posted, to a fear of death, but I'd even say a little fear of death is healthy and stops you from doing anything stupid. I consider myself to be someone who greatly enjoys life and while having a healthy fear of death stops me from jumping out of airplanes. A fear of death becomes unhealthy when it's constantly on your mind, which certainly isn't the case for me, nor probably GP.
The fact that life is finite is what makes it precious, it's why you should enjoy as much of it as you can, people often say 'i want to live forever', but they fail to contemplate what forever means, forever means you'll have experienced everything life has to offer an infinite number of times, basically, you'll end up bored out of your skull with nothing to look forward to.
That's a lot of assumptions based on deductions from untested theory. Which is fine by the way, but I would be hesitant to present it like a fact. There are many things in my life that are considered "infinite" for me (tasty food, beer, porn, etc), which I all still enjoy. Will that be the case once I hit 150? 1000? I don't know, but I wouldn't presume everything turns bland just because it has been experienced (multiple times) before. Not saying you are wrong by the way, but I'm definitely not sure you are right.
Some would argue that without aging, people finally get control over the one aspect they never could: Death. And maybe it's just fine when people can finally decide for themselves when enough is enough... which brings us back to what an anti-aging drug means: Choice.
While I share your concern to a certain extent, the great thing here is we can "perfect" data density... at least to the atomic scale. With more research and/or data we'll know/learn the reliability and plan accordingly. Want data that you can trust to be right for 1000 years with 99.999998% certainty? Use solution X! Want data to be right for 1 year with 99.5% certainty? Use solution Y!
Can't wait for a 1 PB "harddrive" which looks like a grain of sand!
Seriously though, people who compare science with religion are missing the fundamental difference: science does not preach a fundamental truth from which there is no deviation: it in fact challenges you to go and find a better theory.
Really? What about the peer topic where any atheist that doesn't believe in evolution is an idiot? Or do I pretend that this kind of opinion is rare in the science world?
Well, unless that atheist has a better theory with better evidence to back it up, then yes, he's an idiot... And I'm assuming that with the theory of evolution, you mean the base idea of that natural selection is how simple organisms can evolve to complex organisms, not the original theory of Darwin. Because that theory has evolved all by itself for some time now and doesn't really resemble Darwin's original theory, if only in basics... Which again proves the difference between science and religion.
The Bible is evidence. [...] but I know the difference between "no evidence" and "evidence so thin it could hide behind a supermodel".
Oh really? So if I say the world is in fact a cube orbiting around a great spaghetti monster and write it down... that piece of paper is evidence to my or someone else's claims this is the truth? When evidence is this thin, scientists don't call it evidence. Just because no-one can REALLY (in the philosophical sense) prove gravity ("What if the 1 million to the power of a millionth time you drop something it doesn't fall?") doesn't mean we can't call it fact. Same goes with something so unlikely as what is described in the bible... which in facts contradicts itself on numerous occasions.
[*] Creationism is a great topic for a practical philosophy class. It has it all: the testable vs the untestable; would a creator be so fickle as to trick his creations into heresy and punishing them for it; is carbon dating really proven -- ie can we really assume that the laws governing radioactive decay haven't changed over the millenia etc etc etc. Creationism is a fantastic topic for debate if no-one's trying to force it on other people as a "truth".
No it isn't, and I'm tired of people making this semi-intellectual argument. There's nothing untestable about God... if He exists and exerts influence over this world, it can be proven or disproven (i.e. made extremely unlikely like it is today). If He exists and exerts NO influence over the world, he might as well not exist and His existence is just as likely to be true as the Spaghetti monster, etc.
Congratulations, you've just gone back to the point made in the original post. If you go throw out all reasonable thoughts about what is evidence and what is not, the argument stops, because no one can do all the research and the research behind the research in their lifetime.
Seriously though, people who compare science with religion are missing the fundamental difference: science does not preach a fundamental truth from which there is no deviation: it in fact challenges you to go and find a better theory.
As a dutch colored guy, I would be assumed to not be a fan of Wilders (the guy that made said movie that no one has seen yet)... and that's true, in fact, if I didn't have half a brain, I'd probably go out and punch that guy as hard as I can in the face because he's advocating seperation and instead of working together, advocates hate and stigmatizing all people that aren't white as criminals.
But I don't... I severely despise everything he stands for, yet I will fight for his right to say so. Even if the movie is offensive and inflamatory (and no one has seen it yet), I think if we ban this or any other speech, it's not just bad for "free speech" but mostly, a threat to an open society. I think his kind would never have gained the support if we would all allow him to say whatever stupid things he wants. When it's not allowed to talk about it, all good reasons against it aren't heard either. I say, let's view his inflamotory, hatefull movie and laugh about / discuss it.
That said... I really fear what will happen to him, cos we can't really expect a guy that's so full of **** and so much in the public spotlight to *not* get some crazy muslim to kill him... I mean, I hope it doesn't happen and just degrades to another "Jan Maat", but if he does get killed (and he's really working hard to make that a reality) his views will only be adopted even more... and he will have gained more support in death than he ever could in life...
While I don't 100% disagree with what you tried to argue, there is a fundamental flaw in your reasoning.
Let me illustrate: Let's say we have 3 countries, country 1 is piss poor, country 2 is moderately wealthy and country 3 has all the shit it could ever wish for. Now a person living could complain about "meh, we have free basic healthcare but no dentical care!". Another person, living in country 2 could argue "don't bitch, at least you have free basic healthcare!"... but then a peson from country 1 could say "wth, you both are idiots... you can have a decent meal tonight!"...
What I'm saying is that, just because UK has a better health system than the US, doesn't mean one can't be critical about its spending or priorities. I live in the Netherlands, and we have excellent healthcare system, one almost all countries could only dream about, but does that mean we can't be critical on how that or other money is spend?
You can't argue "stop whining cos you have it easy" if you are able to connect to slashdot and post a comment... cos the same goes for you... and anyone else for that matter. There will always be someone who is worse of than you... so f-ing what? That's not an argument, it's a diversion.
Anyway, I'm a CEO of up and coming company here and while I like money like everyone else, I more than gladly share my income with the state so that other less fortunate people can eat tomorrow and sleep somewhere dry tonight. And regardless, in the Netherlands the education system has been changed from "state pays for it all" to "you will be in big debts when you are done" just like the UK and I don't support that policy one bit... just like GP.
There is nothing wrong with being critical, regardless of your current state of wealth or that of your country.
-often had a plain old DVD compatible layer (so the same disc will also play in the car/bedroom or such -- i'm not getting a blu-ray player for the car anytime soon, nor buying the same movie twice for that, nor reencoding them) Oh really? Cos I only hear from Amazon that people bought HD-DVD's by mistake and then complain they can't play it on their old DVD player. I can only find 2 out of the hundreds of HD-DVD titles on amazon and their far from big titles.
-cost far less (even before price cuts, and sony is also losing money on PS3 sales) No it doesn't. And Sony has said they are now pretty much breaking even on the PS3 sales.
-from what i've seen, the titles played faster (damn slow BD-J crap, damn slow players, etc) -- it can take seen several minutes of wait to play a Blu-Ray disc... (HD DVD used simple html-like markup, with free dev tools/full docs and all) Probably true to some extend, if it wasn't that 85% of all blu-ray players are PS3's. Having a better (Java) language for interactivity is a plus in my book.
The *ONLY* advantage Blu-Ray had was more disc space, which is unnecessary -- just look at the DVD9-sized x264 reencodes from many groups out there... They look as good as the retail disc to me (on a fairly high end TV, and I'm not blind either). On a 25GB disc, that would still leave you with 14GB left for extra audio tracks and extras. From a computer storage/backup standpoint, that DOES make Blu-Ray better, but as for a entertainment/video format, not. How is that not a major advantage, considering it will no doubt also become the main choice for your future pc storage? How is being able to upscale to 8 layers / 200GB not something very important for the next optical storage format? Don't we want that format to be the same as the HD optical format? And how about the entire season of a tv show in HD on 1 or 2 discs?
Anyway, the most important thing is that we have one HD format now, so new HD consumers don't have to be afraid to cut themselves with the wrong format. I'm glad it's Blu-Ray, but HD-DVD would've been acceptable as well.
Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Warner Home Video Inc.
Like the PS2 was one of the biggest DVD players in the beginning, the PS3 will be the biggest Blu-ray player... that is untill in 1 1/2 year a $100 Samsung / LG profile 2.0 Blu-ray comes on the market.
There aren't many networks or newspapers that are as controversial as Fox News... as far as actual news reporting goes... Only in Russia, China and the Middle East will you find networks that can top it.
I agree in principle, but the Darwin Awards wouldn't be "entertaining" (and let's face, it might be morbid, but that's why people read them) if they were about death that happen every day due to stupidity.
Obviously, only the most redicilous situations qualify.
That said, I still agree.
Slashdot Mirror
What are you basing your assumption on that the regime will be replaced by extremists? The protesters seem to be of every walk of life and from every ideological point of view. Even the Muslim Brotherhood recognizes the secular Nobel Peace Price laureate ElBaradai as the main opposition spokesperson now.
If anything, this could very well mean a good thing for the west, with a more secular and broader government of this huge power in the middle east. Of course, uncertainty doesn't make everyone in the different western governments jump up in joy (even though they arguably should) by this uprising. That said, it would obviously speed things up enormously if the Egypt military would throw their weight behind the protest, and the first signs to that end are already there.
I think they fixed it... or maybe it's a browser dependent bug. The box I'm typing in right now is fine. This entire message fits in the first line just fine.
I would like to correct a mistake prevalent here and in the news summary: common camera's do NOT get 1 (or 2) stops of light information (the difference between black and white). In fact, camera's like the Canon 7D have about 11 stops of dynamic range [source] and professional video camera's like the Red One have about 13 1/2 stops of difference between black and white [source]. Still, as X stops means 2^X times the light difference, going from 13 1/2 to 20 stops is a pretty huge deal.
Another misconception: the amount of bits per channel only indicates precision, not dynamic range. Of course, when the researchers in the article created a 20 stops camera, they needed much better precision to get similar quality in the same range as the current camera's, which leads to the quoted 42 GB per minute uncompressed video stream.
(Please note: DSLR camera's like the Canon 7D can detect and save more dynamic range than is apparent from the JPG's they create and the extra information is saved in the RAW file, which allows you to change exposure settings at least 1 stop in post processing without (noticeable) drop in quality.)
I would agree if these laws are in fact "[...] to set rules that are ultimately beneficial to everyone. [...]"... but they obviously aren't, at the very least to the convicted and his previous customers. So you probably meant "to everyone" *not breaking those laws*... which is a very dangerous line of thinking.
Let's first take this line of thinking to the extreme. We all know enough exercise is beneficial, so why not make a law making it 1 hour a day mandatory? (Though physically disabled can file for an exemption of course.) We all know alcohol is bad, so why not make a law making drinking more than 1 glass a day illegal?
Of course, you could (rightfully) argue, that "beneficial" is relative... which is kind of my point. And more importantly, *no* business model should get protection from the state in my opinion... they're not called *business* models for nothing -> they should abide by the law, never the other way around.
Even if there really was a business model that really does benefit everyone, any *break of contract* should be a civil matter, never a criminal matter. Criminal offences should be limited to matters that dangerous to society, not because you have to settle for a 20 dollar noname phone instead of a 20 dollar Samsung phone (but actually made by the same Chinese production company). You do realize that people are landing in jail for our need to get a 50 dollar discount on a phone right?
If Ford offered me a contract to buy a car at half the price running only on Ford-fuel and I "jailbrake" it to run on regular fuel, it should be seen as a break of contract that should go before a civil court. If Ford sells me a car at half price without a contract that only runs on Ford-fuel and I'm able to "jailbrake" it to run on regular fuel, they shouldn't have sold it to me in the first place. Criminal laws are not something that should be created for convenience.
I'd like to redirect you to a great question asked earlier: Great, why?
When the Telco's found out that prepaid phones could be unlocked, they should've said: damn, the businessmodel of subsidizing prepaid phones isn't going to work. Instead, laws were put in place to protect their failing businessmodel and people are not just responsible for damages (as this should clearly be a civil matter), but actually land in jail. I'm amazed this kind of thing doesn't cause much more of an outrage than it does. (Especially because you can legally get simple unlocked feature phones for cheap anyway, but even if you couldn't it's the wrong way around of how law should work.)
Exacty, and I don't understand why more people aren't asking the same question. How is this not outrages?
Why is it illegal to legally purchase items, do something with them, then resell? (If the car industry worked this way, I know at least a couple of car companies that would go out of business.) And even more ridiculous: why is this a criminal offence opposed to a civil matter?
I know some people have a weird idea about ownership, but the *only* reason I see for this is to keep a broken businessmodel working... and without any good reason too. If the phone is subsidized, there should a legally binding contract attached that forces the buyer to (for instance) also have subscription X for Y months. That's it.
Can someone please tell me why jailbreaking / unlocking phones (even for commercial gain) should be a criminal offence?
I say, let nature take it's course, there are more important issue's at hand then to postpone the death (whether or not this is permanent or not) of humans isn't one of them.
Ah, so we should stop all research that isn't absolutely necessary for the survival for our species? I mean, why research into medicine / treatment for cancer when so many people are still dying from hunger? Why put money in research for that new super (quantum) computer? Why build telescopes or even take time to look into the origin of the universe and where it's going? Etc. etc.
An intelligent species would focus on this issue prior to try & cook up an anti-aging drug.
Probably, but our species' drive to know everything seldom works that way, and I'd even say it's silly to get worked up about it. GP is even saying the bigger the incentive to solve a problem, the more likely it is we actually will. So in a way, the anti-aging drug could very well be the final push we need to get to work on those other problems.
This fear of death is not healthy, it prevents you to fully enjoy life itself, and that's a shame, because you only get one shot at it.
I'm not sure how you got from what GP posted, to a fear of death, but I'd even say a little fear of death is healthy and stops you from doing anything stupid. I consider myself to be someone who greatly enjoys life and while having a healthy fear of death stops me from jumping out of airplanes. A fear of death becomes unhealthy when it's constantly on your mind, which certainly isn't the case for me, nor probably GP.
The fact that life is finite is what makes it precious, it's why you should enjoy as much of it as you can, people often say 'i want to live forever', but they fail to contemplate what forever means, forever means you'll have experienced everything life has to offer an infinite number of times, basically, you'll end up bored out of your skull with nothing to look forward to.
That's a lot of assumptions based on deductions from untested theory. Which is fine by the way, but I would be hesitant to present it like a fact. There are many things in my life that are considered "infinite" for me (tasty food, beer, porn, etc), which I all still enjoy. Will that be the case once I hit 150? 1000? I don't know, but I wouldn't presume everything turns bland just because it has been experienced (multiple times) before. Not saying you are wrong by the way, but I'm definitely not sure you are right.
Some would argue that without aging, people finally get control over the one aspect they never could: Death. And maybe it's just fine when people can finally decide for themselves when enough is enough... which brings us back to what an anti-aging drug means: Choice.
AND THE MORE YOU KNOW....
... sorry everyone, I just didn't expect it to hurt THAT much...
Ah f*** it... *jams fork in eye*
FUCK THAT HURTS!!!
While I share your concern to a certain extent, the great thing here is we can "perfect" data density... at least to the atomic scale. With more research and/or data we'll know/learn the reliability and plan accordingly. Want data that you can trust to be right for 1000 years with 99.999998% certainty? Use solution X! Want data to be right for 1 year with 99.5% certainty? Use solution Y!
Can't wait for a 1 PB "harddrive" which looks like a grain of sand!
"...Advertisements quickly become even more completely based around naked female flesh..." And how is that a bad thing again?
Seriously though, people who compare science with religion are missing the fundamental difference: science does not preach a fundamental truth from which there is no deviation: it in fact challenges you to go and find a better theory.
Really? What about the peer topic where any atheist that doesn't believe in evolution is an idiot? Or do I pretend that this kind of opinion is rare in the science world?
Well, unless that atheist has a better theory with better evidence to back it up, then yes, he's an idiot... And I'm assuming that with the theory of evolution, you mean the base idea of that natural selection is how simple organisms can evolve to complex organisms, not the original theory of Darwin. Because that theory has evolved all by itself for some time now and doesn't really resemble Darwin's original theory, if only in basics... Which again proves the difference between science and religion.
This should be fun, and by fun, I mean a wholly depressing insight into the cognitive ability of some grown adults.
Let me know when you're done with this quote so I can use it as my sig. Thanks!
Too late...
The Bible is evidence. [...] but I know the difference between "no evidence" and "evidence so thin it could hide behind a supermodel".
Oh really? So if I say the world is in fact a cube orbiting around a great spaghetti monster and write it down... that piece of paper is evidence to my or someone else's claims this is the truth? When evidence is this thin, scientists don't call it evidence. Just because no-one can REALLY (in the philosophical sense) prove gravity ("What if the 1 million to the power of a millionth time you drop something it doesn't fall?") doesn't mean we can't call it fact. Same goes with something so unlikely as what is described in the bible... which in facts contradicts itself on numerous occasions.
[*] Creationism is a great topic for a practical philosophy class. It has it all: the testable vs the untestable; would a creator be so fickle as to trick his creations into heresy and punishing them for it; is carbon dating really proven -- ie can we really assume that the laws governing radioactive decay haven't changed over the millenia etc etc etc. Creationism is a fantastic topic for debate if no-one's trying to force it on other people as a "truth".
No it isn't, and I'm tired of people making this semi-intellectual argument. There's nothing untestable about God... if He exists and exerts influence over this world, it can be proven or disproven (i.e. made extremely unlikely like it is today). If He exists and exerts NO influence over the world, he might as well not exist and His existence is just as likely to be true as the Spaghetti monster, etc.
Congratulations, you've just gone back to the point made in the original post. If you go throw out all reasonable thoughts about what is evidence and what is not, the argument stops, because no one can do all the research and the research behind the research in their lifetime.
Seriously though, people who compare science with religion are missing the fundamental difference: science does not preach a fundamental truth from which there is no deviation: it in fact challenges you to go and find a better theory.
As a dutch colored guy, I would be assumed to not be a fan of Wilders (the guy that made said movie that no one has seen yet)... and that's true, in fact, if I didn't have half a brain, I'd probably go out and punch that guy as hard as I can in the face because he's advocating seperation and instead of working together, advocates hate and stigmatizing all people that aren't white as criminals.
But I don't... I severely despise everything he stands for, yet I will fight for his right to say so. Even if the movie is offensive and inflamatory (and no one has seen it yet), I think if we ban this or any other speech, it's not just bad for "free speech" but mostly, a threat to an open society. I think his kind would never have gained the support if we would all allow him to say whatever stupid things he wants. When it's not allowed to talk about it, all good reasons against it aren't heard either. I say, let's view his inflamotory, hatefull movie and laugh about / discuss it.
That said... I really fear what will happen to him, cos we can't really expect a guy that's so full of **** and so much in the public spotlight to *not* get some crazy muslim to kill him... I mean, I hope it doesn't happen and just degrades to another "Jan Maat", but if he does get killed (and he's really working hard to make that a reality) his views will only be adopted even more... and he will have gained more support in death than he ever could in life...
While I don't 100% disagree with what you tried to argue, there is a fundamental flaw in your reasoning.
Let me illustrate:
Let's say we have 3 countries, country 1 is piss poor, country 2 is moderately wealthy and country 3 has all the shit it could ever wish for. Now a person living could complain about "meh, we have free basic healthcare but no dentical care!". Another person, living in country 2 could argue "don't bitch, at least you have free basic healthcare!"... but then a peson from country 1 could say "wth, you both are idiots... you can have a decent meal tonight!"...
What I'm saying is that, just because UK has a better health system than the US, doesn't mean one can't be critical about its spending or priorities. I live in the Netherlands, and we have excellent healthcare system, one almost all countries could only dream about, but does that mean we can't be critical on how that or other money is spend?
You can't argue "stop whining cos you have it easy" if you are able to connect to slashdot and post a comment... cos the same goes for you... and anyone else for that matter. There will always be someone who is worse of than you... so f-ing what? That's not an argument, it's a diversion.
Anyway, I'm a CEO of up and coming company here and while I like money like everyone else, I more than gladly share my income with the state so that other less fortunate people can eat tomorrow and sleep somewhere dry tonight. And regardless, in the Netherlands the education system has been changed from "state pays for it all" to "you will be in big debts when you are done" just like the UK and I don't support that policy one bit... just like GP.
There is nothing wrong with being critical, regardless of your current state of wealth or that of your country.
*Sighs*
-often had a plain old DVD compatible layer (so the same disc will also play in the car/bedroom or such -- i'm not getting a blu-ray player for the car anytime soon, nor buying the same movie twice for that, nor reencoding them) Oh really? Cos I only hear from Amazon that people bought HD-DVD's by mistake and then complain they can't play it on their old DVD player. I can only find 2 out of the hundreds of HD-DVD titles on amazon and their far from big titles. -cost far less (even before price cuts, and sony is also losing money on PS3 sales) No it doesn't. And Sony has said they are now pretty much breaking even on the PS3 sales. -from what i've seen, the titles played faster (damn slow BD-J crap, damn slow players, etc) -- it can take seen several minutes of wait to play a Blu-Ray disc... (HD DVD used simple html-like markup, with free dev tools/full docs and all) Probably true to some extend, if it wasn't that 85% of all blu-ray players are PS3's. Having a better (Java) language for interactivity is a plus in my book. The *ONLY* advantage Blu-Ray had was more disc space, which is unnecessary -- just look at the DVD9-sized x264 reencodes from many groups out there... They look as good as the retail disc to me (on a fairly high end TV, and I'm not blind either). On a 25GB disc, that would still leave you with 14GB left for extra audio tracks and extras. From a computer storage/backup standpoint, that DOES make Blu-Ray better, but as for a entertainment/video format, not. How is that not a major advantage, considering it will no doubt also become the main choice for your future pc storage? How is being able to upscale to 8 layers / 200GB not something very important for the next optical storage format? Don't we want that format to be the same as the HD optical format? And how about the entire season of a tv show in HD on 1 or 2 discs?Anyway, the most important thing is that we have one HD format now, so new HD consumers don't have to be afraid to cut themselves with the wrong format. I'm glad it's Blu-Ray, but HD-DVD would've been acceptable as well.
The current 18 board members (as of January 2008) are:
Like the PS2 was one of the biggest DVD players in the beginning, the PS3 will be the biggest Blu-ray player... that is untill in 1 1/2 year a $100 Samsung / LG profile 2.0 Blu-ray comes on the market.
Thanx for that, spares me the time to write pretty much exactly you just wrote.
Don't think my cat would like to wear that... seems heavy as well...
Holy shit, Fox News more fair & balanced than most UK and German papers? You mean the channel that allows someone that shouts at his guests if they don't say what he likes and is completely unable to have any intelligent conversation whatsoever, is more fair & balanced? Where lies about presidential candidates are made up and spread? Where their (psychological or science) "experts" seem certain of one thing, while the entire community of those experts says it's completely the other way around?
I've read many papers here in the EU, and sure, fearmongering seems to be a trend here as well, and that worries me. But please don't compare it with a station that has more similarities with a propaganda machine then a news network.
There aren't many networks or newspapers that are as controversial as Fox News... as far as actual news reporting goes... Only in Russia, China and the Middle East will you find networks that can top it.
How about making most things legal, just a few illegal and nothing secret... how's that?
I agree in principle, but the Darwin Awards wouldn't be "entertaining" (and let's face, it might be morbid, but that's why people read them) if they were about death that happen every day due to stupidity. Obviously, only the most redicilous situations qualify. That said, I still agree.
Sure, as is alcohol for some.