Solar panels are pretty resilient. They're kinda like glass, you know.
What, should I not windshield wipers on my car? Do I have to spray my windshield to get the half inch of ash off of it every summer when California burns to the ground? If I have sand on a piece of glass, can I not gently brush it away?
You can't blow it off in the thin martian atmosphere? HOW DID THE MARTIAN WINDS BLOW IT OFF?
News flash. It is a fucking fact that the wind blew off the damned dust and made the solar panel output a hell of a lot more juice. It went from being on life support to kicking ass.
Many of the landers and rovers spent much of their time in life support mode because they were not getting enough juice to do anything but stay alive much of the time.
You may think "oh well it lived 2000 times longer than we expected", and that's great. But if it could have been more productive during that time, you call that unnecessary and harmful? I never said it would be EASY to do, or CHEAP. I said it would be damned useful if we COULD have it.
Nice misquote. It's your fault FOR BEING IGNORANT. It's not your fault that the situation is shitty.
Lots of people (myself included) will take the shitty, will make an informed decision as to what player to by (PS3), and will enjoy themselves because they view the pros as outweighing the cons.
I know I'm heading to the moderation cellar for this, but COME ON guys, don't be so damn lazy about your language. See my sig below.
That kind of mistake is a huge cognitive speed bump for many readers. You're blowing your chance to communicate with your audience when you make (and belittle complaints about) adolescent mistakes like this.
If they're using netflix then they've got a damned mailbox and aren't cut off from society like a previous poster was trying to insinuate.
Sure, if you have an oil pump, a refinery, a generator, an hdtv, a blu ray player, and a few coconuts, you might be pissed that the blurays that fall from the sky don't all work on your player.
There is a HUUUUUUUUGE difference between the profiles and settings used for bluray and a typical x264 rip.
Blurays are NOT encoded with extra bitrate to pad space. You can grab the straight bluray data and see that most come in around 20 GB (for single layer) or 35 GB (for double layer). We don't fill them up because of the read speed issue, and because we don't need to feed extra useless data to the decoder (only makes it have to do more work).
Ripping is getting the stream free of the DRM. You can select what content you want. Reencoding is where most of the space saving typically comes.
You can get a good 1:5 ratio easily with almost no quality loss for 1080p content using x264.
You can enjoy any movie you want at home. Just ignore the internet and turn off the phone.
And if you're into bluray and you didn't understand that all players have to be updated, then it's your fault for being ignorant.
You can update most players via cd or usb drive, if you must. It doesn't have to be over the net. Grab the latest firmware and take it to the cabin along with the movies you plan on watching.
And the entire point of a cabin in the woods is to enjoy the surroundings. You can be a nerd in a cave at home, internet or not.
Oh I know how easy it can be, and how well it's done in some instances on various distros.
I also know how the Linux "community" likes to take a good idea and complicate the fuck out of it, or just ignore the basics of what a COMMON PERSON wants.
Optical formats are not chosen only for capacity, but for read-speed.
Players are far more limited in terms of processing power than a standard PC.
When you put these two together, it's not to hard to imagine that the codecs (and settings) used for BluRay releases are geared toward easy decoding. Substituting higher bitrate for and codec complexity and efficiency. This bitrate requirement necessitates a larger capacity and read rate.
When recompressing a bluray title down to 8 GB or so, you can use more complex and demanding settings for the codec. You can strip out unnecessary crap like menus, branching, trailers, fbi warnings, unnecessary language and subtitle tracks, etc.
The end result is a lean, mean file you can play on any decent PC, at a fraction of the size, without any crap you don't want, and with minimal quality loss.
"I try not to talk about it unless other people drag me into it."
Nobody dragged you into this, yet here you are.
"(usually because a coworker got one of his own and is asking me questions about my favorite apps)."
We get it, you think your iPhone makes you popular.
"I generally try to hide my use of the device as I don't like being pestered about it by people who want to buy one but have not."
Typical elitist Apple fanboy attitude.
"I don't flame iPhoine posts, I just flame FUD."
So your flame of choice is to denounce everything as FUD.
"and in many cases I've defended features of competing devices, and am always more than willing to discuss the iPhone's limitations and what I'd like to see changed as opposed to it's strengths."
I'm willing to bet your biggest issues have to do with MMS and tethering, which you can conveniently blame on AT&T and not the almighty Apple.
"Since I nearly always post in iPone forums where another poster has spread disinformation, or their own unfounded flamings, I'm usually incapable of using my mod points to bury them."
So you DO post in every thread criticizing the iPhone. Very few messageboards have a mod point system similar to slashdot's. So what you're really saying is that on slashdot, you want your name attached to your posts (you can mod and post AC) defending apple, and on other boards, you're not in a moderator position because of your incessant fanboyism.
"I also do not shamelessly promote the device simply because it's an apple product. Though my wife and I both own one (since I gave her my 2G when i got my 3G S last week), and we do plan to buy a MacBook Pro in August,"
You don't love Apple because they're Apple, you love Apple because they're the best!
"we are both PC users on a daily basis and expect to stay that way for the forseeable future."
Typical cop out, at least you didn't add the played out "for work" or "unfortunately...".
"When someone comes out with a device that I feel is genuinely as good or better than the iPhone, and I don;t have to break a contract to get it, then I might very well switch."
Yeah, but for you that was the iPhone 3G S wasn't it? And the next round it'll be the iPhone 4G. And as far as I can tell, you can use whatever fucking phone you want without breaking your contract. Or are you talking about the Apple contract that requires fanboys to always be using their devices?
Slashdot Mirror
Solar panels are pretty resilient.
They're kinda like glass, you know.
What, should I not windshield wipers on my car?
Do I have to spray my windshield to get the half inch of ash off of it every summer when California burns to the ground?
If I have sand on a piece of glass, can I not gently brush it away?
You can't blow it off in the thin martian atmosphere? HOW DID THE MARTIAN WINDS BLOW IT OFF?
News flash. It is a fucking fact that the wind blew off the damned dust and made the solar panel output a hell of a lot more juice. It went from being on life support to kicking ass.
Many of the landers and rovers spent much of their time in life support mode because they were not getting enough juice to do anything but stay alive much of the time.
You may think "oh well it lived 2000 times longer than we expected", and that's great. But if it could have been more productive during that time, you call that unnecessary and harmful? I never said it would be EASY to do, or CHEAP. I said it would be damned useful if we COULD have it.
Yup, you proved you're an idiot.
First of all, we're calling Global Climate Change now, since, you know, the planet has been COOLING for the last decade, despite all the CO2.
Second of all, wait, I don't even need any more.
Whoopsie!
None the less, no.
You would lose that bet. Hard, and fast.
You have to type in search terms, and analyze the results. (Assuming search is instant, and you get what you want on your first try.)
I do not. I know where it is.
Why, you get 100 libraries of congress worth of combo points, naturally.
Nice misquote.
It's your fault FOR BEING IGNORANT.
It's not your fault that the situation is shitty.
Lots of people (myself included) will take the shitty, will make an informed decision as to what player to by (PS3), and will enjoy themselves because they view the pros as outweighing the cons.
I like the extra bit about the signature.
I (and I hope most people) read slashdot with signatures turned off. I don't have one. The guy (presumably, since he referenced it) has one.
I left that bit in since most people would see the posts as being exactly the same, and would never see his signature or see that I didn't have one.
You do realize that Vista is just reporting the amount of RAM the BIOS sees, right? The OS is not able to allocate all of that memory to programs.
You're still limited to the (4 GB - memory-mapped I/O) maximum that XP and other 32-bit OSs are.
Hell, just read the post below the screenshot in the link you provided.
I know I'm heading to the moderation cellar for this, but COME ON guys, don't be so damn lazy about your language. See my sig below.
That kind of mistake is a huge cognitive speed bump for many readers. You're blowing your chance to communicate with your audience when you make (and belittle complaints about) adolescent mistakes like this.
If they're using netflix then they've got a damned mailbox and aren't cut off from society like a previous poster was trying to insinuate.
Sure, if you have an oil pump, a refinery, a generator, an hdtv, a blu ray player, and a few coconuts, you might be pissed that the blurays that fall from the sky don't all work on your player.
There is a HUUUUUUUUGE difference between the profiles and settings used for bluray and a typical x264 rip.
Blurays are NOT encoded with extra bitrate to pad space. You can grab the straight bluray data and see that most come in around 20 GB (for single layer) or 35 GB (for double layer). We don't fill them up because of the read speed issue, and because we don't need to feed extra useless data to the decoder (only makes it have to do more work).
Ripping is getting the stream free of the DRM.
You can select what content you want.
Reencoding is where most of the space saving typically comes.
You can get a good 1:5 ratio easily with almost no quality loss for 1080p content using x264.
I live without search at all.
My XP install has the search thing ripped out.
I just happen to know where my shit is.
Do they run Linux?
If so, imagine a Beowulf cluster of those.
Someone else will have to throw in the bad car analogy.
"Dump" being the operative word.
No, the fact is, I haven't heard a scientific THEORY about CO2, at all.
I've seen hypotheses, sure. A properly formulated and tested theory as to the mechanics? Nope.
"In fact, most of the science points to a rapid change in CO2 being the causal agent for climate change."
Nope. It doesn't.
Yup.
I particularly like how we're taxing carbon. Carbon is a dirty word now, despite it never harming anyone.
You can enjoy any movie you want at home.
Just ignore the internet and turn off the phone.
And if you're into bluray and you didn't understand that all players have to be updated, then it's your fault for being ignorant.
You can update most players via cd or usb drive, if you must. It doesn't have to be over the net. Grab the latest firmware and take it to the cabin along with the movies you plan on watching.
And the entire point of a cabin in the woods is to enjoy the surroundings. You can be a nerd in a cave at home, internet or not.
Good luck with that.
What's the plan?
"HEY VENDOR. I'm a nerd. You should provide this, at your cost, for your users! I think it will sell!"
?
I was high when I said that!
What the hell does that even mean?
You could be second, you could be third, hell you could even be fourth!
Oh I know how easy it can be, and how well it's done in some instances on various distros.
I also know how the Linux "community" likes to take a good idea and complicate the fuck out of it, or just ignore the basics of what a COMMON PERSON wants.
Most bluray players will let you update them by burning a CD with the firmware, or by sticking in a USB stick.
It doesn't have to be over the net.
You can grab the update before you leave for your theoretical cabin and take it along with the movies you intend to watch.
And if someone is acquiring bluray movies, they certainly have access to a physical store, or the internet, or etc.
Hello and welcome to computers.
Optical formats are not chosen only for capacity, but for read-speed.
Players are far more limited in terms of processing power than a standard PC.
When you put these two together, it's not to hard to imagine that the codecs (and settings) used for BluRay releases are geared toward easy decoding. Substituting higher bitrate for and codec complexity and efficiency. This bitrate requirement necessitates a larger capacity and read rate.
When recompressing a bluray title down to 8 GB or so, you can use more complex and demanding settings for the codec. You can strip out unnecessary crap like menus, branching, trailers, fbi warnings, unnecessary language and subtitle tracks, etc.
The end result is a lean, mean file you can play on any decent PC, at a fraction of the size, without any crap you don't want, and with minimal quality loss.
Uh, it was a joke.
But yes, I hate Apple and I will never own one of their products.
But white reflects light, DOUBLING the radiation pressure!
"I try not to talk about it unless other people drag me into it."
Nobody dragged you into this, yet here you are.
"(usually because a coworker got one of his own and is asking me questions about my favorite apps)."
We get it, you think your iPhone makes you popular.
"I generally try to hide my use of the device as I don't like being pestered about it by people who want to buy one but have not."
Typical elitist Apple fanboy attitude.
"I don't flame iPhoine posts, I just flame FUD."
So your flame of choice is to denounce everything as FUD.
"and in many cases I've defended features of competing devices, and am always more than willing to discuss the iPhone's limitations and what I'd like to see changed as opposed to it's strengths."
I'm willing to bet your biggest issues have to do with MMS and tethering, which you can conveniently blame on AT&T and not the almighty Apple.
"Since I nearly always post in iPone forums where another poster has spread disinformation, or their own unfounded flamings, I'm usually incapable of using my mod points to bury them."
So you DO post in every thread criticizing the iPhone. Very few messageboards have a mod point system similar to slashdot's. So what you're really saying is that on slashdot, you want your name attached to your posts (you can mod and post AC) defending apple, and on other boards, you're not in a moderator position because of your incessant fanboyism.
"I also do not shamelessly promote the device simply because it's an apple product. Though my wife and I both own one (since I gave her my 2G when i got my 3G S last week), and we do plan to buy a MacBook Pro in August,"
You don't love Apple because they're Apple, you love Apple because they're the best!
"we are both PC users on a daily basis and expect to stay that way for the forseeable future."
Typical cop out, at least you didn't add the played out "for work" or "unfortunately ...".
"When someone comes out with a device that I feel is genuinely as good or better than the iPhone, and I don;t have to break a contract to get it, then I might very well switch."
Yeah, but for you that was the iPhone 3G S wasn't it? And the next round it'll be the iPhone 4G. And as far as I can tell, you can use whatever fucking phone you want without breaking your contract. Or are you talking about the Apple contract that requires fanboys to always be using their devices?
(All in jest, by the way.)