One problem with modern electronics in general is that there's no real power button anymore. An STB can get into a knackered state and stop responding. What passes for a power button then could be completely worthless. I have one of my STBs on an external power switch for just this reason.
Many devices still draw power even when "off" because they aren't really off. They are in 'standby' because consumers like devices that start up quickly. It would not occur to most people to completely cut the power to a TV or STB in order to ensure they are not drawing power (or generating noise). Most consumers simply don't care.
The only way anything will change is if there's some sort of nanny state approach taken where the consumer doesn't have to take any responsibility at all.
Then you are second guessing the users and that can end very badly.
For a personal box this might work but for a generic appliance being stamped out by the thousands, it's going to cause a mess of trouble.
An STB is an inherently passive device and there's really no good reliable clues you can use for engaging in power saving activities.
At least with a PVR you have a schedule of activities for automated tasks that don't depend on user input. You can easily manage those without running the risk running afoul of unpredictable human behaivor. The STB, not so much.
> 1997 called and it wants its stereotype of Mac users back, please.
The stereotype is probably MORE true now than it was then.
PCs running Windows were still essentially running MS-DOS in those days. There was still lots of non-pnp hardware around. In those days Apple did actually offer something different both in terms of system software and a hardware platform.
Now a Mac is just an overpriced PC with an incompatible boot loader and partition table format. There is LESS real reason to use a Mac now.
Not wanting to waste your time and money in college is not quite the same thing as being disinterested.
College anymore is a rite of passage with a lot of cultural baggage associated with it. Some of it is cultural mythology and some of it is just people that bought an expensive doo-dad and don't want to feel stupid because they were swindled.
Most people's heads would explode if they had to publicly admit they got conned.
If you think that an art class or two would save you from the problem of "programmer art" then you are most egreggiously demeaning the skills and work of real artists. It's simply not that easy. It usually even requires a bit of talent. It's not something that's going to be fixed by a couple of Gen Ed courses.
Clearly you were not sufficiently well educated in your studies and your life. You don't have a clue how much you really don't know.
Perhaps this is something that "academic dabbling" can help address.
Specialized courses are a part of the first year of any University CS program I've ever seen. General Ed courses do nearly nothing in terms of preparing a University student for any courses in their major. While real engineering has some math and science prerequisites, these are not "general ed". They are strictly "engineering and hard sciences" courses that no one outside of those disciplines take. Despite being somewhat "generic", they are still "specialized".
A lot of what's in the curriculum is "fluff" regardless of whether it is a technical course or not. Both sides of the curriculum could do with some trimming. Likewise, there are some things missing in the typical curriculum. Just because it's not a technical course doesn't mean it won't be useful to the process of building software and maintaining systems. If you are fixating on cutting out only one sort of course from the curriculum then (to be blunt) you probably don't really understand what you're doing.
A netbook is nothing more than a compact laptop from the early days of XP with the price tag changed.
The size, storage, memory and CPU power are all roughly the same.
Under the hood, netbooks and tablets are last decades technology repackaged. Tablets have just had better marketing.
Both are a manifestation of the fact that most people really don't need that much in the way of computational power and can get by with a lot less than the bleeding edge, especially if the OS doesn't get in the way too much.
We have an iPad. Still carry around the netbook for when we need to do something that the iPad can't handle.
Sure it has it's shiny newness. It's a bit superficial and limited though.
Now being a geek, I realize that the iPad is just another PC. It's another PC with different input devices. So I really shouldn't need to drag along any other devices. The PC pretending to be an appliance should handle everything. Except it doesn't. It doesn't by design and due to conscious choice by Apple.
What am I going to do? I am going to lug around multiple other devices because of this cargo cult mentality.
It is this cargo cult mentality that helps Apple sell sh*t on a shingle and convince everyone that it's really a diamond.
I will have to lug around multiple other devices because of what this general lack of critical thinking allows Apple to get away with in terms of intentionally and unecessarily limiting a product. These other devices will linger on to handle things that Apple chooses to do poorly or things they choose to ignore entirely.
Apple has conspicous consumers that will by version 2 or version 3 of a product for no good reason. Meanwhile, old netbooks just keep on chugging along not giving anyone any reason to buy this month's model because they already do what they are supposed to do.
This is just nonsense. It's the tail trying to wag the dog. Some people think if they repeat an idea often enough in the press then it will become true. Certain people want the netbook to be dead and Apple to be ascendant. So they keep on repeating the same mantra over and over hoping that other people buy into the idea.
Tech is far more resilient then these FAD followers give it credit for.
Yes. It's a rather expensive idea that you could already pull off yourself if you really wanted to. Get yourself a HDHomeRun and you don't even have to worry about the tuner. You could even use a HD-PVR or the Elgato branded version of the same.
Using Apple hardware in this capacity is quite expensive. Probably why it's not done so much.
You would get much better bang for the buck from just getting a generic TV and working from there....sounds like what I did myself before cheap low profile ION based gear came onto the market. '-p
> Imagine if they make a TV user interface that'll control an entire home theater setup, one that'll put the Logitech Harmony and the equivalent to shame
Then why haven't they already? They don't need to embed something in your TV to do that.
Or perhaps you simply are unaware of the technical challenges involved? Not uncommon for an Apple Fanboy.
AppleTV is already a cheap upgrade to any current TV.
It's cheaper to get a "dumb TV" and attach ANY video appliance to it than to buy a "smart TV".
What happens when Apple decides to discontinue this generation of TV hardware like it did with the last generation of AppleTV? This is a serious issue for any other "smart TV" currently on the market. It's not just an Apple problem.
> I thought desktop PCs were for people who build,
Given the large prevalance of ready made desktop machines in the market you would have to be a really blindered idiot to seriously think this.
Few people "build" desktops. Although they are well suited to this and also to incremental upgrades that allow you to transform a doorstop into something useful.
I just replaced a Mac Mini that was unable to stand the test of time with such ready a made PC. It had been discarded. Gave it a modern video card. Now it runs circles around any of my Minis.
Really glad neither of those was embedded into a monitor.
Nope. 99.99% of people never interact with the TV itself.
They don't have to. It is an industry standard device that seamlessly connects to other devices. It's those 3rd party devices that people intertact with.
Trying to embed a palm sized set top box in the TV just makes the set top box more expensive.
They have proprietary system that is designed to be very costly to leave. In order for someone to decide to abandon Apple, they have to be first comfortable with losing any access to whatever DRM laden purchases they've made and be willing to flush all of that money down the toilet and spend it all over again.
It's classic vendor lock.
DVD and BD may be "primitive" but I can choose from multiple vendors without completely losing access to my entire media library.
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One problem with modern electronics in general is that there's no real power button anymore. An STB can get into a knackered state and stop responding. What passes for a power button then could be completely worthless. I have one of my STBs on an external power switch for just this reason.
Many devices still draw power even when "off" because they aren't really off. They are in 'standby' because consumers like devices that start up quickly. It would not occur to most people to completely cut the power to a TV or STB in order to ensure they are not drawing power (or generating noise). Most consumers simply don't care.
The only way anything will change is if there's some sort of nanny state approach taken where the consumer doesn't have to take any responsibility at all.
Then you are second guessing the users and that can end very badly.
For a personal box this might work but for a generic appliance being stamped out by the thousands, it's going to cause a mess of trouble.
An STB is an inherently passive device and there's really no good reliable clues you can use for engaging in power saving activities.
At least with a PVR you have a schedule of activities for automated tasks that don't depend on user input. You can easily manage those without running the risk running afoul of unpredictable human behaivor. The STB, not so much.
Yes. 30 years of Microsoft sabotaging competitors great and small does make it hard for anyone else to get a toe hold.
As always, this situation depends on how demanding your expectations are and whether or not you can put up with crap you're forced to put up with.
Microsoft thinks it needs dirty tricks and that it's product can't survive on it's own merit.
Chances are, the average user isn't even going to notice.
> 1997 called and it wants its stereotype of Mac users back, please.
The stereotype is probably MORE true now than it was then.
PCs running Windows were still essentially running MS-DOS in those days. There was still lots of non-pnp hardware around. In those days Apple did actually offer something different both in terms of system software and a hardware platform.
Now a Mac is just an overpriced PC with an incompatible boot loader and partition table format. There is LESS real reason to use a Mac now.
Not wanting to waste your time and money in college is not quite the same thing as being disinterested.
College anymore is a rite of passage with a lot of cultural baggage associated with it. Some of it is cultural mythology and some of it is just people that bought an expensive doo-dad and don't want to feel stupid because they were swindled.
Most people's heads would explode if they had to publicly admit they got conned.
> You don't want to write games, so you don't need physics, English (story telling), art, or movie courses.
Most of what you just spouted off about is not relevant to a game programmer.
The "art end of things" in game development is carried out by people who specialize in that sort of thing.
In any company bigger than what would fit in a garage, you will quickly see a very high degree of specialization.
No. Being the sort of person that would get a BA in English makes you better able to relate to non-geeks.
Your natural abilities are the cause. They are not some end result developed by some educational indoctrination.
If you think that an art class or two would save you from the problem of "programmer art" then you are most egreggiously demeaning the skills and work of real artists. It's simply not that easy. It usually even requires a bit of talent. It's not something that's going to be fixed by a couple of Gen Ed courses.
Clearly you were not sufficiently well educated in your studies and your life. You don't have a clue how much you really don't know.
Perhaps this is something that "academic dabbling" can help address.
Spending 2 years on basic education?
Specialized courses are a part of the first year of any University CS program I've ever seen. General Ed courses do nearly nothing in terms of preparing a University student for any courses in their major. While real engineering has some math and science prerequisites, these are not "general ed". They are strictly "engineering and hard sciences" courses that no one outside of those disciplines take. Despite being somewhat "generic", they are still "specialized".
> It astonishes me how many people don't understand that college is about learning to be a life long learner
Didn't need college for that.
If you needed college for that then you were never really "college material" to begin with.
Silly bit of mythology really.
A lot of what's in the curriculum is "fluff" regardless of whether it is a technical course or not. Both sides of the curriculum could do with some trimming. Likewise, there are some things missing in the typical curriculum. Just because it's not a technical course doesn't mean it won't be useful to the process of building software and maintaining systems. If you are fixating on cutting out only one sort of course from the curriculum then (to be blunt) you probably don't really understand what you're doing.
...it's a shame that this information is not broken down in a more detailed fashion as to actually be useful to those of us that might buy a device.
A netbook is nothing more than a compact laptop from the early days of XP with the price tag changed.
The size, storage, memory and CPU power are all roughly the same.
Under the hood, netbooks and tablets are last decades technology repackaged. Tablets have just had better marketing.
Both are a manifestation of the fact that most people really don't need that much in the way of computational power and can get by with a lot less than the bleeding edge, especially if the OS doesn't get in the way too much.
We have an iPad. Still carry around the netbook for when we need to do something that the iPad can't handle.
Sure it has it's shiny newness. It's a bit superficial and limited though.
Now being a geek, I realize that the iPad is just another PC. It's another PC with different input devices. So I really shouldn't need to drag along any other devices. The PC pretending to be an appliance should handle everything. Except it doesn't. It doesn't by design and due to conscious choice by Apple.
What am I going to do? I am going to lug around multiple other devices because of this cargo cult mentality.
It is this cargo cult mentality that helps Apple sell sh*t on a shingle and convince everyone that it's really a diamond.
I will have to lug around multiple other devices because of what this general lack of critical thinking allows Apple to get away with in terms of intentionally and unecessarily limiting a product. These other devices will linger on to handle things that Apple chooses to do poorly or things they choose to ignore entirely.
Apple has conspicous consumers that will by version 2 or version 3 of a product for no good reason. Meanwhile, old netbooks just keep on chugging along not giving anyone any reason to buy this month's model because they already do what they are supposed to do.
This is just nonsense. It's the tail trying to wag the dog. Some people think if they repeat an idea often enough in the press then it will become true. Certain people want the netbook to be dead and Apple to be ascendant. So they keep on repeating the same mantra over and over hoping that other people buy into the idea.
Tech is far more resilient then these FAD followers give it credit for.
Are you willing to test out that theory in court?
Yes. It's a rather expensive idea that you could already pull off yourself if you really wanted to. Get yourself a HDHomeRun and you don't even have to worry about the tuner. You could even use a HD-PVR or the Elgato branded version of the same.
Using Apple hardware in this capacity is quite expensive. Probably why it's not done so much.
You would get much better bang for the buck from just getting a generic TV and working from there. ...sounds like what I did myself before cheap low profile ION based gear came onto the market. '-p
> Imagine if they make a TV user interface that'll control an entire home theater setup, one that'll put the Logitech Harmony and the equivalent to shame
Then why haven't they already? They don't need to embed something in your TV to do that.
Or perhaps you simply are unaware of the technical challenges involved? Not uncommon for an Apple Fanboy.
AppleTV is already a cheap upgrade to any current TV.
It's cheaper to get a "dumb TV" and attach ANY video appliance to it than to buy a "smart TV".
What happens when Apple decides to discontinue this generation of TV hardware like it did with the last generation of AppleTV? This is a serious issue for any other "smart TV" currently on the market. It's not just an Apple problem.
> I thought desktop PCs were for people who build,
Given the large prevalance of ready made desktop machines in the market you would have to be a really blindered idiot to seriously think this.
Few people "build" desktops. Although they are well suited to this and also to incremental upgrades that allow you to transform a doorstop into something useful.
I just replaced a Mac Mini that was unable to stand the test of time with such ready a made PC. It had been discarded. Gave it a modern video card. Now it runs circles around any of my Minis.
Really glad neither of those was embedded into a monitor.
It doesn't matter who you choose to blame. Your attempt to create excuses for Apple are ultimately meaningless.
The fact remains that Apple is being handed the means to create and enforce a monopoly on a silver platter.
This is simply inevitable when you have SINGLE VENDOR DRM.
The "evil content industry" imposes this on physical media but at least that's a multiple-vendor DRM standard. YU
Nope. 99.99% of people never interact with the TV itself.
They don't have to. It is an industry standard device that seamlessly connects to other devices. It's those 3rd party devices that people intertact with.
Trying to embed a palm sized set top box in the TV just makes the set top box more expensive.
They have proprietary system that is designed to be very costly to leave. In order for someone to decide to abandon Apple, they have to be first comfortable with losing any access to whatever DRM laden purchases they've made and be willing to flush all of that money down the toilet and spend it all over again.
It's classic vendor lock.
DVD and BD may be "primitive" but I can choose from multiple vendors without completely losing access to my entire media library.