All kinds of conclusions can be drawn from that, but in the end, isn't it all about eyeballs to the network? 6.4 Million viewers is certainly making quite a chunk of change for the network.
This is absolutely the point.
If this was a completely new animated show with no relationship to Futurama other than the voice actors might be the same, then maybe $75K/episode is too much. But once you establish that people like to watch the existing show with the current cast, changing it significantly would be financial suicide.
A single cast member change might be acceptable to people (like the Superman voice change from Tim Daly to George Newbern in the "Justice League" universe), but based on previous experience with these producers, a well-known voice won't be changed even if required to continue the character (Phil Hartman).
I don't know the details about how it's all done, and I'd love to know if a/.er has the inside story of voice talent, but it seems to be there's *maybe* 5 minutes of actual voice recorded per character per episode. They don't really need to memorize the script. They probably need to be coached on how to deliver the lines, but really, how much prep time do they need? So let's say they're in the studio for three hours and get free drinks and sandwiches.
On The Simpsons Movie DVD, the audio commentary talks about how there was one 2-minute speech that had 50 or 60 takes done.
It's not that extreme on most animated TV shows, but generally the rule is that you budget at least 10x the running time for the voice-over recording, and that's the absolute minimum.
Unfortunately, that's a subjective term based on the 'codec' used to make the jpg. Not everyone's 100 is the same nor is everyone working off the same scale (i.e. 1-10 vs 1-100).
In addition, I bought a program (Windows only, sorry) that allows the user to pick the areas of the image that need the most bits. Basically, it allows you to pick the quality for any abitrary region (using standard selection tools like lasso) when saving the JPEG.
I mostly got it for the batch processing and its excellent image quality when you set it to minimum compression.
Because a laptop battery doesn't last for two weeks.
Because a laptop doesn't have always-on, free Internet access.
I have to wonder how any device can have "always-on Internet access" and have a battery that lasts for two weeks.
With my Blackberry sitting in its holster, it uses zero power for the screen, so in that state it's just like a Kindle for power usage...only the cell connection is using any power. It will only last about 4-5 days at most when in this state (which isn't actually uncommon for me, as it's not my cell phone...it's really only used to receive emergency system outage e-mails).
Admittedly, the Kindle can have a larger battery, so two weeks might not be a big deal, but we also hear people talking about months between charges on the Kindle. That would have to be one hefty battery.
Actually, Microsoft released a new version that can be uninstalled or disabled using the standard Firefox Add-Ons UI.
But, the first version was pretty easy to uninstall...it took me about two minutes after the Firefox restart that highlighted the new add-on to find the registry entry (somewhere under the Mozilla key in the Software hive) and delete it.
Everybody makes mistakes, and versioning can help with that.
If the UI to the file system (or the file system itself) supports versioning, then accidently deleting (or otherwise incorrectly changing) information isn't a big deal, even if you don't have an explicit backup of the good data.
Also, I do have a family, although it's very rare for any of us to be working on the same document at the same time.
If you could explain how to setup you described, I am sure I am not the only one who would be interested.
Install your favorite Linux distribution on spare hardware.
Install the Apache HTTP server from the distribution, and start the service.
Test Apache from another computer on your LAN.
Configure your firewall to forward a port to port 80 on the Linux machine.
Copy files to the Linux directory served by Apache.
Profit!!
Seriously, though, at this point, you need to add some sort of security, and would probably want to set up virtual directories so that you don't have to place all the files under/var/www/html (the default location served by Apache). The default Apache config file (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf) is heavily commented so as to be self-documenting for most tasks, although using SSL is not one of them. But, for the heavy lifting, the Apache docs will cover everything. You'll also almost certainly want to set up some sort of dynamic DNS as the poster above describes.
I'm sure most people here will call me nasty names because of it, but I also use IIS to serve some of my sites.
If you can find a non-business connection with a TOS that allows you to run a server, then that is a good option, but I've been burned too often by ISPs that "look the other way" at running servers until you really need them.
Also, you could drop down in speed a lot...I quoted typical prices for a 5Mbps/5Mbps connection (far faster than ADSL). That 5Mbps upload speed is important if you want reasonable access to your larger files.
When I forget my USB thumb drive, I can log in to my Dropbox account via the web interface from any computer as long as it has net access.
What ever happened to all the true geeks on./ ?
Whenever I need a file, I log in to my webserver and download it. With dynamic IPs, you can get business Internet access for around $70/month for 5Mbps symmetric (cable or FIOS). Hard drives cost around $75/TB, and you can host this sort of thing on just about any computer you have sitting around that can run Linux.
So, for about $75/month, you can securely store insane amounts of data, and get to it securely from just about anywhere. You could also upload from anywhere with just a tiny bit of web programming.
I still haven't set up the versioning sort of thing, but there are quite literally hundreds of them that work across a LAN if they can get to the filesystem for both the source and the store.
The problem at $500 isn't the image quality, indeed. The problems are (a) awful tiny viewfinders, (b) awful interface (one control dial does everything, so you must hold down all sorts of tiny indistinct buttons while turning it)
The "awful interface" is not a problem with $500 dSLRs...it's a problem with most dSLRs today, regardless of price.
The designers seem to feel that because everything is digital, you must use a menu-driven interface that requires you to look at the LCD screen. I'm still holding on to my Minolta Maxxum 5D because the interface is so good (two dials for most of the settings, with a few buttons for actions that make sense to be on buttons). I won't upgrade until Sony comes out with an Alpha that has enough reason for me to upgrade that the loss of the better interface.
Neither copyright law nor fair use really cover the *playing* of a song or the *listening* to it.
This is true. Various "fair trade practices" laws cover the playing of the CD.
Every state in the US has some sort of "fitness of purpose" law about items sold that basically says that if something can't do the primary thing it was marketed as being able to do, then you are entitled to a refund or replacement at your choice. For example, if the car you bought won't run unless it is on the dealer's lot, then it clearly isn't fit for its primary purpose of "driving".
So, if an audio CD won't play music, then it's not fit for its primary purpose, and you can get a refund or replacement.
Personally, if I ran into one of these discs, I'd return it for a replacement, and I'd keep returning them until they were out of stock or finally just gave me my money back. Hopefully, with enough returns, the distribution company would get the picture and stop trying to sell defective products.
I still go for pull-through spaces too, but that's more because I'm lazy.
I pull through as well, but will back into a space if there aren't any I can pull through.
This is because when I am backing into the space, the only thing I have to worry about is the parked cars and other fixed structures. When backing out, you have to worry about pedestrians, moving cars, bicycles, etc.. For safety, you should always pull forward out of parking spaces.
I've also had the experience of trying to back out when the car behind me (across the driving lane, in the next parking row) didn't pull in all the way, so it takes me 3-4 back and forth maneuvers to get out, because there isn't anywhere near a full car length of room behind me.
A lot of people, it seems, would be surprised that the State of Hawaii does not release birth certificates, only certified copies.
I would be shocked to learn that any goverment agency at any level would give you the original birth certificate and only keep a copy for their records.
A notarized copy of the birth ceritifcate is what the government requires...not the original. The big difference is the non-notarized copies are usually very cheap (or free), while it costs $10-50 for a notarized version. A long time ago, my mom got me a notarized copy of my Florida birth certificate that is laminated and can be carried in your wallet. I never knew just how handy that would become.
I'm convinced Futurama was not canceled for any reason within its power.
Actually, it was entirely within the power of the Futurama creators (namely Matt Groening) to give Fox what they wanted to keep it on the air.
At the time Futurama was created, Groening had much more negotiating power (based on the success of The Simpsons), and kept a bigger cut of the merchandising for him and the production company. This was the primary reason that Fox treated the show the way it did (scheduling, pre-empting, etc.).
Because Fox wasn't making as much money, it wasn't worth as much to them for the show to succeed. This is still a pretty bitter point of contention bewteen the two sides. You'll note that unlike Family Guy, Futurama isn't airing new episodes on Fox.
Are you referring to the standards which increase the per-capita consumption of gasoline?
See, a funny thing happened...once people got used to paying $100/week/month/whatever on "transportation", they don't mind paying that forever. So, now that the new car gets better mileage, they drive more miles...so many more miles that the net result is they use more gasoline.
Same thing with green, it uses a bit too much power to be considered really all that green.
For one thing, they could start by using an efficient power supply...these days, "80 PLUS" isn't really a big deal
Instead, how about going for up to 12% more efficiency with an "80 PLUS Gold" supply. In addition, every supply that is more than the base "80 PLUS" has better power-factor correction values for the vast majority of loads. As usual, it's covered pretty well in the Wikipedia article.
If they smell 35,000 of the things and the warehouse isn't a disc manufacturing company, a computer company, or a computer/movie/music store, such a high concentration of media in one place screams "professional pirates"
The last place I worked, we had an 8-tray DVD duplicator/printer, and bought blank disks in palette loads, and we weren't any of the types of companies that you listed, although we did use computers a lot (as do most places these days).
We used them entirely for distributing content that either we had personally created or that clients gave us the rights to duplicate for them. Some of the content was commecials that you've probably seen on TV, and some was computer programs written in-house.
Maybe today we'd go with a commercial duplicator, but back then you could get a 100 copy run at all (or at least not for less than extortionate prices).
My 3.5ghz Pentium 4 with the useless multithreading turned off kicks the crap out of HD Video rendering than anything else.
Try a Core i7 at around 3GHz and be amazed.
If you have a multi-threaded app, you get 8 really usable threads. Running six copies of LAME at the same time, I can convert a 12-track CD into MP3 in about 60 seconds on a 3.33GHz i7 920.
Video conversion is similarly speedy, although HD isn't as good without a lot of memory, too, as there's a lot more bits to move around.
Wow, didn't know you could even get CRT based HDTV...
You can't any more, but at the time, it was the best value.
It was best quality large screen (rear-projection wasn't very good then), and had a built in OTA HD tuner, plus a built-in DirecTV HD tuner.
Of course, it doesn't have an HDMI input, but I haven't really suffered much because of that. The only hard thing has been connecting a computer with quality, since it can only resolve about 1400x800, plus even the 2% overscan is a lot of lost pixels.
That's was my point...they will effectively have the password forever because they can use that to install whatever software they want that will allow them to keep access indefinitely.
In Australia, we get to choose our plan by both speed AND quota.
Is this actually true?
What I mean is can you pick any speed and any quota from a matrix of choices? Could you get 20Mbps with a monthly cap of 1GB or 1Mbps with a monthly cap of 300GB?
I suspect that in reality, every plan has a cap based on less than 10% usage of the advertised maximum speed.
Then, too, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to connect your XBox, PS3, etc., all directly to the network to stream videos from a computer, so that the data moves:
computer==>XBox==>receiver
rather than
computer==>receiver==>XBox==>receiver
It's not like Cat6 cables are heavy or expensive, and a 8-port switch is less than $50.
It's been running fine since September of 2002 when I bought it. One reason I haven't replaced it yet is that it weighs over 200 pounds ( although I don't know how much of that is lead) and so getting it moved would be a real pain.
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All kinds of conclusions can be drawn from that, but in the end, isn't it all about eyeballs to the network? 6.4 Million viewers is certainly making quite a chunk of change for the network.
This is absolutely the point.
If this was a completely new animated show with no relationship to Futurama other than the voice actors might be the same, then maybe $75K/episode is too much. But once you establish that people like to watch the existing show with the current cast, changing it significantly would be financial suicide.
A single cast member change might be acceptable to people (like the Superman voice change from Tim Daly to George Newbern in the "Justice League" universe), but based on previous experience with these producers, a well-known voice won't be changed even if required to continue the character (Phil Hartman).
I don't know the details about how it's all done, and I'd love to know if a /.er has the inside story of voice talent, but it seems to be there's *maybe* 5 minutes of actual voice recorded per character per episode. They don't really need to memorize the script. They probably need to be coached on how to deliver the lines, but really, how much prep time do they need? So let's say they're in the studio for three hours and get free drinks and sandwiches.
On The Simpsons Movie DVD, the audio commentary talks about how there was one 2-minute speech that had 50 or 60 takes done.
It's not that extreme on most animated TV shows, but generally the rule is that you budget at least 10x the running time for the voice-over recording, and that's the absolute minimum.
Unfortunately, that's a subjective term based on the 'codec' used to make the jpg. Not everyone's 100 is the same nor is everyone working off the same scale (i.e. 1-10 vs 1-100).
In addition, I bought a program (Windows only, sorry) that allows the user to pick the areas of the image that need the most bits. Basically, it allows you to pick the quality for any abitrary region (using standard selection tools like lasso) when saving the JPEG.
I mostly got it for the batch processing and its excellent image quality when you set it to minimum compression.
Because a laptop battery doesn't last for two weeks.
Because a laptop doesn't have always-on, free Internet access.
I have to wonder how any device can have "always-on Internet access" and have a battery that lasts for two weeks.
With my Blackberry sitting in its holster, it uses zero power for the screen, so in that state it's just like a Kindle for power usage...only the cell connection is using any power. It will only last about 4-5 days at most when in this state (which isn't actually uncommon for me, as it's not my cell phone...it's really only used to receive emergency system outage e-mails).
Admittedly, the Kindle can have a larger battery, so two weeks might not be a big deal, but we also hear people talking about months between charges on the Kindle. That would have to be one hefty battery.
Actually, Microsoft released a new version that can be uninstalled or disabled using the standard Firefox Add-Ons UI.
But, the first version was pretty easy to uninstall...it took me about two minutes after the Firefox restart that highlighted the new add-on to find the registry entry (somewhere under the Mozilla key in the Software hive) and delete it.
Everybody makes mistakes, and versioning can help with that.
If the UI to the file system (or the file system itself) supports versioning, then accidently deleting (or otherwise incorrectly changing) information isn't a big deal, even if you don't have an explicit backup of the good data.
Also, I do have a family, although it's very rare for any of us to be working on the same document at the same time.
If you could explain how to setup you described, I am sure I am not the only one who would be interested.
Seriously, though, at this point, you need to add some sort of security, and would probably want to set up virtual directories so that you don't have to place all the files under /var/www/html (the default location served by Apache). The default Apache config file (/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf) is heavily commented so as to be self-documenting for most tasks, although using SSL is not one of them. But, for the heavy lifting, the Apache docs will cover everything. You'll also almost certainly want to set up some sort of dynamic DNS as the poster above describes.
I'm sure most people here will call me nasty names because of it, but I also use IIS to serve some of my sites.
If you can find a non-business connection with a TOS that allows you to run a server, then that is a good option, but I've been burned too often by ISPs that "look the other way" at running servers until you really need them.
Also, you could drop down in speed a lot...I quoted typical prices for a 5Mbps/5Mbps connection (far faster than ADSL). That 5Mbps upload speed is important if you want reasonable access to your larger files.
When I forget my USB thumb drive, I can log in to my Dropbox account via the web interface from any computer as long as it has net access.
What ever happened to all the true geeks on ./ ?
Whenever I need a file, I log in to my webserver and download it. With dynamic IPs, you can get business Internet access for around $70/month for 5Mbps symmetric (cable or FIOS). Hard drives cost around $75/TB, and you can host this sort of thing on just about any computer you have sitting around that can run Linux.
So, for about $75/month, you can securely store insane amounts of data, and get to it securely from just about anywhere. You could also upload from anywhere with just a tiny bit of web programming.
I still haven't set up the versioning sort of thing, but there are quite literally hundreds of them that work across a LAN if they can get to the filesystem for both the source and the store.
The problem at $500 isn't the image quality, indeed. The problems are (a) awful tiny viewfinders, (b) awful interface (one control dial does everything, so you must hold down all sorts of tiny indistinct buttons while turning it)
The "awful interface" is not a problem with $500 dSLRs...it's a problem with most dSLRs today, regardless of price.
The designers seem to feel that because everything is digital, you must use a menu-driven interface that requires you to look at the LCD screen. I'm still holding on to my Minolta Maxxum 5D because the interface is so good (two dials for most of the settings, with a few buttons for actions that make sense to be on buttons). I won't upgrade until Sony comes out with an Alpha that has enough reason for me to upgrade that the loss of the better interface.
Neither copyright law nor fair use really cover the *playing* of a song or the *listening* to it.
This is true. Various "fair trade practices" laws cover the playing of the CD.
Every state in the US has some sort of "fitness of purpose" law about items sold that basically says that if something can't do the primary thing it was marketed as being able to do, then you are entitled to a refund or replacement at your choice . For example, if the car you bought won't run unless it is on the dealer's lot, then it clearly isn't fit for its primary purpose of "driving".
So, if an audio CD won't play music, then it's not fit for its primary purpose, and you can get a refund or replacement.
Personally, if I ran into one of these discs, I'd return it for a replacement, and I'd keep returning them until they were out of stock or finally just gave me my money back. Hopefully, with enough returns, the distribution company would get the picture and stop trying to sell defective products.
I still go for pull-through spaces too, but that's more because I'm lazy.
I pull through as well, but will back into a space if there aren't any I can pull through.
This is because when I am backing into the space, the only thing I have to worry about is the parked cars and other fixed structures. When backing out, you have to worry about pedestrians, moving cars, bicycles, etc.. For safety, you should always pull forward out of parking spaces.
I've also had the experience of trying to back out when the car behind me (across the driving lane, in the next parking row) didn't pull in all the way, so it takes me 3-4 back and forth maneuvers to get out, because there isn't anywhere near a full car length of room behind me.
A lot of people, it seems, would be surprised that the State of Hawaii does not release birth certificates, only certified copies.
I would be shocked to learn that any goverment agency at any level would give you the original birth certificate and only keep a copy for their records.
A notarized copy of the birth ceritifcate is what the government requires...not the original. The big difference is the non-notarized copies are usually very cheap (or free), while it costs $10-50 for a notarized version. A long time ago, my mom got me a notarized copy of my Florida birth certificate that is laminated and can be carried in your wallet. I never knew just how handy that would become.
I'm convinced Futurama was not canceled for any reason within its power.
Actually, it was entirely within the power of the Futurama creators (namely Matt Groening) to give Fox what they wanted to keep it on the air.
At the time Futurama was created, Groening had much more negotiating power (based on the success of The Simpsons), and kept a bigger cut of the merchandising for him and the production company. This was the primary reason that Fox treated the show the way it did (scheduling, pre-empting, etc.).
Because Fox wasn't making as much money, it wasn't worth as much to them for the show to succeed. This is still a pretty bitter point of contention bewteen the two sides. You'll note that unlike Family Guy, Futurama isn't airing new episodes on Fox.
Have you checked out CAFE standards lately?
Are you referring to the standards which increase the per-capita consumption of gasoline?
See, a funny thing happened...once people got used to paying $100/week/month/whatever on "transportation", they don't mind paying that forever. So, now that the new car gets better mileage, they drive more miles...so many more miles that the net result is they use more gasoline.
Thinking like this is what saved Dollhouse.
No, the fire-sale slashing of the price that the Fox network had to pay for the next season saved it.
Basically, at a low enough price point, a network will show anything..."reality" shows are proof of that.
Same thing with green, it uses a bit too much power to be considered really all that green.
For one thing, they could start by using an efficient power supply...these days, "80 PLUS" isn't really a big deal
Instead, how about going for up to 12% more efficiency with an "80 PLUS Gold" supply. In addition, every supply that is more than the base "80 PLUS" has better power-factor correction values for the vast majority of loads. As usual, it's covered pretty well in the Wikipedia article.
If they smell 35,000 of the things and the warehouse isn't a disc manufacturing company, a computer company, or a computer/movie/music store, such a high concentration of media in one place screams "professional pirates"
The last place I worked, we had an 8-tray DVD duplicator/printer, and bought blank disks in palette loads, and we weren't any of the types of companies that you listed, although we did use computers a lot (as do most places these days).
We used them entirely for distributing content that either we had personally created or that clients gave us the rights to duplicate for them. Some of the content was commecials that you've probably seen on TV, and some was computer programs written in-house.
Maybe today we'd go with a commercial duplicator, but back then you could get a 100 copy run at all (or at least not for less than extortionate prices).
The computer asks "Cancel or Allow?"
So, what you're saying is that a Mac isn't a computer?
My 3.5ghz Pentium 4 with the useless multithreading turned off kicks the crap out of HD Video rendering than anything else.
Try a Core i7 at around 3GHz and be amazed.
If you have a multi-threaded app, you get 8 really usable threads. Running six copies of LAME at the same time, I can convert a 12-track CD into MP3 in about 60 seconds on a 3.33GHz i7 920.
Video conversion is similarly speedy, although HD isn't as good without a lot of memory, too, as there's a lot more bits to move around.
Wow, didn't know you could even get CRT based HDTV...
You can't any more, but at the time, it was the best value.
It was best quality large screen (rear-projection wasn't very good then), and had a built in OTA HD tuner, plus a built-in DirecTV HD tuner.
Of course, it doesn't have an HDMI input, but I haven't really suffered much because of that. The only hard thing has been connecting a computer with quality, since it can only resolve about 1400x800, plus even the 2% overscan is a lot of lost pixels.
That's was my point...they will effectively have the password forever because they can use that to install whatever software they want that will allow them to keep access indefinitely.
In Australia, we get to choose our plan by both speed AND quota.
Is this actually true?
What I mean is can you pick any speed and any quota from a matrix of choices? Could you get 20Mbps with a monthly cap of 1GB or 1Mbps with a monthly cap of 300GB?
I suspect that in reality, every plan has a cap based on less than 10% usage of the advertised maximum speed.
Then, too, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to connect your XBox, PS3, etc., all directly to the network to stream videos from a computer, so that the data moves:
computer==>XBox==>receiver
rather than
computer==>receiver==>XBox==>receiver
It's not like Cat6 cables are heavy or expensive, and a 8-port switch is less than $50.
I still use my 38" RCA HDTV.
It's been running fine since September of 2002 when I bought it. One reason I haven't replaced it yet is that it weighs over 200 pounds ( although I don't know how much of that is lead) and so getting it moved would be a real pain.