If I am reading it correctly, they used a special radio card under Linux to capture radio waves. Then they ran those waves through a piece of software that could decode them into video, because the waves they tuned into were an HDTV broadcast. The difference here is that they simply record the wave, it's not decoded in hardware. This way they can ues the same card to get FM, AM, HDTV, VHF, UHF, or whatever (in theory). Anyone actually know the answer to this question?
I don't remember where I read this scenerio, I'm too lazy to look it up. I'm almost postitive that/. linked to it though. It is a simple reason why DRM is NOT good on things like documents and e-mail. Here is the idea (paraphrased):
As a worker, your boss sends you an email asking you to destroy important documents and do other immoral, illegal, and fattening things; threating to fire you if you don't. You read the e-mail and then it automatically deletes it's self. You can't print it either because the DRM says so. So now what happens to you?
You do what the e-mail says and get caught. You try to say your boss told you to do it, but because the e-mail erased it's self, and you couldn't print it out. So basically you're cought red-handed, and there is nothing but hearsay to prove that you're boss made you do it. You go down for what happened, your boss is OK.
You do what the e-mail says and get away with it, but it helps the company. Your boss can say that he made you do it, or just that he did it because there is no proof of who did it; and get all the credit. You get no credit, no raise, nothing; because you can't do anything but say "I did it! It was me! Give me a raise!"
You refuse to do what the e-mail says, and get fired. But since you don't have the e-mail or a printout, you can't prove that you were ordered to do whatever it said. Your boss comes up with some other reason to justify the firing, and you can't prove that he's doing it because you said no to the illegal things. You're screwed again, and your reputation is tarnished. You'll probably have a hard time getting a new job. Nothing happens to your boss.
You don't do what the e-mail says and try to be a whistleblower. You'd be safe under whistleblower laws, but you have no proof because the e-mail is gone. The company sues you for wasting their time and "inventing stories" to damage them. You're looking at jail time, or fines, or whatever; and you're going to get fired. Nothing happens to your boss, except he looks sympathetic.
You don't do what the e-mail says and the company gets ruined. Lots of things happen, everyone loses their job. When it comes time to tell the stockholders why, your boss produces the e-mail and says that you could have saved the company, but you didn't. Now you have tons of rich and powerfull people hating you, no job, and are in deep trouble.
Does anyone know if the US version will have the red tint that was mentioned a while back here on Slashdot a few months ago? The linked site seems to say a new release on VHS over in Japan is correct, but what about the DVD? What about the US DVD?
I can think of a few reasons. First of all I'd like to say that yes, it is cool, and no, I wouldn't buy an X-Box just to put Linux on it. But I already own an X-Box and would be willing to pay a small fee (maybe $25) to allow me to mess around with Linux on it. Why? Here are a few reasons (I just love bulleted lists;):
Games - Let's face it, some games (especially things like emulators) are just better on a TV with a real controller than on a PC with a keybaord. I'd like to be able to program games and have them running on my TV without having to go through all the hoops I'd have to for many other systems.
MythTV - I've been running MythTV for a while now, but I don't keep my PC at my TV on all the time because of the high noise. But the current CVS version (what will become v0.8) allows you to have a seperate PC run the interface than is running the actual recording/encoding parts. Having an X-Box (which is already next to my TV) as a front end would be very nice. It would be quieter for one thing. I also would then have another spare PC to use in something else. The X-Box is also much more powerfull than the little PII-450 I'm currently using, which would allow me to use higher resolutions, etc (not to mention the built in MPEG2 decoding hardware) than I can right now because of lack of processing power (I get skipped frames, etc).
Geekiness - You've got to admit it's geeky!
A MythTV (or other media center type app) is something I'd love to be able to use my X-Box as. A wallmart PC may be a better option for real work, but when I plan to use a TV as a monitor in the first place, I'll get much better quality out of something designed to interface to a TV than the built in graphics in a Walmart PC if it supports TV out or any decently priced video card I'd put in that Walmart PC. Or I could pay $100 or so for a scan converter, which would be another little box, which is less simple and elegant. Plus built in HDTV out support. Glaggghhhhh.... (Homer drool sound)
My guess is that they'll simply sign a chainloader, so that every time a new kernel comes out they won't have to sign it. Plus, they can easily say that the chainloader is only for non-commercial (or even educational) use and sue the hell out of any company using it to sell unauthorized games, etc. But why should they do this? What else could they do?
Modchips - I've been thinking of buying a modchip so that I could run Linux on my X-Box. If they were to sign something to let me run Linux, I wouldn't buy a modchip, so I couldn't play pirated games. This will stop many people like me (who just want to tool around with Linux on the X-Box) from having to get modchips (which would allow them to do things MS really doesn't want.
Chainloader - They could use the chainloader to disable some things (like prevent the CD/DVD drive from reading any games (or even DVDs) to make copying harder, ala Sony).
Inventory - As pointed out in this thread, MS has some inventory on its hands. While they may lose money from people buying X-Boxes to run Linux, they'll lose MORE money from people not buying X-Boxes at all. At least if you buy it and never buy a game they get some of their money back.
Games - This is a chance for MS to let hobbiests make games for the system, and they could then try to buy the rights to games they find interesting and get some innovative stuff on the market (which makes them money). They could even hold programming competitions (sorta like Sony did with the Yahorze, IIRC) and then they could sell discs will all the games submitted to make money. Also, if I buy a X-Box to use Linux on, and later I see a X-Box game that I want to try, I could buy it or at least rent it. They might get me into the system that way. If I don't own the system, it's going to take a VERY good game to get me to buy the system in the first place. But if people already HAVE one...
Stop hacking - If people can run Linux on the X-Box, then a large number of very dedicated people have no reason to try to find circumvention methods that could be used to play pirated games. MS doesn't want people to find ways to get around the locks on the X-Box, and this would give them a great reason not to need to look.
Charge for it - What if they sold a CD for $25 from their website (or allowed you to download it from XBL) that would let you boot your own code (but, as in the chainloader above, locked you out from using pressed DVDs (which would include games) in the drive untill the system was turned off)? Then people could run Linux, BSD, etc. but they could make money off this (besides the money from console sales, however small that would be from allowing this). And, as part of the EULA in the disc, they could put in things to let them come down on you HARD if you try to use it to play pirated games, unauthorized software (they'd list Linux, BSD, etc as OK). Tight controll is OK with me, as long as I can to things that I think I should be able to.
MS Linux - They could do like above, only one better. Sell something like Sony did for the PS2 (only cheaper, maybe $50 or $75). They kernel would lock out use of pressed DVDs, etc (like the PS2 Linux Kit, for obvious reasons) and maybe include programming "HOW-TOs" and such on a disc (also like the PS2). And by keeping the signed parts of the kernel in something seperate (a module, maybe), Linux can boot and run, but they won't have to (under the GPL) disclose anything about the system. They only thing they might need is a little piece of code that would look something like:
int getRunning() {
// Get a file from the hard drive to prove we're legit
// pass controll to it
return;// Done!
}
Many many other good reasons too. This would benefit MS, IMHO. Let's hope they see this as the GOOD business opportunity that it is.
So what's keeping me? I'll just gloss over the fact that I can't afford to drop $6k on a TV. So what is keeping me away besides that? Here are a few issues:
Programming is keeping me. While the major networks seem to do everything in HDTV now, most cable networks dont (at least the ones I watch). For example, as far as I know the only Hist/TLC/Disc/Etc channel that is HDTV is Discovery's special HDTV channel. And I won't get any benefit for most of the shows out there (like all the old sitcoms, etc).
Cable/Sat is keeping me. To get HDTV cable I have to rent an expensive box from the cable company, instead of just plugging a cable into my TV (I don't have digital cable, it's not worth it for me). To get my DirecTV, I have to have an oval dish (or a second circular dish) IIRC, AND a sattalite box that instead of costing me $100 costs me $500. I'm not going to pay that kind of fee ontop of the premium I'll be charged over the normal service fee ontop of paying way too much for a TV.
Tivo is keeping me. I want to buy a Tivo and plan to when a good Series 2/DirecTV combo box comes out. But I am not going to buy a new TV so that when Tivo records sitcoms and such for me, they're not in HDTV. I know they are comming out with an HDTV model, and when it comes out I'll give better consideration to buying an HDTV.
DVDs are keeping me. HDTV was finalized after DVDs, IIRC. When DVDs change (Blu-ray, which was recently put into production) they might support some new/better resolutions and I want a HDTV that will support them.
Features are keeping me. A quick look at Sony's site shows that a 32" HDTV is going to set me back $5000. My 32" Sony CRT TV cost me about $350. Yet the HDTV doesn't have PIP (I do), a V-Chip (not that I use it, but I've got that too). It doesn't have Channel naming (I don't use that, but oh well;). It doesn't have more video inputs that I have (if I'm going to pay an extra $4500, I'd better get at least 1 more input). I doesn't have Firewire/i.Link (something that I'm going to want in an HDTV). Why should I pay $4500 more for something that's inferior to what I'm already using.
Standards are keeping me back. I'm worried that the FTC is going to change standards soon, and then I'll have to buy a $300 converter box to use my "new" TV. I guess this going with the DVD thing above. I don't trust that the TV I'll buy will continue to work as I want it to. By the way, weren't we all supposed to have HDTV by 2000? Then by 2003? Why should I buy one now, when they'll move adoption up to 2009 next, then 2012. I'll just wait 'till things actually get adopted and then get one. Why rush in with that kind of money on the line.
The hardware of the new gameboy is identicle to the old GBA, just in a different shape (with a rechargeable battery and a new screen). As fas as software is concerned, it's the exact same machine. Flash carts should work just fine.
But wait! It gets better! I just checked and even though I renewed the domain name recently, it's listed as avaliable! That means I can buy it back for, guess how much? That's right, $200.
Also, I just checked to see what it will cost me to have a new domain name added to my hosting account. It's $10 a month forever or... yep...$200.
Years ago I got a domain name and I used it for a long time. Well all of a sudden one day the hosting company that I'd be using for years disappeared off the 'net and I needed to find a new host. Well I found one, but I had to get a new domain name. Why?
I no longer have the e-mail address I used when I got the origional domain name, and I can't get it back.
But to change anything on the domain name, I have to have that e-mail address or...
A password that was chosen by my hosting company (who's gone forever) and which I don't know. So the only option left is to...
Fax a form to the InterNIC or whatever name they're under today with proof that I'm the owner of the domain name in question. I fax them a form with drivers liscenses that prove I lived at the house the domain was registered to and my new address which is on file with another domain name. I did this, but it can take up to six months, so I'm left with two other options now...
Pay the $200 EXTORTION fee to have my application "expidited" (read: not lost forever). If I don't do this then I get to wait 6 months for the paper work to go though. Have I mentioned that I sent that damn form in 2 years ago? The only other thing I can do is...
Or I can get my hosting company to add the domain to my account and they'll take care of it all for me. Did I mention that this has some huge fee attached to it too?
So am I getting screwed here or what? I know it's not exactly the same thing, but god what a terrible system. So I will fittingly end with something from the Drew Carey show that seems to fit things:
Drew: Well that's it. The great circle of crap is complete.
I've been using MythTV for a while now, and it's really quite far along. It's biggest problem is it's a bit hard to install the first time. But if you're looking for a free tivo or a entertainment hub, check 'em out.
I'm sure I'll get moderated into oblivion for this, but I'm new to anime. So just what is OVA? It's mentioned tons of times in the linked article, and I assume it's a acronym, but what for? Is it like a made for TV movie? Or a miniseries? Or am I totally off base?
This is IMPORTANT. I had lunch with a nice girl nearly daily for about 6 months before she realized I didn't know what her name was. It took at least a month or two to get her to talk to me again.
I just spent the last two weeks to get the TV out on an ATI All-In-Wonder Pro 8mb AGP (old:) to work under Linux (which incidentily is pretty bad, though it was great under windows), and it was a major pain. To get it to work I have to run a driver from the GATOS project that is from their CVS, patch it heavily so it supports things like XV, and run it on a bleeding edge copy of XFree just to get the semi-crudy TV out to work. It's the worst time I've ever had getting X to work correctly in years and years. ATI seems to think they support Linux, but they don't really do anything, as far as I can tell. They won't even tell people how their cards from 5 years ago work so those can be made to work flawlessly, even though they make no money off them at all. nVidia may not have opensource drivers, but their closed source driver works great. I've never had problems getting nVidia cards to work under Linux. It even works quite well with the "unsupported" development (ie 2.5) kernels, with just a tiny patch that they actually seem to promote. Alot of companies could learn from nVidia, IMHO.
A standard NTSC TV only has 525 lines or so (I think it's 625 for PAL), but that includes the VBI (where closed caption stuff is sent, among other things, IIRC). So if your watching DVDs using some software DVD player, then what's going on is this:
DVD Video is usually about 480 lines high (I think)
This gets convered to 600 or 768 or some other resolution for display on the monitor
The TV-Out hardware has to take that number, and turn it back into the resolution of the TV, whatever that may exactly be
So basically the problem is that you're blowing it up, then shrinking it back down, and you lose a little quality each time.
Now if your card is good (or if you have a hardware DVD only card like a ReelMagic (great cards)) then things are different. When you use the TV out on such cards (or if a normal card can put the DVD out directly to the TV skipping the middle) then you only have one scaling, the same scaling that a DVD player would do. This gives you a much better picture. My ReelMagic Hollywood+ rivals most standard DVD players (up to about $150 maybe?) in my eyes.
So basically the problem is that it's much easier (I think) to simply decode the DVD onto the framebuffer and output that (the first method) than to bypass the framebuffer and output directly to the TV (the second method). And let's face it, while it was great to watch DVDs on your PC and hook it to your TV years ago, you can now get a decent new DVD player for under $80, so it's not a feature in high demand.
Was it an IDE drive? I'm not sure about those, but I've almost never heard of a problem with their SCSI drives. I have a old CRW4416S (a 4x4x16x SCSI drive) and it has taken any abuse that it gets. I've never had a single problem with it, despite things like my little sister not understanding that you need to take out the CD in the drive when you put a new one it. She asked me to fix the computer one day when one of her games wouldn't play, and I found 3 or 4 CDs in the drive. It survived just fine. I've now owned 2 drives, a IDE and a SCSI and both have been dreams to own. When they come out with a good DVD burning drive and I have use to upgrade, I'll buy Yamaha again.
On the other hand the 2 or 3 HP drives I've tried were not worthy of paperweights.
Let's face it, there isn't a future in CD-R(W)s. They are no longer the huge storage they used to be, and they cost so little that it's hard to make money on them. We've reached the maximum speed that we can without putting 12 lasers in each drive, etc. which wouldn't be cost effective.
The future in in DVD[-+]R(W)s. This is where they will be able to make money, and I hope that they do enter this arena as they are, IMHO, one of the best (if not the best) makers of drives on the market. I also hope that someone brings something like their disc tatoo tech to DVD drives. While this seems like bad news, it's not all that suprising. Time goes on, new technology overtakes the old. It's digital evolution.
AOL used to be great, back before the internet was big. But when AOL's popularity boomed, so did the number of busy signals. AOL got too big too fast. They also tried to be the internet, and all things to all people. They bought up Sierra's Imagination Network (which was awesome) and ruined it. Many of the keywords that used to lead to nice parts of AOL or a companies content on AOL started opening a web browser to a web site. And the entire time, the internet access through AOL was ssssllllllooooowwwwwwwwww.
For all the complaining about AOL I do (along with many other/.ers) it was quite nice. AOL could become very great again, and it wouldn't take too much. Here is a list of things:
Lower the price - This is a no brainer. They charge up to $5 more than most other dialup ISPs. What does that pay for, exclusive content? What exclusive content?
Speed it up - AOL's connection to the internet is pitifilly show compared to other ISPs. You just can't play games (quake, warcraft, etc) on AOL because of the ping times. This is definatly a deal breaker
Exclusive content - They need to get it back. AOL used to have alot of great stuff. Also, they supervised it all so it was consistant. It wasn't confusing and impossible to navigate like many internet sites are now. You couldn't access porn without trying. Compare that to the internet at large, where one wrong keystroke gets you endless windows of "3 year old does donkey that was set on fire all on the wing of a 747 crashing into an iceburg while BSDM lesbians...." junk. AOL was actually quite safe.
E-Mail - They got famous for this, and their little soundbite. My parrents are both addicted to AOL for their e-mail, but hate all the spam they get. They can't understand it. What would happen if AOL ran all their e-mail through SpamAssassin first? If spammers couldn't hit the 12 billion AOL users, I bet spam would drop a large amount for the 'net at large.
Teach - They would really help themselves by not being so idiot-o-centric. If they tought people things about the 'net, or at least didn't make non-AOL things so hard to do, they wouldn't lose as many subscribers. When you want to get on the internet, you get AOL. When you realize that AOL isn't the internet, you get a real ISP. I can't stand people asking me their screen name (meaning e-mail address), or "how do I install yahoo?" because they don't know it's a website and what they want to do is set it as their homepage.
If AOL was just an ISP that had nice content like they used to ontop of everything else, I would go back to them. The monthly fee wouldn't be so outrageous if I couldn't get the same thing everywhere else for $15. If they could actually block most all of the spam I get, I'd go back. The biggest thing that they need to do, IMHO is this:
Dump the client software!
I use one program for web surfing (IE/Mozilla, etc), one for E-Mail (outlook, eudora, etc), one for newsgroups, why not one for AOL only content? You'd dial up AOl just like Earthlink or anyone else, and use that software to access their content. Don't force people to load up that memory and CPU hog just to look at Yahoo! Make it launch whenever someone access a URL like aol://whatever from a web browser, just like what happens when you click a mailto: or a nntp://alt.blah link in your web browser. A little reform would go a long way. Oh yeah, one other thing...
Stop sending me CDs. Not in the mail, not in magazines, not in other software (winamp, etc).
You don't have to blanket the world in CDs and cover TV with ads and try to install your software 20 times a week on my PC to get your message across.
I have a Dell Inspiron 8000, and in my mind I have all three features. It replaced an older laptop. Here is how I have all 3:
Very Mobile - It is a large laptop, but even with 2 batteries it's slightly lighter than my old laptop (which was P-266 era)
Very Powerfull - 900 Mhz (just about the fastest you could get when I bought it), 512 MB, Geforce 2 GO (why I bought it, plays games great!) and more. With the exception of the graphics card, it's actually better than my desktop
Very Efficient with Batteries - With two batteries (what I keep in it, because it's 3 spindle and I have no need for the floppy), I can play 3D games or watch DVD or such and use the backlight, etc for 4 hours straight. If I were to turn down the backlight, slow it down, only play solitare, etc I could go longer. My old laptop had troble going 90 min playing solitare on one battery
It's a great little machine. As far as I care, it's all 3. It's quite snappy. It's only real problem is the hard drive can only sustain about half the transfer rate of a decent desktop hard drive (15 vs. 30), but that's common for laptops due to battery/noise/heat/etc. The only thing that bugs me is that I can have either built in 10/100 + a modem (what I have) or I could have had built in wireless, but not both. But when someone makes a MiniPCI card with both 10/100 and wireless, I'll buy it in a heart beat. This isn't the fault of Dell though, just not that high a demand for wireless at the time and it would have been VERY expensive I bet.
Well all know that this is just a fear tactic. The idea is that if they can make a few big cases and get a few big sentences on some of the major sharers, it will make the news. And your average person doesn't think P2P is that bad, but if they see people going to jain for 10-20 years for using P2P, they'll stop. Let's not forget that the major news outlets are owned by the same parrent companies that own MPAA and RIAA companies, so the stories will be
Man in Utah arrested for downloading music files, gets 20 years
not...
Man in Utah arrested for giving 50,000 copies of unreleased movies away to people on P2P and selling copies of CDs and making kiddie porn and...
That will be enough to scare most of the people away from P2P, thanks to half truths. They don't intend to actually go after everyone because that wouldn't be cost effective, as you've noticed.
First of all, why a robot head? All you need is a camera. That said, here is how this isn't exaclty new:
I remember seeing on TV a few years ago (probably on Discovrey, but maybe TLC) a program that talked about what made people attractive (face wise) as part of a story on something else, plastic surgery I think. They talked about how it's based on some ratio that's found all over the body (fingertips are 1.something times longer than the next segment). So this guy came up with a geometrical "ideal" face showing the ideal ratio. Then they used computers to compare peoples faces to the way the "ideal" face was and made a "beauty index." They used examples like the Mad Magazine guy (very low), Cindy Crawford (high), etc. Things like symetry were taken into accound (the "line" they eyes are on should be parallel to the mouth "line", and perpendicular to the nose, things should be evenly spaced, etc.) Just take that, and combine it with other things ("hour-glass shape detector", etc.) and you end up with an automatic beauty detector.
The problem isn't that the government is collecting information, it's that the government is using something that it often doesn't know anything about: computers. There is nothing wrong with the government having a large medical database for example, if it's properly secured. That is why the governement should, IMHO, have private companies compete for contracts to do the actual IT work. This would insure that we had power over sloppy work. If it's the government that's doing things, we just compain and try to get new people into the position. But with a private company, we can always say "Well if you make another mistake and don't fix that one fast, we can have XYZ Corp doing things by Monday." Obviously, such a large contract would be important to a company.
Please note that this post has nothing to do with privacy in it's self, I'm just talking about how we should have someone else do the "grunt work", in this case security and maintence, than Uncle Sam.
Ever since I started watching Max Headroom when Tech TV started to rerun it, I've noticed something. It's distrubing how accurate it is. ALL the major networks seem to be trying to be major news outlets, but they are just ads. We are getting fed more and more commercials, Blipverts are surely comming soon. And a few major companies seem to controll just about everything. How long before ZikZak's... I mean McD's... starts giving out neurostimulator bracelets? Also, is it just me or is TV getting dumber and dumber, yet more and more popular. Am I the only one who thinks that they are testing out the technology that was used to make "Wack-its" popular on the show.
The more "old" sci-fi type stuff I watch, the more erie it is how similar we've become. How long untill we're not ALLOWED to turn off our TVs? How long before our TVs watch what WE'RE doing so advertisers can see what effect they're having? How long before Max is invading MY TV screen?
Wrong. I own two of these things and they are actually quite nice. There were a decent number of games. Here is a few of them:
Wario Land - This game was reason enough to own the system. It was fantastic. It played just like a Mario game, but hat little twists here and there. Nintendo has continued the franchise, and the other games have been good too. But if you ever get the chance, play this game.
Mario's Tennis - This was a great tennis game. The 3D effect worked great. I could play this game for hours. It was alot like Mario's Tennis for the N64 (in what it looked like, sorta) and played something like that (the N64 game was more refied, it wasn't a port or anything, it was a new game with the same old name). Loved this game.
3D Tetris - This was actually pretty good. Nothing like "normal" tetris, but a good puzzel game none the less.
Water World - He he he. I never played this, I just had to mention it. Of course, we all know this is the real reason the system failed. It was a conspiracy. It was I tell you! Bwhahahahahahahahahhahahaha.
Red Alarm - If I remember correctly, this game was alot like Descent. I never played it, but I think it was good.
Mario Clash - Alot like the origional Mario Brothers, this was another great game. The 3D effect worked very well here too.
Galactic Pinball - A great pinball game. The 3D worked quite well, even if it was gimmicky for a pinball game.
Others - There were other games. Before the system was canceled, an FZero like game was announced, along with screenshots, that looked great. I would have bought it, but it was never released. Also, if that had ported (or made a new) StarFox for the system, I think that would have helped it alot. StarFox would have worked so well in true 3D.
Sorry all, forgot to add one more system. Here you go:
NeoGeo - This was supposed to be a very nice system. In fact, most of these systems were quite good. But this one failed (in the US at least, that's my only vantage point) due to... can you guess it yet?... PRICE! It was also expensive, $500?
Sometimes I wish you could edit your comments before they got moderated or replyed to, so you could fix this kinda thing. Oh well.
Slashdot Mirror
If I am reading it correctly, they used a special radio card under Linux to capture radio waves. Then they ran those waves through a piece of software that could decode them into video, because the waves they tuned into were an HDTV broadcast. The difference here is that they simply record the wave, it's not decoded in hardware. This way they can ues the same card to get FM, AM, HDTV, VHF, UHF, or whatever (in theory). Anyone actually know the answer to this question?
As a worker, your boss sends you an email asking you to destroy important documents and do other immoral, illegal, and fattening things; threating to fire you if you don't. You read the e-mail and then it automatically deletes it's self. You can't print it either because the DRM says so. So now what happens to you?
I can't wait.
Does anyone know if the US version will have the red tint that was mentioned a while back here on Slashdot a few months ago? The linked site seems to say a new release on VHS over in Japan is correct, but what about the DVD? What about the US DVD?
A MythTV (or other media center type app) is something I'd love to be able to use my X-Box as. A wallmart PC may be a better option for real work, but when I plan to use a TV as a monitor in the first place, I'll get much better quality out of something designed to interface to a TV than the built in graphics in a Walmart PC if it supports TV out or any decently priced video card I'd put in that Walmart PC. Or I could pay $100 or so for a scan converter, which would be another little box, which is less simple and elegant. Plus built in HDTV out support. Glaggghhhhh.... (Homer drool sound)
int getRunning() { // Done!
// Get a file from the hard drive to prove we're legit
// pass controll to it
return;
}
Programming is keeping me. While the major networks seem to do everything in HDTV now, most cable networks dont (at least the ones I watch). For example, as far as I know the only Hist/TLC/Disc/Etc channel that is HDTV is Discovery's special HDTV channel. And I won't get any benefit for most of the shows out there (like all the old sitcoms, etc).
Cable/Sat is keeping me. To get HDTV cable I have to rent an expensive box from the cable company, instead of just plugging a cable into my TV (I don't have digital cable, it's not worth it for me). To get my DirecTV, I have to have an oval dish (or a second circular dish) IIRC, AND a sattalite box that instead of costing me $100 costs me $500. I'm not going to pay that kind of fee ontop of the premium I'll be charged over the normal service fee ontop of paying way too much for a TV.
Tivo is keeping me. I want to buy a Tivo and plan to when a good Series 2/DirecTV combo box comes out. But I am not going to buy a new TV so that when Tivo records sitcoms and such for me, they're not in HDTV. I know they are comming out with an HDTV model, and when it comes out I'll give better consideration to buying an HDTV.
DVDs are keeping me. HDTV was finalized after DVDs, IIRC. When DVDs change (Blu-ray, which was recently put into production) they might support some new/better resolutions and I want a HDTV that will support them.
Features are keeping me. A quick look at Sony's site shows that a 32" HDTV is going to set me back $5000. My 32" Sony CRT TV cost me about $350. Yet the HDTV doesn't have PIP (I do), a V-Chip (not that I use it, but I've got that too). It doesn't have Channel naming (I don't use that, but oh well ;). It doesn't have more video inputs that I have (if I'm going to pay an extra $4500, I'd better get at least 1 more input). I doesn't have Firewire/i.Link (something that I'm going to want in an HDTV). Why should I pay $4500 more for something that's inferior to what I'm already using.
Standards are keeping me back. I'm worried that the FTC is going to change standards soon, and then I'll have to buy a $300 converter box to use my "new" TV. I guess this going with the DVD thing above. I don't trust that the TV I'll buy will continue to work as I want it to. By the way, weren't we all supposed to have HDTV by 2000? Then by 2003? Why should I buy one now, when they'll move adoption up to 2009 next, then 2012. I'll just wait 'till things actually get adopted and then get one. Why rush in with that kind of money on the line.
The hardware of the new gameboy is identicle to the old GBA, just in a different shape (with a rechargeable battery and a new screen). As fas as software is concerned, it's the exact same machine. Flash carts should work just fine.
Also, I just checked to see what it will cost me to have a new domain name added to my hosting account. It's $10 a month forever or... yep...$200.
AHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh............
So am I getting screwed here or what? I know it's not exactly the same thing, but god what a terrible system. So I will fittingly end with something from the Drew Carey show that seems to fit things:
Drew: Well that's it. The great circle of crap is complete.
MythTV
I'm sure I'll get moderated into oblivion for this, but I'm new to anime. So just what is OVA? It's mentioned tons of times in the linked article, and I assume it's a acronym, but what for? Is it like a made for TV movie? Or a miniseries? Or am I totally off base?
REMEMBER THEIR NAME.
I just spent the last two weeks to get the TV out on an ATI All-In-Wonder Pro 8mb AGP (old :) to work under Linux (which incidentily is pretty bad, though it was great under windows), and it was a major pain. To get it to work I have to run a driver from the GATOS project that is from their CVS, patch it heavily so it supports things like XV, and run it on a bleeding edge copy of XFree just to get the semi-crudy TV out to work. It's the worst time I've ever had getting X to work correctly in years and years. ATI seems to think they support Linux, but they don't really do anything, as far as I can tell. They won't even tell people how their cards from 5 years ago work so those can be made to work flawlessly, even though they make no money off them at all. nVidia may not have opensource drivers, but their closed source driver works great. I've never had problems getting nVidia cards to work under Linux. It even works quite well with the "unsupported" development (ie 2.5) kernels, with just a tiny patch that they actually seem to promote. Alot of companies could learn from nVidia, IMHO.
- DVD Video is usually about 480 lines high (I think)
- This gets convered to 600 or 768 or some other resolution for display on the monitor
- The TV-Out hardware has to take that number, and turn it back into the resolution of the TV, whatever that may exactly be
So basically the problem is that you're blowing it up, then shrinking it back down, and you lose a little quality each time.Now if your card is good (or if you have a hardware DVD only card like a ReelMagic (great cards)) then things are different. When you use the TV out on such cards (or if a normal card can put the DVD out directly to the TV skipping the middle) then you only have one scaling, the same scaling that a DVD player would do. This gives you a much better picture. My ReelMagic Hollywood+ rivals most standard DVD players (up to about $150 maybe?) in my eyes.
So basically the problem is that it's much easier (I think) to simply decode the DVD onto the framebuffer and output that (the first method) than to bypass the framebuffer and output directly to the TV (the second method). And let's face it, while it was great to watch DVDs on your PC and hook it to your TV years ago, you can now get a decent new DVD player for under $80, so it's not a feature in high demand.
On the other hand the 2 or 3 HP drives I've tried were not worthy of paperweights.
The future in in DVD[-+]R(W)s. This is where they will be able to make money, and I hope that they do enter this arena as they are, IMHO, one of the best (if not the best) makers of drives on the market. I also hope that someone brings something like their disc tatoo tech to DVD drives. While this seems like bad news, it's not all that suprising. Time goes on, new technology overtakes the old. It's digital evolution.
Look at me, I sound like a philosopher. He he he.
For all the complaining about AOL I do (along with many other /.ers) it was quite nice. AOL could become very great again, and it wouldn't take too much. Here is a list of things:
If AOL was just an ISP that had nice content like they used to ontop of everything else, I would go back to them. The monthly fee wouldn't be so outrageous if I couldn't get the same thing everywhere else for $15. If they could actually block most all of the spam I get, I'd go back. The biggest thing that they need to do, IMHO is this:
Dump the client software!
I use one program for web surfing (IE/Mozilla, etc), one for E-Mail (outlook, eudora, etc), one for newsgroups, why not one for AOL only content? You'd dial up AOl just like Earthlink or anyone else, and use that software to access their content. Don't force people to load up that memory and CPU hog just to look at Yahoo! Make it launch whenever someone access a URL like aol://whatever from a web browser, just like what happens when you click a mailto: or a nntp://alt.blah link in your web browser. A little reform would go a long way. Oh yeah, one other thing...
Stop sending me CDs. Not in the mail, not in magazines, not in other software (winamp, etc).
You don't have to blanket the world in CDs and cover TV with ads and try to install your software 20 times a week on my PC to get your message across.
It's a great little machine. As far as I care, it's all 3. It's quite snappy. It's only real problem is the hard drive can only sustain about half the transfer rate of a decent desktop hard drive (15 vs. 30), but that's common for laptops due to battery/noise/heat/etc. The only thing that bugs me is that I can have either built in 10/100 + a modem (what I have) or I could have had built in wireless, but not both. But when someone makes a MiniPCI card with both 10/100 and wireless, I'll buy it in a heart beat. This isn't the fault of Dell though, just not that high a demand for wireless at the time and it would have been VERY expensive I bet.
Man in Utah arrested for downloading music files, gets 20 years
not...
Man in Utah arrested for giving 50,000 copies of unreleased movies away to people on P2P and selling copies of CDs and making kiddie porn and...
That will be enough to scare most of the people away from P2P, thanks to half truths. They don't intend to actually go after everyone because that wouldn't be cost effective, as you've noticed.
No wait, RIAA math makes things worse and that would be better. My RIAA math skills seem to be failing me. How can RIAA math not be right?
I guess they've switched the way their math works. That would make more sense because that IP address that they say is 8 digits is 11.
Does this mean my 24x CD drive now only counts as 1/4 a drive instead of 6?
I'm confused :(
I remember seeing on TV a few years ago (probably on Discovrey, but maybe TLC) a program that talked about what made people attractive (face wise) as part of a story on something else, plastic surgery I think. They talked about how it's based on some ratio that's found all over the body (fingertips are 1.something times longer than the next segment). So this guy came up with a geometrical "ideal" face showing the ideal ratio. Then they used computers to compare peoples faces to the way the "ideal" face was and made a "beauty index." They used examples like the Mad Magazine guy (very low), Cindy Crawford (high), etc. Things like symetry were taken into accound (the "line" they eyes are on should be parallel to the mouth "line", and perpendicular to the nose, things should be evenly spaced, etc.) Just take that, and combine it with other things ("hour-glass shape detector", etc.) and you end up with an automatic beauty detector.
Just my 0.02, FWIW.
Please note that this post has nothing to do with privacy in it's self, I'm just talking about how we should have someone else do the "grunt work", in this case security and maintence, than Uncle Sam.
The more "old" sci-fi type stuff I watch, the more erie it is how similar we've become. How long untill we're not ALLOWED to turn off our TVs? How long before our TVs watch what WE'RE doing so advertisers can see what effect they're having? How long before Max is invading MY TV screen?
Wrong. I own two of these things and they are actually quite nice. There were a decent number of games. Here is a few of them:
Sometimes I wish you could edit your comments before they got moderated or replyed to, so you could fix this kinda thing. Oh well.