Anyone who subscribes for $9.99 a month is an idiot if they keep doing it after the first few months and not upgrade to the lifetime membership.
Really now? So I'm an idiot. Let's see... it will take just over 2 years for my monthly payments to equal $249. With my buying habits, I know that I'm likely to buy something bigger/better/faster/whatever inside of 2 years. So in fact, I'm saving money by not getting a lifetime.
What's the line about making assumptions?
I absolutely love Tivo now that it's been running for about a week.
Wow.. a whole week! Man, you're the expert. I've had mine over a year... hacked it long ago too. Another reason I never got a lifetime: I knew that my hack might cause problems and didn't want to piss that money away.
Maybe what Tivo needs to do is go door to door and actually show people what these things are capable of.
Perhaps not door to door[*], but I think you're on to something. I know that even my family (all of whom are dependand on their Tivos for TV viewing now) didn't get it until I showed them either.
I don't think I've explained what a Tivo does to anyone yet that hasn't said they hadn't gotten it before, and now thought that they wanted one too.
[*] I can see it now: "Good [afternoon|morning|evening] [sir|ma'am], my name is ____________ and I've got a revolutionary device here that you're going to want to buy. Give me just a few minutes of time, and access to the back of your TV so that I can hook this baby up....
maybe there really is a Nerve Attenuation Syndrome (was that the name?)..
Or maybe these are just a bunch of crackpots.
Who wants to bet that if they'd put the antenna on the school, and said it was broadcasting, even when it wasn't, that the teacher would've complained? It's likely all a psychosomatic thing.
see my example of drilling holes between apartments to share cable: both parties would be in for some $$
Not just money... but possible jail time with your new best friend: Ben Dover. He'll laugh and realize he has a new bitch when he hears why you're in there too...
Anyone else remember the old PSAs for stealing cable? (I say old because I don't think I've seen them in years) They showed a generic white guy in jail, dressed in a suit as if he were arrested at work. The others ask why he's there and he responds, "I stole cable." Then the nice big scary screen with "Stealing cable is a crime!" (or something else close to that) was shown.
People seem to forget that the first season of the Simpsons contained some pretty risqué humor, even by today's standards. And back then, the episodes actually had real storylines, instead of today's stupid sketch comedy and movie parodies.
Agreed. There were a few times during the commentary on disc 1 where even Groening said he was surprised at what they got away with at times (and that he'd forgotton most of it). Sure, it'd be easy today, but 10 years ago, things were a bit different.
I find the Simpsons DVD set to be great fun. It's entertaining to hear the creators having fun watching their own work, because they've forgotton a lot of what they did.
Another good comment was Groening noticing that you could see the entire credits, and saying something like "oh yeah, this was back in the day before every show's end credits were squished off to the side." You can tell they don't like the fact that the people who create shows don't seem to get their due credit anymore as networks squander every second of air time they can to sell more of their crappy shows.
Also, Star Trek V was excellent for the first hour, maybe even 2/3 of the film. It's just the last bit that sucks, and that's all people seem to remember.
Funny.. that's my exact feeling for III. I loved the whole returning home damaged, then stealing the Enterprise (ok, so the clunking noises in the Excelsior were cheesy), and finally blowing the enterprise up to save their lives (damn fine effects there). But once they were on the ground on the Genesis planet, and finished watching the Enterprise burn up in the atmosphere... it just goes down the toilet. Trying not to picture Christopher Lloyd in his other parts everytime he speaks in the movie is kinda funny though.
I also think that James Horner's music, especially during the stealing the enterprise bit (and all of ST II) is the best ST music. Don't get me wrong, I like Goldsmith's music a lot too, but I think Horner outdoes Goldsmith. I own the sountracks for 2, 3, 5, 6, Gen, and FC. 2 and 3 are my favorites.
They found that the cost to 3G (or 2.5 for that matter) TDMA was cost-prohibitive, and that going the GSM route would provide a less expensive upgrade path.
It's probably more like the cost to make TDMA into a 3G product was horrid, and AT&T would rather burn in hell before switching to CDMA. But that's just my opinion.:P
The accidents that can be shown to have been caused by cellphone usage are still a tiny fraction of accidents. Most studies I've read say it's something like 2%, which is far below a lot of other distractions. If you're going to outlaw cellphone usage, how about:
- Talking to others in the car. (I see people so into a conversation they're all over the road).
- Eating/Drinking.
- Fiddling with the stereo.
- Putting on makeup
- Shaving.
- Driving while tired.
etc...
Hell, you can buy a car with a fucking TV in it these days! How screwed up is that? And don't tell me it's just for the kiddies in the back seat, I've seen plenty of models where the TV is far enough forward that it could easily be a distraction to the driver.
How about people start taking some responsibility for their actions for a change? If you can't handle a phone and drive at the same time, then don't do it. I know that I can, as long as it's a short conversation that doesn't require much thought (i.e. I'm going to the store, need anything?).
Cell phone usage in cars when related to accidents is getting a horrible rap for 2 reasons:
1. Yes, some buffoons can't handle the phone and drive... then again, there's a pretty damn high percentage of people on the road that can't drive worth a damn even without distractions. I'd rather get those people off the road before outlawing cellphones.
2. The cell phone users are the easiest to see in comparison to most other distractions. It's really easy to see them holding a phone up to their ear for minutes at a time.
Why can't it drag the files down with SMB and/or NFS?
If that's what you want, then get an Audiotron. Works great getting an IP from my linux box and reads my mp3s via samba, and just plugged right into my existing network. I've got 2, use them both everyday, and think they were worth every penny.
I don't give a crap if the article says that Linus is the second coming, I was responding to Linuxhead bemoaning the constant BSODs, which are not a part of any modern Windows.
Really?
Then perhaps you can explain what the Blue Screen I get every[*] time I shutdown my w2k box is then? Hmm?
And yes, it sometimes gives a BSOD at random times as well.. though I admit it's far less often then it ever was with 9x/NT installs, but still far, _far_ more often then linux kernel panic's for me (I think I've had exactly 2 kernel panics in 5 years).
And before you start down the "it's your hardware" road.. the exact same hardware is rock solid under linux (including the DVD card) as well as BeOS (doesn't support all the hardware though), and every driver is "certified" for windows.
If you have a pool in a fenced-in backyard, and some kid climbs over your fence and drowns, you can bet your ass you're responsible. It's called an "attractive nuisance."
I believe you are wrong. I just bought a house 5 months ago.. with a pool, I was told by the property inspector that my duties are to have doors/gates that are both self closing, and self latching.
Now, are society is f'd up enough that if a kid did climb my fence (and the whole neighborhood would likely see it) and drowned... his parents would probably sue me. But I can't be brought up on criminal charges since I have the required gates. The civil law, OTOH, might still be fubar'd enough to screw me in the end for another's criminal intent!
A very cutesy pipe dream to be sure, but it shows that the author completely misses the point.
Agreed. I also think that if everyone developing for Linux right now were doing as he says in this article, there'd just be different argument. Instead of "they should be focusing on the server market" it'd be, "They're wasting their time. Without any competition for the desktop, MS' dominance will create a requirement for MS servers.. and the linux/unix servers will disappear."
Places like San Francisco have *good* PT, places like Los Angeles or San Diego...
As one who was born, raised, and still lives in San Diego... let me just say he's right on the money. Even during my admittedly short lifetime, it's improved a lot with the trolley and all. But unless you're in very specific areas going to very other specific areas, you better either have a few hours to make the trip each way... or have access to a car.
Don't get me wrong, the trolley is nice. I used it when I had jury duty. No parking woes, nice ride to/from the courthouse. But when it comes to getting just about everywhere else in town, it's pretty useless.
The bus system here just plain sucks. I've put my home and work into the web page: http://www.sdcommute.com/service/otis_start.htm (which I admit is a pretty damn cool tool) and it'll take about an hour, plus I have to walk 1-1/2 miles, to do what I can drive in 30 minutes on a bad day!
You think we roll out MS Office 2K without investing a couple man-years of effort, testing installations on supported platforms, building SMS packages, preparing training programs, advertising, providing conversion from Office '95 files, etc.? No difference between MS and GNU there.
Ah, but if you developed your infrastructure right, there can be a huge difference. We use replicated RO AFS to distribute most programs. When a new version is installed, tested, and ready to go, we put it into AFS, change the current symlinks, release the volume, and voila! Everyone's running the new version on the next execution. This can even be true across OSes (Solaris, HP, Linux, et). With windows, you could put the files into AFS, but would still require something to touch the registry of every PC that wants to run the new version to make sure it's "installed" properly... no such issues on the unix systems.
SMS is another huge ugly beast in and of itself that seems to cause those that deal with it more headaches then the apps themselves at times.
The normal product development process in every technological industry except software includes a search of patents to see if anyone else has already had your idea.
Yeah, but look at the Pause tech site.. from what I can see there, they haven't done a damn thing, other then patent something that I'll bet at least a 1/2 dozen other companies were thinking of at the same time. It looks like they didn't intend to do anything with the patent, other then grab it first, and use it to sue companies that actually made something with the idea work... After letting those companies take the actual risk to market something, and then make money off of it.
I have no problem with basic patents when a company is actually intending to use it, and/or it's actually original. But it didn't take a genius to figure out the whole concept of PVRs for TVs, and being able to pause live TV.
These guys just look like a bunch of leeches who are using loopholes in patent law to suck money away from companies that are actually making products.
Well if you kick a dog everytime he comes near you, eventually he'll stay away, everyime you come near him he will run.
I can argue against that: my sister's family had a dog that was so stupid it would never learn.. just kept on coming back for more. Didn't help that it was about 100 lbs of pure muscle either.
I think that, just like that dog, there are companies/people/gov'ts stupid enough to just keep taking it in the shorts over and over from MS because they buy into the MS PR that there's just nothing out there better.. or even close.
Personally I think all windows products suck. I've got an athlon based box at home right now that I can't even install 2k on without it blue screening about 80% of the way through the process... and if I use a 98 or ME boot disk to try to install them, fdisk hangs hard. Linux is running like a champ on the box! I just want to load a windows up to play some of the games that I have which aren't available under linux.:(
Actually, most applications of today are, if you are lucky, optimized for the Pentium Pro.
The same thing happens on Suns. People complain that they didn't see a big jump in speed from UltraSPARC-II based machines to US-III based... when the vast majority of programs are still compiled for simply SPARC32 i.e. not even Ultra 1 optimizations!
Vendors take forever to optimize their products on the newer architectures.
To stay a little more on topic:
I did some tests encoding the same wavs to mp3s on a P2, P4 and Athlon system, and the 1.4GHz Athlon was a good deal faster (about 16%).. the Athlon had DDR RAM and the P4 has RDRAM (and 1Gig vs the AThlon's 512 Meg). What's even sadder is the Athlon was reading the wav file via NFS and the P4 was using local disk... Ultra-160 SCSI disk (IDE on the Athlon). Of course, CPU is more important then I/O in such a situation.
ultrasparc III is a dud. it's performance is lacking, to say the least.
You're probably running standard programs that are compiled for SPARC32 on there... i.e. no US3 optimizations, let along even Ultra 1. The sad thing is, most stuff out there for Solaris is like this. I think the only program I use regularly that's Ultra compiled is Real Player.
Personally, I think the thing that has killed Sun over the last year or two is the fact that they focused so hard on the US3 that they didn't bother to work on putting out faster US2 chips. While the US3 chips are fast, and are an improvement, Sun has appeared stagnant until now because after the 450MHz US2s came out, they didn't continue to make faster ones. Whereas Intel and AMD have been cranking out faster and faster chips. We all know that raw MHz doesn't really mean jack when comparing completely different architechtures, but too many people do.
We've found that most of the vendors we work wit have already moved over to x86 with Linux now and are beginning to leave their Sun ports on the back burner.
i just wonder if this show can possibly pull any ratings after being debuted, canceled, resurrected, disappearing, re-appearing, and then repeating the same cycle over again.
Yeah, it definately bites how it got moved around.. but that's one arena where Tivo shines! I didn't miss a single episode, and still have a couple saved on mine that I reply now and then.:)
When you buy decent Suns (U2s, U60s, or better) you get exteremely good quality systems.
We have 500+ in my department alone, and the failure rates are miniscule compared to PCs. They also don't become obsolete as fast.
One advantage if you're using Linux too is that the hardware is much more static. i.e. you can make an image for Ultra 60 machines that's going to work with every U60 you buy. If you buy a PC from a vendor, you'll often get different parts inside, even though they consider it the same model machine.
I never said we don't pay for cable. The post I responded to (and the part I quoted) said that the original advantage of cable was the "no commercials" angle. As far as I can remember, TBS, MTV, etc.. _always_ had commercials. As did any "local" stations (including stations that were local to another city, but offered to you via cable).
Hmm.. I don't remember for sure if MTV always had commercials or not, but I do remember the day it went online.. my sister couldn't wait. I think I was only 10 or 11 at the time though. Anyone remember what year that was?
Re:So it screws the networks. So what?
on
Calling Out TiVo
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· Score: 1
pumping their signals into your living room.
I just want to stop them from putting their stupid little channel logos in the bottom corner of the screen all the time.. it burns into projection TVs after awhile. I know my parent's TV is like that. I'm planning to buy a widescreen set soon, and if it get's burned in like that, I'm going to be pissed.
As if I didn't know which channel I'd just changed too...
When cable came along, one of the advantages was "no commercials", since the service was funded by the bill you pay each month.
What? Which universe are you living in? The only cable channels that never had commercials were individual pay channels, like HBO, Showtime, etc... which still don't (except for commercials for upcoming shows). Local channels on cable always had commercials. I don't remember for sure, but maybe Discover and others like that didn't have commercials at first either.. but I think they did.
The advantages of cable were always:
More channels (from different cities too), and Better reception.
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Anyone who subscribes for $9.99 a month is an idiot if they keep doing it after the first few months and not upgrade to the lifetime membership.
Really now? So I'm an idiot. Let's see... it will take just over 2 years for my monthly payments to equal $249. With my buying habits, I know that I'm likely to buy something bigger/better/faster/whatever inside of 2 years. So in fact, I'm saving money by not getting a lifetime.
What's the line about making assumptions?
I absolutely love Tivo now that it's been running for about a week.
Wow.. a whole week! Man, you're the expert. I've had mine over a year... hacked it long ago too. Another reason I never got a lifetime: I knew that my hack might cause problems and didn't want to piss that money away.
Maybe what Tivo needs to do is go door to door and actually show people what these things are capable of.
Perhaps not door to door[*], but I think you're on to something. I know that even my family (all of whom are dependand on their Tivos for TV viewing now) didn't get it until I showed them either.
I don't think I've explained what a Tivo does to anyone yet that hasn't said they hadn't gotten it before, and now thought that they wanted one too.
[*] I can see it now: "Good [afternoon|morning|evening] [sir|ma'am], my name is ____________ and I've got a revolutionary device here that you're going to want to buy. Give me just a few minutes of time, and access to the back of your TV so that I can hook this baby up....
maybe there really is a Nerve Attenuation Syndrome (was that the name?)..
Or maybe these are just a bunch of crackpots.
Who wants to bet that if they'd put the antenna on the school, and said it was broadcasting, even when it wasn't, that the teacher would've complained? It's likely all a psychosomatic thing.
see my example of drilling holes between apartments to share cable: both parties would be in for some $$
Not just money... but possible jail time with your new best friend: Ben Dover. He'll laugh and realize he has a new bitch when he hears why you're in there too...
Anyone else remember the old PSAs for stealing cable? (I say old because I don't think I've seen them in years) They showed a generic white guy in jail, dressed in a suit as if he were arrested at work. The others ask why he's there and he responds, "I stole cable." Then the nice big scary screen with "Stealing cable is a crime!" (or something else close to that) was shown.
People seem to forget that the first season of the Simpsons contained some pretty risqué humor, even by today's standards. And back then, the episodes actually had real storylines, instead of today's stupid sketch comedy and movie parodies.
Agreed. There were a few times during the commentary on disc 1 where even Groening said he was surprised at what they got away with at times (and that he'd forgotton most of it). Sure, it'd be easy today, but 10 years ago, things were a bit different.
I find the Simpsons DVD set to be great fun. It's entertaining to hear the creators having fun watching their own work, because they've forgotton a lot of what they did.
Another good comment was Groening noticing that you could see the entire credits, and saying something like "oh yeah, this was back in the day before every show's end credits were squished off to the side." You can tell they don't like the fact that the people who create shows don't seem to get their due credit anymore as networks squander every second of air time they can to sell more of their crappy shows.
Also, Star Trek V was excellent for the first hour, maybe even 2/3 of the film. It's just the last bit that sucks, and that's all people seem to remember.
Funny.. that's my exact feeling for III. I loved the whole returning home damaged, then stealing the Enterprise (ok, so the clunking noises in the Excelsior were cheesy), and finally blowing the enterprise up to save their lives (damn fine effects there). But once they were on the ground on the Genesis planet, and finished watching the Enterprise burn up in the atmosphere... it just goes down the toilet. Trying not to picture Christopher Lloyd in his other parts everytime he speaks in the movie is kinda funny though.
I also think that James Horner's music, especially during the stealing the enterprise bit (and all of ST II) is the best ST music. Don't get me wrong, I like Goldsmith's music a lot too, but I think Horner outdoes Goldsmith. I own the sountracks for 2, 3, 5, 6, Gen, and FC. 2 and 3 are my favorites.
They found that the cost to 3G (or 2.5 for that matter) TDMA was cost-prohibitive, and that going the GSM route would provide a less expensive upgrade path.
:P
It's probably more like the cost to make TDMA into a 3G product was horrid, and AT&T would rather burn in hell before switching to CDMA. But that's just my opinion.
Oh, puh-lease.
The accidents that can be shown to have been caused by cellphone usage are still a tiny fraction of accidents. Most studies I've read say it's something like 2%, which is far below a lot of other distractions. If you're going to outlaw cellphone usage, how about:
- Talking to others in the car. (I see people so into a conversation they're all over the road).
- Eating/Drinking.
- Fiddling with the stereo.
- Putting on makeup
- Shaving.
- Driving while tired.
etc...
Hell, you can buy a car with a fucking TV in it these days! How screwed up is that? And don't tell me it's just for the kiddies in the back seat, I've seen plenty of models where the TV is far enough forward that it could easily be a distraction to the driver.
How about people start taking some responsibility for their actions for a change? If you can't handle a phone and drive at the same time, then don't do it. I know that I can, as long as it's a short conversation that doesn't require much thought (i.e. I'm going to the store, need anything?).
Cell phone usage in cars when related to accidents is getting a horrible rap for 2 reasons:
1. Yes, some buffoons can't handle the phone and drive... then again, there's a pretty damn high percentage of people on the road that can't drive worth a damn even without distractions. I'd rather get those people off the road before outlawing cellphones.
2. The cell phone users are the easiest to see in comparison to most other distractions. It's really easy to see them holding a phone up to their ear for minutes at a time.
Why can't it drag the files down with SMB and/or NFS?
If that's what you want, then get an Audiotron. Works great getting an IP from my linux box and reads my mp3s via samba, and just plugged right into my existing network. I've got 2, use them both everyday, and think they were worth every penny.
I don't give a crap if the article says that Linus is the second coming, I was responding to Linuxhead bemoaning the constant BSODs, which are not a part of any modern Windows.
Really?
Then perhaps you can explain what the Blue Screen I get every[*] time I shutdown my w2k box is then? Hmm?
And yes, it sometimes gives a BSOD at random times as well.. though I admit it's far less often then it ever was with 9x/NT installs, but still far, _far_ more often then linux kernel panic's for me (I think I've had exactly 2 kernel panics in 5 years).
And before you start down the "it's your hardware" road.. the exact same hardware is rock solid under linux (including the DVD card) as well as BeOS (doesn't support all the hardware though), and every driver is "certified" for windows.
* Ok, so it's more like 19 times out of 20.
i can't see any major fatal flaws, as those would normally be caught in the software debugging phase.
Your post just described the design methodology used for most (if not all) IC design houses. Nothing new or interesting there.
If you have a pool in a fenced-in backyard, and some kid climbs over your fence and drowns, you can bet your ass you're responsible. It's called an "attractive nuisance."
I believe you are wrong. I just bought a house 5 months ago.. with a pool, I was told by the property inspector that my duties are to have doors/gates that are both self closing, and self latching.
Now, are society is f'd up enough that if a kid did climb my fence (and the whole neighborhood would likely see it) and drowned... his parents would probably sue me. But I can't be brought up on criminal charges since I have the required gates. The civil law, OTOH, might still be fubar'd enough to screw me in the end for another's criminal intent!
A very cutesy pipe dream to be sure, but it shows that the author completely misses the point.
Agreed. I also think that if everyone developing for Linux right now were doing as he says in this article, there'd just be different argument. Instead of "they should be focusing on the server market" it'd be, "They're wasting their time. Without any competition for the desktop, MS' dominance will create a requirement for MS servers.. and the linux/unix servers will disappear."
Places like San Francisco have *good* PT, places like Los Angeles or San Diego...
As one who was born, raised, and still lives in San Diego... let me just say he's right on the money. Even during my admittedly short lifetime, it's improved a lot with the trolley and all. But unless you're in very specific areas going to very other specific areas, you better either have a few hours to make the trip each way... or have access to a car.
Don't get me wrong, the trolley is nice. I used it when I had jury duty. No parking woes, nice ride to/from the courthouse. But when it comes to getting just about everywhere else in town, it's pretty useless.
The bus system here just plain sucks. I've put my home and work into the web page: http://www.sdcommute.com/service/otis_start.htm (which I admit is a pretty damn cool tool) and it'll take about an hour, plus I have to walk 1-1/2 miles, to do what I can drive in 30 minutes on a bad day!
You think we roll out MS Office 2K without investing a couple man-years of effort, testing installations on supported platforms, building SMS packages, preparing training programs, advertising, providing conversion from Office '95 files, etc.? No difference between MS and GNU there.
Ah, but if you developed your infrastructure right, there can be a huge difference. We use replicated RO AFS to distribute most programs. When a new version is installed, tested, and ready to go, we put it into AFS, change the current symlinks, release the volume, and voila! Everyone's running the new version on the next execution. This can even be true across OSes (Solaris, HP, Linux, et). With windows, you could put the files into AFS, but would still require something to touch the registry of every PC that wants to run the new version to make sure it's "installed" properly... no such issues on the unix systems.
SMS is another huge ugly beast in and of itself that seems to cause those that deal with it more headaches then the apps themselves at times.
The normal product development process in every technological industry except software includes a search of patents to see if anyone else has already had your idea.
Yeah, but look at the Pause tech site.. from what I can see there, they haven't done a damn thing, other then patent something that I'll bet at least a 1/2 dozen other companies were thinking of at the same time. It looks like they didn't intend to do anything with the patent, other then grab it first, and use it to sue companies that actually made something with the idea work... After letting those companies take the actual risk to market something, and then make money off of it.
I have no problem with basic patents when a company is actually intending to use it, and/or it's actually original. But it didn't take a genius to figure out the whole concept of PVRs for TVs, and being able to pause live TV.
These guys just look like a bunch of leeches who are using loopholes in patent law to suck money away from companies that are actually making products.
Well if you kick a dog everytime he comes near you, eventually he'll stay away, everyime you come near him he will run.
:(
I can argue against that: my sister's family had a dog that was so stupid it would never learn.. just kept on coming back for more. Didn't help that it was about 100 lbs of pure muscle either.
I think that, just like that dog, there are companies/people/gov'ts stupid enough to just keep taking it in the shorts over and over from MS because they buy into the MS PR that there's just nothing out there better.. or even close.
Personally I think all windows products suck. I've got an athlon based box at home right now that I can't even install 2k on without it blue screening about 80% of the way through the process... and if I use a 98 or ME boot disk to try to install them, fdisk hangs hard. Linux is running like a champ on the box! I just want to load a windows up to play some of the games that I have which aren't available under linux.
Actually, most applications of today are, if you are lucky, optimized for the Pentium Pro.
The same thing happens on Suns. People complain that they didn't see a big jump in speed from UltraSPARC-II based machines to US-III based... when the vast majority of programs are still compiled for simply SPARC32 i.e. not even Ultra 1 optimizations!
Vendors take forever to optimize their products on the newer architectures.
To stay a little more on topic:
I did some tests encoding the same wavs to mp3s on a P2, P4 and Athlon system, and the 1.4GHz Athlon was a good deal faster (about 16%).. the Athlon had DDR RAM and the P4 has RDRAM (and 1Gig vs the AThlon's 512 Meg). What's even sadder is the Athlon was reading the wav file via NFS and the P4 was using local disk... Ultra-160 SCSI disk (IDE on the Athlon). Of course, CPU is more important then I/O in such a situation.
ultrasparc III is a dud. it's performance is lacking, to say the least.
You're probably running standard programs that are compiled for SPARC32 on there... i.e. no US3 optimizations, let along even Ultra 1. The sad thing is, most stuff out there for Solaris is like this. I think the only program I use regularly that's Ultra compiled is Real Player.
Personally, I think the thing that has killed Sun over the last year or two is the fact that they focused so hard on the US3 that they didn't bother to work on putting out faster US2 chips. While the US3 chips are fast, and are an improvement, Sun has appeared stagnant until now because after the 450MHz US2s came out, they didn't continue to make faster ones. Whereas Intel and AMD have been cranking out faster and faster chips. We all know that raw MHz doesn't really mean jack when comparing completely different architechtures, but too many people do.
We've found that most of the vendors we work wit have already moved over to x86 with Linux now and are beginning to leave their Sun ports on the back burner.
i just wonder if this show can possibly pull any ratings after being debuted, canceled, resurrected, disappearing, re-appearing, and then repeating the same cycle over again.
:)
Yeah, it definately bites how it got moved around.. but that's one arena where Tivo shines! I didn't miss a single episode, and still have a couple saved on mine that I reply now and then.
When you buy decent Suns (U2s, U60s, or better) you get exteremely good quality systems.
We have 500+ in my department alone, and the failure rates are miniscule compared to PCs. They also don't become obsolete as fast.
One advantage if you're using Linux too is that the hardware is much more static. i.e. you can make an image for Ultra 60 machines that's going to work with every U60 you buy. If you buy a PC from a vendor, you'll often get different parts inside, even though they consider it the same model machine.
So AT&T owned almost all of the long distance.
Maybe you weren't around or don't remember, but AT&T was the phone company. There were no local services and separate long distance.
You definately don't want to go back to that.. unless you like:
- Paying extra for each phone (and they knew if you had more then you were paying for).
- Phones were huge and clunky.. why improve them? they worked fine already.
- You also didn't own your phones, you had to lease them.
- There was no incentive for service improvements unless it made them more money due to no competition...
...etc.
They did use a lot of the money in bell labs to make some great breakthroughs though.
I never said we don't pay for cable. The post I responded to (and the part I quoted) said that the original advantage of cable was the "no commercials" angle. As far as I can remember, TBS, MTV, etc.. _always_ had commercials. As did any "local" stations (including stations that were local to another city, but offered to you via cable).
Hmm.. I don't remember for sure if MTV always had commercials or not, but I do remember the day it went online.. my sister couldn't wait. I think I was only 10 or 11 at the time though. Anyone remember what year that was?
pumping their signals into your living room.
I just want to stop them from putting their stupid little channel logos in the bottom corner of the screen all the time.. it burns into projection TVs after awhile. I know my parent's TV is like that. I'm planning to buy a widescreen set soon, and if it get's burned in like that, I'm going to be pissed.
As if I didn't know which channel I'd just changed too...
When cable came along, one of the advantages was "no commercials", since the service was funded by the bill you pay each month.
What? Which universe are you living in? The only cable channels that never had commercials were individual pay channels, like HBO, Showtime, etc... which still don't (except for commercials for upcoming shows). Local channels on cable always had commercials. I don't remember for sure, but maybe Discover and others like that didn't have commercials at first either.. but I think they did.
The advantages of cable were always:
More channels (from different cities too), and Better reception.