First, I love my Tivo. It's great for recording the boob tube.
However...
A friend of mine, after hearing a bunch of us talk about nice the Tivo was, bought one of the new "Series 2" machines. He wasn't sure he was going to keep it, so he didn't subscribe. After the "trial period" ran out, he can no longer record manually (time and channel, without the guide).
It appears from variouscomments around the 'net that the "Series 2" machines cannot be used as manual recorders. Now, using a Tivo as a manual PVR kinda defeats the purpose of the thing (IMHO), but the older units can be used manually (i.e., without a subscription) and people may think this is still possible with the newer units.
Yes, I understand that their business model is to get the money from the subscriptions. I'm just pointing out something I had not heard about (that manual recording without a subscription is no longer possible). I was a bit surprised to learn this, in fact.
Please grab a clue, high performance 3d graphics aren't done in assember. Its done in C with OpenGL calls. The OGL calls are quite high level, nothing as simple as 'put a point at x,y on the screen'. Why do I know? Because I know OpenGL perhaps?
Perhaps you should look at this before you comment further?
"Writing code for existing Pixel and Vertex Shaders is akin to writing assembly code. Eventually it'll work but it's a laborious, low-level exercise with almost no comprehensibility if someone else works on the code."
Maybe you "know" OpenGL, but have you ever written a pixel or vertex shader?
then how come I'm always seeing C and C++ bindings for OpenGL and engines, and books about writing games in C or C++? I've never seen "writing spifftactic 3d games in x86 assembler".
Because it's about programming the GPU not the CPU... Pixel shaders, vertex shaders, etc. Until now this was always done in assembler.
The reason you have this attitude towards tape is that analog tape suffers degradation over time (tape becomes worn, quality degrades over generational copying, etc.).
The reason I have that attitude towards tape is that is is not random access.
The video on my Tivo (at the medium setting, which is what I use for most things) isn't all that much better than VHS, and it's probably not as good as SVHS, but I would never go back to them. Having the data available in a format with random access allows me to just jump to a favourite scene or the special features.
I can't seeing ever using a sequential access device for content viewing/listening ever again.
A long time ago a friend of mine was running an ISP. This was back in the days when ISPs usually had a user shell machine for people to log into. He ended up with a "non-authorised user" infestation. He had me run Crack against the user machine password file. I was shocked at how fast the first few passwords popped up... literally before my finger had left the "return" key. Of course, these were the ones where the password matched the username.:-( After about a week of running, fully one-third of the user passwords had been cracked. By that time Crack was getting into the "weirder" rules, and I stopped it.
I gave the list of usernames to the support folks so that they could force the users to change their passwords. I don't think I'll ever forget the shock of seeing those passwords pop up the instant I hit "return"!
Software should never crash, no matter what input you put into it. That's taught in every first year programming class I've ever seen, and it goes double for software that controls peripherals.
Also, please note-- Automobiles should never crash, no matter what happens on the road. That's taught in every first year driver's education course I've ever seen, and it goes double if you are driving an expensive car.
A better analogy would be:
Automobiles shouldn't break (i.e., parts fail) no matter what control inputs are given.
When asked why personal video recorders are bad for the industry, Keller says 'Because of the ad skips.... It's theft...
Every time this comes up I ask the same question.
How is this different than a VCR?
My 1990 vintage VCR allows me to fast-forward through stuff I didn't want to see, my 1998 VCR does as well. I do not see a difference in functionality between what my VCR does and what my Tivo does. They both allow me to fast-forward through things and "jump back" to compensate for reaction time.
I does seem from the article that his main bitch is with the ReplayTV-like "skip 15 seconds" function. But haven't VCRs had that too? Perhaps they see a logical evolution of the devices (to be able to automatically delete commercials? I thought some VCRs did that too!) and they want to stop it before it becomes well established.
I'm not even going to get into his "contract" comment. I certainly didn't sign anything that said I had to watch Turner or any specific part of its content!
Message rules are very easy to set up and manage. No agents.
Yeah, but you don't get any visual indication that there is new mail in your folders. You get told that there's new mail somewhere, but you have to go through your folders individually to find it. I have over 60 folders... do you think I'm going to use the message rules to automatically file them when I might note notice that they were there?
If there's a way to provide visual indication of where the message got filed, I'm listening.
One of the things I would be really interested in if I choose to become a member is something like the google zeitgeist.
What *I* would like to see is a box which summarizes the links in the highly mod'ed comments, excluding sigs. I have found many a great site that way. They should be archived with the articles, too.
A few years ago NPR (I don't actually think it was on 1-April though) did an interview with Spinal Tap. They played it completely straight. The interview was funny, but what was really funny was the comments from the listeners the following week! I d*mn near cried, I was laughing so hard. And they still didn't let on that it was a joke.
You only need 16MB to handle the highest resolution computer graphics displays ever made.
This is true for 2D displays, but when you start having double and triple buffering plus z-buffers it starts to add up. Then add the texture requirement and you can see why most newer cards have 64-128MB of memory on the cards.
Licenses are available to members of DECUS, Encompass, or other affiliated Compaq User Group. Both Encompass Associate and Members are eligible. There should be a participating Chapter near you.
The VMS Hobbyist license program has been around for quite a while (several years at least). You can't use it to develop anything for sale, but most people just want to explore and port open source software anyway. The license says:
Use of the Licensed Computer is ONLY FOR NON-COMMERCIAL USES (e.g., home use). As such, you may not use the Licensed Computer for any business purposes whatsoever, e.g., to develop applications for resale, to do business accounting, etc.
Animals with an exoskeleton are limited in size because as the exoskeleton becomes larger to accommodate the heavier animal, there is less space for the internal organs.
I also thought that modern crustaceans were near that limit. If so, isn't this bigger than that?
Fax Spam is illegal, I can't remember the law, but it is a crime(wire fraud perhaps?).
Indeed it is. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 covers it. But my understanding is that the person sending the spam is not the liable party, the advertiser is. Thus the spammers can sell to folks who do not understand that they can be liable for $500-1500 per infraction. When they do realise, the spammers have moved on. Rinse and repeat. Sad.
When I read that a good percentage of the EQers in the survey said they play with a romantic partner, I wondered aloud how many of those EQers are playing with a romantic partner they met through the game and never in real life.
My wife and I play EQ together. Our play time is quite limited since real life is alway getting in the way.:-) And no, we didn't meet in-game.
Their problem is that the primary source of revenue is being threatened. It's not just a matter of making a little less money. It's more like making a whole lot less money if PVRs become as popular as VCRs.
I just don't see this. I own a Tivo. I have owned several VCRs. I use the Tivo pretty much the same way I used the VCRs, to record programs I like. The Tivo is just better at doing it. I fast forward through the commercials I don't like and watch the ones I do, just like I did with the VCR.
Until fairly recently (3 years ago) at a VAX shop I worked at, they used VMS software that emulated an IBM RJE (look it up) station for transmission of financial transactions to a bank. Each record in the file that was sent appeared to the IBM mainframe to be a punch card.
D*mn. We got rid of our VMS RJE (Remote Job Entry, for those who don't want to look it up) card-image submission queue several years ago. We started FTPing the card-images instead.:-) Much more advanced! Of course, this was very much a case of "if it's not broke, don't fix it". The application ran without problems for about 10 years.
Recently, the applications in question have been replaced with directly loaded Oracle DBs.
Milalwi
(Who has several boxes of punch cards in his basement from his college days. And who wonders if anyone remembers the 96 column punch cards!)
I have a Palm Vx and a Pocket PC device (Jornada 720) and disregarding bulk (the Pocket PC devices are huge), I'd choose the Palm any day because it's the best tool for storing contacts, notes, TODO lists, my calendar and the like. It just works, and it works well.
Indeed. IMHO, this is because Microsoft appears to be trying to give you a desktop "in your pocket" and Palm is providing you with an extension to you computer's desktop. This is a subtle but important difference.
Incidentally, this is why Palm sales are so slow - the Palm you bought 2 years ago still works perfectly and quickly, so there's no reason to upgrade.
Yep, my Palm III (purchased in 1998?) works just fine, although I have been considering an upgrade. Color and a higher resolution screen (320x320) like the Sony would be nice. I don't really want to buy the Sony because:
1. I'm not sure how long they'll still in the PDA business.
2. I don't like memory sticks!
3. The form factor is different than the m500-m505, Palm V, etc. And I wonder about cases and other accessories.
...and even the credits: think about the famous screen crawl at the start of the film.
I'm no Lucas lover, but the opening credit crawl is brilliant! And Lucas had to fight the directors guild to get it in there:
The Director's Guild of America (DGA) didn't like the fact that there were no specific credits at the beginning of the film. They "ordered" Lucas to re-cut the film and put some credits at the beginning. Lucas refused, claiming that this would destroy the opening of the film. The DGA fined Lucas, who paid up, and promptly quit the DGA.
NV17/GeForce4 MX is not the renaming of any existing product. (It is not just the mobile part either)
NV17 is a new part and will be a very impressive complement to any other GPUs that are released in the near future.
As for its performance just barely beating a GeForce3 Ti 500 (using Apple's or whomever's numbers) well... Wouldn't you like something in the price range of the current MX graphics cards that beat the most expensive GF3 Ti 500???
A heck of a lot more people buy $199 graphics cards than buy $399 ones.
It seems that the GF4MX should be about as fast as a GF3-Ti500, and that's pretty fast.
In spite of this tragedy, we still managed to put a man on the moon with little more than vaccum tubes and slide rules !
Not only that... they did it in less that 18 months, following a major re-design of the interior of the CM! Hell, they had the re-designed CM (w/SM and LM) orbiting the moon less that a year later! (Apollo 8)
Amazing stuff, that.
Milalwi
Why post links to already slow sites?
on
Woz's New Startup
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Supposedly Woz.com will have data eventually, but currently is just really slow and redirecting to Woz's personal page.
Slashdot Mirror
First, I love my Tivo. It's great for recording the boob tube.
However...
A friend of mine, after hearing a bunch of us talk about nice the Tivo was, bought one of the new "Series 2" machines. He wasn't sure he was going to keep it, so he didn't subscribe. After the "trial period" ran out, he can no longer record manually (time and channel, without the guide).
It appears from various comments around the 'net that the "Series 2" machines cannot be used as manual recorders. Now, using a Tivo as a manual PVR kinda defeats the purpose of the thing (IMHO), but the older units can be used manually (i.e., without a subscription) and people may think this is still possible with the newer units.
Yes, I understand that their business model is to get the money from the subscriptions. I'm just pointing out something I had not heard about (that manual recording without a subscription is no longer possible). I was a bit surprised to learn this, in fact.
Milalwi
Perhaps you should look at this before you comment further?
"Writing code for existing Pixel and Vertex Shaders is akin to writing assembly code. Eventually it'll work but it's a laborious, low-level exercise with almost no comprehensibility if someone else works on the code."
Maybe you "know" OpenGL, but have you ever written a pixel or vertex shader?
Milalwi
Because it's about programming the GPU not the CPU... Pixel shaders, vertex shaders, etc. Until now this was always done in assembler.
Milalwi
The reason I have that attitude towards tape is that is is not random access.
The video on my Tivo (at the medium setting, which is what I use for most things) isn't all that much better than VHS, and it's probably not as good as SVHS, but I would never go back to them. Having the data available in a format with random access allows me to just jump to a favourite scene or the special features.
I can't seeing ever using a sequential access device for content viewing/listening ever again.
Milalwi
With apologies to Monty Python...
"Well, I didn't expect the Slashdot effect!"
"Nobody expects the Slashdot effect!"
Milalwi
A long time ago a friend of mine was running an ISP. This was back in the days when ISPs usually had a user shell machine for people to log into. He ended up with a "non-authorised user" infestation. He had me run Crack against the user machine password file. I was shocked at how fast the first few passwords popped up... literally before my finger had left the "return" key. Of course, these were the ones where the password matched the username. :-( After about a week of running, fully one-third of the user passwords had been cracked. By that time Crack was getting into the "weirder" rules, and I stopped it.
I gave the list of usernames to the support folks so that they could force the users to change their passwords. I don't think I'll ever forget the shock of seeing those passwords pop up the instant I hit "return"!
Milalwi
A better analogy would be:
Automobiles shouldn't break (i.e., parts fail) no matter what control inputs are given.
And automobiles pretty much meet this criterion.
Milalwi
Every time this comes up I ask the same question.
How is this different than a VCR?
My 1990 vintage VCR allows me to fast-forward through stuff I didn't want to see, my 1998 VCR does as well. I do not see a difference in functionality between what my VCR does and what my Tivo does. They both allow me to fast-forward through things and "jump back" to compensate for reaction time.
I does seem from the article that his main bitch is with the ReplayTV-like "skip 15 seconds" function. But haven't VCRs had that too? Perhaps they see a logical evolution of the devices (to be able to automatically delete commercials? I thought some VCRs did that too!) and they want to stop it before it becomes well established.
I'm not even going to get into his "contract" comment. I certainly didn't sign anything that said I had to watch Turner or any specific part of its content!
Milalwi
Yeah, but you don't get any visual indication that there is new mail in your folders. You get told that there's new mail somewhere, but you have to go through your folders individually to find it. I have over 60 folders... do you think I'm going to use the message rules to automatically file them when I might note notice that they were there?
If there's a way to provide visual indication of where the message got filed, I'm listening.
Milalwi
What *I* would like to see is a box which summarizes the links in the highly mod'ed comments, excluding sigs. I have found many a great site that way. They should be archived with the articles, too.
Milalwi
A few years ago NPR (I don't actually think it was on 1-April though) did an interview with Spinal Tap. They played it completely straight. The interview was funny, but what was really funny was the comments from the listeners the following week! I d*mn near cried, I was laughing so hard. And they still didn't let on that it was a joke.
Milalwi
This is true for 2D displays, but when you start having double and triple buffering plus z-buffers it starts to add up. Then add the texture requirement and you can see why most newer cards have 64-128MB of memory on the cards.
Milalwi
You mean likethis?
As the page says:
The VMS Hobbyist license program has been around for quite a while (several years at least). You can't use it to develop anything for sale, but most people just want to explore and port open source software anyway. The license says:
Milalwi
I thought there was a practical upper limit to the size of creatures with exoskeletons? Something about the weight becoming too great.
...searching Google... Here it is:
I also thought that modern crustaceans were near that limit. If so, isn't this bigger than that?
Milalwi
First, congrats!
:-)
But if you were going to ask her on-line, shouldn't you have made sure your site, at least, would be able to handle the inevitable slashdot effect?
Milalwi
Indeed it is. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 covers it. But my understanding is that the person sending the spam is not the liable party, the advertiser is. Thus the spammers can sell to folks who do not understand that they can be liable for $500-1500 per infraction. When they do realise, the spammers have moved on. Rinse and repeat. Sad.
Milalwi
My wife and I play EQ together. Our play time is quite limited since real life is alway getting in the way.
Milalwi
And by the year 2000, we're going to have flying cars! They told me so!
Hey... wait a minute...
Milalwi
I just don't see this. I own a Tivo. I have owned several VCRs. I use the Tivo pretty much the same way I used the VCRs, to record programs I like. The Tivo is just better at doing it. I fast forward through the commercials I don't like and watch the ones I do, just like I did with the VCR.
What's different?
Milalwi
D*mn. We got rid of our VMS RJE (Remote Job Entry, for those who don't want to look it up) card-image submission queue several years ago. We started FTPing the card-images instead.
Recently, the applications in question have been replaced with directly loaded Oracle DBs.
Milalwi
(Who has several boxes of punch cards in his basement from his college days. And who wonders if anyone remembers the 96 column punch cards!)
Indeed. IMHO, this is because Microsoft appears to be trying to give you a desktop "in your pocket" and Palm is providing you with an extension to you computer's desktop. This is a subtle but important difference.
Yep, my Palm III (purchased in 1998?) works just fine, although I have been considering an upgrade. Color and a higher resolution screen (320x320) like the Sony would be nice. I don't really want to buy the Sony because:
1. I'm not sure how long they'll still in the PDA business.
2. I don't like memory sticks!
3. The form factor is different than the m500-m505, Palm V, etc. And I wonder about cases and other accessories.
Milalwi
I'm no Lucas lover, but the opening credit crawl is brilliant! And Lucas had to fight the directors guild to get it in there:
Milalwi
To quote someone else...
It seems that the GF4MX should be about as fast as a GF3-Ti500, and that's pretty fast.
Milalwi
Not only that... they did it in less that 18 months, following a major re-design of the interior of the CM! Hell, they had the re-designed CM (w/SM and LM) orbiting the moon less that a year later! (Apollo 8)
Amazing stuff, that.
Milalwi
I'm sure slashdotting it will speed it up.
Milalwi