I've watched BBC News extensively, and their coverage of the US is quite poor... Just like news in every other country, they spend the vast majority of their time on local UK issues that are pointless trivialities to the rest of the world.
The rest of their news is given time based on how geographically close it is to the UK... ie. Lots of news about minor events in France, Germany, etc.
BBC News about the US mostly consists of letting you know the names of a few of the major presidential candidates are, and which party they are associated with. I often recall that the US News outlet's coverage of the recent election in France was far more in-depth than the BBC's coverage of the US presidential election... Never mind US news and politics that isn't relevant on a global scale, you'll never hear about it on BBC, except perhaps the shortest of mentions, after the fact.
IMHO, the disenfranchisement with US news is just because people are confused. They see their local news broadcasts on TV, filled with police chases, traffic reports, celebrity gossip, and the most superficial coverage of real news, and just assume that's all there is.
In fact the world news programs from CBS/NBC/ABC are far and away better than anything from BBC News. You do, however, have to tune-in at 4:30am to get their highest quality program. The nightly news shows at 5:30pm are also respectable. And ABC additionally has 2 hours starting at 2:00am Mon-Fri. Watch any of those for a couple weeks, and then try to say that BBC News is somehow any better (for those of us not living in the UK that is).
People can tell that the HD is better, but it doesn't seem that much better.
According to who? I've never seen any scientific studies to support such a claim, so I presume you're just making things up as you go to support what you already believe.
there is no way a cheap TV is going to have 1080 lines of resolution, unless perhaps it is a newer CRT.
By definition, a small, cheap HDTV is going to be CRT-based. Nothing else comes close in price. And CRTs just happen to have the best resolution of anything.
As for "newer", well, HDTVs have been around for a decade now, which may be "new" on a cosmic scale, but it's a pretty long time by any reasonable metric. And before you say it, yes, even the earliest CRT HDTVs were quite close to full 1080 resolution... in fact that's the primary reason 1080i was chosen as the highest broadcast standard.
When I was 17/18, we were Generation X - now I'm 28, we're Generation Y?
No you were just born late enough in generation X that you have a little bit of overlap (2 years) with the start of the next generation.
If you aren't born in the first ~30 years of any particular generation, you are forced to deal with the realities of overlapping with the next generation, as those of your own generation become adults, and start producing the next.
The younger you are, the more dramatic the range of ages in a single generation seems to be... When you're in your 20s, it's hard to believe you are in the same generation as those who have just been born, but it happens to be true. As you age, the disparity seems smaller and smaller.
The frame is 4x times the size (in area), and the disc only has about 4-5 times the capacity. So if they haven't changed the encoding formats, I think we are still going to have a lot of the same quality problems we had before.
You're wrong on every count.
First, the frame is 6X the size.
Second, they HAVE changed encoding formats. They both use h.264/AVC and VC-1, in addition to MPEG-2. h.264/AVC at least, has SERIOUSLY strong deblocking built-in (in-loop filter) that actually performs BETTER than codecs that do not encode data in blocks at all (eg. wavelets as found in JPEG2000/Dirac/Snow, etc).
Third, even if they stuck with MPEG-2, you would still have far superior quality, because of the nature of compressed video codecs. Both lossy and lossless video compression codecs offers increasing returns as you increase either resolution or frame-rate.
Generally, 4X the resolution only requires 2X the bitrate for equivalent quality... See VCD vs SVCD, or just try compressing some videos at home. Video codecs have a certain amount of overhead, no matter the resolution. Higher resolutions introduce some inherent economies as well, as the changes between each pixel that has to be stored is now 4X smaller (so the motion vector correction that has to be stored for each pixel is that much smaller). Not to mention that with run-length encoding, 200 pixels of the same color takes no more data than 5 pixel of the same color.
And what's more, MPEG macroblocks are 16x16 pixels across, no matter what the resolution of your video is... So if you have 4X the resolution (with an insufficient bitrate) the blockiness and banding will only be 1/4th the size. Watch a VCD sometime (1/4th the resolution of DVD), and you will notice that blocks look GIGANTIC.
Finally, the artifacts on DVDs are generally not the fault of MPEG-2. The cheaper DVD players actually have highly inaccurate decoders... I've encoded several myself, only to see major errors in the decoder that causes what should be a nearly perfect picture to break apart. If you have a decent DVD player (or use a computer) it may be the fault of the terrible hardware MPEG-2 encoders used by the DVD's creators. Or, similarly, it can be the fault of the heavy denoising they do on the video before encoding... It's surprising just how often studios chose to squeeze a 2+ hour movie onto a single-layer disc.
Lastly, a HUGE number of consumers can't even tell the difference between DVD and HD quality!
Bullshit.
Are there a large number of computer users who can't tell the difference between 640x480 and 1600×1200? The difference is the same.
Just because people don't realize that they don't have highdef sources, doesn't mean they won't be blown away the instant they finally do get to see one.
DVDs were fighting with S-VHS, Hi8/Digital8, DIVX, LaserDiscs, ED-Betamax, perhaps VCD/SVCD, and no doubt others. Not to mention VHS.
With the highdef war, the field is as closed as it has ever been. Even D-Theatre basically committed suicide before BluRay and HD-DVD came out.
HiDef cannot be (in theory) copied to your MP3 player to watch the movie on the player... tick
Neither could DVD.
- HiDef disks (pressed or recordable) are expensive... tick
DVDs were expensive.
- Neither HiDef format has a "cool" name... tick
You think "DVD" or "VHS" sounds cooler than BluRay (and "HD-DVD")?
not have to get into the whole "this cable is not compatible with this type of HD content" crap,
Lots of people had TVs with nothing but RF connectors when DVD players came out (without them). There were crates of RF converters in every single store that sold DVD players.
not get into "you machine thinks you're really a hacker and your new hardware has decided to offer you shitty vision"
Macrovision crapifying the quality prevented VCR pass-through with DVDs. Some TVs supposedly had problems as well.
not have to worry about full HD pixel ratios
DVD buyers had to deal with fullscreen / widescreen.
or interlaced / progressive video,
That makes such a trivial difference, an average person isn't going to see it, or care even if it was explained.
and not have producers enforce region coding (cartel protection).
DVDs have region coding as well. There are region-free players for DVD (despite ARCOS issues), just as there are for highdef.
1.) 16:9 widescreen displays are still not pervasive
1) Didn't stop DVDs
2.) Cost.
2) Didn't stop DVDs
4.) HD-DVD has combo discs [...] this allows the consumer to continue to add to their library of movies, while defraying the cost of hardware upgrade into the future.
Weren't you just complaining about how expensive HD-DVD discs are. So now you want people to buy DVDs that are 7X more expensive, so one day they might get better quality (or not at all, if Blu-ray takes off instead)?
Until this shit gets sorted out, the people who currently have large libraries (i'm thinking 200+ DVD's) are not going to offload their old movies and upgrade their films to HD-DVD/Blu-Ray.
This isn't VHS to DVD. There's absolutely, positively no reason to throw away your current collection of movies.
If you want to get a new movie in HighDef, you buy a player, and the movie you want... When you want to watch a movie you already have, you put the disc in, and hit "Play" and it miraculously "Just Works" (tm).
Now, his movies have been made in the 60s and maybe 70s. Sound? Mono. MAYBE stereo. 5.1? C'mon, be sensible.
It's almost certain the studio has the multi-track master stored away somewhere. Remember, the wonderful sounds in films don't come from a microphone on the set... they all come from some guy in a sound studio banging pots and pans together. They can mix that together any way they want.
It's in stereo just because they didn't think there'd be a big enough audience for the old films to justify the effort of remixing the sound.
Film quality? At DVD level you already saw the flaws, why bother with HD?
Film is far higher resolution than even the highest HDTV format. You got a crappy picture because the studio didn't want to spend any money on cleaning up one of the master reels, and paying big money to telecine it on the expensive equipment.
I've seen plenty of pre-digital, non-blockbuster films where I'd swear they used a 1980s TV camera and a $100 capture card to convert from film to DVD. They may have just decided to digitize their master VHS transfer or something similar. The resolution of film isn't to blame, and an HDTV transfer would easily blow away your DVDs... if they'll spend the money.
Whether HDDVD or BluRay is moot for him, he's happy with his DVD.
Most people are happy with what they have, rather than desperately longing to spend thousands of dollars on something they've never seen before.
When someone is a fan of 60s movie, or of a movie star from the pre-80s era, he simply does not benefit from HD.
If you watch nothing but old TV shows, that is true. Film, however, will still have lots of resolution to spare after 1080 HD.
The great thing about the internet is that people *can* find you. I've been contacted by long lost friends and family that I never thought I'd speak to again, and I've got a big network of people that I talk to online now (and in real life) that I'd never have found offline.
That's all fine and good. But you can use your real name on your personal and professional web sites, where it will be indexed and searchable, but only turning up what you want people to know about you. You can still use an alias elsewhere.
Do you think a long lost friend or family member will be unable to put your name in google, but will instead only find you when you type a rant about the government on/. (or some other forum)? Not likely...
I shield what I can, but it is impossible for me to completely hide myself.
Why? Many, many people have and do use "stage names" for their entertainment work, rather than their real names. What's your special reason for being unable to do so?
When a potential employer searches for "Chris Tucker" they won't find the tons of offensive material performed by "Chris Rock". Neither will Chris Tucker have fans showing up at his workplace. Yet, either name can be used as needed, depending on the subject, and both kept entirely separate.
In the wild it is dangerous to be unconscious for hours at a time. If it wasn't absolutely necessary, then nature would have found a way to avoid it.
Being unconscious may well have been slightly less of a disadvantage than the gains animals get from it. Growing to 3 meters tall would have been an amazing advantage as well, and it's not inherently necessary for humans to be 1/3rd shorter, as we are.
Sleep may well just be a method to conserve energy (see: hibernation) during the useless hours of the day, when an animal isn't going to be able to find food anyhow. If you need to rest for 1/3rd of the day to recover from physical exertion, maybe being unconscious isn't that much more of a leap. Perhaps varying levels of unconsciousness, and the ability to wake up at a moment's notice upon hearing a threatening sound, mitigated the dangers in the wild (see: cat naps).
In every airplane I've seen, they have electrical plugs in the bathroom for things like electric razors. Of course the bathroom sinks also offer a practically unlimited supply of water.
1. Design an airtight container, something like a large balloon. 2. Install electrodes in container, connecting to a plug. 3. Board airplane with container. 4. At altitude, go to bathroom with container. 5. Fill container with water, seal shut, and plug-in. 6. Wait. 7. Ignite hydrogen bomb.
Since we'll never eliminate electricity on an airplane (eg. cabin lights), we must not allow water on-board commercial flights. No bathrooms, no drinks of any kind, etc. In fact, since humans are 70% water, we really can't let them on commercial flights, either. They even leak on a regular basis.
To put it in more common terms: respect others and trade with them. Don't invade and steal resources.
Right, we should cooperate with countries like Saudi Arabia... Oops, nope, that's exactly what got Bin Laden and most of the 9/11 hijackers angry at the US in the first place.
What other countries that aggressively suppress their people, should we "respect" and "trade with" in your imaginary world?
I saw an ad for one recently that was very proud of its "10-bit engine" capable of 1080 lines! Wow! Correct me if I'm wrong (like I have to ask) but that's basically the same picture you'll get on your 1024 x 768 monitor,
You're wrong. You seem to be confusing lines and columns.
1080 lines would be (Something) x 1080. In the case of HDTV, 1920 x 1080, which is better than the majority of monitors.
Besides, monitors and TVs aren't a particularly good comparison. You aren't going to be reading tiny, fine text on a screen that can only be seen less than 2 feet away, so the resolution isn't as important. Normal (non-HD) TVs are 704x480@60Hz, which isn't much higher than the standard (terribly low) 640x480 PC resolution we all know and hate, yet as long as you don't try to watch them from a few inches away, and don't try to read tiny text on them, they work just fine.
explain the reason why, when a $1000 PC is faster than a $1,000,000 mainframe, that businesses still buy the mainframe.
No, it doesn't. The $1,000 vs $1,000,000 is the price for the HARDWARE, not the software. Just because it's PC compatible, doesn't mean you have to run Windows on it.
Radio was NOT invented by him. Tesla did it, but was more interested in transmitting power than information. A number of others had working radio inventions too, but no one saw the commercial prospects clearly.
Tesla had a wireless, remote controlled boat that he tried to sell it to the US Military as a weapon (ie. guided bomb), long before anyone else had accomplished anything with radio.
So, he wasn't JUST interested in wireless power, he just didn't push hard enough, and expected his patents would make sure he got a percentage of whatever others came up with. That didn't work out so well...
Why does a file need to be REdirected across the network? Why isn't it just directed, the way it would be directed to a disk volume or a floppy or what have you?
Because a network is a slow, high-lag, unreliable medium. Local disks don't just disappear at any second, unlike servers. And with floppies, well, any version of Windows that was DOS based would lock-up HARD upon a floppy being unexpectedly removed. I don't think you want that to happen every time a networked machine goes offline, or is just temporarily unreachable. Perhaps Windows should have "REdirect" access to floppies.
So, let's replace the most fuel efficient motor vehicle the NYPD has in the fleet because it's "less than green" and let's keep those cars, trucks, vans, helicopters, and who-knows-what else. You know, for the children.
You have a plan for an electric helicopter we should know about?
A patent on a very inexpensive yet high capacity battery that will out-range and out-perform gasoline in cars, trucks, and vans?
So, you would prefer they do nothing to help, since they can't do EVERYTHING just yet? Always attack the highest hanging fruit first?
They only get 45 mpg in the city,
That sounds good compared to mid-size cars, but it's really not impressive at all for a motorcycle. What's more, motorcycles are all-too commonly two-stroke engines, which pollute far worse than the 4-stroke engines (with emission controls) in cars, trucks, and vans.
What happened to the good old days, before Spike became Spike, when they'd just take a tiny strip of the screen at the bottom and tell you what was going to be on next?
I hope you aren't blaming Spike for pop-ups. They originated with AOL-Time Warner (pop-ups are one of the wonderful things that merger brought consumers), and got their first use on the USA and TNT networks.
And no, I don't like the smaller pop-ups telling me what's going to be on next. I can find out extremely easily on my own, and if they really cared, they could put it with the OTHER 4 commercials during EVERY SINGLE BREAK telling me what other shows and movies that I can't stand are shown on that network. The large, commonly animated, station logos need to go away, too.
Do people really watch more Sex and the City just because they plaster Sarah Jessica Parker's old and tired face on top of whatever it is you're actually trying to watch?
Not likely. But I am sure there are plenty of people who won't watch ANYTHING on that network anymore, because they can't follow the shows that they DO want to watch, in-between the ads.
I predict, with the switch to HDTV (and the opportunities for several sub-channels), that basic cable is going to die off. They no longer get a substantial portion of their revenue from cable subscriptions, and I'm sure everyone would be much happier if they could get their ~20 favorite channels OTA without paying $50+ per month.
Web ad videos are more "engaging," because video player controls are usually disabled for the ad before the actual content you want to see is delivered.
Only with Flash can they "disable" the "player controls". Avoid Flash, and you can fast-forward through any video if it's technically possible to seek, and sometimes, even if it's not (ie. cache)!
What about 2D barcodes? Just PRINT the damn info onto paper (the 2D barcode stuff has pretty good data density) and stick it in a cabinet or two.
The reason paper is a preferred storage method to digital formats is NOT because paper has some special properties that prevent any degradation from occurring over the centuries. The reason paper is reliable, is that the written word is so incredibly low density, that extensive decay of paper over centuries does not render it unreadable.
As soon as you use high-density data formats to write on paper, that advantage disappears entirely, and every single lost particle becomes unrecoverable data.
If you took high-density bar-codes to the extreme, using a reliable backing material like metal, and putting it in a circular form to make reading it easier, you'd have reinvented the CD.
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I've watched BBC News extensively, and their coverage of the US is quite poor... Just like news in every other country, they spend the vast majority of their time on local UK issues that are pointless trivialities to the rest of the world.
The rest of their news is given time based on how geographically close it is to the UK... ie. Lots of news about minor events in France, Germany, etc.
BBC News about the US mostly consists of letting you know the names of a few of the major presidential candidates are, and which party they are associated with. I often recall that the US News outlet's coverage of the recent election in France was far more in-depth than the BBC's coverage of the US presidential election... Never mind US news and politics that isn't relevant on a global scale, you'll never hear about it on BBC, except perhaps the shortest of mentions, after the fact.
IMHO, the disenfranchisement with US news is just because people are confused. They see their local news broadcasts on TV, filled with police chases, traffic reports, celebrity gossip, and the most superficial coverage of real news, and just assume that's all there is.
In fact the world news programs from CBS/NBC/ABC are far and away better than anything from BBC News. You do, however, have to tune-in at 4:30am to get their highest quality program. The nightly news shows at 5:30pm are also respectable. And ABC additionally has 2 hours starting at 2:00am Mon-Fri. Watch any of those for a couple weeks, and then try to say that BBC News is somehow any better (for those of us not living in the UK that is).
For any given size (and resolution) CRTs are about half the price of LCDs. This margin is gradually closing, but right now, it remains a big margin.
I look forward to seeing a source for that...
According to who? I've never seen any scientific studies to support such a claim, so I presume you're just making things up as you go to support what you already believe.
By definition, a small, cheap HDTV is going to be CRT-based. Nothing else comes close in price. And CRTs just happen to have the best resolution of anything.
As for "newer", well, HDTVs have been around for a decade now, which may be "new" on a cosmic scale, but it's a pretty long time by any reasonable metric. And before you say it, yes, even the earliest CRT HDTVs were quite close to full 1080 resolution... in fact that's the primary reason 1080i was chosen as the highest broadcast standard.
No you were just born late enough in generation X that you have a little bit of overlap (2 years) with the start of the next generation.
If you aren't born in the first ~30 years of any particular generation, you are forced to deal with the realities of overlapping with the next generation, as those of your own generation become adults, and start producing the next.
The younger you are, the more dramatic the range of ages in a single generation seems to be... When you're in your 20s, it's hard to believe you are in the same generation as those who have just been born, but it happens to be true. As you age, the disparity seems smaller and smaller.
The 6X increase from DVD to highdef isn't as dramatic as the 2-3X increase from VHS to DVD?
No. A small, cheap TV can do 1080 just fine. And basically any computer monitor made in the past 10 years will give you most of the resolution of HD.
You're wrong on every count.
First, the frame is 6X the size.
Second, they HAVE changed encoding formats. They both use h.264/AVC and VC-1, in addition to MPEG-2. h.264/AVC at least, has SERIOUSLY strong deblocking built-in (in-loop filter) that actually performs BETTER than codecs that do not encode data in blocks at all (eg. wavelets as found in JPEG2000/Dirac/Snow, etc).
Third, even if they stuck with MPEG-2, you would still have far superior quality, because of the nature of compressed video codecs. Both lossy and lossless video compression codecs offers increasing returns as you increase either resolution or frame-rate.
Generally, 4X the resolution only requires 2X the bitrate for equivalent quality... See VCD vs SVCD, or just try compressing some videos at home. Video codecs have a certain amount of overhead, no matter the resolution. Higher resolutions introduce some inherent economies as well, as the changes between each pixel that has to be stored is now 4X smaller (so the motion vector correction that has to be stored for each pixel is that much smaller). Not to mention that with run-length encoding, 200 pixels of the same color takes no more data than 5 pixel of the same color.
And what's more, MPEG macroblocks are 16x16 pixels across, no matter what the resolution of your video is... So if you have 4X the resolution (with an insufficient bitrate) the blockiness and banding will only be 1/4th the size. Watch a VCD sometime (1/4th the resolution of DVD), and you will notice that blocks look GIGANTIC.
Finally, the artifacts on DVDs are generally not the fault of MPEG-2. The cheaper DVD players actually have highly inaccurate decoders... I've encoded several myself, only to see major errors in the decoder that causes what should be a nearly perfect picture to break apart. If you have a decent DVD player (or use a computer) it may be the fault of the terrible hardware MPEG-2 encoders used by the DVD's creators. Or, similarly, it can be the fault of the heavy denoising they do on the video before encoding... It's surprising just how often studios chose to squeeze a 2+ hour movie onto a single-layer disc.
You are mistaken. Only the first generation BluRay discs used MPEG-2 compression. I don't believe a non-trivial number of HD-DVD discs ever did.
Bullshit.
Are there a large number of computer users who can't tell the difference between 640x480 and 1600×1200? The difference is the same.
Just because people don't realize that they don't have highdef sources, doesn't mean they won't be blown away the instant they finally do get to see one.
BluRay brings you better picture, MUCH better durability, and may (eventually) bring cheaper prices.
Variety? There's still plenty of movies on VHS I can't find on DVDs, so I don't know where you get that idea.
DVDs were expensive
DVDs were fighting with S-VHS, Hi8/Digital8, DIVX, LaserDiscs, ED-Betamax, perhaps VCD/SVCD, and no doubt others. Not to mention VHS.
With the highdef war, the field is as closed as it has ever been. Even D-Theatre basically committed suicide before BluRay and HD-DVD came out.
Neither could DVD.
DVDs were expensive.
You think "DVD" or "VHS" sounds cooler than BluRay (and "HD-DVD")?
Lots of people had TVs with nothing but RF connectors when DVD players came out (without them). There were crates of RF converters in every single store that sold DVD players.
Macrovision crapifying the quality prevented VCR pass-through with DVDs. Some TVs supposedly had problems as well.
DVD buyers had to deal with fullscreen / widescreen.
That makes such a trivial difference, an average person isn't going to see it, or care even if it was explained.
DVDs have region coding as well. There are region-free players for DVD (despite ARCOS issues), just as there are for highdef.
1) Didn't stop DVDs
2) Didn't stop DVDs
Weren't you just complaining about how expensive HD-DVD discs are. So now you want people to buy DVDs that are 7X more expensive, so one day they might get better quality (or not at all, if Blu-ray takes off instead)?
This isn't VHS to DVD. There's absolutely, positively no reason to throw away your current collection of movies.
If you want to get a new movie in HighDef, you buy a player, and the movie you want... When you want to watch a movie you already have, you put the disc in, and hit "Play" and it miraculously "Just Works" (tm).
It's almost certain the studio has the multi-track master stored away somewhere. Remember, the wonderful sounds in films don't come from a microphone on the set... they all come from some guy in a sound studio banging pots and pans together. They can mix that together any way they want.
It's in stereo just because they didn't think there'd be a big enough audience for the old films to justify the effort of remixing the sound.
Film is far higher resolution than even the highest HDTV format. You got a crappy picture because the studio didn't want to spend any money on cleaning up one of the master reels, and paying big money to telecine it on the expensive equipment.
I've seen plenty of pre-digital, non-blockbuster films where I'd swear they used a 1980s TV camera and a $100 capture card to convert from film to DVD. They may have just decided to digitize their master VHS transfer or something similar. The resolution of film isn't to blame, and an HDTV transfer would easily blow away your DVDs... if they'll spend the money.
Most people are happy with what they have, rather than desperately longing to spend thousands of dollars on something they've never seen before.
If you watch nothing but old TV shows, that is true. Film, however, will still have lots of resolution to spare after 1080 HD.
That's all fine and good. But you can use your real name on your personal and professional web sites, where it will be indexed and searchable, but only turning up what you want people to know about you. You can still use an alias elsewhere.
Do you think a long lost friend or family member will be unable to put your name in google, but will instead only find you when you type a rant about the government on
Why? Many, many people have and do use "stage names" for their entertainment work, rather than their real names. What's your special reason for being unable to do so?
When a potential employer searches for "Chris Tucker" they won't find the tons of offensive material performed by "Chris Rock". Neither will Chris Tucker have fans showing up at his workplace. Yet, either name can be used as needed, depending on the subject, and both kept entirely separate.
Being unconscious may well have been slightly less of a disadvantage than the gains animals get from it. Growing to 3 meters tall would have been an amazing advantage as well, and it's not inherently necessary for humans to be 1/3rd shorter, as we are.
Sleep may well just be a method to conserve energy (see: hibernation) during the useless hours of the day, when an animal isn't going to be able to find food anyhow. If you need to rest for 1/3rd of the day to recover from physical exertion, maybe being unconscious isn't that much more of a leap. Perhaps varying levels of unconsciousness, and the ability to wake up at a moment's notice upon hearing a threatening sound, mitigated the dangers in the wild (see: cat naps).
Actually, I had a better idea.
In every airplane I've seen, they have electrical plugs in the bathroom for things like electric razors. Of course the bathroom sinks also offer a practically unlimited supply of water.
1. Design an airtight container, something like a large balloon.
2. Install electrodes in container, connecting to a plug.
3. Board airplane with container.
4. At altitude, go to bathroom with container.
5. Fill container with water, seal shut, and plug-in.
6. Wait.
7. Ignite hydrogen bomb.
Since we'll never eliminate electricity on an airplane (eg. cabin lights), we must not allow water on-board commercial flights. No bathrooms, no drinks of any kind, etc. In fact, since humans are 70% water, we really can't let them on commercial flights, either. They even leak on a regular basis.
Right, we should cooperate with countries like Saudi Arabia... Oops, nope, that's exactly what got Bin Laden and most of the 9/11 hijackers angry at the US in the first place.
What other countries that aggressively suppress their people, should we "respect" and "trade with" in your imaginary world?
You're wrong. You seem to be confusing lines and columns.
1080 lines would be (Something) x 1080. In the case of HDTV, 1920 x 1080, which is better than the majority of monitors.
Besides, monitors and TVs aren't a particularly good comparison. You aren't going to be reading tiny, fine text on a screen that can only be seen less than 2 feet away, so the resolution isn't as important. Normal (non-HD) TVs are 704x480@60Hz, which isn't much higher than the standard (terribly low) 640x480 PC resolution we all know and hate, yet as long as you don't try to watch them from a few inches away, and don't try to read tiny text on them, they work just fine.
No, it doesn't. The $1,000 vs $1,000,000 is the price for the HARDWARE, not the software. Just because it's PC compatible, doesn't mean you have to run Windows on it.
Tesla had a wireless, remote controlled boat that he tried to sell it to the US Military as a weapon (ie. guided bomb), long before anyone else had accomplished anything with radio.
So, he wasn't JUST interested in wireless power, he just didn't push hard enough, and expected his patents would make sure he got a percentage of whatever others came up with. That didn't work out so well...
Because a network is a slow, high-lag, unreliable medium. Local disks don't just disappear at any second, unlike servers. And with floppies, well, any version of Windows that was DOS based would lock-up HARD upon a floppy being unexpectedly removed. I don't think you want that to happen every time a networked machine goes offline, or is just temporarily unreachable. Perhaps Windows should have "REdirect" access to floppies.
You have a plan for an electric helicopter we should know about?
A patent on a very inexpensive yet high capacity battery that will out-range and out-perform gasoline in cars, trucks, and vans?
So, you would prefer they do nothing to help, since they can't do EVERYTHING just yet? Always attack the highest hanging fruit first?
That sounds good compared to mid-size cars, but it's really not impressive at all for a motorcycle. What's more, motorcycles are all-too commonly two-stroke engines, which pollute far worse than the 4-stroke engines (with emission controls) in cars, trucks, and vans.
I hope you aren't blaming Spike for pop-ups. They originated with AOL-Time Warner (pop-ups are one of the wonderful things that merger brought consumers), and got their first use on the USA and TNT networks.
And no, I don't like the smaller pop-ups telling me what's going to be on next. I can find out extremely easily on my own, and if they really cared, they could put it with the OTHER 4 commercials during EVERY SINGLE BREAK telling me what other shows and movies that I can't stand are shown on that network. The large, commonly animated, station logos need to go away, too.
Not likely. But I am sure there are plenty of people who won't watch ANYTHING on that network anymore, because they can't follow the shows that they DO want to watch, in-between the ads.
I predict, with the switch to HDTV (and the opportunities for several sub-channels), that basic cable is going to die off. They no longer get a substantial portion of their revenue from cable subscriptions, and I'm sure everyone would be much happier if they could get their ~20 favorite channels OTA without paying $50+ per month.
Only with Flash can they "disable" the "player controls". Avoid Flash, and you can fast-forward through any video if it's technically possible to seek, and sometimes, even if it's not (ie. cache)!
The reason paper is a preferred storage method to digital formats is NOT because paper has some special properties that prevent any degradation from occurring over the centuries. The reason paper is reliable, is that the written word is so incredibly low density, that extensive decay of paper over centuries does not render it unreadable.
As soon as you use high-density data formats to write on paper, that advantage disappears entirely, and every single lost particle becomes unrecoverable data.
If you took high-density bar-codes to the extreme, using a reliable backing material like metal, and putting it in a circular form to make reading it easier, you'd have reinvented the CD.