Hard drive manufacturers just have to start marking their packaging, and notating their products in GiBs, and this problem will go away entirely, in an instant.
HD-DVD is only 720 lines, making it visually inferior to Bluray.
That's completely wrong. HD-DVD supports 1080, just as Blu-Ray does.
Originally, HD-DVD players only output 1080i, requiring pulldown by progressive HDTVs, but with new HD-DVD players with progressive outputs, that's no longer the case, and both standards provide native 1080p.
h.264 has global motion compensation which tracks the direction of a pan or unsteady camera and compresses the direction of movement so it can save bytes and reuse visual data that has shifted position. DVD uses MPEG-2 and does not do this.
WTF?
MPEG-2 doesn't have GMR, but it does have motion vectors, which do the exact same thing on each macroblock, just like almost every other digital video codec ever made. Now, that's not as bitrate-efficient as full GMR, but the difference is pretty trivial.
Newegg has the most unbelievably dysfunctional order system I've ever seen.
For the first time ever, I had to cancel my order. It was placed late Saturday night (PST). Less than an hour later, I used their web interface to send an e-mail asking to have the order canceled. Then, 7am Monday morning I used "Live Chat" and asked to have the order canceled. Then 8am Monday, I called their telephone support line to have the order canceled. Ironically, late Monday I got a nasty message from e-mail support telling me the telephone support operator took care of everything, and that I shouldn't have e-mailed... This despite the fact that the e-mail was sent two days before I phoned.
The order shipped sometime Tuesday afternoon... GAH! It arrived within about two hours, before I could call up and "refuse" the package. So I have to wait another day to get a mailing label I have to print out, and take the box in. And my thanks for going through all this extra work for them (because their order system is so dysfunctional)??? They are still charging me shipping on the non-order... I'm still arguing with them about this one. No doubt I'm going to end up having to call-up my CC company to get anything done.
Seriously now, a one-man web-shop, located out in the middle of nowhere, can hold a package. Why is Newegg so incompetent that they can't handle the most basic of operations?
I'd love to get what I supposedly deserve, only I don't keep receipts for hard drives I bought over a year ago. What's wrong with going by serial and date of manufacture?
If you had read TFA more carefully, you'd have seen that you can, indeed, fore-go receipts, and submit your HDD's serial number instead.
No, the point is that HD can easily be gotten with existing DVD media.
You can get HD with 1.4MB floppy disks too...
Lossy codecs will allow you to compress ANY resolution down to ANY size. It's all a matter of degree. The fact is, the more bits you have available, the more detail you can preserve. High-def disk formats offer MUCH more storage, and so can store a MUCH higher quality picture.
The pirate community has made a decision: h.264 files on DVD+Rs.
Yes, and before DVD-Rs came out, it was Divx DVD-rips on CD-Rs. That only tells you what writable format is popular now, not what will be popular next.
How about a NEW Sempron 3200+ system with 256MB DDR2, 40GB HDD, and built-in GeForce 6100 for $143. You can even customize it, and with similar specs to the NewEgg systems, it's still well-under $240 but still NOT a refurb like the newegg system: http://www.ascendtech.us/customkititems.asp?kc=DTSEMP300051216
I don't get what people's problem is with the performance of this thing.
You've never used a VIA CPU before...
Granted, I don't upgrade very quickly (I have a dual-1GHz machine
Your system will leave this VIA1.5GHz in the dust... Probably by a factor of 3...
and an ancient headless Pentium-133 box under my desk, and the dual-GHz box only replaced a 400MHz one last year),
I'm using a 1.2GHz Duron, but that is only because the motherboard for my 750MHz Athlon fried, and this mobo+CPU was $60, and was practically the only mobo I could find that would allow me to keep using my GB of PC-133. As an added bonus, with the use of fvcool, it idles at 40W (pretty damn good).
My firewall is a K6-III 550MHz undervolted and underclocked to 100 MHz, running on about 8 watts, and a load average of 0.08.
With all that said, I still think this VIA system is terribly underpowered. A 1.5GHz Intel/AMD would be plenty fast, but NOT a 1.5GHz VIA.
If memory serves, it wasn't all that long ago (1970? 1971?) that 1.5GHz, 512MB, 80GB would have been the specs on a pretty high-end machine.
Why is the MHz Myth still in force here on/. of all places? You'd think everyone would have learned after years and years of Pentium 4s.
That isn't a 1.5GHz CPU, that's a 1.5GHz VIA CPU, which means it's much closer to the performance of a 750MHz PIII/Athlon CPU than any other 1.5GHz processor.
Back in 1997 I bought a cheap system with a 300MHz Cyrix CPU. I found out very quickly that it couldn't perform remotely as well as Intel/AMD CPUs, with the most basic videos being unable to play in realtime at full-screen.
Then, several years ago when Wal-Mart released their $200 system with an 800MHz VIA C3, I was still skeptical, but, in no uncertain terms on the product page it said that the C3 performed similarly to 800MHz Intel/AMD CPUs, so I bought two... You know something, the 750MHz Athlon it it was meant to replace absolutely RAN CIRCLES AROUND IT... Screw benchmarks. I pulled the HDD out of the Athlon system, put it in the VIA system, and everything dragged. It was painfully clear I was waiting twice as long for Mozilla to launch, for ghostscript to process a printed document, videos were now dropping frames... etc.
It is absolutely astonishing to me that VIA CPUs remain popular. No doubt AMD at least sells some Semprons that are much faster, equally low power, and just as cheap. And it's far, far worse that the supposedly intelligent people on/. are so incredibly oblivious to the MHz Myth that they still get sucked in by this bullshit.
That's a lot of heating that needs to be done very cleanly so uses electrical power which is far more wasteful than trying to get the same heat from a primary source (gas/oil etc).
That's only true with the old, basic, resistive heating elements. Using (electric-powered) heat pumps can easily give you far more heat from than directly burning the equivalent amount of fuel.
What sort of efficiency can we get out of focusing sunlight on water (using cheap Fresnel lenses), making steam, and using it to turn a turbine? Is this cheaper per watt of generating capacity to build?
You're now subject to the challenging laws of thermodynamics. Engine efficiency is directly related to temperature difference, and the temperature of the water is based on the square of the area you're using to gather sunlight. In other words, while solar-thermal is practical in very large installations, you'll get practically nothing out of a collector the size of your roof (where most PV panels are installed).
There's no reason for you to know how many times I've been ticketed for speeding, failed to pick up after my dog, crossed the street outside of an intersection, etc. etc.
Also, if thesse protestors have numerous criminal convictions why should they have special priveledges just because they're protestors?
You've got it exactly backwards. The fact that they were just protesters goes towards the fact that their "crimes" were trivialities like trespass. The fact that they happen to be "protesters" shouldn't make that any less of a crime, and more to the point, certainly shouldn't make it any MORE of a crime.
How am I supposed to know, right at the border, whether or not they were unfairly convicted of breaking the peace?
No-one is expecting you to. The question is mainly the FBI listing trivial infractions. Secondarily, though... you certainly shouldn't be considering "refusing to comply" a major criminal act.
tubes can introduce some subtle distortion and non-linearity that many people like.
In which case, you should get a very low-power, very cheap, line-level tube amp, and use a normal transistor amp to bring it up to the volume level you want. Spending thousands on a 200W tube amp is entirely pointless.
Put the dishes on really high poles to get a skyshot over the roof:-)
At which point you're installing your dish in a "common area" so you no longer fall under the 1996 law, and are entirely subject to your local land-lord's rules. If your land-lord wouldn't allow you to install your dish on the roof to begin with, he's probably not okay with mounting them on a massive pole.
Fix your own government and your own government database before you complain about someones else's government.
I didn't notice it saying they were refused the ability to take a flight.
The "government database" in question doesn't do anything on its own, the problem is all in how it is used, and it appears Canada may be using it quite strictly.
If Canada was refusing entry to everyone that ever got ticketed while driving, would you blame the US' traffic laws?
I have never had someone's criminal record simply say "Peace Activist" or something equally silly.
Of course not. In this case it seems to be some trivial misdemeanors related to a peaceful protest that has lumped these two in with serious criminals.
This isn't so much "geek stars" as it is an exhaustive list of "Everyone in Hollywood that isn't mechanically inept."
Many actors majored in some field of science rather than art, and didn't flunk. Robin Williams plays video games and likes gadgets. Real big geek cred...
The fiber is still there. But to use it, you need routers, and TFA is about the cost/performance of routers.
And how much of the routing problems stem from backbone ISPs (Comcast, Verizon, etc.; see recent/.) wanting to fiddle with packets instead of simply routing them?
TFA was about the fact that bandwidth is increasing some 1/3rd faster than (some variation of...) Moore's law... Whether or not you do filtering and QoS is completely independent of the point.
TFA is still bullshit, but your comments still aren't helpful.
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You're ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.
Hard drive manufacturers just have to start marking their packaging, and notating their products in GiBs, and this problem will go away entirely, in an instant.
Riiiight...
Just as music subscription services have made CDs obsolete...
That's completely wrong. HD-DVD supports 1080, just as Blu-Ray does.
Originally, HD-DVD players only output 1080i, requiring pulldown by progressive HDTVs, but with new HD-DVD players with progressive outputs, that's no longer the case, and both standards provide native 1080p.
WTF?
MPEG-2 doesn't have GMR, but it does have motion vectors, which do the exact same thing on each macroblock, just like almost every other digital video codec ever made. Now, that's not as bitrate-efficient as full GMR, but the difference is pretty trivial.
Newegg has the most unbelievably dysfunctional order system I've ever seen.
For the first time ever, I had to cancel my order. It was placed late Saturday night (PST). Less than an hour later, I used their web interface to send an e-mail asking to have the order canceled. Then, 7am Monday morning I used "Live Chat" and asked to have the order canceled. Then 8am Monday, I called their telephone support line to have the order canceled. Ironically, late Monday I got a nasty message from e-mail support telling me the telephone support operator took care of everything, and that I shouldn't have e-mailed... This despite the fact that the e-mail was sent two days before I phoned.
The order shipped sometime Tuesday afternoon... GAH! It arrived within about two hours, before I could call up and "refuse" the package. So I have to wait another day to get a mailing label I have to print out, and take the box in. And my thanks for going through all this extra work for them (because their order system is so dysfunctional)??? They are still charging me shipping on the non-order... I'm still arguing with them about this one. No doubt I'm going to end up having to call-up my CC company to get anything done.
Seriously now, a one-man web-shop, located out in the middle of nowhere, can hold a package. Why is Newegg so incompetent that they can't handle the most basic of operations?
If you had read TFA more carefully, you'd have seen that you can, indeed, fore-go receipts, and submit your HDD's serial number instead.
You can get HD with 1.4MB floppy disks too...
Lossy codecs will allow you to compress ANY resolution down to ANY size. It's all a matter of degree. The fact is, the more bits you have available, the more detail you can preserve. High-def disk formats offer MUCH more storage, and so can store a MUCH higher quality picture.
People slightly more affluent than those that buy their electronics at Wal-Mart...
What do I win?
Yes, and before DVD-Rs came out, it was Divx DVD-rips on CD-Rs. That only tells you what writable format is popular now, not what will be popular next.
I never said anything about it being impossible. I just said this system will be quite slow. With CPU speed, it's all a matter of degrees.
Not by a LONG SHOT...
How about a 1.7GHz P4, 128MB DDR, 40GB HDD, DIRT CHEAP ($70 shipped): http://www.accurateit.com/details.asp?iid=464
How about a NEW Sempron 3200+ system with 256MB DDR2, 40GB HDD, and built-in GeForce 6100 for $143. You can even customize it, and with similar specs to the NewEgg systems, it's still well-under $240 but still NOT a refurb like the newegg system: http://www.ascendtech.us/customkititems.asp?kc=DTSEMP300051216
This on is just a bit more: http://www.pc-infinity.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=P&Product_Code=PW08320025640&Category_Code=
Hell, just go through the PC section of pricewatch and you'll find a few dozen similar... much cheaper than Newegg.
NO. If it was an Intel/AMD CPU it would be double the spec for XP. With a 1.5GHz VIA CPU, it's well under the spec, and it's going to be quite slow.
Try playing 1080 HD video on the system, and you're in for a very unpleasant surprise.
You've never used a VIA CPU before...
Your system will leave this VIA1.5GHz in the dust... Probably by a factor of 3...
I'm using a 1.2GHz Duron, but that is only because the motherboard for my 750MHz Athlon fried, and this mobo+CPU was $60, and was practically the only mobo I could find that would allow me to keep using my GB of PC-133. As an added bonus, with the use of fvcool, it idles at 40W (pretty damn good).
My firewall is a K6-III 550MHz undervolted and underclocked to 100 MHz, running on about 8 watts, and a load average of 0.08.
With all that said, I still think this VIA system is terribly underpowered. A 1.5GHz Intel/AMD would be plenty fast, but NOT a 1.5GHz VIA.
Why is the MHz Myth still in force here on
That isn't a 1.5GHz CPU, that's a 1.5GHz VIA CPU, which means it's much closer to the performance of a 750MHz PIII/Athlon CPU than any other 1.5GHz processor.
Back in 1997 I bought a cheap system with a 300MHz Cyrix CPU. I found out very quickly that it couldn't perform remotely as well as Intel/AMD CPUs, with the most basic videos being unable to play in realtime at full-screen.
Then, several years ago when Wal-Mart released their $200 system with an 800MHz VIA C3, I was still skeptical, but, in no uncertain terms on the product page it said that the C3 performed similarly to 800MHz Intel/AMD CPUs, so I bought two... You know something, the 750MHz Athlon it it was meant to replace absolutely RAN CIRCLES AROUND IT... Screw benchmarks. I pulled the HDD out of the Athlon system, put it in the VIA system, and everything dragged. It was painfully clear I was waiting twice as long for Mozilla to launch, for ghostscript to process a printed document, videos were now dropping frames... etc.
It is absolutely astonishing to me that VIA CPUs remain popular. No doubt AMD at least sells some Semprons that are much faster, equally low power, and just as cheap. And it's far, far worse that the supposedly intelligent people on
That's only true with the old, basic, resistive heating elements. Using (electric-powered) heat pumps can easily give you far more heat from than directly burning the equivalent amount of fuel.
You're now subject to the challenging laws of thermodynamics. Engine efficiency is directly related to temperature difference, and the temperature of the water is based on the square of the area you're using to gather sunlight. In other words, while solar-thermal is practical in very large installations, you'll get practically nothing out of a collector the size of your roof (where most PV panels are installed).
I don't see how you can say that with a straight face after saying: "Fix your own government and your own government database"
How can that POSSIBLY be construed as anything other than blaming the US government?
"Record?" Yes.
"International (FBI) criminal database?" NO!
There's no reason for you to know how many times I've been ticketed for speeding, failed to pick up after my dog, crossed the street outside of an intersection, etc. etc.
You've got it exactly backwards. The fact that they were just protesters goes towards the fact that their "crimes" were trivialities like trespass. The fact that they happen to be "protesters" shouldn't make that any less of a crime, and more to the point, certainly shouldn't make it any MORE of a crime.
No-one is expecting you to. The question is mainly the FBI listing trivial infractions. Secondarily, though... you certainly shouldn't be considering "refusing to comply" a major criminal act.
In which case, you should get a very low-power, very cheap, line-level tube amp, and use a normal transistor amp to bring it up to the volume level you want. Spending thousands on a 200W tube amp is entirely pointless.
At which point you're installing your dish in a "common area" so you no longer fall under the 1996 law, and are entirely subject to your local land-lord's rules. If your land-lord wouldn't allow you to install your dish on the roof to begin with, he's probably not okay with mounting them on a massive pole.
I didn't notice it saying they were refused the ability to take a flight.
The "government database" in question doesn't do anything on its own, the problem is all in how it is used, and it appears Canada may be using it quite strictly.
If Canada was refusing entry to everyone that ever got ticketed while driving, would you blame the US' traffic laws?
Of course not. In this case it seems to be some trivial misdemeanors related to a peaceful protest that has lumped these two in with serious criminals.
I can think of no greater insult to an Evangelion toy than forcing it to appear in that horrible movie...
This isn't so much "geek stars" as it is an exhaustive list of "Everyone in Hollywood that isn't mechanically inept."
Many actors majored in some field of science rather than art, and didn't flunk. Robin Williams plays video games and likes gadgets. Real big geek cred...
Quite a waste of time.
The fiber is still there. But to use it, you need routers, and TFA is about the cost/performance of routers.
TFA was about the fact that bandwidth is increasing some 1/3rd faster than (some variation of...) Moore's law... Whether or not you do filtering and QoS is completely independent of the point.
TFA is still bullshit, but your comments still aren't helpful.