Why is such a simple problem that pisses off 99.9% of the population is so hard to manage on a global scale? I mean, EVERYONE is pissed off at getting spammed, everyone would LOVE legislation to sodomize local spammer with a baseball bat, oversea is a different problem but country/continent-wide spam is 1/2 of my problem and can be easily be taken care of with proper legislation. For once a restrictive legislation would get 99% support... you don't see that everyday. like I mentionned before, I don't get our politicians, they say they work for us, they try to find clever ways to tax us, remove control that we used to have and all, but something on which they would get unprecedented support, they are simply sitting on the issue...
Until politicians will be fed up and people will actually get SUED for spamming (for once you could have a good reason to sue real bad guys) nothing will change.
Yes I know in SOME states it's beginning, so for local spam in a few years from now I think legislation will make it's way and we'll be able to look in our mailbox and stop having TD waterhouse spamming when you already have an account with them, etc.
The other problem now is oversea spamming, especially coming from China/Taiwan. I mean.. I don't read chineese, I don't plan on buying that #.#" something oversea, so why do they spam us like that? I never get it, but I'd be all for passive euthanasia (i.e. ban their IP at router level) and if this is bad for buisness or relations or whatever, well MAYBE they will do something about it.
Here where I work, it's simple, one spam, I ban a whole class straight off the servers, if one day I get a call because someone couldn't reach us (if they really need to reach us, we have a phone anyways!) I'll be sure to mention him Why. too bad this is not happening at the backbone level, because some people would get their act together fast and apply a legislation globally.
I didn't like the first movie, I don't think it did justice to the book.
Maybe it was due to the fact that I saw it on DVD instead of movie theatre, but I think the movie wasn't that great compared to expectations. Of course if you are a kid, chances are you were enchanted to see the book character comming to life. So in that perspective it was probably good. But they did mention targetting the whole family, and I saw disney movies that caught me way more than this one, and most are far less violent or adult-oriented (if I can say it like that).
I thought maybe it was because I couldn't be impressed anymore with special effects and storylines and so on, but when I recall my reaction seeing LOTR, it proves to me that it's not true, that I can still be amazed. Problem is I can't point precisely what I didn't about harry potter... maybe it's the linearity of events, maybe it was the actors...
maybe someone else was stuck with that feeling afterwards and could spring in some discussion as well.
Face it, most of us will never buy a 30,000$ piece of equipment on a e-commerce site. And even companies, that's why you have Purchase orders and/or accounts/checks. If you're crazy enough to buy that 30$ item or that 200$ basket with a GOLD Visa that has no protection, you're asking for trouble.
The most basic way to protect yourself is to 1. You get a visa or mastercard with insurance/protection for that kind of fraud. If it's not available then go for a LOW limit on it, I did that with one, got about 700$ credit limit on it, I've taken the worst case scenario buying, more than that, if, let's say I would buy something for 2000$ off ebay, I'd simply send a cheque or if I don't trust the seller, I'll use an escrow service. For most e-commerce sites, 700$ for my personnal needs is okay, if I get frauded, it'll be ~500$ (balance) in the average, much less than if I'd use a 5K$ visa.
Banks are to blame on this though, we are users, we pay good money and good interests for this service and even in recessions they are still the ones making the most money, so why can't they come up with a better system? I don't have to THINK about that system, someone there is paid to do exactly that. I saw a report on TV the other night about how easy it is to empty bank accounts if you only have an account number and the complete address of the account number's owner... I mean... come on... basic service here. I'd gladly take an extra step that could make it less convinient to get better protection, this kind of situation shouldn't happen.
If you say "banks have nothing to do with E-merchants that don't protect their data" I'll say this: Banks indorectly or directly giving e-merchant status to people/companies, it's their responsibilities to make sure that their systems are safe and that their name won't be associated with being frauded to the bones. While I agree nothing is safe at 100%, there are some BASICS that should be covered, and the one in this article with over 100,000 queries is kinda OBVIOUS.
I fear we'll see more and more of this since now everything is continuing to be programmed at a higher and higher level without really knowing the insides and completely trusting the source tools (.NET for example, makes everything so much easier, but you don't even have to be a good programmer to use this). if the command becomes "securecheckout(items,price) return total; Charge(inputcreditcard)" well, if you are a good programmer, you'll check that "charge" function and how it works, if you are like most programmers out there, on a rush with a crazy deadline, you won't bother or take the time, hense, this will happen more and more. (I won't get into the rushed/incomplete software developping as well we all know the effects of that).
Doesn't delete your account even if you specifically ask them to do so after many emails, fax, etc... and if that wasn't enough, they still spam you with their newsletter and promotion...
I mean, it was one thing that they didn't give me that 5$ credit when my friend added himself, and sent them a message to confirm that he got refered by me, but blattantly spamming and keeping your information in their database like this even after repeated requests is just plain wrong.
At least I'm lucky, I didn't do the mistake of running a merchant service with them, especially after all the horror stories I've heard.
your scanner now is officially a copyright circumventing device, please upgrade firmware to prevent illegal vinyl scanning or else we will use the DCMA to it's full extent:)
Buffy should have stopped at season 5.
on
Faith Returns to Buffy
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Season 6 was terrible.... the acting looked terrible, the character interraction was terrible (blaaa lbaaa blaa blaa blaaa, 1 fight scene or 2, blaaa blaaa blaaa blaa blaa)
I mean, it's okay to have character interaction, but over 50% of talking and silence and so on in a show that you were looking at because it had a "season" storyline and lots of action and intrigues to which you didn't want to miss anything. In that season 5 rocked, and when buffy died, she should have stayed dead, after that the show just plain sucked (exept maybe the last episode of season 6).
Look at Angel, season 3 just rocked, they kept the same mood, storyline, action, darkness, heck this is supposed to be the "buffy for girls" show and I am way more on that one than on Buffy.
I always thought a good show ends up at it's peak with a good end of story, and if you want to cash in extra, you create a spinnoff that will rock as much (angel rocks). Waiting till a show suck just enough that it loses all popularity in order to cancel it shouldn't be the way to do things. And there would be trememdous value after to buy the whole episodes on DVD season by season (and ALL of them would actually sell) and be of great entertainment. Of course, we're talking about the TV industry..... so... if they'd be any stronger and have it their way, they'd film a rock for 30 minutes and charge us for it.
I'm sorry for saying "wow, I'm so glad I am living in Canada when I see all the stupidity that Bush and his corporate cartel is pulling...." Seems like I should have kept my mouth shut.
Still, I'm surprised at this... I never thought I'd see this coming HERE in canada. Our prime minister is a Wanna-be, acts like one, and about everyone with common sense in Canada is often ashamed of him when he's doing public display. He wanted Canada to follow the war on afghanistan with united states to be in Bush's good will, just like that little guy trying to hang with the school's bully, while I understand this behaviour (and it was funny because our military here is such a joke. Not the soldiers themselves, but the vehicles are such a mess and almost a shame to drive/fly), ANYWAYS, that type of following is understandable (and for those who opposed, it's stille excusable in some perspective)
but if that kind of blattantly syping CRAP goes through, we might as well adopt the US dollar, adopt US legislation, give them 1/2 of our land in return to clear our debt and let them dump their waste here, and while at it, let them clear-cut our forrests so that there are no more Wood disputes with crazy duty taxes at the borders. I won't feel like I am in Canada anymore, sheesh... I can't beleive that only European countries are not dumb enough to be dictated by a few people and especially from other countries... Not that I hate the US, but I sure wouldn't want to live there as long as Bush is running the Country, I'd rather have a monkey with a water pistol as a president, than a monkey with a uzi.
Mod Parent up... At last someone who knows wtf he's talking about.
Gigabit interconnect, heh.. I am working with bandwidth/video/crazy-ass datatransfers everyday and when I read people saying "transfer your 1024x768x32bits @whateverframerate over gigabit ethernet (like if it was SOOO much faster and since they never touched it they think it's the solution to world hunger). sheeh..
(btw saying 32bits colors is totally lame, it's 24bits + 8 bits alpha you're probably talking about... so... how do you want to transfer ALPHA information from CCD again? xray cam? sheesh)..and transfer something that is over 10 gigaBYTE a second realtime over a gigabit interconnect... heck, even with a beowulf, even with any technologies mentionned, WTF is the keyword here; you're way overkill and overspending... Local buffers would cost a lot less, heck, building a few gigabyte dram buffer module would be a lot simpler and cheaper than going crazy interconnecting and streaming data over multiplexed gigabit interconnect with loads of raid drives to receive the data and remultiplex it and so on... I hope people comming out with such ideas are not project leaders or R&D directors because I'd say, it's like someone who would talk about building a road and the first thing the construction worker would say is "we need to fill a lake here, and put a ski ressort there and....".
One thing I hate about new standards and most technologies, is that they tend to keep the "final" on a shelf until they can squeeze every single stepping out from pratically useless to the final product.
CDroms, 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 6x, 8x, 12x, 16x, 20x, 24x, 32x, 40x, 48x, 56x, (and the blowing one from a previous slashdot story?:) )
CD-R, same pattern.
Guess what, yes when they did the 1x they probably didn't have a 48x machine working off the bat, but in all of the steppings you've seen above, probably only 3 stepping were required and the rest were physically locked with a firmware, etc..
Where I am going with this? Well, simple. In some cases, it's acceptable and even good to hold off technology for a buisness model to work and for a company to have enough time to do R&D and accumulate enough revenues to sustain the operating costs, that's the goal of this maneuver.
But this is where I get upset:
DVD-RW (or +RW or anything for that matter) we were promised double layer double density double sided. The only thing we got is double-crossed. Right now we're sitting on a 4.7GB medium that was supposed to be 4x that amount (or at least 2x with the double layer and you'd have to turn the disc). DVD's been around for quite a while, yet, I'm not remotely impressed by this technology anymore. I've recently picked up a 99$ dvd player (about time they came down to that price) and why did Y buy it? because it was playing CD-R, CD-RW, VCD/SVCD, MP3 and mpeg-1 video burned on joliette CD. That was the interresting part about it.
I would have been an INSTANT adopter at an overpriced range if they would have brought the technology they had promised. When the VHS VCD came out, and tapes were costing a bundle, I bought them, I loved the technology, I loved what it could bring me, and I didn't get lied to or hyped with what it would be and got 1/2 of it.
DVD, when it got out, should have been 9.4GB-ready from the start, more expensive units should have had 2-sided reader/writer and cheaper units needing to turn the disk or buy a 1sided disc. They could have segmented the market like this for the home and pro. They could have kept the readers-only for cheap for mass-adoption and everything would have worked out just fine and probably taken off more seriously. They've had to retain, and now you get technology like TIVO that records a lot more, manages better than handling 30 dvds, and just plain rocks.
Of course when they'll hit 99$ they will become interresting, but probably Hollywood will unleash that incompatible 2layer-blue-2sided-blabla laserdisc format...
Anyways my rant isn't about this stuff comming out, it's about WHEN it comes out (blattantly retarded) and how it comes out, the cutdown features, and the fact that it's almost obsolete with other technologies on the edge. Too bad they aren't getting as much competition as the microprocessor sector is getting, because today you'd have HDVD that would support full HDTV signal with full quality and not only READ about it or have one prototype if you got 5 digits to spare. oh well...
Automatic update for home users that aren't technology-saavy like us = good
Automatic update for my dad that only watches stock quotes and doesn't even know what to do when his windows box opens a menu like scandisk (so forget about patching and all) = good.
Automatic update for people that don't care about their machines being a hub for a potential DDoS attack = GOOD THING.
Automatic update for people that are knowledgable and responsible netizens = more or less evil.
Above but with no way to turn it off = just plain lame.
So okay, let them have it their way, and the DAY they send up a patch that breaks everything and kill all of their userbase with a major flaw, you will have enough ammos to fire back at them. Before that, nobody cares, people leech kazaa with spyware, they don't care as long as they get MP3s or videos, face it, if the majority don't care, you don't have a case. When the majority will face a serious flaw, bug, or their computers won't boot again and it will happen to their friends family and everyone, now they will pay more attention to the people that try to advocate this matter. It will happen, just be patient:)
>No kidding. I've never understood why specific parents care all that much - after all, if they're doing their job, as they see it, their kids will never see such games anyway.
I'm sorry to correct you on this, but my pick would be: if they're doing their job RIGHT, their kids will never be AFFECTED by such games.
Want it or not, unless you are living in a cave, your kids will end up being exposed to graphic violence in movies, tv or games, you can't go around it... now any person with minimal common sense will know that if there's would be even 1% chance per individual to gain sadistic violent behaviour because he/she's playing quake too much, we'd have a LOT MORE serial killers and people shooting with rocket launchers all over the country. This isn't the issue, now if the parent are spending time with their children, they are raising them with good values, and apply the universel concept of good parenting (tm), their kids will be smart enough to know the difference. Of course there are always the specific cases with bad genes or mental disorders, but this is a completely different issue and it's like saying we shouldn't have cars because sometimes some people without permits go take a car and get into an big accident killing x amount of people and blablabla.
On the other hand, a lot of bitching (about violence and all) parents have a lot of things they could fix themselves before blaming everyone else (typical example: rely on TV to educate their children and replace the babysitter), I'd say they are the first people to blame. It's amusing to notice how these specific type of people even in real life are always blaming everybody and everything else before themselves or their own action, but there are so many of these people nowadays and they are whining so loudly that they are taken into account in the system. A true shame because mature people and intelligibile kids looking for a distraction are getting penalized by this.
Replace the FBI warning and the neverending trailers by a simple EULA screen giving you the right to screw us, our relatives, and our children's children's down to the fish pet for the next 10 generation to come, everybody will agree without reading and enjoy your movies.
Everybody wins. The consumer is happy with your product, and you guys can have a powerblast with your new rights over the american population and pursue your desecration of Disney's name and humble goals.
>Gravity is a force, it's not mesured seperately like 'pressue' or 'length'. >PORNO FOR THE PEOPLE [autopr0n.com]
Yep... measurement theory people, if a p0rn webmaster tells you about length, don't argue with him. He probably knows a hell of a lot more than you do:)
Still... 32bits colors, when everybody else moves into a HDRI (high dynamic range imaging) format that will be supported by most monitors (not LCDs and not as well as monitor built especially for per say 64/128bits colors in the future (higher contrast ratios).
Anyways the point is, they are talking about 20Gb/sec bandwidth.. comparing themselves to a Radeon 8500. They aren't shipping yet, Radeon 9700 is shipping, has about the same specs, has a brand recognition, has more bitdepth, Matrox has more features and bitdepth, Nividia will probably ship their before bitboys even start sampling... and they will support HDRI as well.
So what's the point? they got a proof of concept on an Altera FPGA running, good for them, any new technology is welcomed and I usually appreciate it, but in their case, they made so much vapor in the last years that they've lost all respect and credibility to the few of us still interrested in their stories. If they demo something extraordinary, I'll be impressed. I'd say evolutionnary could be a better expectation.
Well I guess it depends on which point of view you are looking at it.
Carmack posts something here, you get instant linkage and stories out on most gaming sites pointing to that post.
Gates says something, everybody jumps on his speech and tries to analyse everything up to the point of what he had for breakfast, and his intentions for the next 20 years.
Jobs farts, mac users are all exited, etc etc..
The idea here is some people follow this stuff religiously, while for you it might be pointless for some others they really dig that stuff. Tabloid are way more crappy and unreliable than this story, and the worst? They sell like hotcakes.
To give you an example, I've found slashdot by a linkage of an amiga story. While I am not a Linux freak or "your rights online" active militant, I do have my own "tabloid" stories that I like to follow (like amiga stuff for example).
I've had the same reaction when I saw the article ("my, talk about far-fetched") but when you go and read the usenet post, it can make you think. If you don't care about linux and/or processors/os, well, you skip the story and move to the next, if you do like the hardware/OS scene, it makes a nice read, to get back to my idea, it tells you that if Linus wants the x86-64 to win, maybe they are designing the transmetta's next gen on that instruction set?, maybe this maybe that. Nevertheless, for people who like that kind of stories, it's a bit above the tabloid I'd say, because it's not a quote out of context and it's authentic.
>Oh, and if you're editing a 1600x1200 movie on a PC, you're limited by your disk transfer rate. No way are you storing *any* significant chunk of that in a PC's RAM.
ever heard of PCI-X and aggregated (i.e. many in parallel) Ultra320 arrays? Added with lossless compression that result in 1:1 up to 4:1 compression depending on the data?
Plus, I was merely stating an example, add some funky stuff to process on the graphic card or CPU before displaying (thus you *MIGHT* need the extra bandwidth back and forth the memory/gfxcard/cpu to process the information PRIOR dumping it on a display. Of course you'd also want plenty of RAM to buffer the whole thing. You can add mathematically LOSSLESS compression (like a ZIP codec for example) to the video stream comming from the array, effectively doubling (in most cases) the amount of data comming in (let's see, "double" PCI-X bandwidth, yep... that's a lot of data). Of course you need a Quad CPU system to do all of this in real time (or a very powerful dual system).
As I've stated, it's easy to blast ONE given scenario, I'm sure a lot of people here could give you many scenarios where 8X is welcomed. In my case I'd have to break a (blah!) NDA to illustrate a very specific case in detail, but the concept of increasing complexity, bitdepth and quality/functionnality of newer graphic cards still remains.
About the 2x issues not being good enough, well the latency and all is a big problem for GAMES yes, your specific example for GAMES is right, but for OTHER stuff, 2x was too SLOW, with or without the latency issues, the bandwidth was just too little. The numbers in theory were good, but in practice with all of the other processes going around you had to count the given numbers by almost half. Anyways, you're right about the gaming issues and the fact that these GAMING card couldn't perform. I was thinking ASIDE from gaming. Profesionnal equipment, HDTV editing, Framebuffers, etc.
Most people will say agp8x is way too much and overkill and will introduce some bugs and firmware/hardware/signal issues with some lower quality cards, etc...
Well, when AGP 1x was out, people didn't find it very useful because it wasn't fast enough
AGP2x was okay to offload the PCI bus and do some basic stuff, but not fast enough for high-speed games and transfering large chunks of information.
AGP4x seems to be okay for today's technology and all, and AGP8X seems to be way overkill, but I personnaly think that it's finally what it should have been since the start: a *VERY* fast graphics port on which the bandwidth bottlenect doesn't become an issue, * at any resolutions * , and that help cutting down the cost in other fields beside gaming. (one example: uncompressed video editing 1600x1200@24bits(or more for film and with newer card with better colorspace) @60FPS) Right now you require exotic hardware for this, especially for uncompressed playback. let's say you'd want to invest on a fast Ultra320 array (ok you'll say if you do so you can afford the exotic hardware as well, but the point here is actually CUTTING down the price, and this is one way), well now you could get way more drives for your system.
There are many more examples for this, but the main idea is there are new features that are going to come out for cards, bigger bitdepth, better this and that, that's going to choke the bandwidth and 256MB on a card won't be enough in a not so distant future, using system memory at almost local memory speed increases quality and possibilities tremendously, and while we don't see much use right now, I'm sure it won't take long after 8x is installed that we'll see a use for 12x or 16x:)
Slashdot Mirror
Why is such a simple problem that pisses off 99.9% of the population is so hard to manage on a global scale? I mean, EVERYONE is pissed off at getting spammed, everyone would LOVE legislation to sodomize local spammer with a baseball bat, oversea is a different problem but country/continent-wide spam is 1/2 of my problem and can be easily be taken care of with proper legislation. For once a restrictive legislation would get 99% support... you don't see that everyday. like I mentionned before, I don't get our politicians, they say they work for us, they try to find clever ways to tax us, remove control that we used to have and all, but something on which they would get unprecedented support, they are simply sitting on the issue...
Until politicians will be fed up and people will actually get SUED for spamming (for once you could have a good reason to sue real bad guys) nothing will change.
Yes I know in SOME states it's beginning, so for local spam in a few years from now I think legislation will make it's way and we'll be able to look in our mailbox and stop having TD waterhouse spamming when you already have an account with them, etc.
The other problem now is oversea spamming, especially coming from China/Taiwan. I mean.. I don't read chineese, I don't plan on buying that #.#" something oversea, so why do they spam us like that? I never get it, but I'd be all for passive euthanasia (i.e. ban their IP at router level) and if this is bad for buisness or relations or whatever, well MAYBE they will do something about it.
Here where I work, it's simple, one spam, I ban a whole class straight off the servers, if one day I get a call because someone couldn't reach us (if they really need to reach us, we have a phone anyways!) I'll be sure to mention him Why. too bad this is not happening at the backbone level, because some people would get their act together fast and apply a legislation globally.
I didn't like the first movie, I don't think it did justice to the book.
Maybe it was due to the fact that I saw it on DVD instead of movie theatre, but I think the movie wasn't that great compared to expectations. Of course if you are a kid, chances are you were enchanted to see the book character comming to life. So in that perspective it was probably good. But they did mention targetting the whole family, and I saw disney movies that caught me way more than this one, and most are far less violent or adult-oriented (if I can say it like that).
I thought maybe it was because I couldn't be impressed anymore with special effects and storylines and so on, but when I recall my reaction seeing LOTR, it proves to me that it's not true, that I can still be amazed. Problem is I can't point precisely what I didn't about harry potter... maybe it's the linearity of events, maybe it was the actors...
maybe someone else was stuck with that feeling afterwards and could spring in some discussion as well.
Face it, most of us will never buy a 30,000$ piece of equipment on a e-commerce site. And even companies, that's why you have Purchase orders and/or accounts/checks. If you're crazy enough to buy that 30$ item or that 200$ basket with a GOLD Visa that has no protection, you're asking for trouble.
.02
The most basic way to protect yourself is to 1. You get a visa or mastercard with insurance/protection for that kind of fraud. If it's not available then go for a LOW limit on it, I did that with one, got about 700$ credit limit on it, I've taken the worst case scenario buying, more than that, if, let's say I would buy something for 2000$ off ebay, I'd simply send a cheque or if I don't trust the seller, I'll use an escrow service. For most e-commerce sites, 700$ for my personnal needs is okay, if I get frauded, it'll be ~500$ (balance) in the average, much less than if I'd use a 5K$ visa.
Banks are to blame on this though, we are users, we pay good money and good interests for this service and even in recessions they are still the ones making the most money, so why can't they come up with a better system? I don't have to THINK about that system, someone there is paid to do exactly that. I saw a report on TV the other night about how easy it is to empty bank accounts if you only have an account number and the complete address of the account number's owner... I mean... come on... basic service here. I'd gladly take an extra step that could make it less convinient to get better protection, this kind of situation shouldn't happen.
If you say "banks have nothing to do with E-merchants that don't protect their data" I'll say this: Banks indorectly or directly giving e-merchant status to people/companies, it's their responsibilities to make sure that their systems are safe and that their name won't be associated with being frauded to the bones. While I agree nothing is safe at 100%, there are some BASICS that should be covered, and the one in this article with over 100,000 queries is kinda OBVIOUS.
I fear we'll see more and more of this since now everything is continuing to be programmed at a higher and higher level without really knowing the insides and completely trusting the source tools (.NET for example, makes everything so much easier, but you don't even have to be a good programmer to use this). if the command becomes "securecheckout(items,price) return total; Charge(inputcreditcard)" well, if you are a good programmer, you'll check that "charge" function and how it works, if you are like most programmers out there, on a rush with a crazy deadline, you won't bother or take the time, hense, this will happen more and more. (I won't get into the rushed/incomplete software developping as well we all know the effects of that).
my
Nobody seems to recall space taxy on Commodore 64
Oh well...
Pad one please!
Doesn't delete your account even if you specifically ask them to do so after many emails, fax, etc... and if that wasn't enough, they still spam you with their newsletter and promotion...
I mean, it was one thing that they didn't give me that 5$ credit when my friend added himself, and sent them a message to confirm that he got refered by me, but blattantly spamming and keeping your information in their database like this even after repeated requests is just plain wrong.
At least I'm lucky, I didn't do the mistake of running a merchant service with them, especially after all the horror stories I've heard.
agfa, HP, epson, canon, beware...
:)
your scanner now is officially a copyright circumventing device, please upgrade firmware to prevent illegal vinyl scanning or else we will use the DCMA to it's full extent
Season 6 was terrible.... the acting looked terrible, the character interraction was terrible (blaaa lbaaa blaa blaa blaaa, 1 fight scene or 2, blaaa blaaa blaaa blaa blaa)
I mean, it's okay to have character interaction, but over 50% of talking and silence and so on in a show that you were looking at because it had a "season" storyline and lots of action and intrigues to which you didn't want to miss anything. In that season 5 rocked, and when buffy died, she should have stayed dead, after that the show just plain sucked (exept maybe the last episode of season 6).
Look at Angel, season 3 just rocked, they kept the same mood, storyline, action, darkness, heck this is supposed to be the "buffy for girls" show and I am way more on that one than on Buffy.
I always thought a good show ends up at it's peak with a good end of story, and if you want to cash in extra, you create a spinnoff that will rock as much (angel rocks). Waiting till a show suck just enough that it loses all popularity in order to cancel it shouldn't be the way to do things. And there would be trememdous value after to buy the whole episodes on DVD season by season (and ALL of them would actually sell) and be of great entertainment. Of course, we're talking about the TV industry..... so... if they'd be any stronger and have it their way, they'd film a rock for 30 minutes and charge us for it.
... now all they need is someone at the other end :)
I'm sorry for saying "wow, I'm so glad I am living in Canada when I see all the stupidity that Bush and his corporate cartel is pulling...." Seems like I should have kept my mouth shut.
Still, I'm surprised at this... I never thought I'd see this coming HERE in canada. Our prime minister is a Wanna-be, acts like one, and about everyone with common sense in Canada is often ashamed of him when he's doing public display. He wanted Canada to follow the war on afghanistan with united states to be in Bush's good will, just like that little guy trying to hang with the school's bully, while I understand this behaviour (and it was funny because our military here is such a joke. Not the soldiers themselves, but the vehicles are such a mess and almost a shame to drive/fly), ANYWAYS, that type of following is understandable (and for those who opposed, it's stille excusable in some perspective)
but if that kind of blattantly syping CRAP goes through, we might as well adopt the US dollar, adopt US legislation, give them 1/2 of our land in return to clear our debt and let them dump their waste here, and while at it, let them clear-cut our forrests so that there are no more Wood disputes with crazy duty taxes at the borders. I won't feel like I am in Canada anymore, sheesh... I can't beleive that only European countries are not dumb enough to be dictated by a few people and especially from other countries... Not that I hate the US, but I sure wouldn't want to live there as long as Bush is running the Country, I'd rather have a monkey with a water pistol as a president, than a monkey with a uzi.
Mod Parent up... At last someone who knows wtf he's talking about.
..and transfer something that is over 10 gigaBYTE a second realtime over a gigabit interconnect... heck, even with a beowulf, even with any technologies mentionned, WTF is the keyword here; you're way overkill and overspending... Local buffers would cost a lot less, heck, building a few gigabyte dram buffer module would be a lot simpler and cheaper than going crazy interconnecting and streaming data over multiplexed gigabit interconnect with loads of raid drives to receive the data and remultiplex it and so on... I hope people comming out with such ideas are not project leaders or R&D directors because I'd say, it's like someone who would talk about building a road and the first thing the construction worker would say is "we need to fill a lake here, and put a ski ressort there and....".
:)
Gigabit interconnect, heh.. I am working with bandwidth/video/crazy-ass datatransfers everyday and when I read people saying "transfer your 1024x768x32bits @whateverframerate over gigabit ethernet (like if it was SOOO much faster and since they never touched it they think it's the solution to world hunger). sheeh..
(btw saying 32bits colors is totally lame, it's 24bits + 8 bits alpha you're probably talking about... so... how do you want to transfer ALPHA information from CCD again? xray cam? sheesh)
ok I need to go to bed
One thing I hate about new standards and most technologies, is that they tend to keep the "final" on a shelf until they can squeeze every single stepping out from pratically useless to the final product.
:) )
CDroms, 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 6x, 8x, 12x, 16x, 20x, 24x, 32x, 40x, 48x, 56x, (and the blowing one from a previous slashdot story?
CD-R, same pattern.
Guess what, yes when they did the 1x they probably didn't have a 48x machine working off the bat, but in all of the steppings you've seen above, probably only 3 stepping were required and the rest were physically locked with a firmware, etc..
Where I am going with this? Well, simple. In some cases, it's acceptable and even good to hold off technology for a buisness model to work and for a company to have enough time to do R&D and accumulate enough revenues to sustain the operating costs, that's the goal of this maneuver.
But this is where I get upset:
DVD-RW (or +RW or anything for that matter) we were promised double layer double density double sided. The only thing we got is double-crossed. Right now we're sitting on a 4.7GB medium that was supposed to be 4x that amount (or at least 2x with the double layer and you'd have to turn the disc). DVD's been around for quite a while, yet, I'm not remotely impressed by this technology anymore. I've recently picked up a 99$ dvd player (about time they came down to that price) and why did Y buy it? because it was playing CD-R, CD-RW, VCD/SVCD, MP3 and mpeg-1 video burned on joliette CD. That was the interresting part about it.
I would have been an INSTANT adopter at an overpriced range if they would have brought the technology they had promised. When the VHS VCD came out, and tapes were costing a bundle, I bought them, I loved the technology, I loved what it could bring me, and I didn't get lied to or hyped with what it would be and got 1/2 of it.
DVD, when it got out, should have been 9.4GB-ready from the start, more expensive units should have had 2-sided reader/writer and cheaper units needing to turn the disk or buy a 1sided disc. They could have segmented the market like this for the home and pro. They could have kept the readers-only for cheap for mass-adoption and everything would have worked out just fine and probably taken off more seriously. They've had to retain, and now you get technology like TIVO that records a lot more, manages better than handling 30 dvds, and just plain rocks.
Of course when they'll hit 99$ they will become interresting, but probably Hollywood will unleash that incompatible 2layer-blue-2sided-blabla laserdisc format...
Anyways my rant isn't about this stuff comming out, it's about WHEN it comes out (blattantly retarded) and how it comes out, the cutdown features, and the fact that it's almost obsolete with other technologies on the edge. Too bad they aren't getting as much competition as the microprocessor sector is getting, because today you'd have HDVD that would support full HDTV signal with full quality and not only READ about it or have one prototype if you got 5 digits to spare. oh well...
Automatic update for home users that aren't technology-saavy like us = good
:)
Automatic update for my dad that only watches stock quotes and doesn't even know what to do when his windows box opens a menu like scandisk (so forget about patching and all) = good.
Automatic update for people that don't care about their machines being a hub for a potential DDoS attack = GOOD THING.
Automatic update for people that are knowledgable and responsible netizens = more or less evil.
Above but with no way to turn it off = just plain lame.
So okay, let them have it their way, and the DAY they send up a patch that breaks everything and kill all of their userbase with a major flaw, you will have enough ammos to fire back at them. Before that, nobody cares, people leech kazaa with spyware, they don't care as long as they get MP3s or videos, face it, if the majority don't care, you don't have a case. When the majority will face a serious flaw, bug, or their computers won't boot again and it will happen to their friends family and everyone, now they will pay more attention to the people that try to advocate this matter. It will happen, just be patient
>No kidding. I've never understood why specific parents care all that much - after all, if they're doing their job, as they see it, their kids will never see such games anyway.
I'm sorry to correct you on this, but my pick would be: if they're doing their job RIGHT, their kids will never be AFFECTED by such games.
Want it or not, unless you are living in a cave, your kids will end up being exposed to graphic violence in movies, tv or games, you can't go around it... now any person with minimal common sense will know that if there's would be even 1% chance per individual to gain sadistic violent behaviour because he/she's playing quake too much, we'd have a LOT MORE serial killers and people shooting with rocket launchers all over the country. This isn't the issue, now if the parent are spending time with their children, they are raising them with good values, and apply the universel concept of good parenting (tm), their kids will be smart enough to know the difference. Of course there are always the specific cases with bad genes or mental disorders, but this is a completely different issue and it's like saying we shouldn't have cars because sometimes some people without permits go take a car and get into an big accident killing x amount of people and blablabla.
On the other hand, a lot of bitching (about violence and all) parents have a lot of things they could fix themselves before blaming everyone else (typical example: rely on TV to educate their children and replace the babysitter), I'd say they are the first people to blame. It's amusing to notice how these specific type of people even in real life are always blaming everybody and everything else before themselves or their own action, but there are so many of these people nowadays and they are whining so loudly that they are taken into account in the system. A true shame because mature people and intelligibile kids looking for a distraction are getting penalized by this.
> An FTP request is an FTP request is an FTP request. If it goes to goatce.cx or whitehouse.gov, it doesn't matter to them.
:)
Yeah speaking of which, I'm starting to wonder who are the biggest assholes of the two nowadays
I still use my modified Iopener, and it does exactly that for about that price :)
Ex DEC Alpha people -> AMD Hammer engineers
:)
Ex Amiga people -> Newtek, scala, etc..
Ex SGI -> NVIDIA
etc etc..
Ex-Apple -> Toilet paper algo. research.
I rest my case
Begin sarcasm;
Replace the FBI warning and the neverending trailers by a simple EULA screen giving you the right to screw us, our relatives, and our children's children's down to the fish pet for the next 10 generation to come, everybody will agree without reading and enjoy your movies.
Everybody wins. The consumer is happy with your product, and you guys can have a powerblast with your new rights over the american population and pursue your desecration of Disney's name and humble goals.
Of course you can claim all this and you signed no NDA to tell such valuable information.... that or you're from china and don't care about NDAs :)
>Gravity is a force, it's not mesured seperately like 'pressue' or 'length'.
:)
>PORNO FOR THE PEOPLE [autopr0n.com]
Yep... measurement theory people, if a p0rn webmaster tells you about length, don't argue with him. He probably knows a hell of a lot more than you do
Still... 32bits colors, when everybody else moves into a HDRI (high dynamic range imaging) format that will be supported by most monitors (not LCDs and not as well as monitor built especially for per say 64/128bits colors in the future (higher contrast ratios).
Anyways the point is, they are talking about 20Gb/sec bandwidth.. comparing themselves to a Radeon 8500. They aren't shipping yet, Radeon 9700 is shipping, has about the same specs, has a brand recognition, has more bitdepth, Matrox has more features and bitdepth, Nividia will probably ship their before bitboys even start sampling... and they will support HDRI as well.
So what's the point? they got a proof of concept on an Altera FPGA running, good for them, any new technology is welcomed and I usually appreciate it, but in their case, they made so much vapor in the last years that they've lost all respect and credibility to the few of us still interrested in their stories. If they demo something extraordinary, I'll be impressed. I'd say evolutionnary could be a better expectation.
> For example if youwere a 2 dimensional being(thats not possible coz 3 is the minumum number of dimensions to sustain life)
:)
:) )
My ex girlfriend could prove you wrong
(sorry couldn't resist
Well I guess it depends on which point of view you are looking at it.
Carmack posts something here, you get instant linkage and stories out on most gaming sites pointing to that post.
Gates says something, everybody jumps on his speech and tries to analyse everything up to the point of what he had for breakfast, and his intentions for the next 20 years.
Jobs farts, mac users are all exited, etc etc..
The idea here is some people follow this stuff religiously, while for you it might be pointless for some others they really dig that stuff. Tabloid are way more crappy and unreliable than this story, and the worst? They sell like hotcakes.
To give you an example, I've found slashdot by a linkage of an amiga story. While I am not a Linux freak or "your rights online" active militant, I do have my own "tabloid" stories that I like to follow (like amiga stuff for example).
I've had the same reaction when I saw the article ("my, talk about far-fetched") but when you go and read the usenet post, it can make you think. If you don't care about linux and/or processors/os, well, you skip the story and move to the next, if you do like the hardware/OS scene, it makes a nice read, to get back to my idea, it tells you that if Linus wants the x86-64 to win, maybe they are designing the transmetta's next gen on that instruction set?, maybe this maybe that. Nevertheless, for people who like that kind of stories, it's a bit above the tabloid I'd say, because it's not a quote out of context and it's authentic.
my 0.02c.
>Oh, and if you're editing a 1600x1200 movie on a PC, you're limited by your disk transfer rate. No way are you storing *any* significant chunk of that in a PC's RAM.
ever heard of PCI-X and aggregated (i.e. many in parallel) Ultra320 arrays? Added with lossless compression that result in 1:1 up to 4:1 compression depending on the data?
Plus, I was merely stating an example, add some funky stuff to process on the graphic card or CPU before displaying (thus you *MIGHT* need the extra bandwidth back and forth the memory/gfxcard/cpu to process the information PRIOR dumping it on a display. Of course you'd also want plenty of RAM to buffer the whole thing. You can add mathematically LOSSLESS compression (like a ZIP codec for example) to the video stream comming from the array, effectively doubling (in most cases) the amount of data comming in (let's see, "double" PCI-X bandwidth, yep... that's a lot of data). Of course you need a Quad CPU system to do all of this in real time (or a very powerful dual system).
As I've stated, it's easy to blast ONE given scenario, I'm sure a lot of people here could give you many scenarios where 8X is welcomed. In my case I'd have to break a (blah!) NDA to illustrate a very specific case in detail, but the concept of increasing complexity, bitdepth and quality/functionnality of newer graphic cards still remains.
About the 2x issues not being good enough, well the latency and all is a big problem for GAMES yes, your specific example for GAMES is right, but for OTHER stuff, 2x was too SLOW, with or without the latency issues, the bandwidth was just too little. The numbers in theory were good, but in practice with all of the other processes going around you had to count the given numbers by almost half. Anyways, you're right about the gaming issues and the fact that these GAMING card couldn't perform. I was thinking ASIDE from gaming. Profesionnal equipment, HDTV editing, Framebuffers, etc.
Most people will say agp8x is way too much and overkill and will introduce some bugs and firmware/hardware/signal issues with some lower quality cards, etc...
:)
Well, when AGP 1x was out, people didn't find it very useful because it wasn't fast enough
AGP2x was okay to offload the PCI bus and do some basic stuff, but not fast enough for high-speed games and transfering large chunks of information.
AGP4x seems to be okay for today's technology and all, and AGP8X seems to be way overkill, but I personnaly think that it's finally what it should have been since the start: a *VERY* fast graphics port on which the bandwidth bottlenect doesn't become an issue, * at any resolutions * , and that help cutting down the cost in other fields beside gaming. (one example: uncompressed video editing 1600x1200@24bits(or more for film and with newer card with better colorspace) @60FPS) Right now you require exotic hardware for this, especially for uncompressed playback. let's say you'd want to invest on a fast Ultra320 array (ok you'll say if you do so you can afford the exotic hardware as well, but the point here is actually CUTTING down the price, and this is one way), well now you could get way more drives for your system.
There are many more examples for this, but the main idea is there are new features that are going to come out for cards, bigger bitdepth, better this and that, that's going to choke the bandwidth and 256MB on a card won't be enough in a not so distant future, using system memory at almost local memory speed increases quality and possibilities tremendously, and while we don't see much use right now, I'm sure it won't take long after 8x is installed that we'll see a use for 12x or 16x