Go into Walmart and look at some of the pay as you go Android phones and comment again. I'd say edit your comment, but, alas, Slasdot has yet to fix that bug.
If the games you want to play aren't available for the PC, then this conversation is moot. This started off in response to a post about rather sitting on the couch than at the desk to play games. It is possible to do, and that is what I was trying to demonstrate.
Most games hard core games like to play (FPS, FRP, etc) are available for both PC and consoles. These games are able to use controllers (plural, because there are a multitude of makes and models available). Again, if it's not, you have no choice - stick with the console. Playing on the PC gives the added bonus of not having to put up with the "console kiddies" as well. You're nitpicking just to nitpick. Back under the bridge with you.
If you want a computer spscificly built as a media center, you're going to spend more for less just for the fancy case.
Except a fancy case has a much better spouse acceptance factor than a big, loud tower. What's the most cost-effective way to address media center PC aesthetics?
Hiding the PC in a cabinet or closet somewhere is a great option, especially with HDMI and SPDIF, both of which can be quite long without major signal loss. You'll just need an IR extender for the remote capabilities though. As for cost-effectiveness with an HTPC case, here's a good looking somewhat inexpensive HTPC case. Thermaltake and SilverStone are, IMHO, the two to look at. Their cases are both beautiful and very well built.
Singular is playing a single player game, plural if playing a multi player game.
Provided the game even supports multiple controllers. Console games are historically much more likely to support this sort of multiplayer than major-label PC games. Otherwise, no matter how many controllers I have plugged into a hub, the game is going to see only one and expect the other players to be using their own computers and their own copies of the game.
Yeah, that could be a problem with PC games. Not many of them support multi players on the same system. Then, again, most of the popular console games are single player locally as well. Like I said though, I'm not a hard core gamer, so I could be wrong on this. It just seems to me that most of the multi local player games are for kids, and that seems to be changing as well. The trend now seems to be network gaming - something where they can siphon even more money out of the players wallet with monthly or yearly fees.
Or can you recommend a supplier of pre-built media center PCs?
With Windows 7, any PC can be a media center PC. If you want a computer spscificly built as a media center, you're going to spend more for less just for the fancy case.
Most games now days can use controllers if your in to that.
"Controllers" plural, or "a controller" singular?
Singular is playing a single player game, plural if playing a multi player game. Also plural for different brands of controllers.
My media center PC is more than up to the task of playing whatever games I want. Sure, it can't run the latest and greatest at full resolutin, but I'm not a hard core gamer so the duel core Athlion and GeForce 9600GT does just fine. I've just ordered a new MB and six core Phenom for my desktop, so my MCPC will be getting my old quad core desktop motherboard and 8 GB ram (6 more gigs than it now has).
You want to play games on your big screen? It's much easier to hang a PC on it and do it that way. Sure, the cost may be double what a console would cost, but you have so much more you can do with it than you can with a console. Most games now days can use controllers if your in to that. Me, I prefer the keyboard/mouse, but controllers can be sued with PC games.
Believe me, I've had to do my share of family and friend fixes, not to mention taking care of a small county courthouse. Malware and viruses are one thing you don't need to go out and find, and they seem to be drawn to the potato like a moth to a flame.
They are quite pricey, however. The Asus Eee Slate is one of the few new one I know of that are a full blown computer in tablet form. It's able to use a pen as well as multi-touch, so note writing should be a snap. I haven't used a slate in years, but I still have my HP TC1100 with XP tablet and FranklinCovey PlanPlus for Windows. It's not designed specifically for note taking, but does that ability. Back when I was using it, it's handwriting recognition was amazing. It could take even my crapy handwriting and convert it to text with little to no errors/misspellings.
Until they develop actual handwriting capabilities and accurate handwriting recognition on tablets on par with a Slate PC, you might as well get a real laptop. You'll be using a keyboard anyway with the tablet, and with the laptop, you'll get better computing power to process those notes. Or, even better, have her sit up front (away from all the keyboards) and take hand written notes. Transferring them to the computer later will help in remembering what was said.
I haven't been in a lecture hall in years, but I can imagine all the clickity-clack of the multitude of keyboards is very distracting to both the professor and students.
Oh, that's right, there's money involved. We need to keep the flow of money going before we worry about the impact on the environment.
That mode of thinking will mean (is meaning?) the destruction of our ability to survive on this planet. It's all good though - people are making money. And those with the money are the ones that will be able to live in the domed cities.
In a normal interview it is illegal to ask an applicant's age.
This may be so, but most interviews come after filling out some kind of application which usually ask for date of birth. Is it illegal to do math preinterview?
Personally, I can't vouch for HP inkjet printers. I've owned nothing but Epson in the injket department. My current is a Stylus 6600 that I've had for about five years. I will admit it gets little use as I use my HP laserjet for most printing. When I do need color or to scan/copy something though, It's a little jewel. Ink may be a bit pricey, but it uses separate cartridges for all four colors and they last forever. Current cartridges are over two years old, and have only been cleaned/primed a few times and still print with no missing lines. Epson ink is, IMHO, the best and well worth the cost.
If you do a lot of color printing, I think I'd go for a mid line laser. If the majority of your printing ( 75 to 80%) is B&W, go for a B&W laser and use a kinko's or something for color printing when you really need it. The ability to print color when you need it is nice, but do you really need that capability? I don't know just how much a color copy costs, but even at a quarter a page, using a printing service for only the pages with color on them will come out way cheaper than buying a color printer and ink every few months because you end up printing a bunch of crap in color that you don't need. Like I said above, I rarely use my inkjet. It gets turned on a couple of times a month when I need to copy something, and that's more often than not, just a B&W copy. It will go for several months without printing any color.
Could be[sic] the last toy you ever have to buy for your kids?"
Sure, when your kid chokes on whatever crap the machine spits out. Not too good for the kids, but it will work wonders for your social lives and insurance payouts.
Did you miss the part where they mentioned 10 year olds? If you kid is 10 or older and still putting things other than food in their mouth, then it's your fault for buying your mentally disabled child this toy.
You get what you pay for, my friend. Stay away from those cheep ass consumer printers and get something good. If the HP printer you bought doesn't use PCL or Postscript, throw it in the trash and buy a real printer.
If a printer needs drivers, it was designed for Windows.
Comparing the amount of water and CO2 in the atmosphere, and saying it doesn't matter how much more CO2 we pump in due to their being so much water vapor there is like comparing a scale balanced with feathers on one side and lead on the other. It doesn't matter how much lead you put on the other side, as it will never be able to reach the amount of feathers on the other side, but even the smallest amount of lead will begin to tip the scales more than even a dozen or so feathers will.
The environment is about balance, people. The environment that we live in now is what current life has evolved to live in. If we upset that balance, what do you think is going to break?
... one less energy sucking device on the table is always good....
I had a first generation 360, that thing sounded like an A-6 taking off at full throttle, and I doubt the newer models are any better. My Tivo, Media Center PC, and Wii are all but dead silent. Hell, my laptop sitting right in front of me with fans on full speed can barely be heard. Until MS gets the noise problem solved, I don't think it would make a good media center replacement.
Doesn't first to file pretty much do away with prior art? Seams to me that any invention that has never had a paten filed against it is now up for grabs.
Unless each channel uses a different amount of energy, there is no way in hell they can determine who's watching what show from the power meter.
OK, I'll admit I didn't RTFA, but give me a fucking break. With 500+ channels, there is no way in hell they can figure out who's watching what especially during prime time. It's called prime time because it's the time of day 99.9% of the TV watching public is watching TV. Also, who's to say that power drain isn't a computer, fan, or even a few incandescent lights?
Yeah, and people who bought things were customers, now we're consumers. The citizens of this country used to be human beings, now we're just another resource for corporations to exploit, whether it be to consume their crap Made in China, or fill the few positions they still find cheaper to keep here in the U.S.
I fear within the next ten to twenty years, if things keep going the way they are now, the U.S. will be little more than a third world country being used by the multinationals for it's farmland and (what's left of it's) natural resources.
The reason for the switch to digital TV was to get more people on the cable/dish teat. I live less than 50 miles from my states capital, and can only barley pickup the local channels with a huge ass expensive antenna and signal amp. I can only imagine people in more rural areas and farmers way out in the middle of nowhere.
I'd like to see the figures for the dish providers subscriptions before and after the switch.
In a carrier battle group, the carrier is the main platform. All other ships in the group are designed and designated to protect it. As a last resort, the carrier does have missile defenses, but by the time the missile get through the external defenses, the aircraft have been launched. If you're in a war where an aircraft carrier is being targeted that heavily, by an enemy that capable, the aircraft probably never intended to return to the carrier anyway.
Of course, with the Carrier Killer Missile China's developing, things will change until we develop a defense against it, if we haven't already.
I'm inclined to believe there's more to it than what's in the story. Military aircraft do not rely solely on GPS for guidance. Perhaps drones and missiles do, but piloted military aircraft have redundant systems for guidance, including a sextant. Why do you think all aircraft other than a few fighters have a pilot and copilot? The copilot can act as navigator, and most tactical aircraft also have a navigator in addition to the two pilots.
Of course, this being just a drill, they may have said "screw it" and just landed. Any real reconnaissance mission would have be continued using redundant systems.
Or, they may have wanted to give that dike looking Kim Jong-il a big head and make him think he made a state of the art US military aircraft run for the boarder.
Any way you look at it, unless he zapped the plane with an EMF pulse strong enough to knock out the avionics systems, there is no way he could have done anything electronically to make them have to perform an emergency landing.
Ditto for the military naval vessels. The civilian naval vessels, yeah, it's possible they don't have anything other than GPS.
Slashdot Mirror
Go into Walmart and look at some of the pay as you go Android phones and comment again. I'd say edit your comment, but, alas, Slasdot has yet to fix that bug.
If the games you want to play aren't available for the PC, then this conversation is moot. This started off in response to a post about rather sitting on the couch than at the desk to play games. It is possible to do, and that is what I was trying to demonstrate.
Most games hard core games like to play (FPS, FRP, etc) are available for both PC and consoles. These games are able to use controllers (plural, because there are a multitude of makes and models available). Again, if it's not, you have no choice - stick with the console. Playing on the PC gives the added bonus of not having to put up with the "console kiddies" as well. You're nitpicking just to nitpick. Back under the bridge with you.
If you want a computer spscificly built as a media center, you're going to spend more for less just for the fancy case.
Except a fancy case has a much better spouse acceptance factor than a big, loud tower. What's the most cost-effective way to address media center PC aesthetics?
Hiding the PC in a cabinet or closet somewhere is a great option, especially with HDMI and SPDIF, both of which can be quite long without major signal loss. You'll just need an IR extender for the remote capabilities though. As for cost-effectiveness with an HTPC case, here's a good looking somewhat inexpensive HTPC case. Thermaltake and SilverStone are, IMHO, the two to look at. Their cases are both beautiful and very well built.
Singular is playing a single player game, plural if playing a multi player game.
Provided the game even supports multiple controllers. Console games are historically much more likely to support this sort of multiplayer than major-label PC games. Otherwise, no matter how many controllers I have plugged into a hub, the game is going to see only one and expect the other players to be using their own computers and their own copies of the game.
Yeah, that could be a problem with PC games. Not many of them support multi players on the same system. Then, again, most of the popular console games are single player locally as well. Like I said though, I'm not a hard core gamer, so I could be wrong on this. It just seems to me that most of the multi local player games are for kids, and that seems to be changing as well. The trend now seems to be network gaming - something where they can siphon even more money out of the players wallet with monthly or yearly fees.
Or can you recommend a supplier of pre-built media center PCs?
With Windows 7, any PC can be a media center PC. If you want a computer spscificly built as a media center, you're going to spend more for less just for the fancy case.
Most games now days can use controllers if your in to that.
"Controllers" plural, or "a controller" singular?
Singular is playing a single player game, plural if playing a multi player game. Also plural for different brands of controllers.
My media center PC is more than up to the task of playing whatever games I want. Sure, it can't run the latest and greatest at full resolutin, but I'm not a hard core gamer so the duel core Athlion and GeForce 9600GT does just fine. I've just ordered a new MB and six core Phenom for my desktop, so my MCPC will be getting my old quad core desktop motherboard and 8 GB ram (6 more gigs than it now has).
You want to play games on your big screen? It's much easier to hang a PC on it and do it that way. Sure, the cost may be double what a console would cost, but you have so much more you can do with it than you can with a console. Most games now days can use controllers if your in to that. Me, I prefer the keyboard/mouse, but controllers can be sued with PC games.
Believe me, I've had to do my share of family and friend fixes, not to mention taking care of a small county courthouse. Malware and viruses are one thing you don't need to go out and find, and they seem to be drawn to the potato like a moth to a flame.
For the point and click Windows potato, if it doesn't come pre installed, it's uncommon and hard to find.
They are quite pricey, however. The Asus Eee Slate is one of the few new one I know of that are a full blown computer in tablet form. It's able to use a pen as well as multi-touch, so note writing should be a snap. I haven't used a slate in years, but I still have my HP TC1100 with XP tablet and FranklinCovey PlanPlus for Windows. It's not designed specifically for note taking, but does that ability. Back when I was using it, it's handwriting recognition was amazing. It could take even my crapy handwriting and convert it to text with little to no errors/misspellings.
Until they develop actual handwriting capabilities and accurate handwriting recognition on tablets on par with a Slate PC, you might as well get a real laptop. You'll be using a keyboard anyway with the tablet, and with the laptop, you'll get better computing power to process those notes. Or, even better, have her sit up front (away from all the keyboards) and take hand written notes. Transferring them to the computer later will help in remembering what was said.
I haven't been in a lecture hall in years, but I can imagine all the clickity-clack of the multitude of keyboards is very distracting to both the professor and students.
Oh, that's right, there's money involved. We need to keep the flow of money going before we worry about the impact on the environment.
That mode of thinking will mean (is meaning?) the destruction of our ability to survive on this planet. It's all good though - people are making money. And those with the money are the ones that will be able to live in the domed cities.
In a normal interview it is illegal to ask an applicant's age.
This may be so, but most interviews come after filling out some kind of application which usually ask for date of birth. Is it illegal to do math preinterview?
And xbox live is governed by corporate pigs.
And nothing Apple does is governed by corporate pigs?
Nope. Apple is governed by hipster hogs.
Personally, I can't vouch for HP inkjet printers. I've owned nothing but Epson in the injket department. My current is a Stylus 6600 that I've had for about five years. I will admit it gets little use as I use my HP laserjet for most printing. When I do need color or to scan/copy something though, It's a little jewel. Ink may be a bit pricey, but it uses separate cartridges for all four colors and they last forever. Current cartridges are over two years old, and have only been cleaned/primed a few times and still print with no missing lines. Epson ink is, IMHO, the best and well worth the cost.
If you do a lot of color printing, I think I'd go for a mid line laser. If the majority of your printing ( 75 to 80%) is B&W, go for a B&W laser and use a kinko's or something for color printing when you really need it. The ability to print color when you need it is nice, but do you really need that capability? I don't know just how much a color copy costs, but even at a quarter a page, using a printing service for only the pages with color on them will come out way cheaper than buying a color printer and ink every few months because you end up printing a bunch of crap in color that you don't need. Like I said above, I rarely use my inkjet. It gets turned on a couple of times a month when I need to copy something, and that's more often than not, just a B&W copy. It will go for several months without printing any color.
Perhaps because this will "lock in" the current IP laws?
Can a law be modified, created, or stricken that goes against a treaty?
From the summary:
Could be[sic] the last toy you ever have to buy for your kids?"
Sure, when your kid chokes on whatever crap the machine spits out. Not too good for the kids, but it will work wonders for your social lives and insurance payouts.
Did you miss the part where they mentioned 10 year olds? If you kid is 10 or older and still putting things other than food in their mouth, then it's your fault for buying your mentally disabled child this toy.
You get what you pay for, my friend. Stay away from those cheep ass consumer printers and get something good. If the HP printer you bought doesn't use PCL or Postscript, throw it in the trash and buy a real printer.
If a printer needs drivers, it was designed for Windows.
Comparing the amount of water and CO2 in the atmosphere, and saying it doesn't matter how much more CO2 we pump in due to their being so much water vapor there is like comparing a scale balanced with feathers on one side and lead on the other. It doesn't matter how much lead you put on the other side, as it will never be able to reach the amount of feathers on the other side, but even the smallest amount of lead will begin to tip the scales more than even a dozen or so feathers will.
The environment is about balance, people. The environment that we live in now is what current life has evolved to live in. If we upset that balance, what do you think is going to break?
... one less energy sucking device on the table is always good....
I had a first generation 360, that thing sounded like an A-6 taking off at full throttle, and I doubt the newer models are any better. My Tivo, Media Center PC, and Wii are all but dead silent. Hell, my laptop sitting right in front of me with fans on full speed can barely be heard. Until MS gets the noise problem solved, I don't think it would make a good media center replacement.
Doesn't first to file pretty much do away with prior art? Seams to me that any invention that has never had a paten filed against it is now up for grabs.
Content triggering epilepsy. ....
No. Photosensitive epilepsy is different for each individual. If you have this, it's your responsibility to to avoid triggers.
Unless each channel uses a different amount of energy, there is no way in hell they can determine who's watching what show from the power meter.
OK, I'll admit I didn't RTFA, but give me a fucking break. With 500+ channels, there is no way in hell they can figure out who's watching what especially during prime time. It's called prime time because it's the time of day 99.9% of the TV watching public is watching TV. Also, who's to say that power drain isn't a computer, fan, or even a few incandescent lights?
Yeah, and people who bought things were customers, now we're consumers. The citizens of this country used to be human beings, now we're just another resource for corporations to exploit, whether it be to consume their crap Made in China, or fill the few positions they still find cheaper to keep here in the U.S.
I fear within the next ten to twenty years, if things keep going the way they are now, the U.S. will be little more than a third world country being used by the multinationals for it's farmland and (what's left of it's) natural resources.
The reason for the switch to digital TV was to get more people on the cable/dish teat. I live less than 50 miles from my states capital, and can only barley pickup the local channels with a huge ass expensive antenna and signal amp. I can only imagine people in more rural areas and farmers way out in the middle of nowhere.
I'd like to see the figures for the dish providers subscriptions before and after the switch.
NK would only need to spend $1M to make the cost of merely the first phase of an act of aggression far to expensive to continue with.
Umm..No. We'd just use a different navigation method and take them out one by one manually until we could get in with our higher tech weapons.
Like life, war finds a way...
In a carrier battle group, the carrier is the main platform. All other ships in the group are designed and designated to protect it. As a last resort, the carrier does have missile defenses, but by the time the missile get through the external defenses, the aircraft have been launched. If you're in a war where an aircraft carrier is being targeted that heavily, by an enemy that capable, the aircraft probably never intended to return to the carrier anyway.
Of course, with the Carrier Killer Missile China's developing, things will change until we develop a defense against it, if we haven't already.
I'm inclined to believe there's more to it than what's in the story. Military aircraft do not rely solely on GPS for guidance. Perhaps drones and missiles do, but piloted military aircraft have redundant systems for guidance, including a sextant. Why do you think all aircraft other than a few fighters have a pilot and copilot? The copilot can act as navigator, and most tactical aircraft also have a navigator in addition to the two pilots.
Of course, this being just a drill, they may have said "screw it" and just landed. Any real reconnaissance mission would have be continued using redundant systems.
Or, they may have wanted to give that dike looking Kim Jong-il a big head and make him think he made a state of the art US military aircraft run for the boarder.
Any way you look at it, unless he zapped the plane with an EMF pulse strong enough to knock out the avionics systems, there is no way he could have done anything electronically to make them have to perform an emergency landing.
Ditto for the military naval vessels. The civilian naval vessels, yeah, it's possible they don't have anything other than GPS.