So what's Eastern Europe's excuse? What's Asia and the Middle East's excuse? Are westerners oppressing all these countries?
My point exactly. It is NOT an African thing, everybody does it. The way you said it was implying that African's and those of African decent have a tendency towards anarchistic attitudes and behaviors, I was just pointing out that the rest of the world is pretty damn nutty as well and that singling out Africa was not fair.
Yeah, that's what they said about the ocean 100 years ago.
We ain't eating fish from outer space.
You ARE being sarcastic right? PLEEEAASEEE tell me you are just kidding?? You realize how SMALL our entire PLANET is compared to ALL of outer space, and that by consuming just the resources of our planet alone there is no way that we oculd ever put out more waste then the total mass of earth, and hell human waste does not even add up to a NOTICABLE fraction of a percent of the overall mass of Earth!!!
One sidelong glance at modern day Africa tends to skew one's view, however....
The same could be said for a goodly part of eastern Europe, certian sections of Asian, and regions in the middle east.
Remember that nearly the entire CONTINENT of Africa was screwed over, enslavement, disease, then a dependency upon a heavy consumption based cultural living method was created, and Westerners are STILL paying for slave labor and even EXECUTIONS to take place over there to further their business means.
You want fucked up? Well yah Africa is fucked up, and it is going to stay that way because big businesses are paying for it to be fucked up.
Err, just get it started in that direction, eventually it will get there.:-D
Or hell, even if it misses, who gives a Care? Space is rather large and it WOULD take an awful long time for even the all mighty all consuming all wasteful human species to mess it up too badly.
And just avoiding a trajectory that intersects another planet should not be that hard, so hell, not much danger there.
Chucking it out into space in general would be a rather nice safe efficient system.
Of course the space elevator itself would be solar powered.:-D (out in space there is so much energy from the sun that is normally blocked from getting to us, running whatever is needed purely on solar would be quite possible. Though I wonder if too large of a solar array would block part of the earth from getting a noticeable amount of light? ^_^ Though thanks to even just basic trig I am sure that the solar panel array would have to be insanely Huge to have any noticeable effect upon the light hitting any one spot of the earth. ^_^ )
And while Nuke energy may be inexpensive and efficient in the beginning, the costs of waste storage are astronomical. Estimates I've read put out by the NRDC show that it will cost well over $1.2 trillion to properly set up Yucca Mountain, and that's going to take 10 years.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to build a space elevator and just chuck that crud towards the sun?
And on BACK of BOX there should also be three connectors labeled "Audio Out (L)," "Audio Out (R)," and "Video Out," which, you might guess, would go into that video capable receiver.
Which would mean I would end up with 2 more wires (RF ----> video wire + 2 more audio wires), and two sets of analog inputs on the receiver, and since both are always on (though at least the cable box can be turned off remotely) who knows how in the world the receiver would handle it?
That and quite frankly it ain't MY A/V setup, I just plugged the shit together, and being purchased against my best advice, based solely upon what was on sale, I am not too greatly motivated to get it setup in tip-top shape. It works, and I have my own nice little one step system setup that cost me less and puts out more sound.
That and playing stuff from the VCR would get rather weird then too, hmm. . . unless I went Cable Box RF--->VCR RF-in and then split that signal into video/audioLR and went to the receiver.
Bleh.
(Do I win now? Can we agree that computers are simpler???)
digital cable uses RF, thus I have all video wired through the TV
Dude, you must have the only digital cable system in the world that does not require it's own tuner (which BTW would have A/V outputs that would be happily run through the aforementioned receiver switch).
Duuuude, digital cable box, RF wire goes INTO BOX, then an RF wire comes OUT OF the box!
Most receivers made within the last few years have video switching built-in; hence the elimination of step #1.
Current receiver does not have RF inputs, digital cable uses RF, thus I have all video wired through the TV, which is one of those lovely RCA models that skimped on the tuners and shares it between the S-Video and the RF inputs, oh joy.
So all VIDEO is being routed by my TV but all AUDIO is being routed by the receiver. Well except for the audio from the cable which is being routed to the TV and then to the receiver, everything else(read: The DVD player) is just routed to the receiver directly.
The VCR is in line with the Cable in using an RF, thankfully or else the wire mess would be even worse!
Uhh, no. Set it to output SPDIF digital @ 5.1. Analog output DVDs will output over the RCA cables, the 5.1 over the digital coax. A decent receiver will let you hook up both at the same time, therefore routing the proper signal over the proper cable, and the receiver switches to digital only when there is a digital signal.
Like I have the cash for a freakin digital wire? Hardly, those things are evil expensive even for short little chunks. And besides any movies I watch are likely in, err, uh hum, MP4 format any ways.
I suggest you sell the 36" monitor and go buy yourself a nice $200 receiver that does all the above mentioned and more.
Why, the computer does all that AND more, plus it plays Neo-Geo games at a nice WantToKickSomeAssRightNow screen size.
Can't beat that.:-D
(my computer is also the only item with a functional s-video in that I happen to have, though no s-video cable and playing a GameCube over RF feels soooo wrong. . ..)
which you must be using unless your DVD player has the AC3/DTS decoder on it, which I hope that your supposed 156 IQ wasn't dumb enough to buy)
Now who the fuck ever said the damn player was bought under MY advice?
Two words: Apex AD-703 (ok technically a company name and a model number)
My god, you actually use one of those garbage "simulated surround sound" modes?
No, I use the "copy front speakers to rear speakers" mode because it is rather pointless to have half of the speakers dead nearly all of the time.
Leave it at Dolby Digital (which, again, it'll default to) and be done with it.
Because if that is done nothing can be heard on half the discs inserted while the other half work just fine.
Oh and the setting is line out mode, raw or PCM. Now having to change that based upon which movie is being watched is NOT exactly something that you can expect your average consumer to get by doing, and hell I don't like doing it either and I grew up dinking around with electronics. Royal pain in the arse.
Replace it.
For those of us who are NOT rolling in cash, any A/V purchase is a minimum of a 5 to 6 year investment, get burned it's awhile before anything can be replaced. (heck, one of my TVs still has knobs on it and separate VHS and UHF selectors. ^_^ TV works grand though, it is lasting a lot longer then newer made ones) Smarty pants has a seriously dated receiver, and should realize that he's comparing using an outdated stereo setup with a modern computer system.
Oh fuck it man, I could shove a cheap ass DVD-ROM drive in my freaking 266mhz Pentium II (yes it could manage DVDs, it can manage MPEG4's just fine, bleh) running Windows98 (or hell Windows 95 even), with whatever bleeming sound card I want shoved in there (kick ass consumer sound cards have been down to well below $100 for quite some time now, like, err, a few years) that supports decoding whatever it is that I want, and have no touch DVD playing.
Or, I could play it on a stand alone DVD player that takes more button presses then installing a halfway modern OS.
Oh and none of the A/V kit is more then 3 or 4 years old, VS the 266mhz which was bought some wheres around 97 or so.
Hell I checked out on getting a receivers for my computer recently, pleeeck. For the cost of the LOWEST END receiver I would end up paying more then I would for a half ass decent PC sound setup. Sure the audiophiles may crinch, but they can fuck off, I ain't paying more for a receiver for my computer then I did for my computer as a whole. (that and nobody sells receivers without all that digital decoder crap in it, fuck man, if I got XXXghz behind the hood why the hell would I want to pay for an external decoder too? Especially since the newer sound cards do the same thing, I just wanted a freakin box of plugs to run the speakers from).
So in summary:
My total PC setup cost, around $1100 or so.
36" monitor (got a secondary one for graphics work of course, heh. Need a decent refresh rate after all. Matrox G400 rocks.:-D ), 4.1 sound setup, DVD, VHS, Cable TV, (those last two thanks to a generic $20 BT Chipset TV-IN card and DScaler), and enough storage space to store whatever the hell I want to (ok ok a mere 100 gigabytes and I could get it all now days for 1/2 the price of what I paid for either individual drive when I first bought them), and a cheesy 6x CDRW drive (firmware upgradable to 8x!!!:-D Remember those Ricoh 6x drives that everybody was so excited about because they could be upgraded to 8x, when 8x was all the hot new rage? Yah well I have one of those. Heh. A weeee bit old, hehe).
For about that same price, the A/V setup is 5 chessy ass speakers, a sub with such a huge fucking drop in it that you can pretty much hear in drumming along, and one of those RCA televisions that was named the worst TV Ever.
The TV is that one with the faulty tuner that had the class action lawsuit against it. This particular TV apparently was made 'just after' the faulty ones stopped being produced, but for whatever reason. . . . bleh, got it fixed, but still not nice, and since it does not have separate RF or S-Video tuners on it, cannot plug items into both at once, and since the DVD player cannot pass signals through it (the remote does not have an off button, thus pretty much fucking it all up to hell as that damn Apex blue screen always shows on whatever line it is outputting to, unless I want to run up and down to turn it on and off all the time, nooo thank you!), well,
as I said.
Put disc in drive.
Close drive.
Watch movie
When done take disc out of drive and close program.
My argument was that with a sufficiently powered computer that users need not worry about how shit goes together, you throw enough power at a problem and IT WILL BE SOLVED (well, as long as your programmers and UI designers have SOME brains in them, heh, sucky UI and everything else pretty much goes down the tube as far as the entire usability thing goes.:-D ). When you are talking throwing multiple GIGAHERTZ of modern computing power at a problem;
Hell, the user WILL NOT have to be able to worry about WTF plugs into WTF in WTF order, all shit WILL go in its properly colored holes and IT WILL WORK. With that much power to spare the user needs not worry about the receiver not being able to auto switch inputs, or not being able to properly decode whatever audio format is in use.
After a certain point, shit just starts working.
And quite frankly given another few years I have little doubt that for people willing to put the time in initial setup (and save on long term usability), that setting up a PC in the family room that does everything it is asked to automatically will be far easier then fucking around with at least 3 or 4 different 'set top boxes' all with different remotes and interfaces that all may or may not play together well all using a wide variety of interconnect standards (you know, I do not think that a SINGLE device in the entire A/V setup here actually uses the same damn wires to connect to another device as any other device uses to connect, except for maybe some parts of the audio setup but even then there is the 4 wire connections, the 2 wire connections, and the RF connections, bleck!)
Quite frankly I am just wishing for the days back of a single wiring connecting all. Why the hell didn't somebody make some LOW COST single video/audio wire that supports at least 4 speaker surround sound? Hell even make it analog, not like I have any wires right now that is digital any ways, (and those bleeming optical wires cost so much, yeesh!) a good single high quality analog wire would be a blessing.
Just daisy chain it all together like it used to be, nice and simple to setup. None of this extended star topology crud.
Oh, and for reference's sake, I DID NOT PURCHASE ANY OF THE A/V KIT MENTIONED ABOVE
Nor was I even asked about it, bleh. Well I was technically asked, but my advice "not to buy the cheapest receiver that you can find just because it has the words Pro Logic written on it" was not followed.
Since you have an high IQ, perhaps you can explain why you need an eject button on the remote? Is there a robot that runs around changes the tape/CD after you push the eject button on the remote?
No, I have nieces and nephews for that, and quite frankly with a 3 disc DVD changer I don't feel like describing for them exactly which combination of buttons to press to get the desired disc out.
Yah but by 13 the product undergoes a complete loss of functionality and starts listening to teeny-bop CDs way to loud and refuses to process any further commands for at least the next five years. And the reorder type for a replacement horribly long unless you plan the reordering ahead of time.
Here is my question: Since you're so smart, why is it such a difficult task for you to use a console DVD player? I mean, it's not that hard really. 5 to 10 seconds tops, insert DVD, push play, that's it. I simply can't see how you would prefer sitting hunched over your computer to watch a DVD than using a TV.
Insert DVD;
pick up remote #1, set video input to CD (closest label to DVD that the remote has on it)
Pick up remote #2, set audio input to LaserDisc (closet thing remote has to DVD on it), set audio output format to 5.1 surround.
Still using remote #2 turn up volume on receiver, because even my DVD player at max still puts out barely a whisper at what makes the output from my cable box boom.
Pick up remote three, press play, goto settings, select audio out method (there are three of them, different DVDs apparently use different types, beats the crud outa me, rather irritating), turn of subtitles (apex.... ).
When DONE with video;
pick up remote #1, set video input back to VCR (since cable is routed through VCR and all, digital cable, yummies, RF connectors. . . . bleh), pick up remote #2, set sound mode back to faux 5.1 (copying front speakers to rear speakers), set audio input back to VCR, rush to turn down master volume because it is way to loud.
Now, please do compare this to:
Put DVD in drive;
Sit back and enjoy on my 36" computer monitor (E-bay rocks) with 4.1 speaker setup (ok ok it is not 5.1 but it works!).
I guess when your remote is a P4 it's not a question of whether it can do everything, it's a question of whether you can make it do anything?
You seen any of the latest user friendly OSs? I am sure you have. Anybody can use them, literally. The flat desktop metaphor is one of the best things to happen to computer interface design (as far as interfacing with the average person goes, for advanced users it can suck hard).
Want to record something? Well unless the MPAA gets to your desktop first, imagine a big red button on your desktop that just says record. Records whatever. Listening to some nice streaming MP3s? Record would just start writing them to your HD as they came in. Watching a TV show you like over your TV-In card? The AVI would be written to the HD in loseless HUFFYUV and then re compressed into high quality MPEG4 when your CPU is idle.
VCR and DVD player menus are hierarchical with multiple starting parent menus, very icky and requires the user to memorize which starting menu can even possibly/lead/ to where. Not nice.
I have yet to see a universal remote that actualy:
A: Was universal
or
B: Did not take a universally large amount of time to setup.
I am a Nerd, I have an IQ of 156, I throw computer boxes together with reckless abandon, I have done tech support in my sleep, but the damn universal remote control still is not all that 'universal'. (and even those that are end up depreciated the second the latest wave of new devices come out. . ..)
Number pad
Play/Stop/FF/RW/Pause/Eject/Power
Volume up and Volume down
Channel up and Channel Down.
Everything else after that is rather extraneous. . . .
And quite frankly I should not need a 30 button remote for just my DVD player. This is why I only view DVDs on my computer, faaar easier, don't have to switch around audio and video inputs until hell freezes over, then select the proper audio decompression scheme, then select the proper surround sound scheme, and THEN sit down and 'enjoy' the movie, and then have the honor of switching all that shit BACK to watch regular TV.
No thank you. . . . I can pop a DVD in my computer's drive and it starts playing, and when it is done I take it out, close the program, and I am done. End.
Doing all of that in the first list above would require a 'universal remote' with more keys on it then my keyboard (all of the various device's special buttons and such) either that or a control scheme that changed its own layout for each device mode that was switched to (which would almost be even worse since memorizing key presses and locations would become a ton harder with a constantly shifting pad depending on which 'mode' it was in).
Quite frankly I think that I'll stick with just pairing the remotes up together with rubber bands. Harder to lose that way, and a ton less complicated.
The reason that not-for-profits *usually* do not have the stability of for-profit companies is that they have a small source of revenue
Please do compare this to for profit companies, where by if they do not get at least at 10% increase in PROFITS each year the shit hits the fan and their ass ends up bought out. (yah yah an CGIR3_ but still. . ..)
Not for profit organizations do what they do and get it done, for profit organizations begin to cut corners the second they see their bottom line either being HURT or even just not increasing.
I mean hell look at verisign, they have stooped all the way down to illegal tactics in order to keep their profits from going all the way kerplunk, yah sure nice commercial entity there. . . . and the sad thing is that ANY corporation will sink to the same levels through the sheer pressures of capitalism.
Good for making money, sure, but for running something that the public as a whole depends on for information and knowledge? Hell no, get some people in there who will keep on doing their job no matter what the stock market / investors / board of directors say. Note that above all three groups are interlinked. . . . one goes to shit and bye bye goes the rest of them.
Come to think of it, the Universal Light Church (be ordained now! [ulc.org] it's free) might be up for doing something like that;-)
My word they have grown, I can remember when I first encountered them on my Juno account (this is before Juno charged money and was an e-mail only service, many people without the Internet just had a juno.com e-mail address, rather nifty actually)
Too bad I didn't print out my cert then, earlier dates are always better and all that.:-D
It was given a problem (give us an oscillating pattern) and it solved it in a way the programmers had not thought of. Wow.
Or more likely a way that they where taught not to think of because it wastes so much resources.
Thinking 'outside the box' is fine and all, until you realize that outside the box tends ot be a bit, err, messy at times.
Besides history has shown that when the current methodologies are no longer sufficient to solve a given problem, that somebody will come along sooner or later and do something that the current school of thought teaches against in order to solve the problem.
Now hopefully what one of the true applications of techniques like this is, will be to help ensure that such solutions come about sooner rather then later. But as it is this is hardly an adequate way to go about solving any problem, tried and true methods are tried and true for a reason. They work.
I was speaking of the hong kong action flicks that inspired The Matrix's fighting scenes to a great extent.
I will consider the irony
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Animatrix Trailer
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Low budget eastern films influence big western producers to create gigantic megabuck flick;
for a follow up?
Why not export huge megabuck flick story line in an Eastern visual medium?
Oh well, at least Anime kicks ass for fight scenes.:-D
Re:Revoking people's right to complain?
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Want Freedom?
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· Score: 2
It's a good thing you don't know anything about the military or the UCMJ, otherwise your post may have contained something actually insightful. One, if the order is unlawful, which in your situation it is, the order MUST be disobayed, without fear of punishment. Second, throughout the history of the US military, any commanding officer which is in the same situation you described, has been court-marshelled or forced to resign.
Lord no, our military officers haven't EVERY done ANYTHING WRONG at ALL.
God Forbid if they ever injected ANYBODY with ANY sort of an illness just to see what the effects would be, or killed ANY innocent civilians because their commanding officer told them too, or violated ANY of the rules of engagement, ooh no, not OUR perfect military.
Bah, I am not against the US Military, humans are humans, and grunts are grunts. Employees at many restaurants violent health code rules all the time because they where told to by their boss.
Any establishment with a rigid pecking order with somebody on top capable of bringing everybody else below them down has a very strong tendency towards eventual corruption. Just hopefully the/next/ time US Troops are asked to do crowd control with the US populas, they will remember lessons learned in the past and not shoot anybody. . . .
Re:One of my favourite quotes...
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Want Freedom?
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· Score: 2
America was founded by a good deal of people who where willing to sacrifice life and limb SOLELY FOR freedom. It is that which is to be held in highest esteem above all else, for 'tis better to die a free man in defense of our nations freedom, or in defiance of attempts to remove those freedoms, then it is to live a safe man inside a society without freedom.
With all of those people who died struggling for their freedom in this great nation, how can we dare to throw off the burden of continuing their work just because now we as a whole face the same dangers that once only those few who stood up once faced?
It would be a godsend merely to get homework assignments online, let alone live IM-based help.
My middle school math teacher did this.:-D Well at least the H/W part, some teachers do indeed do H/W assignments online, but with how fluid most classes are, a set H/W list is kind of, err, heh, non-existent. ^_^
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My point exactly. It is NOT an African thing, everybody does it. The way you said it was implying that African's and those of African decent have a tendency towards anarchistic attitudes and behaviors, I was just pointing out that the rest of the world is pretty damn nutty as well and that singling out Africa was not fair.
Yeah, that's what they said about the ocean 100 years ago.
We ain't eating fish from outer space.
You ARE being sarcastic right? PLEEEAASEEE tell me you are just kidding?? You realize how SMALL our entire PLANET is compared to ALL of outer space, and that by consuming just the resources of our planet alone there is no way that we oculd ever put out more waste then the total mass of earth, and hell human waste does not even add up to a NOTICABLE fraction of a percent of the overall mass of Earth!!!
The same could be said for a goodly part of eastern Europe, certian sections of Asian, and regions in the middle east.
Remember that nearly the entire CONTINENT of Africa was screwed over, enslavement, disease, then a dependency upon a heavy consumption based cultural living method was created, and Westerners are STILL paying for slave labor and even EXECUTIONS to take place over there to further their business means.
You want fucked up? Well yah Africa is fucked up, and it is going to stay that way because big businesses are paying for it to be fucked up.
Err, just get it started in that direction, eventually it will get there. :-D
:-D (out in space there is so much energy from the sun that is normally blocked from getting to us, running whatever is needed purely on solar would be quite possible. Though I wonder if too large of a solar array would block part of the earth from getting a noticeable amount of light? ^_^ Though thanks to even just basic trig I am sure that the solar panel array would have to be insanely Huge to have any noticeable effect upon the light hitting any one spot of the earth. ^_^ )
Or hell, even if it misses, who gives a Care? Space is rather large and it WOULD take an awful long time for even the all mighty all consuming all wasteful human species to mess it up too badly.
And just avoiding a trajectory that intersects another planet should not be that hard, so hell, not much danger there.
Chucking it out into space in general would be a rather nice safe efficient system.
Of course the space elevator itself would be solar powered.
Quite frankly I think that the kids today prefer these.
I still have e-mail I exchanged with some /. users in regards to memories that this project's opening had brought back to us, sitting in my inbox.
Ok, that is it, I am officially scared;
WHAT TRANSSEXUAL TRANSVESTITE IS DOING THE TIME WARP??? (and could they loan me a map to Transylvania?)
Could you pleeeease stop it, my life if going by way to quickly, slow it down folks, take a breather!
And while Nuke energy may be inexpensive and efficient in the beginning, the costs of waste storage are astronomical. Estimates I've read put out by the NRDC show that it will cost well over $1.2 trillion to properly set up Yucca Mountain, and that's going to take 10 years.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to build a space elevator and just chuck that crud towards the sun?
(no, err, seriously, step away from mod funny!!)
And on BACK of BOX there should also be three connectors labeled "Audio Out (L)," "Audio Out (R)," and "Video Out," which, you might guess, would go into that video capable receiver.
Which would mean I would end up with 2 more wires (RF ----> video wire + 2 more audio wires), and two sets of analog inputs on the receiver, and since both are always on (though at least the cable box can be turned off remotely) who knows how in the world the receiver would handle it?
That and quite frankly it ain't MY A/V setup, I just plugged the shit together, and being purchased against my best advice, based solely upon what was on sale, I am not too greatly motivated to get it setup in tip-top shape. It works, and I have my own nice little one step system setup that cost me less and puts out more sound.
That and playing stuff from the VCR would get rather weird then too, hmm. . . unless I went Cable Box RF--->VCR RF-in and then split that signal into video/audioLR and went to the receiver.
Bleh.
(Do I win now? Can we agree that computers are simpler???)
digital cable uses RF, thus I have all video wired through the TV
Dude, you must have the only digital cable system in the world that does not require it's own tuner (which BTW would have A/V outputs that would be happily run through the aforementioned receiver switch).
Duuuude, digital cable box, RF wire goes INTO BOX, then an RF wire comes OUT OF the box!
yeesh.
Most receivers made within the last few years have video switching built-in; hence the elimination of step #1.
:-D
.)
Current receiver does not have RF inputs, digital cable uses RF, thus I have all video wired through the TV, which is one of those lovely RCA models that skimped on the tuners and shares it between the S-Video and the RF inputs, oh joy.
So all VIDEO is being routed by my TV but all AUDIO is being routed by the receiver. Well except for the audio from the cable which is being routed to the TV and then to the receiver, everything else(read: The DVD player) is just routed to the receiver directly.
The VCR is in line with the Cable in using an RF, thankfully or else the wire mess would be even worse!
Uhh, no. Set it to output SPDIF digital @ 5.1. Analog output DVDs will output over the RCA cables, the 5.1 over the digital coax. A decent receiver will let you hook up both at the same time, therefore routing the proper signal over the proper cable, and the receiver switches to digital only when there is a digital signal.
Like I have the cash for a freakin digital wire? Hardly, those things are evil expensive even for short little chunks. And besides any movies I watch are likely in, err, uh hum, MP4 format any ways.
I suggest you sell the 36" monitor and go buy yourself a nice $200 receiver that does all the above mentioned and more.
Why, the computer does all that AND more, plus it plays Neo-Geo games at a nice WantToKickSomeAssRightNow screen size.
Can't beat that.
(my computer is also the only item with a functional s-video in that I happen to have, though no s-video cable and playing a GameCube over RF feels soooo wrong. . .
which you must be using unless your DVD player has the AC3/DTS decoder on it, which I hope that your supposed 156 IQ wasn't dumb enough to buy)
:-D ), 4.1 sound setup, DVD, VHS, Cable TV, (those last two thanks to a generic $20 BT Chipset TV-IN card and DScaler), and enough storage space to store whatever the hell I want to (ok ok a mere 100 gigabytes and I could get it all now days for 1/2 the price of what I paid for either individual drive when I first bought them), and a cheesy 6x CDRW drive (firmware upgradable to 8x!!! :-D Remember those Ricoh 6x drives that everybody was so excited about because they could be upgraded to 8x, when 8x was all the hot new rage? Yah well I have one of those. Heh. A weeee bit old, hehe).
:-D ). When you are talking throwing multiple GIGAHERTZ of modern computing power at a problem;
Now who the fuck ever said the damn player was bought under MY advice?
Two words: Apex AD-703 (ok technically a company name and a model number)
My god, you actually use one of those garbage "simulated surround sound" modes?
No, I use the "copy front speakers to rear speakers" mode because it is rather pointless to have half of the speakers dead nearly all of the time.
Leave it at Dolby Digital (which, again, it'll default to) and be done with it.
Because if that is done nothing can be heard on half the discs inserted while the other half work just fine.
Oh and the setting is line out mode, raw or PCM. Now having to change that based upon which movie is being watched is NOT exactly something that you can expect your average consumer to get by doing, and hell I don't like doing it either and I grew up dinking around with electronics. Royal pain in the arse.
Replace it.
For those of us who are NOT rolling in cash, any A/V purchase is a minimum of a 5 to 6 year investment, get burned it's awhile before anything can be replaced. (heck, one of my TVs still has knobs on it and separate VHS and UHF selectors. ^_^ TV works grand though, it is lasting a lot longer then newer made ones)
Smarty pants has a seriously dated receiver, and should realize that he's comparing using an outdated stereo setup with a modern computer system.
Oh fuck it man, I could shove a cheap ass DVD-ROM drive in my freaking 266mhz Pentium II (yes it could manage DVDs, it can manage MPEG4's just fine, bleh) running Windows98 (or hell Windows 95 even), with whatever bleeming sound card I want shoved in there (kick ass consumer sound cards have been down to well below $100 for quite some time now, like, err, a few years) that supports decoding whatever it is that I want, and have no touch DVD playing.
Or, I could play it on a stand alone DVD player that takes more button presses then installing a halfway modern OS.
Oh and none of the A/V kit is more then 3 or 4 years old, VS the 266mhz which was bought some wheres around 97 or so.
Hell I checked out on getting a receivers for my computer recently, pleeeck. For the cost of the LOWEST END receiver I would end up paying more then I would for a half ass decent PC sound setup. Sure the audiophiles may crinch, but they can fuck off, I ain't paying more for a receiver for my computer then I did for my computer as a whole. (that and nobody sells receivers without all that digital decoder crap in it, fuck man, if I got XXXghz behind the hood why the hell would I want to pay for an external decoder too? Especially since the newer sound cards do the same thing, I just wanted a freakin box of plugs to run the speakers from).
So in summary:
My total PC setup cost, around $1100 or so.
36" monitor (got a secondary one for graphics work of course, heh. Need a decent refresh rate after all. Matrox G400 rocks.
For about that same price, the A/V setup is 5 chessy ass speakers, a sub with such a huge fucking drop in it that you can pretty much hear in drumming along, and one of those RCA televisions that was named the worst TV Ever.
The TV is that one with the faulty tuner that had the class action lawsuit against it. This particular TV apparently was made 'just after' the faulty ones stopped being produced, but for whatever reason. . . . bleh, got it fixed, but still not nice, and since it does not have separate RF or S-Video tuners on it, cannot plug items into both at once, and since the DVD player cannot pass signals through it (the remote does not have an off button, thus pretty much fucking it all up to hell as that damn Apex blue screen always shows on whatever line it is outputting to, unless I want to run up and down to turn it on and off all the time, nooo thank you!), well,
as I said.
Put disc in drive.
Close drive.
Watch movie
When done take disc out of drive and close program.
My argument was that with a sufficiently powered computer that users need not worry about how shit goes together, you throw enough power at a problem and IT WILL BE SOLVED (well, as long as your programmers and UI designers have SOME brains in them, heh, sucky UI and everything else pretty much goes down the tube as far as the entire usability thing goes.
Hell, the user WILL NOT have to be able to worry about WTF plugs into WTF in WTF order, all shit WILL go in its properly colored holes and IT WILL WORK. With that much power to spare the user needs not worry about the receiver not being able to auto switch inputs, or not being able to properly decode whatever audio format is in use.
After a certain point, shit just starts working.
And quite frankly given another few years I have little doubt that for people willing to put the time in initial setup (and save on long term usability), that setting up a PC in the family room that does everything it is asked to automatically will be far easier then fucking around with at least 3 or 4 different 'set top boxes' all with different remotes and interfaces that all may or may not play together well all using a wide variety of interconnect standards (you know, I do not think that a SINGLE device in the entire A/V setup here actually uses the same damn wires to connect to another device as any other device uses to connect, except for maybe some parts of the audio setup but even then there is the 4 wire connections, the 2 wire connections, and the RF connections, bleck!)
Quite frankly I am just wishing for the days back of a single wiring connecting all. Why the hell didn't somebody make some LOW COST single video/audio wire that supports at least 4 speaker surround sound? Hell even make it analog, not like I have any wires right now that is digital any ways, (and those bleeming optical wires cost so much, yeesh!) a good single high quality analog wire would be a blessing.
Just daisy chain it all together like it used to be, nice and simple to setup. None of this extended star topology crud.
Oh, and for reference's sake, I DID NOT PURCHASE ANY OF THE A/V KIT MENTIONED ABOVE
Nor was I even asked about it, bleh. Well I was technically asked, but my advice "not to buy the cheapest receiver that you can find just because it has the words Pro Logic written on it" was not followed.
Since you have an high IQ, perhaps you can explain why you need an eject button on the remote? Is there a robot that runs around changes the tape/CD after you push the eject button on the remote?
No, I have nieces and nephews for that, and quite frankly with a 3 disc DVD changer I don't feel like describing for them exactly which combination of buttons to press to get the desired disc out.
Yah but by 13 the product undergoes a complete loss of functionality and starts listening to teeny-bop CDs way to loud and refuses to process any further commands for at least the next five years. And the reorder type for a replacement horribly long unless you plan the reordering ahead of time.
Here is my question: Since you're so smart, why is it such a difficult task for you to use a console DVD player? I mean, it's not that hard really. 5 to 10 seconds tops, insert DVD, push play, that's it. I simply can't see how you would prefer sitting hunched over your computer to watch a DVD than using a TV.
.... ).
Insert DVD;
pick up remote #1, set video input to CD (closest label to DVD that the remote has on it)
Pick up remote #2, set audio input to LaserDisc (closet thing remote has to DVD on it), set audio output format to 5.1 surround.
Still using remote #2 turn up volume on receiver, because even my DVD player at max still puts out barely a whisper at what makes the output from my cable box boom.
Pick up remote three, press play, goto settings, select audio out method (there are three of them, different DVDs apparently use different types, beats the crud outa me, rather irritating), turn of subtitles (apex
When DONE with video;
pick up remote #1, set video input back to VCR (since cable is routed through VCR and all, digital cable, yummies, RF connectors. . . . bleh), pick up remote #2, set sound mode back to faux 5.1 (copying front speakers to rear speakers), set audio input back to VCR, rush to turn down master volume because it is way to loud.
Now, please do compare this to:
Put DVD in drive;
Sit back and enjoy on my 36" computer monitor (E-bay rocks) with 4.1 speaker setup (ok ok it is not 5.1 but it works!).
I guess when your remote is a P4 it's not a question of whether it can do everything, it's a question of whether you can make it do anything?
/lead/ to where. Not nice.
You seen any of the latest user friendly OSs? I am sure you have. Anybody can use them, literally. The flat desktop metaphor is one of the best things to happen to computer interface design (as far as interfacing with the average person goes, for advanced users it can suck hard).
Want to record something? Well unless the MPAA gets to your desktop first, imagine a big red button on your desktop that just says record. Records whatever. Listening to some nice streaming MP3s? Record would just start writing them to your HD as they came in. Watching a TV show you like over your TV-In card? The AVI would be written to the HD in loseless HUFFYUV and then re compressed into high quality MPEG4 when your CPU is idle.
VCR and DVD player menus are hierarchical with multiple starting parent menus, very icky and requires the user to memorize which starting menu can even possibly
I have yet to see a universal remote that actualy:
.)
A: Was universal
or
B: Did not take a universally large amount of time to setup.
I am a Nerd, I have an IQ of 156, I throw computer boxes together with reckless abandon, I have done tech support in my sleep, but the damn universal remote control still is not all that 'universal'. (and even those that are end up depreciated the second the latest wave of new devices come out. . .
Number pad
Play/Stop/FF/RW/Pause/Eject/Power
Volume up and Volume down
Channel up and Channel Down.
Everything else after that is rather extraneous. . . .
And quite frankly I should not need a 30 button remote for just my DVD player. This is why I only view DVDs on my computer, faaar easier, don't have to switch around audio and video inputs until hell freezes over, then select the proper audio decompression scheme, then select the proper surround sound scheme, and THEN sit down and 'enjoy' the movie, and then have the honor of switching all that shit BACK to watch regular TV.
No thank you. . . . I can pop a DVD in my computer's drive and it starts playing, and when it is done I take it out, close the program, and I am done. End.
Doing all of that in the first list above would require a 'universal remote' with more keys on it then my keyboard (all of the various device's special buttons and such) either that or a control scheme that changed its own layout for each device mode that was switched to (which would almost be even worse since memorizing key presses and locations would become a ton harder with a constantly shifting pad depending on which 'mode' it was in).
Quite frankly I think that I'll stick with just pairing the remotes up together with rubber bands. Harder to lose that way, and a ton less complicated.
The reason that not-for-profits *usually* do not have the stability of for-profit companies is that they have a small source of revenue
Please do compare this to for profit companies, where by if they do not get at least at 10% increase in PROFITS each year the shit hits the fan and their ass ends up bought out. (yah yah an CGIR3_ but still. . .
Not for profit organizations do what they do and get it done, for profit organizations begin to cut corners the second they see their bottom line either being HURT or even just not increasing.
I mean hell look at verisign, they have stooped all the way down to illegal tactics in order to keep their profits from going all the way kerplunk, yah sure nice commercial entity there. . . . and the sad thing is that ANY corporation will sink to the same levels through the sheer pressures of capitalism.
Good for making money, sure, but for running something that the public as a whole depends on for information and knowledge? Hell no, get some people in there who will keep on doing their job no matter what the stock market / investors / board of directors say. Note that above all three groups are interlinked. . . . one goes to shit and bye bye goes the rest of them.
Come to think of it, the Universal Light Church (be ordained now! [ulc.org] it's free) might be up for doing something like that ;-)
:-D
My word they have grown, I can remember when I first encountered them on my Juno account (this is before Juno charged money and was an e-mail only service, many people without the Internet just had a juno.com e-mail address, rather nifty actually)
Too bad I didn't print out my cert then, earlier dates are always better and all that.
It was given a problem (give us an oscillating pattern) and it solved it in a way the programmers had not thought of. Wow.
Or more likely a way that they where taught not to think of because it wastes so much resources.
Thinking 'outside the box' is fine and all, until you realize that outside the box tends ot be a bit, err, messy at times.
Besides history has shown that when the current methodologies are no longer sufficient to solve a given problem, that somebody will come along sooner or later and do something that the current school of thought teaches against in order to solve the problem.
Now hopefully what one of the true applications of techniques like this is, will be to help ensure that such solutions come about sooner rather then later. But as it is this is hardly an adequate way to go about solving any problem, tried and true methods are tried and true for a reason. They work.
MPAA VS Censors.
Help head hurt.
Since when is anime low budget?
I was speaking of the hong kong action flicks that inspired The Matrix's fighting scenes to a great extent.
Low budget eastern films influence big western producers to create gigantic megabuck flick;
:-D
for a follow up?
Why not export huge megabuck flick story line in an Eastern visual medium?
Oh well, at least Anime kicks ass for fight scenes.
It's a good thing you don't know anything about the military or the UCMJ, otherwise your post may have contained something actually insightful. One, if the order is unlawful, which in your situation it is, the order MUST be disobayed, without fear of punishment. Second, throughout the history of the US military, any commanding officer which is in the same situation you described, has been court-marshelled or forced to resign.
/next/ time US Troops are asked to do crowd control with the US populas, they will remember lessons learned in the past and not shoot anybody. . . .
Lord no, our military officers haven't EVERY done ANYTHING WRONG at ALL.
God Forbid if they ever injected ANYBODY with ANY sort of an illness just to see what the effects would be, or killed ANY innocent civilians because their commanding officer told them too, or violated ANY of the rules of engagement, ooh no, not OUR perfect military.
Bah, I am not against the US Military, humans are humans, and grunts are grunts. Employees at many restaurants violent health code rules all the time because they where told to by their boss.
Any establishment with a rigid pecking order with somebody on top capable of bringing everybody else below them down has a very strong tendency towards eventual corruption. Just hopefully the
America was founded by a good deal of people who where willing to sacrifice life and limb SOLELY FOR freedom. It is that which is to be held in highest esteem above all else, for 'tis better to die a free man in defense of our nations freedom, or in defiance of attempts to remove those freedoms, then it is to live a safe man inside a society without freedom.
With all of those people who died struggling for their freedom in this great nation, how can we dare to throw off the burden of continuing their work just because now we as a whole face the same dangers that once only those few who stood up once faced?
It would be a godsend merely to get homework assignments online, let alone live IM-based help.
:-D Well at least the H/W part, some teachers do indeed do H/W assignments online, but with how fluid most classes are, a set H/W list is kind of, err, heh, non-existent. ^_^
My middle school math teacher did this.