I miss the days when Montana had no speed limit, except near the cities. We need more states like that. Interstates were designed for rapid travel (120 miles per hour). It seems silly to limit ourselves to only half that.
I guess this is why I prefer abstract games which have little connection to anything - like Pacman or Missile Command or Metroid or Final Fantasy 10 or Ratchet & Clank. The less connection to the real world, the more I like it.
>>>No pitchfork, you are absolutely right. The 10-year-old powermacs in the server room are no longer supported by the latest Mac OS, 10.6, and I need to start to plan for new hardware now. Grr. >>>
(faints)
Wow someone agrees. Just curious what is the latest version those ten-year-old Macs will support (legally, without using XPostFacto or other hacks)? Mine was 10.3
>>>Power Macintosh G3 will run OS X 10.2... you'll need some upgrades (particularly RAM, and a CPU upgrade will help too)
IMHO a computer with a CPU upgrade ceases to be the same computer. I know many people who have upgraded their Commodore 64s to 16-bit/25 megahertz versions of the 6502, and in my opinion that's no longer a C64. It's become a totally different computer... like a brain transplant would give you a whole new person. (Plus if you do spend money on a CPU upgrade, you might as well just buy a G5 machine - the cost will be about the same.)
Anyway you say 10.2 is fully-supported by Apple, but that's simply not true. I tried and failed to find a decent web browser but no luck - for example Safari requires 10.5. The best browser I could find was woefully out-of-date and displayed mostly garbage.
>>>I'd like to see the GP put Vista on his 10 year old PC
That's just the point. I don't have to upgrade from XP because it continues to be supported by the programmers. (Heck even Win 98 is still supported by many programs.) Try doing that with Mac OS 9 or 10.2 (one year "younger" than XP). You can't even find a decent browser for those since the supported lifespan for Macs is so ridiculously short.
>>>A 10 year old mac can continue to run its original OS, or the earlier versions of OS X
Okay. I've got two Macs. One with OS 9 and one with 10.3. Show me a browser that run on either of these systems AND be able to properly render the web. I've looked and looked, but I haven't found anything.
And upgrading past 10.3 is not an option due to the ridiculous minimum megahertz imposed by Apple.
>>>You conveniently did not mention that the Mac underwent it's second major change of architecture
Which has nothing to do with my PowerMac that refuses to run anything more-recent than 10.3. The obstacle stopping me from jumping higher is not the PPC to Intel transition, but Apple's ridiculously high megahertz requirement.
And what happens when Safari, Opera, and other browsers announce you have to have 10.6 or higher a few months from now? That's the problem with my Mac where I have a browser but it shows mostly garbage due to extreme age, and I can't upgrade because my OS is not supported.
It doesn't matter. Even if Snow Leopard 10.6 supported PowerPCs, it still wouldn't work on a G4 since the clock speed is too slow. That's the problem I have with my Mac - it was declared "too slow" by Apple and therefore is two OS versions behind. It's not obsolescence due to old age, but a forced obsolescence by edict. ("Your perfectly usable Mac slower than 1000 megahertz? Too bad. You can't install.")
>>>Could always upgrade the 10 year old Mac to Leopard [10.5]
Nope. Doesn't meet the minimum processor clock speed. Looking at a 10-year-old Mac, the latest OS you can use is 10.3 (minimum 233 megahertz). And once you have it installed good luck finding any web browsers that will work for it. Opera 6 is probably the best option, and that's woefully out-of-date.
With the Windows systems you can still run XP on a 10-year-old machine, which is admittedly old, but still widely-supported by the latest programs. PCs simply have a longer support life... about 2.5 times longer than Mac.
>>>Isn't TNG The Next Generation.. as in Star Trek The Next Generation ??
No. TNG can also refer to other shows that are sequels to the original, like Battlestar Galactica TNG, Quantum Leap TNG, 90210 TNG, Melrose TNG - at least that's the shorthand used on rec.arts.tv
If you have an alternate way of referring to the original Doctor Who and the new Doctor Who show, I'm open to suggestions.
You don't understand the meaning of heat death. It isn't a "burn" but a very, very low energy state of about 0.5 degrees above absolute freezing. It's the point where all energy has been consumed, even gravity, such that all stars/planets have broken-apart, and all that remains is scattered atoms just randomly vibrating..... like a watch slowly winding down until it stops.
>>>What, if anything, does that mean for the past and future of the universe?
There was a Doctor Who TNG episode about this. The universe at the point of heat death was a sad and depressing place to be... very very dark To paraphrase Marvin the Depressed Robot - Might as well slit my wrist now, since it will all end in tears anyhow.
Now the world has gone to bed Darkness won't engulf my head I can see by infra-red How I hate the night
>>>Currently to get games, I have to drive to the store, look on the shelf to find the game, find out they don't have the game, go to another store, and then buy the game, and then drive home. >>>
You don't have access to amazon.com, bestbuy.com, or ebay.com? Wow. I've bought 99% of my gaming library right here from this chair.
>>>Being able to just do a couple clicks, and go and do something that I want to do, like play other games
You can't. The PSP Go doesn't let you play other games while it's downloading. You have to set-aside and twiddle your thumb. And if it turns out to be a sucky game, you can sell in on ebay...... ooops, no. You can't.
Well at least you can still "do things" on a ten-year-old PC (with Win98, or upgraded to XP), whereas a ten-year-old Mac is completely unsupported. You can't even find any third party software.
Even a 5-year-old Mac is difficult to keep up-to-date, since Apple is so quickl to obsolete old hardware and thereby force its users to go buy new equipment.
Uh oh... here come the Apple fans with pitchforks.
>>>Except George Washington didn't hand the Presidency over to Martha, did he?
Only because of the time period when women were forbidden from running. However in today's U.S. I could easily imagine a situation where Hillary Clinton won the presidency after Bill had retired from it.
>>>ISA exists to keep the peace between them.
Right... and that's why the ISA kept the whitestars rather than share them with Earth or any other member.
>>>Except that Sheridan swore an oath to Earth
Yes, and then Earth turned its back on him, and tried to imprison Sheridan after the civil war was done. QED I consider that oath to be nullified... just the same as a contract is nullified when the opposite party violates its terms. ----- Also did Sheridan swear an oath "to earth" or to the Earth Alliance constitution? There's a difference. A government that violates the constitution need not be obeyed.
...unfortunately. One of them has proven itself to be much cheaper to maintain (basically zero dollars), and with the ability to continue using it even after 10 years of age. I won't say which one, because I don't want to get flamed, but I bet you can guess.
Hey! You quoted me! I wrote that paragraph.:-) Although the resolution quoted for 7 megahertz is wrong. It's supposed to be 6.5 megahertz == 660 lines edge-to-edge.
>>>horizontal resolution of ~800 pixels, no matter what aspect ratio. 720p is 1280 pixels wide.
It's actually closer to ~920 pixels per line..... and also you didn't take into account that the 1280x720 image is stretched across a wider screen. If you use the IEEE method of measuring horizontal resolution (i.e. how many pixels fit inside a standard square image), the older set and the new digital set are virtually identical at approximately 700 pixels. i.e. They resolve the fine detail in the center of the screen equally.
>>>"maximum theoretical resolution of 816x737 pixels with a 4:3 aspect ratio (10Mhz * 40.8 / 1000 *2 = 816)." Now compare this to the 720p standard which is 1280x720 pixels and a much higher resolution. >>>
Okay first off, their math is a mystery. I come-up with a much higher resolution. 10 million cycles per second divided by 25 frames == 400,000 cycles per second, per frame. Divide by 819 scanlines == 488 cycles per line, or 976 distinct black/white elements per line. Subtract 5% for the vertical blanking interval and you get 927.
Second, you are confusing pixel count with resolution, which is not the same thing. A widescreen 720 image has an *ideal* horizontal resolution of 720 pixels from left-to-right, per picture height (i.e. inside a perfect square). The standard width 816x727 of this 1940s set would be 695 pixels of horizontal resolution, per picture height.
So in other words, the old 1940s high-def set and the modern 720p digital set would be virtually identical in their ability to resolve fine detail in the center of the screen.
>>>Even if you only use your TV with your media PC, you still have to pay this broadcast tax, even though there is no actual broadcasting going on
If your TV is not connected to an antenna, there's no way that they can detect your television in the basement, so just don't pay the tax. I'm glad in the States we don't have a tax. We do have PBS which costs about $10 a year higher income tax, but that's trivial.
Slashdot Mirror
I miss the days when Montana had no speed limit, except near the cities. We need more states like that. Interstates were designed for rapid travel (120 miles per hour). It seems silly to limit ourselves to only half that.
>>>OMG they did nothing
>>>that they weren't required to do!
>>>Time for me to sue someone for not giving me money!
Well if the Obamacare Act passes, and your neighbors don't buy health insurance..... oh never mind. That's too easy.
I guess this is why I prefer abstract games which have little connection to anything - like Pacman or Missile Command or Metroid or Final Fantasy 10 or Ratchet & Clank. The less connection to the real world, the more I like it.
I don't see Firefox or Opera listed in the summary. Are they safe?
>>>No pitchfork, you are absolutely right. The 10-year-old powermacs in the server room are no longer supported by the latest Mac OS, 10.6, and I need to start to plan for new hardware now. Grr.
>>>
(faints)
Wow someone agrees. Just curious what is the latest version those ten-year-old Macs will support (legally, without using XPostFacto or other hacks)? Mine was 10.3
>>>Power Macintosh G3 will run OS X 10.2... you'll need some upgrades (particularly RAM, and a CPU upgrade will help too)
IMHO a computer with a CPU upgrade ceases to be the same computer. I know many people who have upgraded their Commodore 64s to 16-bit/25 megahertz versions of the 6502, and in my opinion that's no longer a C64. It's become a totally different computer... like a brain transplant would give you a whole new person. (Plus if you do spend money on a CPU upgrade, you might as well just buy a G5 machine - the cost will be about the same.)
Anyway you say 10.2 is fully-supported by Apple, but that's simply not true. I tried and failed to find a decent web browser but no luck - for example Safari requires 10.5. The best browser I could find was woefully out-of-date and displayed mostly garbage.
>>>I'd like to see the GP put Vista on his 10 year old PC
That's just the point. I don't have to upgrade from XP because it continues to be supported by the programmers. (Heck even Win 98 is still supported by many programs.) Try doing that with Mac OS 9 or 10.2 (one year "younger" than XP). You can't even find a decent browser for those since the supported lifespan for Macs is so ridiculously short.
>>>A 10 year old mac can continue to run its original OS, or the earlier versions of OS X
Okay. I've got two Macs. One with OS 9 and one with 10.3. Show me a browser that run on either of these systems AND be able to properly render the web. I've looked and looked, but I haven't found anything.
And upgrading past 10.3 is not an option due to the ridiculous minimum megahertz imposed by Apple.
>>>You conveniently did not mention that the Mac underwent it's second major change of architecture
Which has nothing to do with my PowerMac that refuses to run anything more-recent than 10.3. The obstacle stopping me from jumping higher is not the PPC to Intel transition, but Apple's ridiculously high megahertz requirement.
>>>running 10.4, and a MDD G4 tower running 10.5
And what happens when Safari, Opera, and other browsers announce you have to have 10.6 or higher a few months from now? That's the problem with my Mac where I have a browser but it shows mostly garbage due to extreme age, and I can't upgrade because my OS is not supported.
>>>right during a major architecture shift
It doesn't matter. Even if Snow Leopard 10.6 supported PowerPCs, it still wouldn't work on a G4 since the clock speed is too slow. That's the problem I have with my Mac - it was declared "too slow" by Apple and therefore is two OS versions behind. It's not obsolescence due to old age, but a forced obsolescence by edict. ("Your perfectly usable Mac slower than 1000 megahertz? Too bad. You can't install.")
>>>Could always upgrade the 10 year old Mac to Leopard [10.5]
Nope. Doesn't meet the minimum processor clock speed. Looking at a 10-year-old Mac, the latest OS you can use is 10.3 (minimum 233 megahertz). And once you have it installed good luck finding any web browsers that will work for it. Opera 6 is probably the best option, and that's woefully out-of-date.
With the Windows systems you can still run XP on a 10-year-old machine, which is admittedly old, but still widely-supported by the latest programs. PCs simply have a longer support life... about 2.5 times longer than Mac.
>>>Isn't TNG The Next Generation .. as in Star Trek The Next Generation ??
No. TNG can also refer to other shows that are sequels to the original, like Battlestar Galactica TNG, Quantum Leap TNG, 90210 TNG, Melrose TNG - at least that's the shorthand used on rec.arts.tv
If you have an alternate way of referring to the original Doctor Who and the new Doctor Who show, I'm open to suggestions.
You don't understand the meaning of heat death. It isn't a "burn" but a very, very low energy state of about 0.5 degrees above absolute freezing. It's the point where all energy has been consumed, even gravity, such that all stars/planets have broken-apart, and all that remains is scattered atoms just randomly vibrating..... like a watch slowly winding down until it stops.
Did I cheer you up?
>>>What, if anything, does that mean for the past and future of the universe?
There was a Doctor Who TNG episode about this. The universe at the point of heat death was a sad and depressing place to be... very very dark To paraphrase Marvin the Depressed Robot - Might as well slit my wrist now, since it will all end in tears anyhow.
Now the world has gone to bed
Darkness won't engulf my head
I can see by infra-red
How I hate the night
So God is a computer, built by the last iteration of the universe. That explains a lot.
>>>Currently to get games, I have to drive to the store, look on the shelf to find the game, find out they don't have the game, go to another store, and then buy the game, and then drive home.
>>>
You don't have access to amazon.com, bestbuy.com, or ebay.com?
Wow.
I've bought 99% of my gaming library right here from this chair.
>>>Being able to just do a couple clicks, and go and do something that I want to do, like play other games
You can't. The PSP Go doesn't let you play other games while it's downloading. You have to set-aside and twiddle your thumb. And if it turns out to be a sucky game, you can sell in on ebay...... ooops, no. You can't.
Good summary. Here are the random thoughts that popped into my head during the premiere:
- How many stargates did the Ancients "seed" if the ship was only one day away from one of them? There must be trillions of them scattered around.
- Stargate Atlantis is to Star Trek DS9, as Stargate Universe is to Voyager. I'd rather have season 6 of Atlantis.
Well at least you can still "do things" on a ten-year-old PC (with Win98, or upgraded to XP), whereas a ten-year-old Mac is completely unsupported. You can't even find any third party software.
Even a 5-year-old Mac is difficult to keep up-to-date, since Apple is so quickl to obsolete old hardware and thereby force its users to go buy new equipment.
Uh oh... here come the Apple fans with pitchforks.
>>>Except George Washington didn't hand the Presidency over to Martha, did he?
Only because of the time period when women were forbidden from running. However in today's U.S. I could easily imagine a situation where Hillary Clinton won the presidency after Bill had retired from it.
>>>ISA exists to keep the peace between them.
Right... and that's why the ISA kept the whitestars rather than share them with Earth or any other member.
>>>Except that Sheridan swore an oath to Earth
Yes, and then Earth turned its back on him, and tried to imprison Sheridan after the civil war was done. QED I consider that oath to be nullified... just the same as a contract is nullified when the opposite party violates its terms. ----- Also did Sheridan swear an oath "to earth" or to the Earth Alliance constitution? There's a difference. A government that violates the constitution need not be obeyed.
...unfortunately. One of them has proven itself to be much cheaper to maintain (basically zero dollars), and with the ability to continue using it even after 10 years of age. I won't say which one, because I don't want to get flamed, but I bet you can guess.
Hey! You quoted me! I wrote that paragraph. :-) Although the resolution quoted for 7 megahertz is wrong. It's supposed to be 6.5 megahertz == 660 lines edge-to-edge.
>>>horizontal resolution of ~800 pixels, no matter what aspect ratio. 720p is 1280 pixels wide.
It's actually closer to ~920 pixels per line..... and also you didn't take into account that the 1280x720 image is stretched across a wider screen. If you use the IEEE method of measuring horizontal resolution (i.e. how many pixels fit inside a standard square image), the older set and the new digital set are virtually identical at approximately 700 pixels. i.e. They resolve the fine detail in the center of the screen equally.
>>>"maximum theoretical resolution of 816x737 pixels with a 4:3 aspect ratio (10Mhz * 40.8 / 1000 *2 = 816)." Now compare this to the 720p standard which is 1280x720 pixels and a much higher resolution.
>>>
Okay first off, their math is a mystery. I come-up with a much higher resolution. 10 million cycles per second divided by 25 frames == 400,000 cycles per second, per frame. Divide by 819 scanlines == 488 cycles per line, or 976 distinct black/white elements per line. Subtract 5% for the vertical blanking interval and you get 927.
Second, you are confusing pixel count with resolution, which is not the same thing. A widescreen 720 image has an *ideal* horizontal resolution of 720 pixels from left-to-right, per picture height (i.e. inside a perfect square). The standard width 816x727 of this 1940s set would be 695 pixels of horizontal resolution, per picture height.
So in other words, the old 1940s high-def set and the modern 720p digital set would be virtually identical in their ability to resolve fine detail in the center of the screen.
>>>Even if you only use your TV with your media PC, you still have to pay this broadcast tax, even though there is no actual broadcasting going on
If your TV is not connected to an antenna, there's no way that they can detect your television in the basement, so just don't pay the tax. I'm glad in the States we don't have a tax. We do have PBS which costs about $10 a year higher income tax, but that's trivial.