I noticed that too. The power supply fan is easily the loudest thing in my case. Anyone tried making a muffler for their ATX power supply? There's always QuietPC power supplies, but they cost twice as much as regular ones.
We had some old Dells with probably the same WD and Maxtor 1GB and 2GB drives. They only got noisier with age. The constant hum is from the spindle bearings wearing out.
In most German cities, public transit is on a pseudo honor system. The driver or conductor doesn't check your ticket, but occasionaly there are spot checks. If you ride the bus or train every day you might get asked for a ticket once a month or less, and the fine for riding without a ticket is more than the price of a monthly pass.
That's similar to your statements about parking fines. It's there to make it not worth cheating. OTOH, many cities now look at fines as revenue source instead of revenue-neutral. Those parking attendants will write you up the minute your meter expires. I suppose the next efficiency improvement is parking meters that read your license plate and fine you as soon as your meter expires.
They were accused of using a minimum advertised pricing (MAP) policy between 1995 and 2000. In 2000 they settled an FTC lawsuit by agreeing not to use MAP for 7 years. Since then I've seen more and more new releases advertised for $11.99-12.99, but full retail price on CDs is as expensive as ever; you'll be lucky to get change out of a $20 after tax.
I like this bold prediction from the article:
"Former FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky said at the time that consumers had been overcharged by $480 million since 1997 and that CD prices would soon drop by as much as $5 a CD as a result."
"A followup to Machina, and the last album from the band. As a final farewell, and a "fuck you" to a record label that didn't give them the support they deserved, a limited pressing album was made (3x10" + 2LP, 5 discs total) and given away to be bootlegged out among the fans."...
"Just to clear up any possible confusion, this is the final album from the band. There are 25 copies on vinyl only. There is not, and will not be a CD pressing."
Once NIMDA infects an IIS server it'll scan for open file shares on the LAN, and NT/2000 has more shares by default than 98 including the C$ share (i.e. the whole C: drive). If some warez kiddy is lazy and sets a weak administrator password, it's now less secure than Win98.
Usually the songs people want are the singles being played on the radio. Back in the day when LP records were $8.99, vinyl singles cost less than $3 and you got a B side too. So that's two songs. Even adjusting for 15 years of inflation, that might be $4 if they were still sold. So that could be considered the absolute upper bound of what people would pay for inferior compressed MP3 quality.
Flaskmpeg is another must-have for backing up DVDs. It's not updated as frequently and doesn't have the editing features, but it's still one of the best apps for transcoding from MPEG1/2 to other video codecs.
You mean the same Apple that's stuck with PC133 SDRAM now? Apple hardware may be cool-looking and high-quality, but I/O performance was never their strong suit. Their CPU bus speeds were always one or two steps behind the x86 world.
It's a computer and an out-of-date computer at that. You can't even find a PIII-733, 6GB, 64MB and Geforce2 system anymore. Then again, the Geforce2 isn't as big a limitation as on a computer since it won't run more than 640x480, and other console developers have written great looking games with even lower-powered hardware.
Actually car buyers have even stronger consumer protection laws. Under the Magnusson Moss Act, car makers cannot void your warranty solely because you used aftermarket parts for repair and maintenance or if you did not get your car serviced at a dealer. They can only void it if the aftermarket part actually caused the problem. Of course they'll still try to make life difficult for independant mechanics by requiring special tools or withholding service information.
The problem is current video drivers are horribly inefficient at transferring from video RAM to main memory. Somewhere around 10MB/s compared to the theoretical 1GB/s transfer rate of AGP4X. Tech report article here
That's the same Hollwood Accounting that calculated zero net profit from Forrest Gump out of a $660,000,000 worldwide gross in 1994. A good way to cheat the author, producer and screenwriter since they accepted a smaller upfront fee in exchange for royalties from net profits.
Region codes are enforced both by the drive firmware and the player software. You'll still need a region-free DVD drive. They're hard to find, but still out there. See here.
For forced DRM to work, all the hardware must support it and be locked down to prevent tampering. If the rest of the world says no to Palladium/TCPA, the Taiwanese motherboard makers will still make unrestricted motherboards for all the non-US markets. It could be as easy as a BIOS flash with a Euro or Asian ROM.
Even without open source, there are ways to preserve an audit record for a hand count.
For example: Put a small printer in a sealed compartment behind a clear window. Print a copy of the voter's ballots after they make their selections. Let them inspect and confirm their ballots. After they confirm their selections, drop the paper ballot into a hopper inside the sealed compartment. If they don't confirm the printout, the machine will void and dispose of the incorrect copy and start over.
There you go. The speed of electronic voting with a paper trail that's at least as secure as what we have now.
The difference is that junk snailmail is a one-way process. They buy mailing lists based on your marketing profile and send you junk. They have to way to measure your response unless you actually call back to buy their junk.
OTOH people's viewing habits collected through digital cable is a treasure trove of raw marketing data as evidenced by this article quote:
"A profiling engine running in the set-top box determines which ads are played in a particular household. The box is given an initial profile and it then gathers information based on the household's television viewing habits. Anderson emphasized that this information never leaves the set-top box."
A video card with TV-out and the about the same 3D performance (say Geforce4 440MX) costs about $100, and it doesn't do much sitting there by itself without a PC to put it in. Admittedly, if he just wanted TV-out and didn't care about 3D it may cost less than $50 (say Geforce2 MX200).
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I noticed that too. The power supply fan is easily the loudest thing in my case. Anyone tried making a muffler for their ATX power supply? There's always QuietPC power supplies, but they cost twice as much as regular ones.
We had some old Dells with probably the same WD and Maxtor 1GB and 2GB drives. They only got noisier with age. The constant hum is from the spindle bearings wearing out.
In most German cities, public transit is on a pseudo honor system. The driver or conductor doesn't check your ticket, but occasionaly there are spot checks. If you ride the bus or train every day you might get asked for a ticket once a month or less, and the fine for riding without a ticket is more than the price of a monthly pass.
That's similar to your statements about parking fines. It's there to make it not worth cheating. OTOH, many cities now look at fines as revenue source instead of revenue-neutral. Those parking attendants will write you up the minute your meter expires. I suppose the next efficiency improvement is parking meters that read your license plate and fine you as soon as your meter expires.
They were accused of using a minimum advertised pricing (MAP) policy between 1995 and 2000. In 2000 they settled an FTC lawsuit by agreeing not to use MAP for 7 years. Since then I've seen more and more new releases advertised for $11.99-12.99, but full retail price on CDs is as expensive as ever; you'll be lucky to get change out of a $20 after tax.
I like this bold prediction from the article:
"Former FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky said at the time that consumers had been overcharged by $480 million since 1997 and that CD prices would soon drop by as much as $5 a CD as a result."
There were 25 copies pressed on vinyl that were given to friends with instructions to copy it and give to the world.
...
From spfc.org:
"A followup to Machina, and the last album from the band. As a final farewell, and a "fuck you" to a record label that didn't give them the support they deserved, a limited pressing album was made (3x10" +
2LP, 5 discs total) and given away to be bootlegged out among the fans."
"Just to clear up any possible confusion, this is the final album from the band. There are 25 copies on vinyl only. There is not, and will not be a CD pressing."
Once NIMDA infects an IIS server it'll scan for open file shares on the LAN, and NT/2000 has more shares by default than 98 including the C$ share (i.e. the whole C: drive). If some warez kiddy is lazy and sets a weak administrator password, it's now less secure than Win98.
Don't have to worry about that. It's only sold online, not in the stores.
Usually the songs people want are the singles being played on the radio. Back in the day when LP records were $8.99, vinyl singles cost less than $3 and you got a B side too. So that's two songs. Even adjusting for 15 years of inflation, that might be $4 if they were still sold. So that could be considered the absolute upper bound of what people would pay for inferior compressed MP3 quality.
Electricity for your 80W Athlon is free too?
Flaskmpeg is another must-have for backing up DVDs. It's not updated as frequently and doesn't have the editing features, but it's still one of the best apps for transcoding from MPEG1/2 to other video codecs.
You mean the same Apple that's stuck with PC133 SDRAM now? Apple hardware may be cool-looking and high-quality, but I/O performance was never their strong suit. Their CPU bus speeds were always one or two steps behind the x86 world.
"for the government, this means ONLY commerical entities"
You mean commercial entities like IBM and Redhat?
It's a computer and an out-of-date computer at that. You can't even find a PIII-733, 6GB, 64MB and Geforce2 system anymore. Then again, the Geforce2 isn't as big a limitation as on a computer since it won't run more than 640x480, and other console developers have written great looking games with even lower-powered hardware.
Actually car buyers have even stronger consumer protection laws. Under the Magnusson Moss Act, car makers cannot void your warranty solely because you used aftermarket parts for repair and maintenance or if you did not get your car serviced at a dealer. They can only void it if the aftermarket part actually caused the problem. Of course they'll still try to make life difficult for independant mechanics by requiring special tools or withholding service information.
Because it follows in a long line of TV franchises turned into fine video games? (too bad Slash is stripping sarcasm tags)
The problem is current video drivers are horribly inefficient at transferring from video RAM to main memory. Somewhere around 10MB/s compared to the theoretical 1GB/s transfer rate of AGP4X. Tech report article here
Replace teachers with super-intelligent cyborgs. Or, if cyborgs aren't invented yet, use people from the neighborhood.
That's the same Hollwood Accounting that calculated zero net profit from Forrest Gump out of a $660,000,000 worldwide gross in 1994. A good way to cheat the author, producer and screenwriter since they accepted a smaller upfront fee in exchange for royalties from net profits.
Region codes are enforced both by the drive firmware and the player software. You'll still need a region-free DVD drive. They're hard to find, but still out there. See here.
For forced DRM to work, all the hardware must support it and be locked down to prevent tampering. If the rest of the world says no to Palladium/TCPA, the Taiwanese motherboard makers will still make unrestricted motherboards for all the non-US markets. It could be as easy as a BIOS flash with a Euro or Asian ROM.
Yup, using a drive that's made by the same Sony that's a MPAA and RIAA member. Maybe we can get Sony to sue themselves.
Even without open source, there are ways to preserve an audit record for a hand count.
For example:
Put a small printer in a sealed compartment behind a clear window. Print a copy of the voter's ballots after they make their selections. Let them inspect and confirm their ballots. After they confirm their selections, drop the paper ballot into a hopper inside the sealed compartment. If they don't confirm the printout, the machine will void and dispose of the incorrect copy and start over.
There you go. The speed of electronic voting with a paper trail that's at least as secure as what we have now.
The difference is that junk snailmail is a one-way process. They buy mailing lists based on your marketing profile and send you junk. They have to way to measure your response unless you actually call back to buy their junk.
OTOH people's viewing habits collected through digital cable is a treasure trove of raw marketing data as evidenced by this article quote:
"A profiling engine running in the set-top box determines which ads are played in a particular household. The box is given an initial profile and it then gathers information based on the household's television viewing habits. Anderson emphasized that this information never leaves the set-top box."
A video card with TV-out and the about the same 3D performance (say Geforce4 440MX) costs about $100, and it doesn't do much sitting there by itself without a PC to put it in. Admittedly, if he just wanted TV-out and didn't care about 3D it may cost less than $50 (say Geforce2 MX200).
You mean fixed the same day it was announced by Microsoft. This bug has been discussed on Bugtraq for a month now.