Is that a typo? That's only ~$1.50 per month! Even the old dialup internet is not that cheap in the U.S. (mine costs $7/month). I wonder if the pricing differential is like textbook publishing? $120/book in the U.S..... $12 if imported from India.
Got examples in the last 2 decades where obscene content was censored by the U.S. Congress? I'm trying to think of some, but came up with nothing.
The sole exception is broadcast TV/radio and that's only because the broadcast spectrum is visible to everyone (therefore the FCC restricts its use). Cable TV or radio is not censored. Nor the internet. Or books/newspapers.
Same here. When I was a teen I started downloading nude women on my Commodore 64 and Amiga (4000 color), and it didn't do me any harm. (Except give me a strange nostalgia for low-res 360x240 photos.)
Think of the children in 10-15 years when they're grown up. As young adults will they want to live in a world where they have a censored internet? Of course not. By protecting children, you are actually HARMING them by limiting their freedom as free, adult citizens.
"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." They can't censor the internet. Or cable TV. Or books. Or newspapers. Doesn't the UK have a similar Bill of Rights to forbid the Parliament from censoring the right of speech?
As far as I know, Shannon's Law only applies to analog signals. It explains why an analog modem can only go 34 kbit/s over the ~4 kHz wide telephone system. BUT if you switch to digital, then shannon's limitation is no longer relevant, and the same space can handle 56k (7 bit PCM). Cellphones operate in digital space.
Of course not. When you have fiber or cable or twisted-pair direct to your home, then you have the whole EM spectrum for your own personal use.
But when you use wireless, then you have to share that spectrum with the neighbors, plus TV, plus radio, plus police and military radio, and so on. You get less bandwidth for each home, and slower speeds.
We have unlimited wireless available for those who wish to pay the price (~$80/month). Personally I'd rather get the landline ($15/month) and save some cash. Is that an option in the EU states?
Microsoft's software worked nicely with PCs and allowed you 'to do tons of cool things,' but few customers knew this.
That's a strange statement. Do the customers have their eyes closed when they see the Windows banner splash across their PC? Hmmm. It seems natural to me that if you have windows at home, and on your laptop, you'd want it "on the go" as well.
>>>Don't buy your CFLs at Walmart, the grocery store, etc - the Sunbeam/Great Value/etc bulbs
I did buy CFLs at walmart, but they were the "professional" brand Philips bulbs (same company being advertised by slashdot). They do not last long... about 6 months. That's no longer than my incandescent bulbs lasted.
The other problem with CFLs is that they are intolerant to heat... CFLs are not suitable for use in enclosed fittings - they must be open to the air, otherwise you don't get any air circulation and the lamps overheat. While incandescent lamps are frequently-used "base-up", CFLs risk overheating the electronics in the base, when used in this orientation. CFLs are best used "base-down". Been saying that for years but most CFL fanboys just tell me I'm wrong. There are too many places (cold outdoor lamp, hot stove) and fixtures (enclosed, upsidedown) where only an incandescent will work because they have no electronics to die.
Yeah that really saves me money. Spend hundreds of dollars on electrician to save a few pennies per year with CFLs. Besides it's NOT the wiring. I have CFLs that date back to the 90s and still work, but newer Philips and GE CFLs that only last 6 months. The problem is in the bulb not the wires..... I'd sooner go back to incandescent than deal with the hassle (similar to how I downgraded to the older XP rather than deal with the hassle of vista).
EXCEPT other companies already sell their LED bulbs for about half the $60 pricetag. Considering Philips got handed millions of free taxpayer dollars, they should be able to do the same by diverting that cash to reducing the pricetag. (This is reminiscient of the telephone companies getting millions in 1996 telecommunication subsidies to run fiber to the home, and then they never did.)
My power company doesn't give a subsidy for buying these LED bulbs so, no, I really CAN'T get it for $22 and Philips scammed the taxpayer by making false claims to win the prize.
And other companies sell their bulbs for about half the $60 pricetag. Considering Philips got handed millions of free cash, they should be able to do the same.
Set-up a separate team of programmers. One working on the original iTunes for one final release (11), and a new one rewriting the whole thing to produce a better cleaner iTunes (12).
Apple's done it once before, when they developed the final version of the Classic OS (9) and the new OS X concurrently.
>>> Betamax is still around..... "HDCAM-SR". Clients still ask for Betacam SP tapes.
Bzzz. That's a common error. Betacam and betamax are NOT the same thing. They are as dissimilar from one another as Mac and PC floppies, because the format is completely different. Betacam uses metal tape that would destroy a Betamax VCR's recording heads, and Betacam's running speed is about 2x faster (also it uses Component video storage). The format known as Betamax was retired in the mid-90s, when Sony pulled it off the Japan market.
If it wasn't for the anti-trust lawsuit, Gates probably would have waited 60 days for Apple to declare bankruptcy and disappear as a competitor (as he did with Commodore, Atari, Netscape,...). Today when he looks-on at Apple's dominance in the MP3 and smartphone markets, he probably wishes he had done exactly that.;-)
Funny that. I could have sworn the Amiga came with not just 1 but *4* processing units. One for sound (SPU). Two for graphics (GPU). And of course the central processor (CPU). And they multitasked the execution of programs, such that one could be playing music code, another manipulating graphics, and the CPU crunching algorithms.
To imply the chipset was nothing more the dumb slave chips with no intelligence is a falsehood worthy of a politician. It was because of the 3 coprocessors that a 7 MHz Amiga could run circles around a 8 MHz Macintosh, even though both had the same CPU.
Furthermore the Amiga was just not a "frame buffer". SOMEBODY had to generate the ships that were flying around in B5 space, or subs in seaQuest's oceans, and it sure as hell wasn't the video toaster. It was the Amiga's graphics, raytraced one frame at a time.
>>>they were using Video Toasters for those special effects
False. I've used the Video Toaster in a television studio. It creates the various sweeps between scenes, but the actual graphics are generated by the Amiga's GPU. When you look at ships in B5 or Voyager, or subs in seaQuest, or CGI-generated people in Hypernauts, you're looking at actual polygon graphics produced by the Commodore Amiga at 704x480 resolution. It took the computer days-and-days of rendering to produce just a few minutes of CGI. (If you still have doubt, just watch the Star Wars Walker demo... all of which was produced without the video toaster.)
BTW thanks for fixing the name of the software (Lightwave). Over 20 years one forgets names. Even now I don't remember the software I used to get online, even though I used it daily. JXterm or something like that.
Yes. History matters because you can learn from it. --- Apple didn't beat Atari and Commodore. The Intel/Microsoft dominance with ~99% of the market led them all to the slaughter. Commodore died in 94, Atari in 95, and Apple in 96 (almost).
Apple's saving grace was Bill Gates and Steve Jobs being friends, so that Bill helped-out Steve with some cash. Otherwise Apple would have disappeared too.
>>>By the time the Mac SE came out [1987], PCs had 386 CPUs, high colour SVGA, inexpensive digital audio
In 1987? That's a stretch. Maybe by 1990, but the PCs were still pretty expensive to purchase. And they were stuck with crappy Windows 3 or 3.1. (Yeah I remember.... I remember how much I hated it.) The PC gaming graphics still didn't look that great. So I stuck with the Macintosh and Commodore Amigas until 1998, then upgraded to a cheap PC with Win98 (because it had the same look-and-feel as the Mac OS).
>>>Unfortunately the Amiga wasn't that important, though it should have been.
I don't know about that. When PC gamers saw the graphics & sound on Amiga, it created a demand for better video and sound card to satisfy them. Also you can still see Amiga graphics if you watch old episodes of Babylon 5, seaQuest, Hypernauts, or Star Trek Voyager (3rd and 4th season). They were using Amiga 2000s and 3000s with early versions of Photoshop/animation software.
>>>A VHS tape labelled "12 hours" in england would be labelled "8.4 hours" in the US
Nope. A tape labled "11.5 hours" in the UK holds exactly 12 hours on U.S. VCRs. I knew exactly what I was getting before I bought it and actual recording confirms I get 12 TV shows per tape. (Aside: In Digital VHS mode these same imported tapes can hold 40 hours of SD video.)
>>>Did you actually check the running times of the tapes?
Yes I'm not dumb.;-) The tapes actually hold 12 hours on U.S. machines, because PAL and NTSC VCRs are almost the same speed in their long-run modes. 12 hours on NTSC VCRs, and 11 1/2 on PAL VCRs.
Slashdot Mirror
>>>ADSL for as little as £10 / year
Is that a typo? That's only ~$1.50 per month! Even the old dialup internet is not that cheap in the U.S. (mine costs $7/month). I wonder if the pricing differential is like textbook publishing? $120/book in the U.S..... $12 if imported from India.
Got examples in the last 2 decades where obscene content was censored by the U.S. Congress? I'm trying to think of some, but came up with nothing.
The sole exception is broadcast TV/radio and that's only because the broadcast spectrum is visible to everyone (therefore the FCC restricts its use). Cable TV or radio is not censored. Nor the internet. Or books/newspapers.
Same here. When I was a teen I started downloading nude women on my Commodore 64 and Amiga (4000 color), and it didn't do me any harm. (Except give me a strange nostalgia for low-res 360x240 photos.)
Think of the children in 10-15 years when they're grown up. As young adults will they want to live in a world where they have a censored internet? Of course not. By protecting children, you are actually HARMING them by limiting their freedom as free, adult citizens.
"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." They can't censor the internet. Or cable TV. Or books. Or newspapers. Doesn't the UK have a similar Bill of Rights to forbid the Parliament from censoring the right of speech?
>>>Look up Shannon's Law
As far as I know, Shannon's Law only applies to analog signals. It explains why an analog modem can only go 34 kbit/s over the ~4 kHz wide telephone system. BUT if you switch to digital, then shannon's limitation is no longer relevant, and the same space can handle 56k (7 bit PCM). Cellphones operate in digital space.
Of course not. When you have fiber or cable or twisted-pair direct to your home, then you have the whole EM spectrum for your own personal use.
But when you use wireless, then you have to share that spectrum with the neighbors, plus TV, plus radio, plus police and military radio, and so on. You get less bandwidth for each home, and slower speeds.
Same in America.
We have unlimited wireless available for those who wish to pay the price (~$80/month). Personally I'd rather get the landline ($15/month) and save some cash. Is that an option in the EU states?
Microsoft's software worked nicely with PCs and allowed you 'to do tons of cool things,' but few customers knew this.
That's a strange statement. Do the customers have their eyes closed when they see the Windows banner splash across their PC? Hmmm. It seems natural to me that if you have windows at home, and on your laptop, you'd want it "on the go" as well.
>>>Don't buy your CFLs at Walmart, the grocery store, etc - the Sunbeam/Great Value/etc bulbs
I did buy CFLs at walmart, but they were the "professional" brand Philips bulbs (same company being advertised by slashdot). They do not last long... about 6 months. That's no longer than my incandescent bulbs lasted.
The other problem with CFLs is that they are intolerant to heat... CFLs are not suitable for use in enclosed fittings - they must be open to the air, otherwise you don't get any air circulation and the lamps overheat. While incandescent lamps are frequently-used "base-up", CFLs risk overheating the electronics in the base, when used in this orientation. CFLs are best used "base-down". Been saying that for years but most CFL fanboys just tell me I'm wrong. There are too many places (cold outdoor lamp, hot stove) and fixtures (enclosed, upsidedown) where only an incandescent will work because they have no electronics to die.
>>>Have your wiring checked
Yeah that really saves me money. Spend hundreds of dollars on electrician to save a few pennies per year with CFLs. Besides it's NOT the wiring. I have CFLs that date back to the 90s and still work, but newer Philips and GE CFLs that only last 6 months. The problem is in the bulb not the wires..... I'd sooner go back to incandescent than deal with the hassle (similar to how I downgraded to the older XP rather than deal with the hassle of vista).
EXCEPT other companies already sell their LED bulbs for about half the $60 pricetag. Considering Philips got handed millions of free taxpayer dollars, they should be able to do the same by diverting that cash to reducing the pricetag. (This is reminiscient of the telephone companies getting millions in 1996 telecommunication subsidies to run fiber to the home, and then they never did.)
My power company doesn't give a subsidy for buying these LED bulbs so, no, I really CAN'T get it for $22 and Philips scammed the taxpayer by making false claims to win the prize.
And other companies sell their bulbs for about half the $60 pricetag. Considering Philips got handed millions of free cash, they should be able to do the same.
Set-up a separate team of programmers. One working on the original iTunes for one final release (11), and a new one rewriting the whole thing to produce a better cleaner iTunes (12).
Apple's done it once before, when they developed the final version of the Classic OS (9) and the new OS X concurrently.
>>> Betamax is still around..... "HDCAM-SR". Clients still ask for Betacam SP tapes.
Bzzz. That's a common error. Betacam and betamax are NOT the same thing. They are as dissimilar from one another as Mac and PC floppies, because the format is completely different. Betacam uses metal tape that would destroy a Betamax VCR's recording heads, and Betacam's running speed is about 2x faster (also it uses Component video storage). The format known as Betamax was retired in the mid-90s, when Sony pulled it off the Japan market.
Agreed.
If it wasn't for the anti-trust lawsuit, Gates probably would have waited 60 days for Apple to declare bankruptcy and disappear as a competitor (as he did with Commodore, Atari, Netscape, ...). Today when he looks-on at Apple's dominance in the MP3 and smartphone markets, he probably wishes he had done exactly that. ;-)
>>>Amiga didn't actually have a GPU
Funny that. I could have sworn the Amiga came with not just 1 but *4* processing units. One for sound (SPU). Two for graphics (GPU). And of course the central processor (CPU). And they multitasked the execution of programs, such that one could be playing music code, another manipulating graphics, and the CPU crunching algorithms.
To imply the chipset was nothing more the dumb slave chips with no intelligence is a falsehood worthy of a politician. It was because of the 3 coprocessors that a 7 MHz Amiga could run circles around a 8 MHz Macintosh, even though both had the same CPU.
Furthermore the Amiga was just not a "frame buffer". SOMEBODY had to generate the ships that were flying around in B5 space, or subs in seaQuest's oceans, and it sure as hell wasn't the video toaster. It was the Amiga's graphics, raytraced one frame at a time.
>>>they were using Video Toasters for those special effects
False. I've used the Video Toaster in a television studio. It creates the various sweeps between scenes, but the actual graphics are generated by the Amiga's GPU. When you look at ships in B5 or Voyager, or subs in seaQuest, or CGI-generated people in Hypernauts, you're looking at actual polygon graphics produced by the Commodore Amiga at 704x480 resolution. It took the computer days-and-days of rendering to produce just a few minutes of CGI. (If you still have doubt, just watch the Star Wars Walker demo... all of which was produced without the video toaster.)
BTW thanks for fixing the name of the software (Lightwave). Over 20 years one forgets names. Even now I don't remember the software I used to get online, even though I used it daily. JXterm or something like that.
>>>Does it matter how you lost?
Yes. History matters because you can learn from it. --- Apple didn't beat Atari and Commodore. The Intel/Microsoft dominance with ~99% of the market led them all to the slaughter. Commodore died in 94, Atari in 95, and Apple in 96 (almost).
Apple's saving grace was Bill Gates and Steve Jobs being friends, so that Bill helped-out Steve with some cash. Otherwise Apple would have disappeared too.
>>>By the time the Mac SE came out [1987], PCs had 386 CPUs, high colour SVGA, inexpensive digital audio
In 1987? That's a stretch. Maybe by 1990, but the PCs were still pretty expensive to purchase. And they were stuck with crappy Windows 3 or 3.1. (Yeah I remember.... I remember how much I hated it.) The PC gaming graphics still didn't look that great. So I stuck with the Macintosh and Commodore Amigas until 1998, then upgraded to a cheap PC with Win98 (because it had the same look-and-feel as the Mac OS).
>>>Unfortunately the Amiga wasn't that important, though it should have been.
I don't know about that. When PC gamers saw the graphics & sound on Amiga, it created a demand for better video and sound card to satisfy them. Also you can still see Amiga graphics if you watch old episodes of Babylon 5, seaQuest, Hypernauts, or Star Trek Voyager (3rd and 4th season). They were using Amiga 2000s and 3000s with early versions of Photoshop/animation software.
Betamax also lasted 20 years as a format, but I wouldn't call it a success.
>>>A VHS tape labelled "12 hours" in england would be labelled "8.4 hours" in the US
Nope. A tape labled "11.5 hours" in the UK holds exactly 12 hours on U.S. VCRs. I knew exactly what I was getting before I bought it and actual recording confirms I get 12 TV shows per tape. (Aside: In Digital VHS mode these same imported tapes can hold 40 hours of SD video.)
>>>Did you actually check the running times of the tapes?
Yes I'm not dumb. ;-) The tapes actually hold 12 hours on U.S. machines, because PAL and NTSC VCRs are almost the same speed in their long-run modes. 12 hours on NTSC VCRs, and 11 1/2 on PAL VCRs.