I have a question for you: what graphics card out there with DVI outputs that support 1280x720 display natively? Does that current ATI Radeon 9700/9800/X800 and the nVidia Geforce FX 5xxx and 6XXX series of card offer a true 1280x720 driver (and NO, I don't want a "close approximation" with the 1280x768 WXGA display driver).
I mention this because the most DLP, LCD and LCOS RPTV's run in 1280x720 mode.
Perhaps your TV needs a calibration? Unfortunately, most HDTVs are setup out of the box to be used in a display room and not a home. The contrast is cranked up into torch mode, red colors are more emphasized, etc, because all of that makes the TV more appealing when alongside other sets at a shop. I'm of the opinion that all TVs should be sold with a free initial ISF calibration, but the calibration fee is cheap enough that you should still do it anyway (give yourself 6 months or so to break in the TV before calibrating, or you'll just find you have to do it again shortly).
That might be great for CRT-based rear-projection TV's, but what about RPTV's that use a single light source, such as the ones with DLP, LCD and LCOS elements? I think these have to be calibrated quite a bit differently....
Ok Ok...i have to agree that FIAT is a very crappy car when compared to Mercedes, BMW or even VW.
Let alone Renault or Peugeot! The new Peugeot 1007 mini-MPV is far more interesting a vehicle than the Fiat Idea.
(Which does remind me--how come Volkswagen hasn't gotten into the mini-MPV category? The new Opel Meriva now sold in your country is a very nice vehicle, unless VW wants to stand on the laurels of the Touran....)
When you think of IBM, does Jo Bloggs think of a Linux company?
Surprisingly, yes! Do you remember the number of television and print ads IBM ran a few years touting the fact that IBM is now heavily committed to running Linux on their S/390 and AS/400 big iron platforms? And these ads were aimed not only for the IT crowd, but the general public, too.
1. Find a way to live down their past. Alas, for many IT managers the very name Novell still conjures up the once-mighty NetWare and how that has fallen by the wayside as UNIX-based networking has taken over.
2. Novell must do a major marketing push to show they are heavily committed to Linux that not only is aimed at the computer-literate crowd, but also to the general public. After all, one of the reasons why IBM succeeded as a huge user of Linux was not only the over US$1 billion IBM spent to port Linux to run on S/390 and AS/400 big iron hardware, but also the fact IBM did a masterful job of publicizing this fact to non-computer literate types in a series of TV commercials shown worldwide.
I think in order for video on demand to become widely available, you need far faster broadband Internet access than you have now. Even with the current DiVX codec, a two hour movie runs into the 650-800 MB file size, a fairly daunting task even for today's 1.5 to 3.0 megabit per second cable Internet systems.
But by 2010, you'll see broadband Internet with true direct access to fiber optic connections available on a wide scale, with speeds at least in the 60 megabit per second range, with 100-plus megabit per second speeds available for users willing to pay premium prices. At these speeds, you'll download data between 8-16 megabytes per second, fast enough to download multiple shows at high quality onto your multimedia center hard drive (which by then would be well over one terabyte in size) in about 30 minutes! =)
....You need to force computer manufacturers worldwide on x86-compatible PC's to sell the operating system as a separate-cost item, not as bundled into the final product.
Such a change could reveal that the additional cost of installing a commercial Linux distribution at around US$10 per machine, while installing Windows is more like US$45-US$55 per machine. That could persuade many corporate customers to pre-load their new office machines with desktop Linux distributions along with Linux server distributions.
The Duck stories that come out of Italy, Holland, and Spain are miles better than most "kids" comics that are written here (with some exceptions, of course).
Actually, those stories come originally from Italy when it was published in Topolino, a full-color Disney comic book/magazine that has a readership in Italy of one million readers and is published weekly. Mind you, Disney's comic book publishing history in Italy is a very long and distinguished one, dating from the early 1930's! Topolino starting publishing just after World War II and is an institution in Italian publishing. Is it small wonder why when Disney Italia decided to publish a comic aimed at girls (the W.i.t.c.h. series) it became a smash hit across Europe in no time flat?
I think what really hurt comic books in the USA was Frederic Wertham's infamous book The Seduction of the Innocent. The fallout from that book came within a hair's breadth of killing off the comic industry altogether in the USA.
If we did not have the crusade against comics caused by that book, it's likely that comics in the USA would be a hugely viable medium right now, with the level of popularity that you would get in Europe, where comics have a long and distinguished history, especially in France, Belgium, Holland and Italy.
Europe has a very long tradition of doing great comics, to say the least.
I think we should thank Heavy Metal magazine for bringing attention to quality European comics and graphic novels, even if what we see in Heavy Metal is strongly adult-oriented. I remember reading an English-translated Barbarella serial there, and it was vastly more interesting than the movie.
By the way, Disney comics published by their Disney Worldwide Publishing (Italia) division are extremely popular and well-regarded in its native Italy and in translated versions sold in France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and in the Scandinavian countries. If you can get a hand on Topolino, PK3 or W.i.t.c.h. (the original 60 page per issue Italian comic), you'll note just how superb European comics can be.
...Like the Mark Levinson 400 series solid-state power amplifiers.
I've read all the reviews in high-end audio magazines and they've all said that Mark Levinsion/Madrigal solid state power amps are one of the small number of solid state amps that can successfully compare against a good tube amplifier.
That's an old paper, from 1972, republished by a company that (surprise!) makes tube audio gear.
And this was well before Sony started selling their integrated amplifiers with MOSFET transistors, which has vastly lower near-clipping distortion than old bi-polar transistor amplifiers.
Besides, today's best transistor-based amplifiers can produce truly awesome sound even at high wattage outputs. The latest Mark Levinson 400 series power amplifiers are transistor based but are considered by even the most serious audiophiles as the best amplifier on Earth, no contest.
I think another thing that will affect browser market share is the impending release of Windows XP Service Pack 2, which is due within the next few months.
Remember, there are considerable changes in terms of security controls on the Internet Explorer (and Internet connections in general) that are part of WinXP SP2, changes that will essentially kibosh most pop-up windows and could likely reduce the chance to having spyware installed and viruses coming through. With these changes (and Microsoft offering their own antivirus program for likely very low cost), the rate of virus and spyware infections among Windows users will probably go down quite a bit.
I think the main reason why Mozilla browser usage increased lately is that since Mozilla 1.6 came out early this year, the Mozilla web browser finally has the ability to render most web pages accurately in addition to all the good things we've already expected from Mozilla, namely built-in pop-up window control and less likely chance to get spyware installed. Mozilla 1.7.x versions improve on Mozilla 1.6 with even better page rendering accuracy and also faster operation, too.
Actually, there is a very interesting way to cool the spaceship during its descent from orbit: use the rocket fuel itself.
Why not? Cryrogenic fuels are extremely cold, and it is theoretically possible to route these cryrogenic fuels to actually cool down the spacecraft's structure during atmospheric re-entry if there is a safe way to vent the heated fuel. When Douglas Aircraft did its studies for the ROMBUS launch system in the early 1960's they actually figured out a way to use liquid hydrogen to provide heat protection during the descent. I'm sure that Burt Rutan knows about this idea and might use something like liquid methane as a rocket fuel for the ascent and as a coolant to protect the structure on Scaled Composites' Tier Two/SpaceShipTwo project.
I'd like to know why he wants to do this besides propaganda reasons. Especially in light of the fact the total production and distribution cost was around US$16 million for the movie, so Moore already has made a handsome profit on the film, and especially now with the movie in 1,700 screens.
What you just suggested could happen when home users get broadband Internet access that has 60 megabit per second or faster download speeds, which is not far fetched especially with the arrival of direct fiber optic data access on the last mile connection to private homes on a large scale by 2010.
At 60 mbps or faster download speeds and using a modified version of the DiVX video codec (which has DRM added), a broadcast-quality TV show that would take hours to download today using cable modems could now be done in a few minutes! =) That means you could download multiple shows to your home entertainment center mass storage system for playback in about half an hour or so.
In such a scenario, the whole concept of prime time programming becomes obselete; the only shows you'll see in real time are sports, news, award shows, live concerts and shows that choose to run in real time such as American Idol.
The best change in lifestyle would be to telecommute, or move closer to work... but it also means that there should be suitable housing near your office.
Alas, there are only two cities in the USA that could fit that mold: New York City and Chicago. Most other cities in the USA are so "spread out" that mass transit is not as viable as people think.
Interestingly enough, London in the UK grew by following the Underground (subway) lines as they spread out from the center of London. But then, that growth happened before the automobile became widely available to everyone.
Re:Yeah, but I'd still toss it, Maya uses 3 button
on
Apple Delays New iMac
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, but there isn't anything keeping someone from using ANY 3rd party mouse as the scroll wheels and 2nd button are recognized out of the box for USB mice.
And that's why most of the Logitech and Microsoft mouse pointers you can buy retail have your choice of USB and PS/2 ports, especially since most versions of MacOS X will recognize such a mouse pointer and allow you to assign functionality to both mouse buttons and the scroll wheel!:-) I myself use the Logitech Optical Mouse (two button plus scroll wheel) and its "feel" is even better than Apple's own optical mouse pointer.
That hockey puck mouse pointer was an ergonomic disaster right from the start. small wonder why Apple came out with that far better mouse pointer when the flat-panel iMac's came out.:-) Anyway, many iMac users switched to using USB-port Logitech and Microsoft mouse pointers, especially since later versions of MacOS 9.x and MacOS X versions supported the functions of the two-button plus scroll wheel mouse pointers natively.
I think another thing that people forget about India is that the country is extremely culturally diverse with many ethnic groups and something like 114 languages and 216 dialects spoken in the country! (India recognizes officially 18 languages plus English for governmental use.)
As such, with this diversity, you're bound to have corruption and anarchy as each group jockeys for prominence over another.
Which does remind me: I wonder has anyone in India produced a home-grown version of Linux that supports the Western alphabet, Bengali script and Persian Arabic script simultaneously and seamlessly?
Yes, the fuels are quite toxic, but nitrogen tetroxide and UDMH are used on military ballistic rockets because of two primary reasons: 1) they can be stored at room temperature (with the right safety measures) for long periods of time, and 2) these two fuels are hypergolic (e.g., they will burn when mixed without an external ignition source), so the rocket design can actually be simpler.
Here's one thing though: How many former SS-17, SS-18 and SS-19 ICBM rockets can be converted into satellite launchers? And wouldn't that cut into the demand for the R-7 (aka SS-6) rocket for satellite launches?
It will be interesting to see if the European Space Agency will allow the Russians to use R-36 rockets from the ESA launch site in French Guiana. The R-36 could boost a pretty substantial payload into geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) at that site.
However, it also depends where your casino resort is located.
If it's east of the Las Vegas Strip, using that underpass is not a good idea; when I stayed at Caesars Palace some years ago it was actually faster to use that underpass because you avoided the massive traffic jam trying to get to and cross the Las Vegas Strip (eek!).
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I have a question for you: what graphics card out there with DVI outputs that support 1280x720 display natively? Does that current ATI Radeon 9700/9800/X800 and the nVidia Geforce FX 5xxx and 6XXX series of card offer a true 1280x720 driver (and NO, I don't want a "close approximation" with the 1280x768 WXGA display driver).
I mention this because the most DLP, LCD and LCOS RPTV's run in 1280x720 mode.
Perhaps your TV needs a calibration? Unfortunately, most HDTVs are setup out of the box to be used in a display room and not a home. The contrast is cranked up into torch mode, red colors are more emphasized, etc, because all of that makes the TV more appealing when alongside other sets at a shop. I'm of the opinion that all TVs should be sold with a free initial ISF calibration, but the calibration fee is cheap enough that you should still do it anyway (give yourself 6 months or so to break in the TV before calibrating, or you'll just find you have to do it again shortly).
That might be great for CRT-based rear-projection TV's, but what about RPTV's that use a single light source, such as the ones with DLP, LCD and LCOS elements? I think these have to be calibrated quite a bit differently....
Ok Ok ...i have to agree that FIAT is a very crappy car when compared to Mercedes, BMW or even VW.
Let alone Renault or Peugeot! The new Peugeot 1007 mini-MPV is far more interesting a vehicle than the Fiat Idea.
(Which does remind me--how come Volkswagen hasn't gotten into the mini-MPV category? The new Opel Meriva now sold in your country is a very nice vehicle, unless VW wants to stand on the laurels of the Touran....)
When you think of IBM, does Jo Bloggs think of a Linux company?
Surprisingly, yes! Do you remember the number of television and print ads IBM ran a few years touting the fact that IBM is now heavily committed to running Linux on their S/390 and AS/400 big iron platforms? And these ads were aimed not only for the IT crowd, but the general public, too.
1. Find a way to live down their past. Alas, for many IT managers the very name Novell still conjures up the once-mighty NetWare and how that has fallen by the wayside as UNIX-based networking has taken over.
2. Novell must do a major marketing push to show they are heavily committed to Linux that not only is aimed at the computer-literate crowd, but also to the general public. After all, one of the reasons why IBM succeeded as a huge user of Linux was not only the over US$1 billion IBM spent to port Linux to run on S/390 and AS/400 big iron hardware, but also the fact IBM did a masterful job of publicizing this fact to non-computer literate types in a series of TV commercials shown worldwide.
One thing I haven't figured out is what they recommend in terms of an AMD Athlon CPU for a minimum system to work well with Doom 3.
Is it an Athlon XP 1500+? Or is it an Athlon XP CPU that has a core CPU speed of 1.5 GHz?
I think in order for video on demand to become widely available, you need far faster broadband Internet access than you have now. Even with the current DiVX codec, a two hour movie runs into the 650-800 MB file size, a fairly daunting task even for today's 1.5 to 3.0 megabit per second cable Internet systems.
But by 2010, you'll see broadband Internet with true direct access to fiber optic connections available on a wide scale, with speeds at least in the 60 megabit per second range, with 100-plus megabit per second speeds available for users willing to pay premium prices. At these speeds, you'll download data between 8-16 megabytes per second, fast enough to download multiple shows at high quality onto your multimedia center hard drive (which by then would be well over one terabyte in size) in about 30 minutes! =)
....You need to force computer manufacturers worldwide on x86-compatible PC's to sell the operating system as a separate-cost item, not as bundled into the final product.
Such a change could reveal that the additional cost of installing a commercial Linux distribution at around US$10 per machine, while installing Windows is more like US$45-US$55 per machine. That could persuade many corporate customers to pre-load their new office machines with desktop Linux distributions along with Linux server distributions.
The Duck stories that come out of Italy, Holland, and Spain are miles better than most "kids" comics that are written here (with some exceptions, of course).
Actually, those stories come originally from Italy when it was published in Topolino, a full-color Disney comic book/magazine that has a readership in Italy of one million readers and is published weekly. Mind you, Disney's comic book publishing history in Italy is a very long and distinguished one, dating from the early 1930's! Topolino starting publishing just after World War II and is an institution in Italian publishing. Is it small wonder why when Disney Italia decided to publish a comic aimed at girls (the W.i.t.c.h. series) it became a smash hit across Europe in no time flat?
I think what really hurt comic books in the USA was Frederic Wertham's infamous book The Seduction of the Innocent. The fallout from that book came within a hair's breadth of killing off the comic industry altogether in the USA.
If we did not have the crusade against comics caused by that book, it's likely that comics in the USA would be a hugely viable medium right now, with the level of popularity that you would get in Europe, where comics have a long and distinguished history, especially in France, Belgium, Holland and Italy.
Europe has a very long tradition of doing great comics, to say the least.
I think we should thank Heavy Metal magazine for bringing attention to quality European comics and graphic novels, even if what we see in Heavy Metal is strongly adult-oriented. I remember reading an English-translated Barbarella serial there, and it was vastly more interesting than the movie.
By the way, Disney comics published by their Disney Worldwide Publishing (Italia) division are extremely popular and well-regarded in its native Italy and in translated versions sold in France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and in the Scandinavian countries. If you can get a hand on Topolino, PK3 or W.i.t.c.h. (the original 60 page per issue Italian comic), you'll note just how superb European comics can be.
...Like the Mark Levinson 400 series solid-state power amplifiers.
I've read all the reviews in high-end audio magazines and they've all said that Mark Levinsion/Madrigal solid state power amps are one of the small number of solid state amps that can successfully compare against a good tube amplifier.
That's an old paper, from 1972, republished by a company that (surprise!) makes tube audio gear.
And this was well before Sony started selling their integrated amplifiers with MOSFET transistors, which has vastly lower near-clipping distortion than old bi-polar transistor amplifiers.
Besides, today's best transistor-based amplifiers can produce truly awesome sound even at high wattage outputs. The latest Mark Levinson 400 series power amplifiers are transistor based but are considered by even the most serious audiophiles as the best amplifier on Earth, no contest.
I think another thing that will affect browser market share is the impending release of Windows XP Service Pack 2, which is due within the next few months.
Remember, there are considerable changes in terms of security controls on the Internet Explorer (and Internet connections in general) that are part of WinXP SP2, changes that will essentially kibosh most pop-up windows and could likely reduce the chance to having spyware installed and viruses coming through. With these changes (and Microsoft offering their own antivirus program for likely very low cost), the rate of virus and spyware infections among Windows users will probably go down quite a bit.
I think the main reason why Mozilla browser usage increased lately is that since Mozilla 1.6 came out early this year, the Mozilla web browser finally has the ability to render most web pages accurately in addition to all the good things we've already expected from Mozilla, namely built-in pop-up window control and less likely chance to get spyware installed. Mozilla 1.7.x versions improve on Mozilla 1.6 with even better page rendering accuracy and also faster operation, too.
Actually, there is a very interesting way to cool the spaceship during its descent from orbit: use the rocket fuel itself.
Why not? Cryrogenic fuels are extremely cold, and it is theoretically possible to route these cryrogenic fuels to actually cool down the spacecraft's structure during atmospheric re-entry if there is a safe way to vent the heated fuel. When Douglas Aircraft did its studies for the ROMBUS launch system in the early 1960's they actually figured out a way to use liquid hydrogen to provide heat protection during the descent. I'm sure that Burt Rutan knows about this idea and might use something like liquid methane as a rocket fuel for the ascent and as a coolant to protect the structure on Scaled Composites' Tier Two/SpaceShipTwo project.
I'd like to know why he wants to do this besides propaganda reasons. Especially in light of the fact the total production and distribution cost was around US$16 million for the movie, so Moore already has made a handsome profit on the film, and especially now with the movie in 1,700 screens.
What you just suggested could happen when home users get broadband Internet access that has 60 megabit per second or faster download speeds, which is not far fetched especially with the arrival of direct fiber optic data access on the last mile connection to private homes on a large scale by 2010.
At 60 mbps or faster download speeds and using a modified version of the DiVX video codec (which has DRM added), a broadcast-quality TV show that would take hours to download today using cable modems could now be done in a few minutes! =) That means you could download multiple shows to your home entertainment center mass storage system for playback in about half an hour or so.
In such a scenario, the whole concept of prime time programming becomes obselete; the only shows you'll see in real time are sports, news, award shows, live concerts and shows that choose to run in real time such as American Idol.
The best change in lifestyle would be to telecommute, or move closer to work... but it also means that there should be suitable housing near your office.
Alas, there are only two cities in the USA that could fit that mold: New York City and Chicago. Most other cities in the USA are so "spread out" that mass transit is not as viable as people think.
Interestingly enough, London in the UK grew by following the Underground (subway) lines as they spread out from the center of London. But then, that growth happened before the automobile became widely available to everyone.
Yeah, but there isn't anything keeping someone from using ANY 3rd party mouse as the scroll wheels and 2nd button are recognized out of the box for USB mice.
:-) I myself use the Logitech Optical Mouse (two button plus scroll wheel) and its "feel" is even better than Apple's own optical mouse pointer.
And that's why most of the Logitech and Microsoft mouse pointers you can buy retail have your choice of USB and PS/2 ports, especially since most versions of MacOS X will recognize such a mouse pointer and allow you to assign functionality to both mouse buttons and the scroll wheel!
...Was terrible!
:-) Anyway, many iMac users switched to using USB-port Logitech and Microsoft mouse pointers, especially since later versions of MacOS 9.x and MacOS X versions supported the functions of the two-button plus scroll wheel mouse pointers natively.
That hockey puck mouse pointer was an ergonomic disaster right from the start. small wonder why Apple came out with that far better mouse pointer when the flat-panel iMac's came out.
I think another thing that people forget about India is that the country is extremely culturally diverse with many ethnic groups and something like 114 languages and 216 dialects spoken in the country! (India recognizes officially 18 languages plus English for governmental use.)
As such, with this diversity, you're bound to have corruption and anarchy as each group jockeys for prominence over another.
Which does remind me: I wonder has anyone in India produced a home-grown version of Linux that supports the Western alphabet, Bengali script and Persian Arabic script simultaneously and seamlessly?
Yes, the fuels are quite toxic, but nitrogen tetroxide and UDMH are used on military ballistic rockets because of two primary reasons: 1) they can be stored at room temperature (with the right safety measures) for long periods of time, and 2) these two fuels are hypergolic (e.g., they will burn when mixed without an external ignition source), so the rocket design can actually be simpler.
Here's one thing though: How many former SS-17, SS-18 and SS-19 ICBM rockets can be converted into satellite launchers? And wouldn't that cut into the demand for the R-7 (aka SS-6) rocket for satellite launches?
It will be interesting to see if the European Space Agency will allow the Russians to use R-36 rockets from the ESA launch site in French Guiana. The R-36 could boost a pretty substantial payload into geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) at that site.
However, it also depends where your casino resort is located.
If it's east of the Las Vegas Strip, using that underpass is not a good idea; when I stayed at Caesars Palace some years ago it was actually faster to use that underpass because you avoided the massive traffic jam trying to get to and cross the Las Vegas Strip (eek!).