So you're saying it would be unfair for Microsoft to have to compete. Why?
There are millions of companies in the world trading successfully in the face of stiff competition. Most of these work to documented standards, whether they be for nuts and bolts, electromagnetic compatibility, accounting systems, communication protocols, etc., and it hasn't ruined them.
Microsoft themselves use other people's standards to get their OS to run on a computer. Would it be fair if the chip manufacturers kept their interfaces secret?
What can Photoshop do that PSP (ex-JASC, now Corel) can't? This is a genuine question. I've never bought or used Photoshop because the amount of use it would get just doesn't warrant the expenditure. But I use PSP from time to time to make posters; I found the learning process fairly painless and I don't see much missing from it.
Is Photoshop a magnitude better or just slightly more powerful at certain things?
Disclosure: I'm not impartial about this because I earn thousands of euros translating documents concerning nuclear power and reprocessing, so nuclear power is good for me. The spin off is that I know a LOT about waste storage issues.
It seems to me people are too easily sidestepping the waste storage issue. I see plenty of discussion about waste products released into the atmosphere, but what about the stored waste. You're all aware of it but I don't see anybody coming up with solutions. It is a concrete problem.
It's European TV so I don't know how the definition compares with that in the US.
Anyway, are you saying standard DVDs can come in normal and HD versions?
My new Samsung DVD player announces itself to be "HDTV compatible" and calls itself "DVD-HD850", but nowhere doees it say it accepts anything other than bog standard DVDs.
If the HD version of a film can fit on a standard DVD, then why the hell do we need a new kind of disc for HD?
I recently bought a 32" screen 1280 * 720 LCD TV. The HDMI output from the standard DVD player I bought with it supplies a 1280 * 720 digital picture. When I play DVDs the image looks perfect to me. It's sharp; it's clear; it's not pixellated; every detail I need to see (and more) are clearly visible. I really fail to see how this could be made to look better to the naked eye.
This is emphasised when I go back to TV from DVD: there's a huge drop in image quality. Just for comparison, a local channel was broadcasting the second Harry Potter film, which I just happen to have on DVD. So I started the DVD up and flipped between the two to compare. Even though the TV image was relatively good on this occasion, it was still miles behind the image quality from the DVD.
So I'm having a really hard time seeing how companies are going to convince people to buy into anything "better". Unless of course they deliberately break compatibility or manage to hoodwink people into thinking the current average quality is the fault of the DVD rather than the TV set. But of course they wouldn't do that, would they?
If there's a a hassle free way of providing support over the Internet I think we can trust Google to come up with it. For a company whose speciality is making the Net accessible to everyone, such integration should be child's play.
I use both Google's Adwords service and Yahoo's Overture service for advertising. Overture's interface is the most laborious I've ever come across, anywhere. Google's on the other hand is a breeze.
France has probably one of the richest set of resources per square km that you'll find anywhere, whether it's raw materials, natural energy, farming land, ski slopes, sandy beaches... It also has an extreme wealth of areas of natural beauty.
So it's a shame that the development of renewable energy hasn't gone hand in hand with respect for France's fabulous environment. Go to the South of France and try to find a hilltop (there are a LOT of hilltops) without some kind of ugly installation on it - usually a grid pylon - and you'll see what I mean. Go to any windy region - I'm thinking of Perpignan as an example because it's not far from where I live - and try to count the wind turbines: you'll fall asleep before you get to the end.
Yes I know these things have to go somewhere, but FFS, not just any old where.
At the risk of trying to teach my granny to suck eggs, are we sure saline solution itself doesn't have properties we don't understand? I don't see any other placebo mentioned as working.
It is indeed - which is probably why TFA points it out:
[the man placing the bet] said: "I had asked an insurance broker to get a quotation to cover the £3,000 if I died and he wanted £1,300 which I thought was ridiculous so I decided to go for the bet."
Get in an airplane (getting "ON" an airplane is very dangerous, especially when it takes off...)
This is wandering I know but you nitpicked first;)
We say "getting on" an aeroplane or train because we've grown too lazy to say "getting on board". We could use an even lazier alternative in the form of "boarding" or simply "taking" an aeroplane or train, but I guess that would be asking people to think what they're saying (the same goes for "getting in"), so I suppose it's not really that lazy after all. [shrug]
Getting back on topic, in countries where air travel is less commonplace/necessary than in the States, most people don't have the reflex of preparing for loud noises on planes. I'm glad you made me think about it.
I feel less antipathy towards the film industry than towards the record industry. I think it's because the former adds more value yet still manages to sell cheaper.
I'm trying to put myself in their shoes here: the quality you get from a downloaded film nowhere near matches the quality of a DVD. They know this and they know you know this, so I don't think they're assuming you are a downloader.
Not yet that is.
But as bitrates go up and the cost of storage comes down, the day is bound to come when it will be quite trivial to download good quality video. So perhaps it's preventive persuasion.
Of course, in the meantime nothing is stopping them preparing for that time by building a distribution model to take advantage of it. Somehow, though, I can't see that happening.
That's just one example. I never did find the group Man on Google when I needed information on them. Now with the music search feature they're right at the top of the page along with album covers and contents.
A group of engineers and managers attended a conference, travelling by train. The engineers queued up to buy their travel tickets at the station but only one manager joined them. No questions were asked, but the engineers watched studiously as the manager bought just one ticket.
In the train, the engineers took their seats as did all of the managers bar two, who took up sentry positions at each end of the coach. After a while, one of the managers on sentry duty made a sign and he all the other managers headed immediately for one of the toilet cubicles. Two minutes later the ticket inspector arrived, saw the toilet door closed, knocked on the door and said "ticket please", upon which one ticket was duly slid under the door.
The engineers of course understood the ploy immediately and congratulated the managers on their guile and coordination.
Come the return journey, the engineers sent one of their crew to buy just one ticket. Puzzlingly, the managers didn't buy any tickets at all this time. Again the engineers refrained from asking questions and observed events studiously. Everyone climbed aboard the train and once again the managers immediately posted sentries. Sure enough, in due course, one of the managers on sentry duty made a sign upon which the watching engineers immediately crowded into a toilet. Strangely the managers didn't move. But as soon as the door had closed on the engineers, a passenger sitting nearby observed a manager leaving his seat, walking to the toilet, knocking on the door, and asking "ticket please".
I'm sure that with the $45m the state saves it could do something to make the disabled user experience less frustrating should those users find themselves penalised becasue of Microsoft's refusal to make their applications compatible.
Slashdot Mirror
So you're saying it would be unfair for Microsoft to have to compete. Why?
There are millions of companies in the world trading successfully in the face of stiff competition. Most of these work to documented standards, whether they be for nuts and bolts, electromagnetic compatibility, accounting systems, communication protocols, etc., and it hasn't ruined them.
Microsoft themselves use other people's standards to get their OS to run on a computer. Would it be fair if the chip manufacturers kept their interfaces secret?
What can Photoshop do that PSP (ex-JASC, now Corel) can't? This is a genuine question. I've never bought or used Photoshop because the amount of use it would get just doesn't warrant the expenditure. But I use PSP from time to time to make posters; I found the learning process fairly painless and I don't see much missing from it.
Is Photoshop a magnitude better or just slightly more powerful at certain things?
I'm getting sick and tired of people saying things like:
"DVDs are great, why do we need anything better?"
Nevertheless, whether you like it or not people are saying it, especially on Slashdot.
So tell me: if even geeks are indifferent to HD disks, what will be the man in the street's reaction?
"dump it where it came from"
I believe it doesn't quite have the same set of properties when the time comes to put it back.
And as mentioned, that's the minor part of the waste. The major part is the power plant itself.
I'll repeat: I have a vested interest in Nuclear power continuing but I'm not going to deny there are issues.
Disclosure: I'm not impartial about this because I earn thousands of euros translating documents concerning nuclear power and reprocessing, so nuclear power is good for me. The spin off is that I know a LOT about waste storage issues.
It seems to me people are too easily sidestepping the waste storage issue. I see plenty of discussion about waste products released into the atmosphere, but what about the stored waste.
You're all aware of it but I don't see anybody coming up with solutions. It is a concrete problem.
It's European TV so I don't know how the definition compares with that in the US.
Anyway, are you saying standard DVDs can come in normal and HD versions?
My new Samsung DVD player announces itself to be "HDTV compatible" and calls itself "DVD-HD850", but nowhere doees it say it accepts anything other than bog standard DVDs.
If the HD version of a film can fit on a standard DVD, then why the hell do we need a new kind of disc for HD?
I recently bought a 32" screen 1280 * 720 LCD TV. The HDMI output from the standard DVD player I bought with it supplies a 1280 * 720 digital picture.
When I play DVDs the image looks perfect to me. It's sharp; it's clear; it's not pixellated; every detail I need to see (and more) are clearly visible. I really fail to see how this could be made to look better to the naked eye.
This is emphasised when I go back to TV from DVD: there's a huge drop in image quality. Just for comparison, a local channel was broadcasting the second Harry Potter film, which I just happen to have on DVD. So I started the DVD up and flipped between the two to compare. Even though the TV image was relatively good on this occasion, it was still miles behind the image quality from the DVD.
So I'm having a really hard time seeing how companies are going to convince people to buy into anything "better". Unless of course they deliberately break compatibility or manage to hoodwink people into thinking the current average quality is the fault of the DVD rather than the TV set. But of course they wouldn't do that, would they?
If there's a a hassle free way of providing support over the Internet I think we can trust Google to come up with it. For a company whose speciality is making the Net accessible to everyone, such integration should be child's play.
I use both Google's Adwords service and Yahoo's Overture service for advertising. Overture's interface is the most laborious I've ever come across, anywhere. Google's on the other hand is a breeze.
...what exactly is the point of their warning?
"There are legal services for downloading music and movies.
This service is not one of them."
Dead right it isn't.
Not legal, not illegal, not music, not movies, not downloads, not any kind of service - bugger all in fact!
Into my WINDOWS console?
France has probably one of the richest set of resources per square km that you'll find anywhere, whether it's raw materials, natural energy, farming land, ski slopes, sandy beaches... It also has an extreme wealth of areas of natural beauty.
So it's a shame that the development of renewable energy hasn't gone hand in hand with respect for France's fabulous environment. Go to the South of France and try to find a hilltop (there are a LOT of hilltops) without some kind of ugly installation on it - usually a grid pylon - and you'll see what I mean. Go to any windy region - I'm thinking of Perpignan as an example because it's not far from where I live - and try to count the wind turbines: you'll fall asleep before you get to the end.
Yes I know these things have to go somewhere, but FFS, not just any old where.
At the risk of trying to teach my granny to suck eggs, are we sure saline solution itself doesn't have properties we don't understand?
I don't see any other placebo mentioned as working.
Same reaction here, except WTF is CMS?
It is indeed - which is probably why TFA points it out:
[the man placing the bet] said: "I had asked an insurance broker to get a quotation to cover the £3,000 if I died and he wanted £1,300 which I thought was ridiculous so I decided to go for the bet."
I hope that's meant as humour because I don't think I've ever seen so many fallacies in such a small handful of words.
Maybe you'd like to try to spot some of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy
I hope you'll excuse me for saying that sounds like jealousy.
Get in an airplane (getting "ON" an airplane is very dangerous, especially when it takes off...)
;)
This is wandering I know but you nitpicked first
We say "getting on" an aeroplane or train because we've grown too lazy to say "getting on board". We could use an even lazier alternative in the form of "boarding" or simply "taking" an aeroplane or train, but I guess that would be asking people to think what they're saying (the same goes for "getting in"), so I suppose it's not really that lazy after all. [shrug]
Getting back on topic, in countries where air travel is less commonplace/necessary than in the States, most people don't have the reflex of preparing for loud noises on planes. I'm glad you made me think about it.
I feel less antipathy towards the film industry than towards the record industry. I think it's because the former adds more value yet still manages to sell cheaper.
I'm trying to put myself in their shoes here: the quality you get from a downloaded film nowhere near matches the quality of a DVD. They know this and they know you know this, so I don't think they're assuming you are a downloader.
Not yet that is.
But as bitrates go up and the cost of storage comes down, the day is bound to come when it will be quite trivial to download good quality video. So perhaps it's preventive persuasion.
Of course, in the meantime nothing is stopping them preparing for that time by building a distribution model to take advantage of it. Somehow, though, I can't see that happening.
Type Man in Google web search
Now type Man in Google music search
That's just one example.
I never did find the group Man on Google when I needed information on them. Now with the music search feature they're right at the top of the page along with album covers and contents.
OK, you take the grammar, I'll take the spelling: let's go!
Perhaps that is what really seperated us from the animal herd, is that we SEEKED out things to challenge us...
...before the "industry" goes bankrupt?
I hope it's not too many. Although I suppose we should be concerned about who will step into their boots once they're gone.
"This is a variant of a very old joke, which can be about any two sets of people"
Agreed, provided they are two sets of people with different mindsets. I think that can safely be said about engineers and suits, eh?
A group of engineers and managers attended a conference, travelling by train. The engineers queued up to buy their travel tickets at the station but only one manager joined them. No questions were asked, but the engineers watched studiously as the manager bought just one ticket.
In the train, the engineers took their seats as did all of the managers bar two, who took up sentry positions at each end of the coach. After a while, one of the managers on sentry duty made a sign and he all the other managers headed immediately for one of the toilet cubicles. Two minutes later the ticket inspector arrived, saw the toilet door closed, knocked on the door and said "ticket please", upon which one ticket was duly slid under the door.
The engineers of course understood the ploy immediately and congratulated the managers on their guile and coordination.
Come the return journey, the engineers sent one of their crew to buy just one ticket. Puzzlingly, the managers didn't buy any tickets at all this time. Again the engineers refrained from asking questions and observed events studiously. Everyone climbed aboard the train and once again the managers immediately posted sentries. Sure enough, in due course, one of the managers on sentry duty made a sign upon which the watching engineers immediately crowded into a toilet. Strangely the managers didn't move. But as soon as the door had closed on the engineers, a passenger sitting nearby observed a manager leaving his seat, walking to the toilet, knocking on the door, and asking "ticket please".
How many people like me glanced quickly at that headline and saw "DNA and Online Search Finds Birth Patent"?
The scariest thing is if it really had said patent I wouldn't have found it that implausible.
I'm sure that with the $45m the state saves it could do something to make the disabled user experience less frustrating should those users find themselves penalised becasue of Microsoft's refusal to make their applications compatible.