My wife is still buying machines to try to get one that doesn't crash all the time. She doesn't want to learn anything other than MS Office. Needless to say anything she has had has slowed down and crashes often. The newest machine a P4 at 2.4 Ghz crashes reliably by selecting print from any application (web, spreadsheet, document, etc) A stable easy to learn and use desktop OS and productivity suite could be the end of the upgrade cycle.
Correct me if I'm missing something here. For over the air broadcasts, a digital tuner uses an analog PLL UHF tuner whose output is then digitaly processed by a computer and then the signal is sent to the display portion of a monitor.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but wouldn't a UHF tuner without the decoder hung off it be cheaper than the tuner + decoder package?
How does more cost less?
DTV is still broadcast on a UHF channel over the air. This does not eliminate the need for a tuner front end but requires one.
Due to the high currents in the atmosphere, I would recommend grounding the tin foil hat. It would be a great charge collector and could fry your brain. Remember the solar storm of aprox 1859? It had induced so much current on telegraph wires it started several small fires. Wouldn't want the same fate for your head now would we?
So far with the industry infighting, nobody is risking making a digital television. You know the kind of an all in one tv like you can purchase for NTSC which includes a built in tuner. There are lots of digital ready monitors out there, but to my knowledge (other than pro type stuff) there isn't any DTV's in existance for the US market. I have a 20 inch TV I catch the local news with. I don't need a home theatre system for the local news, weather, and traffic report. Nor do I want to buy a TV that costs as much as my last car. If anybody knows of a digital TV (must include DTV tuner built in, not NTSC + digital ready) that is avaliable to replace my 20 inch TV, please reply to this post. Stuff over $600 need not apply. There is nothing on TV worth investing that much in a receiver for.
Funny I can buy a NTSC televisoio for under $200, but a DTV in the same size is unavaliable at any price. I know, I been looking. It drives the salesmen nuts. I tell them what I'm looking for and leave them a number to call when they get them in. So far in 3 years, no calls. I've been looking hard at the Computer monitor/TV LCD sets, but haven't found one that will receive and over the air DTV signal. Too bad the infighting has killed production of the sets.
In 2007, I'll either have to subscribe to cable or sat TV to get NTSC, or do without TV. It's looking like the latter will be my option.
I have a test CD for setting up sound systems and checking CD players specifications. It has a track of silence as a refrence for signal to noise measurements. I wonder if it is in violation of copyright? I didn't see any refrence to cage.
It's funny you mentioned this item. I heard on the radio this morning that the new car registration fees went into effect in California at the beginning of October. The first week, new car sales were down 30%. The second week the sales were down another 30%. I guess getting newer low emissions vehicles off California highways is working well. Oh this agenda was sold to the public as a way to raise state income. The bad news is the lower sales has resulted in less revenue from the higher registration fees. Good job geting the citizens to think twice before buying the 2nd or 3rd car that isn't realy neeeded. I know before Washington state canned the high registration based on vehicle value, I always bought 8-10 year old cars. It saved a bundle on insurance, taxes, registration etc. I would always insure just the minimum. The car was so low value, I didn't insure for damage to my car. I just took the savings and stuck in the bank. If the car got totaled, the insurance saving already paid for it's replacement. With low registration fees, I now own a low milage car that is worth insuring. It's also low emission and high milage. It's much better for the environment. I get to drive a nicer car. While doing so, I do pay more in insurance and taxes then when I drove clunkers. Too bad California has taken a big step backward.
Actualy, avoidance of over priced services do change people's choices. All the taxes on a landline make them as pricey as cell service. As such lots of people are dropping land lines and using a cell as the primary service. Without all the taxes, a landline would be much cheaper than a cell phone.
The taxes on long distance is another example. I get lots of telemarketers trying to get me to switch long distance carriers. Due to the costs, I don't have a long distance carrier. I use a phone card. A $20 card gives over 600 minutes of anytime calling. Unused time at the end of the month carry over into next month. (no unused minutes wasted) There is no monthly charge. I use a card once every 6 months or so. Nobody has a plan that beats a card. If you know of one, post a reply. Dialing the long access number and pin and called number is a pain except when using the one phone in the house with an autodialer.
Why can't I sign up for 3 cents a minute on my home phone with zero monthly charges for long distance? Monthly taxes and billing costs. Funny they are so much more than retailing a phone card.
If 100 LED's drew an average (not pulse current) of 100 ma each, the thing would draw only 10 amps. It would draw 120 watts of power. Somehow I see the device melting down before it would blow the cig lighter fuse. Not many IR LED's can average 200 mA and survive. Peak currents in that range or more are common.
Having a 90+ led IR illuminator that draws under 2 amps, I doubt the technical information is correct. My 1KW inverter is only fused at 100 amps. How much power was he drawing again?
I was in a surplus shop and picked up an interesting circuit board. It has over 90 LED's on it and a few other parts. It was attached to a lighter plug. I took it home and powered it up and didn't notice anything. I checked to see if it was an IR illuminator for a camera and found the light blinking. For IR, it's very bright. I thought feeding it's driver from a universal TV remote could be fun near the local tavern. It would be easy to replace the timer signal with a signal from a photo diode. That would make a super TV remote amplifier. I found the timer was easly defeated to make it a great IR illuminator. Now that I have read the article, it is easy to see by the shape of the board, it would easly fit properly in one of the 3rd stop light fixtures. I certanly don't want to get nailed using it to trigger lights, so I'll probably continue to use it for an IR illuminator. I'll have to hook up the scope again to check it's rate, but I think it's near 8 HZ at about 70% duty cycle. It's a simple strobe with no fancy cadance or high frequency modulation. I wish slashdot had a way to post pics. I would post a pic of the board.
I think the easiest key is by using light wavelengths as a key. IR only would mean no trigger. Equal amounts of IR, Red, Green, & Blue = OK. Then only a white strobe light would activate it and kill triggering by all grey market devices. It would also attract much attention to anyone trying to beat the system. Can you say instant angry cop on the corner?
I just did a google search. The telegraph did use a single wire with an earth return. Details are here; http://sd.znet.com/~cdk14568/mpet/chap3.htm l#para0 45
from;
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1872, by D. VAN NOSTRAND
Don't forget that most early telegraph used a single wire, not two. The return path was an earth connection. This makes the above ground wire a very large antenna, static current collector. Over a large distance, this could collect several amps of current. The low impedance (several hundred ohms) sounders were not made for several ten's of amps at several hundred volts. Needless to say, they went out in a blaze of glory.
For samples of this single wire connection, check out some of the old western movies where a train made a connection to a telegraph wire. They only made a single connection. This single wire has no common mode noise rejection. A large solar event can easly overwhelm this single ended application.
In the car it doesn't matter. With the tires turning, the engine running, and air going by, no speaker smaller than 4 inch or bigger than 6 inch, the artifacts are very hard to find. However in my study on my good system, better source material is desirable.
Both Apple and MS are using something other than industry standard MP3's making both incompatible with both my car and my portable. I guess I'm stuck with the shiny silver disks and my favorite ripping program.
Too bad the industry doesn't get it that it is possible to sell high quality MP3's from a reliable quality source and compete with free. The bottled water industry gets it. They compete well against tap water. The music industry doesn't get it. Bottled water is drinkable out of the bottle or in your favorite glass. DRM files are not playable in my car or my portable player. Sombody please release a quality compatable & reliable pure source.
If POP3 could have looked forward and seen the SPAM and Forged header abuses, security could have been part of the standard. Now that POP3 and IMAP mail is everywhere and forged headers are also everywhere, changing the de-facto standards is a big thing. Making the switch to something more robust will be a long and painful transition. Everything will be incompatible for a while.
It will be as easy as getting the US to switch to the metric system or transition with the rest of the world to driving on the left side of the road. Both would be much cheaper if they were implimented in the beginning instead of attempting a transition later.
Sony does make both a Data and a Music MD. They are not interchangable because Sony in their wisdom added Serial Copy Protection to the Music MD. This simply means the player will not permit the file (Music) to be retrieved back off the device bit for bit. This is a bad thing for data. They made a Data MD drive. The made it so you couldn't read the Music MD disks in it. This combination of incompatable formats prevented copying of MUSIC MD's or making Music MD's on a Data MD drive to use in a music MD. This pretty much killed any intrest in the USA for the Data MD. Some musicians could deal with the Serial Copy Restrictions in the Music MD player, but for most of us, the CDR made an end run past Sony on this one. You could RIP MIX BURN on a CDR drive and play the result in a CD Player. Sony MD's are made to NOT do this.
Don't knock walled communities. They have been a saving grace in a pinch many times. Most people avoid them in a traffic jam because they can't navigate the maze. On board navagation quickly finds a workable detour in many places I would have just sat stuck in traffic. Most of those planned neighborhoods have 3 or 4 entrances to major highways. They just don't make it obvious the path from one side to the other as they temd to be a maze of twisty little passages all alike. Seeing the layout on screen, and auto routing picking a path makes crossing from a parking lot to an open highway much simpler. Of course the little communities don't welcome the additional traffic. Maybe city planners could do a better job providing working alternate routes so I don't have to drive through 25 MPH speed bump mazes.
In a simple time=money math, the nav has paid for itself in 3 years by not sitting in traffic jams. Long live AM radio traffic reports and on-board nav.
FYI, IF they are still avaliable at your local Radio Shack, the Cue Cat people has put out a PS2 to USB adaptor. It is recognised as a human interface adaptor and installes with no problems or special drivers. They are about $10. I picked up a couple for use with an external keyboard for an older laptop and an easy way to attach a laser bar code reader without having to dive for the back of the computer.
I just read the article.. (It's not slashdoted!) They say WMA format limited to Windows machines only. Most portable devices are not supported, only those supporting WMA format. Oh ya, you also have to download their client program to download the files.
That would be a bummer for the SULEV vehicle owners who get 50+ MPG. So much for savings based on less fuel used. If they do that and eliminate the gas tax (highly unlikely) there would be no point in driving a higher cost low emision high effeciency vehicle. This looks like another government department that needs to be payed out of your paycheck just to administer yet another hole in your checkbook. Why do we keep hiring redundant government tax collectors? Currently the fuel savings don't quite offeset the higher cost of the vehicle.
If Oregon implements this, I would have to either re-locate my residence or place of employment. The savings of a fuel effecient hybred would vanish. Commuting would be no longer an option. Hopefully they don't impliment this until after I retire.
I definately like the clicky keyboard from the IBM PS/2. From what I hear, they are a real sought after item. The lack of a MS key is a plus. After trashing many inferiour keyboards, I have come to aprecitate the value of a good keyboard.
My wife hates the clicky noises, so she uses a USB alternate keyboard.
Not to mention that Roland could then license this capability to manufacturers of soundcards (a licensed version of the emulator would come with LiveWare!, for example).
I have a Yamaha DB50XG. It has the Roland SC and MT32 sounds in it. It's true that not all manufactures have included the sounds in their products, but some have. Since my newer machines no longer support wavetable daughterboards, I've had to make it into an external MPU-401 stand alone unit to enjoy the sounds. The SC and XG sets are awsome.
I'd rather wipe out my system, and not touch/home than the other way around.
Are you kidding? You want your/home directory untouched while a keylogger is watching your online Ebay transactions, ?. login, Amazon.com transactions, online banking, etc... You want all the bounced mail from your now open mail proxy? Identity theft is more damaging than anything in my/home directory. I would rather rebuild my/home directory than rebuild my credit report.
The article even mentions a band that includes a PlayStation 2 game on a DVD with their CD.
Sony has a music division and a game division. Is the add in simply a way to promote demand for the Playstation? This may be a SONY promotion and have nothing to do with the cost associated with producing a music CD.
Does the article mention if the music CD is by the Sony music division?
For those who don't want to violate the DMCA, the solution is simple. Don't buy any CD without the Compact Disk Logo. If nobody bought them, the problem will go away on it's own. The article mentioned the CD does not have the Compact Disk Logo. True you don't get a copy of this music, but who cares? IF you buy it, more stuff will get DRM. If you don't buy it, less stuff will get DRM and DMCA legal problems.
Slashdot Mirror
My wife is still buying machines to try to get one that doesn't crash all the time. She doesn't want to learn anything other than MS Office. Needless to say anything she has had has slowed down and crashes often. The newest machine a P4 at 2.4 Ghz crashes reliably by selecting print from any application (web, spreadsheet, document, etc)
A stable easy to learn and use desktop OS and productivity suite could be the end of the upgrade cycle.
Correct me if I'm missing something here. For over the air broadcasts, a digital tuner uses an analog PLL UHF tuner whose output is then digitaly processed by a computer and then the signal is sent to the display portion of a monitor.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but wouldn't a UHF tuner without the decoder hung off it be cheaper than the tuner + decoder package?
How does more cost less?
DTV is still broadcast on a UHF channel over the air. This does not eliminate the need for a tuner front end but requires one.
Due to the high currents in the atmosphere, I would recommend grounding the tin foil hat. It would be a great charge collector and could fry your brain. Remember the solar storm of aprox 1859? It had induced so much current on telegraph wires it started several small fires. Wouldn't want the same fate for your head now would we?
So far with the industry infighting, nobody is risking making a digital television. You know the kind of an all in one tv like you can purchase for NTSC which includes a built in tuner. There are lots of digital ready monitors out there, but to my knowledge (other than pro type stuff) there isn't any DTV's in existance for the US market. I have a 20 inch TV I catch the local news with. I don't need a home theatre system for the local news, weather, and traffic report. Nor do I want to buy a TV that costs as much as my last car. If anybody knows of a digital TV (must include DTV tuner built in, not NTSC + digital ready) that is avaliable to replace my 20 inch TV, please reply to this post. Stuff over $600 need not apply. There is nothing on TV worth investing that much in a receiver for.
Funny I can buy a NTSC televisoio for under $200, but a DTV in the same size is unavaliable at any price. I know, I been looking. It drives the salesmen nuts. I tell them what I'm looking for and leave them a number to call when they get them in. So far in 3 years, no calls.
I've been looking hard at the Computer monitor/TV LCD sets, but haven't found one that will receive and over the air DTV signal. Too bad the infighting has killed production of the sets.
In 2007, I'll either have to subscribe to cable or sat TV to get NTSC, or do without TV. It's looking like the latter will be my option.
I have a test CD for setting up sound systems and checking CD players specifications. It has a track of silence as a refrence for signal to noise measurements. I wonder if it is in violation of copyright? I didn't see any refrence to cage.
It's funny you mentioned this item. I heard on the radio this morning that the new car registration fees went into effect in California at the beginning of October. The first week, new car sales were down 30%. The second week the sales were down another 30%. I guess getting newer low emissions vehicles off California highways is working well. Oh this agenda was sold to the public as a way to raise state income. The bad news is the lower sales has resulted in less revenue from the higher registration fees. Good job geting the citizens to think twice before buying the 2nd or 3rd car that isn't realy neeeded. I know before Washington state canned the high registration based on vehicle value, I always bought 8-10 year old cars. It saved a bundle on insurance, taxes, registration etc. I would always insure just the minimum. The car was so low value, I didn't insure for damage to my car. I just took the savings and stuck in the bank. If the car got totaled, the insurance saving already paid for it's replacement. With low registration fees, I now own a low milage car that is worth insuring. It's also low emission and high milage. It's much better for the environment. I get to drive a nicer car. While doing so, I do pay more in insurance and taxes then when I drove clunkers. Too bad California has taken a big step backward.
Actualy, avoidance of over priced services do change people's choices. All the taxes on a landline make them as pricey as cell service. As such lots of people are dropping land lines and using a cell as the primary service. Without all the taxes, a landline would be much cheaper than a cell phone.
The taxes on long distance is another example. I get lots of telemarketers trying to get me to switch long distance carriers. Due to the costs, I don't have a long distance carrier. I use a phone card. A $20 card gives over 600 minutes of anytime calling. Unused time at the end of the month carry over into next month. (no unused minutes wasted) There is no monthly charge. I use a card once every 6 months or so. Nobody has a plan that beats a card. If you know of one, post a reply. Dialing the long access number and pin and called number is a pain except when using the one phone in the house with an autodialer.
Why can't I sign up for 3 cents a minute on my home phone with zero monthly charges for long distance? Monthly taxes and billing costs. Funny they are so much more than retailing a phone card.
If 100 LED's drew an average (not pulse current) of 100 ma each, the thing would draw only 10 amps. It would draw 120 watts of power. Somehow I see the device melting down before it would blow the cig lighter fuse. Not many IR LED's can average 200 mA and survive. Peak currents in that range or more are common.
Having a 90+ led IR illuminator that draws under 2 amps, I doubt the technical information is correct. My 1KW inverter is only fused at 100 amps. How much power was he drawing again?
I was in a surplus shop and picked up an interesting circuit board. It has over 90 LED's on it and a few other parts. It was attached to a lighter plug. I took it home and powered it up and didn't notice anything. I checked to see if it was an IR illuminator for a camera and found the light blinking. For IR, it's very bright. I thought feeding it's driver from a universal TV remote could be fun near the local tavern. It would be easy to replace the timer signal with a signal from a photo diode. That would make a super TV remote amplifier. I found the timer was easly defeated to make it a great IR illuminator. Now that I have read the article, it is easy to see by the shape of the board, it would easly fit properly in one of the 3rd stop light fixtures. I certanly don't want to get nailed using it to trigger lights, so I'll probably continue to use it for an IR illuminator. I'll have to hook up the scope again to check it's rate, but I think it's near 8 HZ at about 70% duty cycle.
It's a simple strobe with no fancy cadance or high frequency modulation.
I wish slashdot had a way to post pics. I would post a pic of the board.
I think the easiest key is by using light wavelengths as a key. IR only would mean no trigger. Equal amounts of IR, Red, Green, & Blue = OK. Then only a white strobe light would activate it and kill triggering by all grey market devices. It would also attract much attention to anyone trying to beat the system. Can you say instant angry cop on the corner?
I just did a google search. The telegraph did use a single wire with an earth return. Details are here;m l#para0 45
http://sd.znet.com/~cdk14568/mpet/chap3.ht
from;
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
D. VAN NOSTRAND
Don't forget that most early telegraph used a single wire, not two. The return path was an earth connection. This makes the above ground wire a very large antenna, static current collector. Over a large distance, this could collect several amps of current. The low impedance (several hundred ohms) sounders were not made for several ten's of amps at several hundred volts. Needless to say, they went out in a blaze of glory.
For samples of this single wire connection, check out some of the old western movies where a train made a connection to a telegraph wire. They only made a single connection. This single wire has no common mode noise rejection. A large solar event can easly overwhelm this single ended application.
In the car it doesn't matter. With the tires turning, the engine running, and air going by, no speaker smaller than 4 inch or bigger than 6 inch, the artifacts are very hard to find. However in my study on my good system, better source material is desirable.
Both Apple and MS are using something other than industry standard MP3's making both incompatible with both my car and my portable. I guess I'm stuck with the shiny silver disks and my favorite ripping program.
Too bad the industry doesn't get it that it is possible to sell high quality MP3's from a reliable quality source and compete with free. The bottled water industry gets it. They compete well against tap water. The music industry doesn't get it. Bottled water is drinkable out of the bottle or in your favorite glass. DRM files are not playable in my car or my portable player. Sombody please release a quality compatable & reliable pure source.
If POP3 could have looked forward and seen the SPAM and Forged header abuses, security could have been part of the standard. Now that POP3 and IMAP mail is everywhere and forged headers are also everywhere, changing the de-facto standards is a big thing. Making the switch to something more robust will be a long and painful transition. Everything will be incompatible for a while.
It will be as easy as getting the US to switch to the metric system or transition with the rest of the world to driving on the left side of the road. Both would be much cheaper if they were implimented in the beginning instead of attempting a transition later.
Sony does make both a Data and a Music MD. They are not interchangable because Sony in their wisdom added Serial Copy Protection to the Music MD. This simply means the player will not permit the file (Music) to be retrieved back off the device bit for bit. This is a bad thing for data. They made a Data MD drive. The made it so you couldn't read the Music MD disks in it. This combination of incompatable formats prevented copying of MUSIC MD's or making Music MD's on a Data MD drive to use in a music MD. This pretty much killed any intrest in the USA for the Data MD. Some musicians could deal with the Serial Copy Restrictions in the Music MD player, but for most of us, the CDR made an end run past Sony on this one. You could RIP MIX BURN on a CDR drive and play the result in a CD Player. Sony MD's are made to NOT do this.
Info on the SONY Data MD can be found here
http://www.minidisc.org/650mb_md.html
Don't knock walled communities. They have been a saving grace in a pinch many times. Most people avoid them in a traffic jam because they can't navigate the maze. On board navagation quickly finds a workable detour in many places I would have just sat stuck in traffic. Most of those planned neighborhoods have 3 or 4 entrances to major highways. They just don't make it obvious the path from one side to the other as they temd to be a maze of twisty little passages all alike. Seeing the layout on screen, and auto routing picking a path makes crossing from a parking lot to an open highway much simpler.
Of course the little communities don't welcome the additional traffic.
Maybe city planners could do a better job providing working alternate routes so I don't have to drive through 25 MPH speed bump mazes.
In a simple time=money math, the nav has paid for itself in 3 years by not sitting in traffic jams. Long live AM radio traffic reports and on-board nav.
FYI, IF they are still avaliable at your local Radio Shack, the Cue Cat people has put out a PS2 to USB adaptor. It is recognised as a human interface adaptor and installes with no problems or special drivers. They are about $10. I picked up a couple for use with an external keyboard for an older laptop and an easy way to attach a laser bar code reader without having to dive for the back of the computer.
I just read the article.. (It's not slashdoted!) They say WMA format limited to Windows machines only. Most portable devices are not supported, only those supporting WMA format. Oh ya, you also have to download their client program to download the files.
That would be a bummer for the SULEV vehicle owners who get 50+ MPG. So much for savings based on less fuel used. If they do that and eliminate the gas tax (highly unlikely) there would be no point in driving a higher cost low emision high effeciency vehicle. This looks like another government department that needs to be payed out of your paycheck just to administer yet another hole in your checkbook. Why do we keep hiring redundant government tax collectors? Currently the fuel savings don't quite offeset the higher cost of the vehicle.
If Oregon implements this, I would have to either re-locate my residence or place of employment. The savings of a fuel effecient hybred would vanish. Commuting would be no longer an option. Hopefully they don't impliment this until after I retire.
I definately like the clicky keyboard from the IBM PS/2. From what I hear, they are a real sought after item. The lack of a MS key is a plus. After trashing many inferiour keyboards, I have come to aprecitate the value of a good keyboard.
My wife hates the clicky noises, so she uses a USB alternate keyboard.
Not to mention that Roland could then license this capability to manufacturers of soundcards (a licensed version of the emulator would come with LiveWare!, for example).
I have a Yamaha DB50XG. It has the Roland SC and MT32 sounds in it. It's true that not all manufactures have included the sounds in their products, but some have. Since my newer machines no longer support wavetable daughterboards, I've had to make it into an external MPU-401 stand alone unit to enjoy the sounds. The SC and XG sets are awsome.
I'd rather wipe out my system, and not touch /home than the other way around.
/home directory untouched while a keylogger is watching your online Ebay transactions, ?. login, Amazon.com transactions, online banking, etc... You want all the bounced mail from your now open mail proxy? Identity theft is more damaging than anything in my /home directory. I would rather rebuild my /home directory than rebuild my credit report.
Are you kidding? You want your
The article even mentions a band that includes a PlayStation 2 game on a DVD with their CD.
Sony has a music division and a game division. Is the add in simply a way to promote demand for the Playstation? This may be a SONY promotion and have nothing to do with the cost associated with producing a music CD.
Does the article mention if the music CD is by the Sony music division?
For those who don't want to violate the DMCA, the solution is simple. Don't buy any CD without the Compact Disk Logo. If nobody bought them, the problem will go away on it's own. The article mentioned the CD does not have the Compact Disk Logo. True you don't get a copy of this music, but who cares? IF you buy it, more stuff will get DRM. If you don't buy it, less stuff will get DRM and DMCA legal problems.