" That's why you: 1) go close msn messenge 2) go to c:\program_files\messenger 3) rename that directory to something else. 4) Msn won't start up again. yay!
Why anyone would use msn messenger is beyond me, I hate that thing. It's more annoying than clippy. They just need a soundbyte with it that yells "you've got spam!" and it'll be complete."
Then why the hell do you have messenger installed on your system in the first place!?!
"Get one of those 20 dollar Dazzle boxes, they work great if you want to use it as a simple display, say to plug in a VCR or nintendo.
Of course, if you want to capture good quality video streams, you want one of the pricier models."
Read reviews before you buy one. These things, particularly the DVC-80, are more trouble than they're worth IMO, and commonly drop more frames than they capture. Considering the fact that they only run on USB 1.1, they can only capture VCD quality MPEG-1 video.
The Plextor ConvertX PVR model PX-TV402U is the ultimate personal video recorder for the PC. The PX-TV402U allows you to connect to a satellite TV, cable TV or broadcast TV signal and record programs to your PC. You can then watch the video from the PC or burn it to DVD for playback on a DVD player. You can also connect a camcorder, VCR or DVD player to record home videos to the PC. The heart of the PX-TV402U is its multi-format encoder chip which converts video to the DivX®, MPEG-4, MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 formats as it is being recorded to the PC.
" Yeah, because everyone wants to run their OS off a CD."
Agreed. Especially those who run servers and need absolute proof that nobody has rooted their OS, installed trojans, etc. It's rather hard to do that to an OS booted from a CD. Or people that boot knoppix to fix a forked up unbootable box.
"(...)Basically, he was a young man who killed four small girls back in the late 80s. He owned approximately 6000 videotapes, including many horror movies and a large selection of anime.
Of course, none of this means that the general image of anime fans among Japanese people is that of Miyazaki Tsutomu, any more than Americans' image of Boston is irrevocably associated with the Boston Strangler."
Link here is funny but maybe NSFW. Fair enough. I'm sure most anime fans are closer to being this disturbing pervert as opposed to some sort of sociopath.:P
Actually the Japanese creators can take you to court for digisub distribution, even if the show is not officially licensed in your market. They have the right to license it or not license it whatever market they want, and digisubs infringe on that exclusive right. Not that such a court case ever happened or ever will happen. The Japanese are more concerned about protecting their own market, and ADV and Bandai certainly do prosecute bootleg providers but not digisubbers. (Actually Jerry Chu of Bandai made it quite clear that Bandai is not like the RIAA in this matter during the Bandai panel at Otakon 2004.)
(Btw, I never predicted that the MSDMS (MicroSoft Digital Music Store) would achieve victory over the competition. I merely predicted how they would attempt to achieve it.)
"Since Apple is getting profit from their Itunes solely from the sale of their Ipods (afaik) , how would MS make profit from this ? (besides f*cking Apple up the ass, if this would be able to take away customers from them)"
They wouldn't (at first.) They have enough money to undercut the competitor, drive them out of business or at least marginalise them, and then they have a monopoly and can do as they please.
"Obviously they're a little late for this... but really, if all of the others haven't really made a dent in the iTMS market share, how does MS intend to?"
Because Microsoft has lots and lots and lots and lots of money.
They can can sell at a huge loss to undercut iTunes, and still it will be at a tiny cost to their bottom line.
"(And fansubs don't count folks, they are illegal, don't support the creators [...])"
"Unlicensed fansubs are a rather grey area, not specifically illegal, but not specifically legal either. By and large the reputable fansub groups pull their fansubs when an anime is licensed (or released, depends on the group) in the states, their motivation for being fansubbers being, by and large, to make shows that aren't (and sometimes won't be) available in the US, available."
Unlicensed fansubs are illegal, no ifs, ands or buts. It does not matter whether or not the show is licensed. Ask a lawyer if you don't believe me.
Of course this doesn't mean that I don't have a massive library of fansubs spanning hundreds of CDRs. I am fully aware of the distribution practices and ethics of the various fansub groups. If it wasn't for fansubs, I wouldn't have 100+ legally licensed official anime DVDs on my shelf. Remember: Friends don't let friends watch AnimeJunkies.:P
Get some old write-protect tabs for 5.25" floppy discs. Basically they look like little rectangular shiny stickers about 1x2 cm. I have tonnes of them in a box, and most old-times will still have a collection of stickers and labels for which they have no use. Paste a tab onto the sticky side of a small piece of masking tape. Put the masking tape over the LED such that the shiny tab part is covering it.
Thus the reflective part effectively blocks pretty much all the light, reflecting it back into the surface of the device. This works beautifully on the bright blue LEDs on my computer case.
" Oh please, we all grew up watching cheap asian animation a la Voltron, Ge-Force, Astroboy, Transformers.."
Additionally, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was animated in Japan, though it was a show conceived and run by americans. FWIW lots of animation for 'Japanese' anime is now outsourced to Korea.
"There is a very VERY negative stigma against anime fans in japan. In the US, anime fans are considered dorky social outcasts. In japan, anime fans are considered perverted child rapists and pedophiles. I would argue that the negative stimga against anime fans is much, much worse in japan then the states."
Where's your source for this? Really, how do you know? I've seen it mentioned in trollish articles written by ignorant folks, but I have no reason to believe that it's anything other than an urban legend.
Considering the proprotion of the shows that are aimed at the child market and the fact that there are products aimed at every possible demographic, I tend to doubt this statement. There are certainly *some* products aimed at dirty perverts, but really, if all of the market was like this, then movies like Spirited Away would not be the #1 bestseller DVD in all of Japan's history.
"For Amine, I really can't see the genre maintaining it's geek cred as it becomes widely accepted and influential (note: I'm reffering to the west here, not Japan where Anime is obviously percieved quite differently).... You might regret it if the genre becomes mainstream."
What you haven't taken into account is that there are lots of 'streams' of anime. Things like Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Miyazaki (i.e. Spirited Away, Totoro, Mononoke, etc.) have been a lot more mainstream and accessible to North America at large for many years. Anime will retain its 'geek cred' because there are many many layers of fandom, and you can go deeper and deeper. Most people will not ever hear of shows like Kyou Kara Mao, Tenchi na Konamaiki, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, Gravitation and the like. Go deeper, and you will see that 97% of what's present even in the North American market is still restricted (for the moment) to the world of geekdom.
Of course the companies that license and release manga and shows like Bandai USA, Geneon, FUNimation, AD Vison, Tokyopop, etc. are trying to popularise it and I fully support this! If they can make the genre more popular, it means the prices will get lower through volume sales, they will be easier to find, and more titles will be licensed and brought over to North America. Even today is has improved a lot, as now a preorder DVD with 4 episodes goes for US$18-19 as opposed to a VHS with 2 episodes for $50. (And fansubs don't count folks, they are illegal, don't support the creators, but though highly useful for reasons I won't get into. Also 90%+ of the stuff on e-bay is low quality pirate swag, so go educate yourselves and avoid it.)
Regardless, my point is that the market and range of products available are bigger and more diverse than you have given it credit for. Even in Japan there is certainly a hardcore geek cult following that takes it further than anyone else. (Go rent yourself a copy of Otaku no Video and see what I mean.)
" Where to watch the previews of all the movies listed above ?"
There's definitely one or tow floating around on the bittorrent networks here and there. I saw the GiTS:Innocence preview at Otakon 2004 in the Production I.G. panel and it looked FANTASTIC.
"I really never understood people who watch anime - what's exactly the fun of watching a cartoon in a category where a lot of real movies are, imho, better ?
I have a fun roommates who watch anime all day, and really, i don't get it... so what's the fun ? Is it just the same as some people at the age of 40 still read comics ?"
Ah yes, the words of someone who has not actually sat down to watch a good amount of it. Actually watch the movies. Get something directed by Miyazaki. Castle in the Sky. Princess Mononoke. Grave of the Fireflies. Nausicaa. You will understand.
(This comes from someone who spent about US$2000 on anime related expenses in their first year as a fan. And that's only moderate. I know hardcore people who spend $6K and more on DVDs, artwork, posters, figurines, toys, accessories, etc.)
"For me, it's the occasional new hard drive + firewire bay.
My beef with DVD-Rs isn't compatibility, it's longevity. It doesn't take much to screw up a DVD."
The problem with using these enclosures for backups is that they do not decouple the read and write mechanisms. If the read head or the spin chip on the drive breaks then you are separated from your data, even though the platters are fine. Even broken pin on the enclosure's FW/USB2 port could or an overheated power supply could take it out of commission. It is much more reliable to keep three copies on DVDR stored in different locations. If your DVD drive breaks, just replace it. The data is fine.
"it takes a long time to generate so much data, but why have a format war at 9 Gb?? It's so much less than hard disk sizes, especially with 400 Gb drives requiring so many DVDs to back up. Why not improve technology, say to at least a 50 Gb disk for the next format? That would be an order of magnitude step up, still not catching up to hard drives but more sensible."
Congratulations, you have just described the format war that will follow DVD-R9. Say hello to Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD.
"The very best media are, in this order:
1. Pioneer (Discontinued but are a great find if you find some old stock somewhere)
2. Maxell (Made in Japan ones)
3. Taiyo-Yuden
4. Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (Verbatim 4X/8X)"
Numbers 2 and 3 are identical for DVD-R, both made by Taiyo Yuden. Of course Taiyo generally sells under other names. All FujiFilm Made in Japan is Taiyo. You won't see T-Y by that name on the shelf somewhere. For DVD+R I still go for #2 even though I personally believe #3 is better. I simply can't find #3 anywhere in Canada!
Number 4 is something I have had good experiences with, and I recommend it if you don't want to spend a fortune.
"my friend works for Verbatim and says they no longer manufacture ANY of their own media...it's ALL relabelled from another manufacturer...I asked what he thought about Ritek media and he said "Well, we buy it..."
worth investigating..."
Actually verbatim discs come from a couple of sources:
Verbatim (Made in Singapore) - Mitsubishi Chemicals Comapany. This stuff is actually pretty good. I do use their DVD+R for some of my own home video archiving. Not the absolute best, but still good and not too expensive.
Verbatim (Made in Taiwan) - CMC Magnetics or RiTEK. Avoid the CMC CD-Rs like the plague, they will die within months. The CMC DVDR discs are actually pretty consistent. Rumour has it that CMC buys the dye from Mitsubishi. RiTEK makes a decent product in both of these categories, but I prefer to go higher up the cost/quality scale for my own purposes. Of course the trick is to identify which are RiTEK and which are CMC. I cannot tell you how to do that. That is why I don't buy Verbatim products made in Taiwan.
Slashdot Mirror
" That's why you:
1) go close msn messenge
2) go to c:\program_files\messenger
3) rename that directory to something else.
4) Msn won't start up again. yay!
Why anyone would use msn messenger is beyond me, I hate that thing. It's more annoying than clippy. They just need a soundbyte with it that yells "you've got spam!" and it'll be complete."
Then why the hell do you have messenger installed on your system in the first place!?!
Taking != Sharing
(Not to say that one of them is right or anything, even though downloading music from P2P is legal here in Canada.)
Read reviews before you buy one. These things, particularly the DVC-80, are more trouble than they're worth IMO, and commonly drop more frames than they capture. Considering the fact that they only run on USB 1.1, they can only capture VCD quality MPEG-1 video.
Here you go: (link)
The Plextor ConvertX PVR model PX-TV402U is the ultimate personal video recorder for the PC. The PX-TV402U allows you to connect to a satellite TV, cable TV or broadcast TV signal and record programs to your PC. You can then watch the video from the PC or burn it to DVD for playback on a DVD player. You can also connect a camcorder, VCR or DVD player to record home videos to the PC. The heart of the PX-TV402U is its multi-format encoder chip which converts video to the DivX®, MPEG-4, MPEG-2 and MPEG-1 formats as it is being recorded to the PC.
No, I do not work for Plextor.
Agreed. Especially those who run servers and need absolute proof that nobody has rooted their OS, installed trojans, etc. It's rather hard to do that to an OS booted from a CD. Or people that boot knoppix to fix a forked up unbootable box.
It depends on how much music you have. I've ripped 4GB @ 192kbps onto my iPod and I'm running out of stuff to store on it.
Of course, none of this means that the general image of anime fans among Japanese people is that of Miyazaki Tsutomu, any more than Americans' image of Boston is irrevocably associated with the Boston Strangler."
Link here is funny but maybe NSFW. :P
Fair enough. I'm sure most anime fans are closer to being this disturbing pervert as opposed to some sort of sociopath.
A moot point though, agreed.
(Btw, I never predicted that the MSDMS (MicroSoft Digital Music Store) would achieve victory over the competition. I merely predicted how they would attempt to achieve it.)
They wouldn't (at first.) They have enough money to undercut the competitor, drive them out of business or at least marginalise them, and then they have a monopoly and can do as they please.
Because Microsoft has lots and lots and lots and lots of money.
They can can sell at a huge loss to undercut iTunes, and still it will be at a tiny cost to their bottom line.
"Unlicensed fansubs are a rather grey area, not specifically illegal, but not specifically legal either. By and large the reputable fansub groups pull their fansubs when an anime is licensed (or released, depends on the group) in the states, their motivation for being fansubbers being, by and large, to make shows that aren't (and sometimes won't be) available in the US, available."
Unlicensed fansubs are illegal, no ifs, ands or buts. It does not matter whether or not the show is licensed. Ask a lawyer if you don't believe me.
Of course this doesn't mean that I don't have a massive library of fansubs spanning hundreds of CDRs. I am fully aware of the distribution practices and ethics of the various fansub groups. If it wasn't for fansubs, I wouldn't have 100+ legally licensed official anime DVDs on my shelf. Remember: Friends don't let friends watch AnimeJunkies. :P
Thus the reflective part effectively blocks pretty much all the light, reflecting it back into the surface of the device. This works beautifully on the bright blue LEDs on my computer case.
Additionally, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was animated in Japan, though it was a show conceived and run by americans. FWIW lots of animation for 'Japanese' anime is now outsourced to Korea.
Where's your source for this? Really, how do you know? I've seen it mentioned in trollish articles written by ignorant folks, but I have no reason to believe that it's anything other than an urban legend.
Considering the proprotion of the shows that are aimed at the child market and the fact that there are products aimed at every possible demographic, I tend to doubt this statement. There are certainly *some* products aimed at dirty perverts, but really, if all of the market was like this, then movies like Spirited Away would not be the #1 bestseller DVD in all of Japan's history.
People like you disturb me, and I'm inclined to think that it is not due to short attention span.
What you haven't taken into account is that there are lots of 'streams' of anime. Things like Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Miyazaki (i.e. Spirited Away, Totoro, Mononoke, etc.) have been a lot more mainstream and accessible to North America at large for many years. Anime will retain its 'geek cred' because there are many many layers of fandom, and you can go deeper and deeper. Most people will not ever hear of shows like Kyou Kara Mao, Tenchi na Konamaiki, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, Gravitation and the like. Go deeper, and you will see that 97% of what's present even in the North American market is still restricted (for the moment) to the world of geekdom.
Of course the companies that license and release manga and shows like Bandai USA, Geneon, FUNimation, AD Vison, Tokyopop, etc. are trying to popularise it and I fully support this! If they can make the genre more popular, it means the prices will get lower through volume sales, they will be easier to find, and more titles will be licensed and brought over to North America. Even today is has improved a lot, as now a preorder DVD with 4 episodes goes for US$18-19 as opposed to a VHS with 2 episodes for $50. (And fansubs don't count folks, they are illegal, don't support the creators, but though highly useful for reasons I won't get into. Also 90%+ of the stuff on e-bay is low quality pirate swag, so go educate yourselves and avoid it.)
Regardless, my point is that the market and range of products available are bigger and more diverse than you have given it credit for. Even in Japan there is certainly a hardcore geek cult following that takes it further than anyone else. (Go rent yourself a copy of Otaku no Video and see what I mean.)
There's definitely one or tow floating around on the bittorrent networks here and there. I saw the GiTS:Innocence preview at Otakon 2004 in the Production I.G. panel and it looked FANTASTIC.
(The joke of course, for those who don't know, is that Sailor Uranus is a lesbian. :P)
Ah yes, the words of someone who has not actually sat down to watch a good amount of it. Actually watch the movies. Get something directed by Miyazaki. Castle in the Sky. Princess Mononoke. Grave of the Fireflies. Nausicaa. You will understand.
(This comes from someone who spent about US$2000 on anime related expenses in their first year as a fan. And that's only moderate. I know hardcore people who spend $6K and more on DVDs, artwork, posters, figurines, toys, accessories, etc.)
I'm surprised that I don't get spam about this topic.
The problem with using these enclosures for backups is that they do not decouple the read and write mechanisms. If the read head or the spin chip on the drive breaks then you are separated from your data, even though the platters are fine. Even broken pin on the enclosure's FW/USB2 port could or an overheated power supply could take it out of commission. It is much more reliable to keep three copies on DVDR stored in different locations. If your DVD drive breaks, just replace it. The data is fine.
Congratulations, you have just described the format war that will follow DVD-R9. Say hello to Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD.
Numbers 2 and 3 are identical for DVD-R, both made by Taiyo Yuden. Of course Taiyo generally sells under other names. All FujiFilm Made in Japan is Taiyo. You won't see T-Y by that name on the shelf somewhere. For DVD+R I still go for #2 even though I personally believe #3 is better. I simply can't find #3 anywhere in Canada!
Number 4 is something I have had good experiences with, and I recommend it if you don't want to spend a fortune.
Actually verbatim discs come from a couple of sources:
Verbatim (Made in Singapore) - Mitsubishi Chemicals Comapany. This stuff is actually pretty good. I do use their DVD+R for some of my own home video archiving. Not the absolute best, but still good and not too expensive.
Verbatim (Made in Taiwan) - CMC Magnetics or RiTEK. Avoid the CMC CD-Rs like the plague, they will die within months. The CMC DVDR discs are actually pretty consistent. Rumour has it that CMC buys the dye from Mitsubishi. RiTEK makes a decent product in both of these categories, but I prefer to go higher up the cost/quality scale for my own purposes. Of course the trick is to identify which are RiTEK and which are CMC. I cannot tell you how to do that. That is why I don't buy Verbatim products made in Taiwan.