This is really just an enlargement (although a significant one) of the previously discussed agreement between Sony and Matsushita. I even submitted a story with back references to bothprevious stories, but it got rejected. Shrug.
The big deal, of course, is that Microsoft has been pushing Windows CE and other Windows technologies for use in consumer electronics devices. This is a direct challenge to that. And the cynic in me wonders if it isn't, at least in part, a bid to make Microsoft become more responsive to the CE manufacturer's requirements and reduce price as well.
I often wonder how the hell things like this actually get posted, but oh well...
Keep the original packaging. Preferably all of it, but at the very least the box and styrofoam inserts. And if you ever think you'll need to ship it again afterwards then you'd better continue to keep that box.
If the box is in crap condition, or you're just overly paranoid, then pack it again in a second, slightly larger box cushioned with styrofoam peanuts. If you're looking to get these on the cheap, go to a local recycling center -- mine will provide styrofoam peanuts for free. You may be able to pickup a good box for free as well, but they usually crush them pretty rapidly.
Prior to shipping, make a backup, or just accept that you may never get the data back -- misdelivery, crashed drive (highly unlikely), etc. It's not a high likelihood, but if you're paranoid...
When you receive it, unpack it carefully and then open the case. Make sure all the cards and the CPU are seated securely. Make sure fans are plugged in. Only after that should you turn it on... modern heatsink/fans are so large they often cause the CPU to become unsocketed or wiggle the fan connector lose (which leads to a dead CPU in no time).
Who to ship with? FedEx or UPS. Doesn't matter. I've had problems with both, and I've had excellent experiences with both. Don't use the USPS, and don't use 3rd or 4th tier providers. They're really not all that expensive. Pack it yourself, take it to a local facility (not Mailboxes, etc (which is now owned by UPS) or similar). Yes, there's one near you unless you live in the boonies -- where do you think they deliver from in the first place? If you go online and have your package weight, dimensions, and declared value you can get a good idea how much it'll cost too -- although the last time I did this it cost me less than what the estimate said.
During delivery keep a sharp eye on the tracking number -- you can use a phone if you don't have a computer. If something looks wrong (like they say it's delivered, but it's not) then start complaining -- preferably at the local delivery center in person.
Make sure you require a signature. Make sure you're there to get the delivery. Or simply request it be held at the delivery center and go pick it up yourself (which is what I prefer to do).
Oh, and if you don't have the original packaging -- well, don't expect much. I wouldn't trust it to a delivery company at that point, and even if you put insurance on it you won't be able to collect since they'll very easily be able to claim improper packaging. Start seriously considering a cross country road trip.
Sure, but the last significant collaboration was OS/2 1.2. 1.3 was done primarily by IBM (and was considered pretty much the only usable 1.x release, which isn't saying much). OS/2 2.x was entirely IBM, and all MS code had been expunged from the kernel by the time OS/2 Warp came about... IIRC, the only MS code left at that point was in the file system (HPFS and FAT). OS/2 Warp was considerably more stable than prior versions.
Of course, IBM couldn't market its way out of a paper bag when it came to desktop systems, they had absolutely horrid support, fairly crappy and overpriced development tools (VisualAge was too little, too late, and too buggy), and it never garnered the support necessary to become a serious contender... and I say this as someone who was an OS/2 fanatic back in the day. And while MS was slow on the uptake when it came to the Internet, IBM was downright glacial... most people ran Netscape for Windows under OS/2, which sucked... IBM did finally release a browser (which was damn good for the day), but long after most had given up.
AFAIK, even the banks are moving off of it now... OS/2 was long a mainstay in the financial world, especially at banks and ATMs. Most ATMs now run NT or a proprietary OS. There just isn't any reason to keep OS/2.
Ouch... my sympathies. Had a tree fall through my roof (as in, new skylight) about 9 months ago and it sucked... a fire is far, far worse though. Hope everyone was safe and it didn't destroy anything irreplacable.
When I was looking at the codes, the prices, and whatnot a couple years ago the plenum cable was about 5x more expensive... turning a $100 roll of cable into a $500 one. Yeah, $400 is cheap for peace of mind, but since all the sites I read stated it was unnecessary I did cheap out. I know the telephone wire I ran isn't fire resistant, and I doubt the RG-6 was either, so even if I'd run plenum a fire would have still had several other methods of transit.
Sure, except that it's vastly more expensive (excluding time involved in running the wires), is susceptible to external influences (better hope not too many neighbors have 2.4GHz phones, or that the microwave is too noisy, or that a neighbor also has a wireless network... an 802.11b one...), there are many devices that aren't compatible with wireless networks (sure... you can buy a bridge... which is how much more again?), and the ever present security issue.
As it happens, I have both a wired and a wireless network. I ran the cables for the wired network a couple years ago, and a few months ago my wife wanted to setup a wireless AP for her laptop. Works just fine, and it's a good medium -- wired for most things, wireless for anything that'll move around a lot.
If you were going to build a house for yourself with network cable in the walls, why would you use something that burns readily and creates loads of toxic smoke?
If your network cable is burning, you already have far bigger problems on your hands. You realize that most insulation will burn as well, not to mention the drywall and wood that your house is essentially built out of. Yeah, it's all firetreated, but when it does burn it gives off far more noxious smoke than cat5 will.
Your original statement is still wrong - there is no requirement for plenum cable in residences. There's no need either, unless you're running it through HVAC ducts (which is an entirely separate violation of residential building codes in the first place).
No, but it does so at about half the speed of a wired network... with a wired network you can share a show recorded at High slightly faster than realtime. If you can get a medium quality recording to transfer in realtime over wireless then you're lucky.
The question is, how old were the profiles and other such that you had laying around? If they were from pre-1.0 releases then there's no guarantee made of compatibility -- and that could explain some of the weirdness you saw.
If all the profiles were from 1.0 release or upward then it shouldn't have an issue -- but I wouldn't be surprised if there was an issue.
I'm running Firebird 0.6 (well, one of the 0.6 dailys) and don't plan on upgrading it until needed because they explicitly warn that prior to 1.0 release the recomended install procedure involves deleting all of your config files... and I did indeed have to do that at one point between 0.5 and 0.6. It annoys me, but as a developer myself I can understand the pitfalls of running beta software.
how many megapixels does a digital camera need to shoot at to be superior to highest quality analog camera?
If you ask in the right forums (like photo hound forums) you'll get a flamewar that rivals vi vs emacs, or Linux vs Windows. Some people claim that the newest 11MP cameras surpass the effective resolution of a 35mm camera because the film grain obscures much of the detail. Others claim that's bullshit, and the 11MP cameras are still far away from replicating a good quality film camera.
That said, a lot of the pros are moving from film to digital now, because the processing costs are so much lower and the quality differences are increasingly small. My wife and I had a wedding photographer that used both analog and digital, and I suspect you'd be hard pressed to tell which are which without hints... except for one photo where there's a substantial amount of text that's severely blurred (it was digital, and I'm guessing it stored directly to JPG instead of TIFF).
can question number one apply to digital video cameras?
Not really... it's generally agreed that pro digital video cameras are still not anywhere close to film cameras. Others have mentioned the speed issues, so no need to go over that again. To solve it they're generally using much lower (sub 2MP) CCDs to store the image... and shots requiring high speed camera work are still being done by film only.
Note that this does not apply to consumer video -- consumer grade digital video cameras are far better than their analog counterparts. They have much greater resolution and color reproduction.
are movies nowadays shot with digital cameras?
AFAIK, Attack of the Clones is the only big-budget movie that's been shot in pure digital. Largely because Lucas is a big proponent of the technology, and all the digital FX shots meant they vastly simplified post production.
A lot of art films are being shot in digital now since it's so much cheaper to produce... when you have a $10k budget (or even a $1M budget), every cent counts.
There's other issues about digital vs analog as well, as far as film production goes, but I have a meeting to attend now:)
One difference is that Yahoo and Netscape SUCKED. Google is solid.
Yes, but once upon a time Yahoo and Netscape both rocked. Yahoo was by far the best search engine out there, and Netscape was way better than the competition. Both became complacent and then they started sucking. Let's just hope that the same fate does not befall Google.
While I agree with many of your statements, there is such a thing as going too far.
Hell, GPS tracking of vehicles would, if it reduced traffic deaths by a few percent, would be well worth the loss of privacy.
No. Sorry, but the privacy bit is too big. It's still possible to do it, but not with a total loss of privacy please.
I'm not worried that I'll be the cause of an accident. But I'm scared shitless of your driving, because you are, in all probability, one of the drivers who is a threat to my continued well-being.
I used to be an incredibly shitty driver... oh, sure, I thought I was a good one, and could drive fast, yet safely, etc... but then I got married and started driving more safely. Partly because my wife made it quite clear that she didn't like my driving (yes you did hon), but mostly because I couldn't live with myself if I got in an accident and hurt her. And to all you dweebs thinking that it's sappy and crap - yeah it is, and if you ever really love someone then you'll understand it at that time. I know I didn't until it happened to me.
Driving more safely now, I'm amazed at just how many utterly shitty drivers there are out there... and I also know that just about every single thing that I see them doing is the same crap I used to do. It's not safe. You are not some god of driving. You are causing problems by tailgating and making other drivers uncomfortable around you.
Yeah, I still speed, but not like I used to. I no longer consider the speed limit as a posted minimum, and I'm a lot more wary of rapid lane changing and weaving. Tailgating is just abysmally stupid. Not that I recognized these things as bad back when I was driving like that, and not that I actually expect any of the moron drivers out there to become enlightened based on reading this... but maybe in a few years they'll also look back on their driving habits and realize what idiotic punks they really were. I do.
All of that said, as long as the system works well (which is a huge caveat), I'm all for it... this probably would've saved my sister a great deal of physical therepy when some stupid driver decided to cross over the double yellow line in rush hour traffic and hit my sister's brand new Honda at 45 mph (which is the speed both cars were going... in opposite directions). My sister was fortunate to live through the accident, thanks to modern safety systems, but she wasn't able to drive for nearly 6 months afterwards due to injuries. And I know she was lucky.
If both cars had been equipped with such a system maybe each car would've only been doing 30 mph at impact instead... which would've been less than half the impact force. Sounds good to me.
I mean, if you want to use Windows applications, just install the Windows that came free with your computer. For the cost of Win4Lin or Wine, you can get a whole nother hard drive to dedicate to Windows, and it will be fully compatible.
Yes, but that means you have to dual boot... I stopped doing that a decade ago. It was a PITA, and you lose state -- if I'm working on something in one window, and need to work on something else, I shouldn't need to reboot. I often leave 3-4 windows up with development stuff (code, running programs, log files, etc) while going off to do other stuff. If I have to reboot in order to do "other stuff" then I have to quit out of any files I'm editing, close all my windows, and reboot... odds are I won't remember precisely where I was in the coding cycle when I come back to it unless those windows are still present.
It would be even worse if the documentation for the project (largely in Word docs, some in a wiki) meant I had to reboot everytime I wanted to view the latest copy.
Dual booting is a kludge IMO.
On a related note, how come there are no Linux emulators for Windows? Is it because Windows has better alternatives to any Linux program, or is there some sort of GPL patent issue?
Nice troll.
It's because the Linux/Unix/POSIX APIs are clearly documented and well known (which is not true for the Windows libraries). In fact, Windows uses most of the very same system calls. Many Linux programs are portable and can be compiled not only on other Unix systems, but also on Windows. Cygwin is a port of the basic Unix libraries and a boatload of Unix utilities, along with an X/Windows Server, to Windows... there are also cross-compilable graphics toolkits like Qt that help in porting graphical apps.
The better bit is particularly funny... the best Oracle client I've used is TOra, which was originally developed for Linux and cross-compiled to Windows. The best MP3 tagger I've found is EasyTag, only available on Unix systems. Most of the better programming tools are Unix oriented, with backports to Windows (if ported at all).
Uh... hate to break it to you, but game developers aren't going to release their games for Linux regardless. The market is just too small. Every developer who has released anything for Linux has done so for one of two reasons: 1) to provide a dedicated server package only, since Linux makes an excellent server platform and you don't have to deal with graphics in a dedicated server, 2) Because they want to.
It makes absolutely no financial sense to release a game for Linux -- the market is too small, the market you're going after (individuals running Linux as opposed to corporations) is too hostile to commercial development, and the graphics support is generally completely different from what you have available in Windows (yeah, it's the same if you write for OpenGL, but there's a helluva lot more support for writing DirectX).
Yes, I run Linux. I also run Windows. Linux makes for an excellent server, an incredible development platform, and it's just fine for web surfing, but I still wouldn't recommend it as a desktop replacement to the average user, nor as a gaming box. Windows is a mediocre server, fine for web surfing, a decent development platform (obviously better than Linux if you're developing for Windows exclusively, but I'm a Unix coder so I'm biased), and a great gaming platform. Use the platforms where they perform well... if you want to use any single platform for all tasks, well, you're going to have gnashing of teeth whenever you hit the weak spots.
The obvious question is, how do you solve those weak spots, and I don't have a really good answer. But as far as gaming goes, I do suspect the answer will be improve Windows emulation, not try and woo developers over to Linux. It's a harsh reality.
Well, maybe you should go look at id Software, or Epic, or Valve, or Origin back in the WC days, or... well... any successful design company.
These companies, of course, push the bleeding edge with their games -- they talk to video card makers, CPU makers, etc. and guess at what features will be available in N years. They then target those features for the high end of their game engine (or in the case of Origin in its hayday, target beyond those features...) while making sure that it's playable with current technology (or in the case of Origin, blatantly ignore current technology).
And, somehow, they're successful. Not to say it's perfect, not by any means, but they've generally done quite well. Better yet, while the game may want the bleeding edge hardware to run at top performance with all the visual toys turned on, other developers can license the engine and be relatively safe in knowing that when they release their game in 18-24 months those bleeding edge features will be much, much more common place.
As far as Carmageddon is concerned, are they trying to be one of the bleeding edge companies, or are they just trying to make a buck? The make a buck companies usually just use the stock engine, maybe a couple modifications, but nothing really big. There's also the middle ground - companies that license existing engines and then modify the hell out of them (like Valve did with the Q1 engine and HL).
Being on the bleeding edge is dangerous - if you mis-estimate where the edge is you can either come out with a game that requires more hardware than is available at release time, or you can come out with a game that already looks outdated (Daikatana managed to do both at once, plus be full of bugs and poor design decisions). Being on the other end can be dangerous too -- anyone coming out with a Q3 or Unreal engine based game is going to look very dated once HL2, D3, DE2, etc. come out.
Point taken... and it did come off as an arrogant prick, and could've been phrased better.
And I normally don't even bother responding to AC's, but it's either this or write documentation...
A nicer version of the reply -- No, but you can modify it by editing one of the config files or going to about:config and changing the value appropriately. The Firebird team decided to opt for a simpler Options/Preferences dialog, relegating what they consider advanced options to methods changable only by advanced users. There's some disagreement about what should and shouldn't be considered "advanced", but by and large the decision has been met with praise.
If it helps you any, I used IE for years, and probably still would be today if it weren't for the need to go to a 3rd party tool to do decent popup blocking. I used and liked Proxomitron, but configuring it was too much of a PITA.
Uh... the entire paradigm of Firebird is tabs. If you don't like that (and I'm not a tab evangelist -- I've used both extensively and can take it or leave it) then you can either edit the config file/about:config or use another browser. It's the paradigm, and part and parcel of Firebird.
Or you can right click on the tab and select the first option. Take your pick.
I asked a coworker this (I run Firebird, he runs Netscape) and he said that Netscape comes with most of the plugins pre-installed -- e.g. Java, Flash, etc. I don't know if this is true or not, but if so then there's one reason.
Yeah, fine, bitch and whine about how awful Flash and java and whatever are. But some people actually want to use the web, and some websites require their usage.
Oh, and to contradict a previous poster - Netscape no longer removes popup prevention from the preferences dialog. IIRC, it's not enabled by default, but you can enable it without having to go and edit the user.js file or about:config
Re:Does Phoenix/Firebird support tabbed homepages?
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Yes you can, just open about:config and change it.
Oh, sorry... it's not simple to do... too bad. Firebird's preferences dialog is simple for a reason, and if you want to do more advanced things then you're a more advanced user and can be bothered to figure it out.
Which tiller is this? My wife actually called and told me to ask, but I'm interested as well. We have some large areas in our lawn that could benefit from tilling, and doing it by hand is more of a pain than either of us is willing to do on a regular (yearly) basis.
tiller that weighs no more than 20 pounds and can still cut through 8 inches of earth?
You clearly don't live in Georgia... where a 100 lb tiller can't cut through 8 inches of "earth" (actually red clay, but that's what we have for soil around here).
Point taken and agreed with though. The author of the article would rather act like the disenfranchised though, because it's "cool".
Programmer, but I've had a good bit of training in IP law. I also follow cases like this one closely because I find them interesting.
Oh... I forgot to mention - FUD is the biggest threat by far. But it hasn't taken hold yet. That may change in the next few years as the case drags on (yeah, I'm a realist - if this case goes to court it's going to take years to resolve), but there's pretty much nothing that can be done about it except to hope that the media (both tech and popular) continues to hold SCO in contempt. So far, so good, but it's early yet.
FUD is what hurt BSD the most, because initially it looked like they were in big trouble. By the time the particulars of the case were revealed, showing that it was UnixWare in trouble and not UC/BSD, the FUD engine was too high and BSD acceptance was severely hampered.
As others have said, it's your player, not the DVDs. Return the player on the basis that it's defective - which it is - and get a different one. Yes, the store you bought it from will take it back - it's a warranty issue. Odds are they don't carry that brand anymore, in which case you'll get credit for another one.
As far as cheap DVD players go, Apex doesn't have that great of build quality, and their remotes suck ass, but they work pretty consistantly and aren't horrid in the output side of things.
Oh, and before you think otherwise -- DVD copy protection has not changed since the initial release of DVD. There was one small change regarding region encoding, but very few disks are affected and DVD players are only affected if you've modded it to be region free. And that occurred over a year ago.
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This is really just an enlargement (although a significant one) of the previously discussed agreement between Sony and Matsushita. I even submitted a story with back references to both previous stories, but it got rejected. Shrug.
The big deal, of course, is that Microsoft has been pushing Windows CE and other Windows technologies for use in consumer electronics devices. This is a direct challenge to that. And the cynic in me wonders if it isn't, at least in part, a bid to make Microsoft become more responsive to the CE manufacturer's requirements and reduce price as well.
I often wonder how the hell things like this actually get posted, but oh well...
Keep the original packaging. Preferably all of it, but at the very least the box and styrofoam inserts. And if you ever think you'll need to ship it again afterwards then you'd better continue to keep that box.
If the box is in crap condition, or you're just overly paranoid, then pack it again in a second, slightly larger box cushioned with styrofoam peanuts. If you're looking to get these on the cheap, go to a local recycling center -- mine will provide styrofoam peanuts for free. You may be able to pickup a good box for free as well, but they usually crush them pretty rapidly.
Prior to shipping, make a backup, or just accept that you may never get the data back -- misdelivery, crashed drive (highly unlikely), etc. It's not a high likelihood, but if you're paranoid...
When you receive it, unpack it carefully and then open the case. Make sure all the cards and the CPU are seated securely. Make sure fans are plugged in. Only after that should you turn it on... modern heatsink/fans are so large they often cause the CPU to become unsocketed or wiggle the fan connector lose (which leads to a dead CPU in no time).
Who to ship with? FedEx or UPS. Doesn't matter. I've had problems with both, and I've had excellent experiences with both. Don't use the USPS, and don't use 3rd or 4th tier providers. They're really not all that expensive. Pack it yourself, take it to a local facility (not Mailboxes, etc (which is now owned by UPS) or similar). Yes, there's one near you unless you live in the boonies -- where do you think they deliver from in the first place? If you go online and have your package weight, dimensions, and declared value you can get a good idea how much it'll cost too -- although the last time I did this it cost me less than what the estimate said.
During delivery keep a sharp eye on the tracking number -- you can use a phone if you don't have a computer. If something looks wrong (like they say it's delivered, but it's not) then start complaining -- preferably at the local delivery center in person.
Make sure you require a signature. Make sure you're there to get the delivery. Or simply request it be held at the delivery center and go pick it up yourself (which is what I prefer to do).
Oh, and if you don't have the original packaging -- well, don't expect much. I wouldn't trust it to a delivery company at that point, and even if you put insurance on it you won't be able to collect since they'll very easily be able to claim improper packaging. Start seriously considering a cross country road trip.
Sure, but the last significant collaboration was OS/2 1.2. 1.3 was done primarily by IBM (and was considered pretty much the only usable 1.x release, which isn't saying much). OS/2 2.x was entirely IBM, and all MS code had been expunged from the kernel by the time OS/2 Warp came about... IIRC, the only MS code left at that point was in the file system (HPFS and FAT). OS/2 Warp was considerably more stable than prior versions.
Of course, IBM couldn't market its way out of a paper bag when it came to desktop systems, they had absolutely horrid support, fairly crappy and overpriced development tools (VisualAge was too little, too late, and too buggy), and it never garnered the support necessary to become a serious contender... and I say this as someone who was an OS/2 fanatic back in the day. And while MS was slow on the uptake when it came to the Internet, IBM was downright glacial... most people ran Netscape for Windows under OS/2, which sucked... IBM did finally release a browser (which was damn good for the day), but long after most had given up.
AFAIK, even the banks are moving off of it now... OS/2 was long a mainstay in the financial world, especially at banks and ATMs. Most ATMs now run NT or a proprietary OS. There just isn't any reason to keep OS/2.
Ouch... my sympathies. Had a tree fall through my roof (as in, new skylight) about 9 months ago and it sucked... a fire is far, far worse though. Hope everyone was safe and it didn't destroy anything irreplacable.
When I was looking at the codes, the prices, and whatnot a couple years ago the plenum cable was about 5x more expensive... turning a $100 roll of cable into a $500 one. Yeah, $400 is cheap for peace of mind, but since all the sites I read stated it was unnecessary I did cheap out. I know the telephone wire I ran isn't fire resistant, and I doubt the RG-6 was either, so even if I'd run plenum a fire would have still had several other methods of transit.
Sure, except that it's vastly more expensive (excluding time involved in running the wires), is susceptible to external influences (better hope not too many neighbors have 2.4GHz phones, or that the microwave is too noisy, or that a neighbor also has a wireless network... an 802.11b one...), there are many devices that aren't compatible with wireless networks (sure... you can buy a bridge... which is how much more again?), and the ever present security issue.
As it happens, I have both a wired and a wireless network. I ran the cables for the wired network a couple years ago, and a few months ago my wife wanted to setup a wireless AP for her laptop. Works just fine, and it's a good medium -- wired for most things, wireless for anything that'll move around a lot.
If you were going to build a house for yourself with network cable in the walls, why would you use something that burns readily and creates loads of toxic smoke?
If your network cable is burning, you already have far bigger problems on your hands. You realize that most insulation will burn as well, not to mention the drywall and wood that your house is essentially built out of. Yeah, it's all firetreated, but when it does burn it gives off far more noxious smoke than cat5 will.
Your original statement is still wrong - there is no requirement for plenum cable in residences. There's no need either, unless you're running it through HVAC ducts (which is an entirely separate violation of residential building codes in the first place).
No, but it does so at about half the speed of a wired network... with a wired network you can share a show recorded at High slightly faster than realtime. If you can get a medium quality recording to transfer in realtime over wireless then you're lucky.
The question is, how old were the profiles and other such that you had laying around? If they were from pre-1.0 releases then there's no guarantee made of compatibility -- and that could explain some of the weirdness you saw.
If all the profiles were from 1.0 release or upward then it shouldn't have an issue -- but I wouldn't be surprised if there was an issue.
I'm running Firebird 0.6 (well, one of the 0.6 dailys) and don't plan on upgrading it until needed because they explicitly warn that prior to 1.0 release the recomended install procedure involves deleting all of your config files... and I did indeed have to do that at one point between 0.5 and 0.6. It annoys me, but as a developer myself I can understand the pitfalls of running beta software.
how many megapixels does a digital camera need to shoot at to be superior to highest quality analog camera?
:)
If you ask in the right forums (like photo hound forums) you'll get a flamewar that rivals vi vs emacs, or Linux vs Windows. Some people claim that the newest 11MP cameras surpass the effective resolution of a 35mm camera because the film grain obscures much of the detail. Others claim that's bullshit, and the 11MP cameras are still far away from replicating a good quality film camera.
That said, a lot of the pros are moving from film to digital now, because the processing costs are so much lower and the quality differences are increasingly small. My wife and I had a wedding photographer that used both analog and digital, and I suspect you'd be hard pressed to tell which are which without hints... except for one photo where there's a substantial amount of text that's severely blurred (it was digital, and I'm guessing it stored directly to JPG instead of TIFF).
can question number one apply to digital video cameras?
Not really... it's generally agreed that pro digital video cameras are still not anywhere close to film cameras. Others have mentioned the speed issues, so no need to go over that again. To solve it they're generally using much lower (sub 2MP) CCDs to store the image... and shots requiring high speed camera work are still being done by film only.
Note that this does not apply to consumer video -- consumer grade digital video cameras are far better than their analog counterparts. They have much greater resolution and color reproduction.
are movies nowadays shot with digital cameras?
AFAIK, Attack of the Clones is the only big-budget movie that's been shot in pure digital. Largely because Lucas is a big proponent of the technology, and all the digital FX shots meant they vastly simplified post production.
A lot of art films are being shot in digital now since it's so much cheaper to produce... when you have a $10k budget (or even a $1M budget), every cent counts.
There's other issues about digital vs analog as well, as far as film production goes, but I have a meeting to attend now
Yeah, that was after Yahoo ceased being the best search engine.
;)
Damn whippersnappers!
One difference is that Yahoo and Netscape SUCKED. Google is solid.
Yes, but once upon a time Yahoo and Netscape both rocked. Yahoo was by far the best search engine out there, and Netscape was way better than the competition. Both became complacent and then they started sucking. Let's just hope that the same fate does not befall Google.
Yeah, and I remember much the same being said about Yahoo! and Netscape back when they ruled the 'net.
Funny how things change.
While I agree with many of your statements, there is such a thing as going too far.
Hell, GPS tracking of vehicles would, if it reduced traffic deaths by a few percent, would be well worth the loss of privacy.
No. Sorry, but the privacy bit is too big. It's still possible to do it, but not with a total loss of privacy please.
I'm not worried that I'll be the cause of an accident. But I'm scared shitless of your driving, because you are, in all probability, one of the drivers who is a threat to my continued well-being.
I used to be an incredibly shitty driver... oh, sure, I thought I was a good one, and could drive fast, yet safely, etc... but then I got married and started driving more safely. Partly because my wife made it quite clear that she didn't like my driving (yes you did hon), but mostly because I couldn't live with myself if I got in an accident and hurt her. And to all you dweebs thinking that it's sappy and crap - yeah it is, and if you ever really love someone then you'll understand it at that time. I know I didn't until it happened to me.
Driving more safely now, I'm amazed at just how many utterly shitty drivers there are out there... and I also know that just about every single thing that I see them doing is the same crap I used to do. It's not safe. You are not some god of driving. You are causing problems by tailgating and making other drivers uncomfortable around you.
Yeah, I still speed, but not like I used to. I no longer consider the speed limit as a posted minimum, and I'm a lot more wary of rapid lane changing and weaving. Tailgating is just abysmally stupid. Not that I recognized these things as bad back when I was driving like that, and not that I actually expect any of the moron drivers out there to become enlightened based on reading this... but maybe in a few years they'll also look back on their driving habits and realize what idiotic punks they really were. I do.
All of that said, as long as the system works well (which is a huge caveat), I'm all for it... this probably would've saved my sister a great deal of physical therepy when some stupid driver decided to cross over the double yellow line in rush hour traffic and hit my sister's brand new Honda at 45 mph (which is the speed both cars were going... in opposite directions). My sister was fortunate to live through the accident, thanks to modern safety systems, but she wasn't able to drive for nearly 6 months afterwards due to injuries. And I know she was lucky.
If both cars had been equipped with such a system maybe each car would've only been doing 30 mph at impact instead... which would've been less than half the impact force. Sounds good to me.
I mean, if you want to use Windows applications, just install the Windows that came free with your computer. For the cost of Win4Lin or Wine, you can get a whole nother hard drive to dedicate to Windows, and it will be fully compatible.
Yes, but that means you have to dual boot... I stopped doing that a decade ago. It was a PITA, and you lose state -- if I'm working on something in one window, and need to work on something else, I shouldn't need to reboot. I often leave 3-4 windows up with development stuff (code, running programs, log files, etc) while going off to do other stuff. If I have to reboot in order to do "other stuff" then I have to quit out of any files I'm editing, close all my windows, and reboot... odds are I won't remember precisely where I was in the coding cycle when I come back to it unless those windows are still present.
It would be even worse if the documentation for the project (largely in Word docs, some in a wiki) meant I had to reboot everytime I wanted to view the latest copy.
Dual booting is a kludge IMO.
On a related note, how come there are no Linux emulators for Windows? Is it because Windows has better alternatives to any Linux program, or is there some sort of GPL patent issue?
Nice troll.
It's because the Linux/Unix/POSIX APIs are clearly documented and well known (which is not true for the Windows libraries). In fact, Windows uses most of the very same system calls. Many Linux programs are portable and can be compiled not only on other Unix systems, but also on Windows. Cygwin is a port of the basic Unix libraries and a boatload of Unix utilities, along with an X/Windows Server, to Windows... there are also cross-compilable graphics toolkits like Qt that help in porting graphical apps.
The better bit is particularly funny... the best Oracle client I've used is TOra, which was originally developed for Linux and cross-compiled to Windows. The best MP3 tagger I've found is EasyTag, only available on Unix systems. Most of the better programming tools are Unix oriented, with backports to Windows (if ported at all).
Uh... hate to break it to you, but game developers aren't going to release their games for Linux regardless. The market is just too small. Every developer who has released anything for Linux has done so for one of two reasons: 1) to provide a dedicated server package only, since Linux makes an excellent server platform and you don't have to deal with graphics in a dedicated server, 2) Because they want to.
It makes absolutely no financial sense to release a game for Linux -- the market is too small, the market you're going after (individuals running Linux as opposed to corporations) is too hostile to commercial development, and the graphics support is generally completely different from what you have available in Windows (yeah, it's the same if you write for OpenGL, but there's a helluva lot more support for writing DirectX).
Yes, I run Linux. I also run Windows. Linux makes for an excellent server, an incredible development platform, and it's just fine for web surfing, but I still wouldn't recommend it as a desktop replacement to the average user, nor as a gaming box. Windows is a mediocre server, fine for web surfing, a decent development platform (obviously better than Linux if you're developing for Windows exclusively, but I'm a Unix coder so I'm biased), and a great gaming platform. Use the platforms where they perform well... if you want to use any single platform for all tasks, well, you're going to have gnashing of teeth whenever you hit the weak spots.
The obvious question is, how do you solve those weak spots, and I don't have a really good answer. But as far as gaming goes, I do suspect the answer will be improve Windows emulation, not try and woo developers over to Linux. It's a harsh reality.
Well, maybe you should go look at id Software, or Epic, or Valve, or Origin back in the WC days, or... well... any successful design company.
These companies, of course, push the bleeding edge with their games -- they talk to video card makers, CPU makers, etc. and guess at what features will be available in N years. They then target those features for the high end of their game engine (or in the case of Origin in its hayday, target beyond those features...) while making sure that it's playable with current technology (or in the case of Origin, blatantly ignore current technology).
And, somehow, they're successful. Not to say it's perfect, not by any means, but they've generally done quite well. Better yet, while the game may want the bleeding edge hardware to run at top performance with all the visual toys turned on, other developers can license the engine and be relatively safe in knowing that when they release their game in 18-24 months those bleeding edge features will be much, much more common place.
As far as Carmageddon is concerned, are they trying to be one of the bleeding edge companies, or are they just trying to make a buck? The make a buck companies usually just use the stock engine, maybe a couple modifications, but nothing really big. There's also the middle ground - companies that license existing engines and then modify the hell out of them (like Valve did with the Q1 engine and HL).
Being on the bleeding edge is dangerous - if you mis-estimate where the edge is you can either come out with a game that requires more hardware than is available at release time, or you can come out with a game that already looks outdated (Daikatana managed to do both at once, plus be full of bugs and poor design decisions). Being on the other end can be dangerous too -- anyone coming out with a Q3 or Unreal engine based game is going to look very dated once HL2, D3, DE2, etc. come out.
Point taken... and it did come off as an arrogant prick, and could've been phrased better.
And I normally don't even bother responding to AC's, but it's either this or write documentation...
A nicer version of the reply --
No, but you can modify it by editing one of the config files or going to about:config and changing the value appropriately. The Firebird team decided to opt for a simpler Options/Preferences dialog, relegating what they consider advanced options to methods changable only by advanced users. There's some disagreement about what should and shouldn't be considered "advanced", but by and large the decision has been met with praise.
If it helps you any, I used IE for years, and probably still would be today if it weren't for the need to go to a 3rd party tool to do decent popup blocking. I used and liked Proxomitron, but configuring it was too much of a PITA.
Uh... the entire paradigm of Firebird is tabs. If you don't like that (and I'm not a tab evangelist -- I've used both extensively and can take it or leave it) then you can either edit the config file/about:config or use another browser. It's the paradigm, and part and parcel of Firebird.
Or you can right click on the tab and select the first option. Take your pick.
I asked a coworker this (I run Firebird, he runs Netscape) and he said that Netscape comes with most of the plugins pre-installed -- e.g. Java, Flash, etc. I don't know if this is true or not, but if so then there's one reason.
Yeah, fine, bitch and whine about how awful Flash and java and whatever are. But some people actually want to use the web, and some websites require their usage.
Oh, and to contradict a previous poster - Netscape no longer removes popup prevention from the preferences dialog. IIRC, it's not enabled by default, but you can enable it without having to go and edit the user.js file or about:config
Yes you can, just open about:config and change it.
Oh, sorry... it's not simple to do... too bad. Firebird's preferences dialog is simple for a reason, and if you want to do more advanced things then you're a more advanced user and can be bothered to figure it out.
First off, the article isn't /.'d.
Next, nice troll there at the bottom. Hey moderators! Read before you moderate!
I'd particularly welcome blow jobs from readers who are acquainted with any of the newly selected Board members.
Which tiller is this? My wife actually called and told me to ask, but I'm interested as well. We have some large areas in our lawn that could benefit from tilling, and doing it by hand is more of a pain than either of us is willing to do on a regular (yearly) basis.
At the very least I'll check it out!
tiller that weighs no more than 20 pounds and can still cut through 8 inches of earth?
You clearly don't live in Georgia... where a 100 lb tiller can't cut through 8 inches of "earth" (actually red clay, but that's what we have for soil around here).
Point taken and agreed with though. The author of the article would rather act like the disenfranchised though, because it's "cool".
Programmer, but I've had a good bit of training in IP law. I also follow cases like this one closely because I find them interesting.
Oh... I forgot to mention - FUD is the biggest threat by far. But it hasn't taken hold yet. That may change in the next few years as the case drags on (yeah, I'm a realist - if this case goes to court it's going to take years to resolve), but there's pretty much nothing that can be done about it except to hope that the media (both tech and popular) continues to hold SCO in contempt. So far, so good, but it's early yet.
FUD is what hurt BSD the most, because initially it looked like they were in big trouble. By the time the particulars of the case were revealed, showing that it was UnixWare in trouble and not UC/BSD, the FUD engine was too high and BSD acceptance was severely hampered.
As others have said, it's your player, not the DVDs. Return the player on the basis that it's defective - which it is - and get a different one. Yes, the store you bought it from will take it back - it's a warranty issue. Odds are they don't carry that brand anymore, in which case you'll get credit for another one.
As far as cheap DVD players go, Apex doesn't have that great of build quality, and their remotes suck ass, but they work pretty consistantly and aren't horrid in the output side of things.
Oh, and before you think otherwise -- DVD copy protection has not changed since the initial release of DVD. There was one small change regarding region encoding, but very few disks are affected and DVD players are only affected if you've modded it to be region free. And that occurred over a year ago.