For some people, there is a certain price that they're willing to pay for something. In the case of someone who won't buy it, that price just happens to be $0.
And if you go see a movie in a theater, all you get is that one viewing. If you have a copy of it, you can watch it when you want, as many times as you want. Yet people are still willing to fork over around $10 apiece to just SEE the movie.
If me and my wife to go a movie, it costs us $20. Why wouldn't I just wait for it to come out on DVD and BUY it for about the same price? Now you can argue that there is some "theater experience", but for me that experience is only enjoyable under the rarest of circumstances. We only have a 27" TV at home, and it is fine for movies. I can't imagine what someone with a 50" TV and full surround system would get out of the "theater" experience. Movies in theaters are big - the picture quality sucks. The sound is great, but you also have all kinds of ancillary sounds that detract from it. Gotta pee? You miss out. Need something else to eat? You miss out. Didn't hear what was said? You miss out.
The movie studios should be thankful that people still go to the damn theaters at all. You go see a movie that sucks, can you get your money back? Hell no. Studios can keep putting out crap, spend millions on promoting them, and rake the cash. They make so much money on movie-related crap it is sickening. The "marketing tie-ins" have turned the movie industry into the movie business. And it shows. You'll get the occasional gem, but for the most part - it is crap. I choose not to support the crap, and only watch what I think is worth seeing. For some reason, the rest of America seems to be mindless drones when it comes to movies. Must see [insert whatever is opening this weekend]. I know people who go see movies almost every weekend, regardless of what is playing. I hope one day that the United States of Consumerism wakes up.
These people shelling out big bucks for an early copy are probably the same ones who rushed out and bought a $300 video card in anticipation of the release of Half-Life 2.
I considered it, because I need to upgrade my card anyway. But I thought about it, and decided that I wasn't willing to shell out that kind of money for a video card, just to play a new game. The game will still be out a year after its release, it will be cheaper, and the cards needed to play it will be much cheaper. Boy, was I right. It is now a YEAR later, the game isn't even out, and those same cards are about 1/2 price of what they were a year ago. By the time I get a copy of HL2, the cards needed to play it will be around the $100 mark. And those hardcore gamers will have upgraded their cards at least one more time.
Early adopters are suckers in my mind, the costs are large, and I don't see any percievable benefit. Same goes for standing in line for hours to see a movie on opening weekend.
I didn't see Attack of the Clones in the theater. I waited until it was out on DVD, and I rented it about a month after it was out. Thank god for the ability to FFWD. You know what? I didn't miss out on anything. When you go see a movie on opening weekend, what are you getting? Nothing. Bragging rights? The joy of seeing a movie with a crowd? Personally, I would rather see a movie just before it leaves theaters, if in the theater at all. I would actually rather watch it at home. I'll only go to the theater to see movies that I am really looking forward to seeing. And anything by George Lucas is most certainly not on the list.
Your point about the USA going backwards is entirely accurate, though, and this election confirmed that Americans are really not that concerned with the vested oil interest or the environment...
Right. We are waiting for Jesus to tell Dubya how to lead the country.
The test was accurate, and unchangeable. If you were a sick person at 8, you were going to be just as screwy at 18 or 28. It looked at your world view.
Come on. Many certifiable people (Unabomber?) are very intelligent. It is not difficult to pass one of these tests.
I have a friend who is VERY bright. He got his civil engineering degree and worked in oil fields for several years. He decided he wanted to make more money, so he went back to school. He is currently getting his law degree. I think he is concentrating on Intellectual Property. If I had to pick one person that I know who would do something insane, it would be him. He has the intelligence for truly scary things. He made meth just to see if he could do it. I know he has made several types of small bombs. He has always just been very inquisitive, and as far as I know he has never hurt anyone. But he once told me that if he wanted to kill someone, he was sure he could do it and get away with it without anyone finding out.
But on the other hand, he is one of those people that could do something totally brilliant to help society. I just can't figure him out, but I think that deep down he is a good guy, just too smart for his own good. He is someone who could end up in jail, or extremely successful in life. No test is going to be able to tell which.
The Patriot Act and the Bush administration has brought FUD to the masses. How else could Bush be so close to winning in the 2004 election? It looks like Bush may pull this one out, and if he does he will win because of FUD, plain and simple. The Patriot Act was part of this. Hey W, congrats on your first election win. Obama '08!!!!
Hmm, what happens if you don't fill in every oval? Do they toss your entire ballot away? I only left blanks where there was only one candiate running. I felt like a chump filling in a vote for someone who had no competition. (Democrats had no candidates for some positions.)
I don't know if they throw out the ballot or not. But to be sure, I filled out all options. They may throw them out, because if you left any blank it leaves the opportunity for someone to fill them out for you. I didn't want to take any chances.
No Diebold in Dupage County, IL, I'm glad to say.:) We have the "fill in the oval, let the Scantron machine scan it" setup. I guess when your county is 90% Republican you don't feel the need to rig the election with a bogus computer voting system.;)
Nor in McHenry County, IL (howdy neighbor!). We had the oval forms as well. What I found a bit odd was that there was no option to NOT vote for certain local candidates. I didn't have information about some of the candidates on my ballot, so I should have been given the option to not vote for either candidate (an abstain oval). But I had to either choose one, or do a write-in. You aren't supposed to leave them blank, because of the chance of voter fraud. So for some local candidates, I had to choose based on no information. If I am uninformed, or indifferent about some positions, I should be able to make that choice. For some local judges, I only had the option YES/NO as to whether they should keep their positions. I have only been in my county for just under 2 years, so I don't know much about the local politics. I suppose I should have brushed up on it before the election, but I still think there should be an "abstain" option for every candidate.
Don't you see? It's proof that John Kerry is a definite winner! No need for Kerry supporters to go out and vote now obviously - he's already won.
Actually, it means that if you are going to vote for Bush, then you are voting for a loser. (which goes without saying) So you had better change your vote to Kerry, so you can say that you voted for a winner.
A friend had his son's Xbox catch fire. I don't know if there was actual flame, but there was snapping and smoke. Of course, calling MS support, he found out that the warranty was voided because he opened it up to see what might have burned up. So he is basically SOL, and has to buy a new one if he and his son want to make use of the games they bought. He can certainly afford it, and he actually bought another one the next day. But he checked on the net and I guess this wasn't the first time this has happened. I think the PS blew out or something. Kind of scary.
Never heard of Taguchi, have you? You are outlining the OFAT (One Factor at A Time) method of testing. There are numerous statistical methods for multiple factor testing at a time. It requires multiple runs, but it will also give you information about interactions between your factors.
No, I can't say that I have heard of Taguchi. But I know the simplest way to figure this stuff out. Not so much from personal experience, but from listening to people who do know what they are doing. Also, I am a software tester by profession and have been doing it for 12 years. The same principle applies. I would much rather solve a 1 variable problem than a multi-variable problem. Sure, it CAN be done, but which is easier? I am all for making things easy.
The people that actually race the car and can compare before and after times are the only ones that really know the true effect of a modification.
Let me really emphasize something you just said: *A* modification.
Now all of the stuff you talked about was mainly for drag racing - which isn't really my bag. I am (was) more into road racing on tracks that are of the twisty variety. I had a 1988 BMW M3, the winningest touring car in history. It was born and bred to race. Produced in 1987 for that very purpose, it was a 2.3 liter naturally aspirated 4-cyl that put out just shy of 200 HP stock. They were modified to 2.5 liter and over 300 HP for racing.
Anyhoo, my point is that racers will make ONE AND ONLY ONE modification between testing. Otherwise, how do you know what caused the resulting effect? Another side of this is that HP ratings on parts, like mufflers/spark plugs/air filters/cold air blah blah, etc is all about max HP from stock. This is usually the best case, whereas a lot of claims are BS. My point though is that if you add 3 components that each claim to give you 10 HP, you are most certainly NOT adding 30 HP.
And if you add that huge wing, it may not have any effect on the dyno, but it will have an effect in the real world. The E30 M3 had a stock wing that provided measurable downforce (I can't remember the numbers right now), and there were the Evo3 wings that added more. They will hurt your times if you want to drag-race, and will hurt your top-end speed - but you'll stick to the track and will probably get faster lap times. Of course, that is if you can already do consistent lap times down to within a second or two. If you can't, keep practicing before making any mods. I have seen guys constantly mod their cars yet they can get spanked on the track by someone with 1/2 the HP because of one thing - seat time. I went out with one of my instructors who was driving his wife's BMW 530i wagon, with an automatic trans, and he was passing M3s. I was by no means that good, but in the intermediate group once with the Porsche club, I was passing 911s in my M3. That was cool, passing cars worth about 5x as much as mine, with 2x the HP.
Hey, you want to mod your car, knock yourself out. But if someone were to ask me what I thought was the way to go, I would say to buy a decent, inexpensive, track-ready (full roll-cage) car and really learn how to drive the snot out of it. It is fun as hell, you can learn a lot, and it is totally legal.
Wouldn't it have been cheaper, easier, & better to get a different PCMCIA wireless card? That's what I did with my wife's laptop, in which case XP was hosing the wireless dirvers on the native hardware.
Cheaper? No. I *ahem* acquired Win2k. So it didn't cost anything.
Easier? No. I would have had to return the card and the router, because I bought them as a combo. It was through newegg, so I would have had to ship it back. Or I could have bought another card, but then I would have a spare, which I could sell to someone or on eBay.
Better? Maybe. But all I wanted was a working wireless laptop. I would have preferred Linux on it, but that wasn't a hard and fast requirement. I didn't want to go with WinXP though, I am forced to use it at work and I really just don't like it. If I couldn't have gotten Win2K, I probably would have picked up another card and tried to sell the other one. But that was kind of the whole point of my post - using Win2k was easier than the alternative. I would NOT have purchased a full-blown copy of it. I kind of wish that MS would come up with some unbeatable copy protection, because that would force people to pay for it or use something else. I doubt if everyone had to buy it at retail price that they would use it.
Think about 1% of the global desktop PC market (or whatever the number is now) buying the video card because of 100% X11 compatibility and open source drivers.
Think of the government contracts. Think of signing a deal with IBM or SuSE. Think of the possibilities of future ideas that could be implemented with these cards. It is ideas like this that can fizzle, or they can turn into one of those snowball ideas that turn into great ones. Who would have thought that releasing the source code to the Linux kernel would have gotten us to where we are today?
After reading the article a couple of times, I believe they are trying to separate Suit-Up Godzilla from the Computer-Generated Godzilla.
I think more to the point is that Godzilla (suit)is going to do battle with Zilla (CG). That is probably the reason for the name change, otherwise it would be a Godzilla vs Godzilla battle.
It should be noted that I read recently (sorry no links but maybe others can chime in) that BMW is working with Apple to replace its Windows in Car solution with something from Apple.
It should also be noted that BMW is a high-end product, so they aren't necessarily concerned with licensing fees. So it isn't about money. One thing that BMW is concerned with - quality when it comes to their brand image.
I have owned BMWs for about 9 years now (and no, I can't afford new ones). But BMW is VERY strict when it comes to using their logos and even colors in anything. They are very brand conscious, because they don't want it diluted. They produce phenominal cars, and want to make sure that their brand is associated with quality. I was a little sad when I heard that they had chosen a Microsoft product for their vehicles for that very reason. I actually thought that Apple is a lot like BMW in some respects. They aren't the biggest car maker, they are somewhat of a niche product catering to a very specific customer, and they produce high-quality products. I think Apple would be a great choice, but I think a BMW-home-grown product would also be cool. (Hello? SuSE?)
Were they studying offices full of women only? Seriously. Women love to play with the office furnistat, even if they've been told not to 100 times.
What is even worse is when someone (I won't say women) adjusts the thermostat in the computer lab because they are too cold. Computer labs are SUPPOSED to be cold. You crank the ambient temp up to 75 degrees F and you are asking for trouble with the servers. It is amazing that some people in the software industry don't realize this.
Slashdot Mirror
And if you go see a movie in a theater, all you get is that one viewing. If you have a copy of it, you can watch it when you want, as many times as you want. Yet people are still willing to fork over around $10 apiece to just SEE the movie.
If me and my wife to go a movie, it costs us $20. Why wouldn't I just wait for it to come out on DVD and BUY it for about the same price? Now you can argue that there is some "theater experience", but for me that experience is only enjoyable under the rarest of circumstances. We only have a 27" TV at home, and it is fine for movies. I can't imagine what someone with a 50" TV and full surround system would get out of the "theater" experience. Movies in theaters are big - the picture quality sucks. The sound is great, but you also have all kinds of ancillary sounds that detract from it. Gotta pee? You miss out. Need something else to eat? You miss out. Didn't hear what was said? You miss out.
The movie studios should be thankful that people still go to the damn theaters at all. You go see a movie that sucks, can you get your money back? Hell no. Studios can keep putting out crap, spend millions on promoting them, and rake the cash. They make so much money on movie-related crap it is sickening. The "marketing tie-ins" have turned the movie industry into the movie business. And it shows. You'll get the occasional gem, but for the most part - it is crap. I choose not to support the crap, and only watch what I think is worth seeing. For some reason, the rest of America seems to be mindless drones when it comes to movies. Must see [insert whatever is opening this weekend]. I know people who go see movies almost every weekend, regardless of what is playing. I hope one day that the United States of Consumerism wakes up.
I considered it, because I need to upgrade my card anyway. But I thought about it, and decided that I wasn't willing to shell out that kind of money for a video card, just to play a new game. The game will still be out a year after its release, it will be cheaper, and the cards needed to play it will be much cheaper. Boy, was I right. It is now a YEAR later, the game isn't even out, and those same cards are about 1/2 price of what they were a year ago. By the time I get a copy of HL2, the cards needed to play it will be around the $100 mark. And those hardcore gamers will have upgraded their cards at least one more time.
Early adopters are suckers in my mind, the costs are large, and I don't see any percievable benefit. Same goes for standing in line for hours to see a movie on opening weekend.
I didn't see Attack of the Clones in the theater. I waited until it was out on DVD, and I rented it about a month after it was out. Thank god for the ability to FFWD. You know what? I didn't miss out on anything. When you go see a movie on opening weekend, what are you getting? Nothing. Bragging rights? The joy of seeing a movie with a crowd? Personally, I would rather see a movie just before it leaves theaters, if in the theater at all. I would actually rather watch it at home. I'll only go to the theater to see movies that I am really looking forward to seeing. And anything by George Lucas is most certainly not on the list.
Right. We are waiting for Jesus to tell Dubya how to lead the country.
What an embarassing disgrace.
Come on. Many certifiable people (Unabomber?) are very intelligent. It is not difficult to pass one of these tests.
I have a friend who is VERY bright. He got his civil engineering degree and worked in oil fields for several years. He decided he wanted to make more money, so he went back to school. He is currently getting his law degree. I think he is concentrating on Intellectual Property. If I had to pick one person that I know who would do something insane, it would be him. He has the intelligence for truly scary things. He made meth just to see if he could do it. I know he has made several types of small bombs. He has always just been very inquisitive, and as far as I know he has never hurt anyone. But he once told me that if he wanted to kill someone, he was sure he could do it and get away with it without anyone finding out.
But on the other hand, he is one of those people that could do something totally brilliant to help society. I just can't figure him out, but I think that deep down he is a good guy, just too smart for his own good. He is someone who could end up in jail, or extremely successful in life. No test is going to be able to tell which.
IBM has been defeated by SCO in court, Darl McBride appointed CEO of IBM.
Linus Torvalds has just accepted the position of CTO for Microsoft.
So Cheney is the emperor, Rumsfeld is JarJar, and in a few years one of Bush's twins will rise up and eventually destroy him. Uncanny.
I think it is clearly a fork.
The Patriot Act and the Bush administration has brought FUD to the masses. How else could Bush be so close to winning in the 2004 election? It looks like Bush may pull this one out, and if he does he will win because of FUD, plain and simple. The Patriot Act was part of this. Hey W, congrats on your first election win. Obama '08!!!!
I don't know if they throw out the ballot or not. But to be sure, I filled out all options. They may throw them out, because if you left any blank it leaves the opportunity for someone to fill them out for you. I didn't want to take any chances.
Nor in McHenry County, IL (howdy neighbor!). We had the oval forms as well. What I found a bit odd was that there was no option to NOT vote for certain local candidates. I didn't have information about some of the candidates on my ballot, so I should have been given the option to not vote for either candidate (an abstain oval). But I had to either choose one, or do a write-in. You aren't supposed to leave them blank, because of the chance of voter fraud. So for some local candidates, I had to choose based on no information. If I am uninformed, or indifferent about some positions, I should be able to make that choice. For some local judges, I only had the option YES/NO as to whether they should keep their positions. I have only been in my county for just under 2 years, so I don't know much about the local politics. I suppose I should have brushed up on it before the election, but I still think there should be an "abstain" option for every candidate.
The Pope has one eye?
Actually, it means that if you are going to vote for Bush, then you are voting for a loser. (which goes without saying) So you had better change your vote to Kerry, so you can say that you voted for a winner.
A friend had his son's Xbox catch fire. I don't know if there was actual flame, but there was snapping and smoke. Of course, calling MS support, he found out that the warranty was voided because he opened it up to see what might have burned up. So he is basically SOL, and has to buy a new one if he and his son want to make use of the games they bought. He can certainly afford it, and he actually bought another one the next day. But he checked on the net and I guess this wasn't the first time this has happened. I think the PS blew out or something. Kind of scary.
No, I can't say that I have heard of Taguchi. But I know the simplest way to figure this stuff out. Not so much from personal experience, but from listening to people who do know what they are doing. Also, I am a software tester by profession and have been doing it for 12 years. The same principle applies. I would much rather solve a 1 variable problem than a multi-variable problem. Sure, it CAN be done, but which is easier? I am all for making things easy.
I wonder how many "members" they gained over this incident. Hhhhuh huh.
Let me really emphasize something you just said: *A* modification.
Now all of the stuff you talked about was mainly for drag racing - which isn't really my bag. I am (was) more into road racing on tracks that are of the twisty variety. I had a 1988 BMW M3, the winningest touring car in history. It was born and bred to race. Produced in 1987 for that very purpose, it was a 2.3 liter naturally aspirated 4-cyl that put out just shy of 200 HP stock. They were modified to 2.5 liter and over 300 HP for racing.
Anyhoo, my point is that racers will make ONE AND ONLY ONE modification between testing. Otherwise, how do you know what caused the resulting effect? Another side of this is that HP ratings on parts, like mufflers/spark plugs/air filters/cold air blah blah, etc is all about max HP from stock. This is usually the best case, whereas a lot of claims are BS. My point though is that if you add 3 components that each claim to give you 10 HP, you are most certainly NOT adding 30 HP.
And if you add that huge wing, it may not have any effect on the dyno, but it will have an effect in the real world. The E30 M3 had a stock wing that provided measurable downforce (I can't remember the numbers right now), and there were the Evo3 wings that added more. They will hurt your times if you want to drag-race, and will hurt your top-end speed - but you'll stick to the track and will probably get faster lap times. Of course, that is if you can already do consistent lap times down to within a second or two. If you can't, keep practicing before making any mods. I have seen guys constantly mod their cars yet they can get spanked on the track by someone with 1/2 the HP because of one thing - seat time. I went out with one of my instructors who was driving his wife's BMW 530i wagon, with an automatic trans, and he was passing M3s. I was by no means that good, but in the intermediate group once with the Porsche club, I was passing 911s in my M3. That was cool, passing cars worth about 5x as much as mine, with 2x the HP.
Hey, you want to mod your car, knock yourself out. But if someone were to ask me what I thought was the way to go, I would say to buy a decent, inexpensive, track-ready (full roll-cage) car and really learn how to drive the snot out of it. It is fun as hell, you can learn a lot, and it is totally legal.
So is jesuslovesgoogle.com. WWJG? (What Would Jesus Google?)
Cheaper? No. I *ahem* acquired Win2k. So it didn't cost anything.
Easier? No. I would have had to return the card and the router, because I bought them as a combo. It was through newegg, so I would have had to ship it back. Or I could have bought another card, but then I would have a spare, which I could sell to someone or on eBay.
Better? Maybe. But all I wanted was a working wireless laptop. I would have preferred Linux on it, but that wasn't a hard and fast requirement. I didn't want to go with WinXP though, I am forced to use it at work and I really just don't like it. If I couldn't have gotten Win2K, I probably would have picked up another card and tried to sell the other one. But that was kind of the whole point of my post - using Win2k was easier than the alternative. I would NOT have purchased a full-blown copy of it. I kind of wish that MS would come up with some unbeatable copy protection, because that would force people to pay for it or use something else. I doubt if everyone had to buy it at retail price that they would use it.
Does munching carpet count?
Sorry, I realize there are a million geeks tilting their heads like confused dogs right about now.
Think of the government contracts. Think of signing a deal with IBM or SuSE. Think of the possibilities of future ideas that could be implemented with these cards. It is ideas like this that can fizzle, or they can turn into one of those snowball ideas that turn into great ones. Who would have thought that releasing the source code to the Linux kernel would have gotten us to where we are today?
*bing*
Alex: AC?
AC: Who's privacy?
Alex: Judges? .... Yes, we'll accept that. Technically the correct question would have been "What is privacy?" Select again.
AC: I'll take "your and you're" for $200 Alex...
I think more to the point is that Godzilla (suit)is going to do battle with Zilla (CG). That is probably the reason for the name change, otherwise it would be a Godzilla vs Godzilla battle.
It should also be noted that BMW is a high-end product, so they aren't necessarily concerned with licensing fees. So it isn't about money. One thing that BMW is concerned with - quality when it comes to their brand image.
I have owned BMWs for about 9 years now (and no, I can't afford new ones). But BMW is VERY strict when it comes to using their logos and even colors in anything. They are very brand conscious, because they don't want it diluted. They produce phenominal cars, and want to make sure that their brand is associated with quality. I was a little sad when I heard that they had chosen a Microsoft product for their vehicles for that very reason. I actually thought that Apple is a lot like BMW in some respects. They aren't the biggest car maker, they are somewhat of a niche product catering to a very specific customer, and they produce high-quality products. I think Apple would be a great choice, but I think a BMW-home-grown product would also be cool. (Hello? SuSE?)
What is even worse is when someone (I won't say women) adjusts the thermostat in the computer lab because they are too cold. Computer labs are SUPPOSED to be cold. You crank the ambient temp up to 75 degrees F and you are asking for trouble with the servers. It is amazing that some people in the software industry don't realize this.