1993: Tommy Lee Jones beats John Malkovich for best supporting actor. 1998: Edward Norton does not win an Oscar for American History X. 1998: Saving Private Ryan, Elizabeth, and Thin Red Line each lose to Shakespear in Love for best picture. 2003: The Matrix 2-3 may not even be nominated for technical awards.
That's it Oscar! Go to hell. You lost legitamacy in my eyes with those first three gafes but this is stupid.
1982: Tron lost Best Special Effects to a muppet (E.T.).
Because your body is producing excess heat at all times, drinking an ice cold coke simply means your body doesn't have to vent quite as much heat as before. Your body doesn't have to produce "extra" heat to compensate.
The name for the OS X version of Outlook is ENTOURAGE. He'd know this if he actually bothered to get Office X (which was probably pre-installed on his machine as a 30 day trial anyway).
Entourage requires a Win2K server running Exchange 2K (I thnk, it may be an even later version). As stated in the article, his shop is running Exchange 5.5. Just the be clear, Entourage will NOT work with Exchgange 5.5.
Are you really telling me that this is taking the digital signal, leaving it digital, and simply storing an MPEG-2 stream (or whatever it is) as it comes in through the cable on the hard drive?
That's exactly what it does, of course it's not a plain MPEG2 (or whatever) format signal, it's encrypted. On playback the digital stream is simply sent to the same part of the box that decodes the live signal. Think of it as a buffer, it's just adding a delay between the reception and playback.
Knowing how ass-backwards Time Warner usually is and how technology like this is often trailing-edge rather than leading-edge, I would have thought the box is recompressing the signal after converting it to analog just like every other DVR on the market. The fact that it looks so good could be for any number of reasons - a higher bit-rate or better compression algorithm (MPEG-4?) or whatever. If not, this is really a revolutionary device.
It's not leading edge technology and it's certainly not revolutionary -- Direct TIVO does the same thing with the Satellite signal, as do some other systems. It's much simpler (read cheaper) to just store the digital stream then to decode to analogue then reencode to digital. The low processing requirements are why they can record two shows while playing a third show.
Does anyone have any more information on this? And what sort of record times do you get with it?
As the slashdot summary says: "80 GB drive, which equals an estimated 50 hours of digital cable programming". I understand not reading the article, but at least read the summary. That said I'm sure that's an average, different channels have different bit rates. You'll probably get significantly less recording time if all you're recording is PPV...
With highest quality on TiVo you get about 20 hours on an 80GB hard drive; that's MPEG-2 decoding (you'd get more if it was MPEG-4).
With this set, as wityh DirectTIVO, you get what could be called BEST all the time. Lowering the quality would involve decoding and reencoding the signal which, do to the processing power available in such a box, would likely result in "Medium" quality having larger files than Best.
As this is more likely a situation for/.'ers buying laptops, document your efforts to buy the laptop without the OS in the first place. If you can get the saleman to admit to the clause that you can get a refund on the software, so much the better.
All of the multi-million dollar commercials are replaced by local retailers and companies, because the cable provider has changed the commercials.
Umm, you're wrong. Due to CRTC rules: when any US channel is showing a show simultaneously with a Canadian channel, the US signal must be replaced with the Canadian signal by the cable company. So (in Vancouver, BC) if BCTV (local Vancouver station) is showing Freinds at the same time KING (Seattle NBC affiliate) is, then you will really be watching BCTV even though you have the TV set for KING.
When the Superbowl is on the US station is blocked and replaced by the Canadain station, it's not that the commercials are replaced, the entire show is replaced.
WHAT do Apple's programmers and designers have the Linux/GNOME programmers do not?
You've just answered your own question, Apple has programmers and designers, Linux just has programmers.
Is there any (technical) reason someone could not hack together a smooth Mac OS X work-a-like on top of Linux?
You can't hack together a Mac OS X work-a-like because OS X isn't hacked together. Just like you can't hack together a Golden Gate Bridge or a Hoover Dam.
Heck, even Microsoft (the Kings of the "hack it together") can't get it right, take dialog boxes for example. Yes/No are the two worst buttons you can put in a dialog box because you have to carefully read and parse the dialog box's text to know which button to pick. "Save/Discard" (i.e. verbs) are much better. If I close an unsaved document and the dialog box has Save and Discard buttons I don't even have to read the text to know what button to hit. If the buttons are Yes and No I have to parse "Do you want to close the window without saving your work" or "Do you want to save your work before closing the Window" to figure out whether Yes will delete my file or not.
Maybe Linux/GNOME users are just blinded by their Unix heritage.
This is one factor, but it's more a factor of the way their minds work. For example a (Unix) programmer understands that a and A are different (ASCII) characters so see nothing wrong (and in fact prefer) case sensitive file systems. "Average" users don't like case sensitive file systems because to them "Cat" and "cat" are the same word.
But then why isn't Mac OS X blinded by its NEXT heritage?
Because the programmers aren't doing the design work (for the most part).
Programmers are to designers as engineers are to architects. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Now granted there are some people who can do both roles, but in Linux the designers (who are most likely also programmers) are designing the OS to suit their needs, the problem is they have different needs than average users.
Ask yourself how many unpaid "I'm doing this as a hobby" Linux programmers are going to willingly be constrained by a design team they don't agree with?
This only works on servers where the people have to sign up. When you sign-up are are giving a starting raking, say Rank:1. As you play the system keeps track of your success and if you're good enough ups your rank (i.e Rank:2). Then it only allows you to play against people of the same rank as yourself. So all the cheaters (Rank:17) get to play against all the other cheaters (and those rare individuals with God-like skills) and us non-cheaters can play against other non-cheaters (and really really lame cheaters). Everyone gets a challenging game and who cares who's cheating anymore...
You could even start a game (as an example) at Rank:7 +/-2, then people who are Rank:5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 can join.
SHIP NAME/TYPE: Earth (class M) LENGTH: Approximately 12600 km. BUILDER/COMMENTS: Originally built by God for humans [snip]
The Earth isn't a ship, it's a computer. It was built for the mice by the Magratheans. Haven't you ever bothered to go to Norway and look at Slartibartfast's signature?
So according to Apple, 25% of their customers don't use OS X as the default OS on new systems. By removing the ability to boot into OS 9 they've just cut unit sales by 25%.
You probably answered Coke or Pepsi. 95% of the people will answere with one of these two - even though that are litterally tens of other choices: RC, Shasta, Jolt, STORE-BRAND$ etc.. in the cola catagory alone, let alone plain water or real lemonade.
95% of people will say a brand of pop? You must not be old enough to drink, Beer is going to be in the top 2, at least.
The contract isn't between the networks and the viewers, it's between the networks and the government. The networks get free access to the radio spectrum in return for broadcasting their shows free of charge. They are more than welcome to give up their radio spectrum if they don't want it any more...
The 280R has dual redundant power supplies, can have up to 4 CPUs, gigabytes more memory, is SCSI-based, and, since it's 5RU, has a ton more expandability.
The main comparison point Apple chose to use? Available disk bays, and price. Who do they think they're fooling when they claim that an IDE-based XServer will be comparable to a $20k enterprise-ready server?
Hmmm, for $20K I can buy 5 dual processor Apple Servers and fit them in the same 5 Us of rack space. That's 10 CPUs, 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports, 5 unit redundancy, 10 GBs of RAM and space for 2.4 TBs of HD...
Cheating is inevitable, game designers/operators can waste a lot of time fighting it but they have as much chance of winning as the government does in the drug war.
So here's how to deal with it...
Limit accounts to one per person (handled via credit card, etc.) and Rank players depending on their record. So Bob signs up for the latest game armed with aim-bots, automappers, transparent-wall hacks, etc. and starts at level one. He battles other L1s and wipes the floor with them (as should be expected). He gets bumped to L2 automatically by the system, this continues for awhile and he soon finds himself ranked at L15 and battling only other people using similar cheats and therefore battling on a level playing field.
If someone is consistently losing they would drop down a level. The system could even handle asking someone who is doing well but not dominating if they want to go up a level where they will face stronger challenges.
With Smart Tags, the reader puts the link (remember they chose to turn in on) on the page as they read it. This is exactly the same as complaining if someone goes out, buys a book and then writes in the margins.
Not true at all, Microsoft is adding links to third-party's web sites. This is exactly the same as the book store writing in the margins then selling the books.
Whereas with websites targetted advertising is already realistic (just look at the adverts at the top of this page for instance) currently TV adverts must cater to the lowest common denominator, and this means we all have to sit through endless adverts for pet food, pop crap and "feminine hygene" products rather than adverts for products we might actually want.
BS ALERT
Ads on TV are targeted by show the same way banner ads are tageted by web site.
UNIX: Great for servers.
MacOS: Great for graphics.
Windows: Great for end users.
Linux: Adequate for an introduction to basic UNIX concepts.
My I offer a correction:
Novell: Great for Servers.
UNIX: Great for Servers.
MacOS: Great for Graphics, Audio and end users
Windows: Great for IT Dept.
LINUX: Great for Geeks & those who like playing at being rebels.
Let's take a look at the list of things Apple has bundled or currently bundled with their OS and computers:
QuickTime: A media player, bundled with all Macs and current MacOS versions.
Quicktime can be removed by dragging a handful of files to the trash.
iTunes: A MP3 player, ripper, and audio-CD burner program, bundled with new Macs and Mac OS X, I believe.
iTunes can be removed by dragging a handful of files to the trash.
Disc Burner: A CD burner program, bundled with new Macs and Mac OS versions.
Disc Burner can be removed by dragging a handful of files to the trash.
Cyberdog: Though now defunct, Apple used to bundle the Cyberdog browser with the OS as part of OpenDoc (a really cool idea that didn't quite make it, possibly killed by MS).
CyberDog was little more than an demo OpenDoc container (App). OpenDoc wasn't just a bundled app, it was a whole new way to design "applications".
Mail: A decent email client bundled with OS X.
Mail can be removed by dragging one bundle to the trash.
Apache, FTP daemon, etc, all the usual Unix stuff: bundled with Mac OS X.
Harder to get rid of, but at least easy to ignore...
[snip]
All in all, Apple seems to bundle more stuff than Microsoft does. My conclusion is that we complain about MS because they're the market leader, not because of their actions, and I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do...
It's not simply a matter of what's bundled, it's how it's bundled (i.e. integrated) and the market position of the company doing the bundling. MS has a Monopoly (pending appeal) the rules are different for it.
This, and a lot of other stuff (including the anti-trust situation) could be solved pretty much with a small admendment to the US Constitution requiring all software to include detailed and complete documention of the file formats used to store user data.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm suprised more slashdotters don't discuss really tuning their cars, it's such a geek/hacker type thing.
How am I supposed to fit a car in my parents basement?
1993: Tommy Lee Jones beats John Malkovich for best supporting actor.
1998: Edward Norton does not win an Oscar for American History X.
1998: Saving Private Ryan, Elizabeth, and Thin Red Line each lose to Shakespear in Love for best picture.
2003: The Matrix 2-3 may not even be nominated for technical awards.
That's it Oscar! Go to hell. You lost legitamacy in my eyes with those first three gafes but this is stupid.
1982: Tron lost Best Special Effects to a muppet (E.T.).
I haven't taken the Oscars seriously since.
why don't i lose weight drinking ice cold coke?
Because your body is producing excess heat at all times, drinking an ice cold coke simply means your body doesn't have to vent quite as much heat as before. Your body doesn't have to produce "extra" heat to compensate.
The name for the OS X version of Outlook is ENTOURAGE. He'd know this if he actually bothered to get Office X (which was probably pre-installed on his machine as a 30 day trial anyway).
Entourage requires a Win2K server running Exchange 2K (I thnk, it may be an even later version). As stated in the article, his shop is running Exchange 5.5.
Just the be clear, Entourage will NOT work with Exchgange 5.5.
*half-heartedly hopes for Moof the Dogcow*
That's Claris the Dog Cow...
Are you really telling me that this is taking the digital signal, leaving it digital, and simply storing an MPEG-2 stream (or whatever it is) as it comes in through the cable on the hard drive?
That's exactly what it does, of course it's not a plain MPEG2 (or whatever) format signal, it's encrypted. On playback the digital stream is simply sent to the same part of the box that decodes the live signal. Think of it as a buffer, it's just adding a delay between the reception and playback.
Knowing how ass-backwards Time Warner usually is and how technology like this is often trailing-edge rather than leading-edge, I would have thought the box is recompressing the signal after converting it to analog just like every other DVR on the market. The fact that it looks so good could be for any number of reasons - a higher bit-rate or better compression algorithm (MPEG-4?) or whatever. If not, this is really a revolutionary device.
It's not leading edge technology and it's certainly not revolutionary -- Direct TIVO does the same thing with the Satellite signal, as do some other systems. It's much simpler (read cheaper) to just store the digital stream then to decode to analogue then reencode to digital. The low processing requirements are why they can record two shows while playing a third show.
Does anyone have any more information on this? And what sort of record times do you get with it?
As the slashdot summary says: "80 GB drive, which equals an estimated 50 hours of digital cable programming". I understand not reading the article, but at least read the summary. That said I'm sure that's an average, different channels have different bit rates. You'll probably get significantly less recording time if all you're recording is PPV...
With highest quality on TiVo you get about 20 hours on an 80GB hard drive; that's MPEG-2 decoding (you'd get more if it was MPEG-4).
With this set, as wityh DirectTIVO, you get what could be called BEST all the time. Lowering the quality would involve decoding and reencoding the signal which, do to the processing power available in such a box, would likely result in "Medium" quality having larger files than Best.
As this is more likely a situation for /.'ers buying laptops, document your efforts to buy the laptop without the OS in the first place. If you can get the saleman to admit to the clause that you can get a refund on the software, so much the better.
You should try watching the Superbowl in Canada.
All of the multi-million dollar commercials are replaced by local retailers and companies, because the cable provider has changed the commercials.
Umm, you're wrong. Due to CRTC rules: when any US channel is showing a show simultaneously with a Canadian channel, the US signal must be replaced with the Canadian signal by the cable company. So (in Vancouver, BC) if BCTV (local Vancouver station) is showing Freinds at the same time KING (Seattle NBC affiliate) is, then you will really be watching BCTV even though you have the TV set for KING.
When the Superbowl is on the US station is blocked and replaced by the Canadain station, it's not that the commercials are replaced, the entire show is replaced.
WHAT do Apple's programmers and designers have the Linux/GNOME programmers do not?
You've just answered your own question, Apple has programmers and designers, Linux just has programmers.
Is there any (technical) reason someone could not hack together a smooth Mac OS X work-a-like on top of Linux?
You can't hack together a Mac OS X work-a-like because OS X isn't hacked together. Just like you can't hack together a Golden Gate Bridge or a Hoover Dam.
Heck, even Microsoft (the Kings of the "hack it together") can't get it right, take dialog boxes for example. Yes/No are the two worst buttons you can put in a dialog box because you have to carefully read and parse the dialog box's text to know which button to pick. "Save/Discard" (i.e. verbs) are much better. If I close an unsaved document and the dialog box has Save and Discard buttons I don't even have to read the text to know what button to hit. If the buttons are Yes and No I have to parse "Do you want to close the window without saving your work" or "Do you want to save your work before closing the Window" to figure out whether Yes will delete my file or not.
Maybe Linux/GNOME users are just blinded by their Unix heritage.
This is one factor, but it's more a factor of the way their minds work. For example a (Unix) programmer understands that a and A are different (ASCII) characters so see nothing wrong (and in fact prefer) case sensitive file systems. "Average" users don't like case sensitive file systems because to them "Cat" and "cat" are the same word.
But then why isn't Mac OS X blinded by its NEXT heritage?
Because the programmers aren't doing the design work (for the most part).
Programmers are to designers as engineers are to architects. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Now granted there are some people who can do both roles, but in Linux the designers (who are most likely also programmers) are designing the OS to suit their needs, the problem is they have different needs than average users.
Ask yourself how many unpaid "I'm doing this as a hobby" Linux programmers are going to willingly be constrained by a design team they don't agree with?
This only works on servers where the people have to sign up. When you sign-up are are giving a starting raking, say Rank:1. As you play the system keeps track of your success and if you're good enough ups your rank (i.e Rank:2). Then it only allows you to play against people of the same rank as yourself. So all the cheaters (Rank:17) get to play against all the other cheaters (and those rare individuals with God-like skills) and us non-cheaters can play against other non-cheaters (and really really lame cheaters). Everyone gets a challenging game and who cares who's cheating anymore...
You could even start a game (as an example) at Rank:7 +/-2, then people who are Rank:5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 can join.
LENGTH: Approximately 12600 km.
BUILDER/COMMENTS: Originally built by God for humans [snip]
The Earth isn't a ship, it's a computer. It was built for the mice by the Magratheans. Haven't you ever bothered to go to Norway and look at Slartibartfast's signature?
Jeez, kids today--they don't know anything...
So according to Apple, 25% of their customers don't use OS X as the default OS on new systems. By removing the ability to boot into OS 9 they've just cut unit sales by 25%.
Time to short AAPL...
What's your favorite refreshing drink?
You probably answered Coke or Pepsi. 95% of the people will answere with one of these two - even though that are litterally tens of other choices: RC, Shasta, Jolt, STORE-BRAND$ etc.. in the cola catagory alone, let alone plain water or real lemonade.
95% of people will say a brand of pop? You must not be old enough to drink, Beer is going to be in the top 2, at least.
I'm all for destroying ad based TV and changing to a totally user-pay model (e.g. HBO), based on the following logic...
The way it is:
- Product: Viewer's eyeballs
- Production Equipment: The TV show
- Customer: Adveriser
The way it would be:
- Product: The TV show
- Production Equipemnt: Good writing/acting
- Customer: Viewer
I'd rather be the customer than the product.
I'd rather just add a second monitor...
The contract isn't between the networks and the viewers, it's between the networks and the government. The networks get free access to the radio spectrum in return for broadcasting their shows free of charge. They are more than welcome to give up their radio spectrum if they don't want it any more...
Hmmm, for $20K I can buy 5 dual processor Apple Servers and fit them in the same 5 Us of rack space. That's 10 CPUs, 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports, 5 unit redundancy, 10 GBs of RAM and space for 2.4 TBs of HD...
What was your point again?
Oh great, now the price of soap will skyrocket...
Take a look at iCab (http://www.icab.de) it does what you want.
Oh yah, it's Mac only.
Actually McIntosh is a common eating apple, Macintosh is a type of computer.
So here's how to deal with it...
Limit accounts to one per person (handled via credit card, etc.) and Rank players depending on their record. So Bob signs up for the latest game armed with aim-bots, automappers, transparent-wall hacks, etc. and starts at level one. He battles other L1s and wipes the floor with them (as should be expected). He gets bumped to L2 automatically by the system, this continues for awhile and he soon finds himself ranked at L15 and battling only other people using similar cheats and therefore battling on a level playing field.
If someone is consistently losing they would drop down a level. The system could even handle asking someone who is doing well but not dominating if they want to go up a level where they will face stronger challenges.
Not true at all, Microsoft is adding links to third-party's web sites. This is exactly the same as the book store writing in the margins then selling the books.
BS ALERT
Ads on TV are targeted by show the same way banner ads are tageted by web site.
MacOS: Great for graphics.
Windows: Great for end users.
Linux: Adequate for an introduction to basic UNIX concepts.
My I offer a correction:
Novell: Great for Servers.
UNIX: Great for Servers.
MacOS: Great for Graphics, Audio and end users
Windows: Great for IT Dept.
LINUX: Great for Geeks & those who like playing at being rebels.
QuickTime: A media player, bundled with all Macs and current MacOS versions.
Quicktime can be removed by dragging a handful of files to the trash.
iTunes: A MP3 player, ripper, and audio-CD burner program, bundled with new Macs and Mac OS X, I believe.
iTunes can be removed by dragging a handful of files to the trash.
Disc Burner: A CD burner program, bundled with new Macs and Mac OS versions.
Disc Burner can be removed by dragging a handful of files to the trash.
Cyberdog: Though now defunct, Apple used to bundle the Cyberdog browser with the OS as part of OpenDoc (a really cool idea that didn't quite make it, possibly killed by MS).
CyberDog was little more than an demo OpenDoc container (App). OpenDoc wasn't just a bundled app, it was a whole new way to design "applications".
Mail: A decent email client bundled with OS X.
Mail can be removed by dragging one bundle to the trash.
Apache, FTP daemon, etc, all the usual Unix stuff: bundled with Mac OS X.
Harder to get rid of, but at least easy to ignore...
[snip]
All in all, Apple seems to bundle more stuff than Microsoft does. My conclusion is that we complain about MS because they're the market leader, not because of their actions, and I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do...
It's not simply a matter of what's bundled, it's how it's bundled (i.e. integrated) and the market position of the company doing the bundling. MS has a Monopoly (pending appeal) the rules are different for it.
This, and a lot of other stuff (including the anti-trust situation) could be solved pretty much with a small admendment to the US Constitution requiring all software to include detailed and complete documention of the file formats used to store user data.