A GUS (Gravis Ultrasound) was way better for Doom. (At least for version 1.2. In later versions of Doom the sound crackled a bit on that card). That was a great card, when properly supported.
OK, how's nanotechnology (even if I bought that it was anything more than science fiction) going to save anything?
Think about it. If someone creates some super technology (call it the GEEK, perhaps - I wonder if anyone will get the reference), that does so much work that we can all live like kings with no effort, how am going to get a job so I can buy it? No one will need me, because the technology can already do everything.
I suppose as a society we can spend our extra resources on art, medicine, and science, since no technology is going to replace our need for these. The reality is we'd probably just end up with more lawyers and other forms of parasites. (Yes, lawyers are useful at times and they're not all parasites, but I think we already have way more than we should need). I'd say that this is what already is already happening in the US and other developed countries? (Unfortunately, rather than have some technology that does all the work cheaply, we simply farm it out to poor people in other countries).
Getting back to your comments, yes capitalism pretty much dictates that people will buy their goods and services at the lowest price possible, (and employees can be considered services). According to your analysis, we can expect our standard of living to therefore drop considerably. (It's a shame we can't raise other countries standards of living, instead).
The reality is, farming out jobs to cheap labor is incredibly short sighted. I beleive Henry Ford once made a comment about needing to pay his factory workers enough so he'd have someone to sell his cars to. If enough work goes overseas that the standard of living in the US drops dramatically, who is going to buy the things you make? The underpaid workers in India?
In the near term, sending work overseas will cause more people to loss jobs, deepening the recession. Fewer people can now buy your product, so more cost cutting measures are necessary, (i.e. more people get laid off), and the economy is in perpetual decline.
The problem is, you are right about capitalism, and the above would seem pretty much destined to occur. (I know this hasn't occurred in past recessions, but there has been some cost in preventing it, such as the high national debt, the trade defecit, and the sale of major US companies and real estate to foriegn interests). Perhaps capitalism does need some outside guidance?
I can relate to a lot of what you wrote. I suspect a lot of people our age can. That's one of the things that made MAME so great when I first discovered it: shared nostalgia.
I will admit that when Doom came out, suddenly I was interested in games again. I still am, but the interest is waning. There doesn't seem to be anything as fresh and exciting out now, just the same old gameply with better graphics. In addition, I'm busier with family. I guess you could say the same happened all those years ago, when I was first able to drive. The games were getting old, and I had better things to do.
Actually, I think the system requirement scheme makes sense and will be pretty simple for the average user. Remember, the average user buys their system from some big name OEM. So, now when a user buys a computer, and they want to be able to play the latest games, they can simply make sure the computer meets the latest game system level.
I suspect that major differentiation between levels will be the video card. Right now, the average user may not know about the different 3-D cards, and just buys a computer that has "3-D graphics" thinking that's good enough. Of course, we know that most video cards sold by OEM's aren't so hot. This will also encourage OEMS to put decent video cards in their systems. To meet the spec., which one would expect to need a reasonable video card, the OEM's will need to do better.
This will also solve one major problem that hurts computer games vs consoles. There's a huge range of capabilities in the computers out there right now. If you are a developer it is very difficult to provide a good experience to all of these systems, but you don't want to limit your market. By establishing one target for developers, they can provide a top notch experience to systems that meet that target, much like they can do on a console.
A number of years ago I when I was in college Lee Iaccoca (CEO of Chrysler at the time) gave a speech. He was asked why Chrysler does their engineering oversees. In a very obtuse way he basically answered "because they are better".
That, of course, really pissed me off. Not because he was wrong - he certainly wasn't. But the reason foriegn automotive engineers were better was his fault! For 20 years US auto makers did very little to push the envelope of auto engineering. They may not of needed to because of the market, but the real damage was that they lost a culture of skilled engineers.
Skilled engineering is not something you can just create on the turn of the dime. Experience means a lot in engineering. (And I don't simply mean the experience of individual people. I mean the experience of a group where there's always some continuity). If the US auto makers kept trying to innovate in the 60's and 70's, they would of had plenty of skilled engineers who would know how to make better cars, (even if the innovations weren't marketable). Instead, they had no engineers available and had to turn to foriegn companies for help.
Whether the same could happen in the IT industry, I don't know. At the moment the industry is still very competitive innovation-wise. So, it's not a matter of US industries sitting on their asses, like they did with cars. It's more a matter of them farming out to the lowest foriegn bidder. The net result could be same, though.
I already responded about the lifetime suscription to the other person who replied. Thanks for the pricing info. Is $300 the additional amount for the lifetime subscription, or is it the price for both the unit and the subscription? If it's the price for both, then bravo, that's a good deal, and I have no complaints with it.
Perhaps the first units might of cost nearly $2K to make, but it's always expensive for the early adoptor. (From your comments you were an early adoptor, so naturally you are happy. You made out like a bandit because the price was made artificially low in the beginning). That's something that every new technology faces, and there's really no way around it. You've either got to sell at that price and see if it flys, or you have to subsidize. However, you can only subsidize so much. Think about it this way, if TiVo was losing about $1.5K on each unit, they've got to somehow extract that money back from the customer. That's a lot to make back, whether in advertising, subscriptions, or by simply betting on future revenue from sales. (Clearly from the lifetime subscription pricing, they aren't expecting to get that much there). If they are losing that much subsidizing the hardware, then they were dead from the start.
Right now there's no reason TiVo's can't be made and sold for somewhere between $300 and $400 with a profit on just the unit. That's a price that would be sufficient to grow the market. It might not give the explosive growth TiVo wants, but it should be enough to keep them profitable.
As far as TiVo being cut out of the equation because they don't make the hardware, that's not the consumer's problem. They need to make money selling whatever it is they do make. Do they make the software? Then they need to sell the software to the people who make the hardware. Do they make the design? Fine, license the design to the hardware maker. Do they provide the TV listings, and software updates. Fine, sell these directly to the consumer.
You mention that the TiVo subscription gives more than just TV listings. That's true, it also provides upgrades. But as you also point out, this is both a plus and a minus. I generally don't think people like being forced to pay for upgrades. Hiding the cost in the subscription service helps, but then we get back to the question of how much the subscription service should really cost. It's really hard to know what this service is worth without competitors.
Sorry for the tone of this, it came out a bit snippy, and that's not how I intended it. I'm glad you are enjoying your TiVo. It's a great product, and, honestly, I'm a bit jealous.
> You can buy a lifetime subscription for the device that will provide the service. Or you can choose to pay the fee each month. Really, its just part of the price of the device you just aren't required to pay it up front.
It's true, that buying the "package deal", may offer me a discount, but I still have no option to just buy the unit at its true cost. I don't know what the real price of the system would be if it was uncoupled from the subscription. (If what you say is true, then the price of the device is currently pretty damn high).
One of the issues that I see with TiVo is that they are subsidizing hardware with both advertising and the need to buy a TV listing suscription. (According to you, this isn't necessarily true, but it still feels that way, for reasons I'll mention below). As far as advertising goes, people generally accept advertising as a way to pay for content. (I'll give you my eyeballs for 10 minutes if you entertain them for 20). However, I don't think people have shown such willingness to accept advertisement in exchange for other goods.
As far as the need to buy services, that brings us back to the "Gillette" business model. I really don't like this model, except maybe in rare circumstances, and I think most people agree. The problem with it is, in order for the company to make money, you must be trapped into continuing to use their products. People like freedom, and this goes against that.
What I'd want (and I suspect most agree) is legitimate pricing on each thing I'm buying. Charge me more for the hardware (and the software built into the unit), if that's what it costs to make it. (The price will come down in time, just like it does with everything else electronic). Charge me less for the subscription, and more importantly, allow competitors to provide alternative subscriptions. (There's nothing wrong with making your subscription more attractive by integrating it well with the hardware, but don't lock competitors out).
Now, if TiVo wants to subsidize the suscription with advertising, that may work. The TV listing information is content, so people may be willing to trade advertisements for it. However, right now they are charging (and charging a lot) for the TV listings. This makes does not make the TV listings feel like they are being subsidized. Instead, it feels like the TV lisitings suscriptions are subsidizing everything else.
I agree, partially. The form factors for Phones and PDA's (or games) don't mix well. But I don't agree that a PDA and game system couldn't effectively be combined. Heck, many of the Pocket PC's already have a control disk that looks suspiciously like a gamepad. I think a combination PDA/game system could be done well. Adding MP3 playing is easy enough at that point, so you might as well throw that in, too. Form factor wise, having text messaging in a PDA works well, too. (Depending on cost, I don't know if this is a worthwhile addition. It could make sense to market versions with and without this).
I guess at that point, one could argue that you might as well throw the cell phone in, too. It could mean one less thing to lug around in limited situations, (and your phone numbers are already in the PDA part of it). Still, I agree with you, most people want a cell phone that looks like a cell phone. (I.e., small and comfortable to use).
Yes, as everyone pointed out Snood is a rip-off of Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble. I immediately recognized this when my sister-in-law showed me this game, Snood, which she was addicted to. Although I had seen Bust-a-Move, I never bothered to play it.
So, I immediately downloaded both for comparison. I can say for sure why, but I found Snood much more fun, and my wife and I soon became addicted. There is something about the gameplay of Snood that just seemed better. Perhaps it was the little things, like the speed of the shot from the cannon (much faster in Snood), the ability to do trickier shots in Snood (by sneaking the shot between two almost touching neighbots)?
I think this just goes to the point of the article/blog- it is really difficult to make a simple game so incredibly fun. Yes, Snood was a rip-off. Somehow though, the game ended up being immensely successful, and I don't think saying it's a rip-off of Bust-a-Move is sufficient to explain its success. (Although since Bust-a-Move was a successful game, I will admit that explains a large part of it).
I suppose in your eye you do have pixels (rods and cones), so a Moire pattern may be possible. (Or it may not be possible if the resolution of the pixels exceed the resolution of the lens). I really can't say whether what you saw was a Moire pattern, but it's a reasonable explanation. (The same goes for the skyscraper example above)
I just finished reading the review at dpreview. (Thanks to all the people who posted the link). There may be a serious issue with this technology. In the review they mention "color clipping". Once one of the color channels reaches saturation, all color information is lost. This may be inherent in the X3 design.
The detector works by the difference in absorption of the colors of light. The first layer sees a lot of blue, with some green and red. The next layer sees a lot of green with some red and a little blue. The last layer sees a lot of red with only a little blue and green. What this means is that in order to determine the true colors of the reverse of this process needs to be calculated. However, if any of the detectors saturate (and the first is the most likely one), there probably is no accurate way to do this reversal. Currently, it looks like the camera makes these pixels grey, which looks aweful. They will need to come up with a better way of estimating the color of these pixels if this technology is to work well, and I have no idea if that's possible.
Note that a standard CCD with separate pixels can also have one of it's channels saturate. In this case, however, the pixel will simply become whiter than it should, which looks natural.
Oops, I knew that would be the type of example I'd get. Although it's true that you are seeing a Moire pattern, it's not what I meant. (Which is why I specified from aliasing).
What you are doing in the example above is sampling one image (the first piece of fabric) with another (the piece on top of it). In the case of a digital camera you could get a Moire pattern from one piece of fabric alone because the CCD in the camera functions as the second sampling device.
Moire patterns, with the naked eye?! Really? I've never heard of that. You are correct in most of what you said, but I don't see how you can see Moire patterns (from aliasing which is what we are talking about here) without some system of spacial sampling. Is there an example you could explain? If I'm wrong, I'd really like to know why.
If I understand the article correctly, then the light is being absorbed the same in all layers. Therefore the upper layers are no more transparent to red than the lower sensing layers. However, because there is a difference between the absorption of colors (blue is absorbed faster than red) each layer responds differently to each color. This isn't because the layers are different, it's because the layer above each has already served as a filter. Blue is absorbed the fastest so little blue makes it past the first layer. (Similar for green and the second layer). However, the intensity of the all colors (even the red) is greatest at the surface. Therefore, the top detector is aborbing all colors including a lot of the red.
As the light passes through the layers, the amount of blue relative to red and green (and the amount of green relative to red) decreases which causes each layer to have the different response to color. However, each detector (except maybe the deepest which mostly sees red), doesn't see only one color. To separate out the colors they calculate the reverse of the response of the detectors. I don't know the form of this transform, so I don't know if this is the cause of the noisy red response people see.
However, it wouldn't surprise me if there is more noise in the red simply because red is absorbed more slowly. I have no idea if they made the deeper detectors thicker than the top ones. It would make sense to do this or else the amount of absorption of red in the deepest (primarily red) detector is going to be much less than the absorption of blue in the top (primarily blue) detector.
Re:"Simulated" Motion(sickness)
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Robocoaster
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· Score: 2, Informative
Yes, that is very common form of motion sickness and affects me mildly. I can't go on simulator rides, but I have no problem with a real rollarcoster.
What is happening in this form of motion sickness is that your eyes are seeing one type of motion, and your ears are feeling another. The conflict between these two makes you sick. This is also a common reason people get sea sick. You feel the boat moving, but the sorroundings you see aren't moving (relative to you, anyway).
As far as this ride goes, if they were to put a movie in front of me and try to simulate a rollarcoaster, I would get sick. If they are just going to spin me around, then I may or may not get sick. It depends on how fast and furious the motion is.
If IAB wants ads to be effective, then this isn't the right way to go. Having standardized sizes for ads is never going to be very effective. After seeing a few banner adds at the top of the screen, we learn to ignore them. After seeing whatever new size they come up with a few times, we'll ignore those, too. Advertisers have to stop being so damn lazy! Every add needs to have its own distict layout so that we don't become so easily trained to ignore them.
OK, I understand that this is incompatible with the way ads are served. Guess what, if you want ads to be effective, come up with a new way.
How about just making ads part of the page, rather than hosted by an ad server? Ads will be much more effective because 1) as I said above, we won't get trained to ignore them, 2) they can't be filtered, and 3) if I want to go back to an ad, it'll still be there. Magazine ads have all these properties, and guess what- they work! (Yes, serving ads this way is harder, but see my point about being lazy).
Yes, I'm sure a lot of innocent people died during the overthrough of the Taliban. I'm sure a lot of innocent people died when the Taliban took power. I'm sure a lot of innocent people died when the Soviets took power. I'm sure a lot of innocent people died when the English took power. I'm sure even more innocent people died in between when the warlords fought with each other. Like I said, it's a messed up country, (with a bloody history).
My point wasn't that innocent people weren't killed during the latest conflict, just that you can't hold a country responsible for the fact that innocent people get killed during a conflict. It's the nature of war. I don't believe the US targetted innocent people, and the US probably did as much as can be reasonable expected to avoid killing innocent people. That's all you can hope for. Now, you could say that the US should avoid all conflicts because innocents will get killed and that will grow animosity towards the US. That's where I think the bunk comes in. Do you really expect any nation could live by those rules?
Now, I'm not saying innocent people shouldn't enter the equation. It's just that if killing innocent people needs to be avoided at all costs, any country in the world can do anything they want and the US will powerless to retaliate. It's unavoidable that innocent people will get killed in any retaliation.
I agree that the US has fostered a lot of animonsity by meddling in other's affairs. I'm not sure what the solution is here. If the US gets involved in any country's problems there is always going to be at least one side who is pissed at the US. (Whether or not the US is acting in the best interest of that country doesn't even enter into this equation). To make matters worse, many of these countries are hopelessly screwed up. Perhaps the US sould just stay the hell out? However, I'm not sure this is a great solution either. Leaving screwed up nations alone can also lead to disasters. I don't have a crystal ball to tell if the world would be a better place if the US let the world try to solve its own problems. (We could also debate whether the US only gets involved to help itself, or whether the US tries to help other nations. My guess is that both are true to some extent).
It's been good chatting with you. (Really it has).
Wow, that was the most brilliantly cynical thing I've read in a long time. What was most brilliant about it was how you mixed some good facts with total BS.
IRAQ: Pretty much right money on the about not wanting one country to dominate all the oil. So what? Iraq invaded Kuwait, the US helped get them out. I agree that the US might not have bothered to help them if there wasn't oil involved, but it was still the right thing to do.
Afghanastan: Your first two sentences about not knowing who is a terrorist, and it's all warlords and villages is correct. But then you went off about the US killing innocent people, etc, and that's bunk. But lets face it, Afghanastan is a mess. Any new government, no matter how benign, will end up causing some bloodshed. There are just too many warlords who don't want to loose power. I'm not sure what the solution is, or if Karzai will succede. But I honestly believe that he has his people's best interest at heart. Getting him into power should be a good thing for Afghanastan, and it was the right thing for the US to do. What I fear now is that the US will leave him to languish as he faces the difficult job of running such a messed up country.
Israel/Palestine: The US supports Israel because the US has a sizable and influential Jewish population. End of story. After killing most of their Jews and scaring off the rest, Europe doesn't. Europe has a sizable Arab population, therefore, it supports the Palestinians over Israel. (The Jewish population of the US was not large and influential enough to actually get the country to enter a messy war, though).
I'm running out of time, so I'll be short from here out...
Panama: don't know enough to comment.
Cival War, nuclear weapons, Environment, military structure, and WWII: basically correct, but none of it controversial. (Although you left out the part about Japan bombing the US, and then Germany entered the fray as it was part of their treaty with Japan).
Al Queda: I'd hardly call one immensely successful military attack (if you can call slaughtering civilans a military attack) enough to call him "one of the most successful military tacticians in the last hundred years." A military tactician not only has to consider his immediate battle, but also how that battle is going to position him for the future. I don't think Al Queda is in a better position now than before the attacks. And I don't think Al Queda is any closer to achieving it's final goals, unless their goal is simple to kill and destroy as much as possible. (This may in fact be their primary goal. But then I wouldn't call them any sort of military. They'd simply be criminals on a grand scale). All they've done for themselves is lost their biggest ally - the Taliban.
This is a long rant, late in the game, but here goes...
(In my mind) the ideal solution would be to let any nation violate other nation's technology IP, as long as any immediate fruits of that IP remain in that nation. So, if a nation wants to steal IP to make a drug or food to save its own people, fine. If they want to make technology for their own use, fine. If they want to use steal MS word, it might be fine under some circumstances. However, if the software or technology is used to create products that are exported, the nation receiving the products is justified by levying a tax to make up for the stolen IP. The point is to allow the poor nations to be able to afford products. However, it is not unreasonable for the richer nations to protect their economies. (It is simply unreasonable for the richer nations to rape the poorer ones).
You'll note that this conflicts with of free trade. Free trade is a great thing, but it does not actually exist unless all the nations involved level the playing field. (I. e., similar incomes and employee treatment, similar IP rules, similar environmental rules, etc). If the playing field isn't level, then what you call free trade isn't free trade at all. It's free trade of one product (the piece actually sold) without free trade of whatever went into making this product. So, let's just throw away any illusions of free trade between rich and poor nations, and say that the goal should be maximum benefit in trade for all countries. Or, at least, maximum benefit for the poorer nations without adversely affecting the richer ones.
Just one comment about entertainment, (books, movies, etc). I don't think we should care about what happens within a poor nation. Most of the people in such a nation have no money anyway, so if entertainment can't be stolen, they'll just go without.
There are problems with this idea. For one thing, creating import taxes that are fair (and divvying them up to the right people) may be difficult. The idea is to compensate the companies that created the IP. The idea is not to protect companies against cheaper imports. Of course, the biggest issue may be the black market. If you are selling products within a poor nation cheaply, there's a lot of incentive to try to get them to a rich nation, illegally. I'm not going to suggest I know any solutions for these issues, I am just suggesting what I think is a reasonably ethical starting point.
One last comment to the people who think that pharmaceutical companies won't invest in research for drugs which would mostly help third world nations. You are absolutely right, but unfortunately there's not much that can be done about it. The reality is that what you are asking is the company to spend millions of dollars to simply help someone else. Where I come from we call this charity. Don't get me wrong, charity is a great thing, but please recognize what you are asking for. The most we can hope for is that companies will create drugs that will help them, and, as a side benefit, can be used by poor countries.
I'm sorry but you are quite wrong. Unless there is something wrong with your stereo, waves of different frequencies do not interfere with each other.
I was going to explain the meaning of a linear system, but suffice it to say that unless your stereo is causing distortion, the 36 kHz signal does not mix with the 18kHz signal.
Now, if you are talking about the aliasing that occurs if you sample a 36Khz signal at 44.1 Khz, that's an entirely different story. That's why you need to somehow filter an audio signal before digitally sampling it at 44.1 Khz.
Financially, the arguement can be made either way. Really, the arguement boils down to whether things are going to crash in the future. Those who make blithely make statements about tax deductions, and the (incrediblely small) amount you pay into principle in the beginning of a mortgage are missing the point. As this poster said, if it crashes you are screwed. I know quite a few people who bought houses in the mid/late eighties who saw their houses value drop far below what they payed for it. They were then either stuck in the house for 10 years, or they had to claim bankruptcy.
I bought a house a couple years ago, and where I live the boom was really the 2 years before I bought my house (values went up 15-25% a year those two years). In the past two years, the increases have been more modest, around 5%. I don't care, since I'm still better off than renting. That is, as long as it doesn't crash.
As others have said, I think this is a step in the right direction. (And PLEASE, don't encourage breaking the protection. There's nothing wrong with DRM on rentals, and that will only give them more examples for their arguments to congress). A big problem is going to be the time to download. When I want to watch a movie, I don't want to wait god knows how long to download 700 Mb's, only to have it expire 24 hrs later. (I haven't checked to find out when the clock starts ticking).
However, my real issue with the whole movies on demand is that I really wish they would leave our computers out of it. I realize that currently computers offer the most unniversal method through which people can currently receive movies on demand, but this is really a poor option. First of all, most computers are not in the living room connected to the TV.
Second, by using a computer they are encouraging hacking. It is true that a proprietary set-top-box could be hacked. But, if they make their own set-top-box, they can add all sorts of encryption in hardware and software. If they use the computer it will not only get hacked sooner, but they'll then want a more protected computer to keep it from happening again in the future.
If they want a system for delivering movies on demand, there are better options. As some have pointed out, some cable companies offer it (and I wouldn't be suprised if satellite companies do, too), but I have no idea how flexible those systems are. (How are the selection of movies? Do they only start at set times? Do you have to wait). Another option would be to add the capibility to PVR units. All the ingredients except the software and maybe the ethernet adapter are already there.
They really should recognize that a computer is not made to be a protected content delivery medium. It is made to compute - that is, manipulate or do anything else with its content that the computer user wants. Trying to neuter a computer to be simply a delivery medium is a bad idea.
Maxivision: Film improvements have been tried before (70 mm). Not enough of a benefit to justify the cost. This isn't going to fly.
Digital Cinema: The benefit goes to the movie studios, but the cost goes to the theater. Something needs to change in this equation if the theater owners are to get on board.
(As far as quality of digital vs. film, once the novelty wears off, I bet most people won't care. The only real difference is that digital doesn't degrade).
The problem with a roll your own PVR is a lack of software. Plus, it's the scheduling service that really makes it valuable. There are products that supposedly provide this (Hauppauge, ATI - does anyone have any experience with WinPVR2?), but from what I've read, all current PVR solutions don't hold a candle to what a TiVo can do. Perhaps someone, someday will come out with a great PVR package that ties into a schedule service. For the moment they all fall far short of the premade set-top systems. In addition, home made systems aren't stable enough. (driver issues)?
A home made system offers a lot of advantages in flexibility (burning movies), plus it can do a lot more than just be a PVR. I'd certainly like to have one, but the issues I've mentioned above have kept me from spending my time and money on it. Microsoft certainly has the resources to come out with a product that deals with those issues if they choose. However, I'm afraid Microsoft might tie in too much DRM for my tastes. I'm also concerned with why they are only selling it with new systems. Perhaps they want control over the hardware to avoid stability/compatibility issues, or perhaps they need the control for DRM?
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A GUS (Gravis Ultrasound) was way better for Doom. (At least for version 1.2. In later versions of Doom the sound crackled a bit on that card). That was a great card, when properly supported.
OK, how's nanotechnology (even if I bought that it was anything more than science fiction) going to save anything?
Think about it. If someone creates some super technology (call it the GEEK, perhaps - I wonder if anyone will get the reference), that does so much work that we can all live like kings with no effort, how am going to get a job so I can buy it? No one will need me, because the technology can already do everything.
I suppose as a society we can spend our extra resources on art, medicine, and science, since no technology is going to replace our need for these. The reality is we'd probably just end up with more lawyers and other forms of parasites. (Yes, lawyers are useful at times and they're not all parasites, but I think we already have way more than we should need). I'd say that this is what already is already happening in the US and other developed countries? (Unfortunately, rather than have some technology that does all the work cheaply, we simply farm it out to poor people in other countries).
Getting back to your comments, yes capitalism pretty much dictates that people will buy their goods and services at the lowest price possible, (and employees can be considered services). According to your analysis, we can expect our standard of living to therefore drop considerably. (It's a shame we can't raise other countries standards of living, instead).
The reality is, farming out jobs to cheap labor is incredibly short sighted. I beleive Henry Ford once made a comment about needing to pay his factory workers enough so he'd have someone to sell his cars to. If enough work goes overseas that the standard of living in the US drops dramatically, who is going to buy the things you make? The underpaid workers in India?
In the near term, sending work overseas will cause more people to loss jobs, deepening the recession. Fewer people can now buy your product, so more cost cutting measures are necessary, (i.e. more people get laid off), and the economy is in perpetual decline.
The problem is, you are right about capitalism, and the above would seem pretty much destined to occur. (I know this hasn't occurred in past recessions, but there has been some cost in preventing it, such as the high national debt, the trade defecit, and the sale of major US companies and real estate to foriegn interests). Perhaps capitalism does need some outside guidance?
I can relate to a lot of what you wrote. I suspect a lot of people our age can. That's one of the things that made MAME so great when I first discovered it: shared nostalgia.
I will admit that when Doom came out, suddenly I was interested in games again. I still am, but the interest is waning. There doesn't seem to be anything as fresh and exciting out now, just the same old gameply with better graphics. In addition, I'm busier with family. I guess you could say the same happened all those years ago, when I was first able to drive. The games were getting old, and I had better things to do.
Actually, I think the system requirement scheme makes sense and will be pretty simple for the average user. Remember, the average user buys their system from some big name OEM. So, now when a user buys a computer, and they want to be able to play the latest games, they can simply make sure the computer meets the latest game system level.
I suspect that major differentiation between levels will be the video card. Right now, the average user may not know about the different 3-D cards, and just buys a computer that has "3-D graphics" thinking that's good enough. Of course, we know that most video cards sold by OEM's aren't so hot. This will also encourage OEMS to put decent video cards in their systems. To meet the spec., which one would expect to need a reasonable video card, the OEM's will need to do better.
This will also solve one major problem that hurts computer games vs consoles. There's a huge range of capabilities in the computers out there right now. If you are a developer it is very difficult to provide a good experience to all of these systems, but you don't want to limit your market. By establishing one target for developers, they can provide a top notch experience to systems that meet that target, much like they can do on a console.
A number of years ago I when I was in college Lee Iaccoca (CEO of Chrysler at the time) gave a speech. He was asked why Chrysler does their engineering oversees. In a very obtuse way he basically answered "because they are better".
That, of course, really pissed me off. Not because he was wrong - he certainly wasn't. But the reason foriegn automotive engineers were better was his fault! For 20 years US auto makers did very little to push the envelope of auto engineering. They may not of needed to because of the market, but the real damage was that they lost a culture of skilled engineers.
Skilled engineering is not something you can just create on the turn of the dime. Experience means a lot in engineering. (And I don't simply mean the experience of individual people. I mean the experience of a group where there's always some continuity). If the US auto makers kept trying to innovate in the 60's and 70's, they would of had plenty of skilled engineers who would know how to make better cars, (even if the innovations weren't marketable). Instead, they had no engineers available and had to turn to foriegn companies for help.
Whether the same could happen in the IT industry, I don't know. At the moment the industry is still very competitive innovation-wise. So, it's not a matter of US industries sitting on their asses, like they did with cars. It's more a matter of them farming out to the lowest foriegn bidder. The net result could be same, though.
Sorry it's taken so long to reply...
I already responded about the lifetime suscription to the other person who replied. Thanks for the pricing info. Is $300 the additional amount for the lifetime subscription, or is it the price for both the unit and the subscription? If it's the price for both, then bravo, that's a good deal, and I have no complaints with it.
Perhaps the first units might of cost nearly $2K to make, but it's always expensive for the early adoptor. (From your comments you were an early adoptor, so naturally you are happy. You made out like a bandit because the price was made artificially low in the beginning). That's something that every new technology faces, and there's really no way around it. You've either got to sell at that price and see if it flys, or you have to subsidize. However, you can only subsidize so much. Think about it this way, if TiVo was losing about $1.5K on each unit, they've got to somehow extract that money back from the customer. That's a lot to make back, whether in advertising, subscriptions, or by simply betting on future revenue from sales. (Clearly from the lifetime subscription pricing, they aren't expecting to get that much there). If they are losing that much subsidizing the hardware, then they were dead from the start.
Right now there's no reason TiVo's can't be made and sold for somewhere between $300 and $400 with a profit on just the unit. That's a price that would be sufficient to grow the market. It might not give the explosive growth TiVo wants, but it should be enough to keep them profitable.
As far as TiVo being cut out of the equation because they don't make the hardware, that's not the consumer's problem. They need to make money selling whatever it is they do make. Do they make the software? Then they need to sell the software to the people who make the hardware. Do they make the design? Fine, license the design to the hardware maker. Do they provide the TV listings, and software updates. Fine, sell these directly to the consumer.
You mention that the TiVo subscription gives more than just TV listings. That's true, it also provides upgrades. But as you also point out, this is both a plus and a minus. I generally don't think people like being forced to pay for upgrades. Hiding the cost in the subscription service helps, but then we get back to the question of how much the subscription service should really cost. It's really hard to know what this service is worth without competitors.
Sorry for the tone of this, it came out a bit snippy, and that's not how I intended it. I'm glad you are enjoying your TiVo. It's a great product, and, honestly, I'm a bit jealous.
> You can buy a lifetime subscription for the device that will provide the service. Or you can choose to pay the fee each month. Really, its just part of the price of the device you just aren't required to pay it up front.
It's true, that buying the "package deal", may offer me a discount, but I still have no option to just buy the unit at its true cost. I don't know what the real price of the system would be if it was uncoupled from the subscription. (If what you say is true, then the price of the device is currently pretty damn high).
One of the issues that I see with TiVo is that they are subsidizing hardware with both advertising and the need to buy a TV listing suscription. (According to you, this isn't necessarily true, but it still feels that way, for reasons I'll mention below). As far as advertising goes, people generally accept advertising as a way to pay for content. (I'll give you my eyeballs for 10 minutes if you entertain them for 20). However, I don't think people have shown such willingness to accept advertisement in exchange for other goods.
As far as the need to buy services, that brings us back to the "Gillette" business model. I really don't like this model, except maybe in rare circumstances, and I think most people agree. The problem with it is, in order for the company to make money, you must be trapped into continuing to use their products. People like freedom, and this goes against that.
What I'd want (and I suspect most agree) is legitimate pricing on each thing I'm buying. Charge me more for the hardware (and the software built into the unit), if that's what it costs to make it. (The price will come down in time, just like it does with everything else electronic). Charge me less for the subscription, and more importantly, allow competitors to provide alternative subscriptions. (There's nothing wrong with making your subscription more attractive by integrating it well with the hardware, but don't lock competitors out).
Now, if TiVo wants to subsidize the suscription with advertising, that may work. The TV listing information is content, so people may be willing to trade advertisements for it. However, right now they are charging (and charging a lot) for the TV listings. This makes does not make the TV listings feel like they are being subsidized. Instead, it feels like the TV lisitings suscriptions are subsidizing everything else.
I agree, partially. The form factors for Phones and PDA's (or games) don't mix well. But I don't agree that a PDA and game system couldn't effectively be combined. Heck, many of the Pocket PC's already have a control disk that looks suspiciously like a gamepad. I think a combination PDA/game system could be done well. Adding MP3 playing is easy enough at that point, so you might as well throw that in, too. Form factor wise, having text messaging in a PDA works well, too. (Depending on cost, I don't know if this is a worthwhile addition. It could make sense to market versions with and without this).
I guess at that point, one could argue that you might as well throw the cell phone in, too. It could mean one less thing to lug around in limited situations, (and your phone numbers are already in the PDA part of it). Still, I agree with you, most people want a cell phone that looks like a cell phone. (I.e., small and comfortable to use).
Yes, as everyone pointed out Snood is a rip-off of Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble. I immediately recognized this when my sister-in-law showed me this game, Snood, which she was addicted to. Although I had seen Bust-a-Move, I never bothered to play it.
So, I immediately downloaded both for comparison. I can say for sure why, but I found Snood much more fun, and my wife and I soon became addicted. There is something about the gameplay of Snood that just seemed better. Perhaps it was the little things, like the speed of the shot from the cannon (much faster in Snood), the ability to do trickier shots in Snood (by sneaking the shot between two almost touching neighbots)?
I think this just goes to the point of the article/blog- it is really difficult to make a simple game so incredibly fun. Yes, Snood was a rip-off. Somehow though, the game ended up being immensely successful, and I don't think saying it's a rip-off of Bust-a-Move is sufficient to explain its success. (Although since Bust-a-Move was a successful game, I will admit that explains a large part of it).
I suppose in your eye you do have pixels (rods and cones), so a Moire pattern may be possible. (Or it may not be possible if the resolution of the pixels exceed the resolution of the lens). I really can't say whether what you saw was a Moire pattern, but it's a reasonable explanation. (The same goes for the skyscraper example above)
I just finished reading the review at dpreview. (Thanks to all the people who posted the link). There may be a serious issue with this technology. In the review they mention "color clipping". Once one of the color channels reaches saturation, all color information is lost. This may be inherent in the X3 design.
The detector works by the difference in absorption of the colors of light. The first layer sees a lot of blue, with some green and red. The next layer sees a lot of green with some red and a little blue. The last layer sees a lot of red with only a little blue and green. What this means is that in order to determine the true colors of the reverse of this process needs to be calculated. However, if any of the detectors saturate (and the first is the most likely one), there probably is no accurate way to do this reversal. Currently, it looks like the camera makes these pixels grey, which looks aweful. They will need to come up with a better way of estimating the color of these pixels if this technology is to work well, and I have no idea if that's possible.
Note that a standard CCD with separate pixels can also have one of it's channels saturate. In this case, however, the pixel will simply become whiter than it should, which looks natural.
Oops, I knew that would be the type of example I'd get. Although it's true that you are seeing a Moire pattern, it's not what I meant. (Which is why I specified from aliasing).
What you are doing in the example above is sampling one image (the first piece of fabric) with another (the piece on top of it). In the case of a digital camera you could get a Moire pattern from one piece of fabric alone because the CCD in the camera functions as the second sampling device.
Moire patterns, with the naked eye?! Really? I've never heard of that. You are correct in most of what you said, but I don't see how you can see Moire patterns (from aliasing which is what we are talking about here) without some system of spacial sampling. Is there an example you could explain? If I'm wrong, I'd really like to know why.
If I understand the article correctly, then the light is being absorbed the same in all layers. Therefore the upper layers are no more transparent to red than the lower sensing layers. However, because there is a difference between the absorption of colors (blue is absorbed faster than red) each layer responds differently to each color. This isn't because the layers are different, it's because the layer above each has already served as a filter. Blue is absorbed the fastest so little blue makes it past the first layer. (Similar for green and the second layer). However, the intensity of the all colors (even the red) is greatest at the surface. Therefore, the top detector is aborbing all colors including a lot of the red.
As the light passes through the layers, the amount of blue relative to red and green (and the amount of green relative to red) decreases which causes each layer to have the different response to color. However, each detector (except maybe the deepest which mostly sees red), doesn't see only one color. To separate out the colors they calculate the reverse of the response of the detectors. I don't know the form of this transform, so I don't know if this is the cause of the noisy red response people see.
However, it wouldn't surprise me if there is more noise in the red simply because red is absorbed more slowly. I have no idea if they made the deeper detectors thicker than the top ones. It would make sense to do this or else the amount of absorption of red in the deepest (primarily red) detector is going to be much less than the absorption of blue in the top (primarily blue) detector.
Yes, that is very common form of motion sickness and affects me mildly. I can't go on simulator rides, but I have no problem with a real rollarcoster.
What is happening in this form of motion sickness is that your eyes are seeing one type of motion, and your ears are feeling another. The conflict between these two makes you sick. This is also a common reason people get sea sick. You feel the boat moving, but the sorroundings you see aren't moving (relative to you, anyway).
As far as this ride goes, if they were to put a movie in front of me and try to simulate a rollarcoaster, I would get sick. If they are just going to spin me around, then I may or may not get sick. It depends on how fast and furious the motion is.
If IAB wants ads to be effective, then this isn't the right way to go. Having standardized sizes for ads is never going to be very effective. After seeing a few banner adds at the top of the screen, we learn to ignore them. After seeing whatever new size they come up with a few times, we'll ignore those, too. Advertisers have to stop being so damn lazy! Every add needs to have its own distict layout so that we don't become so easily trained to ignore them.
OK, I understand that this is incompatible with the way ads are served. Guess what, if you want ads to be effective, come up with a new way.
How about just making ads part of the page, rather than hosted by an ad server? Ads will be much more effective because 1) as I said above, we won't get trained to ignore them, 2) they can't be filtered, and 3) if I want to go back to an ad, it'll still be there. Magazine ads have all these properties, and guess what- they work! (Yes, serving ads this way is harder, but see my point about being lazy).
Yes, I'm sure a lot of innocent people died during the overthrough of the Taliban. I'm sure a lot of innocent people died when the Taliban took power. I'm sure a lot of innocent people died when the Soviets took power. I'm sure a lot of innocent people died when the English took power. I'm sure even more innocent people died in between when the warlords fought with each other. Like I said, it's a messed up country, (with a bloody history).
My point wasn't that innocent people weren't killed during the latest conflict, just that you can't hold a country responsible for the fact that innocent people get killed during a conflict. It's the nature of war. I don't believe the US targetted innocent people, and the US probably did as much as can be reasonable expected to avoid killing innocent people. That's all you can hope for. Now, you could say that the US should avoid all conflicts because innocents will get killed and that will grow animosity towards the US. That's where I think the bunk comes in. Do you really expect any nation could live by those rules?
Now, I'm not saying innocent people shouldn't enter the equation. It's just that if killing innocent people needs to be avoided at all costs, any country in the world can do anything they want and the US will powerless to retaliate. It's unavoidable that innocent people will get killed in any retaliation.
I agree that the US has fostered a lot of animonsity by meddling in other's affairs. I'm not sure what the solution is here. If the US gets involved in any country's problems there is always going to be at least one side who is pissed at the US. (Whether or not the US is acting in the best interest of that country doesn't even enter into this equation). To make matters worse, many of these countries are hopelessly screwed up. Perhaps the US sould just stay the hell out? However, I'm not sure this is a great solution either. Leaving screwed up nations alone can also lead to disasters. I don't have a crystal ball to tell if the world would be a better place if the US let the world try to solve its own problems. (We could also debate whether the US only gets involved to help itself, or whether the US tries to help other nations. My guess is that both are true to some extent).
It's been good chatting with you. (Really it has).
Wow, that was the most brilliantly cynical thing I've read in a long time. What was most brilliant about it was how you mixed some good facts with total BS.
IRAQ: Pretty much right money on the about not wanting one country to dominate all the oil. So what? Iraq invaded Kuwait, the US helped get them out. I agree that the US might not have bothered to help them if there wasn't oil involved, but it was still the right thing to do.
Afghanastan: Your first two sentences about not knowing who is a terrorist, and it's all warlords and villages is correct. But then you went off about the US killing innocent people, etc, and that's bunk. But lets face it, Afghanastan is a mess. Any new government, no matter how benign, will end up causing some bloodshed. There are just too many warlords who don't want to loose power. I'm not sure what the solution is, or if Karzai will succede. But I honestly believe that he has his people's best interest at heart. Getting him into power should be a good thing for Afghanastan, and it was the right thing for the US to do. What I fear now is that the US will leave him to languish as he faces the difficult job of running such a messed up country.
Israel/Palestine: The US supports Israel because the US has a sizable and influential Jewish population. End of story. After killing most of their Jews and scaring off the rest, Europe doesn't. Europe has a sizable Arab population, therefore, it supports the Palestinians over Israel. (The Jewish population of the US was not large and influential enough to actually get the country to enter a messy war, though).
I'm running out of time, so I'll be short from here out...
Panama: don't know enough to comment.
Cival War, nuclear weapons, Environment, military structure, and WWII: basically correct, but none of it controversial. (Although you left out the part about Japan bombing the US, and then Germany entered the fray as it was part of their treaty with Japan).
Al Queda: I'd hardly call one immensely successful military attack (if you can call slaughtering civilans a military attack) enough to call him "one of the most successful military tacticians in the last hundred years." A military tactician not only has to consider his immediate battle, but also how that battle is going to position him for the future. I don't think Al Queda is in a better position now than before the attacks. And I don't think Al Queda is any closer to achieving it's final goals, unless their goal is simple to kill and destroy as much as possible. (This may in fact be their primary goal. But then I wouldn't call them any sort of military. They'd simply be criminals on a grand scale). All they've done for themselves is lost their biggest ally - the Taliban.
This is a long rant, late in the game, but here goes...
(In my mind) the ideal solution would be to let any nation violate other nation's technology IP, as long as any immediate fruits of that IP remain in that nation. So, if a nation wants to steal IP to make a drug or food to save its own people, fine. If they want to make technology for their own use, fine. If they want to use steal MS word, it might be fine under some circumstances. However, if the software or technology is used to create products that are exported, the nation receiving the products is justified by levying a tax to make up for the stolen IP. The point is to allow the poor nations to be able to afford products. However, it is not unreasonable for the richer nations to protect their economies. (It is simply unreasonable for the richer nations to rape the poorer ones).
You'll note that this conflicts with of free trade. Free trade is a great thing, but it does not actually exist unless all the nations involved level the playing field. (I. e., similar incomes and employee treatment, similar IP rules, similar environmental rules, etc). If the playing field isn't level, then what you call free trade isn't free trade at all. It's free trade of one product (the piece actually sold) without free trade of whatever went into making this product. So, let's just throw away any illusions of free trade between rich and poor nations, and say that the goal should be maximum benefit in trade for all countries. Or, at least, maximum benefit for the poorer nations without adversely affecting the richer ones.
Just one comment about entertainment, (books, movies, etc). I don't think we should care about what happens within a poor nation. Most of the people in such a nation have no money anyway, so if entertainment can't be stolen, they'll just go without.
There are problems with this idea. For one thing, creating import taxes that are fair (and divvying them up to the right people) may be difficult. The idea is to compensate the companies that created the IP. The idea is not to protect companies against cheaper imports. Of course, the biggest issue may be the black market. If you are selling products within a poor nation cheaply, there's a lot of incentive to try to get them to a rich nation, illegally. I'm not going to suggest I know any solutions for these issues, I am just suggesting what I think is a reasonably ethical starting point.
One last comment to the people who think that pharmaceutical companies won't invest in research for drugs which would mostly help third world nations. You are absolutely right, but unfortunately there's not much that can be done about it. The reality is that what you are asking is the company to spend millions of dollars to simply help someone else. Where I come from we call this charity. Don't get me wrong, charity is a great thing, but please recognize what you are asking for. The most we can hope for is that companies will create drugs that will help them, and, as a side benefit, can be used by poor countries.
I'm sorry but you are quite wrong. Unless there is something wrong with your stereo, waves of different frequencies do not interfere with each other.
I was going to explain the meaning of a linear system, but suffice it to say that unless your stereo is causing distortion, the 36 kHz signal does not mix with the 18kHz signal.
Now, if you are talking about the aliasing that occurs if you sample a 36Khz signal at 44.1 Khz, that's an entirely different story. That's why you need to somehow filter an audio signal before digitally sampling it at 44.1 Khz.
To buy or not to buy, that is the question.
Financially, the arguement can be made either way. Really, the arguement boils down to whether things are going to crash in the future. Those who make blithely make statements about tax deductions, and the (incrediblely small) amount you pay into principle in the beginning of a mortgage are missing the point. As this poster said, if it crashes you are screwed. I know quite a few people who bought houses in the mid/late eighties who saw their houses value drop far below what they payed for it. They were then either stuck in the house for 10 years, or they had to claim bankruptcy.
I bought a house a couple years ago, and where I live the boom was really the 2 years before I bought my house (values went up 15-25% a year those two years). In the past two years, the increases have been more modest, around 5%. I don't care, since I'm still better off than renting. That is, as long as it doesn't crash.
As others have said, I think this is a step in the right direction. (And PLEASE, don't encourage breaking the protection. There's nothing wrong with DRM on rentals, and that will only give them more examples for their arguments to congress). A big problem is going to be the time to download. When I want to watch a movie, I don't want to wait god knows how long to download 700 Mb's, only to have it expire 24 hrs later. (I haven't checked to find out when the clock starts ticking).
However, my real issue with the whole movies on demand is that I really wish they would leave our computers out of it. I realize that currently computers offer the most unniversal method through which people can currently receive movies on demand, but this is really a poor option. First of all, most computers are not in the living room connected to the TV.
Second, by using a computer they are encouraging hacking. It is true that a proprietary set-top-box could be hacked. But, if they make their own set-top-box, they can add all sorts of encryption in hardware and software. If they use the computer it will not only get hacked sooner, but they'll then want a more protected computer to keep it from happening again in the future.
If they want a system for delivering movies on demand, there are better options. As some have pointed out, some cable companies offer it (and I wouldn't be suprised if satellite companies do, too), but I have no idea how flexible those systems are. (How are the selection of movies? Do they only start at set times? Do you have to wait). Another option would be to add the capibility to PVR units. All the ingredients except the software and maybe the ethernet adapter are already there.
They really should recognize that a computer is not made to be a protected content delivery medium. It is made to compute - that is, manipulate or do anything else with its content that the computer user wants. Trying to neuter a computer to be simply a delivery medium is a bad idea.
I think this is really simple:
Maxivision: Film improvements have been tried before (70 mm). Not enough of a benefit to justify the cost. This isn't going to fly.
Digital Cinema: The benefit goes to the movie studios, but the cost goes to the theater. Something needs to change in this equation if the theater owners are to get on board.
(As far as quality of digital vs. film, once the novelty wears off, I bet most people won't care. The only real difference is that digital doesn't degrade).
The problem with a roll your own PVR is a lack of software. Plus, it's the scheduling service that really makes it valuable. There are products that supposedly provide this (Hauppauge, ATI - does anyone have any experience with WinPVR2?), but from what I've read, all current PVR solutions don't hold a candle to what a TiVo can do. Perhaps someone, someday will come out with a great PVR package that ties into a schedule service. For the moment they all fall far short of the premade set-top systems. In addition, home made systems aren't stable enough. (driver issues)?
A home made system offers a lot of advantages in flexibility (burning movies), plus it can do a lot more than just be a PVR. I'd certainly like to have one, but the issues I've mentioned above have kept me from spending my time and money on it. Microsoft certainly has the resources to come out with a product that deals with those issues if they choose. However, I'm afraid Microsoft might tie in too much DRM for my tastes. I'm also concerned with why they are only selling it with new systems. Perhaps they want control over the hardware to avoid stability/compatibility issues, or perhaps they need the control for DRM?