Okay, someone feel free to correct me, but
how did any of the competitors
fail in this one? They only needed to get
their entry to go 142 miles on autopilot...
142 miles across a completely barren plain,
with very few obstacles.
I would expect that a stock 4x4 truck would
have gotten further with no modifications
beyond a brick on the gas pedal and the
steering-wheel locked to go straight.
Something about this doesn't sound right
(no, not a conspiracy theory, just that
everything I've read on this has apparently
omitted some very critical detail that would
make the challenge considerable more... Well...
"Challenging").
2 years of military duty might teach our
nations emerging adults a thing or two about
self disipline, respect, hard work, and
preparedness.
You almost certainly meant that as a troll,
but, I'll bite...
Damned lot of good those "skills" will do a
corpse. And before you say that this wouldn't
necessarily mean going off to war, I'd point
out that in GW1, Afghanistan, and GW2, more
people died before and after primary combat,
than during.
Suggestions like this absolutely sicken me.
Forcing someone to join a group of government
sanctioned murderers against their will, in
my book, counts as one of most "evil" acts
possible. Ted Bundy had nothing on
Rumsfeld.
And I don't write this just because it means
I may well end up drafted - I would have a
hard choice to make, between moving to Canada
or going in willingly with the goal of rooting
and taking down as many military systems as I
could (as Thomas Hobbes wrote, "The prisoner
being led to death by his jailers has the
right and obligation to resist with whatever
force is necessary". If, in such a situation,
it took the complete subversive dismantlement
of the US military's IT infrastructure, so it
goes).
Disgusting, pure and simple. If you want
to join, good for you. If so few people want to
go off to die that the government needs to institute
a draft, well, I can think of no better indication
that we should not go off to "see the world, meet
interesting people and kill them".
And just for the record, spare me the trouble of
invoking Godwin's law. Yes, sometimes
war appears justified - Though only to
defend against an immediate mortal threat
to one's self.
Perhaps someone more civil-engineeringly
inclined than myself can answer this...
We already have exceedingly strong hollow
glass blocks available for construction.
Perhaps not quite as strong as cast concrete,
but I've seen three-plus-story walls made
entirely from them, so certainly good enough
to use for a large portion of your typical
two-story house.
Additionally, judging by the pictures at the
linked site, this concrete doesn't really
transmit all that much light... More like a
(closed) window shade, than a window.
So, what would a person actually use this
stuff for? I'll give it a few points for
coolness, but from every angle I can think
of, some other material seems better suited
to the task.
You still didn't explain AVC and ASP. Maybe
they are acronyms of some kind?
Ah, all that typing, and I failed to actually
answer your question. Sorry.:-)
ASP: Advanced Simple Profile,
which refers to the most common form of MPEG4
(such as used by DivX). This form of MPEG4 includes
literally dozens of "profiles", each designed to
optimize the stream for various uses (resolutions,
decoding CPU needs, bandwidth, etc). ASP itself
doesn't even refer (uniquely) to one particular
profile, but most people use it to mean "the best
quality you can get".
AVC: Advanced Video Coding,
the catch-all name for H.264.10, to distinguish it
in common usage from MPEG4 part 2. H.264.10 includes
only three profiles (just called "baseline", "main",
and "extended")
Re:Wow, they requested this?
on
Spam Bits
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Who with an ounce of sense would request
any sort of e-mail promotion, given the
tendency those things have to multiply of
those accord? Don't answer that.
I've answered you not because I disagree, but
to add a bit to your point.
You have pointed out what I consider a major
flaw in most companies' marketing strategy;
namely, assuming I want to know about
product updates.
When I want a new product, I search for it on
the web. I read a number of independant reviews
to find the "best" product to meet my needs,
then I use a few price search engines to find
the best price on that product, then I buy
it from the cheapest place that doesn't have
half its users complaining about their
service.
So, now, marketing gurus, take note of that
process. Notice where mass mailings from your
company fit in? Bingo, they do not. Not even
a little. In fact, if I find your mass
mailings just a tad too spam-like (or if I
EVER notice you've sold my address,
which I can tell since I use disposeable
email addresses), you can guarantee that I
will never buy from you again, even if you
do have the best price, and will also
warn anyone that asks my advice (which for
the typical geek means "almost everyone they
know") to avoid you as well.
So, my suggestions...
1) Stop bothering us with mail, immediately.
You waste your time, our time, bandwidth,
and may well incur our "squirrely wrath".
2) List yourself on every price search engine
you can find. At the very least, list yourself
in Pricegrabber, NexTag, and shopper.com. And
If you sell PC hardware and don't list through
Pricewatch, consider yourself as good as
nonexistant to me. Seriously, if any marketing
folks read this and only remember one point,
re-read this one. List with price search
sites, or vanish.
3) Don't piss off your customers. If you
list a product at a given price, you'd better
actually have it, and have it for the
listed price (or better, I won't fault any
company for that). If you make me wait an
obscenely long time to get it, I will
cancel my order after the third day it
doesn't ship. If you give me the runaround
because I don't want your crappy accessories
and extended warranties, not only will I
cancel my order, I will report you for
bait-and-switch; additionally, if you ship
via US mail, you commit felony mail fraud (which
I will also report you for) by taking longer
than two weeks to ship (regardless of whether
or not you try to avoid this by some cheesy
"6 to 8 weeks" disclaimer). Overall though,
if you run a legit operation, none of that will
apply. Just list what you have, honor your
prices, and don't treat your customers like
sheep (even though most of them probably act
like it, and will buy anything you tell them
to, enough people will get pissed to provide
plenty of negative feedback for me to find).
I think time has dulled all of our memories somewhat.
So, I found a few relevant links. You have the end
results correct, but the way we got there has quite
a lot of relevance to the present topic...
1. Sony sue Connectix over their PS1 emulator.
Settled out of court: Sony buy Connectix's emulator
and promptly bury it.
Gamespot has an article covering the last actual case
resolved in court on this issue, from 05/17/2000...
A San Francisco Federal Court judge, The Honorable
Charles Legge, today dismissed copyright and trademark
infringement claims initiated by Sony Computer
Entertainment against Connectix Corp and its Connectix
Video Game Station.
Now, the very next day Sony filed another suit, and
Connectix settled. However, remember that Connectix, as
a commercial project, had profit as a goal, not the good
of the retrogaming community. So, Connectix didn't settle
because they feared loosing (every indication, right down
to the USSC refusing to entertain Sony's claims, suggested
Sony had basically no case), the settled because Sony gave
them far more than their cute little toy emulater
would have ever made them.
So on this one, I would say we both have it right - Connectix
did sell-out, in the context of settling the suit against them,
but they basically won their day in court (the more important
event here, in the bigger picture, since it set a legal precedent).
2. Sony sue Bleem! over their PS1 emulator. Bleem!
go bankrupt defending the case, case dropped.
This one seems a tad less clear (plenty of articles out
there about the case, but the timeline seems very
muddy). However, I did find evidence that Bleem! at least
survived Sony's initial onslaught, at
Game Marketwatch, from 05/23/2001:
Bleem has filed suit against Sony in U.S. District Court,
Northern District, California charging the company with
using its market power to discourage retailers from
carrying the Bleemcast.
So, at the very least, Bleem! didn't go under directly from
Sony's initial suit - They went under because Sony pulled an
MS-like tactic, using their market dominance to prevent anyone
from making or selling Bleemcast.
Additionally,
MobyGames has a brief introduction to emulator case
history, discussing both the Connectix and Bleem! suits,
as well as Nintendo's attack on UltraHLE. It includes
the delicious quote (bolding mine),
In its opinion, the high court deemed the development
and release of an emulator to be non-infringing
provided
that no patents were violated and that the final product
itself did not contain any infringing code; furthermore,
it also ruled emulation itself to be protected fair
use of computer software.
I find it particularly interesting that Nintendo has taken
a new approach, since the courts have repeatedly decided
that emulation counts as fair use - They've opted to approach
the patent issue (the first phrase in bold above) as this
very topic addresses.
I suspect they will have some serious problems, however.
With this current patent, filed for in 2000 and just now
granted, prior art most definitely exists - On February
5th, 1997 Nicola Salmoria released MAME v0.1, which by
the very nature of what it does (and its very name), it
needs to decide what system to emulate based on the ROM
set presented. Several other emulators (usually within a
product family, such as SegaEMU for SG1000/SMS/Genesis/SCD,
or VisualBoy Advance, for GB/GBC/SGB/SGB2/GBA) also
support selecting a different emulation core based on the
ROM, but I do not know offhand if any of those predate 2000.
MAME, however, most certainly does.
This aught to push the 320GB drives into the
sub-$200 category within a few weeks. About
time, too, the prices have lingered between
$250 and $300 for months now.
Nothing like a bigger-better-faster-harder
product to make the rest nice and cheap.;-)
I don't think there are any freeware Game
Boy Advance games in circulation yet.
Hmph, shows what you know...
Why, from any of a dozen websites, you can
download literally hundreds of pirate E-Texts
that run on the GBA. Even pirate TV episodes
encoded to play on the GBA (though of seriously
low quality).;-)
But yes, "homebrew" GBA games exist. In fact,
grepping through the latest GoodGBA list, I
get a count of 2,848 public domain games that
exist for the Gameboy Advance, compared to only
roughly 1,400 "real" games (based on GBA Renamer,
which only includes commercial releases, since
GoodGBA includes all those pirate etexts and the
like). Quite a good number, I'd say!
The patent is for a handheld emulator
that can dynamically chose which platform
to emulate based on the input file it was
asked to load.
Kinda like MAME, running on any portable
device?
Or most of the SMS/GG emulators?
Or the GBA/GBC/GB emulators?
see your point, that most people have started
ranting with no idea about what they should
rant about, but... Prior art for this still
most definitely exists.
Please expand and explain AVC and ASP.
I'll Google it myself, but for the sake of
everybody...
Well, if you want a somewhat technical
explanation, I would recommend reading
This (warning, PDF). Very well written, with
enough technical details to satisfy the casually
interested geek, while readible enough for
non-geeks to get the general idea.
For just the quick-and-dirty... The MPEG4 AVC
(aka MPEG4 part 10, aka H.26L aka H.264.10)
includes quite a few new techniques at every
step of the encoding, from preprocessing to
interframe prediction to new frame types to
new residual handling methods. These make
encoding a lot more CPU intensive, but produce
considerably better results (Oddly, most
sources claim only 40-50% better than MPEG2,
which I find absurd, since even ASP encoders
manages to do better than that).
It may help some people to better appreciate
the difference by seeing some side-by-side
comparisons (not exactly the best possible
test conditions, but they make their point)...
Balooga
has a brief overview of the MPEG4 AVC vs
the ASP and even MPEG2 available... Check
out the screen shots, in particular.
Interstingly, on the topic of nomenclature,
I think it would make people far less
confused if we all called it H.264.10, rather
than MPEG4 AVC. Up to and including what we
normally think of as MPEG4 (the MPEG4-2 ASP), all
the MPEG versions remained backward compatible.
An MPEG1 stream counts as a valid MPEG2 stream,
and an MPEG2 stream counts as a valid MPEG4-2 ASP
stream. The AVC standard, however, departed from
that backward compatibility. Not necessarily a
bad idea, but by not picking a new name, everyone
seem rather confused about exactly which names
refer to which standards (similar to USB2,
but worse, because each version has several
sub-versions).
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Microsoft won! We
can't let that happen. Let's discredit
the test.
Actually, considering that WMV9 supposedly
uses the MPEG4 AVC (while the rest use the
ASP), I would say that by more-or-less tying
with DivX, MS lost, big-time. It took
twice as long (damned good, for an AVC
implementation) to produce comparable results
(damned bad, for an AVC implementation). I
had seriously expected WMV9 to utterly crush
the competition in this test, before reading
the article, yet it did not.
This may mean nothing to someone trolling as
an AC, but to those of us likely to actually
use one of these codecs based on their
technological merits, this should send up a
few huge red flags regarding WMV9. If MS had
an actually decent AVC encoder, I'd use it in
a heartbeat (though only because, that I know
of, no other real (as in non-pre-alpha) and
almost-free (as in beer) implementations of the
AVC profile exist)... AVC has the potential to
yield the same quality at a quarter of the bitrate
of the ASP. To only perform comparably... Poor
showing indeed.
So complain that I just want to cry about MS
winning, but if you believe that, you clearly
don't understand the encoding methods involved
here.
However, as I said in my original post, this
test has absolutely no validity. I would
like to see a fair test, for the exact reason
I mention here (ie, does MS's AVC really
perform that poorly?), but the present
comparison can at best make me raise an
eyebrow at such an unexpected result.
Posting still images isn't the best
way to point out video artifacts due to
compression.
If I considered that as their worst
methodological flaw, I'd tend to agree with
you completely.
However, for those who haven't bothered to read
the article, two points (well, more than two,
but as examples...) stuck out as completely
invalidating their results:
"In fact, even the original high bitrate
MPEG2 on the DVD struggles in places."
and...
"We therefore took the uncompressed clips
and created new "master clips" by encoding
them to very high bitrate (around 8 megabit)
files using Indeo 5.1 compression, as all
our test applications could easily read
this format"
Anyone else spot the problem, here?
First of all, starting with lossy source
material automatically injects artifacts
into the video. A codec that looks for
similar ways to trim bits as the original
(MPEG2), ie, MPEG4, will natually have a
distinct advantage in having fewer artifacts
in the final result. Not that I can think
of any means by which they could have obtained
high-quality "raw" video, but any valid test
of an encoder's capabilities would require
them to do so.
And, as if that didn't introduce enough bias,
they then reencoded in Indeo 5 format, before
using each "real" codec under consideration.
Again, that injects its own artifacts, and
favors codecs that look for similar ways to
trim bits. But, all four of the codecs tested
can deal with MPEG2 as source material, so even
the "to make it fair" argument falls flat here.
Overall, this so-called "comparison" has zero
external validity, in the strict experimental
sense. They managed to waste a few hours of
CPU time, nothing more.
At the very least (if they couldn't get ahold
of raw HQ video), going straight from MPEG2
would have given a meaningful comparison of
"how it will look ripped from a DVD". But
by the Indeo pass, they removed even that as
a possible claim.
Overall, I agree with you. We, the audience,
lost this one - Not because of the crap pulled
on both sides, or because of increased rates,
or because of missed "favorite show"s...
We "lost", because this had the potential to
go to court and make the FCC's ruling of a few
years ago (about unbundled content) actually
apply, giving us some real choice in our
available programming (which would benefit
everyone except those who produce the worst
of the worst for content). Bundling has no
effect beyond subsidizing the crap on TV...
For every Comedy Central, we have a dozen
RTPs, BETs, Travel Channels, and the like.
No one actually watches that crap, but it stays
on the air because bundling such as this most
recent debacle with Viacom makes it basically
"free" for everyone (except the end viewers),
while providing an extremely niche
marketing demographic.
Personally, I would like to pay for exactly
four channels - SciFi, Comedy Central, Discovery,
and Cartoon Network. The rest may as well not
even exist, for all I care. Yet, I pay something
like $60/mo for the joy of having 74 (out of
78 total) channels that I literally will never
watch. Now, people who watch a lot of TV (I'll
proudly admit that I only watch a few hours per
week) may use a few more channels, but how many
people can claim that, on a regular basis, they
watch more than a dozen stations?
I do, however, disagree with you on one
point...
Not many people are willing to pay off the
rest of their contract *and* start paying a
new one just to switch service over this.
Generally, when a service provider makes a
major change to their offerings, their customers
can get out of long-term contracts without
paying more than the remainder of the current
month. This reflects the "two-way" nature of
engaging in an actual contract - Neither side
can unilaterally change the terms of the
contract (which in this case, would include
suddenly turning off one of the biggest content
providers in the world). They may balk at the
idea, but mention "small claims court" and
"breach of contract", and you'll get them to
back off really fast. Several friends
of mine used this recently to get out of their
cell-phone contracts (with Cingular, I think,
but not 100% sure) when they drastically changed
their terms regarding how they bill for "roaming"
time.
This would have been funny if it weren't so biased.
It would indeed count as biased, except for one point...
With the exception of the "Halliburton" crack (whose
shady contracts even our Republican-controlled congress
found unkosher enough to look into), I took great care
to use only descriptions that Bush himself has used. He
had (before the so-called "war") publically stated that
we would, if necessary, take "unilateral" action. He
has acknowledged that our attack on Iraq counted as
"preemtive", to "prevent" Saddam from using his mythical
WMDs. And he has taken no effort whatsoever to conceal
his finger-pointings at the likes of Iran and Syria,
suggesting that, if reelected (or more likely, sometime
in early October), he will get us into another pissing
contest in the Middle East (I would say in North Korea,
but Bush strikes me as the worst type of coward - He'll
stomp all over the 98lb weakings on the playground, but
run home to Momma UN when facing an opponent willing to
defend himself).
So, I hate to have to tell you this (well, not really, it
actually gives me a warm sense of satisfaction, or I wouldn't
even have bothered replying to an AC), but if you found
my post biased, you have to consider the reality itself
biased.
Now this post, you could call biased. But not
because I have distorted the facts - Rather, because I
have presented it as my opinion. Big difference.
Learn it.
The early-adopters would have a shit-fit
about all of their uber-$$ hardware turning
into worthless scrap
At this point, I don't really think those of
us upgrading to HDTV count as "early adopters",
anymore... By the FCC's own rules, NTSC will
die by the end of 2006 (The actual mandate reads
oddly, but that seems like the basic idea of
it). I don't know if 480i (basically our current
NTSC, phrased as an ATSC standard) would count
under that, but once HDTV broadcasts become
ubiquitous, I doubt many stations would
want to look like crap compared to the
rest.
Or sometime around 2008 or so they will find
some way to "upgrade" the system that will
effectively lock out your obsolete flag-free
tuner and/or TV.
I worry most about that idea... Should I
buy a flag-free tuner now, and risk it becoming
a paperweight in less than two years? Or should I
wait, and risk my entire TV becoming obsolete?
Or will it not matter, and in less than five years
whatever I have now will only work as a dedicated
monitor for playing video games on?
As much as I hate getting "cable descrambler" spam,
somehow I suspect that illegal decoder boxes will
turn into a huge market in the next few
years...;-)
Anyone who doesn't own an HDTV faces the dilemma
of whether to buy a flag-free tuner quickly or to
refuse to buy into the crippled system at all.
If you've never seen "real" HDTV (even 480p, such
as you can get off many DVDs now, if your player
supports progressive), a normal NTSC TV looks just
fine. But once you visit a friend who has it,
you'll start to hate what you have more and more.
Personally, I don't even watch all that much TV (a
couple of hours per week), and only upgraded because
my old TV decided to spontaneously "retire" on me. But
since getting a widescreen HDTV, I can only say "wow!".
The difference just blows me away. For the simplest
example, on both my old and new TVs, I have TV-out
from my PC... Previously, I could kinda read a 16
point font, if I squinted a bit. Now, I can read
most web pages, at a 10 point font. It makes *that*
much difference.
It looks like you're writing a slashdot
post! Office assistance can help you write
your post.
Except, this involves the US Army. So in this
case, Clippy pops up and asks,
It looks like your government plans further
unilateral "preemtive" strikes in the Middle
East. Would you like to:
Write a new will?
Write a suicide note?
Move to Canada?
Invest in Halliburton?
Curl up in a ball under your bed and cry?
Learn to enjoy the smell of napalm in the morning?
Okay, I don't want to hear the arguments
about infringing on my fair use rights, I
understand those completely and can assure
you all, issues like this make me want to
curl up into a ball and hide under the bed
some times (that, or start ranting and raving
until I foam at the mouth)...
But from a technological point of view (all
that matters in practice, since we
geeks will circumvent this crap, legal or
not), how would this affect me (and those
in the same situation)?
Example - This year, I finally upgraded my
ancient 15-year-old TV (the lack of even an
S-Video in finally got to me). So I (or
rather, "my household") bought a nice
widescreen HDTV (480p/1080i capable). Now,
as with most such products currently on
the market, it doesn't actually have a built-in
HDTV tuner, so I would need an external one
that connects via component video.
So, when HDTV becomes popular enough to warrant
getting a decoder box, that box (currently)
would have to support the broadcast flag. But,
since the decoder would just output plain old
component video to my TV that has no idea about
the broadcast flag (not including a decoder, it
also doesn't have to recognize the flag), what
stops me from sticking my SVHS (or better, I
personally plan to wait for a similar recorder
that goes straight to HD-DVD) on that
already-decoded signal, rather than on the raw
(broadcast-flag-containing) input?
I don't mean this as a troll, or as I said, in
any way to minimize the importance of simply
getting stupid laws like this fixed. But really,
how would the broadcast flag even matter, when
the signal has to get to the TV somehow, and
most HDTVs currently sold don't include a
built-in tuner?
Because it seems insightful. I'd only really
add two points - Learn a martial art (as one of
the first decent posts pointed out), and get a
buzz cut (obviating hair care).
Isolating children from peers and reality is
not a good way to impart social skills.
You can learn to fake social skills later in
life. You can't learn 26 languages, total
mastery of mathematics, and how to most rapidly
level your half-erdu mage/thief, later in life.
Social skills are built through experience,
now from memorizing a set of strategies for
coping with the stupidity of other people.
Wrong. Social skills come from a fairly simple
stimuli/response mechanism. Geeks tend to not
learn that early in life due to seeing them as
pointless, but six months of study (usually, the
same six months when they become more interested
in girls than in fungi, relating back to the GP's
assertion "get them laid early in life") will
suffice. No, geeks will never become gods of
socialization, but I fully believe that results
from them not wanting to (ie, have better
ways to waste their time than on nonstop typical
primate behaviors such as grooming and flattery).
sort of an "I'm better than everyone and that's
why they hate me"
I hate to break this to you but... Well... Yes, you've
hit the proverbial nail on the head, except <gasp>
they have the right idea, and you will end up stuck in
mediocrity (or in management, the one discipline that
somehow trumps geekdom with ass-kissing prowess) for
the rest of your life.
And I know of whence I speak
Funny, I have a clue about the topic as well,
having breezed through a degree in psych in my
spare credit-hours while earning an engineering degree.
We all have our points of reference. You have
your anecdotal ones, I have my statistically
significant ones. And we both manage
to survive in the same world... Curious, that.
You have the bought into the societal delusion
that "equal" under the law really does mean
that we all have the exact same level of ability.
Wrong. Some people perform so far above
you (and me, I don't mean this egotistically) that
we can't even comprehend what they think about while
taking a dump, much less have any right to scold
them for their choice of mental specialization.
Those people will produce the next gen of CPUs... No,
scratch that, of some product we all can't live without
yet have never even heard of. If it makes you
feel better to belittle them, go ahead. They honestly
don't give a damn what you think - They'll come
up with the next "killer app" without so much as a
single thought about your opinion.
Of course, some comparable social-skill-genius will
manage to rob them of the profits from said creation,
but they'll create, none-the-less, and we'll all
benefit from their "aloofness".
I'm curious about the loss of quality you
mention in DVDs.
Nothing really bad, but for example, you can't
do progressive scan video over anything less
than component (which my video card lacks, though
I'll admit I really should upgrade to one with
DVI), so you'd have to drop the quality to 480i.
Still good, I'll grant, but particularly for
action sequences or small text, you can easily
spot the difference once you know what to look
for.
As for HDTV, you must be something wrong if you're
stuck with a 4:3 picture. If you're in Linux land
it's time to learn about modelines. If you're in
Widnows land try "Powerstrip".
Ah, thanks for the tip (my livingroom PC runs
Windows) on Powerview. I still don't have 16:9
out, but thanks to Powerview, I at least know
the problem involves how Twinview on a GeForce
2 handles the second monitor. The system itself
doesn't see the second head, because the card
doesn't consider it an actual monitor, just a
section of a single display that it maps to the
TV-out port. Looks like I have no choice but
to upgrade my video card, if I want 16:9 480p
out.:-(
EB is wrong in this case twice and will suffer
a customer backlash, if it gets the publicity it
deserves. The only thing that gets a corporations
attention anymore is a big hit in the wallet.
This unfortunately has the potential to help
EB's PR, though - It provides free advertising about
a fact they cannot legally announce - That
they will accept and resell stolen property, and
do their damnedest to block any attempts to prove
the theft or to restore the stolen property to its
rightful owner.
Now, most legit purchasers may find this a tad
unsavory, but will just assume it doesn't apply
if they only buy new merchandise. Quite a few
people, however, will consider this a godsend
to getting shady "used" merchandise.
Of course, personally, I don't understand why people
even still shop at places like EB. If you know exactly
what you want, search for it online. You can usually
get it for around half-price compared to local
stores, and that before you consider not
having to pay sales tax. My most recent example - I
bought a few seasons of a popular TV series (won't
say what, because I got it as a gift for someone,
who reads Slashdot) on DVD. Local retail chains
had them for a total of just over $200. Amazon had
them for $170. Looking around online, and using two
different stores (one had a horrible price on the
first season, apparently they used that one as the
money maker for the discount on the rest), I
managed to get them all for under $120 including
shipping.
Even worse, is the average user trying to get
the computer to output to the TV set.
My livingroom PC goes out to the
TV - Really simple setup. I literally
just plugged the TV-out into the SVideo port
on the TV, and enabled TwinView in the video
setup. Nothing more, and it just worked.
Now, I really only use that for dumping Flash
content to the TV. But it works just as well
for playing DVDs. Though, unless you have a
pure DVI card-to-TV connection (currently still
fairly rare), only an idiot would use such a
setup over a standalone DVD player due to the
loss of quality. But for recorded standard
TV-quality material, SVideo works just fine,
with no noticeable image degradation.
As my biggest annoyance, I have a widescreen
HDTV (16:9 480p/720i), but the video card will
only send a 4:3 picture. Still, I consider
that relatively minor, since virtually
everything (other than widescreen DVDs, which
I already addressed) uses 4:3 anyway.
Oh, and a free tip to anyone trying to use
S-Video based TV-out... Look online for "SVHS"
cables, rather than trying to find an actual
S-Video cable. Same thing, except you'll pay
around $50 for a 12-foot doubly-shielded S-Video
cable, compared with $7 (or less... I found one
place for $3, but since they only did
assorted cables, I didn't need anything else to
meet the minimum order) for the same thing
under the different name.
People seem to have all these spooked-out
misconceptions about.Net, most of which have
no basis in reality.
As the parent (basically) said, you can consider it
just a new API for windows, comparable to the VB
runtimes or, more accurately, an extention to the
idea of "Win32", which includes (as the name would
suggest, thought not entirely based on) quite
a lot more inbuilt support for network-oriented
tasks.
I have to give these guys credit, they have
come up with a wonderful idea...
I realize that stable PC-based PVR software
has existed for a few years now. But nothing
designed for your typical non-geek Windows
user. Snapstream has managed to take the
idea of "I already have a PC, why should I but
a TiVo that basically contains a PC, rather than
using what I have" to the mainstream masses.
For anyone who says "just use Myth", you've
totally missed the point. I agree, and
personally would recommend any geeks use it.
But for those who have only heard of Linux
from IBM's ads, and who need their nephew to
come over every time they accidently change
their homepage... This product has a LOT of
potential.
And kudos to them for sticking to the idea of
end-user rights (at least those comparable to
a standard VCR)... Not wavering on the "skip
a commercial" feature by calling it something
like "30 second advance" or making you activate
it by a special hack, they put it right out
there as a selling point. And sending the
encoded media to any PC on your LAN, rather
than requiring you to physically swap out
your HDD to get the content off a
semi-proprietary box. I sincerely wish them
well in their impending string of lawsuits
from the MPAA.
I agree, and didn't mean to imply that he
necessarily went about this with the best of
intentions (not many people would blow $300k
of their own money purely for the benefit of
the county government).
But, I can't see any way that the this can
count as outright extortion. Even if he
did it for publicity or other non-monetary
considerations, without a contract (which
both articles make clear as one of the big
problems in this situation), he has no
obligation to continue providing the
service.
So does the county "owe" him any money? I'd
say morally yes, but legally no. But does he
need to keep providing the service if they
don't pay? Again, no. Not extortion, just
basic capitalism. If I stop paying my cable,
and my cable company shuts me off for not
paying, I'd get laughed out of court if I
cried "extortion!". Even lacking a contract
(let's say I found the cable live when I moved
in, and just started using it), I would
get charged with theft of services when the CC
noticed, not the other way around.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, someone feel free to correct me, but how did any of the competitors fail in this one? They only needed to get their entry to go 142 miles on autopilot... 142 miles across a completely barren plain, with very few obstacles.
I would expect that a stock 4x4 truck would have gotten further with no modifications beyond a brick on the gas pedal and the steering-wheel locked to go straight.
Something about this doesn't sound right (no, not a conspiracy theory, just that everything I've read on this has apparently omitted some very critical detail that would make the challenge considerable more... Well... "Challenging").
Anyone care to enlighten me?
2 years of military duty might teach our nations emerging adults a thing or two about self disipline, respect, hard work, and preparedness.
You almost certainly meant that as a troll, but, I'll bite...
Damned lot of good those "skills" will do a corpse. And before you say that this wouldn't necessarily mean going off to war, I'd point out that in GW1, Afghanistan, and GW2, more people died before and after primary combat, than during.
Suggestions like this absolutely sicken me. Forcing someone to join a group of government sanctioned murderers against their will, in my book, counts as one of most "evil" acts possible. Ted Bundy had nothing on Rumsfeld.
And I don't write this just because it means I may well end up drafted - I would have a hard choice to make, between moving to Canada or going in willingly with the goal of rooting and taking down as many military systems as I could (as Thomas Hobbes wrote, "The prisoner being led to death by his jailers has the right and obligation to resist with whatever force is necessary". If, in such a situation, it took the complete subversive dismantlement of the US military's IT infrastructure, so it goes).
Disgusting, pure and simple. If you want to join, good for you. If so few people want to go off to die that the government needs to institute a draft, well, I can think of no better indication that we should not go off to "see the world, meet interesting people and kill them".
And just for the record, spare me the trouble of invoking Godwin's law. Yes, sometimes war appears justified - Though only to defend against an immediate mortal threat to one's self.
Perhaps someone more civil-engineeringly inclined than myself can answer this...
We already have exceedingly strong hollow glass blocks available for construction. Perhaps not quite as strong as cast concrete, but I've seen three-plus-story walls made entirely from them, so certainly good enough to use for a large portion of your typical two-story house.
Additionally, judging by the pictures at the linked site, this concrete doesn't really transmit all that much light... More like a (closed) window shade, than a window.
So, what would a person actually use this stuff for? I'll give it a few points for coolness, but from every angle I can think of, some other material seems better suited to the task.
Any ideas?
You still didn't explain AVC and ASP. Maybe they are acronyms of some kind?
:-)
Ah, all that typing, and I failed to actually answer your question. Sorry.
ASP: Advanced Simple Profile, which refers to the most common form of MPEG4 (such as used by DivX). This form of MPEG4 includes literally dozens of "profiles", each designed to optimize the stream for various uses (resolutions, decoding CPU needs, bandwidth, etc). ASP itself doesn't even refer (uniquely) to one particular profile, but most people use it to mean "the best quality you can get".
AVC: Advanced Video Coding, the catch-all name for H.264.10, to distinguish it in common usage from MPEG4 part 2. H.264.10 includes only three profiles (just called "baseline", "main", and "extended")
Who with an ounce of sense would request any sort of e-mail promotion, given the tendency those things have to multiply of those accord? Don't answer that.
I've answered you not because I disagree, but to add a bit to your point.
You have pointed out what I consider a major flaw in most companies' marketing strategy; namely, assuming I want to know about product updates.
When I want a new product, I search for it on the web. I read a number of independant reviews to find the "best" product to meet my needs, then I use a few price search engines to find the best price on that product, then I buy it from the cheapest place that doesn't have half its users complaining about their service.
So, now, marketing gurus, take note of that process. Notice where mass mailings from your company fit in? Bingo, they do not. Not even a little. In fact, if I find your mass mailings just a tad too spam-like (or if I EVER notice you've sold my address, which I can tell since I use disposeable email addresses), you can guarantee that I will never buy from you again, even if you do have the best price, and will also warn anyone that asks my advice (which for the typical geek means "almost everyone they know") to avoid you as well.
So, my suggestions...
1) Stop bothering us with mail, immediately. You waste your time, our time, bandwidth, and may well incur our "squirrely wrath".
2) List yourself on every price search engine you can find. At the very least, list yourself in Pricegrabber, NexTag, and shopper.com. And If you sell PC hardware and don't list through Pricewatch, consider yourself as good as nonexistant to me. Seriously, if any marketing folks read this and only remember one point, re-read this one. List with price search sites, or vanish.
3) Don't piss off your customers. If you list a product at a given price, you'd better actually have it, and have it for the listed price (or better, I won't fault any company for that). If you make me wait an obscenely long time to get it, I will cancel my order after the third day it doesn't ship. If you give me the runaround because I don't want your crappy accessories and extended warranties, not only will I cancel my order, I will report you for bait-and-switch; additionally, if you ship via US mail, you commit felony mail fraud (which I will also report you for) by taking longer than two weeks to ship (regardless of whether or not you try to avoid this by some cheesy "6 to 8 weeks" disclaimer). Overall though, if you run a legit operation, none of that will apply. Just list what you have, honor your prices, and don't treat your customers like sheep (even though most of them probably act like it, and will buy anything you tell them to, enough people will get pissed to provide plenty of negative feedback for me to find).
I think time has dulled all of our memories somewhat. So, I found a few relevant links. You have the end results correct, but the way we got there has quite a lot of relevance to the present topic...
1. Sony sue Connectix over their PS1 emulator. Settled out of court: Sony buy Connectix's emulator and promptly bury it.
Gamespot has an article covering the last actual case resolved in court on this issue, from 05/17/2000...
Now, the very next day Sony filed another suit, and Connectix settled. However, remember that Connectix, as a commercial project, had profit as a goal, not the good of the retrogaming community. So, Connectix didn't settle because they feared loosing (every indication, right down to the USSC refusing to entertain Sony's claims, suggested Sony had basically no case), the settled because Sony gave them far more than their cute little toy emulater would have ever made them.
So on this one, I would say we both have it right - Connectix did sell-out, in the context of settling the suit against them, but they basically won their day in court (the more important event here, in the bigger picture, since it set a legal precedent).
2. Sony sue Bleem! over their PS1 emulator. Bleem! go bankrupt defending the case, case dropped.
This one seems a tad less clear (plenty of articles out there about the case, but the timeline seems very muddy). However, I did find evidence that Bleem! at least survived Sony's initial onslaught, at Game Marketwatch, from 05/23/2001: So, at the very least, Bleem! didn't go under directly from Sony's initial suit - They went under because Sony pulled an MS-like tactic, using their market dominance to prevent anyone from making or selling Bleemcast.
Additionally, MobyGames has a brief introduction to emulator case history, discussing both the Connectix and Bleem! suits, as well as Nintendo's attack on UltraHLE. It includes the delicious quote (bolding mine), I find it particularly interesting that Nintendo has taken a new approach, since the courts have repeatedly decided that emulation counts as fair use - They've opted to approach the patent issue (the first phrase in bold above) as this very topic addresses.
I suspect they will have some serious problems, however. With this current patent, filed for in 2000 and just now granted, prior art most definitely exists - On February 5th, 1997 Nicola Salmoria released MAME v0.1, which by the very nature of what it does (and its very name), it needs to decide what system to emulate based on the ROM set presented. Several other emulators (usually within a product family, such as SegaEMU for SG1000/SMS/Genesis/SCD, or VisualBoy Advance, for GB/GBC/SGB/SGB2/GBA) also support selecting a different emulation core based on the ROM, but I do not know offhand if any of those predate 2000. MAME, however, most certainly does.
This aught to push the 320GB drives into the sub-$200 category within a few weeks. About time, too, the prices have lingered between $250 and $300 for months now.
;-)
Nothing like a bigger-better-faster-harder product to make the rest nice and cheap.
I don't think there are any freeware Game Boy Advance games in circulation yet.
;-)
Hmph, shows what you know...
Why, from any of a dozen websites, you can download literally hundreds of pirate E-Texts that run on the GBA. Even pirate TV episodes encoded to play on the GBA (though of seriously low quality).
But yes, "homebrew" GBA games exist. In fact, grepping through the latest GoodGBA list, I get a count of 2,848 public domain games that exist for the Gameboy Advance, compared to only roughly 1,400 "real" games (based on GBA Renamer, which only includes commercial releases, since GoodGBA includes all those pirate etexts and the like). Quite a good number, I'd say!
If I still bought Nintendo, I would stop after hearing this sort of cheapshot move.
So, you've stopped buying PS/PS2 games, I take it?
Because, Sony sued (and lost against!) Bleem quite a few years ago, for emulating the original Playstation.
The patent is for a handheld emulator that can dynamically chose which platform to emulate based on the input file it was asked to load.
Kinda like MAME, running on any portable device?
Or most of the SMS/GG emulators?
Or the GBA/GBC/GB emulators?
see your point, that most people have started ranting with no idea about what they should rant about, but... Prior art for this still most definitely exists.
Please expand and explain AVC and ASP. I'll Google it myself, but for the sake of everybody...
Well, if you want a somewhat technical explanation, I would recommend reading This (warning, PDF). Very well written, with enough technical details to satisfy the casually interested geek, while readible enough for non-geeks to get the general idea.
For just the quick-and-dirty... The MPEG4 AVC (aka MPEG4 part 10, aka H.26L aka H.264.10) includes quite a few new techniques at every step of the encoding, from preprocessing to interframe prediction to new frame types to new residual handling methods. These make encoding a lot more CPU intensive, but produce considerably better results (Oddly, most sources claim only 40-50% better than MPEG2, which I find absurd, since even ASP encoders manages to do better than that).
It may help some people to better appreciate the difference by seeing some side-by-side comparisons (not exactly the best possible test conditions, but they make their point)... Balooga has a brief overview of the MPEG4 AVC vs the ASP and even MPEG2 available... Check out the screen shots, in particular.
Interstingly, on the topic of nomenclature, I think it would make people far less confused if we all called it H.264.10, rather than MPEG4 AVC. Up to and including what we normally think of as MPEG4 (the MPEG4-2 ASP), all the MPEG versions remained backward compatible. An MPEG1 stream counts as a valid MPEG2 stream, and an MPEG2 stream counts as a valid MPEG4-2 ASP stream. The AVC standard, however, departed from that backward compatibility. Not necessarily a bad idea, but by not picking a new name, everyone seem rather confused about exactly which names refer to which standards (similar to USB2, but worse, because each version has several sub-versions).
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Microsoft won! We can't let that happen. Let's discredit the test.
Actually, considering that WMV9 supposedly uses the MPEG4 AVC (while the rest use the ASP), I would say that by more-or-less tying with DivX, MS lost, big-time. It took twice as long (damned good, for an AVC implementation) to produce comparable results (damned bad, for an AVC implementation). I had seriously expected WMV9 to utterly crush the competition in this test, before reading the article, yet it did not.
This may mean nothing to someone trolling as an AC, but to those of us likely to actually use one of these codecs based on their technological merits, this should send up a few huge red flags regarding WMV9. If MS had an actually decent AVC encoder, I'd use it in a heartbeat (though only because, that I know of, no other real (as in non-pre-alpha) and almost-free (as in beer) implementations of the AVC profile exist)... AVC has the potential to yield the same quality at a quarter of the bitrate of the ASP. To only perform comparably... Poor showing indeed.
So complain that I just want to cry about MS winning, but if you believe that, you clearly don't understand the encoding methods involved here.
However, as I said in my original post, this test has absolutely no validity. I would like to see a fair test, for the exact reason I mention here (ie, does MS's AVC really perform that poorly?), but the present comparison can at best make me raise an eyebrow at such an unexpected result.
If I considered that as their worst methodological flaw, I'd tend to agree with you completely.
However, for those who haven't bothered to read the article, two points (well, more than two, but as examples...) stuck out as completely invalidating their results:
and...
Anyone else spot the problem, here?
First of all, starting with lossy source material automatically injects artifacts into the video. A codec that looks for similar ways to trim bits as the original (MPEG2), ie, MPEG4, will natually have a distinct advantage in having fewer artifacts in the final result. Not that I can think of any means by which they could have obtained high-quality "raw" video, but any valid test of an encoder's capabilities would require them to do so.
And, as if that didn't introduce enough bias, they then reencoded in Indeo 5 format, before using each "real" codec under consideration. Again, that injects its own artifacts, and favors codecs that look for similar ways to trim bits. But, all four of the codecs tested can deal with MPEG2 as source material, so even the "to make it fair" argument falls flat here.
Overall, this so-called "comparison" has zero external validity, in the strict experimental sense. They managed to waste a few hours of CPU time, nothing more.
At the very least (if they couldn't get ahold of raw HQ video), going straight from MPEG2 would have given a meaningful comparison of "how it will look ripped from a DVD". But by the Indeo pass, they removed even that as a possible claim.
Overall, I agree with you. We, the audience, lost this one - Not because of the crap pulled on both sides, or because of increased rates, or because of missed "favorite show"s...
We "lost", because this had the potential to go to court and make the FCC's ruling of a few years ago (about unbundled content) actually apply, giving us some real choice in our available programming (which would benefit everyone except those who produce the worst of the worst for content). Bundling has no effect beyond subsidizing the crap on TV... For every Comedy Central, we have a dozen RTPs, BETs, Travel Channels, and the like. No one actually watches that crap, but it stays on the air because bundling such as this most recent debacle with Viacom makes it basically "free" for everyone (except the end viewers), while providing an extremely niche marketing demographic.
Personally, I would like to pay for exactly four channels - SciFi, Comedy Central, Discovery, and Cartoon Network. The rest may as well not even exist, for all I care. Yet, I pay something like $60/mo for the joy of having 74 (out of 78 total) channels that I literally will never watch. Now, people who watch a lot of TV (I'll proudly admit that I only watch a few hours per week) may use a few more channels, but how many people can claim that, on a regular basis, they watch more than a dozen stations?
I do, however, disagree with you on one point...
Not many people are willing to pay off the rest of their contract *and* start paying a new one just to switch service over this.
Generally, when a service provider makes a major change to their offerings, their customers can get out of long-term contracts without paying more than the remainder of the current month. This reflects the "two-way" nature of engaging in an actual contract - Neither side can unilaterally change the terms of the contract (which in this case, would include suddenly turning off one of the biggest content providers in the world). They may balk at the idea, but mention "small claims court" and "breach of contract", and you'll get them to back off really fast. Several friends of mine used this recently to get out of their cell-phone contracts (with Cingular, I think, but not 100% sure) when they drastically changed their terms regarding how they bill for "roaming" time.
This would have been funny if it weren't so biased.
It would indeed count as biased, except for one point...
With the exception of the "Halliburton" crack (whose shady contracts even our Republican-controlled congress found unkosher enough to look into), I took great care to use only descriptions that Bush himself has used. He had (before the so-called "war") publically stated that we would, if necessary, take "unilateral" action. He has acknowledged that our attack on Iraq counted as "preemtive", to "prevent" Saddam from using his mythical WMDs. And he has taken no effort whatsoever to conceal his finger-pointings at the likes of Iran and Syria, suggesting that, if reelected (or more likely, sometime in early October), he will get us into another pissing contest in the Middle East (I would say in North Korea, but Bush strikes me as the worst type of coward - He'll stomp all over the 98lb weakings on the playground, but run home to Momma UN when facing an opponent willing to defend himself).
So, I hate to have to tell you this (well, not really, it actually gives me a warm sense of satisfaction, or I wouldn't even have bothered replying to an AC), but if you found my post biased, you have to consider the reality itself biased.
Now this post, you could call biased. But not because I have distorted the facts - Rather, because I have presented it as my opinion. Big difference. Learn it.
Oh, and OB-"get-a-real-account-ya-pansy".
The early-adopters would have a shit-fit about all of their uber-$$ hardware turning into worthless scrap
;-)
At this point, I don't really think those of us upgrading to HDTV count as "early adopters", anymore... By the FCC's own rules, NTSC will die by the end of 2006 (The actual mandate reads oddly, but that seems like the basic idea of it). I don't know if 480i (basically our current NTSC, phrased as an ATSC standard) would count under that, but once HDTV broadcasts become ubiquitous, I doubt many stations would want to look like crap compared to the rest.
Or sometime around 2008 or so they will find some way to "upgrade" the system that will effectively lock out your obsolete flag-free tuner and/or TV.
I worry most about that idea... Should I buy a flag-free tuner now, and risk it becoming a paperweight in less than two years? Or should I wait, and risk my entire TV becoming obsolete? Or will it not matter, and in less than five years whatever I have now will only work as a dedicated monitor for playing video games on?
As much as I hate getting "cable descrambler" spam, somehow I suspect that illegal decoder boxes will turn into a huge market in the next few years...
Anyone who doesn't own an HDTV faces the dilemma of whether to buy a flag-free tuner quickly or to refuse to buy into the crippled system at all.
If you've never seen "real" HDTV (even 480p, such as you can get off many DVDs now, if your player supports progressive), a normal NTSC TV looks just fine. But once you visit a friend who has it, you'll start to hate what you have more and more.
Personally, I don't even watch all that much TV (a couple of hours per week), and only upgraded because my old TV decided to spontaneously "retire" on me. But since getting a widescreen HDTV, I can only say "wow!". The difference just blows me away. For the simplest example, on both my old and new TVs, I have TV-out from my PC... Previously, I could kinda read a 16 point font, if I squinted a bit. Now, I can read most web pages, at a 10 point font. It makes *that* much difference.
Except, this involves the US Army. So in this case, Clippy pops up and asks,
Okay, I don't want to hear the arguments about infringing on my fair use rights, I understand those completely and can assure you all, issues like this make me want to curl up into a ball and hide under the bed some times (that, or start ranting and raving until I foam at the mouth)...
But from a technological point of view (all that matters in practice, since we geeks will circumvent this crap, legal or not), how would this affect me (and those in the same situation)?
Example - This year, I finally upgraded my ancient 15-year-old TV (the lack of even an S-Video in finally got to me). So I (or rather, "my household") bought a nice widescreen HDTV (480p/1080i capable). Now, as with most such products currently on the market, it doesn't actually have a built-in HDTV tuner, so I would need an external one that connects via component video.
So, when HDTV becomes popular enough to warrant getting a decoder box, that box (currently) would have to support the broadcast flag. But, since the decoder would just output plain old component video to my TV that has no idea about the broadcast flag (not including a decoder, it also doesn't have to recognize the flag), what stops me from sticking my SVHS (or better, I personally plan to wait for a similar recorder that goes straight to HD-DVD) on that already-decoded signal, rather than on the raw (broadcast-flag-containing) input?
I don't mean this as a troll, or as I said, in any way to minimize the importance of simply getting stupid laws like this fixed. But really, how would the broadcast flag even matter, when the signal has to get to the TV somehow, and most HDTVs currently sold don't include a built-in tuner?
How did this get modded insightful?
Because it seems insightful. I'd only really add two points - Learn a martial art (as one of the first decent posts pointed out), and get a buzz cut (obviating hair care).
Isolating children from peers and reality is not a good way to impart social skills.
You can learn to fake social skills later in life. You can't learn 26 languages, total mastery of mathematics, and how to most rapidly level your half-erdu mage/thief, later in life.
Social skills are built through experience, now from memorizing a set of strategies for coping with the stupidity of other people.
Wrong. Social skills come from a fairly simple stimuli/response mechanism. Geeks tend to not learn that early in life due to seeing them as pointless, but six months of study (usually, the same six months when they become more interested in girls than in fungi, relating back to the GP's assertion "get them laid early in life") will suffice. No, geeks will never become gods of socialization, but I fully believe that results from them not wanting to (ie, have better ways to waste their time than on nonstop typical primate behaviors such as grooming and flattery).
sort of an "I'm better than everyone and that's why they hate me"
I hate to break this to you but... Well... Yes, you've hit the proverbial nail on the head, except <gasp> they have the right idea, and you will end up stuck in mediocrity (or in management, the one discipline that somehow trumps geekdom with ass-kissing prowess) for the rest of your life.
And I know of whence I speak
Funny, I have a clue about the topic as well, having breezed through a degree in psych in my spare credit-hours while earning an engineering degree. We all have our points of reference. You have your anecdotal ones, I have my statistically significant ones. And we both manage to survive in the same world... Curious, that.
You have the bought into the societal delusion that "equal" under the law really does mean that we all have the exact same level of ability. Wrong. Some people perform so far above you (and me, I don't mean this egotistically) that we can't even comprehend what they think about while taking a dump, much less have any right to scold them for their choice of mental specialization.
Those people will produce the next gen of CPUs... No, scratch that, of some product we all can't live without yet have never even heard of. If it makes you feel better to belittle them, go ahead. They honestly don't give a damn what you think - They'll come up with the next "killer app" without so much as a single thought about your opinion.
Of course, some comparable social-skill-genius will manage to rob them of the profits from said creation, but they'll create, none-the-less, and we'll all benefit from their "aloofness".
I'm curious about the loss of quality you mention in DVDs.
:-(
Nothing really bad, but for example, you can't do progressive scan video over anything less than component (which my video card lacks, though I'll admit I really should upgrade to one with DVI), so you'd have to drop the quality to 480i. Still good, I'll grant, but particularly for action sequences or small text, you can easily spot the difference once you know what to look for.
As for HDTV, you must be something wrong if you're stuck with a 4:3 picture. If you're in Linux land it's time to learn about modelines. If you're in Widnows land try "Powerstrip".
Ah, thanks for the tip (my livingroom PC runs Windows) on Powerview. I still don't have 16:9 out, but thanks to Powerview, I at least know the problem involves how Twinview on a GeForce 2 handles the second monitor. The system itself doesn't see the second head, because the card doesn't consider it an actual monitor, just a section of a single display that it maps to the TV-out port. Looks like I have no choice but to upgrade my video card, if I want 16:9 480p out.
EB is wrong in this case twice and will suffer a customer backlash, if it gets the publicity it deserves. The only thing that gets a corporations attention anymore is a big hit in the wallet.
This unfortunately has the potential to help EB's PR, though - It provides free advertising about a fact they cannot legally announce - That they will accept and resell stolen property, and do their damnedest to block any attempts to prove the theft or to restore the stolen property to its rightful owner.
Now, most legit purchasers may find this a tad unsavory, but will just assume it doesn't apply if they only buy new merchandise. Quite a few people, however, will consider this a godsend to getting shady "used" merchandise.
Of course, personally, I don't understand why people even still shop at places like EB. If you know exactly what you want, search for it online. You can usually get it for around half-price compared to local stores, and that before you consider not having to pay sales tax. My most recent example - I bought a few seasons of a popular TV series (won't say what, because I got it as a gift for someone, who reads Slashdot) on DVD. Local retail chains had them for a total of just over $200. Amazon had them for $170. Looking around online, and using two different stores (one had a horrible price on the first season, apparently they used that one as the money maker for the discount on the rest), I managed to get them all for under $120 including shipping.
Even worse, is the average user trying to get the computer to output to the TV set.
My livingroom PC goes out to the TV - Really simple setup. I literally just plugged the TV-out into the SVideo port on the TV, and enabled TwinView in the video setup. Nothing more, and it just worked.
Now, I really only use that for dumping Flash content to the TV. But it works just as well for playing DVDs. Though, unless you have a pure DVI card-to-TV connection (currently still fairly rare), only an idiot would use such a setup over a standalone DVD player due to the loss of quality. But for recorded standard TV-quality material, SVideo works just fine, with no noticeable image degradation.
As my biggest annoyance, I have a widescreen HDTV (16:9 480p/720i), but the video card will only send a 4:3 picture. Still, I consider that relatively minor, since virtually everything (other than widescreen DVDs, which I already addressed) uses 4:3 anyway.
Oh, and a free tip to anyone trying to use S-Video based TV-out... Look online for "SVHS" cables, rather than trying to find an actual S-Video cable. Same thing, except you'll pay around $50 for a 12-foot doubly-shielded S-Video cable, compared with $7 (or less... I found one place for $3, but since they only did assorted cables, I didn't need anything else to meet the minimum order) for the same thing under the different name.
Think of it as the newer VB runtimes.
.Net, most of which have
no basis in reality.
Mod parent up. Seriously.
People seem to have all these spooked-out misconceptions about
As the parent (basically) said, you can consider it just a new API for windows, comparable to the VB runtimes or, more accurately, an extention to the idea of "Win32", which includes (as the name would suggest, thought not entirely based on) quite a lot more inbuilt support for network-oriented tasks.
I have to give these guys credit, they have come up with a wonderful idea...
I realize that stable PC-based PVR software has existed for a few years now. But nothing designed for your typical non-geek Windows user. Snapstream has managed to take the idea of "I already have a PC, why should I but a TiVo that basically contains a PC, rather than using what I have" to the mainstream masses.
For anyone who says "just use Myth", you've totally missed the point. I agree, and personally would recommend any geeks use it. But for those who have only heard of Linux from IBM's ads, and who need their nephew to come over every time they accidently change their homepage... This product has a LOT of potential.
And kudos to them for sticking to the idea of end-user rights (at least those comparable to a standard VCR)... Not wavering on the "skip a commercial" feature by calling it something like "30 second advance" or making you activate it by a special hack, they put it right out there as a selling point. And sending the encoded media to any PC on your LAN, rather than requiring you to physically swap out your HDD to get the content off a semi-proprietary box. I sincerely wish them well in their impending string of lawsuits from the MPAA.
Someone isn't telling the truth.
I agree, and didn't mean to imply that he necessarily went about this with the best of intentions (not many people would blow $300k of their own money purely for the benefit of the county government).
But, I can't see any way that the this can count as outright extortion. Even if he did it for publicity or other non-monetary considerations, without a contract (which both articles make clear as one of the big problems in this situation), he has no obligation to continue providing the service.
So does the county "owe" him any money? I'd say morally yes, but legally no. But does he need to keep providing the service if they don't pay? Again, no. Not extortion, just basic capitalism. If I stop paying my cable, and my cable company shuts me off for not paying, I'd get laughed out of court if I cried "extortion!". Even lacking a contract (let's say I found the cable live when I moved in, and just started using it), I would get charged with theft of services when the CC noticed, not the other way around.