I don't know what it is, but have you tried these things? Apple and OSX *do* rule. I've been a PC guy for well over a decade and a OSX guy for a year. I'll never go back on *my* desktop.
Yeah, I too have seen branching put to such uses, but never in concert with parental controls. I even saw a disc once that did show deleted scenes in place, if you so desired (as a previous poster wanted). I wonder why these things aren't used more, perhaps because it's hard to do?
Will we be seeing movies with built-in flags, so that parents only need to configure the player to skip [sex(base 1/2/3/4)], [violance(blood 1/2/3/4)] etc, it'll be similar to the rating/parental card on cable TVs except with better, more specific control over the content.
DVDs already have parental controls including the ability to seamlessly branch content. If the studios were so inclined, they could provide movies now that seamlessly scale down from an R rating to PG-13, etc.. But they don't. So, in short, no, I doubt they'll be doing what you suggest.
Most of the HD channels currently on DirecTV aren't worth a damn anyway so no real lose. The regular sat channels will not be changing, AFAIK, and the OTA functions of the HDTiVo will still work.
You're assuming that the lossy AAC files you buy from iTunes started out as a CD. My understanding is this is NOT true. AFAIK, iTunes starts with the master tapes and encodes the files at "better than CD" quality. Lossy, yes, but theoretically less so that a 16bit/44.1KHz CD...
If they change the price on the iTune Music Store, I'll just go right back to downloading illegally, thank you very much. $1/song is that magical price point which I'll accept...
It won't make your laptop run any longer, but you'll be able to charge it 3x faster.
I'm no electronics expert (though that won't stop me), but if I remember correctly, batteries capacity is rated in amp-hours (or milli- as appropriate). So if the max current is three times higher, but the draw remains the same, doesn't that equate to 3x capacity?
Moderators: Why the hell is this moderated funny? This is a very good point and is interesting or informative -- not funny. And other replies to this post have pointed out yet more posts from ChipGuy downing TiVo. Certainly seems like this guy has some grudge against them.
I think in Tannenbaum's book there's a reference which states that offloading network processing normally isn't useful, because the CPU that work is offloaded to is always less powerful than the main CPU and the main CPU is normally blocked in it's task until the network processing has completed.
I think in xyz's book there's a reference which states that offloading graphics processing normally isn't useful, because the CPU that work is offloaded to is always less powerful than the main CPU and the main CPU is normally blocked in it's task until the graphics processing has completed.
See how silly that sounds when you substitute network with graphics? We all know that offloading graphics processing is a good thing. Why? Because it's optimized for the task. Why couldn't the same be done for networking?
...other uses. Not other users. Doesn't necessarily mean everyone else can see it. Perhaps they will continue to use it to customize what you see on their pages, etc. I don't think this is inherently evil, though it certainly could be.
I wonder how portable this code is? Would it fare as well on a PPC? The darwine project is already working on integrating QEMU for a completely non-MS emulation layer on OS X, it would be awesome if this code actually made it perform well enough to run those handful of Windows apps that you just can't get or substitute on Mac.
I understand that qemu is also an entire system emulator, but this post calls it a processor emulator. Does the accelerator also help with the general system emulation? Why would you need a processor emulator accelerator that only runs on x86 to emulate an x86 to run Windows? You're already ON an x86... Or is that all this accelerator really is? Some kind of native passthrough? Assuming I had the source and could compile it myself, would it benefit me in emulating a x86 on my PPC?
And in other news, Sprint-Nextel, SBC-AT&T and MCI-Verizon signed a merger agreement today in a move to stave off competition and put an end the mega-mergers of late in the telecomm industry. The companies have issued a joint press-release indicating that the new company will be known as AT&T.
Maybe we should focus on building a site well, not quick? How many PHP/MySQL driven sites have you been to only to be greeted by error pages? Note that I'm not blaming the technology, only those who put them together "quick" and "easy"...
Well... I'd say this would be one case where you'd buy the OEM RAM. The mini-mac's only got one DIMM. So, if you buy the 256MB, then run out and buy a 512MB stick from Crucial, say, you'd be throwing your money away on the 256MB that came with the unit.
Granted, but if you consider that it costs over $400 to upgrade the OEM RAM to 1GB, vs. $150 or so if you buy it yourself, you're still saving enough money to make it worth throwing your money away...
A big part of engineering is figuring out what the user wants. The user can't be trusted to automatically know exactly what it is he wants that's possible to do. If as an engineer you simply take what's initially asked for, you likely won't get far. If something is impossible, you have to explain to your customer that it is, and provide alternatives. Make sure everyone knows exactly what's going on. While marketers, customers, etc. all have their own faults in the process, you can't simply pass the entire buck to them.
Strictly speaking, this is the job of an analyst, not the engineer. However, far too many places don't have analysts and rely upon their engineers to perform that function. I agree, though, that an engineer shouldn't just blindly do what they're told. They become little more than code slaves if they do that, and that's the kind of job they'll find outsourced to India next year...
And how expensive will the players be when they have to have the equivalent computing power of a dual G5 box? Yikes. Granted, dedicated decoding silicon can do more with less horsepower, but I still doubt it will be anywhere near cheap. But, then again, what new technology ever is?
No, but at least you won't be TAXED on it anymore. Which is the point after all. If you don't like having to put so much gas into your car, buy a more efficient car -- or drive less.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, you mean like imgseek?
Yearling? Hah! I said I've been a PC guy for over a decade. I've been in the biz for 15+ years. And my Slashdot ID is a quarter of what yours is. :-)
I don't know what it is, but have you tried these things? Apple and OSX *do* rule. I've been a PC guy for well over a decade and a OSX guy for a year. I'll never go back on *my* desktop.
Yeah, I too have seen branching put to such uses, but never in concert with parental controls. I even saw a disc once that did show deleted scenes in place, if you so desired (as a previous poster wanted). I wonder why these things aren't used more, perhaps because it's hard to do?
Most of the HD channels currently on DirecTV aren't worth a damn anyway so no real lose. The regular sat channels will not be changing, AFAIK, and the OTA functions of the HDTiVo will still work.
Or... How many iPod-touting Slashdotter already have switched?
<raising-hand-and-not-looking-back/>
You're assuming that the lossy AAC files you buy from iTunes started out as a CD. My understanding is this is NOT true. AFAIK, iTunes starts with the master tapes and encodes the files at "better than CD" quality. Lossy, yes, but theoretically less so that a 16bit/44.1KHz CD...
If they change the price on the iTune Music Store, I'll just go right back to downloading illegally, thank you very much. $1/song is that magical price point which I'll accept...
Try InstantSSL. We use these across our medium sized server farm at work with no issues.
I'm no electronics expert (though that won't stop me), but if I remember correctly, batteries capacity is rated in amp-hours (or milli- as appropriate). So if the max current is three times higher, but the draw remains the same, doesn't that equate to 3x capacity?
Moderators: Why the hell is this moderated funny? This is a very good point and is interesting or informative -- not funny. And other replies to this post have pointed out yet more posts from ChipGuy downing TiVo. Certainly seems like this guy has some grudge against them.
You laugh at this, but it's 100% true.
I think in xyz's book there's a reference which states that offloading graphics processing normally isn't useful, because the CPU that work is offloaded to is always less powerful than the main CPU and the main CPU is normally blocked in it's task until the graphics processing has completed.
See how silly that sounds when you substitute network with graphics? We all know that offloading graphics processing is a good thing. Why? Because it's optimized for the task. Why couldn't the same be done for networking?
...other uses. Not other users. Doesn't necessarily mean everyone else can see it. Perhaps they will continue to use it to customize what you see on their pages, etc. I don't think this is inherently evil, though it certainly could be.
I wonder how portable this code is? Would it fare as well on a PPC? The darwine project is already working on integrating QEMU for a completely non-MS emulation layer on OS X, it would be awesome if this code actually made it perform well enough to run those handful of Windows apps that you just can't get or substitute on Mac.
I understand that qemu is also an entire system emulator, but this post calls it a processor emulator. Does the accelerator also help with the general system emulation? Why would you need a processor emulator accelerator that only runs on x86 to emulate an x86 to run Windows? You're already ON an x86... Or is that all this accelerator really is? Some kind of native passthrough? Assuming I had the source and could compile it myself, would it benefit me in emulating a x86 on my PPC?
And in other news, Sprint-Nextel, SBC-AT&T and MCI-Verizon signed a merger agreement today in a move to stave off competition and put an end the mega-mergers of late in the telecomm industry. The companies have issued a joint press-release indicating that the new company will be known as AT&T.
Hmm. Back to square one. Oh well.
Maybe we should focus on building a site well, not quick? How many PHP/MySQL driven sites have you been to only to be greeted by error pages? Note that I'm not blaming the technology, only those who put them together "quick" and "easy"...
And how expensive will the players be when they have to have the equivalent computing power of a dual G5 box? Yikes. Granted, dedicated decoding silicon can do more with less horsepower, but I still doubt it will be anywhere near cheap. But, then again, what new technology ever is?
Me neither. Solid as a rock.
No, but at least you won't be TAXED on it anymore. Which is the point after all. If you don't like having to put so much gas into your car, buy a more efficient car -- or drive less.