Holy Jebus!! I thought I was the ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD who remembered that game! I can't think how many carpal-tunnel-inducing hours I spent glued to that thing. Nice to find someone who at least doesn't look at me blankly (figuratively speaking) when I say "Intellivision." (Oh, funny post as well...)
Different standards. Error correction on Audio CD players (your Discman) is much more forgiving than on your Sony CD-ROM. The copyright protection schemes generally introduce "noise" into the recording (inaudible to humans, supposedly) which the Audio CD player corrects and smooths over, ignoring the interruption. The more sensitive CD-ROM drive is unable to reconcile the random bits, rendering the CD unplayable.
The standards are referred to as (I believe) "red book" for audio and "purple book" (or perhaps orange?) for CD-ROMS. Could be vice versa...
The extra $30 buys you a remote as well, which the PS2 is not equipped with. I agree that it's unfortunate that the Xbox is not DVD-ready right out of the box, but it's not really apples and apples you're talking about. If you want to control your DVD player with a game controller, then maybe the PS2 is the cheaper way to go. If you'd like remote capability, then the price difference is negligible.
I do agree though, that Sony's relationship with its developers is not a particularly weak point in my eyes.
Not only can you fit a 3.5" floppy into a zip drive, you can fit 5" floppy into a zip drive.
Had a student of mine bring in some files "from home" on a 5" disk. Wanted to use the Zip drive becuase he'd "heard it was faster" than a floppy. Being a smartass and overestimating the user (as usual) I told him to give it a try and tell me how it worked.
He sat down, looked at the drive slot and disk, then ( before I could stop him) folded the floppy neatly down the center and stuffed it into the drive. Cost of me being a smartass: new Zip drive for the lab computer. D'oh!
The Ansul (and other comparable) systems used in restaurants are, for obvious reasons, of relatively low toxicity. Still, when a system is discharged, the kitchen must be thouroughly cleaned, then inspected by the health department (or an approved agency) before the restaurant may be reopened (at least in Indiana).
The foam is also designed to smother grease fires without starting electrical fires and (IMHO) would be largely ineffective in dealing with the kinds of temperatures we saw in the WTC incident. If you consider that recharging a system can cost in the neighborhood of $3,000 for a SMALL restaurant (not sure about installation costs, let alone retro-fitting the install), then add in the added cost of a system using the foam they have on airport runways to smother jet fuel fires, then multiply by the size difference between Red Lobster and all the high-rise towers in every major US city...well, see points 1, 3, and 5 above.
Not trying to be a troll, here, but it seems unlikely that an automatically-engaged auto-pilot system which cannot be overridden by a human would ever gain approval. If it could be overridden, then it would be ineffective, I suppose.
Perhaps a compromise? What about a pilot-triggered, irreversible auto-pilot? Terrorists board a plane, take the crew hostage, and begin making demands of the captain (or attempt to enter the cockpit and take control). Pilot presses "giant, red button" enters secret key sequence, confirms and--Presto! The plane will now begin beaconing an emergency signal as the auto-pilot takes control and lands the plane at the nearest airport of suitable size. Rig it so that it cannot be reversed until the plane has landed and powered down.
Seems to work for the night manager at 7-11: take away the ability to "open the safe" as it were. They might take a few lives in the cabin, but they would be unable to use the plane as a missile.
That's true, but I think the main advantage here is the ability to archive entire seasons of your favorite programs on DVD. So the issue becomes not only the disposable nature of removable media, but its infinite (read: buy more discs) storage capacity without loss of fidelity. You can archive TiVo to VHS fairly easily, but not to a digital format without hacking the unit/OS (as I understand it). This is simply an issue of paying for convenience.
Pretty cool. I must admit though, I can think of better things to do with $1,700.00--still, the price will drop, as it invariably must...
If your users can't click on the VIRUS_FIX button, why not insert a batch file into the login script? Ours gives the users the opportunity of refusing the first time, but automatically runs the fix and updates the virus signatures upon the second login. Checks the update version and only runs if needed.
Users are Losers. Don't trust 'em to help you out in your job. (And if you think becoming an English teacher is a way to RELIEVE stress, then you better find a good shrink now...)
We have an Open Line forum at work--hard copies posted around the plant of questions directed toward senior managers/vice presidents and the like. When "the Internet was STILL broken" the next morning, (taking down the network is just not an option at an automobile factory) we started getting nasty Open Lines from users who couldn't check their stocks and Hotmail. My favorite began...
"Well, it's 6 PM and the Internet is still down. Nice to see that the IS department all went home promptly at 5 PM, whether anything was fixed or not..."
Senior Manager wrote a scathing (and publicly posted) reply, informing the author that most of us were here from 8 AM till 3 AM that night: in the server room where the problem had to be addressed. (Except me, I was here from 6 AM till 3AM, and back at 6 AM: Yay!)
Of course, when the purple potato is introduced into famine stricken areas with exhausted soil, I don't see the color being a problem. After all, there's a considerable difference between a village in third-world nation and your father's church potluck. At least, I hope there is...for his sake.
This brief article (http://www.econ.wayne.edu/~agoodman/2010/week9/CA BLE.HTM) from the NY Times comments briefly on the out-of-control inflation in cable services thanks to deregulatory actions dating back to 1996. It seems the government expected satellite and telecoms to be a bit more competitive with cable (though this article pertains mainly to cable television, I believe the same to hold true with broadband as well).
Sounds like the time the British, concerned about the rising levels of malaria, used DDT to kill all the mosquitos in the Congo area. It worked, but it poisoned all the lizards, birds, and bats that fed upon the contaminated insects. Then the local cat population began to disappear, having been poisoned from eating the dead and dieing critters and birds. With the cats gone, the local rat population exploded and now the risk was not of malaria, but plague. In true English style, the Brits decided that the best way to eliminate the rats was to inroduce cats back into the area...via parachute. Yep, wooden crates containing cats were air-dropped into the region. Rather than the WKRP meets Monty Python ending one might suspect, it actually worked. So rather than worrying about the moral/biological implications of this tampering with our ecosystem, we should really be investigating the cost of parachutes for giant, carnivorous hedgehogs...
Before I start...the mini-series was visually stunning. It was a real treat to see modern special effects applied to Herbert's classic. That said, I think that the agenda for making this movie must have gone something like this:
Day 1: Shred novel
Day 2: Watch Lynch's 1984 version of Dune
Day 3: Begin shooting.
Really vital background information skipped, charaters speaking lines Herbert wrote for other characters, major plot points out of sequence...
Making a movie out of a novel is always a matter of choosing one's battles when it comes to the integrity of the story line, I realize this. I just feel that an opportunity was missed here.
In 1984, Lynch spent two hours of screen time drawing us into to Herbert's world. His version had some glaring ommissions, I grant you, but what was on the screen was largely consistent with the novel. The folks at Sci-fi had three times the amount of screen time, yet seemed to be so enamoured of the beautiful sets and great special effects that they let the integrity of the plot fall to the wayside.
It is fun to see these characters come to life once more though...
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Does NOBODY remember what happened in Ogdenville? North Haverbrook? Come on, people!!
"...if you've got to keep the buggers fresh, do it by washing 'em once a week."
Maybe these will find their niche in English train depots?
Holy Jebus!! I thought I was the ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD who remembered that game! I can't think how many carpal-tunnel-inducing hours I spent glued to that thing. Nice to find someone who at least doesn't look at me blankly (figuratively speaking) when I say "Intellivision." (Oh, funny post as well...)
Different standards. Error correction on Audio CD players (your Discman) is much more forgiving than on your Sony CD-ROM. The copyright protection schemes generally introduce "noise" into the recording (inaudible to humans, supposedly) which the Audio CD player corrects and smooths over, ignoring the interruption. The more sensitive CD-ROM drive is unable to reconcile the random bits, rendering the CD unplayable.
The standards are referred to as (I believe) "red book" for audio and "purple book" (or perhaps orange?) for CD-ROMS. Could be vice versa...
Ummm...never mind the fact that Silent Hill II is coming out for the Game Cube.
The extra $30 buys you a remote as well, which the PS2 is not equipped with. I agree that it's unfortunate that the Xbox is not DVD-ready right out of the box, but it's not really apples and apples you're talking about. If you want to control your DVD player with a game controller, then maybe the PS2 is the cheaper way to go. If you'd like remote capability, then the price difference is negligible.
I do agree though, that Sony's relationship with its developers is not a particularly weak point in my eyes.
Not only can you fit a 3.5" floppy into a zip drive, you can fit 5" floppy into a zip drive.
Had a student of mine bring in some files "from home" on a 5" disk. Wanted to use the Zip drive becuase he'd "heard it was faster" than a floppy. Being a smartass and overestimating the user (as usual) I told him to give it a try and tell me how it worked.
He sat down, looked at the drive slot and disk, then ( before I could stop him) folded the floppy neatly down the center and stuffed it into the drive. Cost of me being a smartass: new Zip drive for the lab computer. D'oh!
The Ansul (and other comparable) systems used in restaurants are, for obvious reasons, of relatively low toxicity. Still, when a system is discharged, the kitchen must be thouroughly cleaned, then inspected by the health department (or an approved agency) before the restaurant may be reopened (at least in Indiana).
The foam is also designed to smother grease fires without starting electrical fires and (IMHO) would be largely ineffective in dealing with the kinds of temperatures we saw in the WTC incident. If you consider that recharging a system can cost in the neighborhood of $3,000 for a SMALL restaurant (not sure about installation costs, let alone retro-fitting the install), then add in the added cost of a system using the foam they have on airport runways to smother jet fuel fires, then multiply by the size difference between Red Lobster and all the high-rise towers in every major US city...well, see points 1, 3, and 5 above.
Not trying to be a troll, here, but it seems unlikely that an automatically-engaged auto-pilot system which cannot be overridden by a human would ever gain approval. If it could be overridden, then it would be ineffective, I suppose.
Perhaps a compromise? What about a pilot-triggered, irreversible auto-pilot? Terrorists board a plane, take the crew hostage, and begin making demands of the captain (or attempt to enter the cockpit and take control). Pilot presses "giant, red button" enters secret key sequence, confirms and--Presto! The plane will now begin beaconing an emergency signal as the auto-pilot takes control and lands the plane at the nearest airport of suitable size. Rig it so that it cannot be reversed until the plane has landed and powered down.
Seems to work for the night manager at 7-11: take away the ability to "open the safe" as it were. They might take a few lives in the cabin, but they would be unable to use the plane as a missile.
with that Vocabulary Toilet Paper...
This week's word: "vapid."
That's true, but I think the main advantage here is the ability to archive entire seasons of your favorite programs on DVD. So the issue becomes not only the disposable nature of removable media, but its infinite (read: buy more discs) storage capacity without loss of fidelity. You can archive TiVo to VHS fairly easily, but not to a digital format without hacking the unit/OS (as I understand it). This is simply an issue of paying for convenience.
Pretty cool. I must admit though, I can think of better things to do with $1,700.00--still, the price will drop, as it invariably must...
If your users can't click on the VIRUS_FIX button, why not insert a batch file into the login script? Ours gives the users the opportunity of refusing the first time, but automatically runs the fix and updates the virus signatures upon the second login. Checks the update version and only runs if needed.
Users are Losers. Don't trust 'em to help you out in your job. (And if you think becoming an English teacher is a way to RELIEVE stress, then you better find a good shrink now...)
Or was that 3 AM last Tuesday?
We have an Open Line forum at work--hard copies posted around the plant of questions directed toward senior managers/vice presidents and the like. When "the Internet was STILL broken" the next morning, (taking down the network is just not an option at an automobile factory) we started getting nasty Open Lines from users who couldn't check their stocks and Hotmail. My favorite began...
"Well, it's 6 PM and the Internet is still down. Nice to see that the IS department all went home promptly at 5 PM, whether anything was fixed or not..."
Senior Manager wrote a scathing (and publicly posted) reply, informing the author that most of us were here from 8 AM till 3 AM that night: in the server room where the problem had to be addressed. (Except me, I was here from 6 AM till 3AM, and back at 6 AM: Yay!)
Ooops, gotta go, I have a 5 PM tee time...
Of course, when the purple potato is introduced into famine stricken areas with exhausted soil, I don't see the color being a problem. After all, there's a considerable difference between a village in third-world nation and your father's church potluck. At least, I hope there is...for his sake.
Don't worry, it's a common mistake...just remember, Vegans write slightly better poetry.
Probably trying to provoke the intellectually challenged like yourself. Way to rise to the occasion...
Or is that Deep Blue-Red-White-Orange-Yellow-Green?
This brief article (http://www.econ.wayne.edu/~agoodman/2010/week9/CA BLE.HTM) from the NY Times comments briefly on the out-of-control inflation in cable services thanks to deregulatory actions dating back to 1996. It seems the government expected satellite and telecoms to be a bit more competitive with cable (though this article pertains mainly to cable television, I believe the same to hold true with broadband as well).
Does anyone else have visions of the devout standing in airport concourses around the world, wearing multicolored robes and handing out apples?
"Now with 'Super Memoir-Writing Action'"
Sounds like the time the British, concerned about the rising levels of malaria, used DDT to kill all the mosquitos in the Congo area. It worked, but it poisoned all the lizards, birds, and bats that fed upon the contaminated insects. Then the local cat population began to disappear, having been poisoned from eating the dead and dieing critters and birds. With the cats gone, the local rat population exploded and now the risk was not of malaria, but plague. In true English style, the Brits decided that the best way to eliminate the rats was to inroduce cats back into the area...via parachute. Yep, wooden crates containing cats were air-dropped into the region. Rather than the WKRP meets Monty Python ending one might suspect, it actually worked. So rather than worrying about the moral/biological implications of this tampering with our ecosystem, we should really be investigating the cost of parachutes for giant, carnivorous hedgehogs...
Yep. Without a doubt.
Before I start...the mini-series was visually stunning.
It was a real treat to see modern special effects applied to Herbert's classic. That said, I think that the agenda for making this movie must have gone something like this:
Day 1: Shred novel
Day 2: Watch Lynch's 1984 version of Dune
Day 3: Begin shooting.
Really vital background information skipped, charaters speaking lines Herbert wrote for other characters, major plot points out of sequence...
Making a movie out of a novel is always a matter of choosing one's battles when it comes to the integrity of the story line, I realize this. I just feel that an opportunity was missed here.
In 1984, Lynch spent two hours of screen time drawing us into to Herbert's world. His version had some glaring ommissions, I grant you, but what was on the screen was largely consistent with the novel. The folks at Sci-fi had three times the amount of screen time, yet seemed to be so enamoured of the beautiful sets and great special effects that they let the integrity of the plot fall to the wayside.
It is fun to see these characters come to life once more though...