"An Intel portable running in Speedstep mode (700mhz or whatever it is these days) still runs browser, office suites, Photoshop, etc. faster than any of today's Macs running at full speed."
Why would you think this? You are saying that an intel 700mhz is faster than any of todays macs? Even the 1.4 ghz? I don't think that there is any debate that the PowerPC is a more efficient chip mhz for mhz...
If you don't like macs, that's fine but no need to make things up.
I see that the xServe and xServe RAID have a high cost to purchase additional drives. Is it possible to put your own standard IDE drives in the expansion bays or are these drives special (due to hot-swapablity maybe)?
$500 per each 180GB IDE drive is a little rough on the wallet for a guy that just wants to set up a badass home network/file/web server.
Does your response regarding marginal dollars hold true for self-employed workers? I was (until recently) self-employed and throughout the year no tax dollars were withheld except for what I submitted myself in my quarterly payments.
Under this scenario, how are marginal dollars measured (based on quarterlies?) or are all the dollars earned in the highest tax bracket? Under that scenario, the parent's web dev friend may be more justified - correct?
Have you ever opened up a mac? You may not be able to swap a whole motherboard but it you can absolutlely use third party parts. In mine I have a sumsung cd burner, random ass ram, seagate ide drives, ati pci graphics cards (upgraded from a voodoo), a scsi card, and any number of firewire and usb add-ons.
Why do people think that Apple welds its machines shut before it ships them?
And I'm sorry but you can't say that a minor player in a large market has a monopoly just because it is slightly different than the rest of the market. What force could Apple exert over the rest of the players in the pc industry? MS could destroy a company as large as intel if it wanted to. That is a monopoly.
This is exactly the case. People keep posting about how the cost of the iApps is rolled into the cpu purchase price - just like the parent's Win98 example. And there is NO EXPECTATION that these apps are a free forever bonus.
Now I fully understand where you are coming from. Put the way you just did, it makes the parent poster's comments seem racist. But...
I feel that it is any government's job to take care of its citizens first. I agree that suddenly revoking visas would be incredibly rude and cause great difficulty for any of those affected and probably should never be attempted. However, imagine that the situation were even more drastic - great depression style. I believe that the government would almost have to do something to make sure the American citizens were first in line for domestic jobs. Tax cuts for companies keeping job onshore would be wise also.
I don't think you can view the idea of revoking H1B's as racist since the people targeted are not of any specific culture/race/age/religion - they are all foreign workers with a specific type of visa. Lame and incredibly inhospitable? Yes. Racist? No.
Oregon doesn't have sales tax either. It does have income tax and a higher than average property tax. Having never owned a home there I don't know how much worse it is.
I grew up in oregon and lived there until I was 26. I moved to California 2 years ago and I am just now used to sales tax and I still resent it. I am a big fan of no internet sales tax.
-matt
Re: Lawyers and Teachers are the problem
on
Careers After Tech?
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· Score: 1
Obviously you can go ahead and think what you want. My point was not that teaching or law would be incredibly fun. It was that I would prefer to spend my creative energy on my own projects on my own time. I stated that in my original post. I believe that work and interests/hobbies should be separate.
Its hard to know if you are compatible with a job until you learn more or try it out. Its quite possible that law would not hold my interest. a teacher however seems promising to me mainly because of the interaction with interested students. Personally I am photoshop self taught, but I had many friends in my major in college that would have liked to learned photoshop. Unfortunately at my school, my major didn't offer it and it is a very overwhelming app for non techy people.
Re: contributing to society - if you don't think that teachers contribute to society, then that's a shame. on the flip side, I don't feel that working for a year as a designer/coder on a huge project for a now bankrupt e-commerce site has really made a contribution to society.
At the end of the day, I can be happier teaching kids than helping a head-up-its-ass corporation. But thats just me - a non-contributer. And to be honest, we are all just trying to be happy. If it is true that "those who can't do teach" then they are probably happier when they realize it and that's all anyone should hope for another.
-matt
Wow, you're an ass (Re:Good Riddance...)
on
Careers After Tech?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Don't know if I'll get applauded or flamed for this but oh well.
I have no doubt that your are a bigger "techie" than me. I have never hand built a computer, I didn't learn to code anything in grade school and I've never had anything to do with a railgun. I do however enjoy the things that computers help me accomplish. That's why I'm a graphic designer (and html programmer -a not always easy job that is not very respected around here). I moved into tech because the idea of interactive and functional design appealed to me a lot more than static pretty pictures in a magazine or on the side of a box.
But you know what? This industry drove the joy of design out of me. I'm sick of the mess that every project becomes. I'm sick of rushing through everything to get it out the door. I'm sick of political in-fighting between departments.
I'm hoping that this 'tech" guy can leave the industry behind and let me start enjoying design work that I do for my own fulfillment. In my opinion, the tech industry takes a lot more out of you than it gives back.
Whoever said that you should turn your hobby into a career should be shot. All that does is turn your hobby into work and all that entails (manager, deadlines, 8 hours a day of your "hobby"). I'd prefer my hobbies to stay enjoyable.
As for what I'm turning to, teaching. I'm going back to school for my teaching certificate so I can teach graphic design and adobe apps to high school kids. Maybe a little down tha line, a law degree or my own (non-design) business.
I can't say for sure, but I think all those films/shows you menioned were financed, produced and owned by american companies. It isn't like foreign companies are out producing the US in the film industry. It is just that american companies want to keep production costs as low as possible.
I think acting is in the subtle looks and body movements to really cast what a person is thinking. It will be a long time (if ever) before computer animators will get a hold of this. Especialy because it won't be cost effective to add this extra layer of detail.
Actors' jobs are to create an entire person. Researchers say that so much of our communication is non-vocal - that is why actors will never be replaced.
Chances are, the resason you need that friday night money is to consume some form of entertainment. So basically this technological innovation that makes lives easier really is just an entertainment fullfillment system.
While I see both as important, I would prefer to be a creator of enjoyment for people's free time than a creator of productivity (life and work) increases. That's just me. But I am a movie lover.
I can see everyone's point about if you post others will see it (duh) but the larger issue I see is that things with your name on them that others may have posted. the article discusses concerns about tax info, voting info, and charitable work info being posted without your knowledge. While most of us here probably aren't too surprised about this, the average NYT reader may be. I don't have any problem with them letting people know that there is probably info about them floating out there on the internet - wether they posted it or not. My mother is not a techie and I would want her to know. Wouldn't you want your mothers to know?
Yes you may be correct that there is no perfect utopian country that you could move to. Some european countries seem to be better world citizens and better to their populations thatn the US but I am sure those countries have drawbacks as well. What I want is for the US to start taking the leadership role that it claims it has. Why won't our government say "fuck it, proposal xyz may not be popular but it is the right thing to do." Since GW Bush has such a high approval rating right now he could push through legislation that companies might not like but are to the benefit of society. Of course that will never happen. It seems that Republicans in particular believe that companies are the greatest thing ever thought up by human kind. Oh well, too bad for all of us.
And all we need to do is got to the corner and buy it from the guy that killed your brother.
Now that may be a little overly dramatic but the point is the same. I agree that we are not about to run out of oil. What I have a problem with is that countries that we do not like and that don't like us have us in their pocket due to oil. Most of the 9/11 terrorists came from saudi arabia but are they in the "axis of evil"? No, cause they gots the oil. I also don't like that to keep our gas prices low, the government uses tax dollars to subsidize the industry. I think americans would care more about getting off oil if we had gas prices similar to europe. But that will never happen as long as we have oil-rich people in power.
-matt
Re:Played at E3 - me too (more details)
on
E3 Controller Previews
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· Score: 4, Informative
I also got to play with this at E3 and agree with the above poster. I thought I would explain the workings of the controller a little for those that care.
The left stick is for turning. It is left right only (no up/down). The right stick is for aiming your gun. It moves in all 4 directions. The right stick has 2 thumb buttons and a trigger. The thumb buttons are lock-on and missles, the trigger is machinegun. On the far left of the controller there is a shifter for forward gears and reverse. There are three pedals on the floor - gas, brake and the third was not used on the demoed build of the game.
Play impressions: When you start, you actually have to start up your mech. you have to flick several switches and then hit a series of startup buttons. Once you start moving around, there is a nice sense of controlling something large and lumbering. This is nothing like virtual-on from sega. Everything in the environment is destructible. Overall the game was very very deep ad seemed to have a lot of potential. You can even get going too fast and when you turn your mech falls over - oops. I wanted to stay and play for a while but my demo ended and I was forced to share.
I watched the capcom rep play and that was something amazing. It showed that you can master it and use the massive controller in a functional way. The HUD is very intrusive. but not in a bad way. It uses about 1/3 of the screen to show status of weapon system, maps, main display etc. It actually gives you the sense that you are viewing the forward display from with in the mech. The capcom guy was constantly shifting weapons and such - knowing intuitively what to hit on the controller. There is even a "wash window" button for when your display screen has been crudded up from battle. Overall very impressive. If the expense is not too great, I will pick up this one for my xbox.
Is anyone else sick of the anti star wars sentiment around here? Of course everybody is entitled to their own opinion but come on. I am getting pretty excited for ep2. While ep1 may had a few parts that i wish it didn't, I still enjoyed it. I bought the dvd. During the pod race I felt like a little kid.
I hate to break it to you but nothing is ever going to top a childhood favorite. And lets be honest. The original trilogy didn't feature the best dialog either. Fuzzball anyone? The point is that it is supposed to be fun. People take it too seriously these days. I mean when you have people claiming jedi knight as their religion, nothing new is ever going to live up to fanatical expectations.
I'm ready to see the next story from a galaxy far far away. Bring on the saber battles!
This will have little to no impact on the gaing industry. There is one simple reason. For game add-ons, they MUST be standard equipment that everyone who purchases the system will have. Otherwise game companies won't invest the money to support it. Here is an example using made up numbers for illustrative purposes:
Microsoft's (boo, hiss, etc - moving on) xbox features a built in hard drive. All developers can use its capabilities. Mainly this means drive caching and too a lesser degree wma audio. Sony is going to release a hard drive add on soon. I expect very little to come of it. Game companies will be forced to support the PS2 hard drive and user with no hard drive OR just pretend that nobody has the hard drive. Which path do you think is cheaper? In addition, how will game makers know if their game's target market are purchasers of the hard drive? Most likely Sony will only have sales data. ie Sony knows they have sold 1 million PS2s and 250,000 hard drive units. They do not know if it is teen FPS gamers buying the hard drives or the RPG players. Meanwhile Microsoft has sold 500,000 xboxes and therfore 500,000 hard drives. Bassed on this, I expect xbox developers to unanimously support the hard drive and hardly any PS2 developers to support it.
How's this for a comparison:
Sega's dreamcast had a built in 56k modem. Towards the end of it life, sega realeased a broadband adapter. Hardly any games supported it. Yes I do recognize that the system was on its last leg but I don't think that changes anything.
Anyway, Sony is adding a feature to its phone that they can tout and have press releases about. Will developers support it? A resounding no.
IANAGP -I am not a game programmer - just a player.
Me, I'm against it. I remember the first time I heard of this was when Titanic came out on video and some video store in Utah started selling versions of Titanic that they had edited to remove the nudity. Nevermind the people screeming as they died a freezing death - that's all OK for little johnny and jane - but a woman's bare breast (!) banish that! Let's all just forget that every child (well almost - a few people choose not to) suckled from their mother's breast and it was also probably in use during their procreation. But death due to tragedy - bring it on! No one is too young!
Sorry for the rant. As I see it, film can allow for a small amount of growth in a person. One can see lives of other people and places. You may not like what you see and that is your perogative but at least you've been exposed to it. The bare breast scene in titanic was an important part of who those people were and the ways in which they had grown together. If you want to remove it then you just don't get the movie at all. And by not letting your children see it, you are sending a message that being naked is bad - regardless of circumstance.
Sorry for the rant #2. I really am interested to hear what others have to say on this topic both for and against. Are movies as important as I have made them out to be or are they just weekend filler?
Typically, most movies only have 1 camera rolling at a time. For instance, when two people are facing each other and speaking (the typically camera looks at one, then the other, then back scene) the camera is only photographing one actor at a time. Then the other actor is filmed. Sometimes when one actor (actor A) is being filmed, the person they are acting with (actor B) in the scene may be unavailable and the scene will be shot with someone else so they can get the shot of Actor A.
So my point is that you would have to re-edit in all this extra footage and it isn't even shot at the same moment.
The exception is that explosions are often shot on mutiple cameras so they are sure they captured it. it would be too expensive to redoo if they fucked it up.
Currently, some DVDs use the multi-angle function in the extra features for comparisons between the storyboards and the finished edit.
Commercially available DVDs hold up to 9GB of data. This is divided between 2 platters (typically referred to as layers but I thought platters made sense visually for this explanation) that are basically glued together. Note that this is not the same as dual sided discs which are capable of holding 9GB per side for a total of 4 layers. The first platter can hold 5GB and the second holds 4GB. The second platter is read through the first layer and therefore can hold a little less data. Consumer level DVD burners can only write to the first platter/layer. Without a fairly radical technology departure from current burners, they never will. Therefore duping a commercial DVD is impossible with currently available hardware.
Note that this does not include the actual DVD production machines that are surely in use by large scale pirate rings. Also of note is that using DeCSS, you can rip the video data, recompress and store to the medium of your choosing. I assume that neither of these solutions is what the original poster meant by "copy."
-matt
Re:By people with agendas
on
Review: Panic Room
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I think it's less about agendas and more about entertainment. Let's imagine your points (and Katz's) integrated into Panic Room.
Thieves break in.
Jodie rushes into panic room and sets off silent alarms and calls police (BTW, the no phone line issue is explained in the plot).
Properly trained to use a handgun, Jodie expertly blasts the perps as they come into the darkened room.
Police arrive, credits roll.
Wow, well that sure was worth my $6.50! Ever wonder why your life isn't as exciting as the movies? Because life does not typically have the same number of hurdles that a typical 2 hour film does. And that's why we go see them. To see a NON-REALISTIC wolrd.
And to those that post the "oh so we like MPAA today" posts, I never aggreed to ban movies from my life - even if I did, it would have zero impact on the MPAA. Without a concerted, large-scale and PUBLICISED effort, no one would even notice. And even then, I think I love movies too much to participate.
Maybe someone out there can shed some light on these two question of mine:
1. What started the whole royalties system that hollywood now operates on? It seems to be unique to that industry. For instance, if I am a house painter and I paint someone's house I get X dollars. Period. No royalties. I don't get an extra 50 cents each time someone sees the house (a performance) nor do I even get additional money when the house is sold to someone (publication). How did this start and why doesn't the rest of the world recognize how fubar that is? Why aren't the creative works of everyone else benefitting from that system?
2. In the case of film, who owns the copyright? If the copyright period is creator's lifetime + 70 years who is it measured off of? the screenwriter? the director? the producer? It actually all seems to be work for hire by the studio in which case is it the 95 year period or does the studio have the right to keep it alive idefinately?
I honestly don't know the answers but what really makes me wonder is why nobdy else in the country even asks the questions.
That's like saying that if early car manufacturers had totally ruined the car industry through their antics that we could say - "oh well, you can always walk."
While this statemenet is true, the benefit of the automobile to society at large is great enough that it should continue to exist. Same with the internet. It is true that you don't need it but it could become something positve in life. Especially in the future - who knows what the internet could enable in 50 years.
I think the crowd that says that the internet is not a basic right and fundementally unnecessary are simultaneously correct and short-sighted.
I have heard the theory that: as the planet gets warmer, ice caps melt, ice floats toward equator, oceans get cooled by ice, planet cools, ice age begins. Anyone know anymore about this theory? Does it even make sense?
Slashdot Mirror
"An Intel portable running in Speedstep mode (700mhz or whatever it is these days) still runs browser, office suites, Photoshop, etc. faster than any of today's Macs running at full speed."
Why would you think this? You are saying that an intel 700mhz is faster than any of todays macs? Even the 1.4 ghz? I don't think that there is any debate that the PowerPC is a more efficient chip mhz for mhz...
If you don't like macs, that's fine but no need to make things up.
I see that the xServe and xServe RAID have a high cost to purchase additional drives. Is it possible to put your own standard IDE drives in the expansion bays or are these drives special (due to hot-swapablity maybe)?
$500 per each 180GB IDE drive is a little rough on the wallet for a guy that just wants to set up a badass home network/file/web server.
thanks, matt
Warning: I know next to nothing about tax issues.
Does your response regarding marginal dollars hold true for self-employed workers? I was (until recently) self-employed and throughout the year no tax dollars were withheld except for what I submitted myself in my quarterly payments.
Under this scenario, how are marginal dollars measured (based on quarterlies?) or are all the dollars earned in the highest tax bracket? Under that scenario, the parent's web dev friend may be more justified - correct?
thanks.
-matt
Have you ever opened up a mac? You may not be able to swap a whole motherboard but it you can absolutlely use third party parts. In mine I have a sumsung cd burner, random ass ram, seagate ide drives, ati pci graphics cards (upgraded from a voodoo), a scsi card, and any number of firewire and usb add-ons.
Why do people think that Apple welds its machines shut before it ships them?
And I'm sorry but you can't say that a minor player in a large market has a monopoly just because it is slightly different than the rest of the market. What force could Apple exert over the rest of the players in the pc industry? MS could destroy a company as large as intel if it wanted to. That is a monopoly.
-m
This is exactly the case. People keep posting about how the cost of the iApps is rolled into the cpu purchase price - just like the parent's Win98 example. And there is NO EXPECTATION that these apps are a free forever bonus.
I'll bite...
Now I fully understand where you are coming from. Put the way you just did, it makes the parent poster's comments seem racist. But...
I feel that it is any government's job to take care of its citizens first. I agree that suddenly revoking visas would be incredibly rude and cause great difficulty for any of those affected and probably should never be attempted. However, imagine that the situation were even more drastic - great depression style. I believe that the government would almost have to do something to make sure the American citizens were first in line for domestic jobs. Tax cuts for companies keeping job onshore would be wise also.
I don't think you can view the idea of revoking H1B's as racist since the people targeted are not of any specific culture/race/age/religion - they are all foreign workers with a specific type of visa. Lame and incredibly inhospitable? Yes. Racist? No.
-matt
Oregon doesn't have sales tax either. It does have income tax and a higher than average property tax. Having never owned a home there I don't know how much worse it is.
I grew up in oregon and lived there until I was 26. I moved to California 2 years ago and I am just now used to sales tax and I still resent it. I am a big fan of no internet sales tax.
-matt
Obviously you can go ahead and think what you want. My point was not that teaching or law would be incredibly fun. It was that I would prefer to spend my creative energy on my own projects on my own time. I stated that in my original post. I believe that work and interests/hobbies should be separate.
Its hard to know if you are compatible with a job until you learn more or try it out. Its quite possible that law would not hold my interest. a teacher however seems promising to me mainly because of the interaction with interested students. Personally I am photoshop self taught, but I had many friends in my major in college that would have liked to learned photoshop. Unfortunately at my school, my major didn't offer it and it is a very overwhelming app for non techy people.
Re: contributing to society - if you don't think that teachers contribute to society, then that's a shame. on the flip side, I don't feel that working for a year as a designer/coder on a huge project for a now bankrupt e-commerce site has really made a contribution to society.
At the end of the day, I can be happier teaching kids than helping a head-up-its-ass corporation. But thats just me - a non-contributer. And to be honest, we are all just trying to be happy. If it is true that "those who can't do teach" then they are probably happier when they realize it and that's all anyone should hope for another.
-matt
Don't know if I'll get applauded or flamed for this but oh well.
I have no doubt that your are a bigger "techie" than me. I have never hand built a computer, I didn't learn to code anything in grade school and I've never had anything to do with a railgun. I do however enjoy the things that computers help me accomplish. That's why I'm a graphic designer (and html programmer -a not always easy job that is not very respected around here). I moved into tech because the idea of interactive and functional design appealed to me a lot more than static pretty pictures in a magazine or on the side of a box.
But you know what? This industry drove the joy of design out of me. I'm sick of the mess that every project becomes. I'm sick of rushing through everything to get it out the door. I'm sick of political in-fighting between departments.
I'm hoping that this 'tech" guy can leave the industry behind and let me start enjoying design work that I do for my own fulfillment. In my opinion, the tech industry takes a lot more out of you than it gives back.
Whoever said that you should turn your hobby into a career should be shot. All that does is turn your hobby into work and all that entails (manager, deadlines, 8 hours a day of your "hobby"). I'd prefer my hobbies to stay enjoyable.
As for what I'm turning to, teaching. I'm going back to school for my teaching certificate so I can teach graphic design and adobe apps to high school kids. Maybe a little down tha line, a law degree or my own (non-design) business.
-matt
I can't say for sure, but I think all those films/shows you menioned were financed, produced and owned by american companies. It isn't like foreign companies are out producing the US in the film industry. It is just that american companies want to keep production costs as low as possible.
Thats not news.
-matt
I think acting is in the subtle looks and body movements to really cast what a person is thinking. It will be a long time (if ever) before computer animators will get a hold of this. Especialy because it won't be cost effective to add this extra layer of detail.
Actors' jobs are to create an entire person. Researchers say that so much of our communication is non-vocal - that is why actors will never be replaced.
-matt
Chances are, the resason you need that friday night money is to consume some form of entertainment. So basically this technological innovation that makes lives easier really is just an entertainment fullfillment system.
While I see both as important, I would prefer to be a creator of enjoyment for people's free time than a creator of productivity (life and work) increases. That's just me. But I am a movie lover.
-matt
I can see everyone's point about if you post others will see it (duh) but the larger issue I see is that things with your name on them that others may have posted. the article discusses concerns about tax info, voting info, and charitable work info being posted without your knowledge. While most of us here probably aren't too surprised about this, the average NYT reader may be. I don't have any problem with them letting people know that there is probably info about them floating out there on the internet - wether they posted it or not. My mother is not a techie and I would want her to know. Wouldn't you want your mothers to know?
-matt
Yes you may be correct that there is no perfect utopian country that you could move to. Some european countries seem to be better world citizens and better to their populations thatn the US but I am sure those countries have drawbacks as well. What I want is for the US to start taking the leadership role that it claims it has. Why won't our government say "fuck it, proposal xyz may not be popular but it is the right thing to do." Since GW Bush has such a high approval rating right now he could push through legislation that companies might not like but are to the benefit of society. Of course that will never happen. It seems that Republicans in particular believe that companies are the greatest thing ever thought up by human kind. Oh well, too bad for all of us.
-matt
And all we need to do is got to the corner and buy it from the guy that killed your brother.
Now that may be a little overly dramatic but the point is the same. I agree that we are not about to run out of oil. What I have a problem with is that countries that we do not like and that don't like us have us in their pocket due to oil. Most of the 9/11 terrorists came from saudi arabia but are they in the "axis of evil"? No, cause they gots the oil. I also don't like that to keep our gas prices low, the government uses tax dollars to subsidize the industry. I think americans would care more about getting off oil if we had gas prices similar to europe. But that will never happen as long as we have oil-rich people in power.
-matt
I also got to play with this at E3 and agree with the above poster. I thought I would explain the workings of the controller a little for those that care.
The left stick is for turning. It is left right only (no up/down). The right stick is for aiming your gun. It moves in all 4 directions. The right stick has 2 thumb buttons and a trigger. The thumb buttons are lock-on and missles, the trigger is machinegun. On the far left of the controller there is a shifter for forward gears and reverse. There are three pedals on the floor - gas, brake and the third was not used on the demoed build of the game.
Play impressions: When you start, you actually have to start up your mech. you have to flick several switches and then hit a series of startup buttons. Once you start moving around, there is a nice sense of controlling something large and lumbering. This is nothing like virtual-on from sega. Everything in the environment is destructible. Overall the game was very very deep ad seemed to have a lot of potential. You can even get going too fast and when you turn your mech falls over - oops. I wanted to stay and play for a while but my demo ended and I was forced to share.
I watched the capcom rep play and that was something amazing. It showed that you can master it and use the massive controller in a functional way. The HUD is very intrusive. but not in a bad way. It uses about 1/3 of the screen to show status of weapon system, maps, main display etc. It actually gives you the sense that you are viewing the forward display from with in the mech. The capcom guy was constantly shifting weapons and such - knowing intuitively what to hit on the controller. There is even a "wash window" button for when your display screen has been crudded up from battle. Overall very impressive. If the expense is not too great, I will pick up this one for my xbox.
-matt
Is anyone else sick of the anti star wars sentiment around here? Of course everybody is entitled to their own opinion but come on. I am getting pretty excited for ep2. While ep1 may had a few parts that i wish it didn't, I still enjoyed it. I bought the dvd. During the pod race I felt like a little kid.
I hate to break it to you but nothing is ever going to top a childhood favorite. And lets be honest. The original trilogy didn't feature the best dialog either. Fuzzball anyone? The point is that it is supposed to be fun. People take it too seriously these days. I mean when you have people claiming jedi knight as their religion, nothing new is ever going to live up to fanatical expectations.
I'm ready to see the next story from a galaxy far far away. Bring on the saber battles!
-matt
This will have little to no impact on the gaing industry. There is one simple reason. For game add-ons, they MUST be standard equipment that everyone who purchases the system will have. Otherwise game companies won't invest the money to support it. Here is an example using made up numbers for illustrative purposes:
Microsoft's (boo, hiss, etc - moving on) xbox features a built in hard drive. All developers can use its capabilities. Mainly this means drive caching and too a lesser degree wma audio. Sony is going to release a hard drive add on soon. I expect very little to come of it. Game companies will be forced to support the PS2 hard drive and user with no hard drive OR just pretend that nobody has the hard drive. Which path do you think is cheaper? In addition, how will game makers know if their game's target market are purchasers of the hard drive? Most likely Sony will only have sales data. ie Sony knows they have sold 1 million PS2s and 250,000 hard drive units. They do not know if it is teen FPS gamers buying the hard drives or the RPG players. Meanwhile Microsoft has sold 500,000 xboxes and therfore 500,000 hard drives. Bassed on this, I expect xbox developers to unanimously support the hard drive and hardly any PS2 developers to support it.
How's this for a comparison:
Sega's dreamcast had a built in 56k modem. Towards the end of it life, sega realeased a broadband adapter. Hardly any games supported it. Yes I do recognize that the system was on its last leg but I don't think that changes anything.
Anyway, Sony is adding a feature to its phone that they can tout and have press releases about. Will developers support it? A resounding no.
IANAGP -I am not a game programmer - just a player.
Me, I'm against it. I remember the first time I heard of this was when Titanic came out on video and some video store in Utah started selling versions of Titanic that they had edited to remove the nudity. Nevermind the people screeming as they died a freezing death - that's all OK for little johnny and jane - but a woman's bare breast (!) banish that! Let's all just forget that every child (well almost - a few people choose not to) suckled from their mother's breast and it was also probably in use during their procreation. But death due to tragedy - bring it on! No one is too young!
Sorry for the rant. As I see it, film can allow for a small amount of growth in a person. One can see lives of other people and places. You may not like what you see and that is your perogative but at least you've been exposed to it. The bare breast scene in titanic was an important part of who those people were and the ways in which they had grown together. If you want to remove it then you just don't get the movie at all. And by not letting your children see it, you are sending a message that being naked is bad - regardless of circumstance.
Sorry for the rant #2. I really am interested to hear what others have to say on this topic both for and against. Are movies as important as I have made them out to be or are they just weekend filler?
-matt
Typically, most movies only have 1 camera rolling at a time. For instance, when two people are facing each other and speaking (the typically camera looks at one, then the other, then back scene) the camera is only photographing one actor at a time. Then the other actor is filmed. Sometimes when one actor (actor A) is being filmed, the person they are acting with (actor B) in the scene may be unavailable and the scene will be shot with someone else so they can get the shot of Actor A.
So my point is that you would have to re-edit in all this extra footage and it isn't even shot at the same moment.
The exception is that explosions are often shot on mutiple cameras so they are sure they captured it. it would be too expensive to redoo if they fucked it up.
Currently, some DVDs use the multi-angle function in the extra features for comparisons between the storyboards and the finished edit.
-matt
Commercially available DVDs hold up to 9GB of data. This is divided between 2 platters (typically referred to as layers but I thought platters made sense visually for this explanation) that are basically glued together. Note that this is not the same as dual sided discs which are capable of holding 9GB per side for a total of 4 layers. The first platter can hold 5GB and the second holds 4GB. The second platter is read through the first layer and therefore can hold a little less data. Consumer level DVD burners can only write to the first platter/layer. Without a fairly radical technology departure from current burners, they never will. Therefore duping a commercial DVD is impossible with currently available hardware.
Note that this does not include the actual DVD production machines that are surely in use by large scale pirate rings. Also of note is that using DeCSS, you can rip the video data, recompress and store to the medium of your choosing. I assume that neither of these solutions is what the original poster meant by "copy."
-matt
I think it's less about agendas and more about entertainment. Let's imagine your points (and Katz's) integrated into Panic Room.
Thieves break in.
Jodie rushes into panic room and sets off silent alarms and calls police (BTW, the no phone line issue is explained in the plot).
Properly trained to use a handgun, Jodie expertly blasts the perps as they come into the darkened room.
Police arrive, credits roll.
Wow, well that sure was worth my $6.50! Ever wonder why your life isn't as exciting as the movies? Because life does not typically have the same number of hurdles that a typical 2 hour film does. And that's why we go see them. To see a NON-REALISTIC wolrd.
And to those that post the "oh so we like MPAA today" posts, I never aggreed to ban movies from my life - even if I did, it would have zero impact on the MPAA. Without a concerted, large-scale and PUBLICISED effort, no one would even notice. And even then, I think I love movies too much to participate.
matt
Maybe someone out there can shed some light on these two question of mine:
1. What started the whole royalties system that hollywood now operates on? It seems to be unique to that industry. For instance, if I am a house painter and I paint someone's house I get X dollars. Period. No royalties. I don't get an extra 50 cents each time someone sees the house (a performance) nor do I even get additional money when the house is sold to someone (publication). How did this start and why doesn't the rest of the world recognize how fubar that is? Why aren't the creative works of everyone else benefitting from that system?
2. In the case of film, who owns the copyright? If the copyright period is creator's lifetime + 70 years who is it measured off of? the screenwriter? the director? the producer? It actually all seems to be work for hire by the studio in which case is it the 95 year period or does the studio have the right to keep it alive idefinately?
I honestly don't know the answers but what really makes me wonder is why nobdy else in the country even asks the questions.
That's like saying that if early car manufacturers had totally ruined the car industry through their antics that we could say - "oh well, you can always walk."
While this statemenet is true, the benefit of the automobile to society at large is great enough that it should continue to exist. Same with the internet. It is true that you don't need it but it could become something positve in life. Especially in the future - who knows what the internet could enable in 50 years.
I think the crowd that says that the internet is not a basic right and fundementally unnecessary are simultaneously correct and short-sighted.
I have heard the theory that: as the planet gets warmer, ice caps melt, ice floats toward equator, oceans get cooled by ice, planet cools, ice age begins. Anyone know anymore about this theory? Does it even make sense?