Every President in the 20th Century fired all US Attorneys upon taking the oath of office and assuming the role of the Presidency. This is considered standard practice. Here is an LA Times article on the history of administration hirings upon inauguration:
Firing US Attorneys in term is another matter. That has happened only a few times over the last century, and always due to malfeasance or criminal activity on the part of the US Attorney in question. The Hatch Act (the subject of this discussion) expressly forbids political activity or partisan interference in both the Judiciary and the Justice Department (it also demands full records keeping for all Federal activities).
It would appear our President and his advisers have committed felonies.
Here is what Scott Stanzel, White House spokesman, said this morning at the [...]Stanzel: Well, as I indicated, the guidance at the White House prior to this point has been very clear that you should avoid inadvertent violations of the Hatch Act. And so some employees, it seems clear, out of an abundance of caution, or sometimes out of logistical reasons, have communicated about official business on those political email accounts. And so I can't speak to the motivations of any individual on why they sent one email one way. I don't know that. But the White House guidance, what we've been working on is trying to make sure that it's more clear so people understand their obligations under both the Hatch Act and the Presidential Records Act.[...]
Yesterday he said this:
"I can say that historically the White House didn't give enough guidance to staff on how to avoid violating the Hatch Act while following the Records Act. We didn't do a good enough job."
Here are the specifics of what is required by the Hatch Act. It is clear that
A) Politicization (partisan activities) within certain Federal Agencies, such as the CIA or the Justice Department, is a felony.
B) All records relating to government business MUST be retained for investigative purposes, and later historical preservation. To destroy these documents is a felony.
This law is clear, has been on the books since the 1930s, and has passed several Supreme Court affirmations. There's no wiggle room here. This is a clear violation of the law. And note A) in relation to the Federal US Attorney firings. To fire is legal; to fire with even just partisan intent -- never mind apparent Obstruction of Justice -- is a clear felony.
We're walking right into another constitutional crisis. Comparisons to Nixon's firing of Archibold Cox (The Saturday Night Massacre) are spot on.
The PS3 is a great BD player for the price. I own one and rarely play games on it. But boy, with netflix already renting out BD films, it's been a great time to watch movies!
(paraphrasing) "there are no 720p HD systems, only 1080i or 1080p HD systems."
That's not really what I said. What I said is that 1080i is a bare minimum standard that all "HD Ready" designated sets must support. That the Sony BDP-1000 (I'm pretty sure that's the model you're talking about) will downscale from 1080i to 720p is a nice feature, but it's not necessary to meet spec. The assumption by manufacturers is that all HD sets (regardless of native resolution) will accept 1080i input. (well, perhaps I should say *should* accept 1080i input).
I will stipulate that -- on fact -- it is true that the PS3 does not (currently) downscale movies internally from 1080i to 720p. That is what I believe you said, and it appears factual. My argument is simply that it doesn't *have* to in order to meet HD spec. Your problem with that PJ is not one that will be common (certainly nowhere near as common as gamers trying to play 720p games on their 1080i sets; Sony really screwed the pooch there).
Look. I jumped down your throat and was a real prick about it. This wasn't my best debate thread - by far. *cough* For my miserable attitude and general assholery, I apologize.
The reason only six are available to the OS is that one us used by the hypervisor for DRM purposes and the eighth is disabled for chip yield purposes. Raytracing is very parallelizable task, so it's not surprising that eighteen SPEs working in parallel could perform realtime raytracing.
One point: there's yet another SIMD engine on that chip... people forget about VMX (altivec). It's bolted onto the PPC PPU core as well.
"At the time of publication, the reasons why SCEI didn't give developers access to both horizontal and vertical scaling are still unknown, as are the reasons they didn't grant developers access to horizontal scaling until now. The video scaler itself remains shrouded in mystery, as strange as it may seem, but at least now we can say with confidence that it does indeed exist."
Well, now. That's interesting. The last I had read on this issue, only a horizontal scaler was known about. Looks like scaling both H and V in a frame is still not exposed to devs. But perhaps it will be in a future SDK revision. Thank you.
Were I to connect the PS3 to it, it would not play back blueray EXCEPT at 480p, WHICH IS WHAT I SAID IN THE FIRST POST!
And that is because *your* *projector* *is* *broken*. Insight sold you a PJ rated to do one thing (take 1080i input). But it doesn't. So, because the PS3 (and most HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players) won't scale 1080i source to 720p, you assert the PS3 is broken. And then point to some press stories. Never mind that its competitors also don't meet this bogus expectation. Never mind that the PS3 actually does what it claims to do while your PJ doesn't.
I don't give a shit about 'winning or losing'. But I will go over a few technical points in reply:
- Just so we're clear, a set that only displays 720p should still take 1080i and downscale. The ATSC spec demands this. Whether there are individual units out there that don't meet spec... well, I've never seen one. But I suppose it's possible. The issue with the other user's PJ display is more about it being broken (does not support 1080i input when it's system specs claim it does).
- The PS3 will happily output 720p. Or 1080i. And even 1080p. What it won't do is scale from one resolution to the next, regardless of source material. That is, arguably, a pretty big mistake on Sony's part. But that design defect has nothing to do with HD movies since both HD movie formats (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) encode and output 1080i/p. Period.
- PJ Central does much more than just take the word of the vendor, they also post reviews. But the most important feature on their website is throw calculation support. One can easily determine if a PJ meets throw distance limits with their site. Most helpful.
Other dude is technically correct in that the PS3 will not scale a 1080 video to 720p, while being completely wrong in his *expectation* that it should have to do so. It might be a nice feature, but one that isn't demanded by spec and one that would be rarely of use. The other problem, those with 1080i sets that can't handle 720p games... well, that's a serious issue as it affects a very large number of early HD adopters. In fact, my very first HDTV bought in '02 would have been confronted with that problem had I not returned it due to a (different) defect.
I swear, the product of the IQ's in the responses in this thread must be near zero...
You've received a large number of responses along the same lines as mine. In fact, you even got a response from someone who pointed you to the specs for your PJ at the vendor's web site, and even politely included the information that a firmware update may well fix your problem. Instead you respond (to someone else) with crap like what I quoted.
Rather than insulting the intelligence of every respondent, perhaps you should look inward?
There were two issues. One was games at 720p. They fixed that. The other was Blueray at 720p. They did NOT fix that. There are links in the thread. Please follow them for more details.
Sony did not fix the problem with displaying 720p games at 1080i for sets that only support 1080i, because the PS3 lacks an internal hardware scaler. That problem is *unfixable*. Displaying 720p *movies* is a nonissue for everyone with a functional HDTV (or HD Ready set) since every HD Ready set in existence supports 1080i over component as a baseline minimum standard. Your problem is that you bought an Insight PJ that doesn't even meet its own technical specs and therefore has broken 1080i support. Therefore, your problem is not with Sony, but with Insight.
You confuse games with movies. All movies are encoded to 1080 scanlines. All "HD Ready" designated sets are supposed to support 1080i as a lowest common denominator input format. Some older HD sets do not also support 720p input (even some that are 720p native). Some games have been rendered at 720p native and thus output 720p, not 1080i/p. Those people who own sets that don't take 720p as input will be unable to play 720p rendered games. All 1080 games and movies should be playable on any "HD Ready" set made since 2000/2001.
All you have to do is change your output from 720p to 1080i and *poof!* problem goes away. Now please fuck off for both arguing an outright falsehood and then claiming that I am an industry shill when I called you on it.
As I pointed out to you in a different post, the specs for that projector show that it is designed to support 1080i input. If it doesn't your problem is not with Sony (or the PS3) but with Insight for selling you a projector that doesn't meet its own technical specs. Support for 1080i is a bare minimum for all sets designated "HD Ready".
As you well know, I took the trouble to look that specific projector up at projectorcentral.com. pjcentral is the primary reference site for the AVSForum pj forums. But it is true that I didn't look for known bugs on a projector that I don't own. I shouldn't have to.
You are making claims about the PS3 and Blu-Ray that are blatantly wrong. Further, you assert that since your broken projector won't sync at 1080i with a PS3, it must be a problem with the PS3. I think not. The PS3 meets the ATSC spec. Apparently, your projector does not.
It is not rated for 1080p, it is rated for 1080i. Projector Central is *THE* place to look up input and throw specs for any projector. It's referenced by the AVSForum FAQs on sub $3000 and +$3000 projectors for all technical specs.
Your claim that the PS3 cannot output movies at 720p is a non sequitur since every HD rated display device accepts at least 1080i input over component. 1080p is not yet formally part of the ATSC standard, therefore it's no surprise you didn't find support for it on a two year old projector.
According to Projector Central, the Infocus 5000 takes 1080i over component input. Older Infocus units were 480p projectors. So, your complaint there is also utter bullshit. Why should a 480p projector take 1080i as input?
Your complaint has nothing to do with the PS3 or Blu-Ray. Every HDTV I've seen, even 720p native panels, takes a 1080i signal as input (though it may scale the signal down for display purposes). Your claim that the PS3 can't output 720p BD movies, and therefore must downgrade to 480p is just completely wrong.
I own a 360, a PS3, and a Sony HS-20 720p digital projector (also a dd5.1 sound system). I can attest that this setup works in its entirety (digital and analog HD video and dd5.1 digital audio over fiber).
What are you talking about? When have you ever seen a 720p native display refuse 1080i input? There are plenty of monitors and HDTVs out there that only sync to 1080i (leaving 720p support out), but none out there refuse 1080i.
What does this mean? Well, that your complaint about being unable to watch a Blu-Ray movie on the PS3 due to lack of display support is completely bogus. This, from someone who owns two HDTVs (including a 720p projector - Sony HS-20), as well as a 360 and a PS3. The PS3 is connected to a 720p projector. It outputs 1080i, which the projector readily accepts. Just recently saw Blazing Saddles on BD through that setup and it looked *great*.
Yeah. I mean, which unit to buy (if any) is entirely up to you and your personal finances. Right now the 360 has a dramatic gaming advantage over the PS3, but that should change within a year or so. I bought the PS3 to play Blu-Ray movies. The only game I have for it is Resistance, and compared to Gears of War... well, let's just say I'm more impressed by Gears than by Resistance.
As for your point on pricing flexibility, that's spot on. Microsoft has cut out an HD optical drive yet prices the unit $20 below the 20GB PS3 with blu-ray. Of course they have more pricing flexibility. And they're also closer to migrating to 65nm (I believe), which should reduce component costs too.
BTW: If you're happy with that Wii, I'd wait it out too. There will be plenty of fine games on your platform down the road.
I have both a 20GB 360 and a 60GB PS3. When I compare price vs. features between both units, it's now starting to look like the PS3 wins out. Especially if one believes that Blu-Ray is going to win the HD format war. MS has made a pricing mistake, and I think the market will give them a good thrashing as a result.
Uranium prices have spiked in recent years, as TFA shows. However, comparing prices today with a decade or so back ignores the huge amount of uranium that hit the market after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A more honest comparison would go back several decades.
Another point to consider is that while current steam based nuclear power plants do burn uranium down to an unusable 'waste product', that waste is actually quite useful with reprocessing. So, while it is true that were the world only to burn low-level enriched uranium the world would run out quickly, it is not true that with a more modern burn-reclamation cycle that fuel shortages would persist.
I'm gonna make love to ya woman gonna lay ya down by the fire And caress your womanly body make ya moan and perspire Gonna get those juices flowin' we're makin' love gravy, love gravy, lovelovelovelovelove GRAVIH love, luh...
If only there were a way to weed out the trolls and misinformers. Well, there is. It's called moderation.
How does moderation resolve intentional deception by seemingly authenticated - but anonymous - users? Especially when we're talking about blogging forums, which mostly disseminate opinion. Moderation doesn't cull out trolls so much as it enforces groupthink among the site faithful. Just look at dailykos.
How do you know who anyone is online? Why should you trust anything written by an anonymous writer as accurate? If you want to trust the content, you must first trust the identity of the author. Or someday, you'll get snookered bad.
Slashdot Mirror
Every President in the 20th Century fired all US Attorneys upon taking the oath of office and assuming the role of the Presidency. This is considered standard practice. Here is an LA Times article on the history of administration hirings upon inauguration:
- na-talking23mar23,0,3342736,full.story?coll=la-hom e-headlines
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la
Firing US Attorneys in term is another matter. That has happened only a few times over the last century, and always due to malfeasance or criminal activity on the part of the US Attorney in question. The Hatch Act (the subject of this discussion) expressly forbids political activity or partisan interference in both the Judiciary and the Justice Department (it also demands full records keeping for all Federal activities).
It would appear our President and his advisers have committed felonies.
Yesterday he said this:
Here are the specifics of what is required by the Hatch Act. It is clear that
A) Politicization (partisan activities) within certain Federal Agencies, such as the CIA or the Justice Department, is a felony.
B) All records relating to government business MUST be retained for investigative purposes, and later historical preservation. To destroy these documents is a felony.
This law is clear, has been on the books since the 1930s, and has passed several Supreme Court affirmations. There's no wiggle room here. This is a clear violation of the law. And note A) in relation to the Federal US Attorney firings. To fire is legal; to fire with even just partisan intent -- never mind apparent Obstruction of Justice -- is a clear felony.
We're walking right into another constitutional crisis. Comparisons to Nixon's firing of Archibold Cox (The Saturday Night Massacre) are spot on.
The PS3 is a great BD player for the price. I own one and rarely play games on it. But boy, with netflix already renting out BD films, it's been a great time to watch movies!
(paraphrasing) "there are no 720p HD systems, only 1080i or 1080p HD systems."
That's not really what I said. What I said is that 1080i is a bare minimum standard that all "HD Ready" designated sets must support. That the Sony BDP-1000 (I'm pretty sure that's the model you're talking about) will downscale from 1080i to 720p is a nice feature, but it's not necessary to meet spec. The assumption by manufacturers is that all HD sets (regardless of native resolution) will accept 1080i input. (well, perhaps I should say *should* accept 1080i input).
I will stipulate that -- on fact -- it is true that the PS3 does not (currently) downscale movies internally from 1080i to 720p. That is what I believe you said, and it appears factual. My argument is simply that it doesn't *have* to in order to meet HD spec. Your problem with that PJ is not one that will be common (certainly nowhere near as common as gamers trying to play 720p games on their 1080i sets; Sony really screwed the pooch there).
Look. I jumped down your throat and was a real prick about it. This wasn't my best debate thread - by far. *cough* For my miserable attitude and general assholery, I apologize.
The reason only six are available to the OS is that one us used by the hypervisor for DRM purposes and the eighth is disabled for chip yield purposes. Raytracing is very parallelizable task, so it's not surprising that eighteen SPEs working in parallel could perform realtime raytracing.
One point: there's yet another SIMD engine on that chip... people forget about VMX (altivec). It's bolted onto the PPC PPU core as well.
"At the time of publication, the reasons why SCEI didn't give developers access to both horizontal and vertical scaling are still unknown, as are the reasons they didn't grant developers access to horizontal scaling until now. The video scaler itself remains shrouded in mystery, as strange as it may seem, but at least now we can say with confidence that it does indeed exist."
Well, now. That's interesting. The last I had read on this issue, only a horizontal scaler was known about. Looks like scaling both H and V in a frame is still not exposed to devs. But perhaps it will be in a future SDK revision. Thank you.
Were I to connect the PS3 to it, it would not play back blueray EXCEPT at 480p, WHICH IS WHAT I SAID IN THE FIRST POST!
And that is because *your* *projector* *is* *broken*. Insight sold you a PJ rated to do one thing (take 1080i input). But it doesn't. So, because the PS3 (and most HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players) won't scale 1080i source to 720p, you assert the PS3 is broken. And then point to some press stories. Never mind that its competitors also don't meet this bogus expectation. Never mind that the PS3 actually does what it claims to do while your PJ doesn't.
Nope. It's the PS3.
Of course.
I don't give a shit about 'winning or losing'. But I will go over a few technical points in reply:
- Just so we're clear, a set that only displays 720p should still take 1080i and downscale. The ATSC spec demands this. Whether there are individual units out there that don't meet spec... well, I've never seen one. But I suppose it's possible. The issue with the other user's PJ display is more about it being broken (does not support 1080i input when it's system specs claim it does).
- The PS3 will happily output 720p. Or 1080i. And even 1080p. What it won't do is scale from one resolution to the next, regardless of source material. That is, arguably, a pretty big mistake on Sony's part. But that design defect has nothing to do with HD movies since both HD movie formats (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) encode and output 1080i/p. Period.
- PJ Central does much more than just take the word of the vendor, they also post reviews. But the most important feature on their website is throw calculation support. One can easily determine if a PJ meets throw distance limits with their site. Most helpful.
Other dude is technically correct in that the PS3 will not scale a 1080 video to 720p, while being completely wrong in his *expectation* that it should have to do so. It might be a nice feature, but one that isn't demanded by spec and one that would be rarely of use. The other problem, those with 1080i sets that can't handle 720p games... well, that's a serious issue as it affects a very large number of early HD adopters. In fact, my very first HDTV bought in '02 would have been confronted with that problem had I not returned it due to a (different) defect.
I swear, the product of the IQ's in the responses in this thread must be near zero...
You've received a large number of responses along the same lines as mine. In fact, you even got a response from someone who pointed you to the specs for your PJ at the vendor's web site, and even politely included the information that a firmware update may well fix your problem. Instead you respond (to someone else) with crap like what I quoted.
Rather than insulting the intelligence of every respondent, perhaps you should look inward?
There were two issues. One was games at 720p. They fixed that. The other was Blueray at 720p. They did NOT fix that. There are links in the thread. Please follow them for more details.
Sony did not fix the problem with displaying 720p games at 1080i for sets that only support 1080i, because the PS3 lacks an internal hardware scaler. That problem is *unfixable*. Displaying 720p *movies* is a nonissue for everyone with a functional HDTV (or HD Ready set) since every HD Ready set in existence supports 1080i over component as a baseline minimum standard. Your problem is that you bought an Insight PJ that doesn't even meet its own technical specs and therefore has broken 1080i support. Therefore, your problem is not with Sony, but with Insight.
You confuse games with movies. All movies are encoded to 1080 scanlines. All "HD Ready" designated sets are supposed to support 1080i as a lowest common denominator input format. Some older HD sets do not also support 720p input (even some that are 720p native). Some games have been rendered at 720p native and thus output 720p, not 1080i/p. Those people who own sets that don't take 720p as input will be unable to play 720p rendered games. All 1080 games and movies should be playable on any "HD Ready" set made since 2000/2001.
All you have to do is change your output from 720p to 1080i and *poof!* problem goes away. Now please fuck off for both arguing an outright falsehood and then claiming that I am an industry shill when I called you on it.
As I pointed out to you in a different post, the specs for that projector show that it is designed to support 1080i input. If it doesn't your problem is not with Sony (or the PS3) but with Insight for selling you a projector that doesn't meet its own technical specs. Support for 1080i is a bare minimum for all sets designated "HD Ready".
As you well know, I took the trouble to look that specific projector up at projectorcentral.com. pjcentral is the primary reference site for the AVSForum pj forums. But it is true that I didn't look for known bugs on a projector that I don't own. I shouldn't have to.
You are making claims about the PS3 and Blu-Ray that are blatantly wrong. Further, you assert that since your broken projector won't sync at 1080i with a PS3, it must be a problem with the PS3. I think not. The PS3 meets the ATSC spec. Apparently, your projector does not.
It is not rated for 1080p, it is rated for 1080i. Projector Central is *THE* place to look up input and throw specs for any projector. It's referenced by the AVSForum FAQs on sub $3000 and +$3000 projectors for all technical specs.
Your claim that the PS3 cannot output movies at 720p is a non sequitur since every HD rated display device accepts at least 1080i input over component. 1080p is not yet formally part of the ATSC standard, therefore it's no surprise you didn't find support for it on a two year old projector.
Again: you are wrong on the facts.
Bullshit.
According to Projector Central, the Infocus 5000 takes 1080i over component input. Older Infocus units were 480p projectors. So, your complaint there is also utter bullshit. Why should a 480p projector take 1080i as input?
Your complaint has nothing to do with the PS3 or Blu-Ray. Every HDTV I've seen, even 720p native panels, takes a 1080i signal as input (though it may scale the signal down for display purposes). Your claim that the PS3 can't output 720p BD movies, and therefore must downgrade to 480p is just completely wrong.
I own a 360, a PS3, and a Sony HS-20 720p digital projector (also a dd5.1 sound system). I can attest that this setup works in its entirety (digital and analog HD video and dd5.1 digital audio over fiber).
What are you talking about? When have you ever seen a 720p native display refuse 1080i input? There are plenty of monitors and HDTVs out there that only sync to 1080i (leaving 720p support out), but none out there refuse 1080i.
What does this mean? Well, that your complaint about being unable to watch a Blu-Ray movie on the PS3 due to lack of display support is completely bogus. This, from someone who owns two HDTVs (including a 720p projector - Sony HS-20), as well as a 360 and a PS3. The PS3 is connected to a 720p projector. It outputs 1080i, which the projector readily accepts. Just recently saw Blazing Saddles on BD through that setup and it looked *great*.
Love how that trailer is so obviously influenced by Reggio's cityscape stop motion work inKoyaanisqatsi combined with Philip Glass' music. Heh.
than buying a 'star wars' stamp? I mean, even stamp collectors are going to avoid these. Feh.
"They took my jaorb!!!"
Ah. I see you oppose "states rights" then. Correct?
Yeah. I mean, which unit to buy (if any) is entirely up to you and your personal finances. Right now the 360 has a dramatic gaming advantage over the PS3, but that should change within a year or so. I bought the PS3 to play Blu-Ray movies. The only game I have for it is Resistance, and compared to Gears of War... well, let's just say I'm more impressed by Gears than by Resistance.
As for your point on pricing flexibility, that's spot on. Microsoft has cut out an HD optical drive yet prices the unit $20 below the 20GB PS3 with blu-ray. Of course they have more pricing flexibility. And they're also closer to migrating to 65nm (I believe), which should reduce component costs too.
BTW: If you're happy with that Wii, I'd wait it out too. There will be plenty of fine games on your platform down the road.
I have both a 20GB 360 and a 60GB PS3. When I compare price vs. features between both units, it's now starting to look like the PS3 wins out. Especially if one believes that Blu-Ray is going to win the HD format war. MS has made a pricing mistake, and I think the market will give them a good thrashing as a result.
Uranium prices have spiked in recent years, as TFA shows. However, comparing prices today with a decade or so back ignores the huge amount of uranium that hit the market after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A more honest comparison would go back several decades.
Another point to consider is that while current steam based nuclear power plants do burn uranium down to an unusable 'waste product', that waste is actually quite useful with reprocessing. So, while it is true that were the world only to burn low-level enriched uranium the world would run out quickly, it is not true that with a more modern burn-reclamation cycle that fuel shortages would persist.
Hope you sang this to those hotties:
I'm gonna make love to ya woman
gonna lay ya down by the fire
And caress your womanly body
make ya moan and perspire
Gonna get those juices flowin'
we're makin' love gravy, love gravy,
lovelovelovelovelove GRAVIH
love, luh...
If only there were a way to weed out the trolls and misinformers. Well, there is. It's called moderation.
How does moderation resolve intentional deception by seemingly authenticated - but anonymous - users? Especially when we're talking about blogging forums, which mostly disseminate opinion. Moderation doesn't cull out trolls so much as it enforces groupthink among the site faithful. Just look at dailykos.
How do you know who anyone is online? Why should you trust anything written by an anonymous writer as accurate? If you want to trust the content, you must first trust the identity of the author. Or someday, you'll get snookered bad.