I got a 27" Trinitron (KV-27V40) and I've been quite pleased with it. Remember of course that Trinitrons are not quite flat (excepting the Wega) but are slightly convex horizontally. They are flat vertically though, so the overall effect is that of a section of a cylinder.
The one problem I have with Trinitrons (I get this on my monitor too) is that there are problems with the red and blue signals around the edges of the screen. Generally the left side has some slight red highlights and the right side some slight blue ones. It's not normally noticable, except for Simpsons, where there are a lot of these all over the place.
I have heard that the really high end monitors (the sort used in video editing studios) have additional circuitry to compensate for this, and that a couple of people have modified their sets to get rid of it. Personally, I manage to live with it, and I think the Trinitrons are generally pretty good.
There are also some good Panasonics, the last time I shopped around for sets.
There's a great file at textfiles on computer humor. This is the relevant entry:
From: kevinf@cognos.uucp (Kevin Ferguson)
Subject: Why you don't put program developers in PR Date: 15 Feb 89
DISCLAIMER: So help me God, this is the absolute truth. I should know, because I was there.
Many moons ago (1982), I was on contract as a P/A to one of those credit card companies that shall remain nameless. I was attached to the project that was completely rewriting the billing process. The approved implementation included a massive number of database tables that the Credit Department would maintain to control their billing cycles, appearance of the statement for different types of customers, interest charge calculation, and so on, ad nauseum.
Well, as the project trundled on toward completion, the end user became aware of the manpower effort that would be required to initialize all of these tables. (In retrospect, their reaction was really quite excessive.) Our illustrious Project Manager said at the time, "No problem. We'll just promote the TestBed environment." I'm sure that you can imagine our reaction, as the mischievous minds of programmers tend to generate humorous testing environments.
Sure enough, despite all of the programmers's and testers's objections, the TestBed environment was promoted to Production "...with those changes that are deemed necessary by the Credit Department." Apparently, they did not catch all of the "necessary changes" because in the first week, the Credit Department mailed 1,500 statements to delinquent customers with the Reminder Notice: "Pay up, or we'll rape your wife."
Judging by the memo that was distributed to the MIS Department following this debacle, the rest of the organization failed to see the humor in this.
Okay, okay. How about this. The US gets the Yukon Territory, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
We'll have to get the US Dept. of Marketing to come up with better names for the last two. I don't think that Americans can pronounce those names, and I'm sure that we can't spell them, or locate them on a map.
BC is not a problem, as I expect most of it to be bought up by Microsoft. They'll take care of West Coast marketing and build the MS Interstate highway up to Alaska. Naturally the road will sieze up frequently, and not work for cars other than the MS Interstate Explorer, but what the heck.
Anyhow, Ontario (ooh those names again!) I'm iffy on. Do we really want to let any more politicans than necessary into the country? Probably not, so Canada will just have to shrink to the size of Ontario.
Now in return, Quebec can have Louisiana (and possibly Mississipi) but not New Orleans, which will, of course, be given to Disney World to clean up just like they've been doing with Times Square in New York City.
Quebec or Canada can also have the Maritime Provinces if they want. Given that I'm in Massachusetts I can see some advantages in foisting off Maine to them, but then we'd lose Maine's most valuable resource. I mean of course, Stephen King and the vast tracts of lumber that are made into Stephen King novels and/or toilet paper.
Most of these moves are going to annoy Texas, as there will now be several states larger than it is, but that's okay; Disney will need to expand Frontierland at some point anyhow, and Mexico will be looking pretty juicy in 50 years.
One of these days, the thrid world is going to become a huge goldmine for US software companies.
Oh fsck yeah! And you think they don't know this? I read an article on Israeli software piracy (it's very widespread, apparently due to poor support) which pointed out that if MS can't sell their software legally, it's very important to them for their software to be the most heavily pirated. The idea is that eventually the country will be brought into the company of 'civilized' nonpirating nations, and will start to pay for their software, already having standardized on MS.
Personally, the handful of Israelis _I_ know are all totally crazy. Probably not a representative sample, but I don't see them planning to go and pay retail for sw if it can be had for less. I try to buy stuff, and now that I'm making enough money to live a little comfortably, I can afford to get certain things. The big ticket items are still out of my reach (Photoshop, Quark) but I'm getting there.
Hm? I had understood that you held copyrights throughout your entire life, and that they were extended to 70 years after your death (who gets it is determined by your will, or the courts, like the rest of your estate).
At any rate, the point was that it's silly for copyrights to persist after the author's death in the first place. it should only be a tiny bit of assistance to the family so that they have time to find an alternative means of support.
Well, one reason that people bow down to the man is that they have too much to lose. Taxes now are scads higher than they were during the times leading up to the Revolutionary War. And people accept it because, I think, they've got too much to lose. Our leaders back then were smugglers, firebrands, freethinkers....
The two routes that the state tends to drive rebels down are to either make the burden placed on the people so great that it crosses a threshold, or to take away anything that was holding him back. A classic example: Luke is unwilling to even go to Mos Eisley with Obi-Wan, until he discovers that his aunt and uncle are dead. Then he helps bring down the Empire. Me, I'm on the threshold route myself, and while I am majorly pissed off at the government, corporations, etc. I'm not doing anything. Yet.
Anyhow, as for Civil Disobedience, there's one thing that really cheeses me off about that. A *good* practicioner of it will break the law, and willingly accept his punishment. That's what keeps it civil, people. To break the law because the law is not just, but to accept the law because the law still deserves some respect in a general sense.
One version (there are a lot) of the original quote is:
In Germany, they first came for the communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak up for me.
There's a good version of it for modern times by Alara Rogers that I like, and have hanging around somewhere:
First they came for the hackers.
But I never did anything illegal with my computer, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the pornographers. But I thought there was too much smut on the Internet anyway, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the anonymous remailers. But a lot of nasty stuff gets sent from anon.penet.fi, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for the encryption users. But I could never figure out how to work PGP anyway, so I didn't speak up. Then they came for me. And by that time there was no one left to speak up.
Reminds me of a bit from the Pratchett/Gaiman novel Good Omens:
...the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.*
*This is not actually true. The road to hell is paved with frozen door-to-door salesmen. On weekends many of the younger demons go ice-skating down it.
Re:Alex in Clockwork Orange meets Fox
on
Bootlegging Buffy
·
· Score: 1
Next on Fox: When Computers Go Bad!
Maybe they can have someone being chased around the room by an old washing machine drive.;)
In my Intro to C class (Dammit Jim, I'm a graphic designer, not a programmer!) I tended to refer in my comments to certain parts of code being bitches to write properly, etc.
Never figured out recursive loops until halfway through the exam at which point my eyes were opened and i aced that part of the test. Good timing that.
Anyhow, I got marked down by one of the assholes^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H TA's for this. I couldn't believe it!
So I have personal experience with this. Knocked me out of my socks when I saw it on Salon.
Okay, then we don't air it in Colorado. Furthermore, how many students are forced to watch prime time tv shows? Alex from A Clockwork Orange and the poor saps in my old H.S. history class don't count.;)
Obviously the show has little to do with actual events. And whatever connection it does have, it's always had, so the only solution would be to cancel it entirely, rather than just a specific episode.
So if you don't like it, you don't have to watch it, and this makes you the arbiter of what you think is good taste, rather than some anonymous guy at a network. I know I trust my judgement, and therefore I don't watch the show at all. If someone else tells me I had better not watch it, then I might decide to start, to see what all the fuss is about.
It's a bit juvinile, but people are more prone to be interested in something that other people are displaying passion (either way) for. Boring stuff, OTOH gets ignored. Now if you'll excuse me, my friends are all jumping off of a cliff, and I figure it can't be all bad.;)
Basically WBros paid a million dollars for a tape that they decided to sit on. It shouldn't be terribly suprising then that it is still valuable. If they don't want to take advantage of that, like they have been all along, then others will likely step in to do so. If WB wants control back, they need only air the episode - I bet that most of the big Buffy fans (I don't care for the show myself) will plonk down in front of the tube and watch it all the same.
I realize that current copyright law does not work this way, but I think it would be much better if copyrights were more like trademarks. Unless they are used (e.g. books always in print, software rewritten or supplied with emulators) they drop into the public domain. This seems to have happened de facto with Buffy here, and that's frequently just as good as de jure.
Of course, a time limit, like five years after the author's death (AND NO LONGER!) would still be a good thing to have in effect. Then we just need trademarks to ultimately expire, and we'll be all set...
Well then theres a violation of the 5th amendment. The state is obtaining what may be (this is the lynchpin) your IP without paying you. I should mention this to my dad, he does eminent domain law (although real property, not intellectual)
Heck, you might want to tie this in with the Echelon thing, along with the 4th amendment (and possibly others)
Are you kidding? Getting stuff to the moon is already difficult and expensive. Getting stuff to the sun is even worse. The last time we sent something vaguely near the sun it had to get a gravity assist from Jupiter.
OTOH we could drop this whole planet in the sun and it wouldn't even notice. It's a good spot for nuclear waste if you can get it there cheaply enough to be worthwhile.
Re:Silent cooling -- New Macs don't have fans
on
CPU Cooling Insanity
·
· Score: 2
Well Jobs has also been stupid in pushing the fanless design at times. The most famous case was the Apple III. Most people haven't heard of the Apple III, which is understandable, as it was overpriced, poorly marketed, competed against the IBM PC (this is several years before the Mac came out) and had to be recalled due to massive heat problems.
Basically, ICs were popping off of the board due to thermal expansion/contraction cycles. The field techs were instructed to lift the CPU a couple inches up, then drop it to reseat everything.
When the Apple III was brought back onto the market some months later (IIRC 9 months) it had an impact no greater than a comet the size of a chiuaua's head.
As for the original Mac, it worked alright drawing cold air through the bottom with the low-pressure of hot air rising out of the top. To facilitate this however there was an aftermarket product, which I believe was called the Mac Chimmney. It looked like a tin woodsman's hat, stood a foot or two high, and worked pretty well despite being silly.
That article in the Boston Globe said what the lyrics are in English (although not what Sanskrit corresponds) Unfortunately, you have to pay for the article.
I'm pretty happy with this. I don't think that anyone is going to argue against clean-rooming Java (or much else) and I don't feel that it's worth it to bother MS on that regard. OTOH, it's nice to see that the Judge is not going to let them get off scot-free. Wish it were more than a preliminary ruling....
...why we earthlings can't levitate our droids like Luke can...
Hmph. Not all of us earthlings can afford droids you know. I can levitate rocks all day, while standing on my head with a muppet on my butt, but who would let me borrow a droid to levitate? Come on.
(Anyone else think that the astromechs in the escape from Naboo evoked the drones from Silent Running?)
I like that (the idea, not Urot, which is pretty nasty)
See, I think that trying to bring balance to the force sounds like a *bad* plan to me. Let's see here... There are two Sith (which we'll assume is synonymous with dark Jedi) at any given time, so says Yoda. This would imply that balancing the force would either increase the number of Sith dramatically or require, gee, I don't know, eliminating all but two or so of the Jedi (a Master an an Apprentice).
Evidently attempts to alter the balance don't work out so well - Obi-Wan takes on Luke as an apprentice and so he has to bite it, keeping the number stable at 2 per side. The Emperor and Vader constantly believe that in order for Luke to join them one of them will have to die (the other one, inevitably).
This does sort of break down in Jedi as the numbers switch from 2/2 to 1/2 to 2/1 to 1, and that's ignoring Leia alltogether. My guess is that ultimately while Luke is chiefly a good Jedi, he embodies some of the dark side (as represented by his hand, clothing, etc.) and is himself balanced. Unfortunately for the rest of the galaxy, there's only one of him.
Silent Running is also '77, I thought. I remember hearing that Universal sued Fox, claiming that Lucas ripped off Huey and Louie for his droid designs. Personally, I figure there are only so many ways to get a midget in a plastic box.
It was implausable. Lucas didn't tell _anyone_ that Vader was Luke's father. (now I've probably just spoilt the series for the one guy out there who decided back in the 70's to wait till they were ALL out, and see them in order...)
During filming the line was "Obi-Wan was your father." So Hamill probably had no idea. Lucas does that kind of thing a lot. David Prowse, who wore the Vader costume (IIRC - no flames), had no clue that his voice was going to get replaced with James Earl Jones' voice. Didn't find out till he saw the premier in Hollywood.
Luke _IS_ whiny though. I never cared for his girly screams in all three movies. (Always evoked by something Vader does too... kill Obi-Wan, plot against Leia...)
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Well, the carpal tunnel thing is really an individual thing, but in my case, the round mouse is the most comfortable mouse i've ever used.
Ever.
I love the lil' guy.
The Wega is indeed *very* nice. Wish I had one.
I got a 27" Trinitron (KV-27V40) and I've been quite pleased with it. Remember of course that Trinitrons are not quite flat (excepting the Wega) but are slightly convex horizontally. They are flat vertically though, so the overall effect is that of a section of a cylinder.
The one problem I have with Trinitrons (I get this on my monitor too) is that there are problems with the red and blue signals around the edges of the screen. Generally the left side has some slight red highlights and the right side some slight blue ones. It's not normally noticable, except for Simpsons, where there are a lot of these all over the place.
I have heard that the really high end monitors (the sort used in video editing studios) have additional circuitry to compensate for this, and that a couple of people have modified their sets to get rid of it. Personally, I manage to live with it, and I think the Trinitrons are generally pretty good.
There are also some good Panasonics, the last time I shopped around for sets.
Okay, okay. How about this. The US gets the Yukon Territory, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
We'll have to get the US Dept. of Marketing to come up with better names for the last two. I don't think that Americans can pronounce those names, and I'm sure that we can't spell them, or locate them on a map.
BC is not a problem, as I expect most of it to be bought up by Microsoft. They'll take care of West Coast marketing and build the MS Interstate highway up to Alaska. Naturally the road will sieze up frequently, and not work for cars other than the MS Interstate Explorer, but what the heck.
Anyhow, Ontario (ooh those names again!) I'm iffy on. Do we really want to let any more politicans than necessary into the country? Probably not, so Canada will just have to shrink to the size of Ontario.
Now in return, Quebec can have Louisiana (and possibly Mississipi) but not New Orleans, which will, of course, be given to Disney World to clean up just like they've been doing with Times Square in New York City.
Quebec or Canada can also have the Maritime Provinces if they want. Given that I'm in Massachusetts I can see some advantages in foisting off Maine to them, but then we'd lose Maine's most valuable resource. I mean of course, Stephen King and the vast tracts of lumber that are made into Stephen King novels and/or toilet paper.
Most of these moves are going to annoy Texas, as there will now be several states larger than it is, but that's okay; Disney will need to expand Frontierland at some point anyhow, and Mexico will be looking pretty juicy in 50 years.
Oh fsck yeah! And you think they don't know this? I read an article on Israeli software piracy (it's very widespread, apparently due to poor support) which pointed out that if MS can't sell their software legally, it's very important to them for their software to be the most heavily pirated. The idea is that eventually the country will be brought into the company of 'civilized' nonpirating nations, and will start to pay for their software, already having standardized on MS.
Personally, the handful of Israelis _I_ know are all totally crazy. Probably not a representative sample, but I don't see them planning to go and pay retail for sw if it can be had for less. I try to buy stuff, and now that I'm making enough money to live a little comfortably, I can afford to get certain things. The big ticket items are still out of my reach (Photoshop, Quark) but I'm getting there.
Hm? I had understood that you held copyrights throughout your entire life, and that they were extended to 70 years after your death (who gets it is determined by your will, or the courts, like the rest of your estate).
At any rate, the point was that it's silly for copyrights to persist after the author's death in the first place. it should only be a tiny bit of assistance to the family so that they have time to find an alternative means of support.
Well, one reason that people bow down to the man is that they have too much to lose. Taxes now are scads higher than they were during the times leading up to the Revolutionary War. And people accept it because, I think, they've got too much to lose. Our leaders back then were smugglers, firebrands, freethinkers....
The two routes that the state tends to drive rebels down are to either make the burden placed on the people so great that it crosses a threshold, or to take away anything that was holding him back. A classic example: Luke is unwilling to even go to Mos Eisley with Obi-Wan, until he discovers that his aunt and uncle are dead. Then he helps bring down the Empire. Me, I'm on the threshold route myself, and while I am majorly pissed off at the government, corporations, etc. I'm not doing anything. Yet.
Anyhow, as for Civil Disobedience, there's one thing that really cheeses me off about that. A *good* practicioner of it will break the law, and willingly accept his punishment. That's what keeps it civil, people. To break the law because the law is not just, but to accept the law because the law still deserves some respect in a general sense.
There's a good version of it for modern times by Alara Rogers that I like, and have hanging around somewhere:
Google is really useful, let me tell you.
Maybe they can have someone being chased around the room by an old washing machine drive. ;)
I'll say it's deja vu.
In my Intro to C class (Dammit Jim, I'm a graphic designer, not a programmer!) I tended to refer in my comments to certain parts of code being bitches to write properly, etc.
Never figured out recursive loops until halfway through the exam at which point my eyes were opened and i aced that part of the test. Good timing that.
Anyhow, I got marked down by one of the assholes^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H TA's for this. I couldn't believe it!
So I have personal experience with this. Knocked me out of my socks when I saw it on Salon.
Okay, then we don't air it in Colorado. Furthermore, how many students are forced to watch prime time tv shows? Alex from A Clockwork Orange and the poor saps in my old H.S. history class don't count. ;)
;)
Obviously the show has little to do with actual events. And whatever connection it does have, it's always had, so the only solution would be to cancel it entirely, rather than just a specific episode.
So if you don't like it, you don't have to watch it, and this makes you the arbiter of what you think is good taste, rather than some anonymous guy at a network. I know I trust my judgement, and therefore I don't watch the show at all. If someone else tells me I had better not watch it, then I might decide to start, to see what all the fuss is about.
It's a bit juvinile, but people are more prone to be interested in something that other people are displaying passion (either way) for. Boring stuff, OTOH gets ignored. Now if you'll excuse me, my friends are all jumping off of a cliff, and I figure it can't be all bad.
Basically WBros paid a million dollars for a tape that they decided to sit on. It shouldn't be terribly suprising then that it is still valuable. If they don't want to take advantage of that, like they have been all along, then others will likely step in to do so. If WB wants control back, they need only air the episode - I bet that most of the big Buffy fans (I don't care for the show myself) will plonk down in front of the tube and watch it all the same.
I realize that current copyright law does not work this way, but I think it would be much better if copyrights were more like trademarks. Unless they are used (e.g. books always in print, software rewritten or supplied with emulators) they drop into the public domain. This seems to have happened de facto with Buffy here, and that's frequently just as good as de jure.
Of course, a time limit, like five years after the author's death (AND NO LONGER!) would still be a good thing to have in effect. Then we just need trademarks to ultimately expire, and we'll be all set...
Well then theres a violation of the 5th amendment. The state is obtaining what may be (this is the lynchpin) your IP without paying you. I should mention this to my dad, he does eminent domain law (although real property, not intellectual)
Heck, you might want to tie this in with the Echelon thing, along with the 4th amendment (and possibly others)
Oh hell, if it really needs to, the NSA probably has the ability to create money - just modify a couple of files in some banking computer.
;)
Maybe we can convince Greenspanman to rescue us from a potential threat to the economy
Are you kidding? Getting stuff to the moon is already difficult and expensive. Getting stuff to the sun is even worse. The last time we sent something vaguely near the sun it had to get a gravity assist from Jupiter.
OTOH we could drop this whole planet in the sun and it wouldn't even notice. It's a good spot for nuclear waste if you can get it there cheaply enough to be worthwhile.
Well Jobs has also been stupid in pushing the fanless design at times. The most famous case was the Apple III. Most people haven't heard of the Apple III, which is understandable, as it was overpriced, poorly marketed, competed against the IBM PC (this is several years before the Mac came out) and had to be recalled due to massive heat problems.
Basically, ICs were popping off of the board due to thermal expansion/contraction cycles. The field techs were instructed to lift the CPU a couple inches up, then drop it to reseat everything.
When the Apple III was brought back onto the market some months later (IIRC 9 months) it had an impact no greater than a comet the size of a chiuaua's head.
As for the original Mac, it worked alright drawing cold air through the bottom with the low-pressure of hot air rising out of the top. To facilitate this however there was an aftermarket product, which I believe was called the Mac Chimmney. It looked like a tin woodsman's hat, stood a foot or two high, and worked pretty well despite being silly.
That article in the Boston Globe said what the lyrics are in English (although not what Sanskrit corresponds)
Unfortunately, you have to pay for the article.
I'm pretty happy with this. I don't think that anyone is going to argue against clean-rooming Java (or much else) and I don't feel that it's worth it to bother MS on that regard. OTOH, it's nice to see that the Judge is not going to let them get off scot-free. Wish it were more than a preliminary ruling....
Damn, I even put in a smiley. I understood what you meant, I was just making a joke.
Well... I'm from Florida, and I can't say that there's anything special here.... ;)
Hmph. Not all of us earthlings can afford droids you know. I can levitate rocks all day, while standing on my head with a muppet on my butt, but who would let me borrow a droid to levitate? Come on.
(Anyone else think that the astromechs in the escape from Naboo evoked the drones from Silent Running?)
I like that (the idea, not Urot, which is pretty nasty)
See, I think that trying to bring balance to the force sounds like a *bad* plan to me. Let's see here... There are two Sith (which we'll assume is synonymous with dark Jedi) at any given time, so says Yoda. This would imply that balancing the force would either increase the number of Sith dramatically or require, gee, I don't know, eliminating all but two or so of the Jedi (a Master an an Apprentice).
Evidently attempts to alter the balance don't work out so well - Obi-Wan takes on Luke as an apprentice and so he has to bite it, keeping the number stable at 2 per side. The Emperor and Vader constantly believe that in order for Luke to join them one of them will have to die (the other one, inevitably).
This does sort of break down in Jedi as the numbers switch from 2/2 to 1/2 to 2/1 to 1, and that's ignoring Leia alltogether. My guess is that ultimately while Luke is chiefly a good Jedi, he embodies some of the dark side (as represented by his hand, clothing, etc.) and is himself balanced. Unfortunately for the rest of the galaxy, there's only one of him.
Silent Running is also '77, I thought. I remember hearing that Universal sued Fox, claiming that Lucas ripped off Huey and Louie for his droid designs. Personally, I figure there are only so many ways to get a midget in a plastic box.
It was implausable. Lucas didn't tell _anyone_ that Vader was Luke's father. (now I've probably just spoilt the series for the one guy out there who decided back in the 70's to wait till they were ALL out, and see them in order...)
During filming the line was "Obi-Wan was your father." So Hamill probably had no idea. Lucas does that kind of thing a lot. David Prowse, who wore the Vader costume (IIRC - no flames), had no clue that his voice was going to get replaced with James Earl Jones' voice. Didn't find out till he saw the premier in Hollywood.
Luke _IS_ whiny though. I never cared for his girly screams in all three movies. (Always evoked by something Vader does too... kill Obi-Wan, plot against Leia...)