Iwill not pay to "upgrade" when it's more a "fix"
on
Virtual PC 6 Review
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· Score: 1
Having bought a G4 a while ago and bought VPC 5, I found it useful but it was slow and buggy and lacked some features I came to expect from the s/w. Posts on the Connectix VPC site mentioned complete incompatability problems with 5.0.4 and 10.2. Connectix never spoke a word about fixes, then released VPC 6 with their upgrade costing the full price of VPC 6 with PC-DOS. Not what I'd call discount pricing for the upgrade...And now 5.0.X is no longer even listed in their product downloads page.
From what I can tell, 6 doesn't add any new features, it just fixes bugs...IMHO should have been a 5.1 release.
I'll continue to boycott 6.0 and continue to use 5.X only when necessary (infrequently.) This sort of crappy upgrade strategy makes piracy a more tempting option, let me tell you!
Personally, I'm glad Connectix got bought out by MS and hope they get sacked, and perhaps the Open Source community [Bochs] will come to the rescue.
Or perhaps VMWare will see an opportunity (assuming they change their painful pricing model.) Heck, maybe Apple will get into the business!
I thought most of you realized that Wired is a fictional publication that occasional contains facts, not the other way around. Reliable and skilled news organization they are not.
(IMHO, they're the tech equivalent of Weekly World News. I'm just amazed people still buy it!)
Because foam falling off the tank is likely to be due to human error in manufacturing and hence, the manufacturer could be held liable...Not that the US government ever really penalizes USA or their parent contractors. However, the contractor responsible is sure to get a boat load of bad press.
Blaming it on space debris would be much more politically expedient, no one could have possibly prepared for or responded to a random act of Dog like that. However, it's harder to "fix" this sort of problem so it might jeopardize NASA's funding. (Why fund a space program when it's likely to crash and burn due to random events?)
Trek movies have had a tradition of either excellent directors or at least "in-franchise" directors.
Choosing a director who came off of a flop (IMHO) special-effect-heavy plot-lite movie like Tomb Raider doomed the project from the get-go.
Oh, and I agree with others and place the blame squarely on Rick Berman's shoulders. Kitsch, fist-fights, and good sci-fi writers made Trek great. Run-of-the-mill plots, hooters, and heavy special effects will kill it.
FYI, you don't need IP telephony to get this sort of feature. I used to work for a company that had this sort of service, you'd get an 800# and you (the owner of the 800#) would call it to tell it where to forward to, and it had multiple level forwarding, in the way you describe. Then again, that telco got bought out many years ago, but I'd hope someone out there would have such a service.
Now, if I called your IP adress, would it forward to POTS lines?:^)
Amen to the whole price argument...Go to your average new + used music shop and you'll see twice as many people in the used section than in the new section. If they could buy new for prices they currently pay for used (usually $8-$10) then I'm sure the pattern would flip-flop. (As the new section would usually have popular CDs in stock, whereas used sections are really hit-and-miss.)
As for me, I'll keep buying used, I can't stomach paying > $10 for most any music. (And I have >1,600 CD's.) Imagine (especially you record company exec schmucks) if I bought most of those new instead of used?!?
Then again, I'm sure the record co's would much rather squash the used CD market. Too bad that cat's out of the bag!;^)
As an aside, anyone see the irony of the latest Boston CD berating "Corporate America" and being priced ~$18 at Borders? (Esp. as it's a risky "comeback album", you'd think they'd want exposure instead of $$$$$.)
Finally it seems they're shifting towards using DVI as the standard digital interface. I bought a DVI projector many moons ago and am currently stuck with a desktop computer (or a $3k TiBook) for digital viewing. For those who have analog HDTV sets, converting to digital will be another big step in quality.
Now, hopefully, the big manufacturers will come out with prosumer DVD players with DVI output.
Just hope they don't use an encrypted version of DVI.:^o
Mars Mission - Why Carnivore?
on
Lab-Grown Steak
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I have to wonder, why would NASA spend $ to research developing lab-grown meat when you could just turn veggie for a long-duration mission? Is it a weight/power/space issue? (Space as in the amount of space it would take in the ship to grow hydroponics?)
Now, I'm a true-blooded American Carnivore (TM) and eat just about anything you put in front of me. A vegan diet (within reason) is plenty sufficient and I'd certainly adopt one as a requirement to go on a long-term mission.
OTOH, I certainly can support any developments that would put a dent in the factory farms.
I don't understand why the poster believes that if Miyamoto produced a mature-themed game would "rock the world".
In my gaming experience, the level of maturity has very little to do with how well the game plays, it's much more of a "target the audience" marketing tool than a game design choice.
Besides, if Nintendo chose to shift to a more mature audience, they'd be going much more directly head-to-head with PS2 (a suicidal act, if anything.)
*whoops*, I stand slightly corrected...The drive does come with PowerDVD to do DVD decoding on the computer...So technically you could play DVDs from this drive through the computer (but I strongly doubt DVD decoding is done on the drive in this case.)
Note that the article does *not* state that the DVD playback can go through the digital interfaces to the computer and I highly suspect that the DVD playback is only in "standalone" mode (perhaps with computer control? I doubt it though.)
With previous/. news (go search 'em yourself) about dumping of "recycled" computers in mainland China, how about if all Abit motherboards get recycled to Abit in Taiwan?:^) Mebbe we could string a bunch of boards together to send back in a container (a-la the AOL CD return.)
I would have thought that for $200 I'd at least get a decent 4" display, whereas I got a crap 4" display...Wal*mart took the Initial player back with no questions asked, phew. Glad I didn't pay shipping.
For $400 (yeah, double, I know) you can get a 7" display (almost double the size, and more than double the resolution, surely!) Audiovox player from Costco...I'm sure there's other good deals out there as well. The MSNBC reviewer must have been smoking something to think the Initial player was worth the $. (Or [s]he got a kickback/owns stock.)
Having just purchased one from a local Wal*Mart, I am suprised at how bad the LCD is on this thing. Not only is it 4" diagonal but it seems to be something on the order of 30dpi (along the lines of the really low-end LCD panels for game consoles.) The video artifacting caused by this is quite distracting (with bright halos around people's faces, nearly illegible subtitles, etc.)
I don't know what the MSNBC reviewer was thinking when he said the video quality was good...It's barely passable and not worth the $.
I'll be going back to the return line and considering upgrading to either a $400 unit capable of normal resolution or considering going to a laptop (although battery life, size, weight, and cost are a big bonus in these portable DVD players.)
Re:how about?....
on
See Ya .su
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· Score: 2, Funny
look-at-me-funny-and-i-will.su
(we could force all law firms to register in the.su domain, they're all so.su happy! Sorry for the bad puns, had to be said.)
Could the increasing age of mothers when they have their children be a cause? (Dual-income, white-collar households tend to have their children later.) Autism is one risk factor that is well-known in pregnancies later in life. Why hasn't the results and follow-on (flurry) of news addressed this?
I'd guess the general concept of projecting an image onto a wall of fog must surely has tons of prior art...I would assume that the patent either has some specific technological "breakthroughs" to make this technique easier/better or it will certainly find many challenges.
If you really want to enjoy a movie, good CD, high quality Ogg's, etc in your room, the constant drone of the computer fan is an annoyance I'd gladly pay to avoid.
Anyone have opinions of DVD playback with a Transmeta CPU? (I'm currently using VIA CPU's for my desktop and the DVD playback is crap, even with an ATI Radeon videocard.)
Being able to play CD's, DVD's, Ogg files, etc. on this machine makes it a good choice, DVI output (esp. as a separate framebuffer, so you can use the main display as a control interface) would make it even better.
(I currently use a G4 with an iMic for external D2A and DVI adapter, but even the fan in this machine is noisy.)
Yes, WebDAV is a protocol commonly-used by many content management systems (commercial and open-src)...See http://www.webdav.org
Likely "roll your own" characters...
on
Marvel Goes MMPORG
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Nowhere on the CNet adver^H^H^H^H^Harticle does it mention that players will *play* famous characters like the Hulk, Spidey, X-Men, etc, they'll likely meet them (then again, a really cool feature would be to give control of famous characters to players who are particularly good or well-liked; or, better, have famous actors guest star as famous characters)...I'm assuming that players will develop their own super-powers as they play the game, making each character unique. 'course, if they're really smart, they'll allow player-developed skins/models.
('course, I'll only play this game if they bring back Nightcrawler, I still miss 'im.)
Anyone see the actual press release? (www.vivendiuniversal.com gives me a ColdFusion error, heh!)
Slashdot Mirror
Having bought a G4 a while ago and bought VPC 5, I found it useful but it was slow and buggy and lacked some features I came to expect from the s/w. Posts on the Connectix VPC site mentioned complete incompatability problems with 5.0.4 and 10.2. Connectix never spoke a word about fixes, then released VPC 6 with their upgrade costing the full price of VPC 6 with PC-DOS. Not what I'd call discount pricing for the upgrade...And now 5.0.X is no longer even listed in their product downloads page.
From what I can tell, 6 doesn't add any new features, it just fixes bugs...IMHO should have been a 5.1 release.
I'll continue to boycott 6.0 and continue to use 5.X only when necessary (infrequently.) This sort of crappy upgrade strategy makes piracy a more tempting option, let me tell you!
Personally, I'm glad Connectix got bought out by MS and hope they get sacked, and perhaps the Open Source community [Bochs] will come to the rescue.
Or perhaps VMWare will see an opportunity (assuming they change their painful pricing model.) Heck, maybe Apple will get into the business!
I thought most of you realized that Wired is a fictional publication that occasional contains facts, not the other way around. Reliable and skilled news organization they are not.
(IMHO, they're the tech equivalent of Weekly World News. I'm just amazed people still buy it!)
Because foam falling off the tank is likely to be due to human error in manufacturing and hence, the manufacturer could be held liable...Not that the US government ever really penalizes USA or their parent contractors. However, the contractor responsible is sure to get a boat load of bad press.
Blaming it on space debris would be much more politically expedient, no one could have possibly prepared for or responded to a random act of Dog like that. However, it's harder to "fix" this sort of problem so it might jeopardize NASA's funding. (Why fund a space program when it's likely to crash and burn due to random events?)
Trek movies have had a tradition of either excellent directors or at least "in-franchise" directors.
Choosing a director who came off of a flop (IMHO) special-effect-heavy plot-lite movie like Tomb Raider doomed the project from the get-go.
Oh, and I agree with others and place the blame squarely on Rick Berman's shoulders. Kitsch, fist-fights, and good sci-fi writers made Trek great. Run-of-the-mill plots, hooters, and heavy special effects will kill it.
FYI, you don't need IP telephony to get this sort of feature. I used to work for a company that had this sort of service, you'd get an 800# and you (the owner of the 800#) would call it to tell it where to forward to, and it had multiple level forwarding, in the way you describe. Then again, that telco got bought out many years ago, but I'd hope someone out there would have such a service.
:^)
Now, if I called your IP adress, would it forward to POTS lines?
Amen to the whole price argument...Go to your average new + used music shop and you'll see twice as many people in the used section than in the new section. If they could buy new for prices they currently pay for used (usually $8-$10) then I'm sure the pattern would flip-flop. (As the new section would usually have popular CDs in stock, whereas used sections are really hit-and-miss.)
;^)
As for me, I'll keep buying used, I can't stomach paying > $10 for most any music. (And I have >1,600 CD's.) Imagine (especially you record company exec schmucks) if I bought most of those new instead of used?!?
Then again, I'm sure the record co's would much rather squash the used CD market. Too bad that cat's out of the bag!
As an aside, anyone see the irony of the latest Boston CD berating "Corporate America" and being priced ~$18 at Borders? (Esp. as it's a risky "comeback album", you'd think they'd want exposure instead of $$$$$.)
One thing to be said, if RFIDs make it into everyday clothing, the (color) blind can find out what (color) article of clothing they're wearing.
Oh, and a second benefit would be I could use my shoes as a "token" for authentication. (No more logins, automatic screen-saver activation, etc.)
Not to say that I'm for RFIDs, I just like to make lemonaide from my lemons.
Am I the first to read the submission as a request for a new Beanie Baby?
I should go buy a Beanie and make a tin hat for it, just for fun...
Finally it seems they're shifting towards using DVI as the standard digital interface. I bought a DVI projector many moons ago and am currently stuck with a desktop computer (or a $3k TiBook) for digital viewing. For those who have analog HDTV sets, converting to digital will be another big step in quality.
:^o
Now, hopefully, the big manufacturers will come out with prosumer DVD players with DVI output.
Just hope they don't use an encrypted version of DVI.
I have to wonder, why would NASA spend $ to research developing lab-grown meat when you could just turn veggie for a long-duration mission? Is it a weight/power/space issue? (Space as in the amount of space it would take in the ship to grow hydroponics?)
Now, I'm a true-blooded American Carnivore (TM) and eat just about anything you put in front of me. A vegan diet (within reason) is plenty sufficient and I'd certainly adopt one as a requirement to go on a long-term mission.
OTOH, I certainly can support any developments that would put a dent in the factory farms.
What? A Wired article with stupid quotes? Never!
</sarcasm>
I don't understand why the poster believes that if Miyamoto produced a mature-themed game would "rock the world".
In my gaming experience, the level of maturity has very little to do with how well the game plays, it's much more of a "target the audience" marketing tool than a game design choice.
Besides, if Nintendo chose to shift to a more mature audience, they'd be going much more directly head-to-head with PS2 (a suicidal act, if anything.)
*whoops*, I stand slightly corrected...The drive does come with PowerDVD to do DVD decoding on the computer...So technically you could play DVDs from this drive through the computer (but I strongly doubt DVD decoding is done on the drive in this case.)
Note that the article does *not* state that the DVD playback can go through the digital interfaces to the computer and I highly suspect that the DVD playback is only in "standalone" mode (perhaps with computer control? I doubt it though.)
Way to hype!
>:^o
With previous /. news (go search 'em yourself) about dumping of "recycled" computers in mainland China, how about if all Abit motherboards get recycled to Abit in Taiwan? :^) Mebbe we could string a bunch of boards together to send back in a container (a-la the AOL CD return.)
#define SARCASM biting /. but never duplicate inane discussion messages!
Boy, I've seen duplicate stories on
What next, duplicate discussions of duplicate discussions?!? Quick, call CNN, they're sure to not give a crap.
#undef SARCASM
Yes, the same unit as reviewed was purchased.
I would have thought that for $200 I'd at least get a decent 4" display, whereas I got a crap 4" display...Wal*mart took the Initial player back with no questions asked, phew. Glad I didn't pay shipping.
For $400 (yeah, double, I know) you can get a 7" display (almost double the size, and more than double the resolution, surely!) Audiovox player from Costco...I'm sure there's other good deals out there as well. The MSNBC reviewer must have been smoking something to think the Initial player was worth the $. (Or [s]he got a kickback/owns stock.)
Having just purchased one from a local Wal*Mart, I am suprised at how bad the LCD is on this thing. Not only is it 4" diagonal but it seems to be something on the order of 30dpi (along the lines of the really low-end LCD panels for game consoles.) The video artifacting caused by this is quite distracting (with bright halos around people's faces, nearly illegible subtitles, etc.)
I don't know what the MSNBC reviewer was thinking when he said the video quality was good...It's barely passable and not worth the $.
I'll be going back to the return line and considering upgrading to either a $400 unit capable of normal resolution or considering going to a laptop (although battery life, size, weight, and cost are a big bonus in these portable DVD players.)
look-at-me-funny-and-i-will.su
.su domain, they're all so .su happy! Sorry for the bad puns, had to be said.)
(we could force all law firms to register in the
Could the increasing age of mothers when they have their children be a cause? (Dual-income, white-collar households tend to have their children later.) Autism is one risk factor that is well-known in pregnancies later in life. Why hasn't the results and follow-on (flurry) of news addressed this?
But does the baby dance?
(Sorry, had to be said.)
I'd guess the general concept of projecting an image onto a wall of fog must surely has tons of prior art...I would assume that the patent either has some specific technological "breakthroughs" to make this technique easier/better or it will certainly find many challenges.
Note that the subject is *NO FAN*, not little fan that is quieter than big fan.
If you really want to enjoy a movie, good CD, high quality Ogg's, etc in your room, the constant drone of the computer fan is an annoyance I'd gladly pay to avoid.
Anyone have opinions of DVD playback with a Transmeta CPU? (I'm currently using VIA CPU's for my desktop and the DVD playback is crap, even with an ATI Radeon videocard.)
Being able to play CD's, DVD's, Ogg files, etc. on this machine makes it a good choice, DVI output (esp. as a separate framebuffer, so you can use the main display as a control interface) would make it even better.
(I currently use a G4 with an iMic for external D2A and DVI adapter, but even the fan in this machine is noisy.)
Yes, WebDAV is a protocol commonly-used by many content management systems (commercial and open-src)...See http://www.webdav.org
Nowhere on the CNet adver^H^H^H^H^Harticle does it mention that players will *play* famous characters like the Hulk, Spidey, X-Men, etc, they'll likely meet them (then again, a really cool feature would be to give control of famous characters to players who are particularly good or well-liked; or, better, have famous actors guest star as famous characters)...I'm assuming that players will develop their own super-powers as they play the game, making each character unique. 'course, if they're really smart, they'll allow player-developed skins/models.
('course, I'll only play this game if they bring back Nightcrawler, I still miss 'im.)
Anyone see the actual press release? (www.vivendiuniversal.com gives me a ColdFusion error, heh!)