Funny how the AC was invented in a place which has a few records for the most snowfall in a 72 hour period. Sometimes it piles up above 7 or 8 feet. Need AC? just open up a window and let the snow fall in.
Is it just me, or is NVIDIA trying to it's damndest to piss off Intel? reading the news section on www.nvidia.com, it seems like every 5th sentance states how they are working with AMD to produce this, do that, etc etc. What about Intel? I personally prefer AMDs, but it seems kind of strange that NVIDIA would ignore the larger of the chip manufacturers.
Maybe it's just me, but i find it rather strange that microsoft would ever dream of "fixing" someone elses operating system. Especially when the only thing they could gain was a few million sales of office X. Sure sure, that's still money (and a lot i might add), but knowing microsofts tactics, I still find this VERY hard to believe.
Now it's time for microsoft to start picking on apple again... well, at least it will focus their attention off the linux community for a little while.
This seems really cool, if you have the teachers to pull it all together. I went to a pretty crappy public high school (though they claimed it was above average by New York standards). The summer after my junior year, my school sent two of the math teachers to take some programming classes to teach AP computer programming in C.
So, in theory, my senior year, i would be able to take the AP programming class and possibly get college credit.
Wrong... The teachers that they sent out were not programmers by any standards. By the 3rd month, we had already surpassed their training. After that, it was student and teacher working together to learn the material. Some of the students (myself included) were better off just reading books on our own. By the end of the year, we only got through a third of the curriculum that we were suppossed to. So, taking the AP exam wasn't even an option.
Point being, this new program seems really really cool, but I hope that they actually take this seriously before they half ass the training and use unqualified people... cause it's unfair for themselves and the students.
Re:NOT a Mac case clone; lacks best Mac case featu
on
Mac-Case Clone for PCs
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I admit, I used to be just like this guy. I used to work at a PC store/repair shop and I despised macs to no end. In fact, the company I worked for wouldn't even allow someone to drop one off because no one wanted to deal with "those damn macs".
So, i was a mac hater for a long time. And i would use all the excuses that people still use. They don't have any software support, they are expensive, people only buy them cause they're pretty, etc etc.
But,a few months ago a friend of mine bought a powerbook, and i began my usual mac taunting. He then told me to come over and try it out. Now I own a powerbook and i'm happy as all hell with it.
Point being, give'em a chance. Go and try using one at an apple store for a little while. Mac bashing without ever trying one (especially since OS X) is like posting comments on/. without reading the damn article first.
If you were to take two athletes, one white and one black, and trained them in the same manner, you will find that the black athlete will excel in endurance, strength, and power quite a bit beyond the white athlete's performance
-Of course you speak of averages. I know you probably meant to include that, but your reasoning implies that a white person would NEVER beat an african american in any instance, which is simply not true.
The limited pool of black athletes can only be divided so much.... short distance sprinter may be able to become a world-class distance runner...America designates black runners as short distance competitors
-that's just complete and utter bullshit. It's not like the US decides ahead of time which events we want to win, and thus designate athletes accordingly. I run track and I won the pentathlon in my state my senior year, but that does not mean I could have even made it there in the 5K or even the 100 meter dash. It would be pointless to take sprinters like Michael Johnson or Maurice Green and train them for the mile, cause their bodies aren't built for it. Their bodies are meant for explosive , fast twitch motions, Not endurance based distance running which depends much more on the bodies ability to combat lactic acid build up and fatigue.
Look, I agree with you that black athletes are on average (at least the ones that compete) more skillful and talented in their respective sports with similar training regiments. However, this has nothing to do with the prevalence of black sprinters vs black distance runners.
Yeah, I had a look at the spec of the laughably-named Apple Cinema High Definition display a while back. Max resolution is 1920 x 1200 for a 23" diagonal. Apple Digital Bus connection only -- no SVGA or video inputs.
-well, if a user sprung for a 23" display at a couple thousand dollars, he or she would probably have a digital bus connection as well
IBM's T210 21" LCD does 2048 x 1536, with SVGA, DVI, S-video and RCA composite video, including picture-in-picture. That's about 700 kpixels more than the Apple display.
-true, and this lovely monitor can be used on a mac as well. I know, IBM makes great monitors. But do they make all in one monitor/computer sets like the iMac?
IBM are also selling the T220, with a 3840 x 2400 maximum resolution for the same diagonal as the Apple "HD".
-this is like comparing a BMW 5 series to a Formula 1 race car. Sure the race car is faster, but is in a price category way way above the BMW... and once again, hook it up to a G4 tower if you'd like
I've noticed that Apple's LCD panels always seem to be a step behind the rest of the world in their pixel density -- pretty ordinary laptops are running 1600 x 1200 resolutions while the Apple top-of-the-range G4 PowerBooks are stuck with a paltry 1280 x 854 dots (but look at the diagonal size! 15.2"! Wow!) I suppose they've got to shave the spec somewhere.
-ugh, i don't want 1600x1200 on my powerbook. Why? Cause I can't read a damn thing at that resolution. Oh sure, you could just scale down to a lower resolution, but then you get all of those weird non-integer multiple effects which makes text look like shit. I have a 19" desktop monitor (17.9 viewable) that looks alright at 1600x1200, but a 15 viewable screen just doesn't need such resolution. I believe most users would scale it down anyway, and unless they want to go at 800x600 (each half of the max), it will look like shit.
I think all of your points are valid, but the are only part of the whole picture
It is amusing to me, cause even though win 2k is much more stable than win 95 and 98 (though 98 is still my favorite of the bunch), i have had more than enough torment from it. I've had my computer completely crash twice (meaning all data lost, no way of recovering, i tried for 3 or 4 days each, and i used to work at a computer shop repairing computers for 2 years, so i think i know what i'm doing) AND, i've had to reformat my main partition 7 times in 1 year trying both win 2k and win 2k server. This sucks a whole lot when it happens during the school terms, when i have projects to do and reports to turn in.
So, you haven't had a problem. That's great. I spent appoximately 80-100 man hours just getting my computer functioning again AND 2 times i've lost certain chunks of data that were irreplaceable (though most of it was backed up, so all was not lost).
Oh, and yes, it would be amusing if 2000 crashed on you, i mean, i'd laugh
Obviously things change with compression quality. but the difference between enough compression and too much is much more noticeable on Video clips and (for many) not nearly as big of a deal on their mp3's.
IMHO, there is very little difference between mp3 and CD quality. Yes, there are differences, and audiophiles will point this out every time. But the fact is, most users don't care.
Now DVD's vs DIVX. Not only can the quality suck (artifacts all the time), but the sound can be totally out of sync, which is really really annoying. Plus, unlike mp3 CD's which can be played in just about any new CD player, DIVX does not play in standalone DVD players without hacking the hardware.
But, this could change...
Seems obvious to me
on
Microsoft Freon
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Every time there is an article about microsoft trying to take over our living rooms, everyone freaks out and no one can seem to understand why they are so desperate to do such a thing.
Well, simply put, they have to. Microsoft is a huge company, used to churning out huge profits. That was all fine and dandy as long as they could continue to create (or copy, incoporate, etc) new operating systems and software packages that people would continually purchase on a somewhat regular basis (every software/hardware cycle). The problem that they seem to be facing over the past few years is that NO ONE wants to upgrade their systems anymore. Their software, a huge part of their profits, has reached a point where users are quite happy (i know, how sad to be happy with their products) with them. SO, no matter how many rebates or promotions they offer, there are still a lot of computers out their running windows 2000 and even 98 and NT4. Why? Cause the new features that office XP has are worthless to many people.
So, how does this all tie in? Microsoft needs to find a new way to generate continual profits. It can't push people into buying software upgrades as they could in years past. The only way they will be able to sustain this money influx is to expand to new markets (video games, TV, various website services) as well as try and charge monthly costs for their OS (i believe that they are still trying to do so).
So, stop being suprised about all of this. It's gonna happen. And if you don't like it, don't buy their products/services. They currently don't have dominance in these other markets, and they won't as long as people don't buy all of their crap.
I can't say i'm that suprised. Let's think about this for a moment. How long does it take for a computer to become obsolete? Depending on your need for speed, it can range anywhere from 2-4 years. So, if you've been a computer user for 8 years, you've probably owned anywhere from 2-4 computers by now. Ok, now take into account the number of computers purchased for schools, colleges, and businesses. Granted, they might not replace them as much, but companies and schools do change over all of their systems from time to time. Plus, even though many areas of the world are poor and may not have as much opportunity to buy and maintain computers, there are still over 6 billion people on the earth. Odds are, enough of them can afford a computer to top off the billion mark.
A billion? I would have thought it would be much higher by now.
The problem with that solution, though i completely agree with you, is that a person (me) would end up having to make this person a script for every god damn thing this person would want to do. Sure, if it's something like check you're e-mail and look up the weather, fine. that's only two things. But, why should i get over being lazy and make all these things (unless the money was really worth it). Why can't other people stop being lazy and learn a few of the basics?
If only real player didn't tank out a few years back (my window stills says it's buffering) and if quicktime was widely supported, this wouldn't even be an issue. Everyone seems to get forced into supporting the windows option for lack of a better option (and i'm talking about the masses here). i know all the linux buffs here can point out a million other options on a non-windows OS, but that's not gonna help my friends mother, who needs to read the instructions written on the sticky pad about how to check her yahoo mail.
So not only can we make pirated CD's, we can now put copy protected images on them as well... you probably can't see it, but I'm doing a little dance for joy over here, knowing that I can piss off the RIAA even more
Next step, incorporating this wonderful gadget into your fridge/freezer/1970's jukebox
I'm not disagreeing with you that users of P2P software (usually downloading pirated software/music/movies) are not in the wrong here. I'm just saying that the ideas of network combat, like overloading servers with faulty queries, is a dangerous game that might spread to other internet arenas. Say a competiting online forum is bashing you... Do you write up a program to create a whole bunch of users and flood the message boards with gibberish? Or forget about forums, how about the online support area for another company? Flood those servers so that customers of that company think that they have crappy service.
Point being. Yes, most P2P is used illegally, but the tactics that an orginization like the RIAA would like to impliment to stop these could easily be misused.
True, the music industry could make tons of phony user aliases and bombard the servers with numerous useless queries and corrupt files. But where does it stop? This same technique could be used by companies to overload a competitors internet servers and capabilities... This method, though very possible, seems more like a mild virus attack that could potentially lead to a backlash of similar attacks from some pretty pissed off users.
Seems like a plausible solution, with some negative side effects.
Slashdot Mirror
or how about.
So the FCC won't let me be,
let me trade shows on IRC,
they tried to put the flags on my tv,
but it looks like shit on NBC
Yet somehow i'll still be able to get daily e-mails about how to make my penis bigger.
And ironically enough, it doesn't taste good either.
Funny how the AC was invented in a place which has a few records for the most snowfall in a 72 hour period. Sometimes it piles up above 7 or 8 feet. Need AC? just open up a window and let the snow fall in.
Is it just me, or is NVIDIA trying to it's damndest to piss off Intel? reading the news section on www.nvidia.com, it seems like every 5th sentance states how they are working with AMD to produce this, do that, etc etc. What about Intel? I personally prefer AMDs, but it seems kind of strange that NVIDIA would ignore the larger of the chip manufacturers.
Maybe it's just me, but i find it rather strange that microsoft would ever dream of "fixing" someone elses operating system. Especially when the only thing they could gain was a few million sales of office X. Sure sure, that's still money (and a lot i might add), but knowing microsofts tactics, I still find this VERY hard to believe.
Now it's time for microsoft to start picking on apple again... well, at least it will focus their attention off the linux community for a little while.
This seems really cool, if you have the teachers to pull it all together. I went to a pretty crappy public high school (though they claimed it was above average by New York standards). The summer after my junior year, my school sent two of the math teachers to take some programming classes to teach AP computer programming in C.
So, in theory, my senior year, i would be able to take the AP programming class and possibly get college credit.
Wrong... The teachers that they sent out were not programmers by any standards. By the 3rd month, we had already surpassed their training. After that, it was student and teacher working together to learn the material. Some of the students (myself included) were better off just reading books on our own. By the end of the year, we only got through a third of the curriculum that we were suppossed to. So, taking the AP exam wasn't even an option.
Point being, this new program seems really really cool, but I hope that they actually take this seriously before they half ass the training and use unqualified people... cause it's unfair for themselves and the students.
I admit, I used to be just like this guy. I used to work at a PC store/repair shop and I despised macs to no end. In fact, the company I worked for wouldn't even allow someone to drop one off because no one wanted to deal with "those damn macs".
/. without reading the damn article first.
So, i was a mac hater for a long time. And i would use all the excuses that people still use. They don't have any software support, they are expensive, people only buy them cause they're pretty, etc etc.
But,a few months ago a friend of mine bought a powerbook, and i began my usual mac taunting. He then told me to come over and try it out. Now I own a powerbook and i'm happy as all hell with it.
Point being, give'em a chance. Go and try using one at an apple store for a little while. Mac bashing without ever trying one (especially since OS X) is like posting comments on
If you were to take two athletes, one white and one black, and trained them in the same manner, you will find that the black athlete will excel in endurance, strength, and power quite a bit beyond the white athlete's performance
-Of course you speak of averages. I know you probably meant to include that, but your reasoning implies that a white person would NEVER beat an african american in any instance, which is simply not true.
The limited pool of black athletes can only be divided so much.... short distance sprinter may be able to become a world-class distance runner...America designates black runners as short distance competitors
-that's just complete and utter bullshit. It's not like the US decides ahead of time which events we want to win, and thus designate athletes accordingly. I run track and I won the pentathlon in my state my senior year, but that does not mean I could have even made it there in the 5K or even the 100 meter dash. It would be pointless to take sprinters like Michael Johnson or Maurice Green and train them for the mile, cause their bodies aren't built for it. Their bodies are meant for explosive , fast twitch motions, Not endurance based distance running which depends much more on the bodies ability to combat lactic acid build up and fatigue.
Look, I agree with you that black athletes are on average (at least the ones that compete) more skillful and talented in their respective sports with similar training regiments. However, this has nothing to do with the prevalence of black sprinters vs black distance runners.
Yeah, I had a look at the spec of the laughably-named Apple Cinema High Definition display a while back. Max resolution is 1920 x 1200 for a 23" diagonal. Apple Digital Bus connection only -- no SVGA or video inputs.
-well, if a user sprung for a 23" display at a couple thousand dollars, he or she would probably have a digital bus connection as well
IBM's T210 21" LCD does 2048 x 1536, with SVGA, DVI, S-video and RCA composite video, including picture-in-picture. That's about 700 kpixels more than the Apple display.
-true, and this lovely monitor can be used on a mac as well. I know, IBM makes great monitors. But do they make all in one monitor/computer sets like the iMac?
IBM are also selling the T220, with a 3840 x 2400 maximum resolution for the same diagonal as the Apple "HD".
-this is like comparing a BMW 5 series to a Formula 1 race car. Sure the race car is faster, but is in a price category way way above the BMW... and once again, hook it up to a G4 tower if you'd like
I've noticed that Apple's LCD panels always seem to be a step behind the rest of the world in their pixel density -- pretty ordinary laptops are running 1600 x 1200 resolutions while the Apple top-of-the-range G4 PowerBooks are stuck with a paltry 1280 x 854 dots (but look at the diagonal size! 15.2"! Wow!) I suppose they've got to shave the spec somewhere.
-ugh, i don't want 1600x1200 on my powerbook. Why? Cause I can't read a damn thing at that resolution. Oh sure, you could just scale down to a lower resolution, but then you get all of those weird non-integer multiple effects which makes text look like shit. I have a 19" desktop monitor (17.9 viewable) that looks alright at 1600x1200, but a 15 viewable screen just doesn't need such resolution. I believe most users would scale it down anyway, and unless they want to go at 800x600 (each half of the max), it will look like shit.
I think all of your points are valid, but the are only part of the whole picture
It is amusing to me, cause even though win 2k is much more stable than win 95 and 98 (though 98 is still my favorite of the bunch), i have had more than enough torment from it. I've had my computer completely crash twice (meaning all data lost, no way of recovering, i tried for 3 or 4 days each, and i used to work at a computer shop repairing computers for 2 years, so i think i know what i'm doing) AND, i've had to reformat my main partition 7 times in 1 year trying both win 2k and win 2k server. This sucks a whole lot when it happens during the school terms, when i have projects to do and reports to turn in.
So, you haven't had a problem. That's great. I spent appoximately 80-100 man hours just getting my computer functioning again AND 2 times i've lost certain chunks of data that were irreplaceable (though most of it was backed up, so all was not lost).
Oh, and yes, it would be amusing if 2000 crashed on you, i mean, i'd laugh
wow, they also sell 23" stand alone displays that support analog and digital input.
but i'm sure you already new that
-rick
Actually Win2K was forced into early retirement. The boss kept catching him crashing at his desk and leaving the backdoor open.
Who is ever going to be turned away from LinuxWorld(tm)?
perhaps microsoft, or any company only making windows products.
No shit? the quality depends on the encoding?
Obviously things change with compression quality. but the difference between enough compression and too much is much more noticeable on Video clips and (for many) not nearly as big of a deal on their mp3's.
IMHO, there is very little difference between mp3 and CD quality. Yes, there are differences, and audiophiles will point this out every time. But the fact is, most users don't care.
Now DVD's vs DIVX. Not only can the quality suck (artifacts all the time), but the sound can be totally out of sync, which is really really annoying. Plus, unlike mp3 CD's which can be played in just about any new CD player, DIVX does not play in standalone DVD players without hacking the hardware.
But, this could change...
Every time there is an article about microsoft trying to take over our living rooms, everyone freaks out and no one can seem to understand why they are so desperate to do such a thing.
Well, simply put, they have to. Microsoft is a huge company, used to churning out huge profits. That was all fine and dandy as long as they could continue to create (or copy, incoporate, etc) new operating systems and software packages that people would continually purchase on a somewhat regular basis (every software/hardware cycle). The problem that they seem to be facing over the past few years is that NO ONE wants to upgrade their systems anymore. Their software, a huge part of their profits, has reached a point where users are quite happy (i know, how sad to be happy with their products) with them. SO, no matter how many rebates or promotions they offer, there are still a lot of computers out their running windows 2000 and even 98 and NT4. Why? Cause the new features that office XP has are worthless to many people.
So, how does this all tie in? Microsoft needs to find a new way to generate continual profits. It can't push people into buying software upgrades as they could in years past. The only way they will be able to sustain this money influx is to expand to new markets (video games, TV, various website services) as well as try and charge monthly costs for their OS (i believe that they are still trying to do so).
So, stop being suprised about all of this. It's gonna happen. And if you don't like it, don't buy their products/services. They currently don't have dominance in these other markets, and they won't as long as people don't buy all of their crap.
I can't say i'm that suprised. Let's think about this for a moment. How long does it take for a computer to become obsolete? Depending on your need for speed, it can range anywhere from 2-4 years. So, if you've been a computer user for 8 years, you've probably owned anywhere from 2-4 computers by now. Ok, now take into account the number of computers purchased for schools, colleges, and businesses. Granted, they might not replace them as much, but companies and schools do change over all of their systems from time to time.
Plus, even though many areas of the world are poor and may not have as much opportunity to buy and maintain computers, there are still over 6 billion people on the earth. Odds are, enough of them can afford a computer to top off the billion mark.
A billion? I would have thought it would be much higher by now.
The problem with that solution, though i completely agree with you, is that a person (me) would end up having to make this person a script for every god damn thing this person would want to do. Sure, if it's something like check you're e-mail and look up the weather, fine. that's only two things. But, why should i get over being lazy and make all these things (unless the money was really worth it). Why can't other people stop being lazy and learn a few of the basics?
If only real player didn't tank out a few years back (my window stills says it's buffering) and if quicktime was widely supported, this wouldn't even be an issue. Everyone seems to get forced into supporting the windows option for lack of a better option (and i'm talking about the masses here). i know all the linux buffs here can point out a million other options on a non-windows OS, but that's not gonna help my friends mother, who needs to read the instructions written on the sticky pad about how to check her yahoo mail.
So not only can we make pirated CD's, we can now put copy protected images on them as well... you probably can't see it, but I'm doing a little dance for joy over here, knowing that I can piss off the RIAA even more
Next step, incorporating this wonderful gadget into your fridge/freezer/1970's jukebox
what will they think of next
just like a friend of mine always says.
The best way to have your program compile the first time is to stop putting bugs in them
That seems to have been my problem all along...
before each compile, one should make a small sacrifice to the debugging gods and ask them to forgive you for your syn(tax).
I'm not disagreeing with you that users of P2P software (usually downloading pirated software/music/movies) are not in the wrong here. I'm just saying that the ideas of network combat, like overloading servers with faulty queries, is a dangerous game that might spread to other internet arenas. Say a competiting online forum is bashing you... Do you write up a program to create a whole bunch of users and flood the message boards with gibberish? Or forget about forums, how about the online support area for another company? Flood those servers so that customers of that company think that they have crappy service.
Point being. Yes, most P2P is used illegally, but the tactics that an orginization like the RIAA would like to impliment to stop these could easily be misused.
True, the music industry could make tons of phony user aliases and bombard the servers with numerous useless queries and corrupt files. But where does it stop? This same technique could be used by companies to overload a competitors internet servers and capabilities... This method, though very possible, seems more like a mild virus attack that could potentially lead to a backlash of similar attacks from some pretty pissed off users.
Seems like a plausible solution, with some negative side effects.