Raytracing is for anything that throws a reflection or alters light, including most metals and polished woods. In my office, I count a reflective desk surface, the glass face on my clock, an older CRT, the windows, the doorknobs, the globes that cover the lights, and some light reflectivity from the wood on the bookshelf.
Now read everyone else's responses and realize that raytracing is a super-easy way to take advantage of multiple cores and simplify your code at the same time. All the crazy stunts and tricks you have to pull to get some of those lighting and reflection tricks can be thrown out the window, and the extra time could be used to::crosses fingers:: make better gameplay. We can dream, right?
Of course, that raytraced ET: Quake Wars is running in a 16-core system at 1280x720 and posts between 15 and 30 fps. We've got a ways to go, obviously. On the flipside, you'd pay more for a single core system five years ago than you do for a quad-core today, so we're rapidly gaining on it.
If things go as many in the industry are predicting, though, scaling up the power of a single core just isn't going to happen like it used to. Throwing a bunch of cores in a system does seem like the way computing is going, at least at this juncture. In other words, the cores will be there anyway, why not make use of them?
Finally, with the rise of GPGPU and the NVidia/ATI-specific counterparts, I imagine it actually wouldn't be too difficult to allow your standard GPU to assist in raytracing on newer titles while still handling legacy games. (I might be talking out of my ass on this one, so any graphics nerds, please feel free to correct me there).
I sympathize with your point about the intermittent step backwards. I doubt that it will happen that way; likely, rasterized graphics will be around for quite some time with a gradual ceding to raytraced graphics as 8 core and higher systems become more commonplace. I also agree that graphics look damned good, and I myself have expressed similar views about the costs and obstacles inherent in going even more detailed. In the meantime, though, you can't blame developers or hardware companies for trying to avoid running into the wall of the declining improvement in CPU/GPU speeds. As I said earlier, if the cores are going to be there anyway then we might as well use them.
I know George Carlin was just making a point here in the middle of his rants, but there's one part of this that is really, dead wrong.
Race, creed, or color is wrong. Race and color, as used in this phrase, describe the same property. And "creed" is a stilted, outmoded way of saying "religion." Leave this tired phrase alone; it has lost its usefulness. Besides, it reeks of insincerity no matter who uses it.
I know this retort isn't exactly relevant to the present discussion, but I feel compelled to point out that race and color are not the same thing. Not even close.
Color is, as the name implies, the color of someone's skin. In non-PC terms, white, black, yellow, brown, etc.
Race is a totally different concept. Some ethnographers limit the classification to "Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid," but for the most part ethnography now recognizes a much wider categorization for race.
Consider Hispanic, which most ethnographers will classify as a race. Hispanics have a shared cultural identity - language, predominantly catholic religion, similar cultural background, etc. They are not by any stretch of the imagination all the same color. Because of intermarriage/interbreeding of Spanish settlers/conquerors, Central/South American natives, and African slaves, you can find Hispanics in every color from white + blond hair + blue eyes to black + black hair + dark brown eyes. Although there are certainly differences among those groups, they are all of the race Hispanic. Of course, the US Census uses the term "White/Non-Hispanic" and Hispanic, thereby attempting to delineate those two categories; many ethnographers would heartily disagree.
Language isn't the only thing separating races; far from it. Shared religious or ideological backgrounds, proximity, interaction, etc. Despite vast language differences, there are more than enough cultural similarities in Western Europe to easily define all "white" groups from that area as part of a similar race, just as Brazilians - despite a different language - arguably belong in the Hispanic race category.
Or, for an overly simplistic summary, color and race are not the same thing.
I won't fall back on others' reference to the fact that he is 18 and therefore not a child. 18 year-olds are, in most cases, definitely still "children" in the United States.
I also hate to rehash criminal theory, but we'll go down that road here.
The kid hasn't yet been convicted of a crime. Yada-yada, he'll be judged by a jury of his peers. There will be no "ostensibly" regarding his status as a criminal. If you agree with the laws he broke (I find it hard to believe that someone would find burglary and non-prank computer crime to be seriously objectionable laws), then it's hard to attach "ostensibly" to that sentence.
This kid has likely caused 6 figures worth of damage. Auditing records isn't cheap, nor is the audit for security procedures and processes. You can argue that those procedures and processes should be there in the first place (and I'd tend to agree), but the expense now exists because this kid acted the way he did. Those six figures don't include the potential cost to other students whose class standing was reduced by this kid's actions. You seem dismissive of those students, but I can't understand why. Your impassioned defense of what this person stands to lose could very easily be adapted into what every one of those students stands to lose, so I'm curious as to why they warrant sarcasm while the accused garners sympathy.
So we'll venture on into criminal theory. I'm curious about what you would suggest IS an acceptable punishment, especially given that you don't find a prison sentence acceptable for attempted murder. I would hope that's hyperbole, but it appears that your notion of appropriate criminal justice hinges entirely on whether someone is a direct threat to you. Would you argue for a fine, and if so, what amount would be appropriate? If not a fine and not a criminal sentence, what do you feel is an appropriate response? Out of curiosity, what is an appropriate response for someone who attempts murder?
Understand that a prison sentence for this student serves not only the obvious - keeping him from changing grades - but also the deterrent factor on other potential offenders. Understand also that some people (I don't find myself among them) believe that prison sentences serve as proper vengeance. Finally, understand that the loss of daily contact with friends and family is an inherent part of the punishment meted out by the court. You're free to disagree with any of those theories regarding criminal justice, but you won't find many who will take you seriously when you mock victims of crime and offer few suggestions regarding the proper way to address criminal behavior.
The kid is also facing burglary charges because he stole a key to the school and used it to break in several times. The first thing to remember in this case is that it's not just a simple computer crime case, and that 12 other students also had their grades changed.
Further, of course the kid faces 38 years; every one of the small crimes he committed carry a maximum penalty. If you add them all up, you get 38 years. Obviously that doesn't mean that the kid is going to serve anywhere near that amount.
Now, I'm not sitting here saying that this kid should get 38 years. Far from it. But I do think that some jail time is called for. In addition to the burglary charge and the financial hit to fix the problems he caused, he hurt a lot of students. Consider this: For every one of the 13 kids who moved into the top 10% ranking, someone who had earned their spot had to leave. That student may not have been able to get into the college of his or her choice, and - far more importantly - may have missed out on substantial scholarship money. This kid wasn't just harming his high school through the added expense to audit records and security policies, he was hurting totally innocent fellow students.
They get bonuses here in Japan... Does that happen other places?
Oh yeah, that happens. Many districts tie bonus pay for principals to scores on their state's NCLB test. Additionally, some districts have created bonus pay-out structures for teachers in tougher schools. Houston ISD, for example, pays out between $1K and $7.5K per teacher at schools that jump from failing to passing (the $1K is for PE and elective teachers, ~$4K in "core classes" and $7.5K is reserved for those actually teaching the subjects that failed the year before... give or take $1K off of the larger amounts).
In my district, teachers at the tougher schools get an extra $2,000 deposited in a 401(a)-type retirement fund, with all deposits vesting if the teacher stays in district for 5 years.
But it really begs the question. How the hell do you measure the success of teachers? They hold all the cards and there's no obvious objective measure that I can see....
As soon as more people realize this, we're in for a drastic improvement. The single best predictor of student success is parent earnings, period. Walk past that, and the best way to measure success of teachers is observation. My principal is my boss; she knows who the "good" teachers and the "bad" teachers are. I work in a state without a particularly powerful union, so terminating teachers isn't actually all that difficult. With pay at the same basic level for any course and a continuing need for teachers, though, it's still hard to let any but the worst go. As a teacher, I'm a firm believer that a properly designed voucher system is the only real way to fix this.
My district receives about $5,500 per year for an average student, with a little more money sent for those with disabilities or Gifted status. If that money were tied to a student instead of a school, principals could identify and retain the best teachers or face parents "voting with their feet." Schools that were better tailored toward learning disabled, gifted, "troubled," etc. students could emerge.
And key to this whole program? Make teacher salaries as negotiable as any other. I know I'm worth what I'm paid (in fact, I'll often state that I'm paid fairly when people bitch about low salaries). I know my bilingual friend who teaches Algebra is worth a hell of a lot more, as is the PhD dual-credit English teacher (he actually won a $50,000 award from a local grocery chain for his teaching). Couple variable salaries with variable admission and you have a recipe to create a vastly superior education system.
The worst part of this is that - at least in the US - it's considered very impolite and bordering on rude to flash your headlights at someone doing this. Other countries consider it what it is, an "excuse me" or "coming through."
I never realized that the Mazda 6 wagon was a V6-only model. That's sort of odd.
The Legacy Wagon may be gone, but it's two-toned, 1.5" lifted sibling still exists. There was no functional economy difference between the Legacy and the Outback, but you're definitely right on in saying that it was never a fuel sipper in the first place (20/26). I don't know about the brand new Impreza, but the older Impreza hatchback really is functionally a wagon; park them side-by-side and you'll see it.
The Jetta TDI should be out at the end of the year. I assume the Jetta TDI wagon will hit at the same time. Although it's not a wagon per se, Honda will also launch a disel version (woo! Honda diesel) of the CR-V at the end of this year. Sure, it sits a bit higher, but I would imagine the breakdown will be 29/39 or something similar. It's no diesel Civic wagon, but it's probably as close as we'll get from Honda for the next two or three years.
BMW is also launching their diesel 5-series and X5 later this year, and I'm hoping that engine will eventually fine its way into the 3-series wagons.
Really, the diesel renaissance that we're about to get thanks to finally reformulating the US diesel is probably our best bet. A diesel CR-V may not be quite as efficient as a diesel Accord wagon, but if that's all Honda willing to sell (and if it can still post close to 40mpg highway in the new crack-induced EPA test) then it's still a pretty good bet.
The Caliber's problem is not that it's a crossover, it's that it's a modern car.
According to the EPA, the worst mileage Caliber is the R/T AWD with 21/24. The current EPA estimation system is below what I've seen real world in my car, my wife's car, my dad's car... you get the idea. So if your mom was getting 20mpg out of that Caliber she's either got a lead foot or a car with some serious problems.
Now, I'm going to give Dodge some credit here. R/T is Dodge's "Racing" trim. It usually denotes a larger engine, stiffer suspension, etc. You don't build a sports-version of a car for fuel economy. The smaller engine variants post 23/29.
But we'll step back from that. 21/24 on what is essentially a lifted Dodge Neon is GOD AWFUL. Period. It's not the status as crossover that has doomed the Caliber, but Dodge's inability to build a small car. Period.
The Toyota Matrix, which is a nearly identical car (it's a corolla hatchback with a slight lift) gets 25/31 in automatic and 26/33 in manual trim. But that's the current version, which is only offered in FWD with a weaker engine than the R/T Caliber. It compares more directly with the lower-range Calibers, which post about 3 or 4 fewer mpg than the Matrix. The older XRS (sports) Matrix got 22/29 and required premium fuel.
I might also point out that according to the EPA's testing, the 1993 corolla wagon gets 23/30 under the new mileage system. I don't doubt that you mom got 40 mpg; as I said above, the new EPA system underestimates most people I know, and cars tend to improve their mileage by a few mpg after they've run for a few thousand miles.
I don't doubt that the Caliber did worse than a '93 Corolla, but I do have trouble believing that someone who got 40mpg in the Corolla got 20 in the Caliber. 25, sure, I'd buy. 20 if she ragged on the R/T model non-stop. But not if she drove the non-sports model like she drove the Corolla.
But really, the Caliber is just a victim of being a new car. In the end, American consumers are still voting with our dollars for larger engines and heavier cars. We want premium audio and Naviation systems, sunroofs, ABS, seven airbags, and physically larger cars. The curb weight on a '93 Toyota Corolla was 2315 pounds with the standard 1.5L 105 hp engine. The curb weight on the 2008 Corolla is 2530 pounds with the standard 1.8L 140 hp engine. The original Accord in the 70's was actually smaller than today's Civic, with 1/4 the power of the top-of-the-line Accord. Across the entire spectrum, cars have simply become larger, heavier, and more powerful - that's not helping with mileage.
Are crossovers worse than the similar sedan? I suppose there's a 1 or 2 mpg hit from wind resistance under the car, but realistically the mileage hit on that Caliber has nothing to do with it being a lifted Neon Wagon and everything to do with it being a 2008 car.
True, compact and mid-sized car wagons are available from:
VW (Jetta and Passat) Mazda (Mazda 6 Wagon) Subaru (Legacy and Impreza Wagons) BMW (3 and 5-series) Audi (A3) Mercedes (I'm pretty sure there's still a US-available E-series Wagon) Dodge (althought the Magnum won't be produced next year) Chevrolet (I don't know if there's a MAXX version of the new Malibu, but there was for the last model) Saturn (various versions along the way... surely planned for the Aura/Astra if not already available)
None of that considers the subcompact hatchbacks like the Toyota Yaris/Honda Fit/Nissan Versa/Scion xA/xD or the compact five door hatches such as the Toyota Matrix/Pontiac Vibe/Ford Focus/VW Rabbit etc.
So, yeah, the wagons are there in many sizes and trims. If you want a mid-sized wagon, you won't be able to get it from Honda, Toyota, or Nissan; outside of them, there's no real shortage of manufacturers, domestic or import, willing to sell you a true and proper wagon.
While most of you response is right (HD Video, even with h.264, doesn't look as good when squashed for DVD capacity), your bitrate numbers are off. ATSC transmission rates are allowed a maximum of 19.4 Mb/s, and most transmissions are, in practice lower than that.
And that's MPEG-2, the only accepted codec standard that I know of in ATSC land. H.264 is obviously much more efficient.
Again, I agree with you. A DVD is not enough space to keep away nasty artifacting and color banding, but your bitrate numbers are a bit extreme.
Seriously? 35 mpg on a full-sized V6 sedan? I think you might be "mis-remembering" your economy numbers.
According to the EPA, the '95 Intrepid posted 16/24 with the 3.3L engine. You're going to tell us that your LARGER engine somehow posted almost double the combined economy?
Remember to pack the tin foil hat when you gas up your new car.
It's not really West's/Lexis' interpretation of the law that's for sale; Westlaw doesn't include a West-created synopsis on most cases. Rather, it's the ability to sort and search properly on Westlaw and Lexis that make them valuable.
Say, for example, that you've taken on a contract dispute case. There are thousands of contract dispute cases out there. West has a system that allows you to search by, essentially, broad topic (contract ->guaranty ->in general). From there, you can sort them based on those settled under the appellate courts that would be binding on your district court at the Federal level or according to each state's court systems. You can even search by judge. From each case, you can follow what happened afterward (Was it overturned? Did a case 15 years afterward find differently, thus making this one worthless?). From each case you can find other cases that have cited to that one, and filter based on those that merely cited a case vs. those that spent time analyzing and comparing to that case. You can flag individual cases so that the system updates you when a new case gets settled that could weaken/strengthen that one.
It's not the interpretation that you're paying for; Lexis's interpretation is useful only in saving you a couple of minutes skimming the case. Rather, what you pay for (and desperately need) is the actual database - the search functions, the links between cases, the categorization of cases, and of course, the easy access to the cases themselves.
Unless Berkeley is doing that +1 GPA internally, those bumps are usually specific to the school district. I'm a high school teacher who has taught in several districts around the state, and most districts I'm familiar with have abandoned the 4.0 system to discourage "gaming" the GPA and to encourage students to take more challenging courses.
At least around here, even the lousiest districts and schools offer some form of +1 GPA modifier for advanced classes of some sort. I've also seen many college applications that required normalization to 4.0, and the school I teach at issues GPAs both in our district's form and on a 4.0 scale. Of course, I would expect that class rank coupled with reputation of the school and SAT/ACT goes much further to telling the university about a candidate's skill than x.y/4.0 ever could.
My own high school used a 6.0 GPA. 4.0 was an A in a regular class, be it regular Algebra or PE. 5.0 was an A in so called "advanced" classes, which was a tiny subset encompassing third or fourth year fine art and language classes. The reasoning there was that the district didn't want students to have to avoid fourth year orchestra to eke out an extra couple of spaces in class rank. 6.0 was an A in honors-level and AP-type classes. Scores droppped to 3.0/4.0/5.0 for a B, but everything hit 2.0 at a C. Objectively, it might have produced valedictorians with 5.8-ish GPAs, but subjectively they were people who belonged at the top of the class anyway. Everyone else's GPA of course scaled down from there. Trying to explain a GPA over 4 to the older generation was a bit comical at first, but in the end it all had to with how you compared to your peers anyway.
If Berkeley is calculating their own GPAs for applicants with a +1 for AP, then that sounds absolutely ridiculous and reflects an awfully classist attitude for such a historically "hippie" school. As it is, though, the good kid from the poor school should still outrank his (few) co-applicants from the same school.
In the end, you're right about the government taxing working class people to support an education that their kids don't fully benefit from, but I think that problem is more due to the lack of education at the poorer schools and less to do with mythical GPA systems and AP exams. All it takes is the spectacular failure of top 10% automatic admissions in some states to see that #1 from a lousy school is likely far worse than #100 from a great one.
I'm seriously not meaning to troll here, but does your personal experience involve anything beyond repeating the words "Sociometrics, focus groups and datamining?" I mean, honestly, that's just PHB-speak for "let's do some research." The only focus groups you've referenced in your other posts involve experimenting with management styles at Apple Retail stores, which is not really what I was discussing when I referenced product design.
And what of the interviews and blogs by former employees that aren't "approved by PR!" What about the decades-old interviews with people who moved on a long time ago that still reinforce this view? I'd be naive if this was based entirely on psuedo-PR pieces in Time or CNet, but it's a mantra that gets repeated over and over from nearly every source and at every level.
Do they completely ignore "traditional marketing?" Of course not - they do it all the time. Focus groups aren't really marketing, though, neither are any of the other idea mentioned by the first reply. Rather, they're more about product design unless we're talking about faux focus groups (Faux-cus?) that some companies use when they're almost done to drum up excitement.
I'm sorry, but this simply goes contrary to what nearly every profile or news story out of Cupertino says. Steve Jobs has exacting standards regarding nearly every aspect of presentation on any product, often going so far as to specify particular color schemes, sizing, even the number of screws on a product. The iPod, for example, has a max volume that's about 20% louder than most portable audio devices because Jobs has a partial loss of hearing. Go read some of the discussions on the design of the iPhone or MacPros; it points to a system where a product is reworked 100 times because each time it walks in front of Jobs, he finds something new that's "wrong." That's not a design driven by focus groups, it's one driven by a single man at the top.
Are his decisions due in part to sociometrics and datamining? Of course. But, again, every profile points to a fear of the man among even the upper echelon of Apple workers. Once he gets something in his head, it is apparently a very bad idea to question him on it.
And, seriously, internal focus groups? Really? This is a company where individual divisions aren't even allowed to know what others are working on and where employees are genuinely surprised at new product launches.
The final sentence of your post is, I believe, the most misguided. The competition does use all of the strategies you mentioned. They are getting slaughtered by doing so. The commodity PC manufacturers can't compete with Apple's profitability or their ability to "clarify" new market segments (Apple never create new market segments, they just make them work). Simply put, much of the grand success of Apple in the last 11 years has been Jobs' ability to see and express what people want better than they can.
In essence, this article can be summarized in a simple sentence: Steve Jobs knows what you want better than you do.
It sounds negative at first, almost damning, but it's the simple, honest truth. Apple has ignored focus groups and analysts and tech media and pressed ahead with what Jobs thinks is best. With the exception of a few minor blunders here and there (the cube is the only one readily springing to mind, but I'm sure others could provide their own examples), Apple's strategy has been paying off handsomely since 1997.
Hell, it's so well known that Slashdot even has its own recurring joke regarding our own inability to predict what we wanted in an mp3 player better than Apple.
It's a lesson that the rest of the business world might want to take to heart, but then they'd have to find their own Steve.
But when we get off, that's where everybody does the stupid - they all rush off the plane so that they can stand for 20 minutes at the baggage claim.
Wait, people check bags? I'm only partly joking here - if I'm going someplace for anything less than 3 nights, it's far easier to just put two changes of clothes in my carry-on (usually a normal school-type backpack or the standard 18" carry-on wheelie thing).
I want the hell off the plane because I don't need to go to baggage claim, but I do need to get somewhere.
Also, if you're a Continental OnePass Elite member of any type (and I'm sure other carriers do this), your bags get priority off-loading. It doesn't work all the time, but about 90% of the time my bag will be among the first 10 on the carousel, and it usually has gotten started by the time I get there.
Yep, mine does too. The original controllers had some issues with failing buttons (has Sega ever made a controller that didn't?) but the revised controller didn't show many of these problems. I can't honestly speak about Saturn reliability, though, because it dropped off the map in the US so quickly that it's hard to know how many never showed problems because people had stopped playing them.
I really hate to reply to my own post, but the flamebait mod here has me wondering: I thought the/. community had left the "Hurrrr... M$" mindset behind somewhere around 2001 or so.
The Cliff's notes version of my post is:
1) Most game consoles since the CD Era have had known, repeatable problems; in some cases, these problems are so widespread that merely googling the description or the fix will net you pages and pages of information.
2) I doubt that 30% is an accurate representation of the XBox 360's problems. Even if it is, though, MS is the only company from the entire set in point 1 that has actually stepped up and taken responsibility. Wow, that's a pretty decent thing to do when you run into a known defect, especially considering that many other companies have fixed the defect for subsequent models and told earlier owners that they can always buy a new one.
3) If you're genuinely concerned, $40 gets you two years of all-inclusive coverage in addition to the three years of RROD coverage from MS.
So I guess it was the fact that I sort-of praised MS that got somebody angry? Because, truly, that post was a classic example of flamebait and deserves to sit alongside "Why would anyone use Vi?" and "It's taken 17 minutes to copy this file."
I rented the new Katamari game for a few weeks, and let me be the first to tell you: don't let it make you buy a system. Katamari Damacy was a new and innovative take, but the new one has a very distinct "been there, done that" feel. It's essentially identical, even down to the quality of the graphics. Save yourself some time and just play the original or We Heart Katamari, because Beautiful Katamari is basically the same.
At this point I'd probably agree with you. There aren't enough PS3 exclusives to make me buy one, but if I didn't have a 360 the equation would look rather different. My PS2 from November of 2000 still works, but that was the replacement, and the first one did kamikaze some games as it died.
Again, to play the anecdotal game - I'm a high school teacher, and kids know from the occasional conversation that I play videogames. Two of my students in the last two years have had RROD failures, but that's out of a pool of at least 30 kids who I know have 360s.
Personally, the failure issue doesn't really bother me. Like I said, MS has the RROD covered and the warranty is another $40. From here on for a while I'm good, and as a worst case scenario it fails and I could end up with the upgraded 65nm chip version with HDMI. I guess I'd be without the XBox for a couple of weeks, but it's not as though I live on the thing anyway.
Seriously, this is no different than any other game console out there in the CD era.
I went through two dead PS1 consoles before I got to one that lasted. Go google about turning a PSX upside down; the original models (with discrete RCA jacks on the back) had serious overheating problems that caused FMVs to stutter and skip like mad. One of the most common fixes in that era was turning the unit upside down to allow more air to circulate. The same gen PSXs and the 1st major revision (when they went to an A/V Multi-out port) also had serious problems with failing laser "eyes" and scratching discs. During the PSX's popularity, it was relatively easy to find cheap replacement lenses from third parties because it was such a common failure point.
The PS2 had its own host of problems, and I replaced the first one I had after it scratched the crap out of two of my games less than a week after I camped out to buy one on launch day. Sony's kind advice, "take it back to the store and get another" was sort of worthless given that none were available immediately following the launch, and it took two hours of arguing on the phone before they agreed to replace it under warranty. Outside of my anecdotal evidence, the PS2's problems with CD-ROM games (google PS2 blue disc fix) are pretty well known. Apparently the CD laser, but not the DVD one, had a tendency to warp out of alignment after repeated use, but it wasn't as big an issue since most games were on DVD after the first year or so. It's an easy problem to identify since PS2 CD-ROM games have a blue-tinted surface.
Dreamcast? Well, it wasn't really out there in the same kind of numbers as the other two, but I do remember a lot of people having problems with the analog triggers on the controllers; the springs would fail and the trigger would depress in permanently or stay permanently out. Fixing it on your own wasn't too tough, but it's still a pretty fundamental design flaw. And as for controller failures...
PSP: The original japanese model had a button (triangle or square, I believe) that pretty much continuously failed. Apparently the mechanism inside was just off-center enough that repeated use of the button caused it to become permanently depressed.
Hmmm... XBox: Certain models of DVD drives were extremely prone to failure, and MS switched suppliers three or four times looking for better sources. I replaced mine, but in fairness it was four years after I bought the unit.
So, (surprise!), once the game industry moved to the optical world with all of the extra moving parts, things started going downhill. This also happened to coincide with the point when game consoles started requiring fans and serious heatsinks to compensate for the heat output. Are we seriously surprised here that sub-$350 hardware fails? I mean, I'll definitely grant you that the RROD is more frequent than some of the older problems, but it also represents a myriad of failure scenarios. If the PSX had an "error" light that lit up for its various problems, there'd probably be more out there about the failure light than there is about the individual failings. And don't forget what one/.er aptly described as the "internet bullhorn effect." People bitch like mad about their problems online and the skewed sample makes it look like there are far bigger issues than there actually are. This article's 30% failure number simply doesn't match up with what anyone else has reported or what seems to be the case anecdotally for many.
But even if we grant the 30% number, MS has actually done the right thing here and extended everyone's coverage for RROD failures. There have been plenty of similar scenarios in game console history of common failure points, but thus far MS has been the only one who actually sucked it up and did something for people. As much as I dislike some of what Microsoft does and has done, they've gone a lot further in this scenario than any other company has been willing to. If you're super-concerned, just add $40 t
A little late to the reply, but there's a good chance that your TV doesn't actually "do" 1080i unless it's several years old. 1080i is an interlaced format which is only natively reproduceable on analog displays, and most TVs from about mid-2004 on use digital display systems of some sort (LCD, Plasma, DLP, LCoS, etc.) This is especially likely given that your TV has a DVI connection.
So, what you have is likely a TV that has an actual resolution somewhere around 720p (1280x720), but can accept a 1080i input and display it. Thus, your TV can "accept" up to 1080i but is going to interpolate that signal. It may, in fact, be possible that you purchased an EDTV, or one with a 480p native resolution that just interpolates all inputs down to approximately 720x480.
Yeah, ICT will likely chop down your resolution, but not as much as it might originally sound to you, since the TV was already busy doing the same thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Raytracing is for anything that throws a reflection or alters light, including most metals and polished woods. In my office, I count a reflective desk surface, the glass face on my clock, an older CRT, the windows, the doorknobs, the globes that cover the lights, and some light reflectivity from the wood on the bookshelf.
Head on over here to see what a raytraced Enemy Territory: Quake Wars looks like. Pay particular attention to the water and windows.
::crosses fingers:: make better gameplay. We can dream, right?
Now read everyone else's responses and realize that raytracing is a super-easy way to take advantage of multiple cores and simplify your code at the same time. All the crazy stunts and tricks you have to pull to get some of those lighting and reflection tricks can be thrown out the window, and the extra time could be used to
Of course, that raytraced ET: Quake Wars is running in a 16-core system at 1280x720 and posts between 15 and 30 fps. We've got a ways to go, obviously. On the flipside, you'd pay more for a single core system five years ago than you do for a quad-core today, so we're rapidly gaining on it.
If things go as many in the industry are predicting, though, scaling up the power of a single core just isn't going to happen like it used to. Throwing a bunch of cores in a system does seem like the way computing is going, at least at this juncture. In other words, the cores will be there anyway, why not make use of them?
Finally, with the rise of GPGPU and the NVidia/ATI-specific counterparts, I imagine it actually wouldn't be too difficult to allow your standard GPU to assist in raytracing on newer titles while still handling legacy games. (I might be talking out of my ass on this one, so any graphics nerds, please feel free to correct me there).
I sympathize with your point about the intermittent step backwards. I doubt that it will happen that way; likely, rasterized graphics will be around for quite some time with a gradual ceding to raytraced graphics as 8 core and higher systems become more commonplace. I also agree that graphics look damned good, and I myself have expressed similar views about the costs and obstacles inherent in going even more detailed. In the meantime, though, you can't blame developers or hardware companies for trying to avoid running into the wall of the declining improvement in CPU/GPU speeds. As I said earlier, if the cores are going to be there anyway then we might as well use them.
I know George Carlin was just making a point here in the middle of his rants, but there's one part of this that is really, dead wrong.
Race, creed, or color is wrong. Race and color, as used in this phrase, describe the same property. And "creed" is a stilted, outmoded way of saying "religion." Leave this tired phrase alone; it has lost its usefulness. Besides, it reeks of insincerity no matter who uses it.
I know this retort isn't exactly relevant to the present discussion, but I feel compelled to point out that race and color are not the same thing. Not even close.
Color is, as the name implies, the color of someone's skin. In non-PC terms, white, black, yellow, brown, etc.
Race is a totally different concept. Some ethnographers limit the classification to "Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid," but for the most part ethnography now recognizes a much wider categorization for race.
Consider Hispanic, which most ethnographers will classify as a race. Hispanics have a shared cultural identity - language, predominantly catholic religion, similar cultural background, etc. They are not by any stretch of the imagination all the same color. Because of intermarriage/interbreeding of Spanish settlers/conquerors, Central/South American natives, and African slaves, you can find Hispanics in every color from white + blond hair + blue eyes to black + black hair + dark brown eyes. Although there are certainly differences among those groups, they are all of the race Hispanic. Of course, the US Census uses the term "White/Non-Hispanic" and Hispanic, thereby attempting to delineate those two categories; many ethnographers would heartily disagree.
Language isn't the only thing separating races; far from it. Shared religious or ideological backgrounds, proximity, interaction, etc. Despite vast language differences, there are more than enough cultural similarities in Western Europe to easily define all "white" groups from that area as part of a similar race, just as Brazilians - despite a different language - arguably belong in the Hispanic race category.
Or, for an overly simplistic summary, color and race are not the same thing.
I won't fall back on others' reference to the fact that he is 18 and therefore not a child. 18 year-olds are, in most cases, definitely still "children" in the United States.
I also hate to rehash criminal theory, but we'll go down that road here.
The kid hasn't yet been convicted of a crime. Yada-yada, he'll be judged by a jury of his peers. There will be no "ostensibly" regarding his status as a criminal. If you agree with the laws he broke (I find it hard to believe that someone would find burglary and non-prank computer crime to be seriously objectionable laws), then it's hard to attach "ostensibly" to that sentence.
This kid has likely caused 6 figures worth of damage. Auditing records isn't cheap, nor is the audit for security procedures and processes. You can argue that those procedures and processes should be there in the first place (and I'd tend to agree), but the expense now exists because this kid acted the way he did. Those six figures don't include the potential cost to other students whose class standing was reduced by this kid's actions. You seem dismissive of those students, but I can't understand why. Your impassioned defense of what this person stands to lose could very easily be adapted into what every one of those students stands to lose, so I'm curious as to why they warrant sarcasm while the accused garners sympathy.
So we'll venture on into criminal theory. I'm curious about what you would suggest IS an acceptable punishment, especially given that you don't find a prison sentence acceptable for attempted murder. I would hope that's hyperbole, but it appears that your notion of appropriate criminal justice hinges entirely on whether someone is a direct threat to you. Would you argue for a fine, and if so, what amount would be appropriate? If not a fine and not a criminal sentence, what do you feel is an appropriate response? Out of curiosity, what is an appropriate response for someone who attempts murder?
Understand that a prison sentence for this student serves not only the obvious - keeping him from changing grades - but also the deterrent factor on other potential offenders. Understand also that some people (I don't find myself among them) believe that prison sentences serve as proper vengeance. Finally, understand that the loss of daily contact with friends and family is an inherent part of the punishment meted out by the court. You're free to disagree with any of those theories regarding criminal justice, but you won't find many who will take you seriously when you mock victims of crime and offer few suggestions regarding the proper way to address criminal behavior.
Is at Gizmodo
The kid is also facing burglary charges because he stole a key to the school and used it to break in several times. The first thing to remember in this case is that it's not just a simple computer crime case, and that 12 other students also had their grades changed.
Further, of course the kid faces 38 years; every one of the small crimes he committed carry a maximum penalty. If you add them all up, you get 38 years. Obviously that doesn't mean that the kid is going to serve anywhere near that amount.
Now, I'm not sitting here saying that this kid should get 38 years. Far from it. But I do think that some jail time is called for. In addition to the burglary charge and the financial hit to fix the problems he caused, he hurt a lot of students. Consider this: For every one of the 13 kids who moved into the top 10% ranking, someone who had earned their spot had to leave. That student may not have been able to get into the college of his or her choice, and - far more importantly - may have missed out on substantial scholarship money. This kid wasn't just harming his high school through the added expense to audit records and security policies, he was hurting totally innocent fellow students.
They get bonuses here in Japan... Does that happen other places?
Oh yeah, that happens. Many districts tie bonus pay for principals to scores on their state's NCLB test. Additionally, some districts have created bonus pay-out structures for teachers in tougher schools. Houston ISD, for example, pays out between $1K and $7.5K per teacher at schools that jump from failing to passing (the $1K is for PE and elective teachers, ~$4K in "core classes" and $7.5K is reserved for those actually teaching the subjects that failed the year before... give or take $1K off of the larger amounts).
In my district, teachers at the tougher schools get an extra $2,000 deposited in a 401(a)-type retirement fund, with all deposits vesting if the teacher stays in district for 5 years.
But it really begs the question. How the hell do you measure the success of teachers? They hold all the cards and there's no obvious objective measure that I can see....
As soon as more people realize this, we're in for a drastic improvement. The single best predictor of student success is parent earnings, period. Walk past that, and the best way to measure success of teachers is observation. My principal is my boss; she knows who the "good" teachers and the "bad" teachers are. I work in a state without a particularly powerful union, so terminating teachers isn't actually all that difficult. With pay at the same basic level for any course and a continuing need for teachers, though, it's still hard to let any but the worst go. As a teacher, I'm a firm believer that a properly designed voucher system is the only real way to fix this.
My district receives about $5,500 per year for an average student, with a little more money sent for those with disabilities or Gifted status. If that money were tied to a student instead of a school, principals could identify and retain the best teachers or face parents "voting with their feet." Schools that were better tailored toward learning disabled, gifted, "troubled," etc. students could emerge.
And key to this whole program? Make teacher salaries as negotiable as any other. I know I'm worth what I'm paid (in fact, I'll often state that I'm paid fairly when people bitch about low salaries). I know my bilingual friend who teaches Algebra is worth a hell of a lot more, as is the PhD dual-credit English teacher (he actually won a $50,000 award from a local grocery chain for his teaching). Couple variable salaries with variable admission and you have a recipe to create a vastly superior education system.
The worst part of this is that - at least in the US - it's considered very impolite and bordering on rude to flash your headlights at someone doing this. Other countries consider it what it is, an "excuse me" or "coming through."
I never realized that the Mazda 6 wagon was a V6-only model. That's sort of odd.
The Legacy Wagon may be gone, but it's two-toned, 1.5" lifted sibling still exists. There was no functional economy difference between the Legacy and the Outback, but you're definitely right on in saying that it was never a fuel sipper in the first place (20/26). I don't know about the brand new Impreza, but the older Impreza hatchback really is functionally a wagon; park them side-by-side and you'll see it.
The Jetta TDI should be out at the end of the year. I assume the Jetta TDI wagon will hit at the same time. Although it's not a wagon per se, Honda will also launch a disel version (woo! Honda diesel) of the CR-V at the end of this year. Sure, it sits a bit higher, but I would imagine the breakdown will be 29/39 or something similar. It's no diesel Civic wagon, but it's probably as close as we'll get from Honda for the next two or three years.
BMW is also launching their diesel 5-series and X5 later this year, and I'm hoping that engine will eventually fine its way into the 3-series wagons.
Really, the diesel renaissance that we're about to get thanks to finally reformulating the US diesel is probably our best bet. A diesel CR-V may not be quite as efficient as a diesel Accord wagon, but if that's all Honda willing to sell (and if it can still post close to 40mpg highway in the new crack-induced EPA test) then it's still a pretty good bet.
The Caliber's problem is not that it's a crossover, it's that it's a modern car.
According to the EPA, the worst mileage Caliber is the R/T AWD with 21/24. The current EPA estimation system is below what I've seen real world in my car, my wife's car, my dad's car... you get the idea. So if your mom was getting 20mpg out of that Caliber she's either got a lead foot or a car with some serious problems.
Now, I'm going to give Dodge some credit here. R/T is Dodge's "Racing" trim. It usually denotes a larger engine, stiffer suspension, etc. You don't build a sports-version of a car for fuel economy. The smaller engine variants post 23/29.
But we'll step back from that. 21/24 on what is essentially a lifted Dodge Neon is GOD AWFUL. Period. It's not the status as crossover that has doomed the Caliber, but Dodge's inability to build a small car. Period.
The Toyota Matrix, which is a nearly identical car (it's a corolla hatchback with a slight lift) gets 25/31 in automatic and 26/33 in manual trim. But that's the current version, which is only offered in FWD with a weaker engine than the R/T Caliber. It compares more directly with the lower-range Calibers, which post about 3 or 4 fewer mpg than the Matrix. The older XRS (sports) Matrix got 22/29 and required premium fuel.
I might also point out that according to the EPA's testing, the 1993 corolla wagon gets 23/30 under the new mileage system. I don't doubt that you mom got 40 mpg; as I said above, the new EPA system underestimates most people I know, and cars tend to improve their mileage by a few mpg after they've run for a few thousand miles.
I don't doubt that the Caliber did worse than a '93 Corolla, but I do have trouble believing that someone who got 40mpg in the Corolla got 20 in the Caliber. 25, sure, I'd buy. 20 if she ragged on the R/T model non-stop. But not if she drove the non-sports model like she drove the Corolla.
But really, the Caliber is just a victim of being a new car. In the end, American consumers are still voting with our dollars for larger engines and heavier cars. We want premium audio and Naviation systems, sunroofs, ABS, seven airbags, and physically larger cars. The curb weight on a '93 Toyota Corolla was 2315 pounds with the standard 1.5L 105 hp engine. The curb weight on the 2008 Corolla is 2530 pounds with the standard 1.8L 140 hp engine. The original Accord in the 70's was actually smaller than today's Civic, with 1/4 the power of the top-of-the-line Accord. Across the entire spectrum, cars have simply become larger, heavier, and more powerful - that's not helping with mileage.
Are crossovers worse than the similar sedan? I suppose there's a 1 or 2 mpg hit from wind resistance under the car, but realistically the mileage hit on that Caliber has nothing to do with it being a lifted Neon Wagon and everything to do with it being a 2008 car.
True, compact and mid-sized car wagons are available from:
VW (Jetta and Passat)
Mazda (Mazda 6 Wagon)
Subaru (Legacy and Impreza Wagons)
BMW (3 and 5-series)
Audi (A3)
Mercedes (I'm pretty sure there's still a US-available E-series Wagon)
Dodge (althought the Magnum won't be produced next year)
Chevrolet (I don't know if there's a MAXX version of the new Malibu, but there was for the last model)
Saturn (various versions along the way... surely planned for the Aura/Astra if not already available)
None of that considers the subcompact hatchbacks like the Toyota Yaris/Honda Fit/Nissan Versa/Scion xA/xD or the compact five door hatches such as the Toyota Matrix/Pontiac Vibe/Ford Focus/VW Rabbit etc.
So, yeah, the wagons are there in many sizes and trims. If you want a mid-sized wagon, you won't be able to get it from Honda, Toyota, or Nissan; outside of them, there's no real shortage of manufacturers, domestic or import, willing to sell you a true and proper wagon.
While most of you response is right (HD Video, even with h.264, doesn't look as good when squashed for DVD capacity), your bitrate numbers are off. ATSC transmission rates are allowed a maximum of 19.4 Mb/s, and most transmissions are, in practice lower than that.
And that's MPEG-2, the only accepted codec standard that I know of in ATSC land. H.264 is obviously much more efficient.
Again, I agree with you. A DVD is not enough space to keep away nasty artifacting and color banding, but your bitrate numbers are a bit extreme.
Seriously? 35 mpg on a full-sized V6 sedan? I think you might be "mis-remembering" your economy numbers.
According to the EPA, the '95 Intrepid posted 16/24 with the 3.3L engine. You're going to tell us that your LARGER engine somehow posted almost double the combined economy?
Remember to pack the tin foil hat when you gas up your new car.
It's not really West's/Lexis' interpretation of the law that's for sale; Westlaw doesn't include a West-created synopsis on most cases. Rather, it's the ability to sort and search properly on Westlaw and Lexis that make them valuable.
Say, for example, that you've taken on a contract dispute case. There are thousands of contract dispute cases out there. West has a system that allows you to search by, essentially, broad topic (contract ->guaranty ->in general). From there, you can sort them based on those settled under the appellate courts that would be binding on your district court at the Federal level or according to each state's court systems. You can even search by judge. From each case, you can follow what happened afterward (Was it overturned? Did a case 15 years afterward find differently, thus making this one worthless?). From each case you can find other cases that have cited to that one, and filter based on those that merely cited a case vs. those that spent time analyzing and comparing to that case. You can flag individual cases so that the system updates you when a new case gets settled that could weaken/strengthen that one.
It's not the interpretation that you're paying for; Lexis's interpretation is useful only in saving you a couple of minutes skimming the case. Rather, what you pay for (and desperately need) is the actual database - the search functions, the links between cases, the categorization of cases, and of course, the easy access to the cases themselves.
Unless Berkeley is doing that +1 GPA internally, those bumps are usually specific to the school district. I'm a high school teacher who has taught in several districts around the state, and most districts I'm familiar with have abandoned the 4.0 system to discourage "gaming" the GPA and to encourage students to take more challenging courses.
At least around here, even the lousiest districts and schools offer some form of +1 GPA modifier for advanced classes of some sort. I've also seen many college applications that required normalization to 4.0, and the school I teach at issues GPAs both in our district's form and on a 4.0 scale. Of course, I would expect that class rank coupled with reputation of the school and SAT/ACT goes much further to telling the university about a candidate's skill than x.y/4.0 ever could.
My own high school used a 6.0 GPA. 4.0 was an A in a regular class, be it regular Algebra or PE. 5.0 was an A in so called "advanced" classes, which was a tiny subset encompassing third or fourth year fine art and language classes. The reasoning there was that the district didn't want students to have to avoid fourth year orchestra to eke out an extra couple of spaces in class rank. 6.0 was an A in honors-level and AP-type classes. Scores droppped to 3.0/4.0/5.0 for a B, but everything hit 2.0 at a C. Objectively, it might have produced valedictorians with 5.8-ish GPAs, but subjectively they were people who belonged at the top of the class anyway. Everyone else's GPA of course scaled down from there. Trying to explain a GPA over 4 to the older generation was a bit comical at first, but in the end it all had to with how you compared to your peers anyway.
If Berkeley is calculating their own GPAs for applicants with a +1 for AP, then that sounds absolutely ridiculous and reflects an awfully classist attitude for such a historically "hippie" school. As it is, though, the good kid from the poor school should still outrank his (few) co-applicants from the same school.
In the end, you're right about the government taxing working class people to support an education that their kids don't fully benefit from, but I think that problem is more due to the lack of education at the poorer schools and less to do with mythical GPA systems and AP exams. All it takes is the spectacular failure of top 10% automatic admissions in some states to see that #1 from a lousy school is likely far worse than #100 from a great one.
I'm seriously not meaning to troll here, but does your personal experience involve anything beyond repeating the words "Sociometrics, focus groups and datamining?" I mean, honestly, that's just PHB-speak for "let's do some research." The only focus groups you've referenced in your other posts involve experimenting with management styles at Apple Retail stores, which is not really what I was discussing when I referenced product design.
And what of the interviews and blogs by former employees that aren't "approved by PR!" What about the decades-old interviews with people who moved on a long time ago that still reinforce this view? I'd be naive if this was based entirely on psuedo-PR pieces in Time or CNet, but it's a mantra that gets repeated over and over from nearly every source and at every level.
Do they completely ignore "traditional marketing?" Of course not - they do it all the time. Focus groups aren't really marketing, though, neither are any of the other idea mentioned by the first reply. Rather, they're more about product design unless we're talking about faux focus groups (Faux-cus?) that some companies use when they're almost done to drum up excitement.
I'm sorry, but this simply goes contrary to what nearly every profile or news story out of Cupertino says. Steve Jobs has exacting standards regarding nearly every aspect of presentation on any product, often going so far as to specify particular color schemes, sizing, even the number of screws on a product. The iPod, for example, has a max volume that's about 20% louder than most portable audio devices because Jobs has a partial loss of hearing. Go read some of the discussions on the design of the iPhone or MacPros; it points to a system where a product is reworked 100 times because each time it walks in front of Jobs, he finds something new that's "wrong." That's not a design driven by focus groups, it's one driven by a single man at the top.
Are his decisions due in part to sociometrics and datamining? Of course. But, again, every profile points to a fear of the man among even the upper echelon of Apple workers. Once he gets something in his head, it is apparently a very bad idea to question him on it.
And, seriously, internal focus groups? Really? This is a company where individual divisions aren't even allowed to know what others are working on and where employees are genuinely surprised at new product launches.
The final sentence of your post is, I believe, the most misguided. The competition does use all of the strategies you mentioned. They are getting slaughtered by doing so. The commodity PC manufacturers can't compete with Apple's profitability or their ability to "clarify" new market segments (Apple never create new market segments, they just make them work). Simply put, much of the grand success of Apple in the last 11 years has been Jobs' ability to see and express what people want better than they can.
In essence, this article can be summarized in a simple sentence: Steve Jobs knows what you want better than you do.
It sounds negative at first, almost damning, but it's the simple, honest truth. Apple has ignored focus groups and analysts and tech media and pressed ahead with what Jobs thinks is best. With the exception of a few minor blunders here and there (the cube is the only one readily springing to mind, but I'm sure others could provide their own examples), Apple's strategy has been paying off handsomely since 1997.
Hell, it's so well known that Slashdot even has its own recurring joke regarding our own inability to predict what we wanted in an mp3 player better than Apple.
It's a lesson that the rest of the business world might want to take to heart, but then they'd have to find their own Steve.
But when we get off, that's where everybody does the stupid - they all rush off the plane so that they can stand for 20 minutes at the baggage claim.
Wait, people check bags? I'm only partly joking here - if I'm going someplace for anything less than 3 nights, it's far easier to just put two changes of clothes in my carry-on (usually a normal school-type backpack or the standard 18" carry-on wheelie thing).
I want the hell off the plane because I don't need to go to baggage claim, but I do need to get somewhere.
Also, if you're a Continental OnePass Elite member of any type (and I'm sure other carriers do this), your bags get priority off-loading. It doesn't work all the time, but about 90% of the time my bag will be among the first 10 on the carousel, and it usually has gotten started by the time I get there.
Yep, mine does too. The original controllers had some issues with failing buttons (has Sega ever made a controller that didn't?) but the revised controller didn't show many of these problems. I can't honestly speak about Saturn reliability, though, because it dropped off the map in the US so quickly that it's hard to know how many never showed problems because people had stopped playing them.
I really hate to reply to my own post, but the flamebait mod here has me wondering: I thought the /. community had left the "Hurrrr... M$" mindset behind somewhere around 2001 or so.
The Cliff's notes version of my post is:
1) Most game consoles since the CD Era have had known, repeatable problems; in some cases, these problems are so widespread that merely googling the description or the fix will net you pages and pages of information.
2) I doubt that 30% is an accurate representation of the XBox 360's problems. Even if it is, though, MS is the only company from the entire set in point 1 that has actually stepped up and taken responsibility. Wow, that's a pretty decent thing to do when you run into a known defect, especially considering that many other companies have fixed the defect for subsequent models and told earlier owners that they can always buy a new one.
3) If you're genuinely concerned, $40 gets you two years of all-inclusive coverage in addition to the three years of RROD coverage from MS.
So I guess it was the fact that I sort-of praised MS that got somebody angry? Because, truly, that post was a classic example of flamebait and deserves to sit alongside "Why would anyone use Vi?" and "It's taken 17 minutes to copy this file."
I rented the new Katamari game for a few weeks, and let me be the first to tell you: don't let it make you buy a system. Katamari Damacy was a new and innovative take, but the new one has a very distinct "been there, done that" feel. It's essentially identical, even down to the quality of the graphics. Save yourself some time and just play the original or We Heart Katamari, because Beautiful Katamari is basically the same.
At this point I'd probably agree with you. There aren't enough PS3 exclusives to make me buy one, but if I didn't have a 360 the equation would look rather different. My PS2 from November of 2000 still works, but that was the replacement, and the first one did kamikaze some games as it died.
Again, to play the anecdotal game - I'm a high school teacher, and kids know from the occasional conversation that I play videogames. Two of my students in the last two years have had RROD failures, but that's out of a pool of at least 30 kids who I know have 360s.
Personally, the failure issue doesn't really bother me. Like I said, MS has the RROD covered and the warranty is another $40. From here on for a while I'm good, and as a worst case scenario it fails and I could end up with the upgraded 65nm chip version with HDMI. I guess I'd be without the XBox for a couple of weeks, but it's not as though I live on the thing anyway.
Seriously, this is no different than any other game console out there in the CD era.
/.er aptly described as the "internet bullhorn effect." People bitch like mad about their problems online and the skewed sample makes it look like there are far bigger issues than there actually are. This article's 30% failure number simply doesn't match up with what anyone else has reported or what seems to be the case anecdotally for many.
I went through two dead PS1 consoles before I got to one that lasted. Go google about turning a PSX upside down; the original models (with discrete RCA jacks on the back) had serious overheating problems that caused FMVs to stutter and skip like mad. One of the most common fixes in that era was turning the unit upside down to allow more air to circulate. The same gen PSXs and the 1st major revision (when they went to an A/V Multi-out port) also had serious problems with failing laser "eyes" and scratching discs. During the PSX's popularity, it was relatively easy to find cheap replacement lenses from third parties because it was such a common failure point.
The PS2 had its own host of problems, and I replaced the first one I had after it scratched the crap out of two of my games less than a week after I camped out to buy one on launch day. Sony's kind advice, "take it back to the store and get another" was sort of worthless given that none were available immediately following the launch, and it took two hours of arguing on the phone before they agreed to replace it under warranty. Outside of my anecdotal evidence, the PS2's problems with CD-ROM games (google PS2 blue disc fix) are pretty well known. Apparently the CD laser, but not the DVD one, had a tendency to warp out of alignment after repeated use, but it wasn't as big an issue since most games were on DVD after the first year or so. It's an easy problem to identify since PS2 CD-ROM games have a blue-tinted surface.
Dreamcast? Well, it wasn't really out there in the same kind of numbers as the other two, but I do remember a lot of people having problems with the analog triggers on the controllers; the springs would fail and the trigger would depress in permanently or stay permanently out. Fixing it on your own wasn't too tough, but it's still a pretty fundamental design flaw. And as for controller failures...
PSP: The original japanese model had a button (triangle or square, I believe) that pretty much continuously failed. Apparently the mechanism inside was just off-center enough that repeated use of the button caused it to become permanently depressed.
Hmmm... XBox: Certain models of DVD drives were extremely prone to failure, and MS switched suppliers three or four times looking for better sources. I replaced mine, but in fairness it was four years after I bought the unit.
So, (surprise!), once the game industry moved to the optical world with all of the extra moving parts, things started going downhill. This also happened to coincide with the point when game consoles started requiring fans and serious heatsinks to compensate for the heat output. Are we seriously surprised here that sub-$350 hardware fails? I mean, I'll definitely grant you that the RROD is more frequent than some of the older problems, but it also represents a myriad of failure scenarios. If the PSX had an "error" light that lit up for its various problems, there'd probably be more out there about the failure light than there is about the individual failings. And don't forget what one
But even if we grant the 30% number, MS has actually done the right thing here and extended everyone's coverage for RROD failures. There have been plenty of similar scenarios in game console history of common failure points, but thus far MS has been the only one who actually sucked it up and did something for people. As much as I dislike some of what Microsoft does and has done, they've gone a lot further in this scenario than any other company has been willing to. If you're super-concerned, just add $40 t
A little late to the reply, but there's a good chance that your TV doesn't actually "do" 1080i unless it's several years old. 1080i is an interlaced format which is only natively reproduceable on analog displays, and most TVs from about mid-2004 on use digital display systems of some sort (LCD, Plasma, DLP, LCoS, etc.) This is especially likely given that your TV has a DVI connection.
So, what you have is likely a TV that has an actual resolution somewhere around 720p (1280x720), but can accept a 1080i input and display it. Thus, your TV can "accept" up to 1080i but is going to interpolate that signal. It may, in fact, be possible that you purchased an EDTV, or one with a 480p native resolution that just interpolates all inputs down to approximately 720x480.
Yeah, ICT will likely chop down your resolution, but not as much as it might originally sound to you, since the TV was already busy doing the same thing.