No, I write that you can't make coffee with just a kettle of boiling water; as far as I know, it's not possible to make proper coffee (instant excluded) using JUST a kettle of boiling water and beans or grounds. You need a percolator or some similar mechanism, which produces the same effect - allowing the liquid to cool down a bit before entering your cup.
I'm seriously extremely interested in the asbestos-lined lips you're sporting. While I despise coffee, I do drink instant hot chocolate using the same mechanism, and I do pour boiling water from the kettle on it.
If you are legitimately telling me that you are drinking coffee made from boiling water within one minute of making it and you aren't adding a large portion of chilled creamer, then I believe you are insane (or living at a very high altitude). It is literally impossible for me to sip even the smallest amount of boiling hot chocolate within three minutes without burning myself. Yeah, it mixes with the saliva in your mouth and yeah, that cools it off. The mixture still needs to get down into the 120F range to keep from burning you. That's really not possible with a liquid that is 200F and saliva that's 98.6F.
I think you're forgetting the key ingredient: wait two or three minutes while your non-styrofoam insulated, open-topped cup allows the liquid to drop down to the reasonable range. Of course, the point with the McDonald's argument is that the liquid isn't going to do that - it's going to take a bit longer. On top of that, it's being handed over to someone in a flimsier container inside a moving vehicle. Even though there's no way in hell I'm bringing normal temperature cofee near my crotch, I still think that woman has a pretty reasonable argument.
I'm not sure of a way to make coffee using just a kettle of boiling water (although I guess you could approximate a drip percolator mechanism if you went slowly), so I'll assume you're making tea.
I love tea. It's great stuff. It is nowhere near boiling if done correctly.
First off, most actual guides to tea recommend that you make it at about 88C/190F. At the boiling point of water, certain bitter compounds are released from the tea leaves that aren't released at temperatures below about 92C. The stated strategy is either to boil the water and wait a few minutes before pouring or (if you drink a lot of tea), figure out the time it takes a given amount of water in your kettle on your stove to hit that temp, then set a timer.
I'll also assume that you're steeping your tea, because I want to drink tea, not water that once came in contact with a leaf. I go for three minutes steep time, although if you're doing the whole "move-the-bag-up-and-down" bit you can get away with a little less. Guess what? The water is cooling off!
Even then, that water is ridiculously hot. Seriously, if you want to drink water at 75C, go ahead. I'd like to taste my tea (and my meals for the next couple of days), not peel a layer of skin off the inside of my mouth.
Coffee is very similar. While boiling (or close to it) water is percolated through the filter, it is not boiling once it's in the pot. There is certainly a warming plate there, but it's to keep things warm over the long term, not get the coffee back to boiling. God help you if you're actually, truly drinking the coffee the minute there's enough in the pot, because you must have simply destroyed the inside of your mouth. Liquids over 60C/140F will burn your mouth. You can sit there and blow on it, and sip tiny amounts in the hope that the small enough amount will lose heat before burning you, but you can't really drink it like you would any other drink until it hits 60C. For a restaurant that keeps a pot of coffee, that is a temperature (or one very close) that makes sense. McDonald's might have had a better argument with tea, since it does need to start steeping at a higher temperature, but coffee in the 85C range is stupid.
Windows Home Server is absolutely baffling to me. The cat is out of the bag on NAS devices for the power users and self-built servers for the geeks. The average user is still years away from such a device..Mac is about way, WAY more than backup (namely iWeb/photocasts/blogging/etc, which are things I have no use for even with two macs).
So, why, oh why, is Windows Home Server missing the feature that I'd happily pay for: Media Center integration?
It seems like a no-brainer. Media Center computers can tell a central server, the one with two or three tuners and four or five hard drives, to record a show. Then the Media Center computer gets turned off, and the Home Server does all of the heavy lifting. It's been around in MythTV for quite a while, and the OSS windows app MediaPortal allegedly supports it (although it looks a little in the early stages now.)
I like Media Center, for reasons that I've documented earlier, and I think networked MCEs would be even better for the MCE's current market. I'm just confused about why such a relatively simple concept hasn't been executed by MS. Even though my earlier post points out why MCE hasn't been as successful as MS hoped, it still has a strong market among HDTV PVR users and video geeks, and I can't help but think that network integration would get them closer to where they want to be.
Unless something has drastically changed in the three years since I graduated from college and stopped working in computer stores, the average user is going to walk right past Home Servers for another few years. Even though it had never been officially discussed, I kept holding out hope that the computer press' occasional mention of MCE-integration as a nifty idea was a clever NDA dodge. I guess I'll have to keep waiting.
a couple of things to remember here: 1) $90,000 is the price after currency conversion and VAT (UK's 17.5% "Sales tax"). Without VAT, the TV is $78,000 in a pure currency converted price. 2) This is only the price with a currency change. Some products don't fluctuate much, but many things are ridiculously expensive in the UK when compared against the same product in the US. Judging by the pricing on the UK Top Gear, for example, cars are often $10K-$15K more for the same product. Computers are a little more reasonable, but you can still find a huge difference. The 30GB iPod (US $250), for example, is $355 US dollars at today's rate.
It is refreshing to see a jumbo plasma TV that isn't a low-res, corporate boardroom model, though. I only wonder how much juice this thing sucks down.
$45 Linksys WRT54G (don't bother with the more expensive L-version if you're only looking for a bridge, but do bother if you're replacing your main router). Install DD-WRT. Bridging either in client mode or to a separate NAT subnet are now enabled.
Look into silicondust's HDHomeRun. It's a small box with two OTA/QAM (digitalTV over cable) tuners and an ethernet port. It sends the video out via RTSP, and you connect to the box as though it's a streaming video source. There's a small included utility that changes channels for you from your remote computer and tunes to the signal using VLC.
In XP or Vista MCE, their drivers create a virtual "card" that does the same thing, only within the MCE interface. It's the only product I know of that enables QAM without a cablecard in MCE because MS never designed MCE to tune into the frequencies used by QAM.
SiliconDust's website looks like some pretty amateur-ish crap, but their hardware ($180) has performed well and does exactly what they say it will. Their tech support guys live in the forums and have been known to compile special version of firmware baed on people's particular complaints. It's a good product.
You're right, it does. Except when you want HDTV recording, and you venture into $300 Elgato gear, and your on-screen interface is now a crazy mix of front row and exiting out to using a wireless mouse to schedule recordings in the Elgato software. At that point you're into $800 Mini + $300 Elgato Tuner + $150 external drive because, trust me, HD chews up hard drive space like no one's business. Plus, your video card can handle outputting SD at 1920x1080, but starts choking on 720p playback output at that resolution. Plus, scaling and playback of some formats (.mkv, for example) is much harder unless you're willing to use VLC, at which point you completely lose any sort of pretty front row interface and you're now using a keyboard and mouse exclusively for your TV. Which sucks.
Again, like I said above - if you're interested in SD playback, there are better solutions than MCE. If you're interested in an SD DVR, there are better solutions than MCE. If you're interested in HD DVR features alone, there are better solutions. If you want HD Playback, upconversion for SD media, and HD DVR features, MCE makes for a nice package. The amount of people who want those features and are willing to pay for it is too small; hence, HP leaves the market.
I have a self-built MCE PC. It's very nice; it has a wonderful, reasonably speedy interface, records HDTV via antenna or cable (thanks to some specialized hardware), and allows me to do some nice HD upconverting for SDTV Xvid stuff and DVDs.
I can not imagine any of my family, friends, or acquaintances buying one. They're expensive when done right, and they're really only useful for a very small portion of the population. In essence, MCE PCs have two big draws: a nice interface for music/movie/picture viewing and DVR functions. For a smaller group, upconversion and scaling is a selling point, but I doubt they register in the grand scheme of MCE owners.
If people want DVR, they get it from their cable company (just ask TiVO). If they want HD DVR, they get it from their cable company. It is only a very small subset who genuinely benefit from the HD DVR features in XP MCE. It works very well with over-the-air recording, and can be hacked to enable QAM recording with certain hardware. My cable company happens to send some cable channels plus all local channels via unencrypted QAM along with my cable internet service, so I end up getting "free" HDTV service.
I have a 1080p HDTV. Most people don't have an HDTV, and thus, don't care about HD DVR features. See above about what they do when they want to record TV.
I have a nice home theater system set up; it is nice for me to be able to listen to my audio via that system. For many people that isn't particularly necessary. I also value the fact that what would be a digital cable box, a CD changer, and a DVD player are all bundled into one 3U-sized box, but for many people, the space occupied by a couple of additional boxes isn't a big deal. Even with that, I still hate the music playback interface for MCE, and usually exit out to iTunes for my audio.
In essence: the current version of XP MCE (I can't speak to Vista) is well-done, well-featured, and user-friendly enough for my wife to sit down, watch and record HDTV and listen to music. If you have an HDTV and an extra $1,500 for a nicely-done MCE computer, XP MCE is a good solution. But it's really expensive to have a dedicated PC in a living room, and it's only relevant for a small section of the population. When the MCE PCs started shipping, most of the HP models were just higher-end desktops anyway - they were merely the next model up in the line. I highly doubt that many people were actually using them as a dedicated media center. For the gadgety few who truly care about having the proper, dedicated MCE box, I'd guess they're just as likely to order from one of the many niche white-box builders (or roll their own).
IF (Huge IF) AppleTV gets some sort of official TV recording device, especially one with cable-card functionality, I could see it succeeding in this market. As it is, though, I imagine that there just aren't enough takers to justify the market for anyone other than niche builders and the occasional MCE laptop.
I was the assistant manager of a mom and pop shop about 7 years ago. They eventually went out of business because this is exactly the way the industry works.
Used games and accessories are the way to keep a store profitable, period. Now, my experience was from the PS1 up through DC and PS2 era, but it's basically still the same.
Consoles are worth zero profit. Our store manager actually bought them from Target on an "air miles" card because it made more sense than ordering a $199.99 console for $197 plus shipping (sales tax can be refunded if forms are filed correctly). The games themselves weren't all that great, either. $50 games were sold to us for $41 to $43. I later verified these numbers when I got to look at employee discounts in big box stores - we were paying a bit more than the Best Buys of the world, but not much.
Best Buy uses the games to draw people in for the more profitable items, and we did the same. Used games usually had a 100% markup. New games that sold for $50 were purchased from gamers for $15 cash or $20 in credit toward another used game, and sold for $30 or $35 retail depending on the popularity. Just as in every other retail store, the key is attachment. Go walk into EB/GameStop, and look at all of the strategy guides, toys, trading cards, and accessories. We made more on a $20 memory card than on a $50 game; we pushed hard to sell the strategy guides because they tripled our profit on the transaction. One month, we made almost 1/3 of our profit on pokemon cards during the height of that trend. It was still a losing battle, though. New game systems became harder to get during the launch cycles, the emergence of three viable consoles instead of two made our inventory balancing much more difficult, and the store ultimately folded about a year after I left for good. I've since seen several other mom and pop game shops come and go in the various cities I've lived in, and I've arrived at the same conclusion as TFA - big boxes are the only ones who can afford to sell games.
The videogame industry just isn't the music industry; the culture that allows the small record stores to still exist in the trendy urban areas doesn't translate to videogames. The "indie" games are all available for sale online, and there's no concept of "local scenes." It's cool; I'm okay with that. I just hope people realize this before they throw their savings at the dream of combining their hobby and business.
Actually, the guide information is transmitted in the stream. Because part of the ATSC (digital TV) standard was a system for broadcasting a guide, the QAM (digital TV over cable) systems allow it as well. The actual rendering of the guide info is up to the TV, so it can be as pretty or hideous as they design it. Every one I've seen has looked pretty primitive compared to the standard digital cable/satellite boxes, but it is cool that you don't need another box in the media cabinet.
The big downside to the cablecard system (what you're describing) is that communication is one-way; hence, Pay-Per-View requires a set-top box. In my area, Time Warner charges the same monthly fee for cablecard or an HD tuner box, so I'd assume most people would end up getting the tuner box for the occasional PPV order.
I'll assume from the +1 mod that you aren't trolling and genuinely want the answer.
69, as you've indicated, is slang for simultaneous oral sex. The number eight rhymes with the "ate," which is the past tense of "to eat." In English (American English at least, and probably British English), the most common slang for oral sex performed on a woman is the phrase "eat[ing] her out."
Thus, the joke works because the sqaure root of 69 is 8-something, but it immediately calls to mind the word "ate," which is a common slang for the sex act.
IANAL, but I would think we would have to presume innocence on those other people who have not even had the opportunity to defend themselves in a court of law. The other downloaders are not on trial, just this one guy. And thus, because we must presume their innocence.
In a civil case, innocence is not presumed. In this case, the RIAA doesn't need to prove that any or all of the other torrent users were illegally downloading; they only need to prove that there's a reasonable chance one of them was illegally downloading. That shouldn't be too difficult.
This is the same reason why the old "Open AP" defense strategy that/.ers occasionally theorize would be worthless.
Of course, there are dozens of other reasons why the RIAA's case is worthless, and I hope Hogan's lawyers shred them all.
One objection to your statement: e. coli. It's used in later portions of the human intestine to aid digestion. It's fine if it stays in the intestine, but it can kill if it's allowed into the upper digestive tract (just ask Jack-in-the-Box!)
Freshly dropped human shit is in fact pretty bad for you.
I ran a mom and pop game store about 6 years ago. I was the manager, and the original owner sold it when her husband was transferred (it was moderately profitable at the time). The store ultimately went under in '01, about a year after I left. Here are some of the things I could point to:
1) We were in a decent location in Houston, TX, so we certainly couldn't blame the area. There were a couple of competitors around; Funco had a store about 5 miles up the street from us, and a Gamestop or EB was in the mall across the street from that Funco. Location is a major point, but I'd expect that you'd already be aware of that. Make sure that the clientele in your area represent a decent mix of wealth - truly rich people (or their kids) don't tend to trade or buy used, and lower income people will try to avoid new products.
2) Ignore suggestions by other people to host tournaments, as these rarely work. We tried that multiple times, with and without modest entry fees to keep people from flaking. Ultimately, we saw no major change in business either way, but we did spend more money on prizes and the like.
3) Those chain stores are succesful because they sell random add-ons and trinkets. You've probably already figured this out, but there's no profit margin in new games. Accessories, used titles, and toys/shirts/strategy guides are where the profit is made. Making a living on used games requires a crap-load of volume, so it's best to try and combine it with those other sidelines.
4) Get it online! Setup an ebay account and start ebaying used titles, especially older titles. You'll be really surprised, but there is a market out there for random PS1 games released in 1997. $5 is still $5, and you can probably pad it with another $1 or so on handling.
5) Get the niche market. If your area can support it, you can make some decent money as the "import" store or the "mod chip place." A simple afternoon practicing with the soldering iron can set you up for charging $200 for a mod chip + 160GB drive install. Try to sell this service online as well, if it starts to work out for you. One of our sister stores used to do a huge volume in PS1 modding back when that was popular, and it set them up as a big import shop once they'd done so. Import game players tend to be heavy, heavy gamers, which means big money.
6) Pre-orders work, provided you've got decent distributors. You'd be surprised how many people eagerly dropped $10 for the Gold Zelda 64 pre-order back in the day, and each one of those pre-orders represents a guaranteed sale.
7) Finally, you have to know the business. Part of the reason we went from being profitable to not was that the new owners placed their daughter in charge of the store. She was a wonderful person, and had a decent business sense, but she didn't know the business. Prices need to be updated frequently, orders need to be guaged carefully, and inventory is a very delicate balance. A few over-orders on dud games will leave you with $2,000 or $3,000 in new games that probably won't ever sell. Get subscriptions to some reputable game-mags (I favored EGM and the Official Playstation magazines back in the day) and read them non-stop. Get knowledgable staff - if you can find honest teenagers they'll work for minimum wage plus discounts. Emphasize used stuff; we were way more successful when we stocked a few high selling titles than a bunch of middle of the road ones. If people get used to coming to you for used stuff, that's a good place to be - it's your higher margin stuff anyway.
To the title of my post: I hate to say this, but there's a reason the big chains are succesful. I'm not sure that the gaming world is ready for a happy fun lounge-around comic book store environment yet. People might take advantage of it, but I don't think it would drive profits. The big stores are succesful because they push the high margin items and emphasize their profit areas, just like any profitable business.
Yes, you can charge with USB, but not while playing the device. USB simply doesn't push enough amps, and while it will trickle charge if you turn it off and plug it into a USB port, it will not charge quickly enough to offset the loss of power during playback.
Possible Downsides
on
VW Goes USB
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I've been using an Alpine in-dash stereo with the KCA-420i iPod adapter for about a year now. VW's choice certainly has some upsides (supports a wider range of devices, even a USB HDD, I assume), but there are going to be some downsides here.
1) The mention that this deck looks for six folders indicates that it will be more complicated than the Alpine system (which supports any and all folder on an iPod). This will complicate synching for users who aren't used to devices with manual file copying.
2) The KCA-420i system works like the iPod dock. All audio decoding is handled in the iPod, which means the Alpine system will play anything your iPod can play. The VW system uses specially named folders and interfaces through USB, which indicates that decoding is handled in the deck. WMA/AAC/LAC/WAV/etc. files probably won't be playable. That's a bad situation. Additionally, iTunes Music Store/Napster/Rhapsody files will probably not be playable. Yes, DRM sucks, but people do use these services and that's going to be a major irritating factor for them.
3) Can USB deliver enough voltage to charge these players while they're playing? I know the iPod can't be charged over USB while playing, and I suspect that's the same situation for most of these devices. One of the nicest parts of Alpine's system is that, because the iPod was designed around firewire originally, it can effectively keep the iPod playing indefinitely.
4) Cost. The VW device costs $250. It interfaces to (I assume) either the factory stereo or the "premium" audio system. I paid $190 for my Alpine deck and $100 for the iPod adapter. That deck is a lot nicer than any base-model VW stereo is going to be, and the system works a lot better. Assuming we start talking about paying extra for the upgrade system, the Alpine's advantage only increases.
I understand that the iPod isn't the only player out there, but it is far and away the best-selling music player, period. The Alpine system could definitely use some improvement, but it's still the best setup available. This is a step in the right direction for VW, but it's definitely flawed compared to what already exists on the market.
Let's not forget, though, that if you truly wish to be one of those teachers that "makes a difference," teaching AP classes are pointless. Sure, you can challenge the smart kids and maybe force them to learn a little more, but, realistically speaking, those classes could nearly run themselves.
No, the true challenge is in teaching the regular level courses, where kids have been socially promoted up until they can't pass the "required for graduation test." Chemistry classes at that level are almost more like a math course, and English classes require a teacher to divide his or her time between trying to study the literature that the state/district requires, and trying to correct the fundamental lack of writing and grammatical skills.
That's not to say that AP teachers don't have an important job. Making a physics course challenging for kids who compete in math and science contests is a difficult task. Truly teaching a child to be a great writer is something that is of benefit in so many arenas, a price simply can't be placed on it. At the end of the day, though, I'm of the opiniont that the regular-level students will benefit far more from good, quality instructors.
Why does the industry need to revolve around fixing Microsoft's problems?
snip
They shouldn't be responsible for fixing their hardware (thinking of the hardware AV idea) because of software that someone wrote to run on it that has undesirable effects to the end user.
Why? Cash!
You're right, Intel shouldn't be responsible for fixing Microsoft's problems. I'm certain they don't feel that way. Fixing Microsoft's problems, though, is worth millions of dollars. Assuming Intel is looking to build an anti-virus system at the CPU or chipset level (pure conjecture, but let's just assume), they wouldn't be doing it because they feel a responsibility to do so. Rather, they'd be looking for a competitive advantage over AMD, and another reason for customers to ditch their perfectly good (but three year-old) 2.0 Ghz Pentium 4.
Of course, I'm not even sure how such a hardware anti-virus would work, other than something similar to the NX system on the x86-64 chips. If such a beast does rear its head, though, rest assured that it won't be because someone felt a moral responsibility to fix some Microsoft bugs.
It's possible that the author simply hasn't sat in a writing class in a few years. About 8 to 10 years ago, the MLA standard for a personal pronoun that referred to an indefinite person was "she." The MLA created this situation to rectify what was seen as the discriminatory use of "he" for years, and most style handbooks advised alternating between "he" and "she" when writing a lengthy discourse involving indefinite subjects.
I can remember being taught in English classes that "she" was the correct way to approach a situation such as this Bill of Rights.
Of course, after only a few years, it dawned on the members of the MLA that "she" was equally discriminating. Thus, the correct approach is now "he or she" in situations such as this, though it is very common for writers to erroneously use "they."
I seem to remember articles as far back as 2000 discussing ASUS' penchant for minor OCing to improve performance. My old KT133-based Asus board, for example, ran a 135mhz FSB, and many a thread in support forums mentioned that this was common practice for performance reasons.
This was not a case of crystal timing being off, either; many, many people had similar settings and it was agreed that this was Asus "Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge" marketing system.
The Blue Tango is essentially a wireless soundcard output. It will play music from iTunes, but also from Winamp, a videogame, a movie, or the email notification sound.
Airport Express plays music from iTunes. Period. That music is streamed to the airport express as an encrypted Apple Lossless Audio Codec stream. Jon Johansen (of DeCSS fame) managed to crack the method used to establish that stream, but his crack was simply intended to allow a user to play Apple Lossless Audio files from something other than iTunes. Using it it in the same way as this Blue Tango would require some sort of software "soundcard" which would pipe input to an Apple Audio encoder, encrypt the stream, and send it on its way. As far as I know, no such solution exists, though I think all of the intermediate parts do.
Don't get me wrong, if you want a way to stream your music around the house, an Airport Express is definitely the way to go. If for some reason you want an easy way to wirelessly send ALL audio from your computer to a nearby stereo, the Airport Express is going to be overly complex.
He's running an internet café, so his principle business is presumably selling computer usage. This is not a coffee shop where the money is made in keeping a steady stream of customers around to pay $3/cup.
I assume this guy is probably planning to sell snacks/drinks/coffee to bolster his bottom line, but let's not forget that his business is not a coffee shop. Approaching this like Panera Bread or even the local mom and pop coffee place isn't necessarily the most intelligent way to go.
Additionally, I sincerely hope this guy isn't trying to setup a true internet café in the US, as I've only seen a few that were successful. Unless you're in a high-traffic area of a major tourist locale, I've only seen gaming centers and the like last longer than a year or so. Don't take that as gospel truth or anything, it's just been my (admittedly limited) experience.
Can the cost be recovered? Sure, that's not tough at all, and most people don't notice the difference between a $1.29 or $1.59 fountain drink. Will it drive business, though? That's the real question: should he give away wi-fi when his core business is selling internet access (and a computer with which to use it). Wouldn't a reduced rate be more feasible?
You do realize that the G5 is slower, clock-for-clock, than the G4, right? Thus, a 1.2Ghz G5 would be slower than the 1.25Ghz G4. The only benefit provided would be 64-bit memory addressing, which is useless in a device designed to handle only 1GB of RAM anyway.
As far as I know, the ripple effect is done as part of Quartz Extreme, not Core Image. Quartz Extreme is disabled on non-supported graphics cards. The ripple effect is present on my friend's PB with 32MB of VRAM.
Core Image is an API designed to enable easy and fast graphic filtering. It will enable the filtering in GPU if possible, but will go to SIMD instructions (Altivec) if necessary. Think photoshop filters in real-time (or near-real time on machines with lesser GPUs).
Slashdot Mirror
No, I write that you can't make coffee with just a kettle of boiling water; as far as I know, it's not possible to make proper coffee (instant excluded) using JUST a kettle of boiling water and beans or grounds. You need a percolator or some similar mechanism, which produces the same effect - allowing the liquid to cool down a bit before entering your cup.
I'm seriously extremely interested in the asbestos-lined lips you're sporting. While I despise coffee, I do drink instant hot chocolate using the same mechanism, and I do pour boiling water from the kettle on it.
If you are legitimately telling me that you are drinking coffee made from boiling water within one minute of making it and you aren't adding a large portion of chilled creamer, then I believe you are insane (or living at a very high altitude). It is literally impossible for me to sip even the smallest amount of boiling hot chocolate within three minutes without burning myself. Yeah, it mixes with the saliva in your mouth and yeah, that cools it off. The mixture still needs to get down into the 120F range to keep from burning you. That's really not possible with a liquid that is 200F and saliva that's 98.6F.
I think you're forgetting the key ingredient: wait two or three minutes while your non-styrofoam insulated, open-topped cup allows the liquid to drop down to the reasonable range. Of course, the point with the McDonald's argument is that the liquid isn't going to do that - it's going to take a bit longer. On top of that, it's being handed over to someone in a flimsier container inside a moving vehicle. Even though there's no way in hell I'm bringing normal temperature cofee near my crotch, I still think that woman has a pretty reasonable argument.
I'm not sure of a way to make coffee using just a kettle of boiling water (although I guess you could approximate a drip percolator mechanism if you went slowly), so I'll assume you're making tea.
I love tea. It's great stuff. It is nowhere near boiling if done correctly.
First off, most actual guides to tea recommend that you make it at about 88C/190F. At the boiling point of water, certain bitter compounds are released from the tea leaves that aren't released at temperatures below about 92C. The stated strategy is either to boil the water and wait a few minutes before pouring or (if you drink a lot of tea), figure out the time it takes a given amount of water in your kettle on your stove to hit that temp, then set a timer.
I'll also assume that you're steeping your tea, because I want to drink tea, not water that once came in contact with a leaf. I go for three minutes steep time, although if you're doing the whole "move-the-bag-up-and-down" bit you can get away with a little less. Guess what? The water is cooling off!
Even then, that water is ridiculously hot. Seriously, if you want to drink water at 75C, go ahead. I'd like to taste my tea (and my meals for the next couple of days), not peel a layer of skin off the inside of my mouth.
Coffee is very similar. While boiling (or close to it) water is percolated through the filter, it is not boiling once it's in the pot. There is certainly a warming plate there, but it's to keep things warm over the long term, not get the coffee back to boiling. God help you if you're actually, truly drinking the coffee the minute there's enough in the pot, because you must have simply destroyed the inside of your mouth. Liquids over 60C/140F will burn your mouth. You can sit there and blow on it, and sip tiny amounts in the hope that the small enough amount will lose heat before burning you, but you can't really drink it like you would any other drink until it hits 60C. For a restaurant that keeps a pot of coffee, that is a temperature (or one very close) that makes sense. McDonald's might have had a better argument with tea, since it does need to start steeping at a higher temperature, but coffee in the 85C range is stupid.
Windows Home Server is absolutely baffling to me. The cat is out of the bag on NAS devices for the power users and self-built servers for the geeks. The average user is still years away from such a device. .Mac is about way, WAY more than backup (namely iWeb/photocasts/blogging/etc, which are things I have no use for even with two macs).
So, why, oh why, is Windows Home Server missing the feature that I'd happily pay for: Media Center integration?
It seems like a no-brainer. Media Center computers can tell a central server, the one with two or three tuners and four or five hard drives, to record a show. Then the Media Center computer gets turned off, and the Home Server does all of the heavy lifting. It's been around in MythTV for quite a while, and the OSS windows app MediaPortal allegedly supports it (although it looks a little in the early stages now.)
I like Media Center, for reasons that I've documented earlier, and I think networked MCEs would be even better for the MCE's current market. I'm just confused about why such a relatively simple concept hasn't been executed by MS. Even though my earlier post points out why MCE hasn't been as successful as MS hoped, it still has a strong market among HDTV PVR users and video geeks, and I can't help but think that network integration would get them closer to where they want to be.
Unless something has drastically changed in the three years since I graduated from college and stopped working in computer stores, the average user is going to walk right past Home Servers for another few years. Even though it had never been officially discussed, I kept holding out hope that the computer press' occasional mention of MCE-integration as a nifty idea was a clever NDA dodge. I guess I'll have to keep waiting.
a couple of things to remember here:
1) $90,000 is the price after currency conversion and VAT (UK's 17.5% "Sales tax"). Without VAT, the TV is $78,000 in a pure currency converted price.
2) This is only the price with a currency change. Some products don't fluctuate much, but many things are ridiculously expensive in the UK when compared against the same product in the US. Judging by the pricing on the UK Top Gear, for example, cars are often $10K-$15K more for the same product. Computers are a little more reasonable, but you can still find a huge difference. The 30GB iPod (US $250), for example, is $355 US dollars at today's rate.
It is refreshing to see a jumbo plasma TV that isn't a low-res, corporate boardroom model, though. I only wonder how much juice this thing sucks down.
$45 Linksys WRT54G (don't bother with the more expensive L-version if you're only looking for a bridge, but do bother if you're replacing your main router). Install DD-WRT. Bridging either in client mode or to a separate NAT subnet are now enabled.
Look into silicondust's HDHomeRun. It's a small box with two OTA/QAM (digitalTV over cable) tuners and an ethernet port. It sends the video out via RTSP, and you connect to the box as though it's a streaming video source. There's a small included utility that changes channels for you from your remote computer and tunes to the signal using VLC.
In XP or Vista MCE, their drivers create a virtual "card" that does the same thing, only within the MCE interface. It's the only product I know of that enables QAM without a cablecard in MCE because MS never designed MCE to tune into the frequencies used by QAM.
SiliconDust's website looks like some pretty amateur-ish crap, but their hardware ($180) has performed well and does exactly what they say it will. Their tech support guys live in the forums and have been known to compile special version of firmware baed on people's particular complaints. It's a good product.
You're right, it does. Except when you want HDTV recording, and you venture into $300 Elgato gear, and your on-screen interface is now a crazy mix of front row and exiting out to using a wireless mouse to schedule recordings in the Elgato software. At that point you're into $800 Mini + $300 Elgato Tuner + $150 external drive because, trust me, HD chews up hard drive space like no one's business. Plus, your video card can handle outputting SD at 1920x1080, but starts choking on 720p playback output at that resolution. Plus, scaling and playback of some formats (.mkv, for example) is much harder unless you're willing to use VLC, at which point you completely lose any sort of pretty front row interface and you're now using a keyboard and mouse exclusively for your TV. Which sucks.
Again, like I said above - if you're interested in SD playback, there are better solutions than MCE. If you're interested in an SD DVR, there are better solutions than MCE. If you're interested in HD DVR features alone, there are better solutions. If you want HD Playback, upconversion for SD media, and HD DVR features, MCE makes for a nice package. The amount of people who want those features and are willing to pay for it is too small; hence, HP leaves the market.
I have a self-built MCE PC. It's very nice; it has a wonderful, reasonably speedy interface, records HDTV via antenna or cable (thanks to some specialized hardware), and allows me to do some nice HD upconverting for SDTV Xvid stuff and DVDs.
I can not imagine any of my family, friends, or acquaintances buying one. They're expensive when done right, and they're really only useful for a very small portion of the population. In essence, MCE PCs have two big draws: a nice interface for music/movie/picture viewing and DVR functions. For a smaller group, upconversion and scaling is a selling point, but I doubt they register in the grand scheme of MCE owners.
If people want DVR, they get it from their cable company (just ask TiVO). If they want HD DVR, they get it from their cable company. It is only a very small subset who genuinely benefit from the HD DVR features in XP MCE. It works very well with over-the-air recording, and can be hacked to enable QAM recording with certain hardware. My cable company happens to send some cable channels plus all local channels via unencrypted QAM along with my cable internet service, so I end up getting "free" HDTV service.
I have a 1080p HDTV. Most people don't have an HDTV, and thus, don't care about HD DVR features. See above about what they do when they want to record TV.
I have a nice home theater system set up; it is nice for me to be able to listen to my audio via that system. For many people that isn't particularly necessary. I also value the fact that what would be a digital cable box, a CD changer, and a DVD player are all bundled into one 3U-sized box, but for many people, the space occupied by a couple of additional boxes isn't a big deal. Even with that, I still hate the music playback interface for MCE, and usually exit out to iTunes for my audio.
In essence: the current version of XP MCE (I can't speak to Vista) is well-done, well-featured, and user-friendly enough for my wife to sit down, watch and record HDTV and listen to music. If you have an HDTV and an extra $1,500 for a nicely-done MCE computer, XP MCE is a good solution. But it's really expensive to have a dedicated PC in a living room, and it's only relevant for a small section of the population. When the MCE PCs started shipping, most of the HP models were just higher-end desktops anyway - they were merely the next model up in the line. I highly doubt that many people were actually using them as a dedicated media center. For the gadgety few who truly care about having the proper, dedicated MCE box, I'd guess they're just as likely to order from one of the many niche white-box builders (or roll their own).
IF (Huge IF) AppleTV gets some sort of official TV recording device, especially one with cable-card functionality, I could see it succeeding in this market. As it is, though, I imagine that there just aren't enough takers to justify the market for anyone other than niche builders and the occasional MCE laptop.
I was the assistant manager of a mom and pop shop about 7 years ago. They eventually went out of business because this is exactly the way the industry works.
Used games and accessories are the way to keep a store profitable, period. Now, my experience was from the PS1 up through DC and PS2 era, but it's basically still the same.
Consoles are worth zero profit. Our store manager actually bought them from Target on an "air miles" card because it made more sense than ordering a $199.99 console for $197 plus shipping (sales tax can be refunded if forms are filed correctly). The games themselves weren't all that great, either. $50 games were sold to us for $41 to $43. I later verified these numbers when I got to look at employee discounts in big box stores - we were paying a bit more than the Best Buys of the world, but not much.
Best Buy uses the games to draw people in for the more profitable items, and we did the same. Used games usually had a 100% markup. New games that sold for $50 were purchased from gamers for $15 cash or $20 in credit toward another used game, and sold for $30 or $35 retail depending on the popularity. Just as in every other retail store, the key is attachment. Go walk into EB/GameStop, and look at all of the strategy guides, toys, trading cards, and accessories. We made more on a $20 memory card than on a $50 game; we pushed hard to sell the strategy guides because they tripled our profit on the transaction. One month, we made almost 1/3 of our profit on pokemon cards during the height of that trend. It was still a losing battle, though. New game systems became harder to get during the launch cycles, the emergence of three viable consoles instead of two made our inventory balancing much more difficult, and the store ultimately folded about a year after I left for good. I've since seen several other mom and pop game shops come and go in the various cities I've lived in, and I've arrived at the same conclusion as TFA - big boxes are the only ones who can afford to sell games.
The videogame industry just isn't the music industry; the culture that allows the small record stores to still exist in the trendy urban areas doesn't translate to videogames. The "indie" games are all available for sale online, and there's no concept of "local scenes." It's cool; I'm okay with that. I just hope people realize this before they throw their savings at the dream of combining their hobby and business.
Actually, the guide information is transmitted in the stream. Because part of the ATSC (digital TV) standard was a system for broadcasting a guide, the QAM (digital TV over cable) systems allow it as well. The actual rendering of the guide info is up to the TV, so it can be as pretty or hideous as they design it. Every one I've seen has looked pretty primitive compared to the standard digital cable/satellite boxes, but it is cool that you don't need another box in the media cabinet.
The big downside to the cablecard system (what you're describing) is that communication is one-way; hence, Pay-Per-View requires a set-top box. In my area, Time Warner charges the same monthly fee for cablecard or an HD tuner box, so I'd assume most people would end up getting the tuner box for the occasional PPV order.
I'll assume from the +1 mod that you aren't trolling and genuinely want the answer.
69, as you've indicated, is slang for simultaneous oral sex. The number eight rhymes with the "ate," which is the past tense of "to eat." In English (American English at least, and probably British English), the most common slang for oral sex performed on a woman is the phrase "eat[ing] her out."
Thus, the joke works because the sqaure root of 69 is 8-something, but it immediately calls to mind the word "ate," which is a common slang for the sex act.
IANAL, but I would think we would have to presume innocence on those other people who have not even had the opportunity to defend themselves in a court of law. The other downloaders are not on trial, just this one guy. And thus, because we must presume their innocence.
/.ers occasionally theorize would be worthless.
In a civil case, innocence is not presumed. In this case, the RIAA doesn't need to prove that any or all of the other torrent users were illegally downloading; they only need to prove that there's a reasonable chance one of them was illegally downloading. That shouldn't be too difficult.
This is the same reason why the old "Open AP" defense strategy that
Of course, there are dozens of other reasons why the RIAA's case is worthless, and I hope Hogan's lawyers shred them all.
One objection to your statement: e. coli. It's used in later portions of the human intestine to aid digestion. It's fine if it stays in the intestine, but it can kill if it's allowed into the upper digestive tract (just ask Jack-in-the-Box!)
Freshly dropped human shit is in fact pretty bad for you.
All your other points are spot on.
I ran a mom and pop game store about 6 years ago. I was the manager, and the original owner sold it when her husband was transferred (it was moderately profitable at the time). The store ultimately went under in '01, about a year after I left. Here are some of the things I could point to:
1) We were in a decent location in Houston, TX, so we certainly couldn't blame the area. There were a couple of competitors around; Funco had a store about 5 miles up the street from us, and a Gamestop or EB was in the mall across the street from that Funco. Location is a major point, but I'd expect that you'd already be aware of that. Make sure that the clientele in your area represent a decent mix of wealth - truly rich people (or their kids) don't tend to trade or buy used, and lower income people will try to avoid new products.
2) Ignore suggestions by other people to host tournaments, as these rarely work. We tried that multiple times, with and without modest entry fees to keep people from flaking. Ultimately, we saw no major change in business either way, but we did spend more money on prizes and the like.
3) Those chain stores are succesful because they sell random add-ons and trinkets. You've probably already figured this out, but there's no profit margin in new games. Accessories, used titles, and toys/shirts/strategy guides are where the profit is made. Making a living on used games requires a crap-load of volume, so it's best to try and combine it with those other sidelines.
4) Get it online! Setup an ebay account and start ebaying used titles, especially older titles. You'll be really surprised, but there is a market out there for random PS1 games released in 1997. $5 is still $5, and you can probably pad it with another $1 or so on handling.
5) Get the niche market. If your area can support it, you can make some decent money as the "import" store or the "mod chip place." A simple afternoon practicing with the soldering iron can set you up for charging $200 for a mod chip + 160GB drive install. Try to sell this service online as well, if it starts to work out for you. One of our sister stores used to do a huge volume in PS1 modding back when that was popular, and it set them up as a big import shop once they'd done so. Import game players tend to be heavy, heavy gamers, which means big money.
6) Pre-orders work, provided you've got decent distributors. You'd be surprised how many people eagerly dropped $10 for the Gold Zelda 64 pre-order back in the day, and each one of those pre-orders represents a guaranteed sale.
7) Finally, you have to know the business. Part of the reason we went from being profitable to not was that the new owners placed their daughter in charge of the store. She was a wonderful person, and had a decent business sense, but she didn't know the business. Prices need to be updated frequently, orders need to be guaged carefully, and inventory is a very delicate balance. A few over-orders on dud games will leave you with $2,000 or $3,000 in new games that probably won't ever sell. Get subscriptions to some reputable game-mags (I favored EGM and the Official Playstation magazines back in the day) and read them non-stop. Get knowledgable staff - if you can find honest teenagers they'll work for minimum wage plus discounts. Emphasize used stuff; we were way more successful when we stocked a few high selling titles than a bunch of middle of the road ones. If people get used to coming to you for used stuff, that's a good place to be - it's your higher margin stuff anyway.
To the title of my post: I hate to say this, but there's a reason the big chains are succesful. I'm not sure that the gaming world is ready for a happy fun lounge-around comic book store environment yet. People might take advantage of it, but I don't think it would drive profits. The big stores are succesful because they push the high margin items and emphasize their profit areas, just like any profitable business.
Finally, if you can't turn things aro
Yes, you can charge with USB, but not while playing the device. USB simply doesn't push enough amps, and while it will trickle charge if you turn it off and plug it into a USB port, it will not charge quickly enough to offset the loss of power during playback.
I've been using an Alpine in-dash stereo with the KCA-420i iPod adapter for about a year now. VW's choice certainly has some upsides (supports a wider range of devices, even a USB HDD, I assume), but there are going to be some downsides here.
1) The mention that this deck looks for six folders indicates that it will be more complicated than the Alpine system (which supports any and all folder on an iPod). This will complicate synching for users who aren't used to devices with manual file copying.
2) The KCA-420i system works like the iPod dock. All audio decoding is handled in the iPod, which means the Alpine system will play anything your iPod can play. The VW system uses specially named folders and interfaces through USB, which indicates that decoding is handled in the deck. WMA/AAC/LAC/WAV/etc. files probably won't be playable. That's a bad situation. Additionally, iTunes Music Store/Napster/Rhapsody files will probably not be playable. Yes, DRM sucks, but people do use these services and that's going to be a major irritating factor for them.
3) Can USB deliver enough voltage to charge these players while they're playing? I know the iPod can't be charged over USB while playing, and I suspect that's the same situation for most of these devices. One of the nicest parts of Alpine's system is that, because the iPod was designed around firewire originally, it can effectively keep the iPod playing indefinitely.
4) Cost. The VW device costs $250. It interfaces to (I assume) either the factory stereo or the "premium" audio system. I paid $190 for my Alpine deck and $100 for the iPod adapter. That deck is a lot nicer than any base-model VW stereo is going to be, and the system works a lot better. Assuming we start talking about paying extra for the upgrade system, the Alpine's advantage only increases.
I understand that the iPod isn't the only player out there, but it is far and away the best-selling music player, period. The Alpine system could definitely use some improvement, but it's still the best setup available. This is a step in the right direction for VW, but it's definitely flawed compared to what already exists on the market.
Let's not forget, though, that if you truly wish to be one of those teachers that "makes a difference," teaching AP classes are pointless. Sure, you can challenge the smart kids and maybe force them to learn a little more, but, realistically speaking, those classes could nearly run themselves.
No, the true challenge is in teaching the regular level courses, where kids have been socially promoted up until they can't pass the "required for graduation test." Chemistry classes at that level are almost more like a math course, and English classes require a teacher to divide his or her time between trying to study the literature that the state/district requires, and trying to correct the fundamental lack of writing and grammatical skills.
That's not to say that AP teachers don't have an important job. Making a physics course challenging for kids who compete in math and science contests is a difficult task. Truly teaching a child to be a great writer is something that is of benefit in so many arenas, a price simply can't be placed on it. At the end of the day, though, I'm of the opiniont that the regular-level students will benefit far more from good, quality instructors.
Why does the industry need to revolve around fixing Microsoft's problems?
snip
They shouldn't be responsible for fixing their hardware (thinking of the hardware AV idea) because of software that someone wrote to run on it that has undesirable effects to the end user.
Why? Cash!
You're right, Intel shouldn't be responsible for fixing Microsoft's problems. I'm certain they don't feel that way. Fixing Microsoft's problems, though, is worth millions of dollars. Assuming Intel is looking to build an anti-virus system at the CPU or chipset level (pure conjecture, but let's just assume), they wouldn't be doing it because they feel a responsibility to do so. Rather, they'd be looking for a competitive advantage over AMD, and another reason for customers to ditch their perfectly good (but three year-old) 2.0 Ghz Pentium 4.
Of course, I'm not even sure how such a hardware anti-virus would work, other than something similar to the NX system on the x86-64 chips. If such a beast does rear its head, though, rest assured that it won't be because someone felt a moral responsibility to fix some Microsoft bugs.
It's possible that the author simply hasn't sat in a writing class in a few years. About 8 to 10 years ago, the MLA standard for a personal pronoun that referred to an indefinite person was "she." The MLA created this situation to rectify what was seen as the discriminatory use of "he" for years, and most style handbooks advised alternating between "he" and "she" when writing a lengthy discourse involving indefinite subjects.
I can remember being taught in English classes that "she" was the correct way to approach a situation such as this Bill of Rights.
Of course, after only a few years, it dawned on the members of the MLA that "she" was equally discriminating. Thus, the correct approach is now "he or she" in situations such as this, though it is very common for writers to erroneously use "they."
I seem to remember articles as far back as 2000 discussing ASUS' penchant for minor OCing to improve performance. My old KT133-based Asus board, for example, ran a 135mhz FSB, and many a thread in support forums mentioned that this was common practice for performance reasons.
This was not a case of crystal timing being off, either; many, many people had similar settings and it was agreed that this was Asus "Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge" marketing system.
Yes and no.
The Blue Tango is essentially a wireless soundcard output. It will play music from iTunes, but also from Winamp, a videogame, a movie, or the email notification sound.
Airport Express plays music from iTunes. Period. That music is streamed to the airport express as an encrypted Apple Lossless Audio Codec stream. Jon Johansen (of DeCSS fame) managed to crack the method used to establish that stream, but his crack was simply intended to allow a user to play Apple Lossless Audio files from something other than iTunes. Using it it in the same way as this Blue Tango would require some sort of software "soundcard" which would pipe input to an Apple Audio encoder, encrypt the stream, and send it on its way. As far as I know, no such solution exists, though I think all of the intermediate parts do.
Don't get me wrong, if you want a way to stream your music around the house, an Airport Express is definitely the way to go. If for some reason you want an easy way to wirelessly send ALL audio from your computer to a nearby stereo, the Airport Express is going to be overly complex.
He's running an internet café, so his principle business is presumably selling computer usage. This is not a coffee shop where the money is made in keeping a steady stream of customers around to pay $3/cup.
I assume this guy is probably planning to sell snacks/drinks/coffee to bolster his bottom line, but let's not forget that his business is not a coffee shop. Approaching this like Panera Bread or even the local mom and pop coffee place isn't necessarily the most intelligent way to go.
Additionally, I sincerely hope this guy isn't trying to setup a true internet café in the US, as I've only seen a few that were successful. Unless you're in a high-traffic area of a major tourist locale, I've only seen gaming centers and the like last longer than a year or so. Don't take that as gospel truth or anything, it's just been my (admittedly limited) experience.
Can the cost be recovered? Sure, that's not tough at all, and most people don't notice the difference between a $1.29 or $1.59 fountain drink. Will it drive business, though? That's the real question: should he give away wi-fi when his core business is selling internet access (and a computer with which to use it). Wouldn't a reduced rate be more feasible?
Posting way late.
You do realize that the G5 is slower, clock-for-clock, than the G4, right? Thus, a 1.2Ghz G5 would be slower than the 1.25Ghz G4. The only benefit provided would be 64-bit memory addressing, which is useless in a device designed to handle only 1GB of RAM anyway.
As far as I know, the ripple effect is done as part of Quartz Extreme, not Core Image. Quartz Extreme is disabled on non-supported graphics cards. The ripple effect is present on my friend's PB with 32MB of VRAM.
Core Image is an API designed to enable easy and fast graphic filtering. It will enable the filtering in GPU if possible, but will go to SIMD instructions (Altivec) if necessary. Think photoshop filters in real-time (or near-real time on machines with lesser GPUs).