I don't mind the weight of the XBox, just the size. It's too cumbersome to carry around easily. Sure, you can put it under your arm but who wants to walk around with that thing. So you're left with finding a big, strong bag to carry it as well as the cables and controllers.
But if I needed to bring it somewhere, like if a bunch of us are getting together and want to play XBox, I'd gladly bring it over. But this is coming from a guy that would bring a server-tower PC to the occasional LAN party.
Gamecube is another thing alltogether. It's so tiny that you don't even need to worry about it. And you can probably carry the unit, the cables, and the controllers in 1 arm/hand without any difficulties (though 2 might be easier).
Because there is no way I am willingly going and buying MORE stuff just to watch TV. HD equipment is WAY overpriced.
It's been a few months since I even cared about this whole thing, but I thought they were talking about Digital signals, not HiDef Digital signals.
Ie, transmit the normal 480-line signals in a digital format as to take up a lot less bandwith. Then make availabile a set-top box that would receive the digital signal and send it to your ordinary TV. Finally, make it mandatory that all new non-HiDef TVs are able to decode the digital signal without the need of a set-top box.
This way, Joe Sixpack can buy a cheap Digital receiver for that 13" RCA TV sitting in his living room and watch Seinfeld reruns. And the next time he needs to buy a TV he can get a non-HiDef RCA that doesn't need a set-top box to descramble the digital signal.
That is, unless my memory is completely gone or they've changed things.
Some sort of combined digital broadcasting service would be nice, though I wish it wouldn't be satellite.
I live on the side of a valley, which isn't so bad. Except for the fact that I pretty much can't get a dish. Between the hiil and the tall trees I don't have a clear path to any of the decent satellites for DirectTV or Dish. Heck, I found out my GPS can't even acquire enough satellites on my street to determine its altitude.
The next time I move, I gotta make sure it's somewhere with an unobstructeud view of the sky and the satellites hovering over it.
Re:How about this simple change-
on
The Patent Epidemic
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· Score: 2, Insightful
But then you get to the murky definition of "improve."
Inventor A: Look, I just patented a device that will remove boarfix broken pixels. I'm gonna make a fortune.
Inventor B: Wow. That's a great idea.
2 weeks later Inventor B: Look, I just patented an improvement on your pixel fixer.
Inventor A: It looks just like mine and uses the same principles.
Inventor B: But mine has a cup holder. So they can fix pixels AND drink beverages.
We have central air in my house. But we don't use it that much, we try to keep it around 78F (24C)
It's not the heat that's bad, but the humidity. The summers in my state get fairly humid, and that's the killer. I've been to California a couple of times and "dry heat" really means something. High humidity adds like 20F in the uncomfortable level.
Back in my junior year in High School, I was out sick for a week. During that week the teacher had mentioned a test: we'd have to read a play (I think any American-written play) and we'd be given a test on it. Well, this message didn't get back to me and we didn't discuss it during the few days I was back from my sick leave.
A few minutes before class I see EVERYONE reading a different paperback book and I realize something's off. I ask around, and I find out a test is today. Uh-oh.
Just as we were about to walk in a friend of mine said the teacher allowed him to use the screen play for Twister. I figure I might as well use that since I saw it in the theater a few weeks ago.
I get the test and answer the long essay questions, character questions, etc. I spend more time on the Romance and friendship angle than the flying cows and such.
A week goes by and we get the results. I get a B while my friend got a C-. He told her in front of everyone that was "BS! He didn't even know about the test until just before class and such. She said I answered everything thoroughly and was apparently a good BS artist.
I saw the cancellation of Anime Unleashed coming a while now.
It used to be on every night (or at least many times a week) and not THAT late that you couldn't stay up to watch it and go to work. Now it's rarely on, or at least so late that it's not worth considering, and the current show is the perfect stigmata of what Anime is viewed as by the general public: guys stealing panties and such.
I say good riddance. Don't get me wrong, I love Anime. But they were showing way too much Gun Grave, as if it was their only show. I think they looped through the series 2 or 3 times almost back-to-back. Had they shown more shows they might have done better.
I believe the whole point of Taco's text was: this is how they were explaining it away.
Even a 5 year old knows "astronauts float." When the cast asks "umm, like, why aren't we floe-ting?" They say "oh because we're not high enough and our plates do the rest (snicker snicker snicker)."
Um, you can't get the high def signal over 1 RCA video cable. By HiDef I mean 720p or 1080i.
Yes, technically you could use all 3 RCA cables the video, but then you'd need 2 cables for the audio. But he didn't do that. He just stared at me blankly.
I proudly bought an HDVTV a few months ago and had Comcast come by to deliver/install an HD DVR box (I went all-out). They asked on the phone if I had an HD box and I said yes.
A few days go by and they deliver it. They hook it up with the old RCA cables (2-audio, 1 video). I say "But hthis is an High Def TV and that's a high-def box, why are you hooking up RCA cables?" He looked at me blankly and said "High Def doesn't require anything special." And before anyone mentions, no they weren't Component cable, just standard RCA.
I went out and bought a DVI->HDMI cable and hooked it up myself, then had to go to non-obvious menu to turn on the High Def support.
So, if my cable guy was any indicator, a lot of people are probably not getting Hi Def that ordered it.
. $1.99 for TV quality, $2.99 for DVD quality, and $3.99 for HD quality, perhaps?
But DVD is essentially TV quality, just progressive and you don't have to worry about reception. Unless you mean like DVD-writable, at which point I'd gladly pay an extra $1 to be able to burn it to DVD.
US TV and DVD's both store only 480 lines, though our TV signal is interlaced which the DVD is progressive. So as long as the picture is "clean" (no static) and it's progressive then it's probably already DVD quality.
As for HD, I don't know how they'd swing it. 1hr (42min after commercials) shows would still be REALLY big and would take a massive bite out of their bandwith.
Like I said, slowing down wouldn't have mattered because it was too late for that. I was in right in front of the guy as he ran the stop sign, so "slowing down" or "magically stopping on a dime" would have meant he would have hit me.
Yes, I'd say like 75% of the time de-celerating is probably the answer, and 20% of the time it can go either way. But that last 5%, accelerating is your only answer, and if you're in one of those circumstances it's often a MAJOR situation (ie, not a fender bender).
I've been in instances where my only choice was to accelerate or get killed.
Here's an easy to image scenario I was in a few months ago.
You go down the street crossing a T intersection (you had no light or stop sign, the other road did).
As you're crossing you notice a complete a$$hat in a large SUV runs the stop-sign perpendicular to you.
Unfortunately, by the time you notice you're already past the point-of-no-return. Your mind predicts he's gonna SLAM into your rear-right door at like 30MPH, squishing you into a divider.
There's no room to swerve and stop will only make him hit the front right door.
Your only choice is to speed up while slamming on the horn.
He finally notice you slamming on the horn and misses the back half of your car.
I'd be more concerned with the "slippery slope." First they start out with "Hey, let's add a little resistance to the pedal if they speed." Then before you know it they add a "feature" that completely prevents acceleration if you're x MPH over the speed limit. Then they'll just say "screw it" and ticket your butt.
I agree with previous posts though... depending on how much the resistance is, this could cause damage.
They don't fly for many reasons, one of which is their center of gravity. Thing they have a high venter of gravity, higher than SUVS. Also, if they have to do something to the patient (stick him with something) they don't want the thing flying around. However, I've seen them go faster than the limit, just not insanely so.
There are many times when speeding is acceptable (look at previous posts). However 80MhH on a street is insane. I'd say 35 in a 25 zone is acceptable, as well as 50 in a 40. However, this depends on the roads. If it's narrow, windy, and full of houses then you probably shouldn't speed. But if it's heller-wide and straight then a little boost is alright.
It wasn't that long after release that brick-and-mortar stores had the PSP available by itself. Sure, online you were stuck but your local EBGames probably had it within the first week or 2. I didn't check the day of, so maybe they did or maybe they didnt That's how I got mine anyway, just 1-2 weeks after launch.
But yeh, $600USD for a small bundle is extreme.
This is the same thing as suing Coors or Budwiser for DUI deaths, or liver disease... addiction comes in all sorts of forms. You can't sue the maker of a legitimate product just because the person using said product has an addictive personality.
Eh, I don't know. I'd say this is even dumber than suing Budweiser.
DUI and Liver Disease are very forseeable events of drunkning recklessly. One is very simple to do (poor judgement) while the other is a result of drinking way too much. You don't NEED to be sick or an alchoholic to have a DUI, and it's possible to drink enough in your life to get liver disease without alcoholism too (though a lot harder). So by using their product as inteded you run a risk.
A kid jumping to his death because he's too into the game is not foreseeable. You have to be really dumb or a few cards short of a deck to do this.
This is probably even worse than suing WB for their Wiley Coyote cartoons. There Wiley is rarely hurt from jumping great heights while in WoW I'm sure they probably got hurt.
As I've mentioned in the past, Slashdot is a community. Asking a question isn't as serf-serving as "googling" for the answer.
By asking the question, people that are interested in the topic may find out an answer something and those with no clue may learn something. Otherwise those individuals may never have bothered looking it up.
Though you successfully debunked much of his argument, some of it still holds merit. Mainly the point that chances are an old or classic show probably past the break-even point a while ago. Sure there are exceptions like the original "Battlestar Galactica" which cost around $1million per episode that probably never broke even, but I'm sure most did.
Unfortunately I cannot find a list, but it does say "old" and "classic" shows. I don't take that to mean Farscape and The Agency, I take it to mean shows along the lines of Get Smart or Wonder Woman. I consider the show Space: 1999 an old or classic show, not Farscape from the year 1999.
Again, I'd love to see a list. If they're talking about Farscape or Threat Matrix, then giving them away for free seems a waste of money.
Lastly, who knows. Maybe these shows were never printed on DVDs and would have otherwise never seen the light of day. Maybe they never had plans to release something some of the old shows on DVD ever because it wasn't worth the hassle. It's only worth printing DVDs if the demand is enough to warrant them to print out batches numerous batches (perhaps forever). Some of these shows might never have gotten past one if they even tried.
Right after the duo of hurricanes hit the Gulf, CNN had a similar article a month ago. While it didn't go into hard math they said had some easy examples. Essentially they said (at current gas prices, you'd have to drive for x years to begin to begin to see a return) or (it's only really a bargain if gas were like ~$5/gallon).
Unfortunately I can't find the one with the math, only some others saying that the hype isn't all that real.
I read 2 of their articles, one with some actual math (which I can't seem to find) and another simply saying it might be worth getting a 4cyl car to avoid wait times and the premium on hybrids.
While I think hybrids are definately a neat idea, I think the premiums on them are too steep for most to consider. Bring the price down and start putting them in more models of cars.
I'm coming in late and while I read through a lot of posts I haven't read them all.
While the optimist in me hopes that this will lead to something in terms of a vaccine or cure, thus helping millions of men, women, and children throughout the globe.
But I have a pessimistic side: what if this was a scam gone horribly horribly wrong?
Let's say he got ahold of some infected blood or such. He somehow arranges it so when he's tested they take a tainted sample (ie, he switches bottles or something). The test comes back positive.
Weeks later he gets tested again, this time using his real clean blood. The test comes back negative.
He then sues for the emotional distress of the false positive. Face it, he's got a case since that's a pretty depressing thing to "find out."
Only his plan works too well. The experts believe in the lie because they have a fully infected batch from 1 backup and a clean batch in another. If he used his own blood twice, the DNA would match up perfectly. And now the BBC and Times are hounding him so he can't just come out and say "Umm, you got me." The most he could claim was they tainted the samples (his original plan).
Channels like HBO and Showtime offer all of their programming free to subscribers on Comcast In Demand.
What makes time-shifting Survivor worth 99 cents when I can time-shift The Sopranos for free?
I was wondering that too. I guess I can see their reason: HBO already has your money so double-billing would piss off costumers, but networks need to rake in money somehow. But if the commercials are still there then paying is a complete ripoff. They'd still be getting money from the advertisers.
It's kind of lame. If Comcast didn't offer their DVR service I'd be alright with them upping my monthly fee by $1-$2 to give me unlimited access to network shows On-Demand. But having to pay money up front for each TV show puts me off, especially when $5 per month lets me record as many network shows on HI-DEF as I want.
Then again, my Comcast DVR is a p.o.s. that crashes every few days and has major software flaws.
That's really wacky. It makes sense on satellite but basically all cable boxes have talkback and most of your high-end cable boxes actually have a cable modem in them.
That's not entirely true. Or at least it wasn't about 2 or 3 years ago.
My ex girlfriend's cable compapy used to only have one-way cable. For cable Internet access, the coax only served to download. All requests had to go through a phone line. So they had to use the phone to use cable, a real bummer.
At the time they said it would be about another year until they had 2-way, so by now it's probably correct. But considering she didn't exactly live in the sticks it was quite odd. Heck, I was 1 town over and we were fine. Then again we were home to some neat places.
As for now, I have no idea. Back then a service guy told them it might be another year before they get 2-way communication but I don't know if that was a brushoff or the truth.
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I don't mind the weight of the XBox, just the size. It's too cumbersome to carry around easily. Sure, you can put it under your arm but who wants to walk around with that thing. So you're left with finding a big, strong bag to carry it as well as the cables and controllers.
But if I needed to bring it somewhere, like if a bunch of us are getting together and want to play XBox, I'd gladly bring it over. But this is coming from a guy that would bring a server-tower PC to the occasional LAN party.
Gamecube is another thing alltogether. It's so tiny that you don't even need to worry about it. And you can probably carry the unit, the cables, and the controllers in 1 arm/hand without any difficulties (though 2 might be easier).
It's been a few months since I even cared about this whole thing, but I thought they were talking about Digital signals, not HiDef Digital signals.
Ie, transmit the normal 480-line signals in a digital format as to take up a lot less bandwith. Then make availabile a set-top box that would receive the digital signal and send it to your ordinary TV. Finally, make it mandatory that all new non-HiDef TVs are able to decode the digital signal without the need of a set-top box.
This way, Joe Sixpack can buy a cheap Digital receiver for that 13" RCA TV sitting in his living room and watch Seinfeld reruns. And the next time he needs to buy a TV he can get a non-HiDef RCA that doesn't need a set-top box to descramble the digital signal.
That is, unless my memory is completely gone or they've changed things.
Some sort of combined digital broadcasting service would be nice, though I wish it wouldn't be satellite.
I live on the side of a valley, which isn't so bad. Except for the fact that I pretty much can't get a dish. Between the hiil and the tall trees I don't have a clear path to any of the decent satellites for DirectTV or Dish. Heck, I found out my GPS can't even acquire enough satellites on my street to determine its altitude.
The next time I move, I gotta make sure it's somewhere with an unobstructeud view of the sky and the satellites hovering over it.
But then you get to the murky definition of "improve."
Inventor A: Look, I just patented a device that will remove boarfix broken pixels. I'm gonna make a fortune.
Inventor B: Wow. That's a great idea.
2 weeks later
Inventor B: Look, I just patented an improvement on your pixel fixer.
Inventor A: It looks just like mine and uses the same principles.
Inventor B: But mine has a cup holder. So they can fix pixels AND drink beverages.
We have central air in my house. But we don't use it that much, we try to keep it around 78F (24C)
It's not the heat that's bad, but the humidity. The summers in my state get fairly humid, and that's the killer. I've been to California a couple of times and "dry heat" really means something. High humidity adds like 20F in the uncomfortable level.
Not an exam perse, but still funny.
Back in my junior year in High School, I was out sick for a week. During that week the teacher had mentioned a test: we'd have to read a play (I think any American-written play) and we'd be given a test on it. Well, this message didn't get back to me and we didn't discuss it during the few days I was back from my sick leave.
A few minutes before class I see EVERYONE reading a different paperback book and I realize something's off. I ask around, and I find out a test is today. Uh-oh.
Just as we were about to walk in a friend of mine said the teacher allowed him to use the screen play for Twister. I figure I might as well use that since I saw it in the theater a few weeks ago.
I get the test and answer the long essay questions, character questions, etc. I spend more time on the Romance and friendship angle than the flying cows and such.
A week goes by and we get the results. I get a B while my friend got a C-. He told her in front of everyone that was "BS! He didn't even know about the test until just before class and such. She said I answered everything thoroughly and was apparently a good BS artist.
All-in-all, I'd say I lucked out pretty well.
I saw the cancellation of Anime Unleashed coming a while now.
It used to be on every night (or at least many times a week) and not THAT late that you couldn't stay up to watch it and go to work. Now it's rarely on, or at least so late that it's not worth considering, and the current show is the perfect stigmata of what Anime is viewed as by the general public: guys stealing panties and such.
I say good riddance. Don't get me wrong, I love Anime. But they were showing way too much Gun Grave, as if it was their only show. I think they looped through the series 2 or 3 times almost back-to-back. Had they shown more shows they might have done better.
I believe the whole point of Taco's text was: this is how they were explaining it away. Even a 5 year old knows "astronauts float." When the cast asks "umm, like, why aren't we floe-ting?" They say "oh because we're not high enough and our plates do the rest (snicker snicker snicker)."
Um, you can't get the high def signal over 1 RCA video cable. By HiDef I mean 720p or 1080i.
Yes, technically you could use all 3 RCA cables the video, but then you'd need 2 cables for the audio. But he didn't do that. He just stared at me blankly.
I proudly bought an HDVTV a few months ago and had Comcast come by to deliver/install an HD DVR box (I went all-out). They asked on the phone if I had an HD box and I said yes.
A few days go by and they deliver it. They hook it up with the old RCA cables (2-audio, 1 video). I say "But hthis is an High Def TV and that's a high-def box, why are you hooking up RCA cables?" He looked at me blankly and said "High Def doesn't require anything special." And before anyone mentions, no they weren't Component cable, just standard RCA.
I went out and bought a DVI->HDMI cable and hooked it up myself, then had to go to non-obvious menu to turn on the High Def support.
So, if my cable guy was any indicator, a lot of people are probably not getting Hi Def that ordered it.
But DVD is essentially TV quality, just progressive and you don't have to worry about reception. Unless you mean like DVD-writable, at which point I'd gladly pay an extra $1 to be able to burn it to DVD.
US TV and DVD's both store only 480 lines, though our TV signal is interlaced which the DVD is progressive. So as long as the picture is "clean" (no static) and it's progressive then it's probably already DVD quality.
As for HD, I don't know how they'd swing it. 1hr (42min after commercials) shows would still be REALLY big and would take a massive bite out of their bandwith.
Like I said, slowing down wouldn't have mattered because it was too late for that. I was in right in front of the guy as he ran the stop sign, so "slowing down" or "magically stopping on a dime" would have meant he would have hit me.
Yes, I'd say like 75% of the time de-celerating is probably the answer, and 20% of the time it can go either way. But that last 5%, accelerating is your only answer, and if you're in one of those circumstances it's often a MAJOR situation (ie, not a fender bender).
I've been in instances where my only choice was to accelerate or get killed.
Here's an easy to image scenario I was in a few months ago.
I'd be more concerned with the "slippery slope." First they start out with "Hey, let's add a little resistance to the pedal if they speed." Then before you know it they add a "feature" that completely prevents acceleration if you're x MPH over the speed limit. Then they'll just say "screw it" and ticket your butt.
I agree with previous posts though... depending on how much the resistance is, this could cause damage.
They don't fly for many reasons, one of which is their center of gravity. Thing they have a high venter of gravity, higher than SUVS. Also, if they have to do something to the patient (stick him with something) they don't want the thing flying around. However, I've seen them go faster than the limit, just not insanely so.
There are many times when speeding is acceptable (look at previous posts). However 80MhH on a street is insane. I'd say 35 in a 25 zone is acceptable, as well as 50 in a 40. However, this depends on the roads. If it's narrow, windy, and full of houses then you probably shouldn't speed. But if it's heller-wide and straight then a little boost is alright.
It wasn't that long after release that brick-and-mortar stores had the PSP available by itself. Sure, online you were stuck but your local EBGames probably had it within the first week or 2. I didn't check the day of, so maybe they did or maybe they didnt That's how I got mine anyway, just 1-2 weeks after launch. But yeh, $600USD for a small bundle is extreme.
Yeh, the whole "Mirror" series in Gamecube's Mario Cart double the number of tracks.
But there still are quite a few without taking that into account; I think 25-30.
The only game on the initial list that tickles-my-fancy is the Perfect Dark sequel. I loved the original.
Beyond that, nothing really looks that interesting and I would probably never buy most of the games the most basic "bundles" come with.
Eh, I don't know. I'd say this is even dumber than suing Budweiser.
DUI and Liver Disease are very forseeable events of drunkning recklessly. One is very simple to do (poor judgement) while the other is a result of drinking way too much. You don't NEED to be sick or an alchoholic to have a DUI, and it's possible to drink enough in your life to get liver disease without alcoholism too (though a lot harder). So by using their product as inteded you run a risk.
A kid jumping to his death because he's too into the game is not foreseeable. You have to be really dumb or a few cards short of a deck to do this.
This is probably even worse than suing WB for their Wiley Coyote cartoons. There Wiley is rarely hurt from jumping great heights while in WoW I'm sure they probably got hurt.
By asking the question, people that are interested in the topic may find out an answer something and those with no clue may learn something. Otherwise those individuals may never have bothered looking it up.
Wow, you make the average Slashdotter look tame :)
Though you successfully debunked much of his argument, some of it still holds merit. Mainly the point that chances are an old or classic show probably past the break-even point a while ago. Sure there are exceptions like the original "Battlestar Galactica" which cost around $1million per episode that probably never broke even, but I'm sure most did.
Unfortunately I cannot find a list, but it does say "old" and "classic" shows. I don't take that to mean Farscape and The Agency, I take it to mean shows along the lines of Get Smart or Wonder Woman. I consider the show Space: 1999 an old or classic show, not Farscape from the year 1999.
Again, I'd love to see a list. If they're talking about Farscape or Threat Matrix, then giving them away for free seems a waste of money.
Lastly, who knows. Maybe these shows were never printed on DVDs and would have otherwise never seen the light of day. Maybe they never had plans to release something some of the old shows on DVD ever because it wasn't worth the hassle. It's only worth printing DVDs if the demand is enough to warrant them to print out batches numerous batches (perhaps forever). Some of these shows might never have gotten past one if they even tried.
Right after the duo of hurricanes hit the Gulf, CNN had a similar article a month ago. While it didn't go into hard math they said had some easy examples. Essentially they said (at current gas prices, you'd have to drive for x years to begin to begin to see a return) or (it's only really a bargain if gas were like ~$5/gallon).
Unfortunately I can't find the one with the math, only some others saying that the hype isn't all that real.
I read 2 of their articles, one with some actual math (which I can't seem to find) and another simply saying it might be worth getting a 4cyl car to avoid wait times and the premium on hybrids.
While I think hybrids are definately a neat idea, I think the premiums on them are too steep for most to consider. Bring the price down and start putting them in more models of cars.
I'm coming in late and while I read through a lot of posts I haven't read them all.
While the optimist in me hopes that this will lead to something in terms of a vaccine or cure, thus helping millions of men, women, and children throughout the globe.
But I have a pessimistic side: what if this was a scam gone horribly horribly wrong?
Let's say he got ahold of some infected blood or such. He somehow arranges it so when he's tested they take a tainted sample (ie, he switches bottles or something). The test comes back positive.
Weeks later he gets tested again, this time using his real clean blood. The test comes back negative.
He then sues for the emotional distress of the false positive. Face it, he's got a case since that's a pretty depressing thing to "find out."
Only his plan works too well. The experts believe in the lie because they have a fully infected batch from 1 backup and a clean batch in another. If he used his own blood twice, the DNA would match up perfectly. And now the BBC and Times are hounding him so he can't just come out and say "Umm, you got me." The most he could claim was they tainted the samples (his original plan).
I was wondering that too. I guess I can see their reason: HBO already has your money so double-billing would piss off costumers, but networks need to rake in money somehow. But if the commercials are still there then paying is a complete ripoff. They'd still be getting money from the advertisers.
It's kind of lame. If Comcast didn't offer their DVR service I'd be alright with them upping my monthly fee by $1-$2 to give me unlimited access to network shows On-Demand. But having to pay money up front for each TV show puts me off, especially when $5 per month lets me record as many network shows on HI-DEF as I want.
Then again, my Comcast DVR is a p.o.s. that crashes every few days and has major software flaws.
That's not entirely true. Or at least it wasn't about 2 or 3 years ago.
My ex girlfriend's cable compapy used to only have one-way cable. For cable Internet access, the coax only served to download. All requests had to go through a phone line. So they had to use the phone to use cable, a real bummer.
At the time they said it would be about another year until they had 2-way, so by now it's probably correct. But considering she didn't exactly live in the sticks it was quite odd. Heck, I was 1 town over and we were fine. Then again we were home to some neat places.
As for now, I have no idea. Back then a service guy told them it might be another year before they get 2-way communication but I don't know if that was a brushoff or the truth.
Weird