I do tech support for my college, and at the beginning of the year as I went from room to room in the dorms to help people set up and configure thier computers, I noticed that about 90% of them had new flat-panel monitors. Most were 15'', but they had them. Not just the iMacs either, the kids with Dells _all_ had Dell branded flat screens. This was a huge change from last year, where 90% of the incoming freshmen had brand new computers with CRT monitors.
The rise of the flat panel is very good for colleges, not just in terms of power-saving costs but also in terms of space. The CRTs just take up a lot of space on the small college desks. My CRT/keyboard prevents me from even having room for a notebook and pen to do math problem sets on - I need to go to the library to do any non-computer work. Whenever I go support someone with an LCD I eye it with envy, and the day approaches when I will be forced to get one for myself:-)
I saw Episode II at the same theater in Framingham, I thought the quality was phenomenal. When I watched it a second time in a standard 35mm theater, the difference was astounding. Everything was smoother in DLP; the effects were much better, and the movie was on the whole more enjoyable. The lack of smudges and fingerprints made the biggest difference, I think.
I think I know what you're talking about though, I noticed some pixels as well. Like you said, they were only noticeable on some scenes, but I didn't feel that they detracted from the general quality of experience of the movie. They were noticeable the same way the pixels on an LCD are noticeable, they are there, but they aren't annoying at all. I felt that the advantages of digital far outweighed the disadvantages.
(a) outlaw filming someone via hidden camera without their permission except in public places, and
I have always found the whole x10 thing quite disturbing, even benign uses such as "nanny watching" are downright rude! This law would require that Nanny to be informed that she is being watched, which means she'll behave better anyway. My question is - does this apply to security cameras watching employees at a store counter? is that a public place?
(b) provide for an adult-only domain such as.prn where all non-child-safe sites (pr0n, hate speech, etc.) would be relegated--the sites would have to give up their.com/.org/.net domains they own today.
Also a good thing. It would make filtering extremely easy (and believe it or not there ARE some good uses for filtering. A family computer that young children would use desperatly needs internet filtering). It doesn't violate freedom of speech - the porn sites would still be allowed, just relegated to.porn or wharever, it is no different then relgating porn to cable channels like HBO, or banning porn from bilboards in new york city. The internet is just as public as a busy street, and there should be decency standards, and this is a good way to make an online "red light" district that is easy to avoid but also easy to find if you are looking for it.
For my high school senior project I wrote a Java program that made specific searches on google, and parsed the results. I spent 3/4 of my time perfecting the nasty string manipulation to strip out the HTML and isolate indivisual results, urls, etc. in my own databse. Had the API come out two years ago, I would have spent a lot less time on that thing. Way to go Google!
Could this be in response to the supposed competition from tokohma? open up thier results in some way to increase thier usage?
I don't think you can say Blizzard faces an "uphill battle" even if they are on dubious legal ground, they have the funding, and the bnetd people will have a hard time coming up with funding to pay for a long legal battle, especially since there is no profit motive for anyone on the bnetd team to stick a neck out and fight this thing.
I can think of another company that is also on EXTREMELY dubious legal ground, but managed to win. They are called Microsoft, and they, with thier superiour funding just trenched in until the political climate suited them better.
I hate to compare Microsoft to Blizzard but in this case they are sort of in the same position - dubious legal ground, but superior funding and legal resources.:-(
- Geddes
I don't know how accesable "open-source" stuff is to "the people" but you can't ignore the University of Virginia - located right in Charlottesville! Now, clearly not all the students there are registered voters in charlottesville but I'd guess about 1/3 of them are (maybe more since UVA is 60% in state students) - and for these students I bet open source is not only an idea accesable to them, but an issue otherwise jaded and synical students would be willing to get of thier buts and vote on.
Also I am sure a fair number of the professors and staff would be interested in this to - so it is an issue you can definantely bring up when campaigning on the UVA campus!
Good luck!
One more thing - found original SpyMac photo
on
Apple PDA?
·
· Score: 0
here is the original SpyMac article from october where they claimed to have pictures of the iWalk (a blow up of the original picture is here - as you can see the picture there is _completely_ different then the ones they are showing today. This and the fact that they are harvesting e-mail addresses to get people look at the pictures makes SpyMac look like a hoax to me.
AtAT has good analysis
on
Apple PDA?
·
· Score: 1, Informative
The thing they reminded me of is that SpyMac also released photos of the "iWalk" the day before the iPod was announced - and today's photos are completely different. The whole analysis is good - it's todays first scene at As the Apple Turns - They also did a frame by frame analysis of the Spymac video footage and found inconsistencies.
Tom Clancy wrote something like this in debt of honor, I believe - the japenese paid off the programmer of the NYSE computer system to put in a bug that would cause all the data to be deleted when a certain stock was traded at a certain price, or some such - probobly another unrealistic Clancy story, but then again, in the same book he predicted that kamaze pilots would crash an airplane into the capital building...
Well, maybe you should give them the benefit of those doubt, from thier site:
NOTICE: (12/6/01) We are received numerous reports indicating this web site is being spammed in the Usenet groups. This website has nothing to do with any spam - we rely on word of mouth and banner exchanges.The person responsible has contacted us. They thought they were doing something good. We have asked them to stop and we believe they have.
Sounds like some angry guy who was stiffed was just trying to get the word out.
Under the plan approved by the Legislature for the Maine Learning Technology Endowment, all seventh grade students and teachers will begin using portable, wireless computers in the Fall of 2002, and all eighth grade students and teachers will be equipped the following year.
If they begin with the seventh graders this year, won't those seventh graders be eighth graders next year? Imagine how it must feel to be an eighth grader in the fall of 2002, you're really getting the shaft.
The Register had a very interesting take on this whole "computers in the classroom" thing a few years ago. The basic idea was to take all the millions being put into "a computer for every child" and such programs and instead buy a piano for every child:
"Musically trained children will also make more clued-up employees. Recent research shows that young children who practice as little as 10 minutes a day on the piano are more intelligent than their non-music playing counterparts. They have better powers of concentration and are more confident too. In the University of California, Irvine study, 78 children aged three and four were tested on their ability to assemble at four-part jigsaw. The children were divided into three groups: the first were taught how to play Mozart and Beethoven: the second lot received computer tuition: and the third group - poor lambs - had no teaching at all.
Nine months later, the children were tested again. The performance of the piano-playing group jumped 35 per cent, compared with little or no improvement in the other groups. What's the betting this news will ever make its way in to the marketing material of educational CD-ROM publishers or PC vendors. "
Bill Clintons "A computer in every classroom" was brilliant. It sounded great to the public and it allowed him to pay back the millions the tech industry had invested in his campaign.
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The rise of the flat panel is very good for colleges, not just in terms of power-saving costs but also in terms of space. The CRTs just take up a lot of space on the small college desks. My CRT/keyboard prevents me from even having room for a notebook and pen to do math problem sets on - I need to go to the library to do any non-computer work. Whenever I go support someone with an LCD I eye it with envy, and the day approaches when I will be forced to get one for myself :-)
I think I know what you're talking about though, I noticed some pixels as well. Like you said, they were only noticeable on some scenes, but I didn't feel that they detracted from the general quality of experience of the movie. They were noticeable the same way the pixels on an LCD are noticeable, they are there, but they aren't annoying at all. I felt that the advantages of digital far outweighed the disadvantages.
I have always found the whole x10 thing quite disturbing, even benign uses such as "nanny watching" are downright rude! This law would require that Nanny to be informed that she is being watched, which means she'll behave better anyway. My question is - does this apply to security cameras watching employees at a store counter? is that a public place?
(b) provide for an adult-only domain such as .prn where all non-child-safe sites (pr0n, hate speech, etc.) would be relegated--the sites would have to give up their .com/.org/.net domains they own today.
Also a good thing. It would make filtering extremely easy (and believe it or not there ARE some good uses for filtering. A family computer that young children would use desperatly needs internet filtering). It doesn't violate freedom of speech - the porn sites would still be allowed, just relegated to .porn or wharever, it is no different then relgating porn to cable channels like HBO, or banning porn from bilboards in new york city. The internet is just as public as a busy street, and there should be decency standards, and this is a good way to make an online "red light" district that is easy to avoid but also easy to find if you are looking for it.
Could this be in response to the supposed competition from tokohma? open up thier results in some way to increase thier usage?
I don't think you can say Blizzard faces an "uphill battle" even if they are on dubious legal ground, they have the funding, and the bnetd people will have a hard time coming up with funding to pay for a long legal battle, especially since there is no profit motive for anyone on the bnetd team to stick a neck out and fight this thing. I can think of another company that is also on EXTREMELY dubious legal ground, but managed to win. They are called Microsoft, and they, with thier superiour funding just trenched in until the political climate suited them better. I hate to compare Microsoft to Blizzard but in this case they are sort of in the same position - dubious legal ground, but superior funding and legal resources. :-(
- Geddes
I don't know how accesable "open-source" stuff is to "the people" but you can't ignore the University of Virginia - located right in Charlottesville! Now, clearly not all the students there are registered voters in charlottesville but I'd guess about 1/3 of them are (maybe more since UVA is 60% in state students) - and for these students I bet open source is not only an idea accesable to them, but an issue otherwise jaded and synical students would be willing to get of thier buts and vote on. Also I am sure a fair number of the professors and staff would be interested in this to - so it is an issue you can definantely bring up when campaigning on the UVA campus! Good luck!
here is the original SpyMac article from october where they claimed to have pictures of the iWalk (a blow up of the original picture is here - as you can see the picture there is _completely_ different then the ones they are showing today. This and the fact that they are harvesting e-mail addresses to get people look at the pictures makes SpyMac look like a hoax to me.
The thing they reminded me of is that SpyMac also released photos of the "iWalk" the day before the iPod was announced - and today's photos are completely different. The whole analysis is good - it's todays first scene at As the Apple Turns - They also did a frame by frame analysis of the Spymac video footage and found inconsistencies.
Tom Clancy wrote something like this in debt of honor, I believe - the japenese paid off the programmer of the NYSE computer system to put in a bug that would cause all the data to be deleted when a certain stock was traded at a certain price, or some such - probobly another unrealistic Clancy story, but then again, in the same book he predicted that kamaze pilots would crash an airplane into the capital building...
Sounds like some angry guy who was stiffed was just trying to get the word out.
Bill Clintons "A computer in every classroom" was brilliant. It sounded great to the public and it allowed him to pay back the millions the tech industry had invested in his campaign.
I won't dignify that with a response :-p
For some reason the link on /. doesn't work - after navigating through asus's site, here is the real page with the B1000 specs:
http://www.asus.com.tw/Products/Notebook/B1000/ind ex.html