Watching this video just made me more confused. There was nothing but drawings....random mumbling...and the bluish outline of people which interfered with what they were trying to show.
Maybe they're trying to prove you can prove existence of aliens by utterly confusing your audience in to believing it. The backwards/repeating voices do nothing to convince me of anything than the author is on something. I wish they'd tell me where they got it, at least I'd of learned something from this video.
When seven-foot bluish cat-looking creatures come landing...then I'll believe you.
Apple doesn't need Carrier IQ to keep up with you....the first time you picked one up it injected tiny nanobots that multiplied inside your body...connecting to and learning to interpret the synapses in your brain....although they likely don't do anything except turn you in to another Apple-loving drone.
This is different than the current test procedures. those are generated locally to make sure the stations equipment works. this going to be a live test. they are actually activating the new AES system as if there was an actual emergency.
the big difference over this new system is that it has better penetration. rather than relying on broasdcast stations alone, cable/satellite operators now have AES equipnent. when an alert is sent, it will interrupt whatever youre watching and throw your box over to a channel. so, unlike before if youre watching dvr or on demand and would miss these alerts, your viewing is interrupted. Verizon ran a test test the other morning at about 3am....dvr viewing was stopped...the box flashed AES on its display and i was shown a computer generated text screen. theyre even talking about being able to activate the system on things like hulu, netflix, xbox, but those are in the works (and may be implemented now).
The problem with anything interlaced is the fact we're no longer using interlaced displays anymore. So any non CRT based display has to do some processing...and even then the quality of that varies from TV to TV. I for one notice a HUGE difference in quality of HD content on my CRT-based rear projection vs. a 42" edge-lit LED LCD...artifact wise I see more on the LCD...but the LCD just has that real extra crisp picture....not that the RPTV is all that bad (no HDMI)...it's still my preferred way to watch a movie for genuine theater-like experience. Of course there's also the slight advantage of that even running 480i over s-video from a dvd-player looks pretty good thanks to it's ability to change scan-rate.....although the upconversion in my blu-ray player has fooled me a couple times when someone else has had a movie in.
Netflix however has been an interesting tale. My old connection was sub-megabit...so the low-bitrate video was a turnoff for a while. After getting Fios, I tried streaming with the Wii on both a CRT SDTV and the rear-projection HD, it looked as good as any DVD I'd get. Even after getting the LCD and using 480p output on the Wii, the quality wasn't too horrible. My blu-ray player has netflix in it...as well as wifi...and while the HD movies don't look quite as good as what I get over the movie channels or vod, it's not too terrible either...and it does seem to apply some of the upconversion processing to standard def netflix content as well. I don't own many blu-rays yet....but there is a USB hard drive connected to it....for some reason;)
I, however, have never seen clean unmolested NTSC 480i...except for Betamax.
I have Verizon FiOS. What are these data caps you people keep talking about?
Likely, what will happen is we'll see a new broadband war take place. This one won't be over who will give you the fastest connection, but rather, who's going to give you the most data for the least amount of money.
Right now, seriously, most of the complaints I see about data caps are coming from the big cable providers. I know Veizon will pump me 400gigs, or more, a month without even as much as complaining. Will Comcast, Cox or Time Warner do that?
I think the larger thing behind the data caps is to keep the pirates off the network. They know if they limit someone to say 100 gigs, and you've got a fast connection, you'll likely be spending most of your time waiting for that cap to roll over, meanwhile doingg EXACTLY what they and the big entertainment want...making sure you shell out for your stuff.
I know Verizon is "evil" and people call them an overpriced network....but when they're willing to send all the data I want at upwards of 40mbps...I kind of have to give in and go "ok, you got me"
So, again, what the hell are these data caps you people quit complaining about. It''s like texting, if you're paying too much, you're either too stupid to get the unlimited texting option or need to shop elsewhere for your IP connectivity. I did. I'm happy.
I was told "well, if you can't pay your bills then obviously you're not responsible enough to work here"....ok, yeah, the fact I held the same job for over 8 years and there's a report of being an identity theft victim tells you I'm an irresponsible person.
They say unemployment is down, yet every employer these days wants to run credit-checks to disqualify everyone. It's a downward spiral that doesn't seem to want to fix itself, because the employers are still making money hand over fist.
It's been tried in the past, I'm pretty sure. My lawyer told me "it's not worth the hassle...we're not going to win and we'll go bankrupt trying to win".
I don't care if these things monitor my viewing habits...they'd find it's mostly DVR with a cable box that never leaves the local radar stream. As someone more worried about the thing watching ME rather than what I'm watching; I'd just put a piece of black tape over the camera sensor.
I can already see there being a huge market of "SmartTV Privacy" accessories.
for starters...I said I could...I never said I actually did.
While I don't want to get in to the details of what exactly one can find on usenet...I think what you're forgetting is the entire HD aspect. While a DVD quality movie will yield you about 700 megs for a xvid to 8.7 gigs for a DVD9 ISO, 1080p content in x.264 will run you about 10 to 12 gigs per movie. Blu-Rays hold 25gb per layer. higher sampling rate flacs run about 2300kbps and 96/24 raw PCM is a whopping 4mbps for stereo...as an audio engineer, i'm transferring stuff like this a bit.
You assume that I do all my downloading (if I do in fact pull anything) on a constant 24-hour basis, which it's not. Furthermore...calculating the average speed for a given amount of time is probably not a real good indicator of how fast you can push data. My service is supposed to be 25/25, however, most speed tests rate it around 30/22 - when I'm on a wired connection or my wireless-n router...I can push 3mbps up and down.
The majority of my usage though is work-related, Netflix...and Slingbox.
If you're THAT worried about hitting your cap....or don't like it. Switch ISP's. Maybe if enough cap-placing ISP's lose business to companies that don't place caps on bandwidth, they'll get the idea.
I used to tell the comcrap sales people that hang out in every store I didn't want their service for a variety of reasons; too expensive, bad quality, monopolistic practices even down to "you plain won't give me service" (which was, in fact, 100% true as I'd been disqualified for even analog service) - the last year it's been the excuse of "I've got Verizon, STFU" - but here's something that might surpise you (or not), Verizon, being one company people seems to complain about...they have no usage limits on thier service. Big deal for DSL right? Try FiOS. Now I basically tell them "my current provider is twice the speed as your standard service and has no service limits" - they stay speechless...and trust me...when you can pull nearly 4 to 500 gigs of data off usenet a month and your ISP doesn't complain...you stay with 'em.
A friend of mine near Boston switched from comcrap to RCN solely for the fact that RCN does not throttle/cap users.
The real question is, why are you still on a provider that does?
This is as bad as when Lando sold Han out to Vader who in turn sold him out to Jabba...only this time Vader's just going to take TMO, do a Jedi mind trick on it and leave it for dead next to the Death Star.
Count on the same features? Nope. Did Verizon keep any of the AllTel mentality? Of course not. They took the towers, bandwidth, put the customers on THEIR plans and then left the AllTel name for dead in the alley (I heard the 'Can you hear me now?' guy was seen kicking AllTel in the face screaming that). AT&T basically wants your money. They know they don't have the iPhone people anymore and when Consumer Reports advises you to go with anyone else except AT&T, well....that's how bad this is. All the cool WiFi calling features will likely go away...AT&T wants your money. Did I mention they want to rape your wallet?
Seriously...there's 3 (4 if you count Cricket, but who does) wireless providers left after this. How is this competition? The prices won't go down, and if they do, it's at the expense of an unusable network (Sprint likely oversold their 3G network in places by over 1000% with the addition of Virgin Mobile's offerings...and right now it takes 10 minutes to load slashdot on my Android with VM). This just means the companies can charge more because...where are you going to go?
I guess their new slogan is "More bars in more places, even if we have to murder your carrier and force you to use us without providing any extra bars".
Here's where your comparison fails. Twitter and SMS are actually entirely different technologies.
SMS allows you to send up to 160 chars over the standard network over a special channel.
Twitter, OTOH, was based around SMS...actually, it was designed as a social-network with SMS as the platform. The 140 limit comes in to play based on the thing of appending the person who sent the tweet's ID to the SMS, ensuring an entire tweet would comprise 1 text message. It's only been with the recent adoption of smartphones and apps has twitter moved from SMS to a nice pretty app...or accessible from other apps.
But, while we can be alerted by Facebook or twitter in much the same manner as SMS...if your data network goes down, those aren't going to get through...with that in in to consideration this idea is mostly redundant.
No, I want to know. Why are people complaining about the cost of text messages when there are plenty of plans out there that give you an unlimited option.
I remember back in 1999..or was it 2000...it was a long time ago when the carriers in my area first started having digital service. I discovered the text message feature and promptly used it to text my sister (who was the only other person I knew at the time who had a cell phone...being as, you know, when I was a kid cell phones were, rare). These things NEVER showed up on our bill...which was an already STEEPLY discounted corporate rate with 0 minutes but free weekends.
Then..I don't remember when as I personally had an analog phone till 2001 and got a digital phone in 2002; text messages started costing like, a dime to send. This was on the major contract carriers...prepaid was limited to tracfone and AT&T (in my market), I never had a digital Trac and my AT&T was a dime to send...and I was using the AIM-over-SMS feature a LOT. When I went to the then new Virgin Mobile in late '02, i still think it was like a dime to send...i can't remember if they were the first place I saw the charge to receive a text...come to think of it, when I got Boost back in '04, that was the first time I remember seeing that.
I had both Sprint and Tmobile contract plans and on both of those I chipped in the extra for the text messaging (of course I was also paying for data and with TMobile they never informed me the AIM app on the phone was over SMS) because...I'm not a fan of making phone calls unless it's required. The first prepaid I remember having unlimited text for was the Sidekick...that was part of the standard plan. I went back to VM in Oct '09 and was, for a while, paying separate for a block of data and 1000 text messages...now I'm giving them $25/month for unlimited data and texting on an Android device...with only 300 minutes of airtime.
Ok, I seriously didn't mean for that to be an ad for VM...the point I'm making is this. Prepaid providers used to be the real gougers out there...but somehow the cost of texting has stayed close to equal on both sides of the phone world (prepaid/no-contract vs contract)....I could go on at how the prepaid providers have switched to more of a no-contract model and are actually beating the bigger brothers in terms of price and features....but maybe that's part of the point.
If I'm getting unlimited texting as part of a no-contract plan....why am I still hearing all this crap about the cost of texting? Surely if the N.C guys offer it, the ones that want to lock you in for a couple of years should to. Are they not making it clear? Are you people just not purchasing it? It's that very reason when I hear someone talk about a huge bill due to text I find it hard to believe.
Ok...wait wait...hold on a second. Your attempt at humor makes no sense. Seriously. No sense of direction?
It's a pretty known fact (or should be) that the ghosts in the original Pac-Man followed a pre-determined path. People memorized the patterns. The ghosts in Pac-Man might seem like they have some sort of behavior, but it's just pre-programmed phooey.
Now, Ms Pac-Man...that's where the ghosts attempted to hone in on your position and chase you. No more memorizing patterns. The ghosts have two basic modes....attack Ms Pac and avoid Ms Pac.
So, remember...original arcade Pac-Man: programmed ghosts. Ms. Pac: "chase" ghosts. Please don't make me cram Pac-Man arcade boards in to any of your orifices....they're very wide and long and I'm sure would be quite painful...plus you'd have the Z80 aux. board dangling down.
My whole problem with this is that the FCC decides to adopt these entirely PROPRITARY systems for use on public airwaves which, essentially, forces users to pay for this technology when they free alternatives are out there.
Granted AM is a dead band...look at the other bands. iBiquity requires licenses for each reciever and a big license for the transmitter...making Ibiquity all sorts of money.
But of course this is not the first time the FCC has decided to allow a company make money off a public resource we rely on so much. I'm sure NTSC had it's own patents that required licensing on each TV set and I'm pretty sure ATSC has patents that everyone has to pay for when purchasing an ATSC tuner/decoder.
This unfairness isn't new. If you go back to the 50's when they were inventing color, you'll find that NBC's system was competing with CBS's system. Now, in the long run the RCA system made more sense since it was entirely compatible with the analog broadcast standard set back in 1941. But the sick part is that NBC went as far as to sue CBS to keep their system off the market...and it wasn't till the onset of the Koren war that color TV production was banned entirely..and by that time, CBS's had pulled thier system.
These are public airwaves...and in the case of radio, it's a last resort for those who can't afford or pick up TV or internet...why should they have to be burdened with paying extra for licensing fees? And for the most part, why is the FCC blocking OTHER systems that carry no patents? DRM was not allowed for use in the US by ruling of the ITU...and maybe most people don't know that...so DRM's absence in the us market isn't due to the FCC...but if and when it becomes available, what's not to say that they don't ban it's use in favor of ibiquity...who's raking it in over this?
I agree. I've got no clue what these people are going on about. You realize if your kids drink half a bottle of Robotussin that's contains only DXM they'll go on a trip that'll make binaural beats like those from iDoser seem like child's play.
But getting in to binarual beats specifically....it's been stated it's all perception of sound...and in fact, it's true. The human brain reacts differently person to person to each experience/chemical and the same holds true for binaural beats. When I was heavy in to studying sound we decided to run some tests with a random smattering of subjects. We had all various types of people in the test from all ages and such. What we found was exceedingly random. What we found was that some of the older generation...and kids that weren't used to shoving headphones in their ears were unable to really get the full effect of the binaural beats...while people who were accustomed to using headphones tended to have better results in hearing these things.
Really it just boils down to the brain isn't usually used to binaural listening to begin with. It's more of a man-made thing just as a result of headphones....our ears aren't even really designed for normal stereo listening. If you even read some of the documents pertaining to these they even mention you may need a training period before you start expierenceing it. Now, for me personally....I've played with these things and they're VERY so-so. I seriously question some of the people that write reviews of these things claiming they're absolutely amazing...because the effect is marginal at best. It'll slow your brainwaves down...that's mostly it....and even then...just because I might slow my brainwaves down doesn't mean I'm going to have the same effect as the person next to me.
This kind of FUD just angers me. It's just sound...you listen to a Beatles album with headphones and you'll get some binaural effects from that. Are we going to ban the White Album on account it MIGHT cause a few people who listen with headphones to feel like they've gotten some NO2? A lot of acoustic music that's features multiple guitars can cause binaural effects if it's mixed a specific way...in fact The Gourds' bluegrass cover of Ziggy Stardust is binaural enough to get rid of headaches. It's silly. Parents these days act like they don't know how to raise their kids and depend on the gov'ment to step in and avoid every single bad thing their kids might be messing with. You're the parent....take their freakin ipods away.
excuse me sir, but I believe the N-Gage PREDATED both the DS and PSP...not by much...but it did.
At the time the Gameboy Advance SP was grabbing the handheld gaming market, and wwhen the Ngage was released, it was a STEEP price ($300) compared to the sub-$200 price for the Gameboy ASP.
The arrival of the PSP and DS to the market pretty much put the nail in the coffin of the NGage. The lack of game selection, horrible hardware, software, massive white screens of death and just an overall lack of interest cause them to finally call it quits.
I saw one of these and I laughed at it. A vertical screen? Oh wow..I can play Pac-Man accurately but antyhing else is just stupid...and as a phone? it wasn't even that good. It was mostly like a redesigned version of another nokia smartphone.
As far as "side-talking" and such....who ISN'T using a Bluetooth headset these days? Why would the gaming phone even need the capability to act as a handset...just require a BT..or include one, and call it done.
You could find fault with it, like it's one more thing to charge or "what if you lose the headset"....be an adult...charging isn't that inconvenient...and you should be responsible enough to keep track of a headset if you're responsible enough to drop the kind of cash that could be required for a gaming phone and the service contract that goes along with it.
Well, I will agree with you on that.
In some cases, mostly enterprise software, there is no decent OSS/FOSS/FLOSS alternative..and in some cases, you might not want to use them for lack of features/stability.
However, as you put it, the "toy" applications are the ones count the most to a user. Not every user is going to try to implement some enterprise-level application...it just doesn't happen.
I will admit....I do use some proprietary software still (aside Windows). For example, I've never seen a program like Audacity compete well with the likes of Protools, Adobe Audition...or even Goldwave. As a matter of fact, from an audio-engineer standpoint..I've not found many FOSS apps that meet my requirements...either in usability, function or quality.
But see, what's trivial to you isn't to some people. To some people, being able to use AIM is a huge deal breaker.
But, on another note...I would LOVE to see the servers you guys are paying $3M for...they don't happen to come with the Apple logo do they? I was starting to take you seriously till you said that.
Maybe I'm entirely different than most people. I used to use a bunch of propritary applications...Office, AIM, Yahoo, mIRC....I switched to the open-source alternatives and I never looked back.
For me, it was being able to jump between Ubuntu and Windows while maintaining the same "feel" as the other apps.
Market major upgrades are lame. How many times does someone make a major upgrade that's really just more annoying features....didn't AOL just "upgrade" ICQ to use the same rendering engine as AIM Triton...quite honestly, AIM Triton was enough to make me switch to Pidgin full time.
Obviously the windows people will stick with the applications that they're used to.
Granted you can get cheap cables from retailers like GameStop (and I had to for component support on my Wii)...I think a better idea is for console manufactures to do like many said and not include ANY cables...but rather, since so many sell their own connection solutions...have an instant rebate voucher for a cable.
The console makers save by not including useless cables...and consumer gets the connection option they want the most. If they want additional options...then they can purchase additional cables. However, I'm sure there are packaging cost concerns and redemption issues. However, if they could solve those problems, it'd make everyone's life a bit easier.
"'Windows, for some time now, has really been a DRM platform, restricting you from making copies of digital files,'"
Uhhh...excuse me? Does this mean all those mp3 dics I burned for my car in Win7 really didn't work, or the files I copied to my digital music player? All those Netflix and FlexDVD's that hit my Win7 machine really didn't get backed up and really didn't get outputted to a DVD-R? Wow, without the FSF telling me what Windows 7 couldn't do...I was starting to have major misconceptions based on actual working expierence.
While I agree with what most of the FSF does, I think this is just hate mongering. Some of the points they make is ok...but seriously...that kind of thing comes standard with any Windows installtion. FUD? Your fudding right!
But back to the DRM thing since it's what I know about. In no way did I see Windows7 as being any more obtrusive with digital media than XP was. This DRM crap they must be talking about is the same "create protected conetnet" crap they've been putting in to Windows Media Player for years.
This is a completely different suituation than Nazi's and yellow stars.
For starters, Hitler made the Jews wear them...they had no control over being Jewish...it's how they were born. So you probably say "well, they could of converted"...one thing I learned is you don't screw with people's faiths...some people may have attempted to convert in order to survive...but I'm pretty sure Hitler had other criteria and that a mere conversion wouldn't of been enough to satisfy him. That's persecution. That's wrong.
Wikipedia on the other hand...it's supposed to be a reference material, akin to what you'd find in a library...full of facts. We all know that realisticlly, since anyone can edit it, it's not. However, since it allows a multitude of people, some with expertese in what they do to contribe some good information, I mean, I trust 90% of what wiki says if it's validated and sounds right. While I'm not going to sit here and say the church of scientology is either right or wrong as an organization (because I came to the theory that any relgion when looked at from a different angle seems JUST as far out and I shouldn't let the christian brainwashing i received as a child convince me taht it is). I find many of thier practices to be irreligious..and that's mostly down to the actual "cost" of being in the CoS...it's a larger nickel and dime scheme than SMS pricing and some of the articles I've read on how they treat thier members who try to "get away" and the way they go sue hungry after anyone who merely badmouths them not only violates the rights of the person saying it, but it really makes them look like complete whackjobs.
But all that aside, I support Wiki's ban. If an organization is changing an article to make them look better in an attempt to cover it up, well, that's the governments job isn't it? It's not persecution, it's defending our basic rights...the right to unbiased information for one.
But, again, I'm not bashing the relgion...hey, if it works for you and you see the good in it, great, may Xenu be good to you. But as far as I'm concerned, as long as an organization forces you to pay up to be a member...that's not a religion in my book; even religious cults don't require monetary compensation...why can't the CoS just go back to trying to collect your soul like every other religion?
If I want to pay money to be part of a cult full of crazies, I'll join the NRA.
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Watching this video just made me more confused. There was nothing but drawings....random mumbling...and the bluish outline of people which interfered with what they were trying to show. Maybe they're trying to prove you can prove existence of aliens by utterly confusing your audience in to believing it. The backwards/repeating voices do nothing to convince me of anything than the author is on something. I wish they'd tell me where they got it, at least I'd of learned something from this video. When seven-foot bluish cat-looking creatures come landing...then I'll believe you.
Apple doesn't need Carrier IQ to keep up with you....the first time you picked one up it injected tiny nanobots that multiplied inside your body...connecting to and learning to interpret the synapses in your brain....although they likely don't do anything except turn you in to another Apple-loving drone.
Hey...... 384VDC is handy if you wanna power tube amps directly. Just sayin'
This is different than the current test procedures. those are generated locally to make sure the stations equipment works. this going to be a live test. they are actually activating the new AES system as if there was an actual emergency.
the big difference over this new system is that it has better penetration. rather than relying on broasdcast stations alone, cable/satellite operators now have AES equipnent. when an alert is sent, it will interrupt whatever youre watching and throw your box over to a channel. so, unlike before if youre watching dvr or on demand and would miss these alerts, your viewing is interrupted. Verizon ran a test test the other morning at about 3am....dvr viewing was stopped...the box flashed AES on its display and i was shown a computer generated text screen. theyre even talking about being able to activate the system on things like hulu, netflix, xbox, but those are in the works (and may be implemented now).
The problem with anything interlaced is the fact we're no longer using interlaced displays anymore. So any non CRT based display has to do some processing...and even then the quality of that varies from TV to TV. I for one notice a HUGE difference in quality of HD content on my CRT-based rear projection vs. a 42" edge-lit LED LCD...artifact wise I see more on the LCD...but the LCD just has that real extra crisp picture....not that the RPTV is all that bad (no HDMI)...it's still my preferred way to watch a movie for genuine theater-like experience. Of course there's also the slight advantage of that even running 480i over s-video from a dvd-player looks pretty good thanks to it's ability to change scan-rate.....although the upconversion in my blu-ray player has fooled me a couple times when someone else has had a movie in.
;)
Netflix however has been an interesting tale. My old connection was sub-megabit...so the low-bitrate video was a turnoff for a while. After getting Fios, I tried streaming with the Wii on both a CRT SDTV and the rear-projection HD, it looked as good as any DVD I'd get. Even after getting the LCD and using 480p output on the Wii, the quality wasn't too horrible. My blu-ray player has netflix in it...as well as wifi...and while the HD movies don't look quite as good as what I get over the movie channels or vod, it's not too terrible either...and it does seem to apply some of the upconversion processing to standard def netflix content as well. I don't own many blu-rays yet....but there is a USB hard drive connected to it....for some reason
I, however, have never seen clean unmolested NTSC 480i...except for Betamax.
I have Verizon FiOS. What are these data caps you people keep talking about?
Likely, what will happen is we'll see a new broadband war take place. This one won't be over who will give you the fastest connection, but rather, who's going to give you the most data for the least amount of money.
Right now, seriously, most of the complaints I see about data caps are coming from the big cable providers. I know Veizon will pump me 400gigs, or more, a month without even as much as complaining. Will Comcast, Cox or Time Warner do that?
I think the larger thing behind the data caps is to keep the pirates off the network. They know if they limit someone to say 100 gigs, and you've got a fast connection, you'll likely be spending most of your time waiting for that cap to roll over, meanwhile doingg EXACTLY what they and the big entertainment want...making sure you shell out for your stuff.
I know Verizon is "evil" and people call them an overpriced network....but when they're willing to send all the data I want at upwards of 40mbps...I kind of have to give in and go "ok, you got me"
So, again, what the hell are these data caps you people quit complaining about. It''s like texting, if you're paying too much, you're either too stupid to get the unlimited texting option or need to shop elsewhere for your IP connectivity. I did. I'm happy.
I tried that argument.
I was told "well, if you can't pay your bills then obviously you're not responsible enough to work here"....ok, yeah, the fact I held the same job for over 8 years and there's a report of being an identity theft victim tells you I'm an irresponsible person.
They say unemployment is down, yet every employer these days wants to run credit-checks to disqualify everyone. It's a downward spiral that doesn't seem to want to fix itself, because the employers are still making money hand over fist.
It's been tried in the past, I'm pretty sure. My lawyer told me "it's not worth the hassle...we're not going to win and we'll go bankrupt trying to win".
I don't care if these things monitor my viewing habits...they'd find it's mostly DVR with a cable box that never leaves the local radar stream. As someone more worried about the thing watching ME rather than what I'm watching; I'd just put a piece of black tape over the camera sensor.
I can already see there being a huge market of "SmartTV Privacy" accessories.
seeding is for kiddies who torrent. usenet is for impatient adults.
for starters...I said I could...I never said I actually did.
While I don't want to get in to the details of what exactly one can find on usenet...I think what you're forgetting is the entire HD aspect. While a DVD quality movie will yield you about 700 megs for a xvid to 8.7 gigs for a DVD9 ISO, 1080p content in x.264 will run you about 10 to 12 gigs per movie. Blu-Rays hold 25gb per layer. higher sampling rate flacs run about 2300kbps and 96/24 raw PCM is a whopping 4mbps for stereo...as an audio engineer, i'm transferring stuff like this a bit.
You assume that I do all my downloading (if I do in fact pull anything) on a constant 24-hour basis, which it's not. Furthermore...calculating the average speed for a given amount of time is probably not a real good indicator of how fast you can push data. My service is supposed to be 25/25, however, most speed tests rate it around 30/22 - when I'm on a wired connection or my wireless-n router...I can push 3mbps up and down.
The majority of my usage though is work-related, Netflix...and Slingbox.
If you're THAT worried about hitting your cap....or don't like it. Switch ISP's. Maybe if enough cap-placing ISP's lose business to companies that don't place caps on bandwidth, they'll get the idea.
I used to tell the comcrap sales people that hang out in every store I didn't want their service for a variety of reasons; too expensive, bad quality, monopolistic practices even down to "you plain won't give me service" (which was, in fact, 100% true as I'd been disqualified for even analog service) - the last year it's been the excuse of "I've got Verizon, STFU" - but here's something that might surpise you (or not), Verizon, being one company people seems to complain about...they have no usage limits on thier service. Big deal for DSL right? Try FiOS. Now I basically tell them "my current provider is twice the speed as your standard service and has no service limits" - they stay speechless...and trust me...when you can pull nearly 4 to 500 gigs of data off usenet a month and your ISP doesn't complain...you stay with 'em.
A friend of mine near Boston switched from comcrap to RCN solely for the fact that RCN does not throttle/cap users.
The real question is, why are you still on a provider that does?
This is as bad as when Lando sold Han out to Vader who in turn sold him out to Jabba...only this time Vader's just going to take TMO, do a Jedi mind trick on it and leave it for dead next to the Death Star. Count on the same features? Nope. Did Verizon keep any of the AllTel mentality? Of course not. They took the towers, bandwidth, put the customers on THEIR plans and then left the AllTel name for dead in the alley (I heard the 'Can you hear me now?' guy was seen kicking AllTel in the face screaming that). AT&T basically wants your money. They know they don't have the iPhone people anymore and when Consumer Reports advises you to go with anyone else except AT&T, well....that's how bad this is. All the cool WiFi calling features will likely go away...AT&T wants your money. Did I mention they want to rape your wallet? Seriously...there's 3 (4 if you count Cricket, but who does) wireless providers left after this. How is this competition? The prices won't go down, and if they do, it's at the expense of an unusable network (Sprint likely oversold their 3G network in places by over 1000% with the addition of Virgin Mobile's offerings...and right now it takes 10 minutes to load slashdot on my Android with VM). This just means the companies can charge more because...where are you going to go? I guess their new slogan is "More bars in more places, even if we have to murder your carrier and force you to use us without providing any extra bars".
Here's where your comparison fails. Twitter and SMS are actually entirely different technologies.
SMS allows you to send up to 160 chars over the standard network over a special channel.
Twitter, OTOH, was based around SMS...actually, it was designed as a social-network with SMS as the platform. The 140 limit comes in to play based on the thing of appending the person who sent the tweet's ID to the SMS, ensuring an entire tweet would comprise 1 text message. It's only been with the recent adoption of smartphones and apps has twitter moved from SMS to a nice pretty app...or accessible from other apps.
But, while we can be alerted by Facebook or twitter in much the same manner as SMS...if your data network goes down, those aren't going to get through...with that in in to consideration this idea is mostly redundant.
No, I want to know. Why are people complaining about the cost of text messages when there are plenty of plans out there that give you an unlimited option.
I remember back in 1999..or was it 2000...it was a long time ago when the carriers in my area first started having digital service. I discovered the text message feature and promptly used it to text my sister (who was the only other person I knew at the time who had a cell phone...being as, you know, when I was a kid cell phones were, rare). These things NEVER showed up on our bill...which was an already STEEPLY discounted corporate rate with 0 minutes but free weekends.
Then..I don't remember when as I personally had an analog phone till 2001 and got a digital phone in 2002; text messages started costing like, a dime to send. This was on the major contract carriers...prepaid was limited to tracfone and AT&T (in my market), I never had a digital Trac and my AT&T was a dime to send...and I was using the AIM-over-SMS feature a LOT. When I went to the then new Virgin Mobile in late '02, i still think it was like a dime to send...i can't remember if they were the first place I saw the charge to receive a text...come to think of it, when I got Boost back in '04, that was the first time I remember seeing that.
I had both Sprint and Tmobile contract plans and on both of those I chipped in the extra for the text messaging (of course I was also paying for data and with TMobile they never informed me the AIM app on the phone was over SMS) because...I'm not a fan of making phone calls unless it's required. The first prepaid I remember having unlimited text for was the Sidekick...that was part of the standard plan. I went back to VM in Oct '09 and was, for a while, paying separate for a block of data and 1000 text messages...now I'm giving them $25/month for unlimited data and texting on an Android device...with only 300 minutes of airtime.
Ok, I seriously didn't mean for that to be an ad for VM...the point I'm making is this. Prepaid providers used to be the real gougers out there...but somehow the cost of texting has stayed close to equal on both sides of the phone world (prepaid/no-contract vs contract)....I could go on at how the prepaid providers have switched to more of a no-contract model and are actually beating the bigger brothers in terms of price and features....but maybe that's part of the point.
If I'm getting unlimited texting as part of a no-contract plan....why am I still hearing all this crap about the cost of texting? Surely if the N.C guys offer it, the ones that want to lock you in for a couple of years should to. Are they not making it clear? Are you people just not purchasing it? It's that very reason when I hear someone talk about a huge bill due to text I find it hard to believe.
Ok...wait wait...hold on a second. Your attempt at humor makes no sense. Seriously. No sense of direction? It's a pretty known fact (or should be) that the ghosts in the original Pac-Man followed a pre-determined path. People memorized the patterns. The ghosts in Pac-Man might seem like they have some sort of behavior, but it's just pre-programmed phooey. Now, Ms Pac-Man...that's where the ghosts attempted to hone in on your position and chase you. No more memorizing patterns. The ghosts have two basic modes....attack Ms Pac and avoid Ms Pac. So, remember...original arcade Pac-Man: programmed ghosts. Ms. Pac: "chase" ghosts. Please don't make me cram Pac-Man arcade boards in to any of your orifices....they're very wide and long and I'm sure would be quite painful...plus you'd have the Z80 aux. board dangling down.
My whole problem with this is that the FCC decides to adopt these entirely PROPRITARY systems for use on public airwaves which, essentially, forces users to pay for this technology when they free alternatives are out there.
Granted AM is a dead band...look at the other bands. iBiquity requires licenses for each reciever and a big license for the transmitter...making Ibiquity all sorts of money.
But of course this is not the first time the FCC has decided to allow a company make money off a public resource we rely on so much. I'm sure NTSC had it's own patents that required licensing on each TV set and I'm pretty sure ATSC has patents that everyone has to pay for when purchasing an ATSC tuner/decoder.
This unfairness isn't new. If you go back to the 50's when they were inventing color, you'll find that NBC's system was competing with CBS's system. Now, in the long run the RCA system made more sense since it was entirely compatible with the analog broadcast standard set back in 1941. But the sick part is that NBC went as far as to sue CBS to keep their system off the market...and it wasn't till the onset of the Koren war that color TV production was banned entirely..and by that time, CBS's had pulled thier system.
These are public airwaves...and in the case of radio, it's a last resort for those who can't afford or pick up TV or internet...why should they have to be burdened with paying extra for licensing fees? And for the most part, why is the FCC blocking OTHER systems that carry no patents? DRM was not allowed for use in the US by ruling of the ITU...and maybe most people don't know that...so DRM's absence in the us market isn't due to the FCC...but if and when it becomes available, what's not to say that they don't ban it's use in favor of ibiquity...who's raking it in over this?
The publisher is cooperating because if they don't...the government will find some way of sacking them.
The DoD didn't pay for it, taxpayers did. As a taxpayer, I do not support book burning.
This highly violates first amendment rights on so many levels.
Welcome to Socialist America people. We're screwed.
I agree. I've got no clue what these people are going on about. You realize if your kids drink half a bottle of Robotussin that's contains only DXM they'll go on a trip that'll make binaural beats like those from iDoser seem like child's play.
But getting in to binarual beats specifically....it's been stated it's all perception of sound...and in fact, it's true. The human brain reacts differently person to person to each experience/chemical and the same holds true for binaural beats. When I was heavy in to studying sound we decided to run some tests with a random smattering of subjects. We had all various types of people in the test from all ages and such. What we found was exceedingly random. What we found was that some of the older generation...and kids that weren't used to shoving headphones in their ears were unable to really get the full effect of the binaural beats...while people who were accustomed to using headphones tended to have better results in hearing these things.
Really it just boils down to the brain isn't usually used to binaural listening to begin with. It's more of a man-made thing just as a result of headphones....our ears aren't even really designed for normal stereo listening. If you even read some of the documents pertaining to these they even mention you may need a training period before you start expierenceing it. Now, for me personally....I've played with these things and they're VERY so-so. I seriously question some of the people that write reviews of these things claiming they're absolutely amazing...because the effect is marginal at best. It'll slow your brainwaves down...that's mostly it....and even then...just because I might slow my brainwaves down doesn't mean I'm going to have the same effect as the person next to me.
This kind of FUD just angers me. It's just sound...you listen to a Beatles album with headphones and you'll get some binaural effects from that. Are we going to ban the White Album on account it MIGHT cause a few people who listen with headphones to feel like they've gotten some NO2? A lot of acoustic music that's features multiple guitars can cause binaural effects if it's mixed a specific way...in fact The Gourds' bluegrass cover of Ziggy Stardust is binaural enough to get rid of headaches. It's silly. Parents these days act like they don't know how to raise their kids and depend on the gov'ment to step in and avoid every single bad thing their kids might be messing with. You're the parent....take their freakin ipods away.
"it lost to PSP and DS?"
excuse me sir, but I believe the N-Gage PREDATED both the DS and PSP...not by much...but it did.
At the time the Gameboy Advance SP was grabbing the handheld gaming market, and wwhen the Ngage was released, it was a STEEP price ($300) compared to the sub-$200 price for the Gameboy ASP.
The arrival of the PSP and DS to the market pretty much put the nail in the coffin of the NGage. The lack of game selection, horrible hardware, software, massive white screens of death and just an overall lack of interest cause them to finally call it quits.
I saw one of these and I laughed at it. A vertical screen? Oh wow..I can play Pac-Man accurately but antyhing else is just stupid...and as a phone? it wasn't even that good. It was mostly like a redesigned version of another nokia smartphone.
As far as "side-talking" and such....who ISN'T using a Bluetooth headset these days? Why would the gaming phone even need the capability to act as a handset...just require a BT..or include one, and call it done.
You could find fault with it, like it's one more thing to charge or "what if you lose the headset"....be an adult...charging isn't that inconvenient...and you should be responsible enough to keep track of a headset if you're responsible enough to drop the kind of cash that could be required for a gaming phone and the service contract that goes along with it.
Well, I will agree with you on that. In some cases, mostly enterprise software, there is no decent OSS/FOSS/FLOSS alternative..and in some cases, you might not want to use them for lack of features/stability. However, as you put it, the "toy" applications are the ones count the most to a user. Not every user is going to try to implement some enterprise-level application...it just doesn't happen. I will admit....I do use some proprietary software still (aside Windows). For example, I've never seen a program like Audacity compete well with the likes of Protools, Adobe Audition...or even Goldwave. As a matter of fact, from an audio-engineer standpoint..I've not found many FOSS apps that meet my requirements...either in usability, function or quality. But see, what's trivial to you isn't to some people. To some people, being able to use AIM is a huge deal breaker. But, on another note...I would LOVE to see the servers you guys are paying $3M for...they don't happen to come with the Apple logo do they? I was starting to take you seriously till you said that.
Maybe I'm entirely different than most people. I used to use a bunch of propritary applications...Office, AIM, Yahoo, mIRC....I switched to the open-source alternatives and I never looked back. For me, it was being able to jump between Ubuntu and Windows while maintaining the same "feel" as the other apps. Market major upgrades are lame. How many times does someone make a major upgrade that's really just more annoying features....didn't AOL just "upgrade" ICQ to use the same rendering engine as AIM Triton...quite honestly, AIM Triton was enough to make me switch to Pidgin full time. Obviously the windows people will stick with the applications that they're used to.
Granted you can get cheap cables from retailers like GameStop (and I had to for component support on my Wii)...I think a better idea is for console manufactures to do like many said and not include ANY cables...but rather, since so many sell their own connection solutions...have an instant rebate voucher for a cable. The console makers save by not including useless cables...and consumer gets the connection option they want the most. If they want additional options...then they can purchase additional cables. However, I'm sure there are packaging cost concerns and redemption issues. However, if they could solve those problems, it'd make everyone's life a bit easier.
"'Windows, for some time now, has really been a DRM platform, restricting you from making copies of digital files,'"
Uhhh...excuse me? Does this mean all those mp3 dics I burned for my car in Win7 really didn't work, or the files I copied to my digital music player? All those Netflix and FlexDVD's that hit my Win7 machine really didn't get backed up and really didn't get outputted to a DVD-R? Wow, without the FSF telling me what Windows 7 couldn't do...I was starting to have major misconceptions based on actual working expierence.
While I agree with what most of the FSF does, I think this is just hate mongering. Some of the points they make is ok...but seriously...that kind of thing comes standard with any Windows installtion. FUD? Your fudding right!
But back to the DRM thing since it's what I know about. In no way did I see Windows7 as being any more obtrusive with digital media than XP was. This DRM crap they must be talking about is the same "create protected conetnet" crap they've been putting in to Windows Media Player for years.
This is a completely different suituation than Nazi's and yellow stars. For starters, Hitler made the Jews wear them.. .they had no control over being Jewish...it's how they were born. So you probably say "well, they could of converted"...one thing I learned is you don't screw with people's faiths...some people may have attempted to convert in order to survive...but I'm pretty sure Hitler had other criteria and that a mere conversion wouldn't of been enough to satisfy him. That's persecution. That's wrong.
Wikipedia on the other hand...it's supposed to be a reference material, akin to what you'd find in a library...full of facts. We all know that realisticlly, since anyone can edit it, it's not. However, since it allows a multitude of people, some with expertese in what they do to contribe some good information, I mean, I trust 90% of what wiki says if it's validated and sounds right. While I'm not going to sit here and say the church of scientology is either right or wrong as an organization (because I came to the theory that any relgion when looked at from a different angle seems JUST as far out and I shouldn't let the christian brainwashing i received as a child convince me taht it is). I find many of thier practices to be irreligious..and that's mostly down to the actual "cost" of being in the CoS...it's a larger nickel and dime scheme than SMS pricing and some of the articles I've read on how they treat thier members who try to "get away" and the way they go sue hungry after anyone who merely badmouths them not only violates the rights of the person saying it, but it really makes them look like complete whackjobs.
But all that aside, I support Wiki's ban. If an organization is changing an article to make them look better in an attempt to cover it up, well, that's the governments job isn't it? It's not persecution, it's defending our basic rights...the right to unbiased information for one.
But, again, I'm not bashing the relgion...hey, if it works for you and you see the good in it, great, may Xenu be good to you. But as far as I'm concerned, as long as an organization forces you to pay up to be a member...that's not a religion in my book; even religious cults don't require monetary compensation...why can't the CoS just go back to trying to collect your soul like every other religion?
If I want to pay money to be part of a cult full of crazies, I'll join the NRA.
"Coming this fall from Google Labs... GMail VHS! All the features of the Beta version in a bulkier inferior package!"