I know I will get modded down because I say I generally don't agree with the parent, but here are some my observations:
1) There's too many ways to actually receive HD when you're actually getting SD: stations have broadcast stations in both HD and SD on the same cable box, wrong source to TV connections, HDCP downsampling, HD-Lite, badly adjusted HDTV (especially LCD!), etc etc etc. Unless your an HD ultra-geek that knows EXACTLY what's up, chances are you think you're seeing HD, but actually are seeing SD.
2) Have an older Sony 34XBR910 CRT HDTV and the thing that hits me the most about HD over SD is NOT the resolution, but the greatly increased color gamut! Although some shows / stations (ex: Discovery HD) oversaturate the color, in general it's the combination of increased color gamut with the 16:9 wide-screen and somewhat increased resolution that makes a better picture for me over SD.
3) Whatever you do, do _NOT_ I repeat do _NOT_ compare HDTV based on what you see at Best Buy, Costco et. al.!!!! When I bought my TV a long time ago, went a a "real" high end TV store and compared pictures and our TV looked great. Went to Best Buy and the same TV looked like crap because of the input feed.
4) I'll agree with this. I cannot tell the difference between 720p and 1080i at a casual glance. Fox HD transmits 720p and it looks as good as CBS HD.
> A little visually overwrought with its montage footage of real-world conflict
A little? I would say a LOT. There were at times I thought, "aren't they going to talk about video games?" If I had this show recorded, I would have fast forwarded through half of this show.
As far as the core information was concerned, the show was great. However, the "linkage" video to events at the time was, IMHO, way too emphasized. The show gave me the impression that the producers / director of the show was more enamored with the era than with video games.
OK, I can see the space race tying into games due to the push for integrated circuits, but at first it seemed like the show was about the space race and not about video games. It got way worse when the show was tying in 60s-70s cultural events (hippies, feminism) to video games. No no no, I'm sorry, but neither I nor my kids watching the show got that at all. From what I remember, it was more of a bunch of geeks just "fooling around with the technology to see what it could do" more than what cultural dynamics was happening at the time (and one of the people interviewed pretty much said the same thing).
If there are future parts of this show, I hope they have more video game history and less non-relevant cultural crap...
>In order to stop people from buying Russian copies en masse for, say, $10 USD a piece and selling the keys online for $20 USD each, they lock the keys to the geographic region in which they're sold.
Yet, people overseas can come here and get products cheaper here due to the declining value of the dollar [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15154553], no problem. And corporations can go overseas and exploit low wage labor. To you, however, a consumer must NOT be allowed to take advantage of lower prices overseas. And the ONLY WAY to enforce this is through DRM... The foundation on which you build your arguments are so laden with hypocrisy, it's absolutely breathtaking.
And yet how many of these same people are advocating reducing global warming (how many of them are driving a Prius:-)? All of this light (and especially wasted light radiating into space) is from burning something in power plants. Imagine how much reduction of CO2 would occur if we just turned off all of this unnecessary lighting of streets, parking lots, and buildings? At least I don't require all of these street lights, parking lot lights, and so forth...
Also, doesn't the big island of Hawaii have ordinances for light pollution? Maybe CONUS should follow their example...
I'd like to expand on this theme. At my place, lots and lots of underemployed groups of programmers keep spitting out the same products, but under new "web service" protocols. Why? PHBs and CEOs hear about how cool web services are from trade magazines, so these groups deliver products that has buzz words the CEOs want to hear. So we just don't transfer a file anymore, we use a web service instead. No new functionality, just buzz words.
When one group DOES actually do something innovative, if the CEO doesn't understand it, watch that project wither and twist in the wind to die. Then if by some freak accident this project does come to the light of day, watch all the other underemployed groups of programmers copy that!
I've had some boss say in the same breath "we need to innovate, do something different" and then say "we need to continue using the same technology of (some 30 year old system)". Sigh...
I shit you not, true story. We come up with a new product. I then get a call from one of the minions of said underemployed group, asking about it. Couple of months later, in a meeting, other members of same group (who don't know me) announce _they_ have that same technology (surprise)! Then, _after_ they announce it, their PHB asks "why do we need this technology anyways"?!?!? Let me get this straight, you come out with a product, but not know why someone would need it????
All of this driven by competing for and keeping power, as the parent poster suggested...
Hell, CEOs of very large companies don't even know what the hell is going on with all the infighting between groups. They just pop in for a demo, yap to the project manager for a while, and then go to a long lunch. All the problems are left behind...
With all of this and more from the parent poster and from what I've seen, how can any innovation even possibly take place under CEOs, let alone having a CEO see it?
And when someone comes out with a device to monitor thoughts, then the *IAA can automatically bill to your credit card whenever you think of a song / video / picture!
I recently got an HP laptop. After slow startup times, slow drive access, incomplete drivers (nVidia), numerous issues, failed programs, and failing to connect to my Linksys G WAP (had to use my old B WAP), I bought a new hard drive, got a copy of XP, and installed. With Vista, everything I did get working was only through getting patches for this, updates for that, "compatibility mode" for something else. With XP, everything, I mean EVERYTHING, works as designed out of the box. My copy of Vista now sits in a drawer, waiting until everything is fixed, apps that I use are compatible, and is decently faster.
This whole deal really sucks because I had to pay Microshit twice to use my computer... I "officially" told HP of my "Vista experience", and asked HP to get XP on my machine, just to let them know of my dissatisfaction. They pretty much told me "well, buy a copy of XP and install it". So I did.
When I went to HP's support forums, the top theme was "how to I get XP on my new laptop with Vista"... I think anyone else who is dissatisfied with Vista should take the time to drop the hardware man. a note to let them know just what the "Vista experience" (God I hate corporate speak) is like.
What did you do when the installer wanted to load DirectX 9.0c? Did you install 9.0c over top of Vista's 10? If so, what happened? What version of DirectX are you running now under Vista (please check)...
Installing WorldWind under Vista is a big unknown for me because DirectX v10 does not have managed DirectX, but do you lose DirectX10 functionality if you install DirectX v9.0c on top of it (which _does_ have the managed.NET DirectX interface)????
If you lose v10 functionality, then once a f__king again, Microsoft does the old bait and switch API deal, where people get hooked on a shiny new Microsoft API, and then MS abandons the API for something else. Managed DirectX is an example of this, and Vista makes the problem even worse by not supporting this now legacy API. This leaves developers holding the bag of Microsoft dumped crap again and again. I'm getting sick of it
I thought there was a recent Slashdot article where profs weren't taking Wikipedia as a reference in term papers because of potential inaccuracies and bias?
The "Pascal" op has a far deeper true than any other post here.
There's little doubt that data shows the earth is heating up. There's also data on (geologic time scale) recent increases in CO2 above ice core measurements. While there is evidence for CO2 - warming linkage, there is also other explanations for past variations (solar output, movement of solar system through galaxy, distribution of landmasses over geologic time, etc.) and past geologic phases where CO2 concentrations were much higher than today and the earth wasn't that hot at the time and past transitions between ice ages and warming weren't all that linear. Todays climate models can accurately explain what's happening _today_ but have much uncertainty on what will happen in the future.
Given all this uncertainty of what _will_ happen in the future given the uncertain models, faith is interjected. All of the well, we all better buy that Prius because it "may" help in mitigating global warming, but we don't really know, but what if it's true doesn't show a scientific view of the world, it shows a view based on faith. And then these same people deride Christians because of their faith based beliefs. They've just substituted a faith based in science instead of Christianity. I'm not declaring one's right and one's wrong here, but you cannot say you're 100% deciding on purely scientific principal, can you? Or can you say hypocrisy? I knew you could...
Yes, that's right! I look at Google Earth as a geospatial browser, where I can click on KML links to web pages based on location, and now get dynamic web based geospatial content based on KML servers [for example: this]!
Here's the thing that gets me about people paranoid of national ID cards...
THE GOV'T/LARGE CORPS. PROBABLY ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH INFORMATION ABOUT YOU! Chances are, they already know where you live, how much you make, who you associate with, what you like, where you've been, what places you frequent, and on and on.
Do you pay taxes? Have a SS number? The gov't knows who you work for, where you live. If you have a small business, they know people of which you've dealt with.
Worse yet, do you use a CREDIT OR DEBIT CARD??? Most people I know do. If so, you have ZERO, I REPEAT ZERO privacy! They know what you buy, where you buy it, when you've bought it, how often you buy it, what you like/don't like. They can figure out patterns in your behavior and trace where you've been in the past. Worst of all, these records are kept by PRIVATE CORPORATIONS which may or may not give a rats ass about your privacy. They will especially cough up your records upon demand by authorities... Hell, probably to any shmoe who has the money...
I'm not even going to get into other types of ID, such as drivers licenses, you should get the point by now.
If you don't have any ID, then I apologize. Otherwise... you're worried about a national ID card?!??!!??!?! Let me clue you in, Big Brother has already moved in a long, long time ago and has eaten everything in the fridge...
I can see your point, but what happens when a given software company is looking at what platforms to write their software for, and sees a Mac user can easily boot / run Windows? Why are they going to pay a bunch of money for Mac developers when they know you'll just dual boot your Mac to run the Windows version?
At that point, why write OS X apps at all? Because it runs better or it has transparent windows? (sarcasm)Yeah, I'm sure software companies are going to fork over lots of money just to maintain an OS X codebase just for that...(/sarcasm) I would think many apps that might have been ported to the Mac or are currently maintained will dry up. This is good for the Mac user in the short term but ultimately hurt Apple in the long run.
While, a few years ago, Microsoft was pushing the MS koolaid drinking developers towards MFC (which I used for some projects), MS used WTL (Windows Template Library) for projects such as Office! Think I'm smoking crack? At one point, I renamed all the MFC DLLs in my system and then proceeded to try all the apps in my system to see which ones were dependant on MFC. Guess which ones weren't? That's right, Microsoft products, such as Office, weren't (use Dependancy checker to verify)! Don't know what they're using for Office now, though...
Although MS never really officially supported WTL too much (was on MSDN CDs at one point if you knew where to look), it had a great fan base. I used it for a few apps, and it produced some of the tightest GUI code I've ever seen! With no DLL dependancies either! MS apparently dropped support, but now it's on Sourceforge, so it's still available.
Great, just when they finally got me to drink the forking.NET koolaid, they have to switch it on developers AGAIN! Just how much crap will MS developers take?!?!?! You know, I do like the.NET forms library and the way it's cross language compatible, but couldn't this have been done WITHOUT putting all this on a virtual machine?!? Virtual machines make working on real world apps a pain to develop, IMHO, with having to interface with legacy libraries and the performance issues wrapped around those interfaces...
Using this political forum, I simply want to apologize to all you left wing nuts and say "you were right". I give up trying to defend anything Bush has to say anymore personally or on-line (not that I've done it here recently).
Between the destabilization / chaos going on in Iraq as the Bush admin. clearly didn't plan or forsee what was going to happen after Saddam, and now the absolute, irrevocable proof that Bush does lie and cover up (in this case, Katrina), it's getting REALLY HARD to get behind the president on anything these days... It just makes the Bush admin look like a bunch of inept, CYA idiots whose guiding principal is cronyism. When Bush opens his mouth, most non-koolaid drinking conservatives should now wonder just what agenda does he have.
BUT, I'm STILL not voting Democratic because (A) they are just as bad as the Republicans, and (B) they very much want to take away the right to persue my hobbies with all the strength they can muster (ie, off-road vehicle driving).
When most average people are comfortable with and use existing video recording technology and then they discover one day they cannot buy any new fancy camcorders, there's going to be a BIG backlash against this potential law! I see TONS of people with camcorders at school plays, family outings, etc. and I can't fathom a law that would restrict this type of content production.
Maybe this law is being created because the **IA can't produce anything anyone wants to watch anymore, so they will make anything worth watching illegal.
Also, the color balance of the local mass printers are hit or miss. In order to get decent color out of some of these places, prepare to spend some effort in manipulating your photos to get good quality. If you want good quality, of course... OTOH, at home you can set up your own workflow and get good color on the first print every time.
Otherwise, if I just want a bunch of 4x6s of the last birthday party to some people, and I'm heading there anyway, then Costco is just the thing.
Every technology / service has it's place and doesn't fill all needs
Hmmm, yes a "clump of cells" as long as it wasn't the "clump of cells" that turned out to be you. Strange how the "human" dividing line moves so.
But the clump of cells wasn't me, therefore it's irrelevant.
Holy F****** S**t. (shakes head).
That's the whole point of the "when does an embryo transition to a human".
It's so sad and tragic to see so many people in this forum take this attitude of "well, it's not me who's aborted so why should I care." My God.
I'm outta here...
Slashdot Mirror
I know I will get modded down because I say I generally don't agree with the parent, but here are some my observations:
1) There's too many ways to actually receive HD when you're actually getting SD: stations have broadcast stations in both HD and SD on the same cable box, wrong source to TV connections, HDCP downsampling, HD-Lite, badly adjusted HDTV (especially LCD!), etc etc etc. Unless your an HD ultra-geek that knows EXACTLY what's up, chances are you think you're seeing HD, but actually are seeing SD.
2) Have an older Sony 34XBR910 CRT HDTV and the thing that hits me the most about HD over SD is NOT the resolution, but the greatly increased color gamut! Although some shows / stations (ex: Discovery HD) oversaturate the color, in general it's the combination of increased color gamut with the 16:9 wide-screen and somewhat increased resolution that makes a better picture for me over SD.
3) Whatever you do, do _NOT_ I repeat do _NOT_ compare HDTV based on what you see at Best Buy, Costco et. al.!!!! When I bought my TV a long time ago, went a a "real" high end TV store and compared pictures and our TV looked great. Went to Best Buy and the same TV looked like crap because of the input feed.
4) I'll agree with this. I cannot tell the difference between 720p and 1080i at a casual glance. Fox HD transmits 720p and it looks as good as CBS HD.
> A little visually overwrought with its montage footage of real-world conflict
A little? I would say a LOT. There were at times I thought, "aren't they going to talk about video games?" If I had this show recorded, I would have fast forwarded through half of this show.
As far as the core information was concerned, the show was great. However, the "linkage" video to events at the time was, IMHO, way too emphasized. The show gave me the impression that the producers / director of the show was more enamored with the era than with video games.
OK, I can see the space race tying into games due to the push for integrated circuits, but at first it seemed like the show was about the space race and not about video games. It got way worse when the show was tying in 60s-70s cultural events (hippies, feminism) to video games. No no no, I'm sorry, but neither I nor my kids watching the show got that at all. From what I remember, it was more of a bunch of geeks just "fooling around with the technology to see what it could do" more than what cultural dynamics was happening at the time (and one of the people interviewed pretty much said the same thing).
If there are future parts of this show, I hope they have more video game history and less non-relevant cultural crap...
an infinite supply of cat, bug macro, and sunset videos...
>In order to stop people from buying Russian copies en masse for, say, $10 USD a piece and selling the keys online for $20 USD each, they lock the keys to the geographic region in which they're sold.
Yet, people overseas can come here and get products cheaper here due to the declining value of the dollar [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15154553], no problem. And corporations can go overseas and exploit low wage labor. To you, however, a consumer must NOT be allowed to take advantage of lower prices overseas. And the ONLY WAY to enforce this is through DRM... The foundation on which you build your arguments are so laden with hypocrisy, it's absolutely breathtaking.
Liubot: Oh, Fry, I love you more than the moon and the stars and the - poetic image number 37 not found
And yet how many of these same people are advocating reducing global warming (how many of them are driving a Prius :-)? All of this light (and especially wasted light radiating into space) is from burning something in power plants. Imagine how much reduction of CO2 would occur if we just turned off all of this unnecessary lighting of streets, parking lots, and buildings? At least I don't require all of these street lights, parking lot lights, and so forth...
Also, doesn't the big island of Hawaii have ordinances for light pollution? Maybe CONUS should follow their example...
It sure sounds like where I work at :-)
I'd like to expand on this theme. At my place, lots and lots of underemployed groups of programmers keep spitting out the same products, but under new "web service" protocols. Why? PHBs and CEOs hear about how cool web services are from trade magazines, so these groups deliver products that has buzz words the CEOs want to hear. So we just don't transfer a file anymore, we use a web service instead. No new functionality, just buzz words.
When one group DOES actually do something innovative, if the CEO doesn't understand it, watch that project wither and twist in the wind to die. Then if by some freak accident this project does come to the light of day, watch all the other underemployed groups of programmers copy that!
I've had some boss say in the same breath "we need to innovate, do something different" and then say "we need to continue using the same technology of (some 30 year old system)". Sigh...
I shit you not, true story. We come up with a new product. I then get a call from one of the minions of said underemployed group, asking about it. Couple of months later, in a meeting, other members of same group (who don't know me) announce _they_ have that same technology (surprise)! Then, _after_ they announce it, their PHB asks "why do we need this technology anyways"?!?!? Let me get this straight, you come out with a product, but not know why someone would need it????
All of this driven by competing for and keeping power, as the parent poster suggested...
Hell, CEOs of very large companies don't even know what the hell is going on with all the infighting between groups. They just pop in for a demo, yap to the project manager for a while, and then go to a long lunch. All the problems are left behind...
With all of this and more from the parent poster and from what I've seen, how can any innovation even possibly take place under CEOs, let alone having a CEO see it?
...and do a deep, long exposure of this area.
[paranoia] Wonder when you'll be downloading this important security update from Microsoft? [/paranoia]
And when someone comes out with a device to monitor thoughts, then the *IAA can automatically bill to your credit card whenever you think of a song / video / picture!
I recently got an HP laptop. After slow startup times, slow drive access, incomplete drivers (nVidia), numerous issues, failed programs, and failing to connect to my Linksys G WAP (had to use my old B WAP), I bought a new hard drive, got a copy of XP, and installed. With Vista, everything I did get working was only through getting patches for this, updates for that, "compatibility mode" for something else. With XP, everything, I mean EVERYTHING, works as designed out of the box. My copy of Vista now sits in a drawer, waiting until everything is fixed, apps that I use are compatible, and is decently faster.
This whole deal really sucks because I had to pay Microshit twice to use my computer... I "officially" told HP of my "Vista experience", and asked HP to get XP on my machine, just to let them know of my dissatisfaction. They pretty much told me "well, buy a copy of XP and install it". So I did.
When I went to HP's support forums, the top theme was "how to I get XP on my new laptop with Vista"... I think anyone else who is dissatisfied with Vista should take the time to drop the hardware man. a note to let them know just what the "Vista experience" (God I hate corporate speak) is like.
You have NASA's WorldWind installed under Vista?
What did you do when the installer wanted to load DirectX 9.0c? Did you install 9.0c over top of Vista's 10? If so, what happened? What version of DirectX are you running now under Vista (please check)...
Installing WorldWind under Vista is a big unknown for me because DirectX v10 does not have managed DirectX, but do you lose DirectX10 functionality if you install DirectX v9.0c on top of it (which _does_ have the managed .NET DirectX interface)????
If you lose v10 functionality, then once a f__king again, Microsoft does the old bait and switch API deal, where people get hooked on a shiny new Microsoft API, and then MS abandons the API for something else. Managed DirectX is an example of this, and Vista makes the problem even worse by not supporting this now legacy API. This leaves developers holding the bag of Microsoft dumped crap again and again. I'm getting sick of it
Even better than the wiki is this
I thought there was a recent Slashdot article where profs weren't taking Wikipedia as a reference in term papers because of potential inaccuracies and bias?
The "Pascal" op has a far deeper true than any other post here.
There's little doubt that data shows the earth is heating up. There's also data on (geologic time scale) recent increases in CO2 above ice core measurements. While there is evidence for CO2 - warming linkage, there is also other explanations for past variations (solar output, movement of solar system through galaxy, distribution of landmasses over geologic time, etc.) and past geologic phases where CO2 concentrations were much higher than today and the earth wasn't that hot at the time and past transitions between ice ages and warming weren't all that linear. Todays climate models can accurately explain what's happening _today_ but have much uncertainty on what will happen in the future.
Given all this uncertainty of what _will_ happen in the future given the uncertain models, faith is interjected. All of the well, we all better buy that Prius because it "may" help in mitigating global warming, but we don't really know, but what if it's true doesn't show a scientific view of the world, it shows a view based on faith. And then these same people deride Christians because of their faith based beliefs. They've just substituted a faith based in science instead of Christianity. I'm not declaring one's right and one's wrong here, but you cannot say you're 100% deciding on purely scientific principal, can you? Or can you say hypocrisy? I knew you could...
It works! Don't know who you are, but thank you for your response!!!!! I deeply appreciate it!
Well, so much for that...
Yes, that's right! I look at Google Earth as a geospatial browser, where I can click on KML links to web pages based on location, and now get dynamic web based geospatial content based on KML servers [for example: this]!
Here's the thing that gets me about people paranoid of national ID cards...
THE GOV'T/LARGE CORPS. PROBABLY ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH INFORMATION ABOUT YOU! Chances are, they already know where you live, how much you make, who you associate with, what you like, where you've been, what places you frequent, and on and on.
Do you pay taxes? Have a SS number? The gov't knows who you work for, where you live. If you have a small business, they know people of which you've dealt with.
Worse yet, do you use a CREDIT OR DEBIT CARD??? Most people I know do. If so, you have ZERO, I REPEAT ZERO privacy! They know what you buy, where you buy it, when you've bought it, how often you buy it, what you like/don't like. They can figure out patterns in your behavior and trace where you've been in the past. Worst of all, these records are kept by PRIVATE CORPORATIONS which may or may not give a rats ass about your privacy. They will especially cough up your records upon demand by authorities... Hell, probably to any shmoe who has the money...
I'm not even going to get into other types of ID, such as drivers licenses, you should get the point by now.
If you don't have any ID, then I apologize. Otherwise... you're worried about a national ID card?!??!!??!?! Let me clue you in, Big Brother has already moved in a long, long time ago and has eaten everything in the fridge...
I can see your point, but what happens when a given software company is looking at what platforms to write their software for, and sees a Mac user can easily boot / run Windows? Why are they going to pay a bunch of money for Mac developers when they know you'll just dual boot your Mac to run the Windows version?
At that point, why write OS X apps at all? Because it runs better or it has transparent windows? (sarcasm)Yeah, I'm sure software companies are going to fork over lots of money just to maintain an OS X codebase just for that...(/sarcasm) I would think many apps that might have been ported to the Mac or are currently maintained will dry up. This is good for the Mac user in the short term but ultimately hurt Apple in the long run.
While, a few years ago, Microsoft was pushing the MS koolaid drinking developers towards MFC (which I used for some projects), MS used WTL (Windows Template Library) for projects such as Office! Think I'm smoking crack? At one point, I renamed all the MFC DLLs in my system and then proceeded to try all the apps in my system to see which ones were dependant on MFC. Guess which ones weren't? That's right, Microsoft products, such as Office, weren't (use Dependancy checker to verify)! Don't know what they're using for Office now, though...
Although MS never really officially supported WTL too much (was on MSDN CDs at one point if you knew where to look), it had a great fan base. I used it for a few apps, and it produced some of the tightest GUI code I've ever seen! With no DLL dependancies either! MS apparently dropped support, but now it's on Sourceforge, so it's still available.
Great, just when they finally got me to drink the forking .NET koolaid, they have to switch it on developers AGAIN! Just how much crap will MS developers take?!?!?! You know, I do like the .NET forms library and the way it's cross language compatible, but couldn't this have been done WITHOUT putting all this on a virtual machine?!? Virtual machines make working on real world apps a pain to develop, IMHO, with having to interface with legacy libraries and the performance issues wrapped around those interfaces...
Using this political forum, I simply want to apologize to all you left wing nuts and say "you were right". I give up trying to defend anything Bush has to say anymore personally or on-line (not that I've done it here recently).
Between the destabilization / chaos going on in Iraq as the Bush admin. clearly didn't plan or forsee what was going to happen after Saddam, and now the absolute, irrevocable proof that Bush does lie and cover up (in this case, Katrina), it's getting REALLY HARD to get behind the president on anything these days... It just makes the Bush admin look like a bunch of inept, CYA idiots whose guiding principal is cronyism. When Bush opens his mouth, most non-koolaid drinking conservatives should now wonder just what agenda does he have.
BUT, I'm STILL not voting Democratic because (A) they are just as bad as the Republicans, and (B) they very much want to take away the right to persue my hobbies with all the strength they can muster (ie, off-road vehicle driving).
When most average people are comfortable with and use existing video recording technology and then they discover one day they cannot buy any new fancy camcorders, there's going to be a BIG backlash against this potential law! I see TONS of people with camcorders at school plays, family outings, etc. and I can't fathom a law that would restrict this type of content production.
Maybe this law is being created because the **IA can't produce anything anyone wants to watch anymore, so they will make anything worth watching illegal.
What if you want to print on media that the local printer doesn't support, such as fine art papers (Epson Velvet Fine Art, Entrada Fine Art Bright, or Canvas?
Also, the color balance of the local mass printers are hit or miss. In order to get decent color out of some of these places, prepare to spend some effort in manipulating your photos to get good quality. If you want good quality, of course... OTOH, at home you can set up your own workflow and get good color on the first print every time.
Otherwise, if I just want a bunch of 4x6s of the last birthday party to some people, and I'm heading there anyway, then Costco is just the thing.
Every technology / service has it's place and doesn't fill all needs
I'd rather go to Desert Blast!
Hmmm, yes a "clump of cells" as long as it wasn't the "clump of cells" that turned out to be you. Strange how the "human" dividing line moves so. But the clump of cells wasn't me, therefore it's irrelevant.
Holy F****** S**t. (shakes head). That's the whole point of the "when does an embryo transition to a human". It's so sad and tragic to see so many people in this forum take this attitude of "well, it's not me who's aborted so why should I care." My God. I'm outta here...