I thought the exact same thing when I saw the slashdot story, in a roundabout way. My question was, will they continue to sell VCRs and blank tapes? The answer was given its own paragraph in the article.
Circuit City will continue to carry blank VHS tape and VCRs, he added.
In other words, this particular incident has nothing to do with recording whatsoever. They're phasing out pre-recorded VHS tapes with DVDs, and that's it. Of course, in the long run one must ask what they intend to do with VHS; I'm sure that ties in with plugging the analog hole.
In elementary school, I was an arithematic whiz. In middle school, I had no problem getting through "Pre-Algebra" and first-year "Algebra." In high school, I got suspended for five days for using cannabis on school grounds. I thought it was a ridiculous "punishment," but it ended up hurting me big time. I missed the entire week where we learned how to factor polynomials, and it took me a "D" in first year Calculus 4 years later to realize what I'd failed to learn.
I ended up getting a big fat "D" in that high school Algebra class, too, although I did manage to pull a 107% (extra credit, of course) on one test that involved graphing. I had a TI-85. Other than that, it became a massive crutch (with games to distract you, to boot) and I regret ever having gotten it at that age.
I regretted getting a TI-89 in college, too. It seemed to hurt me rather than help me. When I go back, I'll stick with a TI-83 or lower. Heh.
It was called "Super Gameboy," and I happen to have one that I bought (used, of course) during a quest to find a cheap way to sit back and play Tetris on my TV without having to buy a new console system. Shortly thereafter I found "Dr. Mario + Tetris" for SNES which completely negated the purchase, but I kept it anyway, just because I like Donkey Kong for the Gameboy so much. It's kind of silly, really -- some games had preset colors to use on the SGB (including Donkey Kong), and "Donkey Kong Land" among others had some "special" border that framed the screen in order to use up the real estate that would be ignored otherwise due to the need to preserve the aspect ratio.
Does it surprise you that hardware companies continue to crank out better and faster components, so that the "power users" will be convinced that they must shell out more and more dough to stay on top? It's up to you to determine how often you really "need" to upgrade. Every time my dad decides he needs a new PC, it's because the latest "Myst" sequel runs too slowly, or won't run at all. What bothers me is the non-power-users who insist on getting state-of-the-art machines so that they can "get on the Internet." I'd hazard a guess that 70-80% of household PC users would get by just fine with a PII 350 and some decent RAM and HDD space, if they only knew... Instead we are wasting all of these perfectly good components, where they end up shipped to China (legally or not) to be stripped down by kids using noxious chemicals...and...and, never mind...
As always, "obsolete" is a relative term that varies depending on what you plan on using the machine for. I've been into computers since I was 10, starting with a totally obsolete VIC 20. Then, I got a totally obsolete 286-12. Then, I got a totally obsolete 386-16. All of these boxes were "obsolete" by all standards when they were passed down to me, but they still served me very well and helped introduce me to the "IT World" where I now can use what was once "hobby knowledge" to actually bring home decent money. I finally got my first non-obsolete P100 in the summer of my Sophomore year, but it had 8 megs of RAM and Win95, so it ran slower (by my perception) than my 386-16 running DOS 6. It was probably "obsolete" by most standards within 2 years, but I used it for 3 more and it continues to function to this day. My sister still uses a P75 with a sub-gig hard drive, she might just maybe inherit my latest box when I upgrade. For the past several years, I've gotten by just fine with a K6-2 380 that I got from "FreePC.com" before it was vanquished by the almighty eMachines. With some upgrades (HDD to 30gb, RAM to 256, better video, better sound) it's done just fine for years, until I shorted out the mobo fucking around with it and had to switch to a PII 350 that I had lying around.
The PII 350 continues to serve me just fine; I have no trouble browsing the Internet, running Office (2K), developing, doing some web design, playing games (granted, I can't buy the top of the line, but I'm able to play UT and Quake III and Kyodai MahJonng, so I'm happy enough).
So, to sum it up, I'm really just jealous. Please don't make me feel gimpy by saying your PIII is obsolete and good for nothing but MSIE and Office when I'm still cruisin' along at 350mhz on a 100mhz bus.
Gotta love the media's constant portrayal of "bacteria" as something to be feared and destroyed at all costs. Bacteria are the basis from which all life (based on the cell theory definition) on Earth evolved. Not only that, but without them, we could not exist. Bacteria fix nitrogen to the roots of the plants we eat (or the plants which our cattle and pigs and chicken eat); bacteria (specifically, cyanobacteria, not "algae" and not "plants") created the oxygen-rich atmosphere billions of years ago and continue to contribute to it. Bacteria line our intestines and create vitamin K, which the body is unable to produce. Bacteria teem over every square inch of our bodies and can thrive in the most extreme of conditions. Any efforts to senselessly control or kill them will always be met with stronger resistance. Bacteria have been effectively "communicating" by swapping DNA plasmids for billions of years; collectively they form what could be seen as a neural network with far more evolutionary power than the entire human race. Making them out to be the enemy only creates a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Yes, there are quite a few nasty bacteria out there, but the world is for the most part an equilibrium where these few strains are kept in check by the sheer volume of other harmless or beneficial bacteria.
I say, the more, the merrier! Did you know that salmonella used to die at freezing temperatures, until scientists attempts to create a concoction of various strains of bacteria with which to innoculate chickens? The salmonella evolved and resisted so well that it thrives better than ever before. Let that be a lesson to the fools out there who want to kill every "bacteria" in their presence.
Download Boss! from Rohitab Software at Nonags. It runs in the background; specify your Boss! key and reveal key, be sure to turn off Window minimization animations, and set up as many Windows to hide in its INI file as you want (with only partial titlebar text necessary). When you hit the Boss! key, everything disappears instantly, gone from the taskbar, ready to resume.
The best game? Click-O-Mania (a Samegame clone) is great; so is Kyodai Mah Jongg Solitaire. It's a complete block-puzzle game suite, including Mah Jongg solitaire, Samegame, Columns, among others. If you're not worried about elapsed time, you can play most of these games at your own leisure without needing to pause. Kyodai is the only shareware I've ever registered...
The cool thing about anti-matter is that it annihilates perfectly with matter, releasing pure energy. It's essentially the cleanest-burning reaction in the Universe. When an electron and a positron (anti-electron) collide, for example, two gamma rays are released, and absolutely nothing else. The potential applications for a 100% efficient matter-to-energy system are endless; "they" have been scratching their heads for years figuring out a way to combine anti-matter and regular matter to form a sort of propulsion system for spacecraft. As of now the only way to go is ionic propulsion, which generates the amount of force that a piece of paper laying flat on your hand does. Imagine instead a thruster blasting out high-energy gamma rays. Whee!
Black holes generate anti-matter on a regular basis, this is how light escapes in the form of "hawking radiation." Unless they created an equivalent amount of anti-matter to the mass of the Earth, there is little risk for destroying our planet. The energy conserved in the strong nuclear bonds within the subatomic particles is converted into pure light, which is only dangerous if you've got an extraordinarily massive amount of "combustion" going on.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought the exact same thing when I saw the slashdot story, in a roundabout way. My question was, will they continue to sell VCRs and blank tapes? The answer was given its own paragraph in the article.
Circuit City will continue to carry blank VHS tape and VCRs, he added.
In other words, this particular incident has nothing to do with recording whatsoever. They're phasing out pre-recorded VHS tapes with DVDs, and that's it. Of course, in the long run one must ask what they intend to do with VHS; I'm sure that ties in with plugging the analog hole.
In elementary school, I was an arithematic whiz. In middle school, I had no problem getting through "Pre-Algebra" and first-year "Algebra." In high school, I got suspended for five days for using cannabis on school grounds. I thought it was a ridiculous "punishment," but it ended up hurting me big time. I missed the entire week where we learned how to factor polynomials, and it took me a "D" in first year Calculus 4 years later to realize what I'd failed to learn. I ended up getting a big fat "D" in that high school Algebra class, too, although I did manage to pull a 107% (extra credit, of course) on one test that involved graphing. I had a TI-85. Other than that, it became a massive crutch (with games to distract you, to boot) and I regret ever having gotten it at that age.
I regretted getting a TI-89 in college, too. It seemed to hurt me rather than help me. When I go back, I'll stick with a TI-83 or lower. Heh.
It was called "Super Gameboy," and I happen to have one that I bought (used, of course) during a quest to find a cheap way to sit back and play Tetris on my TV without having to buy a new console system. Shortly thereafter I found "Dr. Mario + Tetris" for SNES which completely negated the purchase, but I kept it anyway, just because I like Donkey Kong for the Gameboy so much. It's kind of silly, really -- some games had preset colors to use on the SGB (including Donkey Kong), and "Donkey Kong Land" among others had some "special" border that framed the screen in order to use up the real estate that would be ignored otherwise due to the need to preserve the aspect ratio.
Does it surprise you that hardware companies continue to crank out better and faster components, so that the "power users" will be convinced that they must shell out more and more dough to stay on top? It's up to you to determine how often you really "need" to upgrade. Every time my dad decides he needs a new PC, it's because the latest "Myst" sequel runs too slowly, or won't run at all. What bothers me is the non-power-users who insist on getting state-of-the-art machines so that they can "get on the Internet." I'd hazard a guess that 70-80% of household PC users would get by just fine with a PII 350 and some decent RAM and HDD space, if they only knew... Instead we are wasting all of these perfectly good components, where they end up shipped to China (legally or not) to be stripped down by kids using noxious chemicals...and...and, never mind...
As always, "obsolete" is a relative term that varies depending on what you plan on using the machine for. I've been into computers since I was 10, starting with a totally obsolete VIC 20. Then, I got a totally obsolete 286-12. Then, I got a totally obsolete 386-16. All of these boxes were "obsolete" by all standards when they were passed down to me, but they still served me very well and helped introduce me to the "IT World" where I now can use what was once "hobby knowledge" to actually bring home decent money. I finally got my first non-obsolete P100 in the summer of my Sophomore year, but it had 8 megs of RAM and Win95, so it ran slower (by my perception) than my 386-16 running DOS 6. It was probably "obsolete" by most standards within 2 years, but I used it for 3 more and it continues to function to this day. My sister still uses a P75 with a sub-gig hard drive, she might just maybe inherit my latest box when I upgrade. For the past several years, I've gotten by just fine with a K6-2 380 that I got from "FreePC.com" before it was vanquished by the almighty eMachines. With some upgrades (HDD to 30gb, RAM to 256, better video, better sound) it's done just fine for years, until I shorted out the mobo fucking around with it and had to switch to a PII 350 that I had lying around.
The PII 350 continues to serve me just fine; I have no trouble browsing the Internet, running Office (2K), developing, doing some web design, playing games (granted, I can't buy the top of the line, but I'm able to play UT and Quake III and Kyodai MahJonng, so I'm happy enough).
So, to sum it up, I'm really just jealous. Please don't make me feel gimpy by saying your PIII is obsolete and good for nothing but MSIE and Office when I'm still cruisin' along at 350mhz on a 100mhz bus.
Gotta love the media's constant portrayal of "bacteria" as something to be feared and destroyed at all costs. Bacteria are the basis from which all life (based on the cell theory definition) on Earth evolved. Not only that, but without them, we could not exist. Bacteria fix nitrogen to the roots of the plants we eat (or the plants which our cattle and pigs and chicken eat); bacteria (specifically, cyanobacteria, not "algae" and not "plants") created the oxygen-rich atmosphere billions of years ago and continue to contribute to it. Bacteria line our intestines and create vitamin K, which the body is unable to produce. Bacteria teem over every square inch of our bodies and can thrive in the most extreme of conditions. Any efforts to senselessly control or kill them will always be met with stronger resistance. Bacteria have been effectively "communicating" by swapping DNA plasmids for billions of years; collectively they form what could be seen as a neural network with far more evolutionary power than the entire human race. Making them out to be the enemy only creates a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Yes, there are quite a few nasty bacteria out there, but the world is for the most part an equilibrium where these few strains are kept in check by the sheer volume of other harmless or beneficial bacteria.
I say, the more, the merrier! Did you know that salmonella used to die at freezing temperatures, until scientists attempts to create a concoction of various strains of bacteria with which to innoculate chickens? The salmonella evolved and resisted so well that it thrives better than ever before. Let that be a lesson to the fools out there who want to kill every "bacteria" in their presence.
Download Boss! from Rohitab Software at Nonags. It runs in the background; specify your Boss! key and reveal key, be sure to turn off Window minimization animations, and set up as many Windows to hide in its INI file as you want (with only partial titlebar text necessary). When you hit the Boss! key, everything disappears instantly, gone from the taskbar, ready to resume.
The best game? Click-O-Mania (a Samegame clone) is great; so is Kyodai Mah Jongg Solitaire. It's a complete block-puzzle game suite, including Mah Jongg solitaire, Samegame, Columns, among others. If you're not worried about elapsed time, you can play most of these games at your own leisure without needing to pause. Kyodai is the only shareware I've ever registered...
The cool thing about anti-matter is that it annihilates perfectly with matter, releasing pure energy. It's essentially the cleanest-burning reaction in the Universe. When an electron and a positron (anti-electron) collide, for example, two gamma rays are released, and absolutely nothing else. The potential applications for a 100% efficient matter-to-energy system are endless; "they" have been scratching their heads for years figuring out a way to combine anti-matter and regular matter to form a sort of propulsion system for spacecraft. As of now the only way to go is ionic propulsion, which generates the amount of force that a piece of paper laying flat on your hand does. Imagine instead a thruster blasting out high-energy gamma rays. Whee! Black holes generate anti-matter on a regular basis, this is how light escapes in the form of "hawking radiation." Unless they created an equivalent amount of anti-matter to the mass of the Earth, there is little risk for destroying our planet. The energy conserved in the strong nuclear bonds within the subatomic particles is converted into pure light, which is only dangerous if you've got an extraordinarily massive amount of "combustion" going on.