But didn't I read somewhere that the Feds/FCC were going to open up some of the UHF/VHF frequencies currently used for TV broadcasts? Wouldn't that allow even better coverage?
Seems to me that the problem with WiFi and even WiMax is that they use such high frequencies, that the signal can't get "through" much of anything. Trees are enough to screw up the signal. If they could use freqencies in the ~100 Mhz range that VHF TV broadcasts use, they would be able to go through most stuff. Seems to me like that is what will eventually happen.
As long as people can get an MBA and make millions moving OTHER PEOPLE'S money around, a lot of the smartest people are going to go into business, not science.
I don't see that changing. There's no money to be had in research, or production, at least not for an individual. It's all about owning property, whether it be intellectual or physical.
Personally, I like my videogames to look pretty cartoon-y. It's just a neater look, artistically.
Which brings me to my big idea. "Cartoon-Strike". Counter-Strike, but everything looks something like a G.I. Joe cartoon. Well, better than G.I. Joe, but you get the idea. Flat shading, bright colors, low detail. I'm suprised it hasn't been done yet.
Most people have a DVD player, so being able to watch DVDs on your "media PC" isn't important.
And Tivo is *cheap* you can get the base version for $50 after rebates. A lifetime subscription is $299. So, for $350, you have the best PVR. Can you build a "media PC" for that much? Not really. And the Tivo's interface is far and away the best of all the PVRs.
Basically, Tivo still wins. At least, it does if your cable company isn't offering a PVR for an additional $5/month over your current bill. Most are, but only if you have the "digital cable" package. My experience with the cable-company-provided PVRs is that they are pretty good. Interface isn't as slick as Tivo, but all the functionality is there, and it's easy enough to use. It's hard to justify buying a Tivo if your cable-company offers the equivalent.
I mean, really. Norton AV and security products are terrible. Everyone knows this. And why SHOULDN'T AV/anti-spyware be part of the operating system? I mean, really. Those seem like OS functions to me. Anything security-related should be built-in.
Yes, MS should fix their security holes. But then wouldn't that put Symantec out of business, too?
Actually, no. The reason the Democratic party is in "semi-permanent" minority status is because they refuse bend over for the fanatical Christian Right.
And are you trying to imply that the Republican congress/Bush administration isn't responsible for this? How can they NOT be? If we had a Democratic congress and/or administration, this would have never been allowed to happen.
Users shouldn't have to know about a firewall, and the IT department should have their computers locked down so much, they should never even know there is one.
HOWEVER...if your job requires you to use a computer all day, you should know something about them. Saying "I shouldn't have to know that stuff to do my job" is a copout.
As far as e-mails cloggin the servers....well, that shouldn't happen unless the server is really underpowered/misconfigured. Now, users sending HUGE attachments for no reason...that's the user's fault. I blame digital cameras. Everyone takes pictures with their 3 megapixel camera, and then tries to email the un-resized picture to all of their friends, not realizing how big those files are. And trying to explain how to resize an image to someone who barely can operate their camera is an exercise in futility.
Hey, I agree with you. Anime sucks. It's not because of the tits, it's because the writing is bad, the dubs are bad, and the plots go nowhere.
Anime fans will tell me that the plots and characters are "deep". But really, they're just non-linear and non-sensical. Not the same thing.
So don't fear anime fans because they might be perverts. Fear them because they have no taste, and probably think Harry Potter novels are great literature.
Yes, but you could definitely patent the IDEAS behind a program.
If patents worked like they do today back when VisiCals was invented, there surely would've been patents on "Method and apparatus for using a computer to perform calculations on values input by users into a grid-like spreadsheet".
Uh, you do realize that ALL bandwidth is "shared" at some point.
Most ISPs don't have 155Mbps connections. That's a LOT of bandwidth. And, obviously, they can put up more towers.
Remember, network traffic is "bursty". To service a group of 100 people with 10 Megabit connections, you don't actually need 1000 Megabits of total bandwidth, because not everyone will be using their full 10 megs at the same time.
Basically, you don't know what you're talking about.
With worldwide ticket and DVD sales, I would guess that almost EVERY movie made these days turns a profit. Yeah, initial ticket sales are lower, but who cares?
What it amounts to is people buy DVDs now instead of tickets. The studios would like if people bought tickets AND DVDs. Yeah, whatever. Greedy fucks.
It's hard to improve batteries. You might as well ask "how come we don't have gasoline that gives us 100 mile per gallon in an average vehicle"?
Because there are physical limits to how much energy you can store in given materials. You can't "design around" these limits. All you can do is try and come up with better materials/better combinations of materials. And we've already tried every combination that is practical.
Which is why fuel-cell powered notebooks are interesting. But who knows if those will ever actually get produced.
By "budget issues", he meant that they couldn't include wifi support in the box and still keep the cost of the console low enough.
Embrace, but not for the reason they think
on
Sun Spearheads Open DRM
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Let them settle on *one* standard for DRM, so that the usual suspects can crack it, and we don't have to worry about DRM anymore. Just like we don't have to worry about CSS.
E is measured in Joules. I Joule = one kilogram*meter^2/second^2.
Mass is measured in kilograms, velocity is measured in meters per second. So the units are all "equivalent".
As to why the SQUARE of the speed of light is the magic number? Who knows. Why does the Pythagorean theorem work? Why does the area of a cicle = pi*radius^2?
If the "cheap" model doesn't have a hard drive, that means that developers aren't going to use the thing in their games.
I assume you'll still be able to use it for saving games, but what about multiplayer stuff? Are new levels going to go on the memory card? And didn't I read something about MS using HUGE memory cards for the Xbox 360? Like, 1Gigabyte cards or something?
I'm just surprised they would split the market like that. But they're MS, they're crazy.
Well, I don't mind Windows as a server. Active Directory is pretty alright. Group policies are nice. As a file and print server, Windows is good.
But as anything else, it kind of sucks. You get tied into the Microsoft file-formats for everything, making it damn hard to switch to anything else in the future. Which is Microsoft's plan, obviously.
I just find it funny that so many companies jump on the Exchange bandwagon when the FREE alternatives are better in almost every way that counts.
Oh, I'm not saying it CAN'T work, I'm saying that almost no business actually needs full-on Exchange. Plus, I still think it's clunky. I like MS software, for the most part, but Exchange is a beast. An expensive beast, too.
I do a lot of networking/computer repair for a lot of businesses, and many of them use Exchange. But you know what they use it FOR? E-mail. Nothing else. Yeah, they at one time may have used the calendar/scheduling features, but they eventually realized that secretaries could do a better job doing the "old" way.
It's not that Exchange is bad (though any program that has an entire cottage industry dedicated to backing it up can't be great), it's that it does TOO MUCH. Very few companies have any chance of getting all their employees to actually use all the features of Exchange. And, really, it might not be worth their time to train them on it in the first place. MOST businesses just need good email. All the *collaborative* features simply require too much of a change in the way people think about their job to really get used.
For the vast majority of small-to-medium-sized businesses, they'd be better served with a good Postfix/Courier-IMAP/SquirrelMail setup, with greylisting and SpamAssassin and anti-virus scanning. All of which is free. And MUCH more stable than any Exchange setup I've ever seen.
The only thing that Exchange has over everything else is that it can use domain usernames/passwords. Big fucking deal.
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But didn't I read somewhere that the Feds/FCC were going to open up some of the UHF/VHF frequencies currently used for TV broadcasts? Wouldn't that allow even better coverage?
Seems to me that the problem with WiFi and even WiMax is that they use such high frequencies, that the signal can't get "through" much of anything. Trees are enough to screw up the signal. If they could use freqencies in the ~100 Mhz range that VHF TV broadcasts use, they would be able to go through most stuff. Seems to me like that is what will eventually happen.
As long as people can get an MBA and make millions moving OTHER PEOPLE'S money around, a lot of the smartest people are going to go into business, not science.
I don't see that changing. There's no money to be had in research, or production, at least not for an individual. It's all about owning property, whether it be intellectual or physical.
Personally, I like my videogames to look pretty cartoon-y. It's just a neater look, artistically.
Which brings me to my big idea. "Cartoon-Strike". Counter-Strike, but everything looks something like a G.I. Joe cartoon. Well, better than G.I. Joe, but you get the idea. Flat shading, bright colors, low detail. I'm suprised it hasn't been done yet.
I'm just tired of realism. It's boring.
Most people have a DVD player, so being able to watch DVDs on your "media PC" isn't important.
And Tivo is *cheap* you can get the base version for $50 after rebates. A lifetime subscription is $299. So, for $350, you have the best PVR. Can you build a "media PC" for that much? Not really. And the Tivo's interface is far and away the best of all the PVRs.
Basically, Tivo still wins. At least, it does if your cable company isn't offering a PVR for an additional $5/month over your current bill. Most are, but only if you have the "digital cable" package. My experience with the cable-company-provided PVRs is that they are pretty good. Interface isn't as slick as Tivo, but all the functionality is there, and it's easy enough to use. It's hard to justify buying a Tivo if your cable-company offers the equivalent.
I mean, really. Norton AV and security products are terrible. Everyone knows this. And why SHOULDN'T AV/anti-spyware be part of the operating system? I mean, really. Those seem like OS functions to me. Anything security-related should be built-in.
Yes, MS should fix their security holes. But then wouldn't that put Symantec out of business, too?
I heard their new hybrid gets over 20MPG!
Not until you learn to spell sophomore.
Actually, no. The reason the Democratic party is in "semi-permanent" minority status is because they refuse bend over for the fanatical Christian Right.
And are you trying to imply that the Republican congress/Bush administration isn't responsible for this? How can they NOT be? If we had a Democratic congress and/or administration, this would have never been allowed to happen.
I would say "Fuck you" to everyone that voted for Bush, but I don't want to go to jail for being "obscene".
Users shouldn't have to know about a firewall, and the IT department should have their computers locked down so much, they should never even know there is one.
HOWEVER...if your job requires you to use a computer all day, you should know something about them. Saying "I shouldn't have to know that stuff to do my job" is a copout.
As far as e-mails cloggin the servers....well, that shouldn't happen unless the server is really underpowered/misconfigured. Now, users sending HUGE attachments for no reason...that's the user's fault. I blame digital cameras. Everyone takes pictures with their 3 megapixel camera, and then tries to email the un-resized picture to all of their friends, not realizing how big those files are. And trying to explain how to resize an image to someone who barely can operate their camera is an exercise in futility.
Hey, I agree with you. Anime sucks. It's not because of the tits, it's because the writing is bad, the dubs are bad, and the plots go nowhere.
Anime fans will tell me that the plots and characters are "deep". But really, they're just non-linear and non-sensical. Not the same thing.
So don't fear anime fans because they might be perverts. Fear them because they have no taste, and probably think Harry Potter novels are great literature.
Yes, but you could definitely patent the IDEAS behind a program.
If patents worked like they do today back when VisiCals was invented, there surely would've been patents on "Method and apparatus for using a computer to perform calculations on values input by users into a grid-like spreadsheet".
VisiCals would be the ONLY spreadsheet there is.
The point is, you CAN oversubscribe your bandwidth. It works, and nobody knows the difference.
And who is to say that you can't have multiple 155Mbps "access points" on this network, running on different channels, much like 802.11 networks?
Uh, you do realize that ALL bandwidth is "shared" at some point.
Most ISPs don't have 155Mbps connections. That's a LOT of bandwidth. And, obviously, they can put up more towers.
Remember, network traffic is "bursty". To service a group of 100 people with 10 Megabit connections, you don't actually need 1000 Megabits of total bandwidth, because not everyone will be using their full 10 megs at the same time.
Basically, you don't know what you're talking about.
You're doing it the hard way. You need a Bart's PE boot CD, my friend.
With worldwide ticket and DVD sales, I would guess that almost EVERY movie made these days turns a profit. Yeah, initial ticket sales are lower, but who cares?
What it amounts to is people buy DVDs now instead of tickets. The studios would like if people bought tickets AND DVDs. Yeah, whatever. Greedy fucks.
It's hard to improve batteries. You might as well ask "how come we don't have gasoline that gives us 100 mile per gallon in an average vehicle"?
Because there are physical limits to how much energy you can store in given materials. You can't "design around" these limits. All you can do is try and come up with better materials/better combinations of materials. And we've already tried every combination that is practical.
Which is why fuel-cell powered notebooks are interesting. But who knows if those will ever actually get produced.
You retard.
By "budget issues", he meant that they couldn't include wifi support in the box and still keep the cost of the console low enough.
Let them settle on *one* standard for DRM, so that the usual suspects can crack it, and we don't have to worry about DRM anymore. Just like we don't have to worry about CSS.
E is measured in Joules. I Joule = one kilogram*meter^2/second^2.
Mass is measured in kilograms, velocity is measured in meters per second. So the units are all "equivalent".
As to why the SQUARE of the speed of light is the magic number? Who knows. Why does the Pythagorean theorem work? Why does the area of a cicle = pi*radius^2?
*Squaring* is magic.
If the "cheap" model doesn't have a hard drive, that means that developers aren't going to use the thing in their games.
I assume you'll still be able to use it for saving games, but what about multiplayer stuff? Are new levels going to go on the memory card? And didn't I read something about MS using HUGE memory cards for the Xbox 360? Like, 1Gigabyte cards or something?
I'm just surprised they would split the market like that. But they're MS, they're crazy.
Well, I don't mind Windows as a server. Active Directory is pretty alright. Group policies are nice. As a file and print server, Windows is good.
But as anything else, it kind of sucks. You get tied into the Microsoft file-formats for everything, making it damn hard to switch to anything else in the future. Which is Microsoft's plan, obviously.
I just find it funny that so many companies jump on the Exchange bandwagon when the FREE alternatives are better in almost every way that counts.
Oh, I'm not saying it CAN'T work, I'm saying that almost no business actually needs full-on Exchange. Plus, I still think it's clunky. I like MS software, for the most part, but Exchange is a beast. An expensive beast, too.
I do a lot of networking/computer repair for a lot of businesses, and many of them use Exchange. But you know what they use it FOR? E-mail. Nothing else. Yeah, they at one time may have used the calendar/scheduling features, but they eventually realized that secretaries could do a better job doing the "old" way.
It's not that Exchange is bad (though any program that has an entire cottage industry dedicated to backing it up can't be great), it's that it does TOO MUCH. Very few companies have any chance of getting all their employees to actually use all the features of Exchange. And, really, it might not be worth their time to train them on it in the first place. MOST businesses just need good email. All the *collaborative* features simply require too much of a change in the way people think about their job to really get used.
For the vast majority of small-to-medium-sized businesses, they'd be better served with a good Postfix/Courier-IMAP/SquirrelMail setup, with greylisting and SpamAssassin and anti-virus scanning. All of which is free. And MUCH more stable than any Exchange setup I've ever seen.
The only thing that Exchange has over everything else is that it can use domain usernames/passwords. Big fucking deal.
Uh, because graphics chips don't have to maintain compatability with older generations?
Every graphics chip can be completely new. It's the drivers that make it work with Windows or whatever.