I don't know of any motherboard-based video chip sets that include 256MB of RAM.
Even if that was true, why does that affect corporate PCs, which are usually higher quality.
In my experience business PCs have the crappiest onboard graphics cards available. Word processing, email, and programming don't require a high-end graphics card (until Vista) so those computers don't have them. Maybe others' experince differs.
They just stopped supporting 98 this year, didn't they? They're still supporting Windows 2000, right? XP came out more than 5 years ago, yes? Why would you think a 3 year upgrade cycle would leave you with an unsupported OS? Or do you mean that they'll be out of warranty?
vista is dramatically different. just like how XP was dramatically different.
You're saying XP is dramatically different from Windows 2000? I didn't need any training to make the switch, and I've never heard of anybody else ever needing any training either. I'm not familiar with Linux so I can't comment there, but I can say that the differences between XP and previous versions of Windows, even back to 95, are trivial compared to the differences between XP and OSX. Just my opinion, but I don't buy your argument that XP is just as different from other Windows as other OSes are.
The fact is if the PS2 and Xbox 360 are with $50 of the Wii at Wii's launch you definitely know an extra $50 is not much of a stretch.
Sure, and if the new Porsche coupe is within $1000 of a Civic that would be a good deal too. Have you heard anybody knowledgable suggesting that the 360 or PS3 could be within $50 of a Wii?
I don't think that buy buying a $500 PS3 you are giving anything up that the $400 360
25% is a pretty significant cost difference, even assuming 360 prices don't drop when the PS3 is introduced. If you want a Blu-ray drive, you don't have to compare the PS3 to any other console - it will be the cheapest such drive on the market. If you don't, then ignoring exclusive titles clearly 360 or Wii is a better value.
It makes me wonder if the strategists sitting in bunkers in the Rocky Mountains or in Siberia had pondered on these same issues...
In another sign of our times, they're closing down the NORAD facility under Cheyenne Mountain and moving it to another (cheaper) location in the Colorado Springs area. I believe it will be open for tours when they're done. Bizarre thought.
Just because it isn't a weapon doesn't mean it isn't a target. I'm not saying it would be a target, but your argument doesn't prove that it wouldn't be.
Yes, stamping a disc is cheap, but that doesn't mean getting it to you is. There's advertising, packaging and distribution as well, which probably add up to more than the cost of producing the disc. Another problem with this scheme is that if they price DVDs at $2, then people will believe that they are worth only $2. If the experiment fails, it's doubtful the public would ever again pay $20 for a DVD. Right now people believe they're worth $20 for a new release and $10 for an older one. I don't have numbers in front of me but it seems to me they're selling in the millions every year. Why risk that revenue on a gamble that could possibly make more money, but could also sink the whole industry? From the other side, I already almost never go to the theater, partly because it costs $10. If Hollywood wants to get me back, they need to *drop* prices so it's worth taking a chance on seeing a movie in the theater, not raise them and promise to give me the DVD of the movie that I don't yet know if it's a pile of crap.
I think what you're suggesting would be great for consumers, but a questionable move at best for the studios and it certainly isn't going to happen. It's possible it would work out in the long run, but 1) big companies are famously risk-averse and 2) American companies are famously bad at long-term thinking.
You seem to think I agree with the OP and disagree with you, which is not the case. I was just mentioning that the balance has recently tipped slightly toward police power and away from privacy in the area of searches.
Police will only actually break a door in if there is a situation where they know there is danger to life and limb in say, a hostage situation, or there is no landlord with a key and they require admittance to a property.
Until recently that's been true, because if they burst in without knocking and without good reason to do so, the evidence from the search could be invalidated. Now that they can do this without fear of losing evidence, I guarantee that somewhere, sometime somebody will do it. Maybe they just like busting down doors. Maybe there's an uncooperative witness and they decide to teach them a lesson. There are just too many police forces doing too many searches for this not to happen sooner or later. Again, I'm not saying the search is illegal, I'm saying that the courts have permitted the police to conduct a legal search in a way that was previously at least potentially not allowed.
If it truly were a walk in the park and everyone could (or even would want to) do it, then ummm...things would be...different. I'm not sure how, but it would just be different. In another sense, I doubt many of the/.'ers would be good CEOs for the same reason that most CEOs wouldn't be good programmers/sysadmins/whatever.
There are definitely skills required to be head of a large corporation. But too often (not a majority case, just too often) the skills needed to make the business successful are not needed to get rich running the company. Compounding the problem is the possibility (I don't have any evidence but I think it's true) that the same people possessing the skills to get into such a position are more likely to be less ethical, and you get CEOs running companies with an eye to their own personal riches rather than the good of the company or even the stockholders. When things go south they get a huge severance package and move on to do the same thing at another company. Again, not necessarily a majority case, just too frequent for my taste.
However, if your idea of being able to use the evidence anyway got a legal foothold, any idea of a search being illegal would quickly go out the door, and the police would be able, in practice, to search anyone, anywhere they wished.
It sort of has already. By my interpretation, police are now allowed to get a warrant, and then break down your door without knocking. Any evidence will be admissible. It's not a warrantless search so there's still that check, and police need to be able to break in if no one is there or they're busy destroying evidence, but it's unfortunate they don't have to give you a chance to answer the door.
You really think they'll make more charging $5 instead of $20 (ie sell more than 4 times as many DVDs)? And of course they would also be ensuring that the millions of people who watched the movie in the theater, prime candidates for buying the DVD, wouldn't buy it. So cut those people out of the equation too. Then add to that fewer movies coming out. I'm not sure the studio execs even understand the concept of a good movie, outside of how much money it makes, so that argument probably won't get far. Don't get me wrong, I would love fewer better movies, and cheaper DVDs. But it's not happening.
They rate it Not Interested because they're not interested in renting it. It's perfectly reasonable, and more than one person here has said it's tripped them up.
Once you start imposing conscious choice on the ratings, you get only what they say they like, not what they really like.
That's a different problem though. It's pretty well known that what people say they will do is different from what they will do. However, this isn't asking them which movies they plan to rent, just how well they like a movie. It's not even possible to determine how accurate this information is, since you cannot tell objectively how well someone likes a movie. All you can do is ask them how well they liked it. When they can answer with the expectation of privacy, I would expect that to be pretty good data.
However, if they find a way to increase efficiency by 10% but it is for a $100 million dollar project, then they essentially create $10 million worth of "value." If they only get a 10% cut, then they get a paycheck of $1 million, even if they didn't do any of the work to actually realize the improved efficiency.
No problem there. The annoying ones are when he miserably fails to meet the conditions set out for the bonus, but the board (under the direction of the chairman and CEO) votes to give the CEO the bonus anyway. If you get millions of dollars for failing, why bother to succeed?
Besides which, the "original" quantum leap isn't "the smallest possible leap", it's a movement of a particle that should be impossible
Well I'm no physicist, but that doesn't sound right to me. Isn't a change from one quantum to another specifically a step in energy level? For example, a laser excites particles (electrons?) from one energy level to a higher one, then they emit photons when they return to the lower energy state. This is a quantum change because it's a discontinuous step directly from one energy level to another, not a continuous smooth change. Maybe that's what you mean by "should be impossible" because Newtonian physics doesn't describe any such discontinuous phenomena. On the other hand, Newton didn't describe subatomic energy states at all, so I think that's something of a red herring. Finally, I don't remember "quantum" used to describe anything other than energy states, such as this jumping from one place to another that you describe (maybe you're talking about resolving quantum uncertainty through observation?). Perhaps someone with more knowledge will weigh in.
I had this one friend, we're talking about some song, and she said "Yah.. I just *downloaded* it off iTunes".. I was like, "downloaded eh? don't you mean, *bought*".. she didn't understand the difference?
She did download the song, didn't she? "Download" doesn't mean "download for free".
Re:The problem with guis is they don't work
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Actually, no. As I just posted elsewhere, a novelist writing a 200-400 page novel wouldn't dream of using anything but a high-powered text-editor.
He didn't say all text experts benefit from a CLI. He said only text experts do. So you're not really disagreeing with him, just making a (good) orthogonal point.
Maybe the end application of this technology won't be in a digital camera today as we know it but in other ventures where the video element serves a better purpose. We simply don't know and AFAICT it's not going to hurt anyone to pursue this.
I think you both have parts of the truth. It's hard to imagine that there won't be some useful purpose for huge megapixel images. I don't know what that use is, but I'm sure it's out there or will be someday. On the other hand, it's also hard to believe that an ordinary Joe who takes pictures of his kids and dogs and pretty vacation spots could find any use for more than 8-16 MP. There are only so many things this ordinary Joe would do with his photos, and when they'll print with high quality at 8x12, there's just no use for any higher resolution. There are other things that could be improved that would be useful, for example the size of the sensor or quality of the lens, but higher resolution just won't get you anything.
Fine, if the original statement had been "ICBMs don't have first-strike capability." What was said was "ICBMs can do but so much damage." ICBMs can do many times more damage than could ever be needed by anybody - not enough firepower is not a reason to have some other kind of nuclear weapon delivery. Maybe I'm just picking nits, and that's what the your GP (not sure if that was you) meant.
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They just stopped supporting 98 this year, didn't they? They're still supporting Windows 2000, right? XP came out more than 5 years ago, yes? Why would you think a 3 year upgrade cycle would leave you with an unsupported OS? Or do you mean that they'll be out of warranty?
Besides, anybody who rejects a useful device because they're afraid they'll look stupid using it deserves to keep using the old tech.
Just because it isn't a weapon doesn't mean it isn't a target. I'm not saying it would be a target, but your argument doesn't prove that it wouldn't be.
I think what you're suggesting would be great for consumers, but a questionable move at best for the studios and it certainly isn't going to happen. It's possible it would work out in the long run, but 1) big companies are famously risk-averse and 2) American companies are famously bad at long-term thinking.
You really think they'll make more charging $5 instead of $20 (ie sell more than 4 times as many DVDs)? And of course they would also be ensuring that the millions of people who watched the movie in the theater, prime candidates for buying the DVD, wouldn't buy it. So cut those people out of the equation too. Then add to that fewer movies coming out. I'm not sure the studio execs even understand the concept of a good movie, outside of how much money it makes, so that argument probably won't get far. Don't get me wrong, I would love fewer better movies, and cheaper DVDs. But it's not happening.
They rate it Not Interested because they're not interested in renting it. It's perfectly reasonable, and more than one person here has said it's tripped them up.
Don't forget tiny crappy sensors.
Fine, if the original statement had been "ICBMs don't have first-strike capability." What was said was "ICBMs can do but so much damage." ICBMs can do many times more damage than could ever be needed by anybody - not enough firepower is not a reason to have some other kind of nuclear weapon delivery. Maybe I'm just picking nits, and that's what the your GP (not sure if that was you) meant.
I don't think you can categorically say that bombers aren't sexy (in the same way fighters are sexy). Most of them aren't, though.
Don't forget Jetfire. Go Autobots!