If this is you:
KC5UVV 2006-06-05 ANDERSON B GLOVER, WACO, TX
then it expires next month on the 5th.
To renew you just have to complete a form and maybe pay a bit of cash... it's been a couple years since I renewed and I don't recall if there was a charge but I doubt they would do anything for free so most likely there is.
Would have been very easy to renew considering all you have to do is fill out a form. I don't recall if they charge for renewals or not but you don't have to retest.
I've only been to a drive-in once several years ago when I lived in South Dakota. I now live in Northern Cali and I'm not sure where any drive-ins are around here... none within 50 miles that I know of. I'll have to do a search online and see if I can find one though. My wife has never been and to me it's one of those thigns that you should do at least once in your life. And you make an excellent point about the economy of the drive-in.
If the movie studios would have ran with this tech a few years ago, they might not be trying to play catch up today. What they are now competing with is a free service, albeit an illegal service but that's not stopping most of us, that provides movies not long after they are in theaters. Sometimes the quality is great and most often it's pretty lousy but it's good enough in most cases that I no longer have much incentive to shell out my hard earned cash to see the film in a theater.
If the studios want my money, they need to give me a high quality version within maybe two weeks of the film hitting theaters. Make it the same day and I'll be willing to pay just a bit more. I would pay $20 to download a dvd rip quality copy of the film from a fast server within a couple weeks of the films release. But that's not what they are offering. They are making us wait until the dvd release date and then trying to sell us something that is less useful than the dvd for the same amount of money. If I buy the dvd I can watch the film and then loan it to friends and family. With this since it can only be used on one computer, it's rather useless beyond the initial viewing. I can't even then copy it to my laptop to take with me on business trips.
This "experiment" will ultimately fail and the studios will think it's because we aren't willing to pay anything. Yes we are willing to pay but $9.50 per head at a theater and then ripping us off on snacks and beverages is just too much. Make it $5 or $6 a head and cut food prices in half and I'd damn near live at the theater watching a lot of movies.
There was Mozilla and then they made Firefox and Thunderbird (under diff names back then). Eventually they decided to just go with the split programs and abandon the main suite. Now they are doing the suite again? Am I missing something?
I switched to Firefox and Thunderbird and then eventually quit Thunderbird and switched to Outlook (I'm sorry but I like it) and I didn't pay attention to the other stuff Mozilla was doing but my understanding was that the suite was dead. Guess it's back.
Pretty pointless if you ask me. This is going to drive the cost of used games up a bit right? Usually certified used cars cost a bit more than non-certified. Someone has to pay for the warranty and the checking and all that. When I buy a used game I know I can take it back if it fails. It's not a major transaction like buying a car. I pick a game, cough up a few bucks, go home with game and give it a play. If it no worky, I take it back. A bit of a hassle maybe but I'll be back in the game store in the near future anyway so I can just wait until then to replace it or if I really wanted it (in which case I would have bought it new to begin with) I can take it back right away. Mall is like 10 minutes from here.
So why pay for a warranty or checking or anything? If it's the same price then sure it's a fine idea but your goal was for Sony to get a cut. Game store isn't going to want to give up any of their money so you'd have to charge extra and then I'm going elsewhere. Even if all game stores do it there is still Craigs List, eBay, whatever.
That strategy works for MS in a lot of cases but can they really beat Google this way? Google has been coming out with new products fairly often for a while now and I don't see that slowing down anytime soon. Google isn't just about searching anymore... and while MS may be able to eventually beat them at the search game, what's to say Google won't come out with something better? There were large search engines before Google and they had a lot more money than Google but Google beat them at their own game. They had superior technology and gave us better results so we switched to Google. If MS gives me better results, I'll switch once again... but that won't mean the end of Google. They'll make money from their other ideas. Compare their offerings to their competitors offerings. GMail looks pretty good for a first try compared to Hotmail which has been around for years. The Google search engine still works quite well. Their mapping technology is great. I find myself switching from their competitors to their offerings each time they come out with something new... they are growing very quickly and MS would have to do a helluva lot just to keep up. I just don't see MS being able to beat Google without losing a whole lot of money on the deal. If that's their plan, why didn't they just buy Google at some point?
How about packaging a version with some extensions
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Firefox Momentum Slows
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I really like Firefox but I'll be the first to tell you that the real power is extensions. Until I get my favorite extensions installed and configured, Firefox to me isn't much better than IE. I install a nice them, 38 extensions (that's how many I have installed right now), and then I'm pretty damn happy.
What about having a prepackaged version that has maybe a dozen themes and 15 or 20 of the most popular extensions? Maybe even have something that comes up when you run it for the first time that walks you through enabling some extensions that are preinstalled. That would make it much easier for a new person to become familiar with the true power of Firefox.
A lot of people don't know what Adblock is. They've never heard of WeatherFox, or FoxyTunes, or CuteMenus, or Linkification, or DownloadStatusbar or any of the other really cool extensions. Some of these are extensions that most users would probably use if they new about them. You and I have no problem because we are geeks... but what about the Average Joes out there that don't know the first thing about installing extensions or changing themes? Lets walk them through it visually and give them some choices right up front.
I think this would go a long way to ensuring that the people who do give Firefox a try, never look back.
On a similar note, is there way I can package my installation for friends? I'd like to be able to make a copy that I can email to a few people so they can have the exact same setup I have... and I'd also like to be able to set it up on one machine and copy it to my other machines without having to manually install each extension on each machine. Anyone have a link that details how to do this or some directions/tips/whatever? Thanks!
One of Apples lawyers will be at your door any minute now thanks to you divulging their latest trade secret. That was the big announcement Steve had lined up for his next big iSpeach. Now you've gone and ruined the surprise!!!
Intel seems to really like the idea of Apple being a customer of theirs. Apple was very vocal about Intels chips being inferior to what they were using. I'm not saying the chips really were inferior, but Apple wanted us to believe that they were. Now that Apple is going to be using Intel chips, they won't be spouting off about how slow the chips are compared to something else. This turn of events can only help Intel, and we're not even talking about profits that Intel may make off of chips it sells to Apple. It's leading detractor has now decided to use it's products, that's a huge win for Intel.
So yea, I wouldn't be surprised if Intel is working on an Objective-C compiler right now. I wouldn't be surprised if Intel and Apple are going to work very closely on some stuff so that Apple has an edge over Microsoft. We all know that Intel and MS are not buddies.
Along comes a computer that can run OS X or Windows and does both really well. That has to scare companies like Dell. They can compete on price but their machines won't run OS X... so unless they can license them from Apple, like HP did with the iPod, what are they going to offer that compares?
And then we have the various architectures... I think Apple chose Intel for two reasons... first, it allows the same machine to run both OS X and Windows. That's huge. Second, they can get chips cheaper than before. Lowering your costs is always a good thing. Yes, there may be an advantage to some end users of having a Cell based machine, but how much of an advantage and what is it worth in dollars? Then how many people are willing to pay that? Now subtract the cost of developing a version of OS X that would run on a Cell processor and see if you get a positive number. If not, and I doubt you would, Apple would lose money on the deal. There simply isn't a strong enough reason to have more than one architecture. It's why OS X was only on PowerPC, it's why Windows is only on X86, etc. Linux is a completely different ball of wax... it's not made by a single company like both Windows and OS X are. You have a lot of different people with different wants/needs/desires working on it so it's able to support lots of architectures... and sometimes I think they just do some of the stuff to see if they can. "Lets see if we can get Linux to run on an Apple IIGS... we won't actually use it ofr anything, but lets just see if we can." although I'm sure that's already been done. But you get my point.
It costs a lot of money for Apple to switch. In this instance they have a lot to gain. Compatibility with Windows is huge. That's the biggest thing for me. I want a computer that can play games and while OS X can do that, a lot of games are Windows only. I don't want half measures... I don't want an emulator or anything like that. I want it to simply work the best that it can so I want a high end PC running Windows XP for games. But I don't generally like Windows... so I don't want to have to use that for anything else... and now I can get exactly what I want. A single machine that can run both. That's what is important, not the processor underneath it all.
I would guess that the average computer user doesn't know the difference between various processors. They have a choice between Intel or AMD and they go with Intel because they've heard the name before... or AMD because the box was $100 cheaper (my laptop was a couple hundred cheaper over the same thing with an Intel processor). Can Apple sell enough Cell based Macs to high end professionals for enough money to make it worthwhile? Not very likely. Didn't Intel have a high end chip that cost a helluva lot that didn't do so well? I belive it's called Itanium or something like that... doesn't seem like that worked out very well for Intel... why would Apple want to try the same thing? Although if they did want to go with a high end processor, it might make more sense to go with Itanium or whatever is Intels high end these days, rather than Cell.
You're nuts. Why would Apple want three different architectures? They use PowerPC now, they are going to use Intel in the future, and at some point they will only use Intel... until they decide to switch once again, if that happens. It's not like Linux which runs on everything. Apple sells hardware and software. They need to ensure that their software is as close to 100% perfect as possible on their hardware. Each time you add in different hardware, you make it much harder to get close to 100%. Just having to deal with PPC and Intel is going to be difficult, but Steve apparently thinks it's worth it. I'm excited about the possibility of running both OS X and Windows on the same machine... but say they offered a box that used the Cell processor... there goes Windows compatibility. And so what if it's faster than anything else? The G5 isn't a slow chip. Intel makes fast chips. It's not like you are choosing between a fast Cell based Mac and a shitty slow something-else based Mac. There is just no reason to support any other architecture. There wouldn't be enough of a reason for people to buy the new hardware.
And keep in mind that Apple needs to buy all of their chips from Intel to get the big discount from Intel. That's something they are looking forward to. Cheaper chips. Not having to worry if their supplier can keep up with Intel. Not having to teach us that Mhz don't matter.. and all the other crap that has gone along with using non-Intel chips all these years. With Macs being able to run OS X for daily stuff and Windows for games, who wouldn't buy a Mac? I'm getting a new one as soon as the mid-range PowerMacs are shipping with Intel chips.
I totally agree. I have the last four consoles (XBox, PS2, GameCube, and Dreamcast) and I enjoy all of them but if a title is avail on more than one, I'm going to get it on XBox because the sound is almost always better. I have an expensive sound system and I like to use it. I don't have a high-def tv so the support for 480p does nothing for me, but the surround sound is very cool. I think it adds a lot to some games. It's more realistic when you can hear the sound all around you... much more immersive... when used correctly anyway.
I also really like the way XBox does online gaming. It's simple and efficient... it just works... and lots of games support it. Plus being able to download new content... while not something I do often, is pretty cool. I wish more games had more downloadable content... and not for huge amounts of money either... make it free or cheap. We've already spent $50 or $60 on the game.
I love Southwest Airlines because they are cheap and because they don't assign seats before hand. Say you buy a ticket and then a friend or family member decides to go with you... on other airlines you need to change your seat usually so you can both sit together because most likely the seats next to you have been filled. With Southwest you just get another ticket for that flight and you get to sit wherever. No hassle. I don't care where I sit on a flight when I fly alone... they all go to the same place.
Isle, window, in the middle... front of the plane, back of the plane, whatever. It's all the same to me. None of the seats are super comfortable and none are worse than others... in my experience anyway... so let me on the plane and get me to where I'm going... for the nice cheap price that always seems to be quite a bit below the competitors.
I have a 5.1 Bose setup right now off of my Denon reciever. It sounds great. Didn't have the room for any more speakers at my old place but now that I'm moving, I'm going to upgrade to 6.1. I thought about 7.1 as my receiver supports it, and I may do it later, but it seems like a waste of money since both channels carry the same audio.
Where are we going to get 13 channel sources? Most stuff I watch now doesn't have real great separation to the channels I already have. There are exceptions of course, but the average movie has average sound. Guess we'll have to wait for the re-re-re-re-re-re-rerelease of Star Wars in 13 channels of THX Mega-Surround... or whatever they will call this.
The speakers need to be high quality and 13 high quality speakers would cost more than I want to spend. My bose speakers weren't cheap, but they weren't super high-end either. My listening area isn't the best so higher end speakers would be a waste for me. How many people have a setup nice enough for 13 speakers? And of those, how many will spend the money to get high end speakers that would improve on the 7.1 experience? You'll end up with 13.1 systems in box for $199 at WalMart and they'll sound like crap... but people will buy them because all they care about is how many speakers they have. Then they'll put them in the wrong places and the crap sounding speakers will sound even worse... yet they'll claim that their new setup is so much nicer than their old one. Lemmings.
I had a Denon receiver given to me... started to fail after about 10 years from when it was purchased... for nearly two years it sat unused (I didn't have any speakers) so that could be part of the problem. I've heard with some stuff it needs to be used or it will crap out. Not sure if it's true or not.
I replaced that one with a new Denon and I've had it for about a year now. Works great and I'm very happy with it. We'll see in a few years if it has any problems. When you drop $1200 on a piece of audio equipment that your wife swears you don't need, it's hoped that the thing will work for quite a while.
Denon is known for quality, just like Apple and Dell. I would expect a quality product if Dell starts shipping machines with OS X. I would also expect them to be cheaper than what Apple is charing, otherwise why not buy direct from Apple? I've never understood what the deal is with HP ipods... are they cheaper or different in some way, or just rebranded?
I don't think movie theaters will ever go away. Not until we all have massive screens in our homes. I have a 36" tv which I think is pretty nice... especially considering the size of my apartment. A larger screen simply would take up too much room. For most movies, this screen works fine. For some action movies however, I prefer the experience of seeing it on a much larger screen so I go to a theater for those. When I have a bigger place and a 10' screen in my living room, then the theater will no longer have an advantage that I'm willing to pay for. Until then, they'll keep seeing me once or twice a month.
We bought it at Best Buy and it has a 2 year warranty. If it breaks, we'll take it back.
About the software issue, she hooked it up to her computer once, loaded some of her music (about 30 to 35 gigs worth) and hasn't hooked it up since. So the iPod being compatible with iTunes isn't an issue. As far as the software on the unit itself, she seems to like it just fine. As I stated earlier, I figured we would end up taking this back and getting an iPod but she absolutely loves this thing. It does everything she wants it to do. And I've heard a few stories of people having problems with iPods... mainly battery issues I think... but something can go wrong with anything you buy which is why we got the insurance. Since there is such a good chance that it will break within two years, the insurance is worth it.
Also, I haven't verified this but the clerk at Best Buy told us when we were checking out that at the end of two years if the player hasn't broken, we can trade it in towards a new one and they'll give us full purchase price for trade in. That seems rather hard to believe but if it will be nice if it's true. Either way, she's happy with her player and I'm happy that she's happy.
Food eh? You're comparing an item that you normally only buy one of to something where you buy a lot of it and want variety. So are you saying that I should buy both a Creative and an iPod so that I get variety like I do with food? Your argument doesn't make sense to me.
My wife wanted an mp3 player for Christmas. She decided that 40 gigs was about the right size. We then went looking at various models and decided on one from Creative. We figured she would give that a go and if she didn't like it, we would drop another $200 for an iPod that was comparable. That's double what this one cost.
She's had it for about 3 weeks now and loves it. Since she usually goes for the pricey stuff I thought we'd be going back for the iPod but she likes this one well enough to want to keep it. I think the added cost of the iPod was a factor. When one item costs twice as much as another, and doesn't offer twice as much, why buy the more expensive item? We can get two Creatives, one for her and one for me, for the cost of one iPod. I think iPod's are way overpriced, but even if they were on par, I haven't seen what makes them so special.
The Creative does everything my wife wants it to do... which is basically play music. Nothing more, nothing less. It shows the song info on the screen for each song and the random works fine. What else do you really need from an mp3 player? Sure I guess it might be nice if it could grill me a steak but it was purchased to do only one thing, and to do that one thing well. It does that. What else could/should we be asking of it?
You hit the nail on the head. I like dvd's for all of those reasons, pretty much in that order. They take up a whole lot less space than vhs tapes, especially when you take them out of their cases and put them into a cd/dvd binder.
I'm thinking that if they offered this for cheaper than what we pay now, they would get some sales. For example, I don't like paying around $1 per blank dvd but that's about what I pay. I can get a stack of 50 for $40 and with tax it comes to maybe $.83 or so... but that's three times more than I feel they are worth. I would be quite happy paying $.25 each and would buy a lot more than I do. But even at $.75 I would consider switching and I think a lot of other people would.
But then again, I would buy their new media only after I had a new player that was either able to play anything by default, or had been updated to play anything... but then again, I already have 5 dvd players... would be pretty stupid if the new media couldn't play on the old stuff. If however, the new media simply wouldn't accept data that had the flag, that would be ok because you could just get a program that ignores that for your burning needs.
Re:Emminent Domain being used for private profit..
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The Super Superhighway
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· Score: 1
If the company does 100% of the work, then they get 100% of the road and the state gets nothing. As it is planned now, the state would get the road in 50 years and they don't have to do a whole lot to meet their end of the deal. It seems like a win-win to me as far as the developers and the state are concerned. It sucks for the people living in the path of this thing but that's progress for you.
Actually the week does begin on Monday. That's why Sat and Sun are the weekend. If your Christian, God rested on the 7th day which is observed to be Sunday so again it would be the last day.
Calendars do list Sunday on the left and Saturday on the right... for the beginning and end of the week and that's how I usually think of them, but the Monday is the correct beginning.
Sorry to burst your bubble but apparently WWTBAM put in a bit more effort than you.:)
Damn... I knew it sounded too good to be true. And I can't believe I made such a stupid mistake... I think it's time I went back to bed and finally caught up on my lost sleep.
What if instead of water we put in our ingredients for whiskey and use the car as a still? Maybe have a closed system that you get paid for that you can swap at gas stations... so you pull in to fuel up and you swap tanks... you give them your tank of whiskey and an empty ingredients tank. They give you an empty whiskey tank and a full ingredients tank.
Then you run a hose from the whiskey tank to the drivers area... and you run a hose from you windshield wiper... hook both of those into a t connector... then fill the windshield wiper resevoir with oj... and you've got instant screwdrivers while you drive!
Slashdot Mirror
KC5UVV 2006-06-05 ANDERSON B GLOVER, WACO, TX
then it expires next month on the 5th.
To renew you just have to complete a form and maybe pay a bit of cash... it's been a couple years since I renewed and I don't recall if there was a charge but I doubt they would do anything for free so most likely there is.
Would have been very easy to renew considering all you have to do is fill out a form. I don't recall if they charge for renewals or not but you don't have to retest.
Hip Hip Hurray!
I've only been to a drive-in once several years ago when I lived in South Dakota. I now live in Northern Cali and I'm not sure where any drive-ins are around here... none within 50 miles that I know of. I'll have to do a search online and see if I can find one though. My wife has never been and to me it's one of those thigns that you should do at least once in your life. And you make an excellent point about the economy of the drive-in.
If the studios want my money, they need to give me a high quality version within maybe two weeks of the film hitting theaters. Make it the same day and I'll be willing to pay just a bit more. I would pay $20 to download a dvd rip quality copy of the film from a fast server within a couple weeks of the films release. But that's not what they are offering. They are making us wait until the dvd release date and then trying to sell us something that is less useful than the dvd for the same amount of money. If I buy the dvd I can watch the film and then loan it to friends and family. With this since it can only be used on one computer, it's rather useless beyond the initial viewing. I can't even then copy it to my laptop to take with me on business trips.
This "experiment" will ultimately fail and the studios will think it's because we aren't willing to pay anything. Yes we are willing to pay but $9.50 per head at a theater and then ripping us off on snacks and beverages is just too much. Make it $5 or $6 a head and cut food prices in half and I'd damn near live at the theater watching a lot of movies.
I switched to Firefox and Thunderbird and then eventually quit Thunderbird and switched to Outlook (I'm sorry but I like it) and I didn't pay attention to the other stuff Mozilla was doing but my understanding was that the suite was dead. Guess it's back.
The suite is dead.
Long live the suite.
Pretty pointless if you ask me. This is going to drive the cost of used games up a bit right? Usually certified used cars cost a bit more than non-certified. Someone has to pay for the warranty and the checking and all that. When I buy a used game I know I can take it back if it fails. It's not a major transaction like buying a car. I pick a game, cough up a few bucks, go home with game and give it a play. If it no worky, I take it back. A bit of a hassle maybe but I'll be back in the game store in the near future anyway so I can just wait until then to replace it or if I really wanted it (in which case I would have bought it new to begin with) I can take it back right away. Mall is like 10 minutes from here. So why pay for a warranty or checking or anything? If it's the same price then sure it's a fine idea but your goal was for Sony to get a cut. Game store isn't going to want to give up any of their money so you'd have to charge extra and then I'm going elsewhere. Even if all game stores do it there is still Craigs List, eBay, whatever.
That strategy works for MS in a lot of cases but can they really beat Google this way? Google has been coming out with new products fairly often for a while now and I don't see that slowing down anytime soon. Google isn't just about searching anymore... and while MS may be able to eventually beat them at the search game, what's to say Google won't come out with something better? There were large search engines before Google and they had a lot more money than Google but Google beat them at their own game. They had superior technology and gave us better results so we switched to Google. If MS gives me better results, I'll switch once again... but that won't mean the end of Google. They'll make money from their other ideas. Compare their offerings to their competitors offerings. GMail looks pretty good for a first try compared to Hotmail which has been around for years. The Google search engine still works quite well. Their mapping technology is great. I find myself switching from their competitors to their offerings each time they come out with something new... they are growing very quickly and MS would have to do a helluva lot just to keep up. I just don't see MS being able to beat Google without losing a whole lot of money on the deal. If that's their plan, why didn't they just buy Google at some point?
What about having a prepackaged version that has maybe a dozen themes and 15 or 20 of the most popular extensions? Maybe even have something that comes up when you run it for the first time that walks you through enabling some extensions that are preinstalled. That would make it much easier for a new person to become familiar with the true power of Firefox.
A lot of people don't know what Adblock is. They've never heard of WeatherFox, or FoxyTunes, or CuteMenus, or Linkification, or DownloadStatusbar or any of the other really cool extensions. Some of these are extensions that most users would probably use if they new about them. You and I have no problem because we are geeks... but what about the Average Joes out there that don't know the first thing about installing extensions or changing themes? Lets walk them through it visually and give them some choices right up front.
I think this would go a long way to ensuring that the people who do give Firefox a try, never look back.
On a similar note, is there way I can package my installation for friends? I'd like to be able to make a copy that I can email to a few people so they can have the exact same setup I have... and I'd also like to be able to set it up on one machine and copy it to my other machines without having to manually install each extension on each machine. Anyone have a link that details how to do this or some directions/tips/whatever? Thanks!
One of Apples lawyers will be at your door any minute now thanks to you divulging their latest trade secret. That was the big announcement Steve had lined up for his next big iSpeach. Now you've gone and ruined the surprise!!!
So yea, I wouldn't be surprised if Intel is working on an Objective-C compiler right now. I wouldn't be surprised if Intel and Apple are going to work very closely on some stuff so that Apple has an edge over Microsoft. We all know that Intel and MS are not buddies.
Along comes a computer that can run OS X or Windows and does both really well. That has to scare companies like Dell. They can compete on price but their machines won't run OS X... so unless they can license them from Apple, like HP did with the iPod, what are they going to offer that compares?
And then we have the various architectures... I think Apple chose Intel for two reasons... first, it allows the same machine to run both OS X and Windows. That's huge. Second, they can get chips cheaper than before. Lowering your costs is always a good thing. Yes, there may be an advantage to some end users of having a Cell based machine, but how much of an advantage and what is it worth in dollars? Then how many people are willing to pay that? Now subtract the cost of developing a version of OS X that would run on a Cell processor and see if you get a positive number. If not, and I doubt you would, Apple would lose money on the deal. There simply isn't a strong enough reason to have more than one architecture. It's why OS X was only on PowerPC, it's why Windows is only on X86, etc. Linux is a completely different ball of wax... it's not made by a single company like both Windows and OS X are. You have a lot of different people with different wants/needs/desires working on it so it's able to support lots of architectures... and sometimes I think they just do some of the stuff to see if they can. "Lets see if we can get Linux to run on an Apple IIGS... we won't actually use it ofr anything, but lets just see if we can." although I'm sure that's already been done. But you get my point.
It costs a lot of money for Apple to switch. In this instance they have a lot to gain. Compatibility with Windows is huge. That's the biggest thing for me. I want a computer that can play games and while OS X can do that, a lot of games are Windows only. I don't want half measures... I don't want an emulator or anything like that. I want it to simply work the best that it can so I want a high end PC running Windows XP for games. But I don't generally like Windows... so I don't want to have to use that for anything else... and now I can get exactly what I want. A single machine that can run both. That's what is important, not the processor underneath it all.
I would guess that the average computer user doesn't know the difference between various processors. They have a choice between Intel or AMD and they go with Intel because they've heard the name before... or AMD because the box was $100 cheaper (my laptop was a couple hundred cheaper over the same thing with an Intel processor). Can Apple sell enough Cell based Macs to high end professionals for enough money to make it worthwhile? Not very likely. Didn't Intel have a high end chip that cost a helluva lot that didn't do so well? I belive it's called Itanium or something like that... doesn't seem like that worked out very well for Intel... why would Apple want to try the same thing? Although if they did want to go with a high end processor, it might make more sense to go with Itanium or whatever is Intels high end these days, rather than Cell.
You're nuts. Why would Apple want three different architectures? They use PowerPC now, they are going to use Intel in the future, and at some point they will only use Intel... until they decide to switch once again, if that happens. It's not like Linux which runs on everything. Apple sells hardware and software. They need to ensure that their software is as close to 100% perfect as possible on their hardware. Each time you add in different hardware, you make it much harder to get close to 100%. Just having to deal with PPC and Intel is going to be difficult, but Steve apparently thinks it's worth it. I'm excited about the possibility of running both OS X and Windows on the same machine... but say they offered a box that used the Cell processor... there goes Windows compatibility. And so what if it's faster than anything else? The G5 isn't a slow chip. Intel makes fast chips. It's not like you are choosing between a fast Cell based Mac and a shitty slow something-else based Mac. There is just no reason to support any other architecture. There wouldn't be enough of a reason for people to buy the new hardware. And keep in mind that Apple needs to buy all of their chips from Intel to get the big discount from Intel. That's something they are looking forward to. Cheaper chips. Not having to worry if their supplier can keep up with Intel. Not having to teach us that Mhz don't matter.. and all the other crap that has gone along with using non-Intel chips all these years. With Macs being able to run OS X for daily stuff and Windows for games, who wouldn't buy a Mac? I'm getting a new one as soon as the mid-range PowerMacs are shipping with Intel chips.
I totally agree. I have the last four consoles (XBox, PS2, GameCube, and Dreamcast) and I enjoy all of them but if a title is avail on more than one, I'm going to get it on XBox because the sound is almost always better. I have an expensive sound system and I like to use it. I don't have a high-def tv so the support for 480p does nothing for me, but the surround sound is very cool. I think it adds a lot to some games. It's more realistic when you can hear the sound all around you... much more immersive... when used correctly anyway. I also really like the way XBox does online gaming. It's simple and efficient... it just works... and lots of games support it. Plus being able to download new content... while not something I do often, is pretty cool. I wish more games had more downloadable content... and not for huge amounts of money either... make it free or cheap. We've already spent $50 or $60 on the game.
I love Southwest Airlines because they are cheap and because they don't assign seats before hand. Say you buy a ticket and then a friend or family member decides to go with you... on other airlines you need to change your seat usually so you can both sit together because most likely the seats next to you have been filled. With Southwest you just get another ticket for that flight and you get to sit wherever. No hassle. I don't care where I sit on a flight when I fly alone... they all go to the same place. Isle, window, in the middle... front of the plane, back of the plane, whatever. It's all the same to me. None of the seats are super comfortable and none are worse than others... in my experience anyway... so let me on the plane and get me to where I'm going... for the nice cheap price that always seems to be quite a bit below the competitors.
I have a 5.1 Bose setup right now off of my Denon reciever. It sounds great. Didn't have the room for any more speakers at my old place but now that I'm moving, I'm going to upgrade to 6.1. I thought about 7.1 as my receiver supports it, and I may do it later, but it seems like a waste of money since both channels carry the same audio. Where are we going to get 13 channel sources? Most stuff I watch now doesn't have real great separation to the channels I already have. There are exceptions of course, but the average movie has average sound. Guess we'll have to wait for the re-re-re-re-re-re-rerelease of Star Wars in 13 channels of THX Mega-Surround... or whatever they will call this. The speakers need to be high quality and 13 high quality speakers would cost more than I want to spend. My bose speakers weren't cheap, but they weren't super high-end either. My listening area isn't the best so higher end speakers would be a waste for me. How many people have a setup nice enough for 13 speakers? And of those, how many will spend the money to get high end speakers that would improve on the 7.1 experience? You'll end up with 13.1 systems in box for $199 at WalMart and they'll sound like crap... but people will buy them because all they care about is how many speakers they have. Then they'll put them in the wrong places and the crap sounding speakers will sound even worse... yet they'll claim that their new setup is so much nicer than their old one. Lemmings.
I had a Denon receiver given to me... started to fail after about 10 years from when it was purchased... for nearly two years it sat unused (I didn't have any speakers) so that could be part of the problem. I've heard with some stuff it needs to be used or it will crap out. Not sure if it's true or not. I replaced that one with a new Denon and I've had it for about a year now. Works great and I'm very happy with it. We'll see in a few years if it has any problems. When you drop $1200 on a piece of audio equipment that your wife swears you don't need, it's hoped that the thing will work for quite a while. Denon is known for quality, just like Apple and Dell. I would expect a quality product if Dell starts shipping machines with OS X. I would also expect them to be cheaper than what Apple is charing, otherwise why not buy direct from Apple? I've never understood what the deal is with HP ipods... are they cheaper or different in some way, or just rebranded?
I don't think movie theaters will ever go away. Not until we all have massive screens in our homes. I have a 36" tv which I think is pretty nice... especially considering the size of my apartment. A larger screen simply would take up too much room. For most movies, this screen works fine. For some action movies however, I prefer the experience of seeing it on a much larger screen so I go to a theater for those. When I have a bigger place and a 10' screen in my living room, then the theater will no longer have an advantage that I'm willing to pay for. Until then, they'll keep seeing me once or twice a month.
About the software issue, she hooked it up to her computer once, loaded some of her music (about 30 to 35 gigs worth) and hasn't hooked it up since. So the iPod being compatible with iTunes isn't an issue. As far as the software on the unit itself, she seems to like it just fine. As I stated earlier, I figured we would end up taking this back and getting an iPod but she absolutely loves this thing. It does everything she wants it to do. And I've heard a few stories of people having problems with iPods... mainly battery issues I think... but something can go wrong with anything you buy which is why we got the insurance. Since there is such a good chance that it will break within two years, the insurance is worth it.
Also, I haven't verified this but the clerk at Best Buy told us when we were checking out that at the end of two years if the player hasn't broken, we can trade it in towards a new one and they'll give us full purchase price for trade in. That seems rather hard to believe but if it will be nice if it's true. Either way, she's happy with her player and I'm happy that she's happy.
She's had it for about 3 weeks now and loves it. Since she usually goes for the pricey stuff I thought we'd be going back for the iPod but she likes this one well enough to want to keep it. I think the added cost of the iPod was a factor. When one item costs twice as much as another, and doesn't offer twice as much, why buy the more expensive item? We can get two Creatives, one for her and one for me, for the cost of one iPod. I think iPod's are way overpriced, but even if they were on par, I haven't seen what makes them so special.
The Creative does everything my wife wants it to do... which is basically play music. Nothing more, nothing less. It shows the song info on the screen for each song and the random works fine. What else do you really need from an mp3 player? Sure I guess it might be nice if it could grill me a steak but it was purchased to do only one thing, and to do that one thing well. It does that. What else could/should we be asking of it?
I'm thinking that if they offered this for cheaper than what we pay now, they would get some sales. For example, I don't like paying around $1 per blank dvd but that's about what I pay. I can get a stack of 50 for $40 and with tax it comes to maybe $.83 or so... but that's three times more than I feel they are worth. I would be quite happy paying $.25 each and would buy a lot more than I do. But even at $.75 I would consider switching and I think a lot of other people would.
But then again, I would buy their new media only after I had a new player that was either able to play anything by default, or had been updated to play anything... but then again, I already have 5 dvd players... would be pretty stupid if the new media couldn't play on the old stuff. If however, the new media simply wouldn't accept data that had the flag, that would be ok because you could just get a program that ignores that for your burning needs.
If the company does 100% of the work, then they get 100% of the road and the state gets nothing. As it is planned now, the state would get the road in 50 years and they don't have to do a whole lot to meet their end of the deal. It seems like a win-win to me as far as the developers and the state are concerned. It sucks for the people living in the path of this thing but that's progress for you.
Calendars do list Sunday on the left and Saturday on the right... for the beginning and end of the week and that's how I usually think of them, but the Monday is the correct beginning.
Sorry to burst your bubble but apparently WWTBAM put in a bit more effort than you. :)
Damn... I knew it sounded too good to be true. And I can't believe I made such a stupid mistake... I think it's time I went back to bed and finally caught up on my lost sleep.
Then you run a hose from the whiskey tank to the drivers area... and you run a hose from you windshield wiper... hook both of those into a t connector... then fill the windshield wiper resevoir with oj... and you've got instant screwdrivers while you drive!