No, we call them biased because they describe themselves as " collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests."
We call them biased because they call themselves biased.
Just wondering, but why did you use a question about finding unbiased political information to launch into your absurdly biased tract?
I mean, I can understand your wanting to spread your own particular brand of radical leftist idiocy, but why did you choose to do so in the one place where you were asked to leave it out?
The more expensive the oil, the more money Bush and his cronies make.
Oh, really? Check the PFDR for FY2002 (the FY03 ones aren't available yet). The President doesn't get any income from any source that's affected by the price of oil. He has some interest-bearing investments, a couple of IRA's, some real estate, a stock portfolio and a boat-load of T-bills. You might as well say that the president's wealth depends on the price of routers because he owns stock in Cisco.
I dare you to find any evidence of an actual financial incentive for the president, or anybody in the executive branch for that matter, to keep the price of oil high.
And yet, the exact same methods were used to claim the Saddam-Osama connection.
By whom? Nobody in a position of authority ever said there was a Saddam-Osama connection. There was, however, a rock-solid, no-questions, if-you-don't-see-it-you're-an-idiot connection between Saddam and Islamist terrorism. Which is why he had to go.
If you like the police state this country is in
Sigh. If this country were half the police state you accuse it of being, you'd be dragged off in chains.
Well, given that the Associated Press--source of virtually all the news you see and hear during a given day, if you're typical--was caught running an out-and-out lie on their wire this week, I guess Fox would be a better choice indeed.
Yes, the AP eventually ran a retraction, but only after the hue and cry reached such a volume that they couldn't ignore it any more. You couldn't get through to the Washington bureau; their phone and fax lines were jammed.
The problem with mass media emerges when they pretend not to have an agenda. Everybody has an agenda, and those who pretend not to are lying to you. Fox is to be applauded for putting their agenda right out there in front so you don't have to guess at it. Newsweek, too; it was Newsweek's editor who said, famously, that it is the position of Newsweek's editorial board that Kerry should win the election, and to that end that they intended to paint him and his campaign in the best possible light. Bravo to them for coming right out and telling us this up front.
Heh. It doesn't really matter what this Myth thing does in addition to being a PVR. The point is that it's a lousy PVR. The fact that it's a lousy PVR and other stuff is hardly compelling.
Sure, absolutely. Spending $650 on a build-it-yourself product that's inferior to products that cost half as much is absurd. Anybody with that kind of money to waste probably has a little more to invest in something good.
Okay. I misunderstood. I thought you were saying that it wasn't impossible that this specific person in question was telling the truth, and I was saying that it was impossible. But it turns out that wasn't what you were saying.
He means a delegate seat at the Republican National Convention, the RNC in this context
Delegates are chosen by the state party committees. They can't be "gotten" for somebody as a gift. Especially if that somebody isn't an active Republican.
It was a lie, plain and simple. That's not the end of the world, but it's not the sort of thing that's okay, either.
A few years back, a *friend* got me a membership in the RNC for my birthday.
1. RNC = Republican National Committee. That's the steering committee of the national Republican Party. It's not something you can just join. You mean the GOP.
2. The GOP isn't something you join, either. The only thing you have to do to be a member of the Republican Party is to say that you are. Some states require you to put down a party affiliation when you register to vote, but that's merely a declaration of which party you already belong to.
In other words, no, your "friend" did not get you a "membership" in either the RNC or the GOP. Why lie about this?
Even with ten years of advance notice, the manufacturers are still far from switching all their production to HDTV
Wha? Which are you talking about? Manufacturers of televisions or television production?
Try to find a medium-sized or larger TV that's not HD-ready. Dare ya. Oh, you can do it, don't get me wrong, but you've gotta go lookin'. As for small TV's, those are NEVER gonna be HD-ready. There's no point. But they're all equipped to take a video input, which means they can be plugged into a set-top box. Which is all that's required.
TV production has been all-HD for years now, with a few exceptions like local news and reality TV. Hell, scripted TV was all shot on film anyway, so switching it over to HD was nothin'. And since digital SD can be converted to HD so easily, all the SD production is HD-ready too.
Every metro area in the United States--that is, every concentration of 5,000 people or more--is covered by at least one HD terrestrial station. And all the satellite providers are ready to go all-HD (they're digital already; they just needed to tool up to carry the full-bandwidth 1080i channels). Ditto the cable companies.
HD is here already. All they need to do is flip the switch.
My only point is that a TV tuner would have cost Apple maybe $40 per unit to integrate into the device
What would they leave out to accommodate it? The iMac G5 isn't exactly chock full of empty space, you know. And how would you suggest they affix an antenna? Stick-on rabbit ears?
and would have been useful for several years at least.
For two years and four months exactly. Not "several years at least."
Guess what, analog tuner will be junk in less than 30 months in the same way as...
Um. Dude? On January 1, 2007, all the analog TV transmitters in the United States will be turned off permanently. The FCC is reallocating the spectrum they use.
So yeah, analog tuners are literally going to be junk in less than 30 months. Because there will be no transmissions out there for them to receive.
Priced a new TV lately? The manufacturers are opting out of including tuners in most cases, because for a lot of customers a built-in ATSC tuner would be a waste of money. Those folks get their programming via a cable TV or satellite set-top box.
Apple couldn't include just an analog tuner. That would be a terrible idea. We're already in the second half of 2004; analog tuners will be junk in less than 30 months, well within the life-span of a computer like this.
I see they kept the PowerMac/iMac performance differential in part by using a 3x multiplier instead of the 2x that the PowerMacs use.
That was an engineering choice more than a marketing choice, though of course it was dictated by both. The largest single source of heat in a Power Mac G5 is the system controller ASIC. Low-temperature G5-based systems must necessarily eliminate that source of BTU's.
Most importantly, can this model finally take an aftermarket internal Bluetooth module?
The internal Bluetooth module is available as a BTO option only.
Will more VRAM be available as a BTO option?
No. You'll get more VRAM in 6-8 months when the Rev. B machines are announced, just like always.
If the iMac is going to sell at all in the gaming market
The "gaming market?" Surely you jest.
With this out there, will the eMac see a minor speedbump anytime soon?
Odds are slim. That's a Motorola issue, not an Apple issue.
Most importantly, will normal human beings actually be able to buy these in stores anytime this year
Depends on where you live. If you live near an Apple Store, you'll be able to buy one this week. But you'd better get there fast.;-)
Sorry to post twice, but I forgot to mention this before. Here's your study in contrasts.
I bought an original Apple iPod back when they first were introduced. A couple of months ago the hard drive in it died, and rather than pay the $270 Apple wanted to fix it, I decided to spend about another $100 and get a new model. Upgrade and all that.
Well, wouldn't you know it, I got a bad one. It worked fine out of the box for a couple of days, but then it froze up and couldn't be reset.
I called Apple (I ordered my iPod online) and the guy checked my ZIP code and told me to take it to the Apple store at such-n-such address. I did, waited in line for about 20 minutes (during which I surfed the Net on the G5 at the store). I showed the guy behind the counter my iPod, and he said, "Wait just a minute, please." And he disappeared in the back with my iPod.
About a minute later, seriously in almost no time at all, he emerged and said, "Here you go." And he handed me a brand-new, still-in-the-shrinkwrap iPod box.
Me: "Huh?"
The Guy: "Here's your new iPod. Sorry for the inconvenience."
Me: "What's the catch?"
There was no catch. If your iPod breaks and it's under warranty, take it to an Apple store. They will hand you a new one and send you home. No Bangalore call center, no RMA, no waiting 2-3 weeks, none of that. Just "Here's your new iPod. Sorry for the inconvenience."
It's obscure, but your list probably should have included dwarf wheat. It was developed in the late 60's by, among others, an Iowan named Norman Borlaug. It's credited with saving the lives of a billion people in India alone, and defusing the "population bomb" everybody used to talk about.
If Norman Borlaug hadn't invented dwarf wheat in the 1960's, the 1980's would have been a time of global famine with a death toll in the billions.
You've said the school has every right to choose what books they stock. Right, but the ALA will list a book as "banned" just because the school chooses not the shelve it.
Um, no. The ALA doesn't call these books "banned." They use the word "challenged," as in somebody somewhere was challenged for shelving this book.
They use the word "banned" to describe books that were actually, you know, banned.
The fault here, as usual, likes with the idiot submitter for using the word "banned" to refer to books that the ALA calls "challenged," and even more so with the idiot editor who didn't bother to check and correct the submission.
Oh man, can you believe there are no astronauts selling their suits on eBay?!
Astronaut suit? You mean space suit? Apart from the fact that the astronauts have never owned them, I doubt you could pay the million bucks one would cost, much less the hyperinflated auction price.
Slashdot Mirror
No, we call them biased because they describe themselves as " collaborative project to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests."
We call them biased because they call themselves biased.
Just wondering, but why did you use a question about finding unbiased political information to launch into your absurdly biased tract?
I mean, I can understand your wanting to spread your own particular brand of radical leftist idiocy, but why did you choose to do so in the one place where you were asked to leave it out?
The more expensive the oil, the more money Bush and his cronies make.
Oh, really? Check the PFDR for FY2002 (the FY03 ones aren't available yet). The President doesn't get any income from any source that's affected by the price of oil. He has some interest-bearing investments, a couple of IRA's, some real estate, a stock portfolio and a boat-load of T-bills. You might as well say that the president's wealth depends on the price of routers because he owns stock in Cisco.
I dare you to find any evidence of an actual financial incentive for the president, or anybody in the executive branch for that matter, to keep the price of oil high.
And yet, the exact same methods were used to claim the Saddam-Osama connection.
By whom? Nobody in a position of authority ever said there was a Saddam-Osama connection. There was, however, a rock-solid, no-questions, if-you-don't-see-it-you're-an-idiot connection between Saddam and Islamist terrorism. Which is why he had to go.
If you like the police state this country is in
Sigh. If this country were half the police state you accuse it of being, you'd be dragged off in chains.
Well, given that the Associated Press--source of virtually all the news you see and hear during a given day, if you're typical--was caught running an out-and-out lie on their wire this week, I guess Fox would be a better choice indeed.
Yes, the AP eventually ran a retraction, but only after the hue and cry reached such a volume that they couldn't ignore it any more. You couldn't get through to the Washington bureau; their phone and fax lines were jammed.
The problem with mass media emerges when they pretend not to have an agenda. Everybody has an agenda, and those who pretend not to are lying to you. Fox is to be applauded for putting their agenda right out there in front so you don't have to guess at it. Newsweek, too; it was Newsweek's editor who said, famously, that it is the position of Newsweek's editorial board that Kerry should win the election, and to that end that they intended to paint him and his campaign in the best possible light. Bravo to them for coming right out and telling us this up front.
Heh. It doesn't really matter what this Myth thing does in addition to being a PVR. The point is that it's a lousy PVR. The fact that it's a lousy PVR and other stuff is hardly compelling.
Sure, absolutely. Spending $650 on a build-it-yourself product that's inferior to products that cost half as much is absurd. Anybody with that kind of money to waste probably has a little more to invest in something good.
Your basic point is 100% right on, but an HD TiVo is still about $1,000.
Ding ding ding. We have a winner.
Actually, it's an "I'm an idiot, pay no attention to me."
Close, though.
Why did you choose a flower for a name?
That was unintentionally hilarious.
(He was thinking of "tulip." Nobody tell him, though. Let's us be the only ones in on the joke.)
Okay. I misunderstood. I thought you were saying that it wasn't impossible that this specific person in question was telling the truth, and I was saying that it was impossible. But it turns out that wasn't what you were saying.
My bad.
But some states have well over a hundred delegates.
Yes. Mine is one of them. But do you have any idea how many people in each of those states are dying to be delegates to the Convention? Thousands.
Yes, it is impossible.
He means a delegate seat at the Republican National Convention, the RNC in this context
Delegates are chosen by the state party committees. They can't be "gotten" for somebody as a gift. Especially if that somebody isn't an active Republican.
It was a lie, plain and simple. That's not the end of the world, but it's not the sort of thing that's okay, either.
A few years back, a *friend* got me a membership in the RNC for my birthday.
1. RNC = Republican National Committee. That's the steering committee of the national Republican Party. It's not something you can just join. You mean the GOP.
2. The GOP isn't something you join, either. The only thing you have to do to be a member of the Republican Party is to say that you are. Some states require you to put down a party affiliation when you register to vote, but that's merely a declaration of which party you already belong to.
In other words, no, your "friend" did not get you a "membership" in either the RNC or the GOP. Why lie about this?
Even with ten years of advance notice, the manufacturers are still far from switching all their production to HDTV
Wha? Which are you talking about? Manufacturers of televisions or television production?
Try to find a medium-sized or larger TV that's not HD-ready. Dare ya. Oh, you can do it, don't get me wrong, but you've gotta go lookin'. As for small TV's, those are NEVER gonna be HD-ready. There's no point. But they're all equipped to take a video input, which means they can be plugged into a set-top box. Which is all that's required.
TV production has been all-HD for years now, with a few exceptions like local news and reality TV. Hell, scripted TV was all shot on film anyway, so switching it over to HD was nothin'. And since digital SD can be converted to HD so easily, all the SD production is HD-ready too.
Every metro area in the United States--that is, every concentration of 5,000 people or more--is covered by at least one HD terrestrial station. And all the satellite providers are ready to go all-HD (they're digital already; they just needed to tool up to carry the full-bandwidth 1080i channels). Ditto the cable companies.
HD is here already. All they need to do is flip the switch.
My only point is that a TV tuner would have cost Apple maybe $40 per unit to integrate into the device
What would they leave out to accommodate it? The iMac G5 isn't exactly chock full of empty space, you know. And how would you suggest they affix an antenna? Stick-on rabbit ears?
and would have been useful for several years at least.
For two years and four months exactly. Not "several years at least."
But I can't complain really
And yet here we are.
Guess what, analog tuner will be junk in less than 30 months in the same way as...
Um. Dude? On January 1, 2007, all the analog TV transmitters in the United States will be turned off permanently. The FCC is reallocating the spectrum they use.
So yeah, analog tuners are literally going to be junk in less than 30 months. Because there will be no transmissions out there for them to receive.
Well, why not include video inputs?
Because it's not a monitor. It's a computer.
Also, TV tuners are dirt cheap. What's $20 on a machine like that?
ATSC tuners cost considerably more than $20. But aside from that, what's $20? It's a $1319 computer instead of a $1299 computer.
Priced a new TV lately? The manufacturers are opting out of including tuners in most cases, because for a lot of customers a built-in ATSC tuner would be a waste of money. Those folks get their programming via a cable TV or satellite set-top box.
Apple couldn't include just an analog tuner. That would be a terrible idea. We're already in the second half of 2004; analog tuners will be junk in less than 30 months, well within the life-span of a computer like this.
I see they kept the PowerMac/iMac performance differential in part by using a 3x multiplier instead of the 2x that the PowerMacs use.
;-)
That was an engineering choice more than a marketing choice, though of course it was dictated by both. The largest single source of heat in a Power Mac G5 is the system controller ASIC. Low-temperature G5-based systems must necessarily eliminate that source of BTU's.
Most importantly, can this model finally take an aftermarket internal Bluetooth module?
The internal Bluetooth module is available as a BTO option only.
Will more VRAM be available as a BTO option?
No. You'll get more VRAM in 6-8 months when the Rev. B machines are announced, just like always.
If the iMac is going to sell at all in the gaming market
The "gaming market?" Surely you jest.
With this out there, will the eMac see a minor speedbump anytime soon?
Odds are slim. That's a Motorola issue, not an Apple issue.
Most importantly, will normal human beings actually be able to buy these in stores anytime this year
Depends on where you live. If you live near an Apple Store, you'll be able to buy one this week. But you'd better get there fast.
Sorry to post twice, but I forgot to mention this before. Here's your study in contrasts.
I bought an original Apple iPod back when they first were introduced. A couple of months ago the hard drive in it died, and rather than pay the $270 Apple wanted to fix it, I decided to spend about another $100 and get a new model. Upgrade and all that.
Well, wouldn't you know it, I got a bad one. It worked fine out of the box for a couple of days, but then it froze up and couldn't be reset.
I called Apple (I ordered my iPod online) and the guy checked my ZIP code and told me to take it to the Apple store at such-n-such address. I did, waited in line for about 20 minutes (during which I surfed the Net on the G5 at the store). I showed the guy behind the counter my iPod, and he said, "Wait just a minute, please." And he disappeared in the back with my iPod.
About a minute later, seriously in almost no time at all, he emerged and said, "Here you go." And he handed me a brand-new, still-in-the-shrinkwrap iPod box.
Me: "Huh?"
The Guy: "Here's your new iPod. Sorry for the inconvenience."
Me: "What's the catch?"
There was no catch. If your iPod breaks and it's under warranty, take it to an Apple store. They will hand you a new one and send you home. No Bangalore call center, no RMA, no waiting 2-3 weeks, none of that. Just "Here's your new iPod. Sorry for the inconvenience."
That was just cool.
First thing I noticed customer service is outsourced and is area code 650.
Area code 650 is Mt. View, Calif., just FYI. I mean, you still could be calling Bangalore, but your call was at least routed through the Bay Area.
It's obscure, but your list probably should have included dwarf wheat. It was developed in the late 60's by, among others, an Iowan named Norman Borlaug. It's credited with saving the lives of a billion people in India alone, and defusing the "population bomb" everybody used to talk about.
If Norman Borlaug hadn't invented dwarf wheat in the 1960's, the 1980's would have been a time of global famine with a death toll in the billions.
And yet hardly anybody has heard of him.
Clicky clicky, looky lefty. See there? "Banned." Clicky clicky.
Fuckin' moron.
You've said the school has every right to choose what books they stock. Right, but the ALA will list a book as "banned" just because the school chooses not the shelve it.
Um, no. The ALA doesn't call these books "banned." They use the word "challenged," as in somebody somewhere was challenged for shelving this book.
They use the word "banned" to describe books that were actually, you know, banned.
The fault here, as usual, likes with the idiot submitter for using the word "banned" to refer to books that the ALA calls "challenged," and even more so with the idiot editor who didn't bother to check and correct the submission.
Oh man, can you believe there are no astronauts selling their suits on eBay?!
Astronaut suit? You mean space suit? Apart from the fact that the astronauts have never owned them, I doubt you could pay the million bucks one would cost, much less the hyperinflated auction price.