Though I like computer history as much as anyone, the thing that annoys me the most is how people that write this stuff can't resist using the word "whopping" for EVERYTHING!!! Even if whatever it is you are reviewing was "whopping" at the time, it isn't now.
By the same token, I would not refer to a desktop computer with 4 gigs of RAM as a "whopping" amount either, because in a few years it will be common.
I don't really care which format wins, but what I think would be cool would be to bring back laserdisc-sized 12" discs again. Just think of the enormous amount of storage we could put into 12" with today's current technologies. Then start adding multi-layer technology, and you've got all the space you need for HD content plus extras!
And how cool would it be to have an external USB (or FireWire) 12" burner for your computer?!
news.astraweb.com is $10 a month for unlimited transfer at 75k/second. That's not too bad.
I know people just want to get all they can for free, but the way I look at it (ethics aside of course) is that $10 a month is still cheaper than buying a single album just so I can have MP3s, and its certainly cheaper than a single DVD.
BitTorrent is a great technology, and it has sped up many Linux ISO downloads I've had in the past. However, I think it is so funny the way people freak out over stuff like suprnova closing. "Where are we supposed to get our MP3s and warez now?!!"
I NEVER hear anything about usenet, and there are hundreds of gigabytes of stuff posted every single day. Nearly my entire MP3 and digital video collection (and actually just about everything else) has come from usenet. I don't understand why this seems to still be the great untapped resource? Especially nowadays with services like newzbin.com, it makes finding and downloading from usenet a real snap!
Just the other day I introduced my brother to usenet, and he couldn't believe what he had been missing for so long.
Doesn't anyone out there use regular ISP-provided e-mail anymore? I have all the backup e-mail storage space I want on my own Personal Computer. How many people honestly need instant access to an old e-mail from two years ago from anywhere on the web?
The MCE is lacking dual-tuner support in its current version (hopefully next version will have it), but there is a VERY good chance that it will work with your digital cable box. I have BrightHouse (TimeWarner) digital cable, and I have tried three different digital cable boxes (one of them a brand new SA8k dvr box) and they all worked with no problems.
The MCE comes with an "IR-Blaster" that transmits the signal it needs to your cable box to change channels, etc.
The main advantage of MCE is to be able to watch videos other than just the ones you record. You could watch DivX movies for example, or online streaming videos.
I have been using Windows Media Center for several months now and have been very pleased with it. Its great having your recorded shows available on your home network to watch on any computer in the house whenever you want, not to mention being a huge digital jukebox -- just throw in as many hard drives as you can and you've got true media "center" capabilities, you can't say that for a TiVo.
The biggest advantage the Media Center has is that you can play any AVI files you want as long as you have the codec installed. And the remote control works with every proprietary IR device (ie cable boxes) that I throw at it.
I tried MythTV, and while its a great project, XP MCE has it beat at this point in time by far, but I think that may be mostly due to most hardware drives being written for Windows only.
Although I'm looking forward very much to MCE 2005, in all fairness I haven't tried a TiVO, and the TivO's dual-tuner functionality is something that the MCE misses. However, when you're using a digital cable box, having a second tuner doesn't matter anyway.
I get so tired of hearing people claim that the game is unplayable with whatever video card.
Just to try it out (certainly not expecting anything!) I played the game on my old Radeon 7000 32-meg card. Sure, I had to put everything on the lowest settings, but you could not say that the game was unplayable. The player movement was nearly as smooth as with a higher-end video card.
I guess people have different definitions of "playable", but those people are spoiled brats:-)
There are a few different modes of HDTV, the two most comming being 720x480 progressive (30 full frames per second), and 1920x1080 interlaced (60 half frames per second)
I have one semester left in an A.S. level Computer Networking degree. All of the tech classes are not knowledge-based, but instead each class is a preparation for a certain certification. I always found this to be stupid, and the proof of the matter is that probably better than 75% of the people I've had in every single class were there just to get the certification and move on. They could give a shit if they actually learned anything or not.
That's why I never bothered to get my certifications. I got my MCP for Win2k Pro before I went to college, but ever since then I've passed on taking them because they seem worthless to me, based on the average kinds of people that are taking the tests.
However, the only advantage of taking certification-driven college courses is that on my resume, I can say that I took the courses for the MCSE or CCNA certification (or whatever it may be). This way, on my resume, it looks like I actually got the certifications even though I did not.
I think people might be blowing this out of proportion just a tad. For my college English courses, as well as psychology courses, I was told to use turnitin.com to process my papers beforehand.
The whole idea of the site is to make sure that you are quoting your sources properly. That is all! If you haven't used proper source quoting, then your paper will be returned letting you know what you did wrong.
However, the site can be abused by instructors. You see, using the above method of working with the site, the instructor can set up the number of times you can submit a paper. Most professors will set it up so that you can submit a paper two or three times to make sure everything is sourced properly. However, if a professor only lets you submit once, then I could see how using the service could be a bit like trying to win the lottery if after all the computer decides you didn't quote properly without giving you a chance to fix it.
Even still, the bottom line is that the site is designed to make sure you're quoting your sources properly, not necessarily to check if your paper is an exact duplicate of someone else's.
I'm not much of a P2P user (I get nearly all my stuff from usenet), but I could probably be considered a glutton in terms of downloads. Although it is true that I download more movies and music than I could possibly consume, I don't think its correct to simply assume that people that download this much are in it for redistribution.
I just like to collect stuff basically.
I suppose the logic I use to myself is that one day if my cable ever got cut off, I'd have plenty of media to consume in its absence.
On the other hand, since I get the majority of my content from usenet and not from P2P, I often have wondered if that is why my extreme downloading habits are overlooked. I typically download 4 gigs every day from usenet, but because it is coming from my ISP's local server (RR Orlando), I wonder if it makes less of an impact on the overall network than a P2P app would produce?
More and more every day, this site seems to be just a copy of OSnews.com. I can't tell you how many times I see a story posted there first, and within a couple of hours the same story with the same wording is posted here. What gives? We don't need two sites being copies of each other.
I've taken a few online classes (one of them was English) in a college setting, and the number one bit of advice I could give is to be careful of "message board" type communication, namely because a lot of people are not very good at expressing themselves with words and things often come out sounding completely different from what the person meant to say. If people get over-emotional in this situation, things can get blown out of proportion, and it will make students decide to take a different class.
That's what happened with me anyway. Ignorant fucks! LOL
I agree. And in fact, the only thing that keeps me away from the Mac platform is the price of the hardware. I just don't see spending $2000 for a PowerMac when I could build an x86 box with the same power for 1/4 of the price.
Slashdot Mirror
I read that too fast and thought you said "whore-house" video solution :-)
When encoding with Dr. DivX, there is a High Definition preset which will shrink down a DVD, but still create a very beautiful video file.
Though I like computer history as much as anyone, the thing that annoys me the most is how people that write this stuff can't resist using the word "whopping" for EVERYTHING!!! Even if whatever it is you are reviewing was "whopping" at the time, it isn't now.
By the same token, I would not refer to a desktop computer with 4 gigs of RAM as a "whopping" amount either, because in a few years it will be common.
I move that we ban the word "whopping"!!
I don't really care which format wins, but what I think would be cool would be to bring back laserdisc-sized 12" discs again. Just think of the enormous amount of storage we could put into 12" with today's current technologies. Then start adding multi-layer technology, and you've got all the space you need for HD content plus extras!
And how cool would it be to have an external USB (or FireWire) 12" burner for your computer?!
news.astraweb.com is $10 a month for unlimited transfer at 75k/second. That's not too bad.
I know people just want to get all they can for free, but the way I look at it (ethics aside of course) is that $10 a month is still cheaper than buying a single album just so I can have MP3s, and its certainly cheaper than a single DVD.
BitTorrent is a great technology, and it has sped up many Linux ISO downloads I've had in the past. However, I think it is so funny the way people freak out over stuff like suprnova closing. "Where are we supposed to get our MP3s and warez now?!!"
I NEVER hear anything about usenet, and there are hundreds of gigabytes of stuff posted every single day. Nearly my entire MP3 and digital video collection (and actually just about everything else) has come from usenet. I don't understand why this seems to still be the great untapped resource? Especially nowadays with services like newzbin.com, it makes finding and downloading from usenet a real snap!
Just the other day I introduced my brother to usenet, and he couldn't believe what he had been missing for so long.
Isobuster. Anything else?
Is it possible to have a telephone slashdotted?
Doesn't anyone out there use regular ISP-provided e-mail anymore? I have all the backup e-mail storage space I want on my own Personal Computer. How many people honestly need instant access to an old e-mail from two years ago from anywhere on the web?
The MCE is lacking dual-tuner support in its current version (hopefully next version will have it), but there is a VERY good chance that it will work with your digital cable box. I have BrightHouse (TimeWarner) digital cable, and I have tried three different digital cable boxes (one of them a brand new SA8k dvr box) and they all worked with no problems.
The MCE comes with an "IR-Blaster" that transmits the signal it needs to your cable box to change channels, etc.
The main advantage of MCE is to be able to watch videos other than just the ones you record. You could watch DivX movies for example, or online streaming videos.
I have been using Windows Media Center for several months now and have been very pleased with it. Its great having your recorded shows available on your home network to watch on any computer in the house whenever you want, not to mention being a huge digital jukebox -- just throw in as many hard drives as you can and you've got true media "center" capabilities, you can't say that for a TiVo.
The biggest advantage the Media Center has is that you can play any AVI files you want as long as you have the codec installed. And the remote control works with every proprietary IR device (ie cable boxes) that I throw at it.
I tried MythTV, and while its a great project, XP MCE has it beat at this point in time by far, but I think that may be mostly due to most hardware drives being written for Windows only.
Although I'm looking forward very much to MCE 2005, in all fairness I haven't tried a TiVO, and the TivO's dual-tuner functionality is something that the MCE misses. However, when you're using a digital cable box, having a second tuner doesn't matter anyway.
I get so tired of hearing people claim that the game is unplayable with whatever video card.
:-)
Just to try it out (certainly not expecting anything!) I played the game on my old Radeon 7000 32-meg card. Sure, I had to put everything on the lowest settings, but you could not say that the game was unplayable. The player movement was nearly as smooth as with a higher-end video card.
I guess people have different definitions of "playable", but those people are spoiled brats
There are a few different modes of HDTV, the two most comming being 720x480 progressive (30 full frames per second), and 1920x1080 interlaced (60 half frames per second)
I have one semester left in an A.S. level Computer Networking degree. All of the tech classes are not knowledge-based, but instead each class is a preparation for a certain certification. I always found this to be stupid, and the proof of the matter is that probably better than 75% of the people I've had in every single class were there just to get the certification and move on. They could give a shit if they actually learned anything or not. That's why I never bothered to get my certifications. I got my MCP for Win2k Pro before I went to college, but ever since then I've passed on taking them because they seem worthless to me, based on the average kinds of people that are taking the tests. However, the only advantage of taking certification-driven college courses is that on my resume, I can say that I took the courses for the MCSE or CCNA certification (or whatever it may be). This way, on my resume, it looks like I actually got the certifications even though I did not.
Mod this up! That was hilarious :-)
I'd be willing to take it off your hands :-)
Anyone remember the Crossbow Project? :-)
I think people might be blowing this out of proportion just a tad. For my college English courses, as well as psychology courses, I was told to use turnitin.com to process my papers beforehand.
The whole idea of the site is to make sure that you are quoting your sources properly. That is all! If you haven't used proper source quoting, then your paper will be returned letting you know what you did wrong.
However, the site can be abused by instructors. You see, using the above method of working with the site, the instructor can set up the number of times you can submit a paper. Most professors will set it up so that you can submit a paper two or three times to make sure everything is sourced properly. However, if a professor only lets you submit once, then I could see how using the service could be a bit like trying to win the lottery if after all the computer decides you didn't quote properly without giving you a chance to fix it.
Even still, the bottom line is that the site is designed to make sure you're quoting your sources properly, not necessarily to check if your paper is an exact duplicate of someone else's.
As many duplicate news stories as slashdot rips from osnews.com, I'm wondering why we don't just make an "osnews.slashdot.org" section?
I just like to collect stuff basically.
I suppose the logic I use to myself is that one day if my cable ever got cut off, I'd have plenty of media to consume in its absence.
On the other hand, since I get the majority of my content from usenet and not from P2P, I often have wondered if that is why my extreme downloading habits are overlooked. I typically download 4 gigs every day from usenet, but because it is coming from my ISP's local server (RR Orlando), I wonder if it makes less of an impact on the overall network than a P2P app would produce?
0verride y0ur subc0nsci0us r0bot: Crunch-0-Matic
More and more every day, this site seems to be just a copy of OSnews.com. I can't tell you how many times I see a story posted there first, and within a couple of hours the same story with the same wording is posted here. What gives? We don't need two sites being copies of each other.
I've taken a few online classes (one of them was English) in a college setting, and the number one bit of advice I could give is to be careful of "message board" type communication, namely because a lot of people are not very good at expressing themselves with words and things often come out sounding completely different from what the person meant to say. If people get over-emotional in this situation, things can get blown out of proportion, and it will make students decide to take a different class.
That's what happened with me anyway. Ignorant fucks! LOL
Don't forget, there are other people out there who have been doing this for awhile too, such as the Open Music Registry.
Who screens these posts? This was posted yesterday.
I agree. And in fact, the only thing that keeps me away from the Mac platform is the price of the hardware. I just don't see spending $2000 for a PowerMac when I could build an x86 box with the same power for 1/4 of the price.
Looks like we'll have to go back to the good ol' days of IRC and FTP :-)