I have found this dvd media quality guide to be extremely informative. Yes, Taiyo Yuden is always ranked at the top (and is what I use), but they are not readily available at local retailers. It really helps to have a detailed comparison of various media instead of just saying "brand X is best".
This all reminds me of the Philip K. Dick story "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch". Space colonists would play "Perky Pat", basically inhabiting dolls in a doll world with the help of a drug. They'd spend all their time and resources creating elaborate "layouts" (ie: doll setups) and would lose themselves in this alternate reality. The company Perky Pat Layouts would sell all this paraphernalia to the colonists and make a ton of money.
Just another example of Dick being ahead of his time. What a crazy world we live in.
I've been wondering the same thing. My family lives in Ithaca, NY and TV reception is horrid. We can tune in to FOX or the religious station with rabbit ears. All my family wants is PBS and we're out of luck. The antennaweb site has been revealing.
I've thought, boy, wouldn't it be great if I could just download some Sesame Street for the kids or NOVA episodes for myself? Well, there is an entire industry around selling DVDs and videocassette tapes. Even PBS is in on this racket . They sell Nova episodes for $20 a pop! You can watch some of them online for free, but they try really damned hard to control the content and prevent users from downloading the shows.
It is a racket, and people buy the stuff. Go to a library or a children's hospital. Look at how many videos they buy of shows that could be taped from the television. This stuff obviously sells. Why should these stations go through the effort to make their content available online for $1 an episode, only to have it traded on P2P networks? People are spending the big bucks on the prepacked stuff.
I had a chance to intern at the NASA Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center in Cleveland about 5 years ago, doing some preliminary work for the Fluid Combustion Facility (an ISS experiment package). Gleaned a few interesting insights from the experience...
The word from the NASA engineers was this: in order to save the space station from getting axed by Congress, work was spread across many NASA sites nationwide. Why? reps wouldn't likely cut a program that provided jobs in their own backyard. Unfortunately, this created a management nightmare that naturally led to cost overruns.
Sure, the project could have been centralized more and run more efficiently... but then funding whould have likely been cut.
Doncha just love this country?!
Slashdot Mirror
I have found this dvd media quality guide to be extremely informative. Yes, Taiyo Yuden is always ranked at the top (and is what I use), but they are not readily available at local retailers. It really helps to have a detailed comparison of various media instead of just saying "brand X is best".
Just another example of Dick being ahead of his time. What a crazy world we live in.
I've thought, boy, wouldn't it be great if I could just download some Sesame Street for the kids or NOVA episodes for myself? Well, there is an entire industry around selling DVDs and videocassette tapes. Even PBS is in on this racket . They sell Nova episodes for $20 a pop! You can watch some of them online for free, but they try really damned hard to control the content and prevent users from downloading the shows.
It is a racket, and people buy the stuff. Go to a library or a children's hospital. Look at how many videos they buy of shows that could be taped from the television. This stuff obviously sells. Why should these stations go through the effort to make their content available online for $1 an episode, only to have it traded on P2P networks? People are spending the big bucks on the prepacked stuff.
The word from the NASA engineers was this: in order to save the space station from getting axed by Congress, work was spread across many NASA sites nationwide. Why? reps wouldn't likely cut a program that provided jobs in their own backyard. Unfortunately, this created a management nightmare that naturally led to cost overruns.
Sure, the project could have been centralized more and run more efficiently... but then funding whould have likely been cut.
Doncha just love this country?!