200 years ago only male white landowners had the vote, held office, or ran businesses. Correspondingly, their judge of success was strictly how the male white landowners were doing. I suppose these are the "good old days" for some present-day male white landowners, but fortunately for most of us it ain't like that anymore...
The only implication I made is that people who cannot manage their money won't have it and people with money who cannot manage it, won't have it long. Only in America is the thought of sacrificing your drug habit or not buying a recreational vehicle over placing food on the table considered a deep decision the poor need to make. And for some reason, we should feel pity for them.
Actually, you are the one I pity. Your comic book caricatures of what people are like belie the fact that either you live in a significantly sheltered universe, or your powers of perception are seriously lacking.
"Drafting": following another truck closely to save even more fuel, is a common practice.
I've always heard it referred to as "slipstreaming." But be careful about using it, I've done it in my car behind a semi, and they can feel the drag and may very well get pissed off about it, as it reduces their gas mileage.
The reason for the Iranian concern here is that the revolution was originally spread through compact cassette tapes. This has nothing to do with morality, it is all about political control.
That's an argument for monitoring, not for censorship. If they want to root out rebels, they should act like there's no censorship-- and not needlessly alert them to the fact that there's monitoring going on...
They're "keenly interested" because they need some new excuses to get people to go to theaters. The umpteen-plex theaters with limited movie selection and schedule, sticky floors, too-small screens, bad projection and noisy patrons are not such a big draw, and especially now that HD home screens are everywhere.
Unfortunately, the major problems that theaters have ain't likely to be fixed by a few releases in 3D, even if they're "blockbusters"...
It could well be that there is something wrong with your configuration or hardware.
How is that an excuse? Isn't an OS that can handle bad configurations or bad hardware without crashing a Good Thing(TM)? I've worked with both Linux and AIX quite a bit, and in my experience, the definition of "robust" is when the hardware or configuration can be bogus and the OS will let you know about it rather than crashing. From that standpoint, I've found AIX to be pretty robust, a good solid product, and I love the consistently designed admin command extensions (using ls, rm, mv, ch prefixes), and SMIT gets the job done well. I can't say as much about Linux, but that's probably because I haven't tried to run various RAID configurations on it and we don't have all that many in the field so I don't have enough experience with it in that regard...
"Why does Microsoft win the development environment war so often, when we all know it's a lifetime lock-in to Windows?"
This question only makes sense when addressed to the hobbyist, not the professional. Though even in that context, I'm not sure it's even true for the hobbyist.
I mean, do you really think that any non-Microsoft IDE could ever do very well against a Microsoft IDE when developing for a Microsoft OS, whether or not it's open source, or even regardless of how good it is, when the non-Microsoft solutions will always be playing catch-up when new OS features are released? And of course, when Microsoft makes an active effort to induce new incompatibilities, often just to make it harder for the competition?
Serious developers will choose Microsoft development tools because they're developing for a Microsoft OS. Period. You might better ask why people choose to develop for a Microsoft OS, but once that choice has been made, the choice of Microsoft development tools quickly becomes a no-brainer. Unless you're on a very tight budget, that is (i.e., you're a hobbyist). No professional chooses a platform because of the development tools, they choose development tools because of the platform.
One point...Most bands really do make their money from touring, not from their records. In fact, if you pay attention at all, you hear horror stories from everybody who isn't a corporate rock fuck about how if they had to rely on album sales they would starve to death.
Somebody makes money on album sales (or at least used to, pre-internet), it's just not the bands. The RIAA isn't going after the copyright infringement for mere principles...
Yes, I'd like to see open source ultrasound. The tech ain't really all that tough, and in fact probes routinely go up for sale on eBay, which you might be able to get even if you aren't authorized. For hobbyist use only, of course. Or perhaps science fair entries-- ultrasound brain imaging of hamsters or something...
I may be locked into Windows, but the rest of Microsoft products are very easy to avoid and I do that with remarkable ease....
The funny thing about this is, most of the "rest" of Microsoft products aren't actually all that bad-- it's just the OS that is crap, primarily. In fact, IMHO the non-OS products is what got Microsoft the desktop in the first place, as nobody buys a computer system for the OS it runs, but for the apps it runs (or at least, that's how they buy their *first* computer system). The first OS Microsoft had wasn't really much of an OS at all, just a sophisticated loader that could get their apps into memory and run them. Unfortunately, all subsequent OS products of theirs were arrived at by evolution instead of revolution, dragging all the junk DNA of it's hackneyed past with it.
ISPs are common carriers and as such have no business filtering ANYTHING. If they filter they will eventually become liable for misfiltering-- someday we should be able to depend on email as a secure (encrypted) and reliable channel, where ISPs won't even have access to the content, and anyway ISPs should simply get out of the censor & protect stupid users from themselves business. Get a decent spam filter for your mail client and shut the **** up about Spamhaus and other misguided RBL con games.
I would PREFER to listen to non-RIAA radio sources. I think it may actually be worth their while for independent webstreamers to get permission from the copyright owners-- and I expect before long there will be some streamlined approaches to the problem-- if you have music that you will allow to be streamed on independent internet radio stations you could indicate this via a common clearinghouse that could keep track of this sort of thing.
A USB turntable is great, but I have a huge record collection that I'd like to convert to MP3 and/or CD format, and the problem is not getting the audio into the computer from the turntable, but efficiently processing the turntable audio into separate tracks & applying noise reduction. What's the best software out there for this? The Numark eludes to having Audacity but doesn't indicate how smart it is-- if all the USB turntable does is eliminate the RCA->stereo phono->USB Audio in connections, it's not very interesting. What's important is smart conversion software. I'd like a one-step solution that will allow me to place a record on a turntable that's fed to a computer and end up with N prep'ed WAV files ready to burn to a CD or convert to MP3, already split by track and noise filtered (on a PC, not Mac)...
IBM is winning because IBM sell hardware, and since you can't copy hardware...well you are forced to buy at the price asked if you need something from them....
Open Source is only a solution for IBM to maximize its margin by lowering the cost developpement by shifting cost to other companies or naives individuals.
But if you are a purchaser of hardware, an open source solution guarantees a few things that closed source doesn't:
No conflict of interest features in the software-- such as software lock-in mechanisms, licensing limits, subscription limits, needless bloatware, useless features, new incompatibilities evolved in to force an upgrade (because upgrades are how money is made), incompatibilities designed to bar compatibility with competitors, proprietary enhancements to standards, etc.
The ability to port the software to new hardware (or the availablility of compatible hardware from other vendors) constitutes significant business security. Any app you run on IBM hardware under Linux has a pretty good chance of running without much problem on other hardware that also runs Linux, should IBM hardware go in a direction you don't want (such as more expensive, or should they phase-out the product line and change their mind about open source). If you have some issues in moving to Vista, sorry bud, you're stuck with it, unless you can keep your WS2003 and XP machines running forever.
Why would I, as a business owner, give my good, custom, closed software away to competitors that don't have anything like it, just in the hopes that my software will be marginally improved? In the meantime, assuming that my competition CAN improve my software, I'm giving my competition a huge advantage they didn't previously have. It's a LOT of risk, with minimal reward, for people who already have a software advantage.
If all that is keeping your company competitive with your competitors is your business software, you're already walking on thin ice. If your software would give your competitors your "huge advantage," you ought to charge them for it and close the doors of your original business as you'll clearly make more money that way...
U don't suppose it has anything to do with HD DRM?
on
The End is Nigh for XP
·
· Score: 1
The major movie distributors know you want to be able to watch your DVDs on your laptops, and folks like Dell, etc., need that capability out of the box. However, Vista is the only PC OS that will provide them the security they think they need for you to play their HD DVDs on your computer (or at least, that's the idea, anyway). By pressuring Microsoft to phase XP out in favor of Vista quickly, they can be "justified" in saying that you must upgrade to Vista to watch commercial HD DVDs on your computer. It may be seen as a "win-win" between Microsoft and the movie distributors as both see the opportunity to sell a bunch of new product in the process.
Now whether or not they can actually get away with it, or if it will actually work, is another question. Existing laptops will have to upgrade their hardware DVD drive as well, providing they otherwise have the horsepower to run Vista. The barrier to entry of HD media on existing laptops is somewhat more than just Vista as well-- as they won't have HDMI outs... Noone would buy HD DVDs to run on a laptop that will show them in non-HD because they don't have the "approved" DRM hooks to play it full rez...
Microsoft has a long history of significant bloat at each new release of their OS. The hardware vendors love this though (and are Microsoft's biggest market), as it allows them to sell more memory, bigger drives and entire new computers. The Apple model of "to upgrade, throw away the old one and buy a new one" is the wet dream of all PC vendors, and Microsoft has always been perfectly willing to help in that regard.
But for me, XP will be the last OS I purchase from Microsoft, whether directly or supplied with the hardware. In my book, Vista has nothing to offer except backward compatibility at an increased cost-- and there's lots of cheaper alternatives out there for that. Vista may be more secure than XP, but a Microsoft "scorched earth policy" will send me off in search of one of the less restrictive alternatives.
This will simply help the corporate computer "consumers" to realize that the OS is far too important to their business to leave in the hands (and the conflict of interest) of desperate market protecting dinosaurs. The OS is essentially an application delivery system, and as such must ultimately attain common-carrier status. Microsoft is the Carnegie of our time, but now it is time to transition to new forms of transportation.
Ah but this is an issue of copy protection not region distribution. Yes the market has decided that the region locking was too strict. But it is much harder to find DVD players that do not honor macrovision. I have an old tv set in my bedroom with only an antenna input. I tried plugging-in my dvd player trhough the VCR it did not work because of the macrovision. I just could not find dvd player anywhere that I could do a remote code to get rid of macrovision. I bought one where there was a bug in the original firmware where you could get around the macrovision by fiddling with the output settings, not the ideal situation since it would not stick. But the one that I got had a firmware date that was a month later than the posting on the web and this particular bug was fixed. Lots of other bugs like video and audio losing sync remain. I have a feeling that the manufactures treat keeping the video producers happy with a high priority. I just had to buy a $10 rf modulator (actually I am on my second since the quality of the first and more expensive one was so terrible).
Actually, in your case it's the macrovision in the VCR that's the problem, not in the DVD player. If the VCR didn't honor macrovision it wouldn't have any trouble passing the signal through without disruption. If it was the DVD player that was the problem, an RF modulator wouldn't fix it...
So how do you fix that on HD? I haven't bought one yet, but after spending some time in a Best Buy to look at what's offered, I can't see paying much of anything for something where the xy resolution is high, but motion is significantly quantized. I don't think it can be explained as beating with the 60hz fluorescents in the store, what does it take to fix this annoyance? No way I'll pay that much for something that looks like I'm getting the motion at about 15hz and without even motion blur to hide it. Has the current HD system, whether 1080p or i or whatever, traded off smooth motion in favor of high x,y resolution, and is fundamentally flawed in this regard? Or was I just looking at cheap monitors or TV spots shot with budget HD cameras?
And to make it even more fun, think this: they later had to invent an explanation for exactly this kind of thing, namely the succubi and incubi. Virgin virtuous girls (yeah right) were supposedly impregnated by incubi. You don't invent a whole explanation for something that never happened ever since. So basically they knew it happened more than once, and in fact it happened again and again.
"Virgin birth" is actually a better excuse than incubi, if you can convince people of it:
Mary: Hey Joe, I'm pregnant!
Joseph: How can you tell?
Mary: It's pretty obvious, I'm starting to show.
Joseph: Uh oh! We're not married yet and they stone adulterers you know. We'd better get married right away!
Mary: That's great, but it's kinda late in the game here. How are we going to explain it?
Joseph: Hmmmm.. Let's see... Uh... How about, "incubi."
Mary: Not so good, then they'll be thinking the kid was fathered by a demon. Maybe not such a good idea.
Joseph: Well what then?
Mary: Uh.... well,... hey, I know-- "virgin birth." That's it, that's the ticket...
Yeah, but your grandmother who doesn't have a computer can't get one. You can only get an Amazon gift certificate online, which screens out a lot of my relatives.
Exactly-- I was in a rare hurry for a book last week and went into the local B&N, they didn't have it in stock, so I went home and ordered it from Amazon which took a couple of days to arrive. A large number of the books I buy aren't usually in stock at B&N or Borders, which is probably the main reason I've been buying just about exclusively from Amazon for the last couple of years. And with DVDs & CDs, Tower was the only place that had a snowball's chance of having stuff I want in stock, and when they did the price was so high I always went home and ordered it from Amazon. The amount of gas & time I've saved trying to run the stuff down more than justifies the cost of shipping, even if Amazon's price was the same as the local brick & mortar-- though it's usually cheaper there as well.
Not only that, I do a lot of browsing on Amazon, and have a wish list that is at least 200 items, so I don't need the brick & mortar to show me what the mainstream is interested in-- I ain't mainstream for the most part and don't give a s***.
Yeah, Microsoft-- just continue to make it difficult for even legal users to use your system, rather than getting smart and realizing that the OS is a fading revenue stream for you and consequently porting all your apps (which is where any future revenue stream lies) to Linux, before it's too late. If Microsoft actually had the slightest of brains, they'd make sure SQL Server and Office and their language products (which actually, aren't all that badly designed products) ran on Linux before things like MySQL, Oracle, DB2, OpenOffice, etc.. get too much of a foothold there, leaving no place for them when they finally see the writing on the wall.
Microsoft's OS products were never why people bought their computers. For the most part, it's the office products that were their gravy train, the OS was just a delivery system. Well, guess what-- the delivery system is heading towards common carrier status where the percieved value of it is dropping and ultimately must be both standardized and open, in order for the computer industry to grow. Microsoft is painting themselves into a corner, which at the moment is still a pretty big corner, but one that is trending smaller, and in fact, has the capability to even crash if the application sets elsewhere were to finally convince Big Business(TM) to jump ship-- and we all know that Big Business(TM) is not the type to feel any loyalty to Microsoft...
I mean, like DUH-- power always gets abused. That is why the founders of the US tried to mitigate it via separation of powers. That is why it is so important to limit the use of such things carefully, and not just buy off on pleas to "we're all in danger, trust us".
And today the abuse may may be inadvertent, but if nobody says anything tomorrow they'll remember they got away with it yesterday and use it intentionally...
Slashdot Mirror
200 years ago only male white landowners had the vote, held office, or ran businesses. Correspondingly, their judge of success was strictly how the male white landowners were doing. I suppose these are the "good old days" for some present-day male white landowners, but fortunately for most of us it ain't like that anymore...
The only implication I made is that people who cannot manage their money won't have it and people with money who cannot manage it, won't have it long. Only in America is the thought of sacrificing your drug habit or not buying a recreational vehicle over placing food on the table considered a deep decision the poor need to make. And for some reason, we should feel pity for them.
Actually, you are the one I pity. Your comic book caricatures of what people are like belie the fact that either you live in a significantly sheltered universe, or your powers of perception are seriously lacking.
As a libertarian, I must say that as long as your hand is out of my pocket, I don't give a flying frak about how happy or sad you are.
In a dog-eat-dog world such as yours, not everyone can sustain being a top dog indefinately, like you obviously can.
Fortunately for them, and perhaps less fortunately for you, most of the rest of the dogs can vote.
"Drafting": following another truck closely to save even more fuel, is a common practice.
I've always heard it referred to as "slipstreaming." But be careful about using it, I've done it in my car behind a semi, and they can feel the drag and may very well get pissed off about it, as it reduces their gas mileage.
The reason for the Iranian concern here is that the revolution was originally spread through compact cassette tapes. This has nothing to do with morality, it is all about political control.
That's an argument for monitoring, not for censorship. If they want to root out rebels, they should act like there's no censorship-- and not needlessly alert them to the fact that there's monitoring going on...
They're "keenly interested" because they need some new excuses to get people to go to theaters. The umpteen-plex theaters with limited movie selection and schedule, sticky floors, too-small screens, bad projection and noisy patrons are not such a big draw, and especially now that HD home screens are everywhere.
Unfortunately, the major problems that theaters have ain't likely to be fixed by a few releases in 3D, even if they're "blockbusters"...
It could well be that there is something wrong with your configuration or hardware.
How is that an excuse? Isn't an OS that can handle bad configurations or bad hardware without crashing a Good Thing(TM)? I've worked with both Linux and AIX quite a bit, and in my experience, the definition of "robust" is when the hardware or configuration can be bogus and the OS will let you know about it rather than crashing. From that standpoint, I've found AIX to be pretty robust, a good solid product, and I love the consistently designed admin command extensions (using ls, rm, mv, ch prefixes), and SMIT gets the job done well. I can't say as much about Linux, but that's probably because I haven't tried to run various RAID configurations on it and we don't have all that many in the field so I don't have enough experience with it in that regard...
"Why does Microsoft win the development environment war so often, when we all know it's a lifetime lock-in to Windows?"
This question only makes sense when addressed to the hobbyist, not the professional. Though even in that context, I'm not sure it's even true for the hobbyist.
I mean, do you really think that any non-Microsoft IDE could ever do very well against a Microsoft IDE when developing for a Microsoft OS, whether or not it's open source, or even regardless of how good it is, when the non-Microsoft solutions will always be playing catch-up when new OS features are released? And of course, when Microsoft makes an active effort to induce new incompatibilities, often just to make it harder for the competition?
Serious developers will choose Microsoft development tools because they're developing for a Microsoft OS. Period. You might better ask why people choose to develop for a Microsoft OS, but once that choice has been made, the choice of Microsoft development tools quickly becomes a no-brainer. Unless you're on a very tight budget, that is (i.e., you're a hobbyist). No professional chooses a platform because of the development tools, they choose development tools because of the platform.
One point...Most bands really do make their money from touring, not from their records. In fact, if you pay attention at all, you hear horror stories from everybody who isn't a corporate rock fuck about how if they had to rely on album sales they would starve to death.
Somebody makes money on album sales (or at least used to, pre-internet), it's just not the bands. The RIAA isn't going after the copyright infringement for mere principles...
Yes, I'd like to see open source ultrasound. The tech ain't really all that tough, and in fact probes routinely go up for sale on eBay, which you might be able to get even if you aren't authorized. For hobbyist use only, of course. Or perhaps science fair entries-- ultrasound brain imaging of hamsters or something...
I may be locked into Windows, but the rest of Microsoft products are very easy to avoid and I do that with remarkable ease....
The funny thing about this is, most of the "rest" of Microsoft products aren't actually all that bad-- it's just the OS that is crap, primarily. In fact, IMHO the non-OS products is what got Microsoft the desktop in the first place, as nobody buys a computer system for the OS it runs, but for the apps it runs (or at least, that's how they buy their *first* computer system). The first OS Microsoft had wasn't really much of an OS at all, just a sophisticated loader that could get their apps into memory and run them. Unfortunately, all subsequent OS products of theirs were arrived at by evolution instead of revolution, dragging all the junk DNA of it's hackneyed past with it.
ISPs are common carriers and as such have no business filtering ANYTHING. If they filter they will eventually become liable for misfiltering-- someday we should be able to depend on email as a secure (encrypted) and reliable channel, where ISPs won't even have access to the content, and anyway ISPs should simply get out of the censor & protect stupid users from themselves business. Get a decent spam filter for your mail client and shut the **** up about Spamhaus and other misguided RBL con games.
I would PREFER to listen to non-RIAA radio sources. I think it may actually be worth their while for independent webstreamers to get permission from the copyright owners-- and I expect before long there will be some streamlined approaches to the problem-- if you have music that you will allow to be streamed on independent internet radio stations you could indicate this via a common clearinghouse that could keep track of this sort of thing.
A USB turntable is great, but I have a huge record collection that I'd like to convert to MP3 and/or CD format, and the problem is not getting the audio into the computer from the turntable, but efficiently processing the turntable audio into separate tracks & applying noise reduction. What's the best software out there for this? The Numark eludes to having Audacity but doesn't indicate how smart it is-- if all the USB turntable does is eliminate the RCA->stereo phono->USB Audio in connections, it's not very interesting. What's important is smart conversion software. I'd like a one-step solution that will allow me to place a record on a turntable that's fed to a computer and end up with N prep'ed WAV files ready to burn to a CD or convert to MP3, already split by track and noise filtered (on a PC, not Mac)...
Any opinions?
...are every bit as clueless as the Republicans, they're just clueless about different stuff...
IBM is winning because IBM sell hardware, and since you can't copy hardware...well you are forced to buy at the price asked if you need something from them.... Open Source is only a solution for IBM to maximize its margin by lowering the cost developpement by shifting cost to other companies or naives individuals.
But if you are a purchaser of hardware, an open source solution guarantees a few things that closed source doesn't:
No conflict of interest features in the software-- such as software lock-in mechanisms, licensing limits, subscription limits, needless bloatware, useless features, new incompatibilities evolved in to force an upgrade (because upgrades are how money is made), incompatibilities designed to bar compatibility with competitors, proprietary enhancements to standards, etc.
The ability to port the software to new hardware (or the availablility of compatible hardware from other vendors) constitutes significant business security. Any app you run on IBM hardware under Linux has a pretty good chance of running without much problem on other hardware that also runs Linux, should IBM hardware go in a direction you don't want (such as more expensive, or should they phase-out the product line and change their mind about open source). If you have some issues in moving to Vista, sorry bud, you're stuck with it, unless you can keep your WS2003 and XP machines running forever.
Why would I, as a business owner, give my good, custom, closed software away to competitors that don't have anything like it, just in the hopes that my software will be marginally improved? In the meantime, assuming that my competition CAN improve my software, I'm giving my competition a huge advantage they didn't previously have. It's a LOT of risk, with minimal reward, for people who already have a software advantage.
If all that is keeping your company competitive with your competitors is your business software, you're already walking on thin ice. If your software would give your competitors your "huge advantage," you ought to charge them for it and close the doors of your original business as you'll clearly make more money that way...The major movie distributors know you want to be able to watch your DVDs on your laptops, and folks like Dell, etc., need that capability out of the box. However, Vista is the only PC OS that will provide them the security they think they need for you to play their HD DVDs on your computer (or at least, that's the idea, anyway). By pressuring Microsoft to phase XP out in favor of Vista quickly, they can be "justified" in saying that you must upgrade to Vista to watch commercial HD DVDs on your computer. It may be seen as a "win-win" between Microsoft and the movie distributors as both see the opportunity to sell a bunch of new product in the process.
Now whether or not they can actually get away with it, or if it will actually work, is another question. Existing laptops will have to upgrade their hardware DVD drive as well, providing they otherwise have the horsepower to run Vista. The barrier to entry of HD media on existing laptops is somewhat more than just Vista as well-- as they won't have HDMI outs... Noone would buy HD DVDs to run on a laptop that will show them in non-HD because they don't have the "approved" DRM hooks to play it full rez...
Microsoft has a long history of significant bloat at each new release of their OS. The hardware vendors love this though (and are Microsoft's biggest market), as it allows them to sell more memory, bigger drives and entire new computers. The Apple model of "to upgrade, throw away the old one and buy a new one" is the wet dream of all PC vendors, and Microsoft has always been perfectly willing to help in that regard.
But for me, XP will be the last OS I purchase from Microsoft, whether directly or supplied with the hardware. In my book, Vista has nothing to offer except backward compatibility at an increased cost-- and there's lots of cheaper alternatives out there for that. Vista may be more secure than XP, but a Microsoft "scorched earth policy" will send me off in search of one of the less restrictive alternatives.
This will simply help the corporate computer "consumers" to realize that the OS is far too important to their business to leave in the hands (and the conflict of interest) of desperate market protecting dinosaurs. The OS is essentially an application delivery system, and as such must ultimately attain common-carrier status. Microsoft is the Carnegie of our time, but now it is time to transition to new forms of transportation.
Ah but this is an issue of copy protection not region distribution. Yes the market has decided that the region locking was too strict. But it is much harder to find DVD players that do not honor macrovision. I have an old tv set in my bedroom with only an antenna input. I tried plugging-in my dvd player trhough the VCR it did not work because of the macrovision. I just could not find dvd player anywhere that I could do a remote code to get rid of macrovision. I bought one where there was a bug in the original firmware where you could get around the macrovision by fiddling with the output settings, not the ideal situation since it would not stick. But the one that I got had a firmware date that was a month later than the posting on the web and this particular bug was fixed. Lots of other bugs like video and audio losing sync remain. I have a feeling that the manufactures treat keeping the video producers happy with a high priority. I just had to buy a $10 rf modulator (actually I am on my second since the quality of the first and more expensive one was so terrible).
Actually, in your case it's the macrovision in the VCR that's the problem, not in the DVD player. If the VCR didn't honor macrovision it wouldn't have any trouble passing the signal through without disruption. If it was the DVD player that was the problem, an RF modulator wouldn't fix it...
So how do you fix that on HD? I haven't bought one yet, but after spending some time in a Best Buy to look at what's offered, I can't see paying much of anything for something where the xy resolution is high, but motion is significantly quantized. I don't think it can be explained as beating with the 60hz fluorescents in the store, what does it take to fix this annoyance? No way I'll pay that much for something that looks like I'm getting the motion at about 15hz and without even motion blur to hide it. Has the current HD system, whether 1080p or i or whatever, traded off smooth motion in favor of high x,y resolution, and is fundamentally flawed in this regard? Or was I just looking at cheap monitors or TV spots shot with budget HD cameras?
And to make it even more fun, think this: they later had to invent an explanation for exactly this kind of thing, namely the succubi and incubi. Virgin virtuous girls (yeah right) were supposedly impregnated by incubi. You don't invent a whole explanation for something that never happened ever since. So basically they knew it happened more than once, and in fact it happened again and again.
"Virgin birth" is actually a better excuse than incubi, if you can convince people of it:
Mary: Hey Joe, I'm pregnant!
Joseph: How can you tell?
Mary: It's pretty obvious, I'm starting to show.
Joseph: Uh oh! We're not married yet and they stone adulterers you know. We'd better get married right away!
Mary: That's great, but it's kinda late in the game here. How are we going to explain it?
Joseph: Hmmmm.. Let's see... Uh... How about, "incubi."
Mary: Not so good, then they'll be thinking the kid was fathered by a demon. Maybe not such a good idea.
Joseph: Well what then?
Mary: Uh.... well, ... hey, I know-- "virgin birth." That's it, that's the ticket...
Yeah, but your grandmother who doesn't have a computer can't get one. You can only get an Amazon gift certificate online, which screens out a lot of my relatives.
Exactly-- I was in a rare hurry for a book last week and went into the local B&N, they didn't have it in stock, so I went home and ordered it from Amazon which took a couple of days to arrive. A large number of the books I buy aren't usually in stock at B&N or Borders, which is probably the main reason I've been buying just about exclusively from Amazon for the last couple of years. And with DVDs & CDs, Tower was the only place that had a snowball's chance of having stuff I want in stock, and when they did the price was so high I always went home and ordered it from Amazon. The amount of gas & time I've saved trying to run the stuff down more than justifies the cost of shipping, even if Amazon's price was the same as the local brick & mortar-- though it's usually cheaper there as well.
Not only that, I do a lot of browsing on Amazon, and have a wish list that is at least 200 items, so I don't need the brick & mortar to show me what the mainstream is interested in-- I ain't mainstream for the most part and don't give a s***.
Yeah, Microsoft-- just continue to make it difficult for even legal users to use your system, rather than getting smart and realizing that the OS is a fading revenue stream for you and consequently porting all your apps (which is where any future revenue stream lies) to Linux, before it's too late. If Microsoft actually had the slightest of brains, they'd make sure SQL Server and Office and their language products (which actually, aren't all that badly designed products) ran on Linux before things like MySQL, Oracle, DB2, OpenOffice, etc.. get too much of a foothold there, leaving no place for them when they finally see the writing on the wall.
Microsoft's OS products were never why people bought their computers. For the most part, it's the office products that were their gravy train, the OS was just a delivery system. Well, guess what-- the delivery system is heading towards common carrier status where the percieved value of it is dropping and ultimately must be both standardized and open, in order for the computer industry to grow. Microsoft is painting themselves into a corner, which at the moment is still a pretty big corner, but one that is trending smaller, and in fact, has the capability to even crash if the application sets elsewhere were to finally convince Big Business(TM) to jump ship-- and we all know that Big Business(TM) is not the type to feel any loyalty to Microsoft...
I mean, like DUH-- power always gets abused. That is why the founders of the US tried to mitigate it via separation of powers. That is why it is so important to limit the use of such things carefully, and not just buy off on pleas to "we're all in danger, trust us".
And today the abuse may may be inadvertent, but if nobody says anything tomorrow they'll remember they got away with it yesterday and use it intentionally...