Inflation is inflation -- its a reflection of how things cost more on average with time. 2% more per year right now in Canada. That is to say, if you save $1000 and make 2% interest on it, you've gained nothing in spending power.
Inflation is a fact of life these days with current economies.
A loaf of bread costs more right now than it did 20 years ago too. So do houses.
Electronics are slightly different in that the quality for a given price point increases dramatically with time (Moore's law and all that). In that sense, consumer electronics tend to hit a good selling price then stay there.
A $1500 computer 10 years ago would do for you then what a $1500 computer will do for you today, but you'll get a lot more (relative) computer out of it. Its still about the same point on the Bell curve of quality though compared to its peers.
I would assume the PS3 will sell out at $500 and $600, allowing them to continue manufacturing, driving the price down until they're profitable (very quickly, looking at Sony's sales history in this regard), at which point they'll start dropping the price (probably 8 months after release). I'd expect it to be a full $100 cheaper by next Christmas, and have a lot of games available too.
Actually Tom's Hardware uses a lot of benchmarks that represent real computer use as well as gaming. That said, anyone who buys the latest greatest high-end benchmarked CPU for internet browsing is a luddite.
I tell all my clients the same thing for their (non-CAD) business desktops: buy the cheapest smallest, least expensive machine with a 3 yr on-site warrantee (often a Dell Optiplex). You don't need 6ch sound for a business desktop or the ability to push a few billion texels per second.
What I'd like to know is who out there doesn't realize already that PCs will surpass consoles in speed *eventually* within their lifecycles. Consoles have lifetimes many years longer than any CPU or GPU. Every few months a faster CPU or GPU is released with better specs; eventually one will catch up or be faster than a console.
That said, the PS2 mentionned in the article is now only ~ $150 at retail. It'd be hard to suprass its gaming capabilities for $150 worth of PC components (hard drive + ram + cpu + motherboard + video card... )
... and that's the rub; this is a router. Surely in most cases its getting DNS information from an ISP by DHCP on behalf of its clients.
It could, you know, use that information to resolve pool.ntp.org properly.
PS, being a good netizen, I run a public NTP server that is listed on north-america.pool.ntp.org as well as ca.pool.ntp.org (being in Canada and all). I also have all my internal LAN clients query from that server, instead of the outside.
My public ntpd service is using very little memory (let me check; RSS: 4076, TRS: 433) and the bandwidth usage is not very high either.
For the quick-fix people, point your NTP capable system at pool.ntp.org.
If you live in north america, you can use the north-america.pool.ntp.org dns name instead, for only north american servers. The same applies to other continents and several country codes.
Basically, there's no excuse for hard-coding a time server in almost any situation, unless your client is completely incapable of DNS and has no access to external DNS servers.
Just to help you out a little, take a look at the stats.
Unintentional injuries caused 4.4% of deaths in 2002; accidents caused 12752 deaths among 15-24 yr olds alone in fact.
Terrorists didn't win on Sep 11, they won when the PATRIOT act was introduced.
What did we as a society so despise about the "commies" during the cold war? Their repression of freedoms? How about the Taliban? How they restricted freedoms? What exactly are americans standing up for by allowing massive government suppression of their freedoms?
The really intelligent measures would be to create new TLDs that are restrictive to other areas.
There should be a TLD for registered businesses only. One for registered trademarks only. One for registered non profits only.
I should be able to know that if I go to http://www.wwf.nfp/ that its a not for profit agency..net,.com and.org became completely bastardized. Lets get some organization involved again.
I find DVDs don't look anywhere near as nice since I upgraded my home theatre system to include an HDTV. I now watch HD shows like CSI which look absolutely astoundingly beautiful then I put in a DVD and find its grainy. Upconverted or not, there's a huge resolution difference between the two.
I'd posit that most people who can't see the difference either don't have true HD HDTV sets or need glasses (really). If you find road signs fuzzy on the side of the road, you shouldn't bother with HD.
Believing in small government, for example, is not the same as believing in no government. Believing in minimal necessary legislation is not the same as believing in legislating everything.
I believe very strongly that some legislation is needed for some things. I do not however believe that minor social interactions should be legislated (thou shalt smile at thine neighbour). Laugh if you must, but some laws get pretty close.
In BC (canadian province), for example, a bill is being proposed that would remove liability from people who appologize privately or publically. That is to say, you would not be putting yourself into a legally difficult position by saying you're sorry for doing something, nor would you be admitting legal responsibility in any way. The hope is to allow persons, governments and companies to be forthcoming with much-needed appologies for actions instead of being so guarded.
This is a great example of why too much (prior) legislation can be harmful -- people no longer appologize for fear of being sued. How screwed up is that?
Ahh, memories of my drive into work this morning and terrible human drivers. At the very least, robotic cars might be deterministic (depending on algorithms), right?
I'm sure a few people said 'ok, good luck with that' when Linus released his Linux source code as well.
I don't even believe that everything will or should eventually be open. I believe in privacy in some cases, and protection for innovators. I even believe that innovators deserve to benefit from their innovations for a while.
That said, there's nothing wrong with having hopes and some vision and I think the right thing to do is to have software algorithms licensed such that individuals can afford to use their PCs effectively.
Worse, casual people interested in a first or second gaming platform may have no idea what it is, when they were waiting to purchase a Revolution.
I've advised many people to wait for a Revolution to come out and buy one because it suits their style, but now they're going to ask me "What's this Wii thing (haha) and what happened to the Revolution?"
Gaming is a cheaper and smarter investment than say, going to the movies or watching the boob tube all day.
I know many people who pay $100/mo for high-end digital cable subscriptions. Mine's $20/mo (CAN $) and I spend $$$ on games instead (often used, a year old, etc. to save a little cash).
I've got over 100 hours out of Burnout 3 for the $50 it cost me. $0.50/hr. That's a good cost/benefit ratio to me. Factor in the thousand hours of total game play my PS2 has gotten against it $200 price tag, and we'll notice the investment is still worthwhile.
Its not just a store, not even by their own definition.
They're one of the largest employers in north america.
They're a major consumer of warehouse goods and the largest single distributor of CDs among other products.
As such, Walmart has tremendous influence on both market pricing (demanding that CDs be $1 less each in recent history) and on the lives of those that work there (and the secondary jobs created or lost as a result).
Economy is not simple, anyone who believes so is simply ignorant.
I've seen more people whose heads disappear from my view because they're looking for a CD on the floor of the passenger's side of the car (or van!), or need to tune the radio with their 100% undivided attention or think eating a bowl of cereal while driving is smart...... or painting their nails while driving on a super highway or fixing their eyeliner in the rear-view mirror in a school zone...... being an idiot isn't against the law, but driving like one should be, cell phone or not. If you're not paying attention, you should get pulled over, no matter the cause. If you can drive and talk on your cell or drink coffee or any other reasonable activity and not cause problems, you should be free to do so.
In other words, cell-phone specific laws are stupid. Period. Bad driving is already against the law, just enforce it.
Speaking of DRM != copy protection, I'd be all for government involvement in DRM, if the government mandated consumer protection DRM.
That is, encrypted DVDs allow full copying of content after expiry of Copyright period, allow for easy copying of individual snippets for use in other media presentations and for fair use, etc.
If my rights were being managed properly, I'd be a lot happier.
Re:I actually agree with the CRIA on something..
on
CRIA Falling Apart?
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· Score: 1
You're totally missing the point of the levy.
The levy gives you the right to make private copies from any source.
Go to your friend's house, borrow his CD collection and burn copies for yourself.
That's legal.
Record broadcast radio onto cassette for your own private listening later, that's legal too.
Any private personal copying is legal in Canada and it was made possible because of this levy. Would you prefer to have it be illegal to make mix-tapes? It is in most Berne countries.
Slashdot Mirror
Inflation is inflation -- its a reflection of how things cost more on average with time. 2% more per year right now in Canada. That is to say, if you save $1000 and make 2% interest on it, you've gained nothing in spending power.
Inflation is a fact of life these days with current economies.
A loaf of bread costs more right now than it did 20 years ago too. So do houses.
Electronics are slightly different in that the quality for a given price point increases dramatically with time (Moore's law and all that). In that sense, consumer electronics tend to hit a good selling price then stay there.
A $1500 computer 10 years ago would do for you then what a $1500 computer will do for you today, but you'll get a lot more (relative) computer out of it. Its still about the same point on the Bell curve of quality though compared to its peers.
I would assume the PS3 will sell out at $500 and $600, allowing them to continue manufacturing, driving the price down until they're profitable (very quickly, looking at Sony's sales history in this regard), at which point they'll start dropping the price (probably 8 months after release). I'd expect it to be a full $100 cheaper by next Christmas, and have a lot of games available too.
Since the day I bought my HDTV I've refused to purchase another DVD until HD movie media is available.
Watching CSI in HD is beautiful; then switching to the LotR on DVD is painful.
I'm glad I bought the boxed set (the Lord of the Rings that is), but now I wish it were in HD by a long shot. There's a huge quality difference.
Personally, I'll be buying a PS3 for the cheap Blu-Ray player, and so will a lot of other people.
They may have switched to AMD cores :-)
Actually Tom's Hardware uses a lot of benchmarks that represent real computer use as well as gaming. That said, anyone who buys the latest greatest high-end benchmarked CPU for internet browsing is a luddite.
... )
I tell all my clients the same thing for their (non-CAD) business desktops: buy the cheapest smallest, least expensive machine with a 3 yr on-site warrantee (often a Dell Optiplex). You don't need 6ch sound for a business desktop or the ability to push a few billion texels per second.
What I'd like to know is who out there doesn't realize already that PCs will surpass consoles in speed *eventually* within their lifecycles. Consoles have lifetimes many years longer than any CPU or GPU. Every few months a faster CPU or GPU is released with better specs; eventually one will catch up or be faster than a console.
That said, the PS2 mentionned in the article is now only ~ $150 at retail. It'd be hard to suprass its gaming capabilities for $150 worth of PC components (hard drive + ram + cpu + motherboard + video card
... and that's the rub; this is a router. Surely in most cases its getting DNS information from an ISP by DHCP on behalf of its clients.
It could, you know, use that information to resolve pool.ntp.org properly.
PS, being a good netizen, I run a public NTP server that is listed on north-america.pool.ntp.org as well as ca.pool.ntp.org (being in Canada and all). I also have all my internal LAN clients query from that server, instead of the outside.
My public ntpd service is using very little memory (let me check; RSS: 4076, TRS: 433) and the bandwidth usage is not very high either.
These situations make no sense to me. The NTP system is very easy to use properly.
There's a great little website about how to use ntp.org servers properly.
For the quick-fix people, point your NTP capable system at pool.ntp.org.
If you live in north america, you can use the north-america.pool.ntp.org dns name instead, for only north american servers. The same applies to other continents and several country codes.
Basically, there's no excuse for hard-coding a time server in almost any situation, unless your client is completely incapable of DNS and has no access to external DNS servers.
Just to help you out a little, take a look at the stats.
Unintentional injuries caused 4.4% of deaths in 2002; accidents caused 12752 deaths among 15-24 yr olds alone in fact.
Terrorists didn't win on Sep 11, they won when the PATRIOT act was introduced.
What did we as a society so despise about the "commies" during the cold war? Their repression of freedoms? How about the Taliban? How they restricted freedoms? What exactly are americans standing up for by allowing massive government suppression of their freedoms?
The really intelligent measures would be to create new TLDs that are restrictive to other areas.
.net, .com and .org became completely bastardized. Lets get some organization involved again.
There should be a TLD for registered businesses only. One for registered trademarks only. One for registered non profits only.
I should be able to know that if I go to http://www.wwf.nfp/ that its a not for profit agency.
Anyone got statistics on the number of women abused in the USA every year that are looking for help?
How about child predator cases?
How about looking for information on birth control / abortion / legal help / etc. that one can't do at home for fear of possible reprisals?
Is there some reason politicians can't realize there are a large number of people needing anonymous access to resources and they aren't all predators?
I was trying to disable ads so it wouldn't look like a slashdot-effect-ad-revenue thing.
Forgot to put in the exception handlers though.
I assumed the focusing would be difficult, but couldn't rapidly calculate antenna sizes in my head for such a task. It would be interesting though.
Pulse heat lasers might be more practical mind you.
I'm with you.
I find DVDs don't look anywhere near as nice since I upgraded my home theatre system to include an HDTV. I now watch HD shows like CSI which look absolutely astoundingly beautiful then I put in a DVD and find its grainy. Upconverted or not, there's a huge resolution difference between the two.
I'd posit that most people who can't see the difference either don't have true HD HDTV sets or need glasses (really). If you find road signs fuzzy on the side of the road, you shouldn't bother with HD.
How about focussed microwave energy? Burn the suckers up.
Actually, its not hypocritical at all.
Believing in small government, for example, is not the same as believing in no government. Believing in minimal necessary legislation is not the same as believing in legislating everything.
I believe very strongly that some legislation is needed for some things. I do not however believe that minor social interactions should be legislated (thou shalt smile at thine neighbour). Laugh if you must, but some laws get pretty close.
In BC (canadian province), for example, a bill is being proposed that would remove liability from people who appologize privately or publically. That is to say, you would not be putting yourself into a legally difficult position by saying you're sorry for doing something, nor would you be admitting legal responsibility in any way. The hope is to allow persons, governments and companies to be forthcoming with much-needed appologies for actions instead of being so guarded.
This is a great example of why too much (prior) legislation can be harmful -- people no longer appologize for fear of being sued. How screwed up is that?
Ahh, memories of my drive into work this morning and terrible human drivers. At the very least, robotic cars might be deterministic (depending on algorithms), right?
I'm sure a few people said 'ok, good luck with that' when Linus released his Linux source code as well.
I don't even believe that everything will or should eventually be open. I believe in privacy in some cases, and protection for innovators. I even believe that innovators deserve to benefit from their innovations for a while.
That said, there's nothing wrong with having hopes and some vision and I think the right thing to do is to have software algorithms licensed such that individuals can afford to use their PCs effectively.
Judge a woman on appearance and you lose.
Judge her on her intelligence and you lose.
How do we win?
Oh nvm, I'm married.
Worse, casual people interested in a first or second gaming platform may have no idea what it is, when they were waiting to purchase a Revolution.
I've advised many people to wait for a Revolution to come out and buy one because it suits their style, but now they're going to ask me "What's this Wii thing (haha) and what happened to the Revolution?"
I run dual screens at 1152x864 each and I'm hoping to be able to afford the video card to run NWN2 and Oblivion each at good speeds.
Probably a post-Christmas bonus purchase.
My PC as it is now.
Gaming is a cheaper and smarter investment than say, going to the movies or watching the boob tube all day.
I know many people who pay $100/mo for high-end digital cable subscriptions. Mine's $20/mo (CAN $) and I spend $$$ on games instead (often used, a year old, etc. to save a little cash).
I've got over 100 hours out of Burnout 3 for the $50 it cost me. $0.50/hr. That's a good cost/benefit ratio to me. Factor in the thousand hours of total game play my PS2 has gotten against it $200 price tag, and we'll notice the investment is still worthwhile.
My wife even approves.
Its not just a store, not even by their own definition.
They're one of the largest employers in north america.
They're a major consumer of warehouse goods and the largest single distributor of CDs among other products.
As such, Walmart has tremendous influence on both market pricing (demanding that CDs be $1 less each in recent history) and on the lives of those that work there (and the secondary jobs created or lost as a result).
Economy is not simple, anyone who believes so is simply ignorant.
I use noscript for Firefox; there's no Javascript in my browsing unless I turn it on specifically for a given site.
I don't trust Javascript or the script programmers, sorry.
I don't install executables all willy-nilly either.
Expecting people to enable javascript to see your site at all is limiting to your market.
I've seen more people whose heads disappear from my view because they're looking for a CD on the floor of the passenger's side of the car (or van!), or need to tune the radio with their 100% undivided attention or think eating a bowl of cereal while driving is smart ... ... or painting their nails while driving on a super highway or fixing their eyeliner in the rear-view mirror in a school zone ... ... being an idiot isn't against the law, but driving like one should be, cell phone or not. If you're not paying attention, you should get pulled over, no matter the cause. If you can drive and talk on your cell or drink coffee or any other reasonable activity and not cause problems, you should be free to do so.
In other words, cell-phone specific laws are stupid. Period. Bad driving is already against the law, just enforce it.
Speaking of DRM != copy protection, I'd be all for government involvement in DRM, if the government mandated consumer protection DRM.
That is, encrypted DVDs allow full copying of content after expiry of Copyright period, allow for easy copying of individual snippets for use in other media presentations and for fair use, etc.
If my rights were being managed properly, I'd be a lot happier.
You're totally missing the point of the levy.
The levy gives you the right to make private copies from any source.
Go to your friend's house, borrow his CD collection and burn copies for yourself.
That's legal.
Record broadcast radio onto cassette for your own private listening later, that's legal too.
Any private personal copying is legal in Canada and it was made possible because of this levy. Would you prefer to have it be illegal to make mix-tapes? It is in most Berne countries.