Ok, what the hell happened on/. today? First the "News Anchor Feels Pain from Afar" story where they bitch and moan because a news anchor spends 2 weeks a month in Florida during the winter but still reported Boston news from afar, and now this gloom and doom article about the "future" of video games with not one shread of evidence that anything the author says is coming true.
What's next? Some kid's blog that says the sky is falling?
I mean please, this is really sad. How about reporting real news for once and not this crap.
Has anyone even read the article? They're making a huge stink because the guy was sitting in sunny Florida while his radio broadcast was publicized in chilly Boston, and he'd say things like "boy it's freezing outside!"
Is it a slow news day or something? Don't you have anything else to bitch about? I thought I was going to read a "Wag the Dog" type article, but this guy's not making thing's up, it was cold in Boston and he reported that it was cold in Boston.
"My real point was that paypal must have far more satisfied customers than unsatisfied customers. Something tells me that if "millions" had really been "ripped off" by paypal, something more than a few websites with user complaints would have come of the whole problem."
What would you expect? Paypal executives to be in court like Enron executives? Unfortunately the average Paypal victim happens to be your average internet surfer, not wealthy bureaucrats with big bucks invested.
However the Attorney State General for Oklahoma, Florida and Nebraska are all investigating Paypal according to thesesites. You'd be shocked how difficult it is to bring about a conviction in a case like this, so prosecutors will stand idly by and wait years until enough evidence is compiled.
Let's do a little math, shall we? Paypal has over 35 million users, so let's agree that 10,000 users to them is nothing. Let's say they freeze $1,000 from those 10,000 users... with me so far? That's 10 million dollars. Obviously these people will file complaints... or will they? If they're a business and that money was for customer merchandise it's likely that the business owner himself will be the one facing the BBB, FTC and Attorney State General, and they don't care that the business owner was ripped off, they have dozens of complaining customers and want the matter resolved regardless of who's at fault.
But of course not everyone will face that. Let's say the rest file reports with the BBB, FTC and Attorney State General. Now having dealt with each of these organizations I can tell you they'll do absolutely nothing. So what's next? Lawsuits? Over $1000? Sure let's pay lawyers $150+/hr and high court fees, I mean you were just ripped off of $1000, surely you have a few more grand to pay so you can get your $1000 back, right? Wrong. Yes they could sue for court and lawyer fees but they still have to have the money up front to pay for all of that, and considering they just lost $1000 that's highly unlikely.
But sure there's going to be that 0.5% that actually have extra $$$ laying around, and those lawsuits end up online. So they go to court, Paypal loses (of course), and Paypal gives them their money back. So 0.5% of 10,000... why, that's 50 people. 50 x $1000 each = 50 grand. Oh boy, of the original 10 million stolen, Paypal has to pay back a whole 50 grand, and maybe some lawyer & court fees.
Get my point? This behavior seemed to be much more common years ago when Paypal didn't have the large user base, but this would work with even as little as 1 million people. Now that Paypal is actually making more money than it's spending let's hope they'll stop ripping people off, but they froze $1500 from me last year and I haven't seen a dime of it since so they're still in the rip-off business.
" I've used paypal on and off for a few years now, and know several others that have as well, and none of us have had a single problem. Something tells me that paypal has far more satisfied customers than unsatisfied customers."
I don't know anyone that has AIDS, does that mean I shouldn't bother wearing a condom? Your logic is severely flawed, just because Paypal has not affected your little group personally does not mean Paypal hasn't ripped off millions of other people and there's a risk you, or someone you know, will be ripped off too.
Course every Paypal victim was like you once, otherwise they wouldn't have been using Paypal, would they? Then they're ripped off, so they go online to warn others, only to be told by remaining Paypal users "What are you talking about? Paypal's great!"
Looks like he just whipped out a cheap digital camera and started snapping away, which is fine for your dime-a-dozen review site, but this is Tom's Hardware, which I'd argue is one of the largest review sites online (surprised they don't have a magazine yet). You'd think he could invest in a little better lighting or something, especially when it's a review of a product they have in office.
It's call "extension cords". 15 foot USB cables for mouse & keyboard, VGA extension cable for monitor, and volia! Shove PC in closet 15 feet away and you have noiseless computing at your disposal.
"I think it's safe to say we can blame the government for all of us being fat today."
wait... does that mean we can all sue the goverment instead of the fast food industry? We have the food pyramid to prove it and I've heard the gov't has some pretty deep pockets.
So quickly people forget. When DVD movies came out one DVD would fill my entire hard drive. Now I could fit 100. These new HD-DVDs aren't even out yet and I could already fit 10. I have a feeling when we do see these drives we'll all have hard drives that easily fit 50 HD-DVDs, and a few years later, 100+.
Course that's if we even see HD-DVD movies. DVD drives have just now been widely accepted now that players are down to $30. I highly doubt the average consumer's going to be happy being told "Hey we know you just bought a DVD player, but guess what, you have to buy this new $300 player now if you want to watch new DVDs!"
So I predict one of two things happening:
1) HD-DVD players won't be out for many years, when the market is ready for a new format, ~10 yrs.
2) HD-DVD drives will come out for your PC, but there won't be any movies, since they'll still be in DVD format.
I'm guessing 2, but we shall see. I still don't know why we need 25-50gig movies, I mean damn, most people don't have a TV that really takes advantage of the high resolution of DVDs, much less HD-DVD.
"2) Most people AREN'T on college campuses"
You're right, but I don't know anyone that transfers 5gig DVDs anyway. Everything's DivX or XviD last time I checked, so that's a non-issue.
"It only holds something like 72 hours of DV. HDTV streams are somewhere in the vicinity of 10-25 Mbps (DV is 25 Mbps or roughly 15 Gb/hr).
That's actually not a lot of space once you get into multimedia."
Fine, 1 terabyte isn't a lot, but what's next? Hard drive sizes are just going to get larger, and once HDTV multimedia is conquered what's The Next Big Thing? I for one don't see any Next Big Thing, I mean what's larger than high-resolution porn... er, I mean videos?
I agree with other members, 1 terabyte is a heck of a lot of space.
Does anyone know why it's called "Weed"? I mean besides the fact that weed is also a drug and it sounds like a cool name, is there any real reason? I checked the FAQ and About Us and found no explaination. Guess it's just a matter of time before someone comes out with p2p called "Sex".
Their FAQ says they use Paypal, and everyoneknows how horrible Paypal is. After reading all the horror stories who's really stupid enough to give Paypal their credit card number anyway? If similar stories were written about a brand of car there would be a massive recall and government investigation, amazing how Paypal still manages to sneak by.
How are they allowed to do this? If I wrote a program and someone was selling boot-legged copies on the street, I couldn't break up their stand and force them to hand over the copies, least not legally. That's vigilante justice. Heck even if someone stole my belongs and I found out where the criminal lives I couldn't legally smash down his door and take back my items. Only the police can do that.
So here's what you do: if guys wearing RIAA coats threaten you with violence pull out your gun and blow out their brains. When you're arrested explain to the judge you were in fear of your life and were simply protecting yourself.
I'm not a current MD owner but everything sounds good about this new Hi-MD player compared to other mp3 players:
-- less than $200
-- 45 hours of music, roughly equivalent to the "800" songs the mini-iPod claims
-- Sony quality & style
-- replaceable media
-- small size
-- and judging from the current MD players the battery life will likely be measured in days instead of hours
Only thing that concerns me is the interface: with 45 hours of music it better have some sort of smart iPod technology to catagorize the songs accordingly, which I'm sure it will considering it's Sony. According to the pdf it sounds like the DRM is exactly like the current copy-right protection in current Net MD devices and will only pertain to transferring data off the Hi-MD media, so all your current mp3s should transfer to the device fine.
Of all the new mp3 players recently released this is the one I'll be watching the closest.
The specs pdf doesn't discuss the players at all, but does reveal that the current MDs are only 177mB (that it?) and that you can format current MD media to a new "Hi-MD" format and double the size to 340mB, great if you already have MDs. The new Hi-MD also transfers ~7x faster, 10mb/sec instead of the current 1.25mb/sec, so it should have to spin less to load new songs into cache, further increasing battery life.
"It seems obvious that part of the licensing deal would stipulate that HP cannot undercut Apple's pricing. I would be shocked to see any HP models with anything but the same capacities as Apple's at the same prices. And if anything, they'll be physically bigger, or won't look as nice. Apple's going to keep the high ground somehow."
I have no doubt we'll see HP hPods in the same capacities of iPods for half the cost. Might not look as nice, but I never considered a mp3 player to be a fashion statement.
" Probably works nice with network booting, then selecting a configuration, start cloning and then reboot into a brand-spanking new & fresh OS installation."
Campus computers were setup like that. The drives were wiped when restarted, and on boot it'd load a cloned OS over the network onto the hard drive.
Kept the geeks from installing viruses and required no maintance, since the OS for every PC on campus was all on one server, just had to be sure every PC was similar so the drivers could be the same.
"The law would seem to ban handheld computers being used as navigation aids, too, or GPS devices with games, and very soon, nearly all cell phones. "
Not exactly. At the end it says:
"does not apply to the following equipment when installed in a vehicle:
1. A vehicle information display
2. A global positioning display
3. A mapping display
4. A visual display used to enhance or supplement the driver's view forward, behind, or to the sides of the motor vehicle for the purpose of maneuvering the vehicle.
5. A television receiver, video monitor, television or video screen, or any other, similar means of visually displaying a television broadcast or video signal, if that equipment has an interlock device that, when the motor vehicle is driven, disables the equpiment for all uses except as a visual displaay as described in paragraphs 1 to 4 (above), inclusive
So to me it sounds like it only applies to playing games or watching TV while the vehicle is moving. If you have your laptop and it's displaying a GPS map you're fine.
"I know what you mean. I feel the same way about those fuckers at Doctors Without Borders."
Yeah, and those damn nuns... and orphanages!
No but seriously, do you know what a apple is? How about a orange? How do they compare? Because that's what you're comparing.
Wikipedia is a far cry from doctors who provide emergency aid to war victims.
Wikipedia is one of the top 1000 sites on the internet. Want to guess how many of those sites aren't selling something or selling ads? Try less than 1%. So what would happen if every site currently running ads decided "hey, we shouldn't run ads, we should just beg for $$$!". Internet would be a pretty shitty place to surf.
It's like TV: wouldn't TV just suck if instead of commercials you had some corporate exec standing there begging for donations? What's that you say? PBS already does that crap? Exactly, and no one likes it.
Course none of this matters because Wikipedia made 20 grand in 1 day so apparently there's a lot of people out there that don't mind Paypal sucking their bank accounts dry so whatever.
When I went to the library a week ago to use the internet I had to sign an agreement basically stating I wouldn't sue the library for any information I found online.
I know this doesn't help with your decision, but you might want to have some sort of disclaimer up stating the cafe is not responsible for the content of the internet.
I sure hope someone already posted this, but like the saying goes:
give a man a fish,
he eats for a day,
teach a man to fish,
and he eats for a lifetime.
If their website needs 20 grand to survive then perhaps it should be allowed to fail? Obviously it's not paying for itself, and if the owner is unwilling to put up his own money and unwilling to make money through ads, registrations, etc then what happens when you need *another* 20 grand? Another/. article? Does he think he's the only one with a site that needs $$$? Should everyone post a/. article when their site needs money?
I'm not ashamed to say I think this is utter crap and I certainly hope this site crashes and burns.
or you could just go to a pawn shop and pick up a used tv.
You'd be amazed at how far $50 will go in a pawn shop.
If the only reason you're getting a tv-input card is so you can view your PS2 and MiniDV camera on your PC then you're better off spending the $$ on a real TV.
Slashdot Mirror
What's next? Some kid's blog that says the sky is falling?
I mean please, this is really sad. How about reporting real news for once and not this crap.
Is it a slow news day or something? Don't you have anything else to bitch about? I thought I was going to read a "Wag the Dog" type article, but this guy's not making thing's up, it was cold in Boston and he reported that it was cold in Boston.
Move on, nothing to see here...
What would you expect? Paypal executives to be in court like Enron executives? Unfortunately the average Paypal victim happens to be your average internet surfer, not wealthy bureaucrats with big bucks invested.
However the Attorney State General for Oklahoma, Florida and Nebraska are all investigating Paypal according to these sites. You'd be shocked how difficult it is to bring about a conviction in a case like this, so prosecutors will stand idly by and wait years until enough evidence is compiled.
Let's do a little math, shall we? Paypal has over 35 million users, so let's agree that 10,000 users to them is nothing. Let's say they freeze $1,000 from those 10,000 users... with me so far? That's 10 million dollars. Obviously these people will file complaints... or will they? If they're a business and that money was for customer merchandise it's likely that the business owner himself will be the one facing the BBB, FTC and Attorney State General, and they don't care that the business owner was ripped off, they have dozens of complaining customers and want the matter resolved regardless of who's at fault.
But of course not everyone will face that. Let's say the rest file reports with the BBB, FTC and Attorney State General. Now having dealt with each of these organizations I can tell you they'll do absolutely nothing. So what's next? Lawsuits? Over $1000? Sure let's pay lawyers $150+/hr and high court fees, I mean you were just ripped off of $1000, surely you have a few more grand to pay so you can get your $1000 back, right? Wrong. Yes they could sue for court and lawyer fees but they still have to have the money up front to pay for all of that, and considering they just lost $1000 that's highly unlikely.
But sure there's going to be that 0.5% that actually have extra $$$ laying around, and those lawsuits end up online. So they go to court, Paypal loses (of course), and Paypal gives them their money back. So 0.5% of 10,000... why, that's 50 people. 50 x $1000 each = 50 grand. Oh boy, of the original 10 million stolen, Paypal has to pay back a whole 50 grand, and maybe some lawyer & court fees.
Get my point? This behavior seemed to be much more common years ago when Paypal didn't have the large user base, but this would work with even as little as 1 million people. Now that Paypal is actually making more money than it's spending let's hope they'll stop ripping people off, but they froze $1500 from me last year and I haven't seen a dime of it since so they're still in the rip-off business.
I don't know anyone that has AIDS, does that mean I shouldn't bother wearing a condom? Your logic is severely flawed, just because Paypal has not affected your little group personally does not mean Paypal hasn't ripped off millions of other people and there's a risk you, or someone you know, will be ripped off too.
Course every Paypal victim was like you once, otherwise they wouldn't have been using Paypal, would they? Then they're ripped off, so they go online to warn others, only to be told by remaining Paypal users "What are you talking about? Paypal's great!"
It'll never end.
Looks like he just whipped out a cheap digital camera and started snapping away, which is fine for your dime-a-dozen review site, but this is Tom's Hardware, which I'd argue is one of the largest review sites online (surprised they don't have a magazine yet). You'd think he could invest in a little better lighting or something, especially when it's a review of a product they have in office.
Or you can spend $1400.
wait... does that mean we can all sue the goverment instead of the fast food industry? We have the food pyramid to prove it and I've heard the gov't has some pretty deep pockets.
So quickly people forget. When DVD movies came out one DVD would fill my entire hard drive. Now I could fit 100. These new HD-DVDs aren't even out yet and I could already fit 10. I have a feeling when we do see these drives we'll all have hard drives that easily fit 50 HD-DVDs, and a few years later, 100+.
Course that's if we even see HD-DVD movies. DVD drives have just now been widely accepted now that players are down to $30. I highly doubt the average consumer's going to be happy being told "Hey we know you just bought a DVD player, but guess what, you have to buy this new $300 player now if you want to watch new DVDs!"
So I predict one of two things happening:
1) HD-DVD players won't be out for many years, when the market is ready for a new format, ~10 yrs.
2) HD-DVD drives will come out for your PC, but there won't be any movies, since they'll still be in DVD format.
I'm guessing 2, but we shall see. I still don't know why we need 25-50gig movies, I mean damn, most people don't have a TV that really takes advantage of the high resolution of DVDs, much less HD-DVD.
"2) Most people AREN'T on college campuses"
You're right, but I don't know anyone that transfers 5gig DVDs anyway. Everything's DivX or XviD last time I checked, so that's a non-issue.
Fine, 1 terabyte isn't a lot, but what's next? Hard drive sizes are just going to get larger, and once HDTV multimedia is conquered what's The Next Big Thing? I for one don't see any Next Big Thing, I mean what's larger than high-resolution porn... er, I mean videos?
I agree with other members, 1 terabyte is a heck of a lot of space.
Next you're going to tell me my frame rates will go DOWN a whopping 2%!
"---Original BIOS---
FX5900 @ 475Mhz/950Mhz DDR (Overclocked to FX5950U Speeds)
3DMark03: 5770
---A380U BIOS---
FX5950 @ 475Mhz/950Mhz DDR (Default FX5950U Speeds)
3DMark03: 5661"
Sounds like one mod I can't wait to do...
Their FAQ says they use Paypal, and everyone knows how horrible Paypal is. After reading all the horror stories who's really stupid enough to give Paypal their credit card number anyway? If similar stories were written about a brand of car there would be a massive recall and government investigation, amazing how Paypal still manages to sneak by.
So here's what you do: if guys wearing RIAA coats threaten you with violence pull out your gun and blow out their brains. When you're arrested explain to the judge you were in fear of your life and were simply protecting yourself.
-- less than $200
-- 45 hours of music, roughly equivalent to the "800" songs the mini-iPod claims
-- Sony quality & style
-- replaceable media
-- small size
-- and judging from the current MD players the battery life will likely be measured in days instead of hours
Only thing that concerns me is the interface: with 45 hours of music it better have some sort of smart iPod technology to catagorize the songs accordingly, which I'm sure it will considering it's Sony. According to the pdf it sounds like the DRM is exactly like the current copy-right protection in current Net MD devices and will only pertain to transferring data off the Hi-MD media, so all your current mp3s should transfer to the device fine.
Of all the new mp3 players recently released this is the one I'll be watching the closest.
The specs pdf doesn't discuss the players at all, but does reveal that the current MDs are only 177mB (that it?) and that you can format current MD media to a new "Hi-MD" format and double the size to 340mB, great if you already have MDs. The new Hi-MD also transfers ~7x faster, 10mb/sec instead of the current 1.25mb/sec, so it should have to spin less to load new songs into cache, further increasing battery life.
Then prepare to be shocked: Apple licensed out the MacOS back in the mid to late 90s and overnight several clone manufactures popped up. The machines didn't look as good as Apples but they were much cheaper, roughly 25% cheaper. Apple lost lots of money on the deal.
I have no doubt we'll see HP hPods in the same capacities of iPods for half the cost. Might not look as nice, but I never considered a mp3 player to be a fashion statement.
Campus computers were setup like that. The drives were wiped when restarted, and on boot it'd load a cloned OS over the network onto the hard drive.
Kept the geeks from installing viruses and required no maintance, since the OS for every PC on campus was all on one server, just had to be sure every PC was similar so the drivers could be the same.
This is just another reason to get a sedan or SUV, so passengers can sit in the back and type away.
Not exactly. At the end it says: "does not apply to the following equipment when installed in a vehicle:
1. A vehicle information display
2. A global positioning display
3. A mapping display
4. A visual display used to enhance or supplement the driver's view forward, behind, or to the sides of the motor vehicle for the purpose of maneuvering the vehicle.
5. A television receiver, video monitor, television or video screen, or any other, similar means of visually displaying a television broadcast or video signal, if that equipment has an interlock device that, when the motor vehicle is driven, disables the equpiment for all uses except as a visual displaay as described in paragraphs 1 to 4 (above), inclusive
So to me it sounds like it only applies to playing games or watching TV while the vehicle is moving. If you have your laptop and it's displaying a GPS map you're fine.
Here's to hoping.... /cheers/
Yeah, and those damn nuns... and orphanages!
No but seriously, do you know what a apple is? How about a orange? How do they compare? Because that's what you're comparing.
Wikipedia is a far cry from doctors who provide emergency aid to war victims.
Wikipedia is one of the top 1000 sites on the internet. Want to guess how many of those sites aren't selling something or selling ads? Try less than 1%. So what would happen if every site currently running ads decided "hey, we shouldn't run ads, we should just beg for $$$!". Internet would be a pretty shitty place to surf.
It's like TV: wouldn't TV just suck if instead of commercials you had some corporate exec standing there begging for donations? What's that you say? PBS already does that crap? Exactly, and no one likes it.
Course none of this matters because Wikipedia made 20 grand in 1 day so apparently there's a lot of people out there that don't mind Paypal sucking their bank accounts dry so whatever.
I laughed, but they were completely serious. Apparently libraries have been sued before because of the content of the internet! But if the library installs filters, they violate first admendment rights.
I know this doesn't help with your decision, but you might want to have some sort of disclaimer up stating the cafe is not responsible for the content of the internet.
give a man a fish,
he eats for a day,
teach a man to fish,
and he eats for a lifetime.
If their website needs 20 grand to survive then perhaps it should be allowed to fail? Obviously it's not paying for itself, and if the owner is unwilling to put up his own money and unwilling to make money through ads, registrations, etc then what happens when you need *another* 20 grand? Another
I'm not ashamed to say I think this is utter crap and I certainly hope this site crashes and burns.
I'm sure you've made millions of lawyers happy with that statement.
Dr: Oh, just put it in a book so 100 years from now someone can find it and get all excited.
Anyone else find this just a tiny bit sick? Saving scabs for later use?
You'd be amazed at how far $50 will go in a pawn shop.
If the only reason you're getting a tv-input card is so you can view your PS2 and MiniDV camera on your PC then you're better off spending the $$ on a real TV.
Mini-ITX Pros:
--PC-ish prices (mb & 1ghz cpu = $100)
--uses standard PC ram
--has standard PCI & AGP slots
--consumes less than 100w
Mini-ITX Cons:
--Can't go past 1ghz (currently), so if you absolutely must have 2ghz while talkin' to the trees you're gonna need a laptop
So basically it boils down to how much you want to spend?
Want to save a few hundred bucks and can live with 1ghz? Get Mini-ITX.
Absolutely must have 2ghz, a video card you can never upgrade, and have a grand or two burning a hole in your pocket? Get a laptop.