I still think Apple is being rather silly about the cash issue.
I agree. I wouldn't ever pay cash for something that expensive, but I can see where other people would want to be able to. And I don't really understand how refusing cash makes it easier for Apple to stop people from hacking iPhones. If it's to track sales so you can only buy 2 iPhones per year per credit card or something, just use another credit card...
This mystical belief is at the heart of the environmental movement
So strong scientific evidence that humans have been the cause of several potentially dangerous changes in the environment is a mystical belief to you? Interesting...
I enjoy computer games (and console games), but I think "to me the mouse is the best input device ever" seems a bit stupid. I'm surprised such a statement came from someone as esteemed as Will Wright. The best input device clearly depends on the application. Is the mouse the best input device for a word processor? How about Tetris? Anybody ever play Monkeyball, and then try to play Neverball with a mouse? I bet you'll find yourself wishing for an analog control stick...Of course the mouse is better for, say, an FPS or an RTS war-game, but it's not the be-all and end-all of input devices...
Verizon and Comcast are the only internet providers (and that's really a lesser of two evils) unless you want to go wireless (satellite, etc, $$$).
Wireless isn't necessarily expensive. I had a wireless broadband connection for a few years that was actually a little cheaper than my current Comcast broadband. It basically just used a dish on my roof that pointed at a tower a bit north of my house. I only switched to Comcast because the ISP was horrible...
Sounds like a nice example of management desire to tie in charges-per-use is taking priority over unimportant stuff like app performance. Maybe we'll be proven wrong.
Not to mention the complete lack of a demand for this sort of thing. I can kind of see the online office suite. It'd be useful for people who use many different computers, and for sharing documents. It's not my bag, but I can see a potential market. But why would anybody want online professional photo-editing software? Or an online Flash? What's the point?
What was interesting, to me, is that there were so many 102 (novelty) rejections. In patents, novelty rejections mean "super obvious".
And it only took, what, like, half the lifetime of the patent for the USPTO to discover and reject them...I'd hate to see what they do with the merely "plainly obvious"
Bullshit. Sony is a hardware manufacturer. They make the whole thing from end to end. They create the price and take all the profit
Regardless, they are in fact selling the system at a loss...as the price of BlueRay comes down, I imagine they will start to make a profit on the hardware, but that's not currently where their money is coming from. The GP is correct, they make money off of licensing games to run on their system.
Indeed. I left Verizon years ago (used to have them for landline and DSL), and haven't looked back. They were horrible then, and have clearly only gotten worse. Not that the other phone companies are saints, but Verizon just sucks.
Is this really all that useful? How many of you scan business cards? I never do. If I need to email somebody who's given me a business card, I type in the email address, and then it's in my address book...probably takes less time than scanning and OCR'ing the thing...on the occasion that I need their phone number too, I type it into my phone and hit 'store'. I can't imagine wanting to scan every business card that I get...
Hmm - how does Voice Over Internet Protocol not constitute internet access?
OOh! That's an easy one. See, you're thinking about this from a technical standpoint. Of course there's no difference technically. However, you have to think like a congressman. Who has a lot of money to give to your campaign? Who has really nice jets that they use to fly you to golf outings? Who? Oh, yes! It's the phone companies! That's why it's different! Because even though they say competition is important to a free market, they don't really mean _free_ market. Just free enough that they can still collect money from big business.
All the big carriers I went to wanted to lock me in to a 2 year contract.
Technically speaking, you can usually choose to buy the phone outright (rather than at a huge discount) and forgo the contract. Have to agree that cell service is overpriced, though.
The venue is generally supposed to be paying a blanket fee to (I think) BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC for royalties. Some do, some don't. And, obviously, since it isn't a government agency collecting the fees, it isn't a tax.
You, sir, are a certified fuckwit, and apparently proud of it. Such results are already written up, for example by Russell, who is one of the canonical audiophilia debunkers. See the links upthread. For once in your life, please attempt to use your brain before spouting bollocks.
So, you're arguing that there is an audible difference between overpriced and really overpriced cables, and to do that, you're referencing a guy who says there isn't a difference? Are you insane? In fact, Russell says pretty much the exact same thing I've said: "It can be solid, stranded, copper, oxygen free copper, silver, etc.--or even "magic" wire--as long as the resistance is kept to be less than 5% of the speaker impedance. There is no listening difference as long as the wire is of adequate size." - http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm
Why on earth would you be more interested in reading a write-up by someone else when it's trivial to perform such an experiment yourself - all you need is a decent hifi with some low impedence speakers, and one friend? And don't bother writing it up - you don't need to write things up in order to make them a reality, you know.
Well, for one, if you do a real empirical study, prove that there's an audible difference, and write it up, you could get $1M from James Randi. I suspect, however, that you can't prove that there's an audible difference, and you know that you can't, so instead of trying, you're just going to make up excuses as to why empirical studies and research papers are just hogwash.
You're just throwing buzz-words around without understanding them.
Not at all. I know exactly what a double-blind experiment is. And in your previous post, you implied that you were blinded as in "eyes closed", which isn't necessarily a blind test. And if you did participate in a real single blind test, where is the write-up? I've yet to see a research paper that proves any difference whatsoever as long as gauge is sufficient, and connections are solid. If you have a published paper that says differently, I'd be very interested to read it, especially if it were to be a comparison between say, Monster Cables and these $302 per foot cables.
Just for reference, if you're so clever, can you please tell me the impedence of the speaker units I was using and the length of the cables being used, and from make an estimate as to the impedence of the cables themselves?
How in the world would I know the length of the cables you were using? And if I were testing them, I would measure the actual impedance, not try to calculate it...
Because you are aware that those factors make a very big difference, aren't you?
Yes, they make a difference to a point. Never said they didn't.
Yeah, a mailing list with a lot of people hitting "reply all" really isn't the same as a DDoS attack...it's just a mailing list with a lot of people hitting "reply all"
I didn't think it made much of a difference at first but then I switched the sub woofer cable for one from RCA as well. First thing I noticed was that I had to turn the sub woofer down.
That probably had more to do with the gauge of the wire than anything...
[quote]More importantly, are the connectors gold, platinum or silver plated. That makes all the difference in sound quality. You don't want your "Down on the Corner" played by Creedence Clearwater sounding like a busker in a subway station.[/quote]
Technically speaking the gold-plated connectors do have some benefit over extended periods of time, since they don't corrode.
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I still think Apple is being rather silly about the cash issue.
I agree. I wouldn't ever pay cash for something that expensive, but I can see where other people would want to be able to. And I don't really understand how refusing cash makes it easier for Apple to stop people from hacking iPhones. If it's to track sales so you can only buy 2 iPhones per year per credit card or something, just use another credit card...
Don't use your iPhone where I can see you. I will knock you to the ground, take it from you and smash it to bits. Better yet, don't buy one.
The lawsuits must be getting expensive...
This mystical belief is at the heart of the environmental movement
So strong scientific evidence that humans have been the cause of several potentially dangerous changes in the environment is a mystical belief to you? Interesting...
If you had to choose one existing controller to use for everything for the rest of time, what would you choose?
That's easy. Hammer.
Yes, I prefer playing games on the computer, too.
I enjoy computer games (and console games), but I think "to me the mouse is the best input device ever" seems a bit stupid. I'm surprised such a statement came from someone as esteemed as Will Wright. The best input device clearly depends on the application. Is the mouse the best input device for a word processor? How about Tetris? Anybody ever play Monkeyball, and then try to play Neverball with a mouse? I bet you'll find yourself wishing for an analog control stick...Of course the mouse is better for, say, an FPS or an RTS war-game, but it's not the be-all and end-all of input devices...
Verizon and Comcast are the only internet providers (and that's really a lesser of two evils) unless you want to go wireless (satellite, etc, $$$).
Wireless isn't necessarily expensive. I had a wireless broadband connection for a few years that was actually a little cheaper than my current Comcast broadband. It basically just used a dish on my roof that pointed at a tower a bit north of my house. I only switched to Comcast because the ISP was horrible...
Sounds like a nice example of management desire to tie in charges-per-use is taking priority over unimportant stuff like app performance. Maybe we'll be proven wrong.
Not to mention the complete lack of a demand for this sort of thing. I can kind of see the online office suite. It'd be useful for people who use many different computers, and for sharing documents. It's not my bag, but I can see a potential market. But why would anybody want online professional photo-editing software? Or an online Flash? What's the point?
Foxit is terrific. It's a small download, it loads about 200x faster than the bloated Adobe Reader, and it's free!
It's apparently 'reasonable' to monitor everyone in time of war. Luckily, we're always at war.
Shhhhh!!! We're not supposed to notice that!
What was interesting, to me, is that there were so many 102 (novelty) rejections. In patents, novelty rejections mean "super obvious".
And it only took, what, like, half the lifetime of the patent for the USPTO to discover and reject them...I'd hate to see what they do with the merely "plainly obvious"
Bullshit. Sony is a hardware manufacturer. They make the whole thing from end to end. They create the price and take all the profit
Regardless, they are in fact selling the system at a loss...as the price of BlueRay comes down, I imagine they will start to make a profit on the hardware, but that's not currently where their money is coming from. The GP is correct, they make money off of licensing games to run on their system.
Indeed. I left Verizon years ago (used to have them for landline and DSL), and haven't looked back. They were horrible then, and have clearly only gotten worse. Not that the other phone companies are saints, but Verizon just sucks.
Is this really all that useful? How many of you scan business cards? I never do. If I need to email somebody who's given me a business card, I type in the email address, and then it's in my address book...probably takes less time than scanning and OCR'ing the thing...on the occasion that I need their phone number too, I type it into my phone and hit 'store'. I can't imagine wanting to scan every business card that I get...
Hmm - how does Voice Over Internet Protocol not constitute internet access?
OOh! That's an easy one. See, you're thinking about this from a technical standpoint. Of course there's no difference technically. However, you have to think like a congressman. Who has a lot of money to give to your campaign? Who has really nice jets that they use to fly you to golf outings? Who? Oh, yes! It's the phone companies! That's why it's different! Because even though they say competition is important to a free market, they don't really mean _free_ market. Just free enough that they can still collect money from big business.
He did state that he's using the "built-in video adapter", which I would imagine is on-board, and thus neither PCI, AGP, or PCI-E.
All the big carriers I went to wanted to lock me in to a 2 year contract.
Technically speaking, you can usually choose to buy the phone outright (rather than at a huge discount) and forgo the contract. Have to agree that cell service is overpriced, though.
The venue is generally supposed to be paying a blanket fee to (I think) BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC for royalties. Some do, some don't. And, obviously, since it isn't a government agency collecting the fees, it isn't a tax.
You, sir, are a certified fuckwit, and apparently proud of it. Such results are already written up, for example by Russell, who is one of the canonical audiophilia debunkers. See the links upthread. For once in your life, please attempt to use your brain before spouting bollocks.
So, you're arguing that there is an audible difference between overpriced and really overpriced cables, and to do that, you're referencing a guy who says there isn't a difference? Are you insane? In fact, Russell says pretty much the exact same thing I've said: "It can be solid, stranded, copper, oxygen free copper, silver, etc.--or even "magic" wire--as long as the resistance is kept to be less than 5% of the speaker impedance. There is no listening difference as long as the wire is of adequate size." - http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm
Why on earth would you be more interested in reading a write-up by someone else when it's trivial to perform such an experiment yourself - all you need is a decent hifi with some low impedence speakers, and one friend? And don't bother writing it up - you don't need to write things up in order to make them a reality, you know.
Well, for one, if you do a real empirical study, prove that there's an audible difference, and write it up, you could get $1M from James Randi. I suspect, however, that you can't prove that there's an audible difference, and you know that you can't, so instead of trying, you're just going to make up excuses as to why empirical studies and research papers are just hogwash.
You're just throwing buzz-words around without understanding them.
Not at all. I know exactly what a double-blind experiment is. And in your previous post, you implied that you were blinded as in "eyes closed", which isn't necessarily a blind test. And if you did participate in a real single blind test, where is the write-up? I've yet to see a research paper that proves any difference whatsoever as long as gauge is sufficient, and connections are solid. If you have a published paper that says differently, I'd be very interested to read it, especially if it were to be a comparison between say, Monster Cables and these $302 per foot cables.
Just for reference, if you're so clever, can you please tell me the impedence of the speaker units I was using and the length of the cables being used, and from make an estimate as to the impedence of the cables themselves?
How in the world would I know the length of the cables you were using? And if I were testing them, I would measure the actual impedance, not try to calculate it...
Because you are aware that those factors make a very big difference, aren't you?
Yes, they make a difference to a point. Never said they didn't.
Yeah, a mailing list with a lot of people hitting "reply all" really isn't the same as a DDoS attack...it's just a mailing list with a lot of people hitting "reply all"
Yeah. Do a good double-blind test, and get back to me.
I didn't think it made much of a difference at first but then I switched the sub woofer cable for one from RCA as well. First thing I noticed was that I had to turn the sub woofer down.
That probably had more to do with the gauge of the wire than anything...
Oops. Apparently I've been using phpBB forums with [quote] tags a bit too much lately...
[quote]More importantly, are the connectors gold, platinum or silver plated. That makes all the difference in sound quality. You don't want your "Down on the Corner" played by Creedence Clearwater sounding like a busker in a subway station.[/quote] Technically speaking the gold-plated connectors do have some benefit over extended periods of time, since they don't corrode.