I live in fear of Tiger Woods on the XBox 360 not being able to fit all their courses on a 8Gb disc. I will run out and spend a small fortune, as you put it, on a PS3. Those trifling games like Bioshock and Halo 3 have been completely throttled to fit their games onto such a small medium, and I should make sure that my console can handle enormous epics the size of Heavenly Sword which will no doubt take me many months to finish given its enormous size on disc.
I read some of the reviews of this book on Amazon. I particularly liked the one that pointed out that in countries where the politicians influence their Fed equivalent, their economy does worse, so our politician-free Fed is better. I like this argument! In fact, following this logic, we should replace every aspect of the running of our country with privately owned, independent institutions. After all, such private companies will do a better job of roads, education, health-care, military etc. Why have an elected government at all - clearly such people are incompetent.
Whereas in your enlightened universe, all it takes for a terrorist to walk into an airport with a chest full of explosives is to write "Acme Bomb Company" on it. Hopefully for him there will be none of our universe's "morons" around that might suspect his little ruse.
I request that all PS3 fanbois post their "360 is shit!" posts under this one. Please make sure that you also list other platforms that were totally shit for requiring games that span multiple discs, and also how those games placed an awful strain on you and you just couldn't play them. Here, I'll start you out:
PS1: Resident Evil 2 - 2 discs. Fuck me that was awful. I watched one of the Capcom USA testers finish Leon's disc in under an hour, and then he had to lean over and swap the disc to Clair's. God forbid he had been sitting on a couch with the PS1 under the TV, instead of at a testing station.
Er, so I'm guessing that if you wanted to buy a licensing solution you would look for a supplier who had a first clue about Microsoft MSI files so that the licensing package is reference counted?
Bottom line, if hackers can just create a key generator, or even just leak a key, then your application wont sell.
If an end user can just type in a key from the internet, they will, and they know that they are safe. If they have to download a crack, i.e. an executable from someone who is already engaged in illegal hacking activity, then they will think twice before installing it on their system at work. They would be criminally liable for any loss of business to their company. Don't worry about a black screen of death: Any penalties you could implement will be removed by hackers, while chances are the hackers will deliver the real penalties for the lucky user.
Once that decision is made, it doesn't matter what protection you use. They are all utterly defenseless against hackers. As long as the protection cannot be circumvented within a few hours by a typical end users, its good enough. For example, if its just a matter of dumping the jar file, looking at the output, and writing a new "licensing class", then it probably wont get purchased by many java programmers unless its less than $50.
OTOH, your customer may force the choice upon you. One major American automotive manufacturer requires that all licensed software uses FlexLM. We have no choice to support it.
Thanks for sticking with me. I think for the first time I actually get where the FSF is coming from. Its "Free" software, in that it can't be contained, or "put back in its box", it can't be owned or co-opted.
"GPL gives the user freedom to access, use and modify the source code of a program they use"
What you just said is "GPL gives the user freedom". So it is not the software that is free from constraint, but the user. If the GPL zealots changed their moto to "Free Users", then you'd be right. However, the GPL is applied to the source code, and it restricts the use of that code. It is unarguably not free software (unless you mean free as in beer).
Your argument is like saying that thieves in jail are "Free" because we, the public, are Free from them thieving our belongings. You may believe that noun's can be swapped about without changing the meaning of a sentence.
I am not discussing the merit of Free Users, nor a Free Society, I am pointing out the the GPL does not promote Free software: it promotes restricted software that gives us, the users, certain Freedoms provided we too restrict the use of that intellectual output. It is a straight value exchange. I get your code, which has value, and I can change it to do what I want, provided that I then give you back my code. Clearly I am not Free to with your code as I please.
Let me try putting this a different way:
When you say I have the "freedom to access, use and modify the source code of a program they use", you miss out the part about "provided that this modification is also covered by the GPL". By any definition, this is an additional constraint. You could give me the software, and then give me the source under the BSD license. I would then, truly be free. However that would not stop me from then releasing the software without the source code to a third party. Clearly, your actions have restricted my freedom. Why would someone want my software, for which they do not get source code, when they could get the original from you, for free? Hmm. "for free". Clearly, the only answer here is because what I have added is value that you have not. They have a choice, yes? They can still choose your version, which comes with the source code. So if they do choose mine, then clearly the source code is of less value than my improvements. But your license restricts them from making that choice also.
Unlike that corporate shill, Stallman, I don't get paid $500,000 by large corporations (who depend on "free" software to stay in business) to advocate open source. No, I actually write software for a living. To feed my family. Consequently, I understand the value proposition that is writing software. The GPL is not "Free" as in liberty, but is "Free" as in beer. I write code and if it is valuable to you, then you pay for it. Sometimes, I use GPL code, because the value to me in using that code is greater than the value I add to it or the value it cost me to write my own. Anyone who tells you that they are using GPL software because it is "Free" as in liberty is simply ignorant, or independently wealthy. Even those who make money for it selling services, are using the software because it is more cost effective to use and maintain the "free" software as a means to sell services than it is to write their own product.
It would? Having someone watch what you do while you work would be worse than being penetrated with something that tracks your movement and broadcasts it no matter where you are? You're saying that you'd rather be a walking beacon and also trust the manufacturers claims that there are no side effects (remember kids, smoking is good for you!)? You're saying you trust Sony not to put a RFID scanner in their DVD players and PCs? You're saying that all those time-and-motion studies my dad did where a horrible invasion of someone's privacy?
But even accepting your strange assertion, your argument appears to be "Well, it could be worse". Fuck me. What has happened to America? Bring back the Soviets please!
My experience is the opposite: that it is very hard to find qualified people. However, your sentiments are expressed here on slashdot again and again. What is going on? Am I just not in the right area, or the right business to experience what you are experiencing? (I live in San Diego and make visualization software for automakers). Can you give me examples of companies that are underpaying for tech jobs and hiring lots of foreigners? Also I've heard (again, on slashdot) of tech "sweatshops" where foreign workers are employed for brief stints before returning home. Can anyone name such a company?
Anybody that thinks that cable tv is a sane way to distribute digital content in this day and age is a Neanderthal. CableCard was a stupid idea, if only because everyone required to implement it were the very people who stood to lose from it. If you think that anyone, let alone a government, could make a company successfully implement something so complicated when it really doesn't want to then you are a bit naive.
The beauty is that the content providers now have many ways to completely by-pass these maggots-in-the-middle, and they are happily doing so. I no longer use cable tv. Saved me $70/month, and I spend that on buying content that I actually want and own it forever.
But the content holders are *not* the cable companies. How many of the content holders let you buy their content with much less painful DRM solutions? Er, all of them. I can get my Battlestar Galactica on iTunes. I can get movies on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, both of which have been cracked. My opinion is that CableCard is a way for content holders to completely screw cable companies. Either that or the Cable Companies are just utter morons who thought they'd have a nice monopoly on distribution. Who knows. Whatever the reason, I no longer have cable. I just get what I want from the internet or the store. Good job cable card!
If the title was "Forensic Analysis Reveals Al-Qaeda's use of bluescreen to composite video", it wouldn't be quite so shocking. I thought we were going to see fake photo's of george bush eating children or something. I mean, wow, Al Qaeda has access to a laptop with Adobe Premier.
Zonk did post the article title with a question mark at the end of it, which to me implied that it was not fact, but a question. The analyst asserts that the PS3 is a port of the 360 version, and speculates that this caused the delay, and further goes on to speculate why this would also delay the 360 version. Hence the question mark in the title.
If the PS3 version is a port of the 360, that's very interesting information. Early in the PS2 / Xbox generation, most developers made PS2 games and ported to the XBox, and it was easy, because the XBox was in many ways more powerful and had a harddrive. (I base this opinion on concrete experience of shipping PS2/XBOX1 games). With the early PS3/360 titles, many developers have a 360 title or engine, and then port to the PS3. In some ways its similar: the later platform in each case (XBOX1 then, PS3 now) has a harddrive while the earlier platform doesn't (PS2 then, 360 now). However, in the most significant ways, its different. The XBox1 and the 360 are "easy" to program. It was easy to go from the PS2 to the 360. It's clearly not easy to go from the 360 to the PS3. The PS3 is a fantastically powerful beast (the Cell is one of my favorite chips of all time), but it simply cannot be programmed like a 360.
The upshot is that because Sony failed to get to market first, and because Sony continued their direction of creating extremely complicated hardware, developers are failing to transition titles from 360 to PS3. The result is more 360 exclusives and more delayed PS3 releases.
The average PS3 zealot may not care about a game that was coming out on the 360 anyway. "It couldn't have been any good because it didn't use full power of the PS3 if it ran on a 360" they say. But for many people, and for many developers, its a reason to not buy / support the PS3. And it is Sony's responsibility.
The article seemed to refer to free terrestrial DVB digital broadcasting in new zealand.
I wouldn't touch a CableCard based system if my life depended on it. I've never gotten it to work (or I should say my cable company who charge me to come to my house and fuck about for an hour at a time) have never gotten it to work for more than a day. CableCard is quite amusing. The Cable Industry is fucking me about in order to protect someone elses content, while the content providers themselves will sell it to me over download with much less restrictive DRM, and for less money. Its almost as if CableCard was thought up by the content providers to cut the cable card middlemen out of the loop. Ha ha ha ha! I don't subscribe to cable any more. I just use iTunes, XBox Live, Amazon Unboxed, etc. Good job CableCard!!!
Now, when he tries to use his Vista-based HD player on his blu-ray movie... then we'll hear gnashing of teeth.;)
I think as you say for players, there will be combo-HD drives too (blu-ray and HD-DVD). Or you can buy both. The software players play them both for the same price...
I'd probably notice the difference if I owned a 1080p TV though.
Only if the studio screwed up the transfer like they did on some of the launch titles. Other than that they are identical.
Because the TVs don't do 1080i at 48fps. They do it at 59.97Hz: half the image (one field) then the other half 16.67ms later. Note that 59.97 is not terribly divisible by 24. As a result, the players have to figure out when they should swap the field from the previous 24fps frame to the next. So for fast moving things it looks like ass. Thats if you've got a true 1080i TV.
If, like me, you've got a true 1080P TV, then it tries to recombine the 1080i signal (which was originally a 1080p 24fps signal) into a 59.97 1080P signal. Hopefully its going to identify that the original signal is actually from a 24fps 1080P source. Hopefully. Its input was designed for 1080i ATSC TV, which is fields at 59.97Hz, each one being a genuine half-image 16.7ms apart. Unfortunately, the image from the Blu-Ray is two fields, each 0ms apart in terms of "when they were taken" but delivered 16.7ms apart. Then another two for a new frame, but again delivered 16.7ms apart.
There's basically a load of crap going on by the player and then the TV to do something with a 1080P 24fps signal.
But then, like I said, theres a huge number of older HD-TVs that can do 1080i, but don't have an HDMI input at all, so they can't watch HD blu-ray at all.
I have a "first-gen" 1080P TV, and it only does 1080P over VGA, not HDMI. For some reason the HDMI can only handle 1080i. HD-DVD seems to be happy to pump HD content over non-HDCP channels, while Blu-Ray players (certainly the PS3) insists on a HDCP protected channel or it downscales. So I can get either 1080i blu-ray or 1080p HD-DVD. A lot of people have HD-TVs with no HDMI at all. Ouch.
Of course, since I have one of those awful Vista computers that you guys complain so much about, there's a way around this, and I can watch both in 1080P.
Personally, if a movie is available in both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray I buy the HD-DVD version, because studios have had a habit of encoding Blu-Ray discs using MPEG2 so that they look like shite. I got my Blu-Ray for $300 when CompUSA closed. If you have the choice between a $170 HD drive or a $600 Blu-Ray, the choice seems obvious to me if you can't wait. As has been said, even the 30Gb capacity of HD-DVD is more than double the amount you need for a ultra-high-quality movie recording. Otherwise, wait and get a combo player and you're safe whichever way it goes.
All my equipment is Linksys. The only time I've had to turn off my 54 is when I've gone on holiday and turned off *everything*. As long as it stays cheap, I wont complain if it has a cisco badge on it.
I been in a position to hire new software engineers at a company that is willing to pay $100k + for skilled programmers. We could not find enough for our vacant positions. Since the engineering department was unable to meet the needs of the company, it began to look at offshore outsourcing.
The idea that immigrant workers are paid next to nothing is BS. I was one such H-1B worker and though initially I was paid maybe $10k less than the going rate I quickly learned that I could get a better job and did so. That was back in 1995.
However, let us suppose that your hypothesis is correct, that there are ample US Software Engineers, and that Big Software won't pay them the going rate. The option you appear to support is to limit H-1B visas. The result is that Big Soft cannot hire foreign workers to fill the seats. What is the result? Is it
a. Big Soft sees the light and begins to offer higher salaries to US workers?
b. Big Soft moves its development departments overseas?
The answer, of course, is "b". I have direct first hand experience of this. Software companies absolutely do not offer higher salaries, they just hire less people, and the work doesn't get done. When it doesn't get done, the CEO wants to know why the fuck not, and moves the development department offshore.
I am really, really, sick of this utterly moronic, small-minded, pathetic, racist whining that is "I haven't got a job because a foreigner is doing it cheaper" bullshit. If this is your attitude then you haven't got a job because you are obviously incapable of doing "if then" statements more than one level deep.
We need to get as many of possible of these people into the USA, and with the freedom to change jobs, so that (A) US businesses continue to develop in the US and (B) these people are paid US wages, not Shanghai wages. This *is* the global economy folks. If you don't like it then change thre Free-Trade laws, not the immigration laws. You might as well start throwing your shoes into the servers.
Slashdot Mirror
I live in fear of Tiger Woods on the XBox 360 not being able to fit all their courses on a 8Gb disc. I will run out and spend a small fortune, as you put it, on a PS3. Those trifling games like Bioshock and Halo 3 have been completely throttled to fit their games onto such a small medium, and I should make sure that my console can handle enormous epics the size of Heavenly Sword which will no doubt take me many months to finish given its enormous size on disc.
I read some of the reviews of this book on Amazon. I particularly liked the one that pointed out that in countries where the politicians influence their Fed equivalent, their economy does worse, so our politician-free Fed is better. I like this argument! In fact, following this logic, we should replace every aspect of the running of our country with privately owned, independent institutions. After all, such private companies will do a better job of roads, education, health-care, military etc. Why have an elected government at all - clearly such people are incompetent.
Whereas in your enlightened universe, all it takes for a terrorist to walk into an airport with a chest full of explosives is to write "Acme Bomb Company" on it. Hopefully for him there will be none of our universe's "morons" around that might suspect his little ruse.
I request that all PS3 fanbois post their "360 is shit!" posts under this one. Please make sure that you also list other platforms that were totally shit for requiring games that span multiple discs, and also how those games placed an awful strain on you and you just couldn't play them. Here, I'll start you out:
The police did not kill this person. The police do have a duty to investigate suspicious activity.
Ok, maybe I'm a muppet, but can you tell me how to play Wario Ware local multiplayer? My Wii just turns off the other controllers when WW is playing.
Er, so I'm guessing that if you wanted to buy a licensing solution you would look for a supplier who had a first clue about Microsoft MSI files so that the licensing package is reference counted?
Bottom line, if hackers can just create a key generator, or even just leak a key, then your application wont sell.
If an end user can just type in a key from the internet, they will, and they know that they are safe. If they have to download a crack, i.e. an executable from someone who is already engaged in illegal hacking activity, then they will think twice before installing it on their system at work. They would be criminally liable for any loss of business to their company. Don't worry about a black screen of death: Any penalties you could implement will be removed by hackers, while chances are the hackers will deliver the real penalties for the lucky user.
Once that decision is made, it doesn't matter what protection you use. They are all utterly defenseless against hackers. As long as the protection cannot be circumvented within a few hours by a typical end users, its good enough. For example, if its just a matter of dumping the jar file, looking at the output, and writing a new "licensing class", then it probably wont get purchased by many java programmers unless its less than $50.
OTOH, your customer may force the choice upon you. One major American automotive manufacturer requires that all licensed software uses FlexLM. We have no choice to support it.
Thanks for sticking with me. I think for the first time I actually get where the FSF is coming from. Its "Free" software, in that it can't be contained, or "put back in its box", it can't be owned or co-opted.
Ok, I see your point. Not sure about how you tell a reformed criminal from an unreformed one tho.
What you just said is "GPL gives the user freedom". So it is not the software that is free from constraint, but the user. If the GPL zealots changed their moto to "Free Users", then you'd be right. However, the GPL is applied to the source code, and it restricts the use of that code. It is unarguably not free software (unless you mean free as in beer).
Your argument is like saying that thieves in jail are "Free" because we, the public, are Free from them thieving our belongings. You may believe that noun's can be swapped about without changing the meaning of a sentence.
I am not discussing the merit of Free Users, nor a Free Society, I am pointing out the the GPL does not promote Free software: it promotes restricted software that gives us, the users, certain Freedoms provided we too restrict the use of that intellectual output. It is a straight value exchange. I get your code, which has value, and I can change it to do what I want, provided that I then give you back my code. Clearly I am not Free to with your code as I please.
Let me try putting this a different way:
When you say I have the "freedom to access, use and modify the source code of a program they use", you miss out the part about "provided that this modification is also covered by the GPL". By any definition, this is an additional constraint. You could give me the software, and then give me the source under the BSD license. I would then, truly be free. However that would not stop me from then releasing the software without the source code to a third party. Clearly, your actions have restricted my freedom. Why would someone want my software, for which they do not get source code, when they could get the original from you, for free? Hmm. "for free". Clearly, the only answer here is because what I have added is value that you have not. They have a choice, yes? They can still choose your version, which comes with the source code. So if they do choose mine, then clearly the source code is of less value than my improvements. But your license restricts them from making that choice also.
Unlike that corporate shill, Stallman, I don't get paid $500,000 by large corporations (who depend on "free" software to stay in business) to advocate open source. No, I actually write software for a living. To feed my family. Consequently, I understand the value proposition that is writing software. The GPL is not "Free" as in liberty, but is "Free" as in beer. I write code and if it is valuable to you, then you pay for it. Sometimes, I use GPL code, because the value to me in using that code is greater than the value I add to it or the value it cost me to write my own. Anyone who tells you that they are using GPL software because it is "Free" as in liberty is simply ignorant, or independently wealthy. Even those who make money for it selling services, are using the software because it is more cost effective to use and maintain the "free" software as a means to sell services than it is to write their own product.
It would? Having someone watch what you do while you work would be worse than being penetrated with something that tracks your movement and broadcasts it no matter where you are? You're saying that you'd rather be a walking beacon and also trust the manufacturers claims that there are no side effects (remember kids, smoking is good for you!)? You're saying you trust Sony not to put a RFID scanner in their DVD players and PCs? You're saying that all those time-and-motion studies my dad did where a horrible invasion of someone's privacy?
But even accepting your strange assertion, your argument appears to be "Well, it could be worse". Fuck me. What has happened to America? Bring back the Soviets please!
My experience is the opposite: that it is very hard to find qualified people. However, your sentiments are expressed here on slashdot again and again. What is going on? Am I just not in the right area, or the right business to experience what you are experiencing? (I live in San Diego and make visualization software for automakers). Can you give me examples of companies that are underpaying for tech jobs and hiring lots of foreigners? Also I've heard (again, on slashdot) of tech "sweatshops" where foreign workers are employed for brief stints before returning home. Can anyone name such a company?
Thanks.
Jamie
But then nobody ordered a girl to have her clitoris cut off because a pencil told them to.
Anybody that thinks that cable tv is a sane way to distribute digital content in this day and age is a Neanderthal. CableCard was a stupid idea, if only because everyone required to implement it were the very people who stood to lose from it. If you think that anyone, let alone a government, could make a company successfully implement something so complicated when it really doesn't want to then you are a bit naive.
The beauty is that the content providers now have many ways to completely by-pass these maggots-in-the-middle, and they are happily doing so. I no longer use cable tv. Saved me $70/month, and I spend that on buying content that I actually want and own it forever.
But the content holders are *not* the cable companies. How many of the content holders let you buy their content with much less painful DRM solutions? Er, all of them. I can get my Battlestar Galactica on iTunes. I can get movies on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, both of which have been cracked. My opinion is that CableCard is a way for content holders to completely screw cable companies. Either that or the Cable Companies are just utter morons who thought they'd have a nice monopoly on distribution. Who knows. Whatever the reason, I no longer have cable. I just get what I want from the internet or the store. Good job cable card!
If the title was "Forensic Analysis Reveals Al-Qaeda's use of bluescreen to composite video", it wouldn't be quite so shocking. I thought we were going to see fake photo's of george bush eating children or something. I mean, wow, Al Qaeda has access to a laptop with Adobe Premier.
Zonk did post the article title with a question mark at the end of it, which to me implied that it was not fact, but a question. The analyst asserts that the PS3 is a port of the 360 version, and speculates that this caused the delay, and further goes on to speculate why this would also delay the 360 version. Hence the question mark in the title.
If the PS3 version is a port of the 360, that's very interesting information. Early in the PS2 / Xbox generation, most developers made PS2 games and ported to the XBox, and it was easy, because the XBox was in many ways more powerful and had a harddrive. (I base this opinion on concrete experience of shipping PS2/XBOX1 games). With the early PS3/360 titles, many developers have a 360 title or engine, and then port to the PS3. In some ways its similar: the later platform in each case (XBOX1 then, PS3 now) has a harddrive while the earlier platform doesn't (PS2 then, 360 now). However, in the most significant ways, its different. The XBox1 and the 360 are "easy" to program. It was easy to go from the PS2 to the 360. It's clearly not easy to go from the 360 to the PS3. The PS3 is a fantastically powerful beast (the Cell is one of my favorite chips of all time), but it simply cannot be programmed like a 360.
The upshot is that because Sony failed to get to market first, and because Sony continued their direction of creating extremely complicated hardware, developers are failing to transition titles from 360 to PS3. The result is more 360 exclusives and more delayed PS3 releases.
The average PS3 zealot may not care about a game that was coming out on the 360 anyway. "It couldn't have been any good because it didn't use full power of the PS3 if it ran on a 360" they say. But for many people, and for many developers, its a reason to not buy / support the PS3. And it is Sony's responsibility.
The article seemed to refer to free terrestrial DVB digital broadcasting in new zealand.
I wouldn't touch a CableCard based system if my life depended on it. I've never gotten it to work (or I should say my cable company who charge me to come to my house and fuck about for an hour at a time) have never gotten it to work for more than a day. CableCard is quite amusing. The Cable Industry is fucking me about in order to protect someone elses content, while the content providers themselves will sell it to me over download with much less restrictive DRM, and for less money. Its almost as if CableCard was thought up by the content providers to cut the cable card middlemen out of the loop. Ha ha ha ha! I don't subscribe to cable any more. I just use iTunes, XBox Live, Amazon Unboxed, etc. Good job CableCard!!!
I think as you say for players, there will be combo-HD drives too (blu-ray and HD-DVD). Or you can buy both. The software players play them both for the same price...
Only if the studio screwed up the transfer like they did on some of the launch titles. Other than that they are identical.
Because the TVs don't do 1080i at 48fps. They do it at 59.97Hz: half the image (one field) then the other half 16.67ms later. Note that 59.97 is not terribly divisible by 24. As a result, the players have to figure out when they should swap the field from the previous 24fps frame to the next. So for fast moving things it looks like ass. Thats if you've got a true 1080i TV.
If, like me, you've got a true 1080P TV, then it tries to recombine the 1080i signal (which was originally a 1080p 24fps signal) into a 59.97 1080P signal. Hopefully its going to identify that the original signal is actually from a 24fps 1080P source. Hopefully. Its input was designed for 1080i ATSC TV, which is fields at 59.97Hz, each one being a genuine half-image 16.7ms apart. Unfortunately, the image from the Blu-Ray is two fields, each 0ms apart in terms of "when they were taken" but delivered 16.7ms apart. Then another two for a new frame, but again delivered 16.7ms apart.
There's basically a load of crap going on by the player and then the TV to do something with a 1080P 24fps signal.
But then, like I said, theres a huge number of older HD-TVs that can do 1080i, but don't have an HDMI input at all, so they can't watch HD blu-ray at all.
I have a "first-gen" 1080P TV, and it only does 1080P over VGA, not HDMI. For some reason the HDMI can only handle 1080i. HD-DVD seems to be happy to pump HD content over non-HDCP channels, while Blu-Ray players (certainly the PS3) insists on a HDCP protected channel or it downscales. So I can get either 1080i blu-ray or 1080p HD-DVD. A lot of people have HD-TVs with no HDMI at all. Ouch.
Of course, since I have one of those awful Vista computers that you guys complain so much about, there's a way around this, and I can watch both in 1080P.
Personally, if a movie is available in both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray I buy the HD-DVD version, because studios have had a habit of encoding Blu-Ray discs using MPEG2 so that they look like shite. I got my Blu-Ray for $300 when CompUSA closed. If you have the choice between a $170 HD drive or a $600 Blu-Ray, the choice seems obvious to me if you can't wait. As has been said, even the 30Gb capacity of HD-DVD is more than double the amount you need for a ultra-high-quality movie recording. Otherwise, wait and get a combo player and you're safe whichever way it goes.
All my equipment is Linksys. The only time I've had to turn off my 54 is when I've gone on holiday and turned off *everything*. As long as it stays cheap, I wont complain if it has a cisco badge on it.
Really? You know your co-workers salaries? Did they tell you? Do you have it on record?
Because if you can prove it you can have them all sent home and probably stop your company from being allowed to use H-1B's in future.
I been in a position to hire new software engineers at a company that is willing to pay $100k + for skilled programmers. We could not find enough for our vacant positions. Since the engineering department was unable to meet the needs of the company, it began to look at offshore outsourcing.
The idea that immigrant workers are paid next to nothing is BS. I was one such H-1B worker and though initially I was paid maybe $10k less than the going rate I quickly learned that I could get a better job and did so. That was back in 1995.
However, let us suppose that your hypothesis is correct, that there are ample US Software Engineers, and that Big Software won't pay them the going rate. The option you appear to support is to limit H-1B visas. The result is that Big Soft cannot hire foreign workers to fill the seats. What is the result? Is it
a. Big Soft sees the light and begins to offer higher salaries to US workers?
b. Big Soft moves its development departments overseas?
The answer, of course, is "b". I have direct first hand experience of this. Software companies absolutely do not offer higher salaries, they just hire less people, and the work doesn't get done. When it doesn't get done, the CEO wants to know why the fuck not, and moves the development department offshore.
I am really, really, sick of this utterly moronic, small-minded, pathetic, racist whining that is "I haven't got a job because a foreigner is doing it cheaper" bullshit. If this is your attitude then you haven't got a job because you are obviously incapable of doing "if then" statements more than one level deep.
We need to get as many of possible of these people into the USA, and with the freedom to change jobs, so that (A) US businesses continue to develop in the US and (B) these people are paid US wages, not Shanghai wages. This *is* the global economy folks. If you don't like it then change thre Free-Trade laws, not the immigration laws. You might as well start throwing your shoes into the servers.