Every time something political or otherwise not directly related to technology is posted on Slashdot someone comes out with "why is this on Slashdot?".
How did anyone get this idea that Slashdot is not supposed to post political or non-technology stories? For one, the slogan of the site is "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." Second, there is a Politics main section on Slashdot, and the slogan for it (look at the very top of this page) is "Politics for Nerds. Your vote matters." Third, this story came from the Firehose, so it was likely voted up by Slashdot readers themselves.
To me, all this indicates that Slashdot posts and promotes stories that intelligent people might be interested in reading and discussing.
Besides all that, Slashdot gives you the ability to filter out from the front page stories from any section that you don't like, right here: Customize Slashdot's Display
I understand and agree with what you're saying, but it all still boils down to the fact that progressive source material is not "hurt" by interlaced delivery, at least not to the extent that the post I responded to was implying (sure it's better/easier to keep it progressive all along, like the other reply to my post mentioned). Also, interlaced source material is not made "better" by progressive delivery, not if you want to keep the same resolution at least.
In the end all I was trying to say was that for someone to say "1080i is horrible! 1080p is awesome!" is really an exaggeration.
Granted, I agree with everything you say. A progressive signal delivery of a progressive source is much easier to deal with, but you don't lose half the vertical resolution in interlaced like the post I responded to was saying.
Sorry dude, but you have about one error in each of your paragraphs. I'll just highlight the major ones (dang and I'm wasting my mod points too):
Enter interlacing. Instead of transmitting a full ~25 frames every second, you transmit ~25 half frames every second. One one frame you draw the odd numbered lines of pixels, and on the next you draw the even lines, and so on.
Wrong. With interlaced TV and video signals, you are sending twice the amount of half-frames (fields) per second, not the same amount. In other words, instead of 30 full frames, you send 60 half-frames. In other words, the grandparent was correct: you are sending the same information, just formatted differently.
Yes, given the same bandwidth, a 1080i signal can transmit just as much data as a 1080p signal. So can any signal for that matter, regardless of format. But the reality is, 99.999% of 1080i signals will be transmitting at the same framerate as their 1080p equivalents, i.e. the 1080i signal will be transmitting less data and hence will be a lower quality one.
Wrong again for the same reasons I stated above. Interlaced formats send twice as many half-frames as the same material would have sent full-frames. Again, the grandparent was correct, the same data gets sent, just formatted differently. Actually, there is an exception, which is the 50p and 60p frame rates because there is no equivalent 100i or 120i rates in interlaced; however, I don't think anyone is broadcasting or releasing any material in this format, most likely because there are very few cameras that can capture in this format and it would just kill bandwidth and storage anyway.
Even if it transmits the same data, the signal will still have been put through an interlacing shredder, and will not be worth the money you're paying for it.
I'm not familiar with the exact details of the circuitry that does this, but I'm pretty sure it's nowhere as destructive as you make it out to be, if it's destructive at all. Basically, I believe TVs treat each individual line as a discrete piece of information, so what order you send them in should make no difference.
Have a conversation with the video games person at your favorite electronics store. Even better, go in and talk to the people (perhaps the manager) at your local Gamespot/EB. They told me they are getting shipments of Wiis every week. The problem is that they usually sell out the same day, or by the next day. So you just have to find out when they expect the next shipment and call them or show up that day. One guy at Circuit City told me CC was only releasing their shipments on Sundays. Maybe because of ads or something. Target and the other general stores were kind of useless to get any kind of useful info out of. I did hear from someone, I believe it was at Target, that Nintendo is planning some kind of a relaunch of the Wii around Nov. 20. Good luck.
You're in the minority here. Every machine that I've ever installed Ubuntu on was up and ready to go within a few minutes, no tweaks, configurations, or command line anything required. Contrast to Windows XP, where every time I install it, it takes at least a couple of hours of installing, searching/downloading/installing drivers, installing service packs, rebooting, installing security updates, rebooting, installing other updates, rebooting, etc, etc.
From what I've read, generally most people have this same experience with both.
Maybe the machines where you've tried to install Linux have unusual hardware? If not, maybe you've just been unlucky. Seriously, I've installed it on at least 4 or 5 completely different machines, with different motherboards, video cards, etc, and it's never given me any problems.
What are the best sites out there for searching and reading about indie games, both old and new? I'm thinking something like IGN (or any of its competitors that have tons of reviews, previews, etc, and some sort of database listing of games), but for indie games?
The demand has dropped in Japan because they probably have sold one to just about anyone that was likely to ever buy a TV console system. In the US, the Wii is still very hard to find. I'm looking to buy one, and have called probably 10-20 stores around work and home and none of them have them in stock. Most stores are receiving regular shipments but they sell out within a day or two.
In other words, the Wii may be at that point in its popularity curve in Japan, but it's far from it here in the US.
You obviously missed the part where global warming will lead to major international conflicts and wars if we don't do something about it. His work does have a major effect on future peace.
Open Invention Network - with Sony, IBM, NEC, Philips, RedHat, and Novell(?) as it's members, as well as Oracle, Canonical, and a few lesser known companies as licensees. From their about page:
Open Invention NetworkSM is an intellectual property company that was formed to promote Linux by using patents to create a collaborative environment. It promotes a positive, fertile ecosystem for Linux, which in turns drives innovation and choice in the global marketplace. This helps ensure the continuation of innovation that has benefited software vendors, customers, emerging markets and investors.
Open Invention Network is refining the intellectual property model so that important patents are openly shared in a collaborative environment. Patents owned by Open Invention Network are available royalty-free to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against the Linux System. This enables companies to make significant corporate and capital expenditure investments in Linux -- helping to fuel economic growth.
Open Invention Network ensures the openness of the Linux source code, so that programmers, equipment vendors, ISVs and institutions can invest in and use Linux with less worry about intellectual property issues. Its licensees can use the company's patents to innovate freely. This makes it economically attractive for companies that want to repackage, embed and use Linux to host specialized services or create complementary products.
I have no idea if people really saw this or what the logic would be of using such a device at a war protest, but to say that such a device is impossible with not only today's consumer technology, but expensive, secret military technology seems mighty foolish to me. Take a look at the link and see how small such a cheap device is. It can fly for 8 minutes on a charge. I really don't think it's far-fetched to imagine something half the size that can fly twice the amount of time, especially if cost is no problem. That's all they would really need.
Apparently they can't snag you for contempt charges, but at least in California, they will kick you out of the Jury if they find Jury Nullification. Oh, and this was upheld by California's Supreme Court. Article: Justices Say Jurors May Not Vote Conscience
Use a third party reseller. They will have many more phones for free than the mobile provider will, and on some models they will even pay you to take them. I used letstalk.com and and got two motorola phones from T-mobile and they actually paid me $200! $100 came from letstalk, and the other $100 was the mail-in rebate from t-mobile itself. The price of the plans is the same, so there was no downside in my experience. I was actually even past the deadline on sending in some of the rebates and they still paid me. I know there are other companies that basically do the same thing as letstalk.com but they're the ones I used and can recommend. They also resell for all the major US carriers (verizon, sprint, cingular/AT&T, t-mobile). Good luck.
That's weird. What you described is almost the opposite of what I know. There may be some special circumstances to your friends case, maybe something about the particular schools that she's transferring from and to, but in general, I find the whole transfer process from Community College to State University in California to be fairly open.
What they were probably trying to convey was that she couldn't transfer in as a Junior with the specific credits she had or the amount of credits she had, and would have to apply as a Freshman instead, or take more classes at the Community College to fulfill the requirements. In order to transfer as a Junior, you have to have about 60 credits total completed, and have to fulfill certain mostly very general subject area requirements, but they certainly wouldn't block anyone because they took some art classes.
If this happened recently, have your friend read the community college catalog sections regarding "IGETC" or the California State "Breadth" transfer tracks (or search the web for those, although usually it's specific to the particular community college). That should pretty much have all the requirements spelled out in detail.
Look at how tightly any images of dead soldiers, soldier coffins, body bags, etc are restricted. If that's not real and clear censorship imposed by the government, then what is? Or do some people believe that censorship happens only when the police/army come knocking on your door because of something you said?
If you see one of the posts above by the gentleman from the cable company, it seems that it is more like 10% of the typical cable/satellite bill goes straight to ESPN.
Slashdot Mirror
How did anyone get this idea that Slashdot is not supposed to post political or non-technology stories? For one, the slogan of the site is "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters." Second, there is a Politics main section on Slashdot, and the slogan for it (look at the very top of this page) is "Politics for Nerds. Your vote matters." Third, this story came from the Firehose, so it was likely voted up by Slashdot readers themselves.
To me, all this indicates that Slashdot posts and promotes stories that intelligent people might be interested in reading and discussing.
Besides all that, Slashdot gives you the ability to filter out from the front page stories from any section that you don't like, right here: Customize Slashdot's Display
Hey, at least it isn't like Digg.
I understand and agree with what you're saying, but it all still boils down to the fact that progressive source material is not "hurt" by interlaced delivery, at least not to the extent that the post I responded to was implying (sure it's better/easier to keep it progressive all along, like the other reply to my post mentioned). Also, interlaced source material is not made "better" by progressive delivery, not if you want to keep the same resolution at least.
In the end all I was trying to say was that for someone to say "1080i is horrible! 1080p is awesome!" is really an exaggeration.
Granted, I agree with everything you say. A progressive signal delivery of a progressive source is much easier to deal with, but you don't lose half the vertical resolution in interlaced like the post I responded to was saying.
Cool, thanks for the answers!
I have two questions for you, if you wouldn't mind answering:
1. What netflix-like service? It sounds cheaper than netflix?
2. What disk utility? I would love to rip DVDs to just watch on the computer like you do, but the whole thing seems so complicated at the moment.
Thanks!
Wrong again for the same reasons I stated above. Interlaced formats send twice as many half-frames as the same material would have sent full-frames. Again, the grandparent was correct, the same data gets sent, just formatted differently. Actually, there is an exception, which is the 50p and 60p frame rates because there is no equivalent 100i or 120i rates in interlaced; however, I don't think anyone is broadcasting or releasing any material in this format, most likely because there are very few cameras that can capture in this format and it would just kill bandwidth and storage anyway.
I'm not familiar with the exact details of the circuitry that does this, but I'm pretty sure it's nowhere as destructive as you make it out to be, if it's destructive at all. Basically, I believe TVs treat each individual line as a discrete piece of information, so what order you send them in should make no difference.
Have a conversation with the video games person at your favorite electronics store. Even better, go in and talk to the people (perhaps the manager) at your local Gamespot/EB. They told me they are getting shipments of Wiis every week. The problem is that they usually sell out the same day, or by the next day. So you just have to find out when they expect the next shipment and call them or show up that day. One guy at Circuit City told me CC was only releasing their shipments on Sundays. Maybe because of ads or something. Target and the other general stores were kind of useless to get any kind of useful info out of. I did hear from someone, I believe it was at Target, that Nintendo is planning some kind of a relaunch of the Wii around Nov. 20. Good luck.
Good point. I've heard from some store that I called that Nintendo was planning some sort of "relaunch" of the Wii, I think they said Nov. 19 or 20.
You're in the minority here. Every machine that I've ever installed Ubuntu on was up and ready to go within a few minutes, no tweaks, configurations, or command line anything required. Contrast to Windows XP, where every time I install it, it takes at least a couple of hours of installing, searching/downloading/installing drivers, installing service packs, rebooting, installing security updates, rebooting, installing other updates, rebooting, etc, etc.
From what I've read, generally most people have this same experience with both.
Maybe the machines where you've tried to install Linux have unusual hardware? If not, maybe you've just been unlucky. Seriously, I've installed it on at least 4 or 5 completely different machines, with different motherboards, video cards, etc, and it's never given me any problems.
What are the best sites out there for searching and reading about indie games, both old and new? I'm thinking something like IGN (or any of its competitors that have tons of reviews, previews, etc, and some sort of database listing of games), but for indie games?
The demand has dropped in Japan because they probably have sold one to just about anyone that was likely to ever buy a TV console system. In the US, the Wii is still very hard to find. I'm looking to buy one, and have called probably 10-20 stores around work and home and none of them have them in stock. Most stores are receiving regular shipments but they sell out within a day or two.
In other words, the Wii may be at that point in its popularity curve in Japan, but it's far from it here in the US.
You obviously missed the part where global warming will lead to major international conflicts and wars if we don't do something about it. His work does have a major effect on future peace.
6 inch RC helicopter for $80 at Skymall
I have no idea if people really saw this or what the logic would be of using such a device at a war protest, but to say that such a device is impossible with not only today's consumer technology, but expensive, secret military technology seems mighty foolish to me. Take a look at the link and see how small such a cheap device is. It can fly for 8 minutes on a charge. I really don't think it's far-fetched to imagine something half the size that can fly twice the amount of time, especially if cost is no problem. That's all they would really need.
Apparently they can't snag you for contempt charges, but at least in California, they will kick you out of the Jury if they find Jury Nullification. Oh, and this was upheld by California's Supreme Court. Article: Justices Say Jurors May Not Vote Conscience
Use a third party reseller. They will have many more phones for free than the mobile provider will, and on some models they will even pay you to take them. I used letstalk.com and and got two motorola phones from T-mobile and they actually paid me $200! $100 came from letstalk, and the other $100 was the mail-in rebate from t-mobile itself. The price of the plans is the same, so there was no downside in my experience. I was actually even past the deadline on sending in some of the rebates and they still paid me. I know there are other companies that basically do the same thing as letstalk.com but they're the ones I used and can recommend. They also resell for all the major US carriers (verizon, sprint, cingular/AT&T, t-mobile). Good luck.
Hi, just out of curiosity, I was wondering if you could tell why you decided to go with double-system sound for your documentary? Thanks!
Thanks for the great post. Wish I had mod points.
You were supposed to tell them that you lost the return address AFTER we had received the Gui-tars! NOT before!
That's weird. What you described is almost the opposite of what I know. There may be some special circumstances to your friends case, maybe something about the particular schools that she's transferring from and to, but in general, I find the whole transfer process from Community College to State University in California to be fairly open.
What they were probably trying to convey was that she couldn't transfer in as a Junior with the specific credits she had or the amount of credits she had, and would have to apply as a Freshman instead, or take more classes at the Community College to fulfill the requirements. In order to transfer as a Junior, you have to have about 60 credits total completed, and have to fulfill certain mostly very general subject area requirements, but they certainly wouldn't block anyone because they took some art classes.
If this happened recently, have your friend read the community college catalog sections regarding "IGETC" or the California State "Breadth" transfer tracks (or search the web for those, although usually it's specific to the particular community college). That should pretty much have all the requirements spelled out in detail.
Look at how tightly any images of dead soldiers, soldier coffins, body bags, etc are restricted. If that's not real and clear censorship imposed by the government, then what is? Or do some people believe that censorship happens only when the police/army come knocking on your door because of something you said?
eMusic music search/browse page
If you see one of the posts above by the gentleman from the cable company, it seems that it is more like 10% of the typical cable/satellite bill goes straight to ESPN.
Backup Google Apps Documents
Isn't that kind of dangerous for a vessel marketed for long-distance ocean travel?