Considering there are a number of handy BlueTooth devices on the market, and there seems to be new things supporting it on a regular basis, I'd say that it's doing okay.
That is, unless you are one of those people who rely on the number of buzzwords in the press to determine how well a particular technology is doing.
It was over-hyped.. But so was 802.11B, nVidia, etc. But what wasn't hyped to death a couple of years ago?
As far as marketing departments were concerned (1998), by now we would be magically floating around in our 'IT' vehicles acting like happy hippies holding hands while listening to Daft Punk all day on our iPods and wearing neon purple, inflatable shirts. FPS games so real, you can't tell it's CGI! Not a worry in the world, technology is here to save us! Invest today for a brighter tomorrow! Praise Jebus, Praise Slashdot. Zion awaits!
In Georgia, it's common for new developments (especially townhomes and apartments) to be exclusively electricity w/ no gas lines attached.
This cuts down on risk of gas explosion and helps fight back at the gas industry for becoming de-regulated. Ever since that happened, gas has gone up and up in price.
Imagine that, and we let them de-regulate because they showed us all these facts and figures on how much it'll save us. Competition isn't always good. Especially when the competitors aren't actually trying to compete with each other.
Whether you want to just add a little capacity to your TiVo's drives or turn it into a full-blown home entertainment center hooked into your home LAN, Jeff Keegan has written a massive and all-encompassing book on this rewarding art." Read on for the rest of Jason's review.
So.. Buying a book, then following steps 1 through 10 is considered art nowadays? I guess putting a mod chip in an Xbox is art, too. How about installing a new hard drive in my PC? Does that count?
Save your money and go to a site like this one. Not very artsy but takes you through the steps.
Hacking is an art, following other people's steps, line for line, is not. It's the artistic equivilant of a paint by numbers..:]
Really now. You guys are supposed to be the cream of the crop when it comes to technical stories. Some schmuck sends a submission with a highly outrageous claim and you post it for discussion like it's a legit concern?
I bet if I sent mail to Wired News asking the same question this guy asked, if someone was to write back, they would probably inform me of the fact that the pages was modified, then cached.
In these days of companies losing money, laying off workers, etc there's no IT department I've seen who has the funds to hire an army of people to dynamically change content for their employees.
You'd also think, if there was software that was intended to do wide scale dynamic changes web content the moderators of one of the biggest geek sites on the planet would know about it.
That's 1,470,879 and 120 minute porno films. This comes to a total of 176,505,480 minutes.
Hours worth of porn: 2,941,758 In a non-leap year, there are 8760 hours per year.
That's right.. It would take 335 years to watch all that porn with no breaks.
My suggestion would to be to purchase one of those monitor arrays featured on slashdot the other day and run a separate video on each. With 10 displays, that'll get you down to around 33 1/2 years or porn.
** your mileage may vary as I am going by 1024 bytes per KB in my calculations. Leap years not calculated.
You are just as wordy as I am. I'm suprised we don't get troll modded.;]
Your response cleared things up a bit. I'm familar with the D&D butthole from Alaska who's too arrogant to figure out he's got a funky BO going on. Those types usually worked in tech support or the noc. Fortunately, the helpdesk crews were always pretty well managed and anyone that didn't generate a lot of positive feedback were re-assigned to other groups with less human contact.
But yeah, nobody likes the techie with the ashtray mouth and doo doo armpits. Not the guy you want to send up to work on Miss VP's laptop. You know, the lingering looks and nasal noises he'll make right before blathering something about how she should run Linux on her laptop and save everyone a lot of trouble.
College requirements can kiss my ass, too. I've got 11 years experience doing this stuff. My current job said a 4 year degree was required, but after the interview, they hired me anyway. I figure I should get back in school, I know it's going to impact me at some point..
He's not, he should escalate it to the real techs. That's what they're getting paid the big bucks for. Not for sitting on their asses and following a script the IT Manager wrote up, but solving problems. Problems that may not even have a documented solution.
You mentioned at least 2 times in your text about IT helpdesk and their 'scripts'. I've worked for several large corporations over the past 10 years and none of them had people in IT reading from scripts. These were typically people who were just as intelligent and bright at problem solving as any engineer from our other groups, just typically younger and still in college.
Before you start with your elitist, derogatory remarks, remember that a large percentage of/. readers and posters are, or were, helpdesk at some point of their technical careers.
Also, the reason for standardizing the desktops in a corporation has a lot less to do with being convienent for an IT group than reducing the TCO. I have my doubts that you've worked for a corporation of any size if you think anything caters to the IT folks. My experience has been 12 hour days, impossible projects, the company always wants more, better, cheaper, faster.. You make it sound like they need more time to play Quake and slurp cheese off their pizza crust..
If you purchase all of your systems from Dell, typically, you can get extended support for your IT people. If the helpdesk people can rapily fix a problem, then there's less hours invested in a problem and it costs the company much less in man hours.
I'm sorry, but your derogatory remarks just make you look like one of those users who tries to alienate himself due to some sort of superiority/inferiority complex. You also hit me as that one guy in every company that is so disrespectful to IT staff that everyone just avoids him, period.
Having been on both sides of the Helpdesk, I can honestly say that none of the helpdesk folks I have known have been hated by their userbase. They are typically seen as helpful people who do their best to get things rolling when users are in a jam.
I wouldn't buy one of these, either. I couldn't imagine the 3D effect being all that great.
Anyway, there's no point in holding out over the number of applications. Anything that uses OpenGL or Direct3D will be displayed in 3D. Any 3D game, application, etc should work just fine.
One thing I've noticed, though, a lot of 3D applications cheat a little. You'll end up with some crazy anomolies occuring because of programming tricks and illusions of depth where none is actually processed in the 3D space. If you've ever tried to watch Assembly demos with 3D glasses on, you'll know what I'm talking about.
I saw Matrix Reloaded at the local IMAX. It was obvious the movie had not been shot for and IMAX screen. The aspect ratio seemed wrong. The resolution and focus also weren't that great in this movie, as there were a lot of scenes where the director wants you to look at a particular character so more focus is on them and not their surroundings. This is fine for the 16:9 cinema screen but when you are looking at a 3 story IMAX screen, your eyes want to wander and look at all the details. This, I thought, was a little disappointing. The smoother flowing scenes, such as scenes of Zion looked incredible.
You'll also be able to see Trinity's blond nose hairs a number of times. The fact that the prop cars on the freeway action scenes have no motors in them becomes very apparent. I could go on for an hour about the visual flaws with the Matrix series on IMAX, but I'll stop my complaining there. Oh okay, one more: the oracle's skin. EWWWWWWWW. Get that lady some scar cream, stat!
I'd say to go see the new one on IMAX, but not for the visual difference (it's just bigger, blurrier, and choppier looking), go for the audio. IMAX theaters tend to have very strong, very clear, sound systems that really add to action sequences. The can really feel the music when the fighting breaks out.
It also would have helped a lot if the movie had been shot at ~60 fps. I've seen movies shot for IMAX and they didn't appear to have such jagged motion when panning and, overall, more focus and attention to visual details. The focus seems clearer for a whole scene in an IMAX native film, too.
You'll be Okay. I'll sell you a DVD+R with all the latest demos and popular shareware applications for $19.99 + 6.95 s&h. That'll save you weeks of downloading!
But are all deodorant soaps really anti-bacterial and not just doped up on rosey smelling chemicals?
Ever try that Dr. Bronners Magic Soap? It's all hemp oil and spice/herb extracts. It'll get you good and clean. I think the way it works is, the hemp oil extract in harmony with Eucalyptus, it kills bacteria by stripping your skin of any trace of moisture. Use it too often and you'll be ripping tufts of fur out in frustration from the endless itching, but occasional use is nice and refreshing. Kind of a de-oiling ritual.
Don't dare try using it as a toothpaste or mouthrinse, as suggested on the bottle. It tastes terrible.
Still, tho, I can't deal with those jaggies on a big screen. If the PS2 had FSAA and component video output (at least 720p resolution, native), then things would be different.
No need to be Mr. Inflammatory-Point-by-point-Man, I'm not bragging or have much of an attitude about this stuff. I'm just honest with my words and don't have a PR department to filter what I've got to say.
So, let's see.. I'm an asshole for mentioning that immigrant labor in my area is the pits. I'm an idiot for stopping at Starbucks because I was thirsty for coffee made with filtered water. But apparently, my sexuality is in question because I don't stink. I'm not sure how derogatory gay comments and stereotypes make one less an asshole than not caring for dealing with non-english speaking immigrants. I'd hate to think of the quality of female that would share bed with a man who attacks people who support good hygene, anyway.
Phat stuff? Nah, the new Pioneer systems have LCoS, which is superior to DLP systems, IMO. They don't use a color wheel, so they'll last a lot longer (if designed properly, no moving parts), they also support 1920x1080(progressive!) native. The DLP only supports 1280x720p. I wish I could afford one, but I was trying to make a point that you missed: If you don't piss your money away feeding social habits, then the financial opportunity to make life at home a bit more entertaining and fulfilling becomes available. That's the only wisdom I was trying to extend to the masses. Anything outside of that and you are blowing hot air up my anus for little cause..
I'm well aware that raw DVD is traded online. I just have serious doubts about it happening more than Divx. In terms of 'traffic' I can see it passing more bits, but not in number of movies since a Divx is about 1/10th the size of a raw DVD. That's like comparing WAV file traffic to MP3 traffic. Sadly, I am no expert here. I didn't claim to be. I'm also not a pirate, so I am slightly ignorant about the quantities of traffic outside of what I have seen on Usenet and Kazaa.
I really don't see much of a point in all that 'trading'.. Just wait until it comes out on NetFlix, rent it, then if you want to be a theif, just copy the DVD then. I guess some people live for the 'cool' factor of being a leet haxx0r pirate.
Sorry, I'm an adult and don't care about that stuff. You'll understand this some day when people depend on you, too. Until then, please don't consider showering a gay activity. I know standing there nekkid might make you feel uncomfy, but acceptance of your appearance is one of the wonders of the human experience.
Here's some suggestions for ya, mr. stinky:
1) Avoid anti-bacterial soaps, they leave behind only the most ruthless of bacteria. This will cause your BO to come back with knockout power once they start breeding.
2) Get a shower head with a 6' hose. This allows you to really get the funk out of the cracks. It also makes getting the feet clean much easier.
3) Scrub the genitals. I know this part may make you feel abnormally homosexual feelings, but the hair and folds of skin in these areas are breeding grounds for funk. If you don't do an appropriate job cleaning these areas, you might end up with infections in the hair roots. Rinse well too!
4) Use whitening toothpaste and listerene. I suggest a short pre-rinse with listerene (medical data shows no effect on cavities when it comes to pre-rinsing, but it sure makes the gums feel nice). Brush well, using a soft bristle brush to prevent damage to your teeth and gums. Make certain to really get in there and brush the hell out of those molars. Then give yourself a good flossing and rinse with antiseptic mouthwash for no less than 30 seconds.
5) Wash your clothes after each use. Make sure to follow the instructions on the tags to the T, otherwise you'll end up with faded or shrunk trunks. Recently, Febreeze released a product to help eliminate the permafunk clothing can get if left in a damp pile after too many wears. If you've had hygene problems in the past, I'd suggest getting a bottle of this to start a fresh slate.
6) Avoid colognes and perfumes. These are out-dated leftovers from a
This with any 'hackbox' seems to be missing the ability to do the same thing a $49 box can do:
Record two shows at once, while playing back a 3rd from it's HDD.
I know people want to "hack a PVR"*** but really, when the most basic of features are missing, it's not really worth all the fuss. Especially not worth the money they are charging.
Yeah, it runs Linux. I've got several PC's doing that now, and they do what I need them to do. I've also got a UTV PVR that does more than these over-priced things will ever do due to the dual tuners and native support for DTV compression.
You can get an Xbox to play games on (even tetris). A PC to run Linux on (tetris runs well on this, too!). Your best bet is to get a PVR with the right credentials to make the most of your home theater.
I say this because I have a friend who's got a buddy with a 1st generation Tivo. All I ever hear is "he runs Linux on it, he can access the files over the network and view/archive them on his PC, etc" -- What good does all this do when the Simpsons are coming on but you feel like watching Dragonball Z? With a single tuner you are giving up one of them.. Anyway, who wants to archive TV anyway? It'll all be reruns you'll never watch soon enough anyway. I can't imagine anyone wanting to watch the same TV show more than one or two times, ever. I always thought it was funny when people would record programs on VHS, then have them around taking up space for the next 10 years and never watch them again. Same goes with this, except you are wasting DVDR/CDR media and hard drive space.
For the price of this thing w/ a 60 gig hard drive, you could buy a good dual tuner system, an Xbox + mod chip, and still have money left over to donate to your favorite Open Source project.
*** - It's no longer hacking your PVR when installing a HDD amounts to about the same effort as installing in a PC.
It's likely that Microsoft will drop the Xbox price to match the PS2.
Aside from M$ hating, I couldn't imagine buying a PS2 instead of an Xbox. The graphics on the Xbox are superior. This would be different if the PS2 has FSAA and a HDD.
I'm not being a zealot here, I own both systems and I only turn my PS2 on to play DBZ: Bodukai anymore. All other titles, I wait for the Xbox release in hopes of graphical enhancements.
With a little customization to your Xbox, you can slap a 120 gig HDD in it and run your games off it for much greater load speeds. You can also store Divx movies, mp3's, etc and play them back with XBMP. There's lots of home-brew software for the Xbox and it's all relatively easy to install and use, given the fact it has a HDD and network port.
I'm a big fan of streaming audio, so having an Xbox connected via optical cables to the home stereo, playing a streaming music feed is a common senario for mine. Makes me wonder why people buy PS2's at all, these days..:)
PS - Yeah, you can run Linux on either. Who cares. I'm more than happy using Linux on my desktop and letting the console run it's native OS.
Good preaching, man. I HATE the movie theatre experience. Ever since I moved to Atlanta, it's been a nightmare every time.
If it's not the droves of gangsta wannabe teenagers, it's the middle-aged overweight women who can't stop talking. The $6 soda. The drive. How about the 6.1 audio system with a blown rear-channel speaker?
The smell of most theaters alone is enough to get me to not go. A combination of a society who's more talk than action on it's hygene and lazy immigrants who don't care about their jobs enough to actually clean the theaters properly on occasion. Then there's the whole SARS season rolling in on us soon.
And my friends think I am messed up for buying a 56" DLP HDTV for my movie watching.. I get similar visual quality as I would in the theater, but I get to pause the action for a potty break, pop some popcorn for $0.30, drink a soda for $0.25, wear my Pj's and do whatever lewd cuddling I want with my woman without having to be discreet.
Here's the funny thing. The same people who think I am a bit nutty for spending some bread on this stuff are the ones who eat out at staple food resturants 3-5 times a week, go to the movies 2-3 times a week, then go have desert at specialty shops, etc. That adds up to hundreds upon hundreds a month, especially if you are dragging along a member of the opposite sex.
If they would only get into the pattern of learning to cook and do these things for themselves, work on making life at home better instead of funding mega-corporations every chance they get, they'd learn that when doing these things in your own home results in better foods, better coffee, better deserts, better movie watching experiences, and a more relaxed life (having not dealt with crowds or rude people).
I say all this, having stopped at Starbucks a few minutes ago because I was late leaving the house and did not have time to brew my own coffee.
I think the RIAA had planned on directors complaining. They are, of course, the people who have expensive theaters in their homes specifically to impress guests with DVD screeners. Don't just think of the awards, the directors aren't, either..:)
What gets me, Hollywood actually thinks people are satisfied enough with watching a Divx of a screener instead of renting/buying the DVD. I guess they've never watched a Divx on anything bigger than 36" display. There's no comparison. Now, if people were posting the raw, unencrypted DVD on Kazaa, that'd be a different story. Most movie pirate types I have encountered seem to deal with quantity instead of quality, so I doubt that'll happen anytime soon, not on a large scale. Though, you occasionally see an uncompressed screener go through usenet on occasion..
Rent a DVD, skip the theater, drive them out of business through natural selection.
Slashdot Mirror
Impulsive leeches!
Perhaps someone should post us the movie password on here. I want to watch Down Low. :]
Too bad her clients seem to end up in the pokey a lot!
C:\>Awptimus_Prime --VERSION
Awptimus Prime Build 0.91a
C:\> _
Considering there are a number of handy BlueTooth devices on the market, and there seems to be new things supporting it on a regular basis, I'd say that it's doing okay.
That is, unless you are one of those people who rely on the number of buzzwords in the press to determine how well a particular technology is doing.
It was over-hyped.. But so was 802.11B, nVidia, etc. But what wasn't hyped to death a couple of years ago?
As far as marketing departments were concerned (1998), by now we would be magically floating around in our 'IT' vehicles acting like happy hippies holding hands while listening to Daft Punk all day on our iPods and wearing neon purple, inflatable shirts. FPS games so real, you can't tell it's CGI! Not a worry in the world, technology is here to save us! Invest today for a brighter tomorrow! Praise Jebus, Praise Slashdot. Zion awaits!
In Georgia, it's common for new developments (especially townhomes and apartments) to be exclusively electricity w/ no gas lines attached.
This cuts down on risk of gas explosion and helps fight back at the gas industry for becoming de-regulated. Ever since that happened, gas has gone up and up in price.
Imagine that, and we let them de-regulate because they showed us all these facts and figures on how much it'll save us. Competition isn't always good. Especially when the competitors aren't actually trying to compete with each other.
Whether you want to just add a little capacity to your TiVo's drives or turn it into a full-blown home entertainment center hooked into your home LAN, Jeff Keegan has written a massive and all-encompassing book on this rewarding art." Read on for the rest of Jason's review.
:]
So.. Buying a book, then following steps 1 through 10 is considered art nowadays? I guess putting a mod chip in an Xbox is art, too. How about installing a new hard drive in my PC? Does that count?
Save your money and go to a site like this one. Not very artsy but takes you through the steps.
Hacking is an art, following other people's steps, line for line, is not. It's the artistic equivilant of a paint by numbers..
Really now. You guys are supposed to be the cream of the crop when it comes to technical stories. Some schmuck sends a submission with a highly outrageous claim and you post it for discussion like it's a legit concern?
I bet if I sent mail to Wired News asking the same question this guy asked, if someone was to write back, they would probably inform me of the fact that the pages was modified, then cached.
In these days of companies losing money, laying off workers, etc there's no IT department I've seen who has the funds to hire an army of people to dynamically change content for their employees.
You'd also think, if there was software that was intended to do wide scale dynamic changes web content the moderators of one of the biggest geek sites on the planet would know about it.
Be wise.. !
I just spent a lot of time watching porn!
Assuming we are going with high quality, 23.9 fps DiVX. A 120 minute porno should be about 730MB.
Petabyte: 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes
730MB: 1,048,576*730 = 765,460,480 bytes
That's 1,470,879 and 120 minute porno films.
This comes to a total of 176,505,480 minutes.
Hours worth of porn: 2,941,758
In a non-leap year, there are 8760 hours per year.
That's right.. It would take 335 years to watch all that porn with no breaks.
My suggestion would to be to purchase one of those monitor arrays featured on slashdot the other day and run a separate video on each. With 10 displays, that'll get you down to around 33 1/2 years or porn.
** your mileage may vary as I am going by 1024 bytes per KB in my calculations. Leap years not calculated.
You are just as wordy as I am. I'm suprised we don't get troll modded. ;]
Your response cleared things up a bit. I'm familar with the D&D butthole from Alaska who's too arrogant to figure out he's got a funky BO going on. Those types usually worked in tech support or the noc. Fortunately, the helpdesk crews were always pretty well managed and anyone that didn't generate a lot of positive feedback were re-assigned to other groups with less human contact.
But yeah, nobody likes the techie with the ashtray mouth and doo doo armpits. Not the guy you want to send up to work on Miss VP's laptop. You know, the lingering looks and nasal noises he'll make right before blathering something about how she should run Linux on her laptop and save everyone a lot of trouble.
College requirements can kiss my ass, too. I've got 11 years experience doing this stuff. My current job said a 4 year degree was required, but after the interview, they hired me anyway. I figure I should get back in school, I know it's going to impact me at some point..
Ah, I just thought it was some kind of cancer. Thanks for clarifying.. :]
He's not, he should escalate it to the real techs. That's what they're getting paid the big bucks for. Not for sitting on their asses and following a script the IT Manager wrote up, but solving problems. Problems that may not even have a documented solution.
/. readers and posters are, or were, helpdesk at some point of their technical careers.
You mentioned at least 2 times in your text about IT helpdesk and their 'scripts'. I've worked for several large corporations over the past 10 years and none of them had people in IT reading from scripts. These were typically people who were just as intelligent and bright at problem solving as any engineer from our other groups, just typically younger and still in college.
Before you start with your elitist, derogatory remarks, remember that a large percentage of
Also, the reason for standardizing the desktops in a corporation has a lot less to do with being convienent for an IT group than reducing the TCO. I have my doubts that you've worked for a corporation of any size if you think anything caters to the IT folks. My experience has been 12 hour days, impossible projects, the company always wants more, better, cheaper, faster.. You make it sound like they need more time to play Quake and slurp cheese off their pizza crust..
If you purchase all of your systems from Dell, typically, you can get extended support for your IT people. If the helpdesk people can rapily fix a problem, then there's less hours invested in a problem and it costs the company much less in man hours.
I'm sorry, but your derogatory remarks just make you look like one of those users who tries to alienate himself due to some sort of superiority/inferiority complex. You also hit me as that one guy in every company that is so disrespectful to IT staff that everyone just avoids him, period.
Having been on both sides of the Helpdesk, I can honestly say that none of the helpdesk folks I have known have been hated by their userbase. They are typically seen as helpful people who do their best to get things rolling when users are in a jam.
I wouldn't buy one of these, either. I couldn't imagine the 3D effect being all that great.
Anyway, there's no point in holding out over the number of applications. Anything that uses OpenGL or Direct3D will be displayed in 3D. Any 3D game, application, etc should work just fine.
One thing I've noticed, though, a lot of 3D applications cheat a little. You'll end up with some crazy anomolies occuring because of programming tricks and illusions of depth where none is actually processed in the 3D space. If you've ever tried to watch Assembly demos with 3D glasses on, you'll know what I'm talking about.
I saw Matrix Reloaded at the local IMAX. It was obvious the movie had not been shot for and IMAX screen. The aspect ratio seemed wrong. The resolution and focus also weren't that great in this movie, as there were a lot of scenes where the director wants you to look at a particular character so more focus is on them and not their surroundings. This is fine for the 16:9 cinema screen but when you are looking at a 3 story IMAX screen, your eyes want to wander and look at all the details. This, I thought, was a little disappointing. The smoother flowing scenes, such as scenes of Zion looked incredible.
You'll also be able to see Trinity's blond nose hairs a number of times. The fact that the prop cars on the freeway action scenes have no motors in them becomes very apparent. I could go on for an hour about the visual flaws with the Matrix series on IMAX, but I'll stop my complaining there. Oh okay, one more: the oracle's skin. EWWWWWWWW. Get that lady some scar cream, stat!
I'd say to go see the new one on IMAX, but not for the visual difference (it's just bigger, blurrier, and choppier looking), go for the audio. IMAX theaters tend to have very strong, very clear, sound systems that really add to action sequences. The can really feel the music when the fighting breaks out.
It also would have helped a lot if the movie had been shot at ~60 fps. I've seen movies shot for IMAX and they didn't appear to have such jagged motion when panning and, overall, more focus and attention to visual details. The focus seems clearer for a whole scene in an IMAX native film, too.
Prototypes of electric cars have been demonstrated by GMC for over 20 years now.
Just putting 'prototype' into perspective here.
You'll be Okay. I'll sell you a DVD+R with all the latest demos and popular shareware applications for $19.99 + 6.95 s&h. That'll save you weeks of downloading!
But are all deodorant soaps really anti-bacterial and not just doped up on rosey smelling chemicals?
Ever try that Dr. Bronners Magic Soap? It's all hemp oil and spice/herb extracts. It'll get you good and clean. I think the way it works is, the hemp oil extract in harmony with Eucalyptus, it kills bacteria by stripping your skin of any trace of moisture. Use it too often and you'll be ripping tufts of fur out in frustration from the endless itching, but occasional use is nice and refreshing. Kind of a de-oiling ritual.
Don't dare try using it as a toothpaste or mouthrinse, as suggested on the bottle. It tastes terrible.
Nice points. That stuff about the tooth fungus gave me the chills.
Yeah, I do like the PS2 controllers better too.
Still, tho, I can't deal with those jaggies on a big screen. If the PS2 had FSAA and component video output (at least 720p resolution, native), then things would be different.
No need to be Mr. Inflammatory-Point-by-point-Man, I'm not bragging or have much of an attitude about this stuff. I'm just honest with my words and don't have a PR department to filter what I've got to say.
So, let's see.. I'm an asshole for mentioning that immigrant labor in my area is the pits. I'm an idiot for stopping at Starbucks because I was thirsty for coffee made with filtered water. But apparently, my sexuality is in question because I don't stink. I'm not sure how derogatory gay comments and stereotypes make one less an asshole than not caring for dealing with non-english speaking immigrants. I'd hate to think of the quality of female that would share bed with a man who attacks people who support good hygene, anyway.
Phat stuff? Nah, the new Pioneer systems have LCoS, which is superior to DLP systems, IMO. They don't use a color wheel, so they'll last a lot longer (if designed properly, no moving parts), they also support 1920x1080(progressive!) native. The DLP only supports 1280x720p. I wish I could afford one, but I was trying to make a point that you missed: If you don't piss your money away feeding social habits, then the financial opportunity to make life at home a bit more entertaining and fulfilling becomes available. That's the only wisdom I was trying to extend to the masses. Anything outside of that and you are blowing hot air up my anus for little cause..
I'm well aware that raw DVD is traded online. I just have serious doubts about it happening more than Divx. In terms of 'traffic' I can see it passing more bits, but not in number of movies since a Divx is about 1/10th the size of a raw DVD. That's like comparing WAV file traffic to MP3 traffic. Sadly, I am no expert here. I didn't claim to be. I'm also not a pirate, so I am slightly ignorant about the quantities of traffic outside of what I have seen on Usenet and Kazaa.
I really don't see much of a point in all that 'trading'.. Just wait until it comes out on NetFlix, rent it, then if you want to be a theif, just copy the DVD then. I guess some people live for the 'cool' factor of being a leet haxx0r pirate.
Sorry, I'm an adult and don't care about that stuff. You'll understand this some day when people depend on you, too. Until then, please don't consider showering a gay activity. I know standing there nekkid might make you feel uncomfy, but acceptance of your appearance is one of the wonders of the human experience.
Here's some suggestions for ya, mr. stinky:
1) Avoid anti-bacterial soaps, they leave behind only the most ruthless of bacteria. This will cause your BO to come back with knockout power once they start breeding.
2) Get a shower head with a 6' hose. This allows you to really get the funk out of the cracks. It also makes getting the feet clean much easier.
3) Scrub the genitals. I know this part may make you feel abnormally homosexual feelings, but the hair and folds of skin in these areas are breeding grounds for funk. If you don't do an appropriate job cleaning these areas, you might end up with infections in the hair roots. Rinse well too!
4) Use whitening toothpaste and listerene. I suggest a short pre-rinse with listerene (medical data shows no effect on cavities when it comes to pre-rinsing, but it sure makes the gums feel nice). Brush well, using a soft bristle brush to prevent damage to your teeth and gums. Make certain to really get in there and brush the hell out of those molars. Then give yourself a good flossing and rinse with antiseptic mouthwash for no less than 30 seconds.
5) Wash your clothes after each use. Make sure to follow the instructions on the tags to the T, otherwise you'll end up with faded or shrunk trunks. Recently, Febreeze released a product to help eliminate the permafunk clothing can get if left in a damp pile after too many wears. If you've had hygene problems in the past, I'd suggest getting a bottle of this to start a fresh slate.
6) Avoid colognes and perfumes. These are out-dated leftovers from a
This with any 'hackbox' seems to be missing the ability to do the same thing a $49 box can do:
Record two shows at once, while playing back a 3rd from it's HDD.
I know people want to "hack a PVR"*** but really, when the most basic of features are missing, it's not really worth all the fuss. Especially not worth the money they are charging.
Yeah, it runs Linux. I've got several PC's doing that now, and they do what I need them to do. I've also got a UTV PVR that does more than these over-priced things will ever do due to the dual tuners and native support for DTV compression.
You can get an Xbox to play games on (even tetris). A PC to run Linux on (tetris runs well on this, too!). Your best bet is to get a PVR with the right credentials to make the most of your home theater.
I say this because I have a friend who's got a buddy with a 1st generation Tivo. All I ever hear is "he runs Linux on it, he can access the files over the network and view/archive them on his PC, etc" -- What good does all this do when the Simpsons are coming on but you feel like watching Dragonball Z? With a single tuner you are giving up one of them.. Anyway, who wants to archive TV anyway? It'll all be reruns you'll never watch soon enough anyway. I can't imagine anyone wanting to watch the same TV show more than one or two times, ever. I always thought it was funny when people would record programs on VHS, then have them around taking up space for the next 10 years and never watch them again. Same goes with this, except you are wasting DVDR/CDR media and hard drive space.
For the price of this thing w/ a 60 gig hard drive, you could buy a good dual tuner system, an Xbox + mod chip, and still have money left over to donate to your favorite Open Source project.
*** - It's no longer hacking your PVR when installing a HDD amounts to about the same effort as installing in a PC.
It's likely that Microsoft will drop the Xbox price to match the PS2.
:)
Aside from M$ hating, I couldn't imagine buying a PS2 instead of an Xbox. The graphics on the Xbox are superior. This would be different if the PS2 has FSAA and a HDD.
I'm not being a zealot here, I own both systems and I only turn my PS2 on to play DBZ: Bodukai anymore. All other titles, I wait for the Xbox release in hopes of graphical enhancements.
With a little customization to your Xbox, you can slap a 120 gig HDD in it and run your games off it for much greater load speeds. You can also store Divx movies, mp3's, etc and play them back with XBMP. There's lots of home-brew software for the Xbox and it's all relatively easy to install and use, given the fact it has a HDD and network port.
I'm a big fan of streaming audio, so having an Xbox connected via optical cables to the home stereo, playing a streaming music feed is a common senario for mine. Makes me wonder why people buy PS2's at all, these days..
PS - Yeah, you can run Linux on either. Who cares. I'm more than happy using Linux on my desktop and letting the console run it's native OS.
Speak out all you want, but the fact is, our current administration isn't focused enough on issues here in the USA to take any action what-so-ever.
It appears we are too concerned with making the rest of the world love us right now. You know, the whole liberation of Iraq, and all.
Good preaching, man. I HATE the movie theatre experience. Ever since I moved to Atlanta, it's been a nightmare every time.
:)
If it's not the droves of gangsta wannabe teenagers, it's the middle-aged overweight women who can't stop talking. The $6 soda. The drive. How about the 6.1 audio system with a blown rear-channel speaker?
The smell of most theaters alone is enough to get me to not go. A combination of a society who's more talk than action on it's hygene and lazy immigrants who don't care about their jobs enough to actually clean the theaters properly on occasion. Then there's the whole SARS season rolling in on us soon.
And my friends think I am messed up for buying a 56" DLP HDTV for my movie watching.. I get similar visual quality as I would in the theater, but I get to pause the action for a potty break, pop some popcorn for $0.30, drink a soda for $0.25, wear my Pj's and do whatever lewd cuddling I want with my woman without having to be discreet.
Here's the funny thing. The same people who think I am a bit nutty for spending some bread on this stuff are the ones who eat out at staple food resturants 3-5 times a week, go to the movies 2-3 times a week, then go have desert at specialty shops, etc. That adds up to hundreds upon hundreds a month, especially if you are dragging along a member of the opposite sex.
If they would only get into the pattern of learning to cook and do these things for themselves, work on making life at home better instead of funding mega-corporations every chance they get, they'd learn that when doing these things in your own home results in better foods, better coffee, better deserts, better movie watching experiences, and a more relaxed life (having not dealt with crowds or rude people).
I say all this, having stopped at Starbucks a few minutes ago because I was late leaving the house and did not have time to brew my own coffee.
I think the RIAA had planned on directors complaining. They are, of course, the people who have expensive theaters in their homes specifically to impress guests with DVD screeners. Don't just think of the awards, the directors aren't, either..
What gets me, Hollywood actually thinks people are satisfied enough with watching a Divx of a screener instead of renting/buying the DVD. I guess they've never watched a Divx on anything bigger than 36" display. There's no comparison. Now, if people were posting the raw, unencrypted DVD on Kazaa, that'd be a different story. Most movie pirate types I have encountered seem to deal with quantity instead of quality, so I doubt that'll happen anytime soon, not on a large scale. Though, you occasionally see an uncompressed screener go through usenet on occasion..
Rent a DVD, skip the theater, drive them out of business through natural selection.