no, not practical. period. If I go to the store and see the label "150ft indoors, 300ft outdoors", I expect that to work. I even expect them to be way off the spec, somewhere like 75ft indoors and 150ft outdoors. But when I'm sitting 30ft away from the access point and getting 2 out of 5 bars of signal... that means it just doesn't work. I have to install range extenders, etc. That's not practical.
well, my house is actually 4300 sq ft (2 story, 200 sq mt), and my cousin's home is a little smaller. but both are made of brick and high ceilings (my ceilings are 9 ft high). and remember that there's lots of metal in all that concrete. The equipment is not broken, as I have tested with several combinations: 200mW senao, 55mW Linksys, even a $ 1000 100mW Cisco Aironet, and none of them worked as good as I wanted them to work. Most times they do work relatively well in the same floor, but the signal doesn't seem to go past the ceilings. I have succeeded in installing 25km wi-fi links, which is what I did for a living a few years ago, but can't seem to make them work in my own house. Go figure.
no. you're just wrong. I can see that you have never used wireless. My cousin lives in a regular latin american house. That is, brick and mortar. No drywall. There's no more than 30 feet to the access point, yet she has trouble to get signal. Sure, it's 2 walls away. But it's supposed to be convenient . It just doesn't work. And no, it's no crappy gear. It's a 200mW AP and a Centrino laptop (awhich are supposed to be the best wireless cards around). The other day I wasn't getting ANY signal, on the spot where she uses it all the time. Guess what I found? There was a BOTTLE OF WATER 2 feet away from the computer. I moved that bottle and it worked. That means wireless is NOT practical. No. It's not practical to need to install high gain antennas and range extenders everywhere. They are pretty expensive, too (remember: we are in the third world). And you need outlets all over the place. And don't get me started on how wireles works in my house (a two story house, all brick).
Mexico and other countries set maximum prices to protect their own people from inflation. I live in Argentina, and the government here has set max prices for a few products (basic products such as milk) because our currency is so low that it's very convenient to export. So, corporations export milk, meat, etc and stop providing people here (unless you pay what they pay in Europe for our products). So, the government sets prices and limits exportation (otherwise we won't be able to have access to that stuff).
Protection against inflation comes in the demand for those products: if people want to buy that, they need a raise in their salary. If there's a raise, prices will rise (because corporations will see that there's more demand), so people will need another raise, and prices will rise again, etc. "Inflationary spiral" they call it down here. And we know about that (before the Peso we had the Austral, it was 10.000 australs to 1 USD, so you get an idea how much it inflated in matter of months. It was, IIRC, pegged to the USD first. Then the peso (ARS) was pegged to the USD for 10 years, and one day, bang! they un-pegged it: it went from 1=1 to 3,5=1 in a few months. That's why govt's down here apply price controls).
Oh really? I though that was just mexico trying to recover what you americans stole from them. Ever wondered why almost every place in California, Texas, and the rest of the south east is named in Spanish? Yes. Because that was all mexico. You either bought it for dimes or just went and stole it. Now they're just getting it back. Good for them.
I'm perplexed at Bill's thinking here. He apparently doesn't think US students are getting enough math and science or are going into that field. So his solution is to bring over endentured servents for a fraction of a US worker's salary to make up for the slack.
It's called competition, you asshole. You invented the system (this cruel, blood-sucking capitalism). Now eat your own fucking dog food. This just proves that americans are really stupid and you need people from other countries. Well. There you go. There's your HDTV, your TiVos, your PS3s and XBoxes, your long trips on the highway, your suburban homes, and your weekends at Aspen. Maybe, just MAYBE, if you spent just a little more of your time trying to get better at what you do, instead of sitting around your house full of electronic gadgets, you'll be better qualified. But no, you bet on being "just good enough", and there it is. It bit you right in the ass. Now suck it up and get a Master or a fucking PhD. Then we'll see if "a foreigner takes your job" or if you are better and get hired.
Quite the opposite- you just need to look at WalMart and what it's done to the American Manufacturing industry. Just about EVERYTHING WalMart imports from China is crap that will need replacing 3 times a year today- and they did it by forcing American companies to such a low price point that they had to close the factories here and outsource.
Oh, Walmart is to blame for that? I thought the FUCKING AMERICANS WHO BUY CRAP FROM WALMART are to blame for crap that needs to be replaced 3 times a year. There ARE places where you can buy high quality stuff. But Joe Sixpack doesn't buy at those places, because Walmart is cheaper. You're just another american idiot who thinks he's better than the rest of the world. News: You're not. Open your fucking eyes: your country spends half of its budget in DEFENSE, something no other country in the world does. NO. You DO NOT need that kind of "protection". Bush wants you to believe that (I'm pretty sure you don't know that Bush family has been in the defense business for decades). The US just needs to stop messing with the rest of the world and the rest of the world will stop messing with you. So you need less budget for defense (which could go to education or health, two places where "America" is far behind). Oh sure, your economy is so fragile that it only works because of the wars you create and the oil you steal. Well. Some day oil will stop and the world will be a better place (without you!).
So you don't like to buy products from a monopoly, but you do like to support a corporation that install rootkits, abuses copyright, etc? You, sir, are an idiot.
Re:How Many Nodes Do You Need to Own?
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Yeah, the UK is proving that what you said is true. Sad but true.
I happen to have an account on the USA HSBC, too (never been in the US). Savings account costs me $2 a month, and free checking. Here in my country it costs 12 pesos, which is about 4 USD. Checking and savings accounts will cost me well over 20 pesos a month (about 7 USD).
Well, in this country, to have access to credit, you have to prove that you DON'T need credit. For example, if I wanted to have a credit card, with no income, I need to make a deposit of 100.000 pesos (over USD 33.000), and keep it in the bank, in order to get a card with 10.000 pesos limit (about USD 3.000). The same applies to credits. Of course, it's risky to do so, because 100.000 pesos is a magic number (the "rich tax" starts on 100.000 pesos), and it will set a few alarms at the government. I will need to a) pay the "rich tax". b) explain how did I get 100.000 pesos and never pay any taxes (gifts don't count).
and if you know anything about longhaul capacity and network hardware costs (I'm looking at you, Cisco), you'd know that the cost of moving a megabit of traffic across the country costs *much* more than what it costs for an ISP to deliver a megabit of capacity from its edge routers to your home
BULLSHIT!!! Cisco costs that because the DEMAND for those products is high. If tomorrow every ISP would switch to an in-house solution for their connections, Cisco will drop their prices. But that's not happening anytime soon. Why? Because, as expensive as Cisco gear is, ISPs get ROI in matter of MONTHS. So that's why they pay premium for Cisco gear: because they can afford it. You, on the other hand, as an individual, or as a small business, could never, ever dream of operating or owning Cisco gear (more than an old Catalyst switch for your network core, if you want to pretend you're cool), because they don't care that much about you. Why should they? You're not gonna pay them $350 for a DSL WIC, when you can, for that price, get an old computer to run as an IPCop firewall, a decent DSL modem, a trip downtown to get it, a steak and kidney pie, a cup of coffee, a slice of cheesecake and a newsreel. With enough change left over to ride the trolley from Battery Park to the polo grounds.
That's like saying "people in poor countries shouldn't go to the movies, they should watch movies in TV instead". But it's not like that. You can go to the movie theater here and watch movies even before they are released in the US, or just a few days later (because in my country, movie premieres are on Thursdays. Check release dates for "Hide And Seek" on IMDB for example). But we don't pay the nearly 10 dollars it costs in the US, we pay 5 to 7 pesos, which is US$ 1,50 to US$ 2.
Software prices should be adjusted to what people can pay, but Microsoft refuses to do so. Then they lose a huge number of customers. I do not know anyone here who uses a legal copy of Windows XP (which costs over $200 for the home edition here). Not even OEM: HP sells most of their computers loaded with "FreeDOS", which is like saying "hey, at least we didn't give you a blank drive!".
I think this is a starting point for Microsoft or whatever to do the right thing: instead of suing your ass for using a pirated copy, give you a way of getting it legally without needing to starve your family to buy it.
Erm. People in those countries often make like $100 - $200 a month. You really expect them to pay they whole salary to buy something like Word? Besides, Office 2003 price at least in my country (Argentina) is well over $250, while the average salary is $300 a month.
Maybe you have that kind of money, but we don't, so we usually rely on extended payments to buy "expensive" things. So, if you rent office or if you pay it in 12 payments (the usual), it's going to cost you more than the product, of course (because of the interest rate, which in our economies can be as high as 50% a year).
Finally, it's not easy for people here to have access to a credit card. Most credit cards here give you a limit of about 1 to 1,5 salaries (or less). So you'll basically blowing your whole card to buy Microsoft office? I don't think so. Sure, Visa usually charges much lower interest rates, but you have to pay for it (it costs $50 to $80 a year, in 3 payments, and a $3 surcharge every month. Also you need to earn over $500 a month to qualify for one, which is too much for a LOT of people). So smaller "credit entities" with their own cards are growing at an impressive rate, even considering that they usually have rates of 50% for credit cards and money loans. A bank here offers a "Super-Loan 1000/30: for every 1000 we loan, you pay 30 a month, in 60 payments", which is tricky: at first you may think you end up paying 1800 in 5 years, but it's actually 80 a month what you pay (so you pay 4800 for every 1000 you loan).
I, for example, work on my own. I pay my taxes. I earn well over $2000 a month (that is a lot of money here. Enough to have a nice car and all). But I don't qualify for a credit card: HSBC or Citibank demand that I have at least 3 years on the same job, with that salary, as I am a "company". If I were an employee it would be easier, but as I'm not, I don't have another choice than using my Debit/ATM card (for which I have to pay $5 a month). Which is also blocked for "cardholder non-present" operations (that is, Internet shopping or Telephone). Being that I don't have enough years "in service", I can't either have a checking account, so I can write no checks (not that I need them, we use cash and cards only here, checks are for large operations, and as they are taxed, most large operations are done through electronic funds transfers). Also, to even think of opening a savings account, you need to be 21 years of age.
So, now you can get a picture of why someone would be better off renting office than using it.
Well, I know that the first generations of LCD displays sold in Argentina from Philips, 23" widescreen, had a lot of features (such as a dedicated chip for enhancing the detail of subtitles from an analog signal!) and a Faroudja Genesis "top of the line" Motion-Adaptive deinterlacing chip (SDTV only, it's an old set). Now they have cut costs, newer sets don't include that great deinterlacer, neither the analog-enhancing circuitry. It's a shame, considering how expensive these sets are.
Makes me wonder why they removed those features, which I don't think add up that much to the overall cost of the product. On cheap sets, I think that would be acceptable, but this feature isn't available (as far as I know) on the "top of the line" -formerly MatchLine, now Cineos- either.
I guess it will take a long while until "true" high definition settles. But don't worry, 1080i is not that bad, given you have a good deinterlacer. check the Wikipedia article on 1080p. Basically, movies that have been converted with "3:2 pulldown" from "progressive" film, to "interlaced" 1080i, can be reconverted to true 1080p on good deinterlacers (I guess that deinterlacer would need quite a bit of RAM to work on, considering it would need to hold like, 5 full frames or so).
I have never voted. No party respects the values of equality, freedom and democracy that I have.
Well, if you don't vote, someone else will vote for you. And I'm pretty sure that this somebody, would not respect the values of equality, freedom and democracy that you have.
At least try to keep the candidate you like the least from winning the election.
Most of the world has moved-on to progressive-scan displays,
Not true. I happen to work as a TV service for Philips (among other brands) and I can tell you that we have serviced over 300 sets last year (about 3 million customers in the area we cover), and only 4 of these were Plasma and LCD displays. I live in Argentina (a "third world" country), but I think we represent "most of the world" better. You may see a lot of Plasma and LCD displays being sold in Europe or the US, but there's more than that, and I assure you, there's no progressive scan or HDTV in our countries. My country hasn't decided if it will go with ATSC, DVB or ISDB. Considering Brazil has already chosen ISDB, I think it's a no brainer. All of Latin America should choose ISDB, a superior standard. If the whole block of countries choose the same standard, unification would be easier. We, in Argentina use PAL-N, Brazil uses PAL-B, and the rest uses NTSC. So, our TV sets are PAL-N/M and NTSC, but Philips has been selling PAL-N/M/B/G/I/NTSC sets for a few years (to support PAL as well as NTSC DVDs).
That just sucks, you'll need to upscale 720 to 1080 (1:1.5), that means interpolating 1 line every 2 from the original image. What's the point of HDTV? I thought it was to have "crisp clear" image, but that just won't work if you need to interpolate.
The same thing happens downscaling 1080 to 720: you need to throw away a lot (33%) of information. Sure, interpolation algorithms can take care of it, but it's just not the same.
So what? I don't think I want to buy 2 TVs, one for 720 and one for 1080, but neither do I want to watch 720 upscaled to 1080, nor 720 "windowed" to fit 1080 (black bars all around).
If at least they would have made it an integer number such as 720 to 1440 (that is 2560x1440), you could at least fit 720 to 1440 just repeating every pixel twice, and it would look just as good.
Sounds to me like a convenient way to gag someone that a government doesn't want to be heard. "Are they making derrogatory comments about the leadership? Well then, just turn their computer off."
What the hell? This computer is intended for KIDS. If your government is so worried about "free speech" that they need to censor kids an teenagers, then you have a very serious problem. Or a president with a very small dick.
Lots of benefits, one of the most obvious from the driving perspective is much better acceleration -- manual cars can shift up faster and easier than automatics do
Oh yeah, you know, every day I need to drive like a maniac and can't wait 1 second for the shift to kick in. That jerk at the traffic light always calls me a chicken and I have to race him.
Seriously, do you need the kind of acceleration that a manual gearbox will give you?
Another is less damage to your transmission through normal driving and less expensive transmission repairs should you need.
Well, tell that to my mother. A few weeks ago I showed her something she had never used before: third shift. She's lazy so she always goes just the bare minimum in 1st and sticks it to 2nd all the way "because traffic is slow". So we get to a clear street... and she just goes in 2nd. Lately she has been shifting to 3rd (after I showed her how much gas 2nd uses). Sure, now there's the problem that when she turns, she doesn't go back to 2nd... and she kicks the clutch just when the engine is about to turn off. Also when driving in the city, constant shifting wears your clutch. Anyway, even driving that way, our Renault 18 lasted 12 years of her driving every day to school (she's a teacher). So I guess manual transmissions can stand a lot of beating.
It is also cool/useful to shift down and use the shift as a breaking/speed-control device when driving in places like indoor parking lots/ramps/etc.
True that. Less wear on your brakes too, but again... that's too complicated for my mom. JUST LET ME DO THINGS MY OWN WAY!! she screams. I mean, most women (and quite a few men) do that to their manual shift. So for them, automatic is the way to go. I prefer automatic, but it would be nice to have both (my dad has a 1998 BMW 528i automatic and sequential, but it's not the same thing: the car is supervising the gearbox and will shift even if you didn't, or won't let you shift if the engine is not revved high enough. But the most annoying part is how much it takes to shift: about 1 second. Unless you hit the gas after making the shift, but then the car bumps a little. I don't think that's good for the transmission).
I drive a stick because I'm in Argentina, and we are "european-style", so traditionally we never had automatic. Just in the last few years "affordable" cars began to have automatic as an option. And I mean Honda Fit, Civic, Toyota Corolla and that's about it. Previously you needed an expensive car (an Honda CR-V, a Mercedes or a BMW) just to have the.. pleasure? of driving automatic.
Personally, I like both. I learned to drive on a Renault 18, with stick. It was annoying at first, but it was easy. It had a "deep clutch", you had to push it really in to fully engage it, and considering that the clutch is "analog", it was a bonus for learning. In 2004 we switched to a Chevrolet Meriva. This one had a short clutch, kind of "on-off". It was a little harder (even my dad, who's been driving for over 40 years now, had the engine turning off from bad clutching a couple of times).
Now we have a 1998 BMW 528i, automatic + sequential, street and sport program, etc. I love to just push the gas and have the car do everything. He likes to use the sequential mode, but it's annoying for him that the car actually shifts one or two seconds after you command it to shift. But he finally fell for the automatic while driving on the road with cruise control enabled (another feature that cars here don't have).
But anyway, I recommend you to learn to drive a stick. "You never know when you might need it". So there's no "no possible gain" for you. Also, there's no possible loss for you either. Your reasoning reminds me of the Cambodian army's: they kill war prisoners because "we gain nothing for keeping you, but we lose nothing for killing you".
So, stop being an ass and start doing things "just because". Knowledge doesn't take up space in your brain.
The lack of a recent release of XP is not a problem that excuses the support problems of XP.
Ah, big words... they make you sound smart. But you aren't.
Microsoft is one of the richest & most abusive corporations on the planet. They can make their product the union of the best features of ALL of their competitors if they really cared and if their customers weren't captives.
oh boo-hoo. Take my advise: grow up.
The "release early and often" benefits of improved Linux driver support were showing themselves prior to the release of XP. Microsoft simply refuses to learn from the mistakes or successes of others, even notorious crap like the Morris Worm.
What was that rant about? You realize that you put together two totally unrelated sentences, right?
Besides, Microsoft just CAN'T "release early and often". Because every month a new piece of hardware comes out. So? What should they do? Release a version of XP every 2 or 3 weeks? Make it available by subscription?
Well, I think we should blame manufacturers for making hardware that DOES need drivers to work even in basic mode. You see, video cards are VESA-compliant, mouses and keyboards that are HID compliant can run without drivers (provided that the USB host is OHCI or something like that). But any USB ADSL modem needs drivers. Most NICs too...
What Microsoft should demand is for standards about hardware. Minimum functionality MUST be met for ANY piece of hardware (modems, NICs, SATA controllers, USB host adapters, USB adsl modems...), so, when installing, windows CAN be installed with minimum functionality to call home and get drivers. They should have a repository of drivers too. Like a network install.
See kid? That's how you reply. Proposing an idea. Not just ranting around.
not sure about the PIX, but I'm pretty sure that NAT to different addresses based on the source IP can be accomplished easily with even the 2501's I used back then in the CCNA course. just an ACL for filtering packets and that's it. Never touched a PIX firewall, but AFAIK, it has more firewalling features than the 10 year old 2501, so it *SHOULD* be able to do what you want.
I think your hosting provider was too stupid to configure it. He tried the web config looking for "NAT to different addresses based on the source IP" and didn't find it, so he told you that... j/k
you may want to try if a version of Ubuntu released in 2001 like XP can recognize all the hardware you just described. Oh wait, there was no Ubuntu back in 2001. but if there was, it wouldn't have "just worked" like you describe. you have to be fair if you're going to compare things. it's like comparing a 1978 Camry with a 2007 Corolla.
now, try to install XP on a machine made before the release of windows XP. It just works. I happen to have a Pentium III machine on the office, with VIA chipset, an nVidia video card and a 3C509 NIC. If I try to install XP on that, it just works. Don't even need to install the nVidia driver separately. it even detects my parallel HP LaserJet 1100 (ha, try to make that printer just work even on a 6.10 ubuntu).
we could argue that XP should be updated yearly, and that a new install CD should be released, or some sort of patch that's easy for normal users to apply and make their own updated CDs (yes, I know XP provides the "slipstream" functionality for service packs, and that install CDs can be customized to include new drivers, like computer manufacturers do, but neither windows nor Linux have an easy way for a regular user to do this).
FWIW, I know what the big mac index is. Didn't think some smart-ass would try to make a stupid joke about my comment. Well, my bad. This is slashdot after all.
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no, not practical. period. If I go to the store and see the label "150ft indoors, 300ft outdoors", I expect that to work. I even expect them to be way off the spec, somewhere like 75ft indoors and 150ft outdoors. But when I'm sitting 30ft away from the access point and getting 2 out of 5 bars of signal... that means it just doesn't work. I have to install range extenders, etc. That's not practical.
well, my house is actually 4300 sq ft (2 story, 200 sq mt), and my cousin's home is a little smaller. but both are made of brick and high ceilings (my ceilings are 9 ft high). and remember that there's lots of metal in all that concrete. The equipment is not broken, as I have tested with several combinations: 200mW senao, 55mW Linksys, even a $ 1000 100mW Cisco Aironet, and none of them worked as good as I wanted them to work. Most times they do work relatively well in the same floor, but the signal doesn't seem to go past the ceilings. I have succeeded in installing 25km wi-fi links, which is what I did for a living a few years ago, but can't seem to make them work in my own house. Go figure.
no. you're just wrong. I can see that you have never used wireless. My cousin lives in a regular latin american house. That is, brick and mortar. No drywall. There's no more than 30 feet to the access point, yet she has trouble to get signal. Sure, it's 2 walls away. But it's supposed to be convenient . It just doesn't work. And no, it's no crappy gear. It's a 200mW AP and a Centrino laptop (awhich are supposed to be the best wireless cards around). The other day I wasn't getting ANY signal, on the spot where she uses it all the time. Guess what I found? There was a BOTTLE OF WATER 2 feet away from the computer. I moved that bottle and it worked. That means wireless is NOT practical. No. It's not practical to need to install high gain antennas and range extenders everywhere. They are pretty expensive, too (remember: we are in the third world). And you need outlets all over the place. And don't get me started on how wireles works in my house (a two story house, all brick).
Mexico and other countries set maximum prices to protect their own people from inflation. I live in Argentina, and the government here has set max prices for a few products (basic products such as milk) because our currency is so low that it's very convenient to export. So, corporations export milk, meat, etc and stop providing people here (unless you pay what they pay in Europe for our products). So, the government sets prices and limits exportation (otherwise we won't be able to have access to that stuff).
Protection against inflation comes in the demand for those products: if people want to buy that, they need a raise in their salary. If there's a raise, prices will rise (because corporations will see that there's more demand), so people will need another raise, and prices will rise again, etc. "Inflationary spiral" they call it down here. And we know about that (before the Peso we had the Austral, it was 10.000 australs to 1 USD, so you get an idea how much it inflated in matter of months. It was, IIRC, pegged to the USD first. Then the peso (ARS) was pegged to the USD for 10 years, and one day, bang! they un-pegged it: it went from 1=1 to 3,5=1 in a few months. That's why govt's down here apply price controls).
Oh really? I though that was just mexico trying to recover what you americans stole from them. Ever wondered why almost every place in California, Texas, and the rest of the south east is named in Spanish? Yes. Because that was all mexico. You either bought it for dimes or just went and stole it. Now they're just getting it back. Good for them.
Yeah, the UK is proving that what you said is true. Sad but true.
I happen to have an account on the USA HSBC, too (never been in the US). Savings account costs me $2 a month, and free checking. Here in my country it costs 12 pesos, which is about 4 USD. Checking and savings accounts will cost me well over 20 pesos a month (about 7 USD).
Well, in this country, to have access to credit, you have to prove that you DON'T need credit. For example, if I wanted to have a credit card, with no income, I need to make a deposit of 100.000 pesos (over USD 33.000), and keep it in the bank, in order to get a card with 10.000 pesos limit (about USD 3.000). The same applies to credits. Of course, it's risky to do so, because 100.000 pesos is a magic number (the "rich tax" starts on 100.000 pesos), and it will set a few alarms at the government. I will need to a) pay the "rich tax". b) explain how did I get 100.000 pesos and never pay any taxes (gifts don't count).
That's like saying "people in poor countries shouldn't go to the movies, they should watch movies in TV instead". But it's not like that. You can go to the movie theater here and watch movies even before they are released in the US, or just a few days later (because in my country, movie premieres are on Thursdays. Check release dates for "Hide And Seek" on IMDB for example). But we don't pay the nearly 10 dollars it costs in the US, we pay 5 to 7 pesos, which is US$ 1,50 to US$ 2.
Software prices should be adjusted to what people can pay, but Microsoft refuses to do so. Then they lose a huge number of customers. I do not know anyone here who uses a legal copy of Windows XP (which costs over $200 for the home edition here). Not even OEM: HP sells most of their computers loaded with "FreeDOS", which is like saying "hey, at least we didn't give you a blank drive!".
I think this is a starting point for Microsoft or whatever to do the right thing: instead of suing your ass for using a pirated copy, give you a way of getting it legally without needing to starve your family to buy it.
Erm. People in those countries often make like $100 - $200 a month. You really expect them to pay they whole salary to buy something like Word? Besides, Office 2003 price at least in my country (Argentina) is well over $250, while the average salary is $300 a month.
Maybe you have that kind of money, but we don't, so we usually rely on extended payments to buy "expensive" things. So, if you rent office or if you pay it in 12 payments (the usual), it's going to cost you more than the product, of course (because of the interest rate, which in our economies can be as high as 50% a year).
Finally, it's not easy for people here to have access to a credit card. Most credit cards here give you a limit of about 1 to 1,5 salaries (or less). So you'll basically blowing your whole card to buy Microsoft office? I don't think so. Sure, Visa usually charges much lower interest rates, but you have to pay for it (it costs $50 to $80 a year, in 3 payments, and a $3 surcharge every month. Also you need to earn over $500 a month to qualify for one, which is too much for a LOT of people). So smaller "credit entities" with their own cards are growing at an impressive rate, even considering that they usually have rates of 50% for credit cards and money loans. A bank here offers a "Super-Loan 1000/30: for every 1000 we loan, you pay 30 a month, in 60 payments", which is tricky: at first you may think you end up paying 1800 in 5 years, but it's actually 80 a month what you pay (so you pay 4800 for every 1000 you loan).
I, for example, work on my own. I pay my taxes. I earn well over $2000 a month (that is a lot of money here. Enough to have a nice car and all). But I don't qualify for a credit card: HSBC or Citibank demand that I have at least 3 years on the same job, with that salary, as I am a "company". If I were an employee it would be easier, but as I'm not, I don't have another choice than using my Debit/ATM card (for which I have to pay $5 a month). Which is also blocked for "cardholder non-present" operations (that is, Internet shopping or Telephone). Being that I don't have enough years "in service", I can't either have a checking account, so I can write no checks (not that I need them, we use cash and cards only here, checks are for large operations, and as they are taxed, most large operations are done through electronic funds transfers). Also, to even think of opening a savings account, you need to be 21 years of age.
So, now you can get a picture of why someone would be better off renting office than using it.
Well, I know that the first generations of LCD displays sold in Argentina from Philips, 23" widescreen, had a lot of features (such as a dedicated chip for enhancing the detail of subtitles from an analog signal!) and a Faroudja Genesis "top of the line" Motion-Adaptive deinterlacing chip (SDTV only, it's an old set). Now they have cut costs, newer sets don't include that great deinterlacer, neither the analog-enhancing circuitry. It's a shame, considering how expensive these sets are.
Makes me wonder why they removed those features, which I don't think add up that much to the overall cost of the product. On cheap sets, I think that would be acceptable, but this feature isn't available (as far as I know) on the "top of the line" -formerly MatchLine, now Cineos- either.
I guess it will take a long while until "true" high definition settles. But don't worry, 1080i is not that bad, given you have a good deinterlacer. check the Wikipedia article on 1080p. Basically, movies that have been converted with "3:2 pulldown" from "progressive" film, to "interlaced" 1080i, can be reconverted to true 1080p on good deinterlacers (I guess that deinterlacer would need quite a bit of RAM to work on, considering it would need to hold like, 5 full frames or so).
At least try to keep the candidate you like the least from winning the election.
That just sucks, you'll need to upscale 720 to 1080 (1:1.5), that means interpolating 1 line every 2 from the original image. What's the point of HDTV? I thought it was to have "crisp clear" image, but that just won't work if you need to interpolate.
The same thing happens downscaling 1080 to 720: you need to throw away a lot (33%) of information. Sure, interpolation algorithms can take care of it, but it's just not the same.
So what? I don't think I want to buy 2 TVs, one for 720 and one for 1080, but neither do I want to watch 720 upscaled to 1080, nor 720 "windowed" to fit 1080 (black bars all around).
If at least they would have made it an integer number such as 720 to 1440 (that is 2560x1440), you could at least fit 720 to 1440 just repeating every pixel twice, and it would look just as good.
I drive a stick because I'm in Argentina, and we are "european-style", so traditionally we never had automatic. Just in the last few years "affordable" cars began to have automatic as an option. And I mean Honda Fit, Civic, Toyota Corolla and that's about it. Previously you needed an expensive car (an Honda CR-V, a Mercedes or a BMW) just to have the.. pleasure? of driving automatic.
Personally, I like both. I learned to drive on a Renault 18, with stick. It was annoying at first, but it was easy. It had a "deep clutch", you had to push it really in to fully engage it, and considering that the clutch is "analog", it was a bonus for learning. In 2004 we switched to a Chevrolet Meriva. This one had a short clutch, kind of "on-off". It was a little harder (even my dad, who's been driving for over 40 years now, had the engine turning off from bad clutching a couple of times).
Now we have a 1998 BMW 528i, automatic + sequential, street and sport program, etc. I love to just push the gas and have the car do everything. He likes to use the sequential mode, but it's annoying for him that the car actually shifts one or two seconds after you command it to shift. But he finally fell for the automatic while driving on the road with cruise control enabled (another feature that cars here don't have).
But anyway, I recommend you to learn to drive a stick. "You never know when you might need it". So there's no "no possible gain" for you. Also, there's no possible loss for you either. Your reasoning reminds me of the Cambodian army's: they kill war prisoners because "we gain nothing for keeping you, but we lose nothing for killing you".
So, stop being an ass and start doing things "just because". Knowledge doesn't take up space in your brain.
2 years ago, Cisco introduced their CRS-1 (Carrier Routing System 1) routers. The tagline was "What would you do with 92 terabits per second?".
Well. That should be enough for serving a few million VOD H.264 1080p or something.
Besides, Microsoft just CAN'T "release early and often". Because every month a new piece of hardware comes out. So? What should they do? Release a version of XP every 2 or 3 weeks? Make it available by subscription?
Well, I think we should blame manufacturers for making hardware that DOES need drivers to work even in basic mode. You see, video cards are VESA-compliant, mouses and keyboards that are HID compliant can run without drivers (provided that the USB host is OHCI or something like that). But any USB ADSL modem needs drivers. Most NICs too...
What Microsoft should demand is for standards about hardware. Minimum functionality MUST be met for ANY piece of hardware (modems, NICs, SATA controllers, USB host adapters, USB adsl modems...), so, when installing, windows CAN be installed with minimum functionality to call home and get drivers. They should have a repository of drivers too. Like a network install.
See kid? That's how you reply. Proposing an idea. Not just ranting around.
not sure about the PIX, but I'm pretty sure that NAT to different addresses based on the source IP can be accomplished easily with even the 2501's I used back then in the CCNA course. just an ACL for filtering packets and that's it. Never touched a PIX firewall, but AFAIK, it has more firewalling features than the 10 year old 2501, so it *SHOULD* be able to do what you want.
I think your hosting provider was too stupid to configure it. He tried the web config looking for "NAT to different addresses based on the source IP" and didn't find it, so he told you that... j/k
you may want to try if a version of Ubuntu released in 2001 like XP can recognize all the hardware you just described. Oh wait, there was no Ubuntu back in 2001. but if there was, it wouldn't have "just worked" like you describe. you have to be fair if you're going to compare things. it's like comparing a 1978 Camry with a 2007 Corolla.
now, try to install XP on a machine made before the release of windows XP. It just works. I happen to have a Pentium III machine on the office, with VIA chipset, an nVidia video card and a 3C509 NIC. If I try to install XP on that, it just works. Don't even need to install the nVidia driver separately. it even detects my parallel HP LaserJet 1100 (ha, try to make that printer just work even on a 6.10 ubuntu).
we could argue that XP should be updated yearly, and that a new install CD should be released, or some sort of patch that's easy for normal users to apply and make their own updated CDs (yes, I know XP provides the "slipstream" functionality for service packs, and that install CDs can be customized to include new drivers, like computer manufacturers do, but neither windows nor Linux have an easy way for a regular user to do this).
FWIW, I know what the big mac index is. Didn't think some smart-ass would try to make a stupid joke about my comment. Well, my bad. This is slashdot after all.