For those not wanting to read the article: Rated best to worst with default settings Low Bitrate go with XVID, DIVX, h.264, WMV
Wow, thanks for saving me from the time I would have wasted reading this article. As I know it has to be junk to say that XviD is better than h.264 at low bitrates,
But, who the hell thought it was important for a microwave to store the date? For one thing, it never displays the date. For another, it has no scheduling function and, even if it did, who keeps food in the microwave for longer than half a day (worst case: defrosting a turkey) anyway?
It was done so the microwave would adjust its performance based on how old it is. That way the longer you use it, the less efficiently it cooks food, prompting you to buy a new microwave after 7 or so years instead of being one of those consumers companies hate (that buys an appliance and keeps using it for 15 or 20 years).
The first vests made from this new material are 5mm thick and can stop a 9mm bullet traveling at 1777 feet per second, which is slightly better than other top of the line vests."
Are there any other benefits? Not to underscore the vest's foremost job (stopping bullets) but if there is only a "slight" improvement over existing vests I don't find this all that newsworthy.
Are the vests lighter in weight than these "top of the line" vests we're comparing it to? That would be important for foot soldiers and types that must travel long distances while wearing them, possibly carrying other equipment as well.
Are these vests thinner? This one is 5mm but I don't know how thick a traditional vest is. That would allow better maneuverability while wearing it.
Are these vests cheaper to produce (perhaps once production ramps up)? Generally I expect the new hottness tech to be more expensive than old'n'busted.
Without answers to these questions, these vests will be nothing more than a "slightly better for a lot more money" niche solution.
Apple is not the only manufacturer to do this. All other laptop manufacturers do it too as the issue is with the LCD itself.
I think part of the problem is all other manufacturers are not Apple. For the difference in price between PC laptops and Mac laptops, I think we [i]should[/i] get a full 8-bit display. Also, if I'm not happy Dell does not make a laptop with an 8-bit display, I can get a Lenovo or Toshiba or whatever that does. It's not like I can go to the [i]other[/i] Macintosh laptop maker and get the product Apple is not offering.
Try telling this to the customer. I've worked in retail and tried to get people to sign their card. Some say they don't do it because they want us to check their ID. I tell them they need to write "CHECK ID" on it then, otherwise if someone steals their card the crook can just put in their own version of the "cardholder's signature". I've also pointed out that the card itself says it is not valid unless signed. All this gets you is an earful and a chance for your supervisor to note you as a troublemaker (they don't care).
Surely you wouldn't enforce that rule strictly, otherwise you'd need to ditch the cellphone, the landline, the lights and A/C, the furnace and maybe even the car.
My cellphone is unlocked, it can be serviced by more than one company. A TiVo can not.
Things like utilities use industry standards. It doesn't matter what company is servicing them, because they have to provide the power in the standard voltage/phase for the home, same with the phone. These are poor examples anyway since they would never cease to exist. If the company servicing them were to get in trouble, they would sell the market to another company. There wouldn't be a time of service not working at all for the customers, despite the business issues.
Also, the A/C and furnace are appliances. With a gas storage cylinder on site like rural areas and a generator, these could function independently of any major company. I can go to my local Wal-Mart and buy refrigerant for my car's A/C. That's hardly the same as the closed system of TiVo.
But in either case, I am still stuck with needing a digital STB because the cable company won't send all channels "in the clear".
Yeah, I don't subscribe to digital cable for that reason. Digital cable is just a way of getting people used to paying per-TV for their service and dealing with DRM in their homes. Whenever someone calls and complains about how often their digital cable box is on the fritz or has inexplicably lost it's authorization from the head end, I think "gee, you wouldn't have to deal with these issues if you just stuck with analog cable".
My cablemodem and cellphone are not tied to a single provider. If T-Mobile goes out of business, I can get service on the same cellphone with AT&T. The cablemodem follows industry stand specs, I can take it to pretty much any provider that serves my area.
If TiVo goes away you have no one else to turn to.
Oh, and how do you handle devices that need to "dial home" periodically? (ReplayTV box, DirecTV box, etc.)
Simple. I wouldn't own a device whose functionality was tied to it contacting some company that could disappear whenever its business plans failed. Same reason I would not use "rental" software.
I think I've only had two on t-Mobile. And after talking to the sales rep about the kind of customer I am (the kind who gets off contract and STAYS off, buying replacement phones unsubsidized) I never got called again. I also took the opportunity to make a few complaints the salesmen didn't have a response for. I think I'm on some unofficial "don't bother trying" list now.:-)
Back in the Classic Mac OS days, there was an extension that would make a little icon of the type of disk being accessed flash on the menu bar when there was activity. This effectively replaced the HD activity LED, floppy LED, and CD-ROM LED using no additional power.
Can you name any more lights, though? Nope. You just covered all the lights on a Mac laptop. Oh, wait, there is the light on the iSight when its active, and the caps lock key light. But still. The point is there is no flashing HD activity light, no flashing network port or WiFi light and no illumination on the vol+/- keys.
My cable modem and Linksys router flash like crazy all the time.
Interesting, since my modem and router only flash when in use (or their having trouble). If my cable modem and router are flashing all the time when I'm not doing anything with the network, I take it as a sign I have spyware.
My recommendation is to cover them up. I put a piece of electrical tape over the front of my modem so only the bottom two amber lights (online and standby on my Motorola SB5220) are exposed. And they would never be on at the same time, so I only have one LED showing all the time then.
I also did the same thing with the bright flashing power light on the front of my monitor when the PC's off (what was wrong with the dim amber standby light, I do not know).
I put a piece of paper in front of the router lights, tucked under and folded so its angled upwards in front of the display. I can pull it down to view the lights if I need to.
It would more obvious to Windows users how insecure the product is if they made patches available as soon as they wrote them. Installing 5 patches at once has less negetive PR-effect that installing a different patch at 5 different times.
I've heard people who say they don't update because they get sick of downloading patches, don't think they are of that much importance, etc. Maybe its because almost all the patches are for "critical venerabilities". It's like crying wolf after awhile. The term becomes meaningless because it happens so often. The joke here is it's not crying wolf, all those venerabilities really do have security risks.
It's not dead if we go back in time. Also, I have the exact date the foal was conceived right here, I suggest we go back and beat his mother this time before he's born.
I had a fully encrypted account login page bookmarked and used it, and at some point in the future they add an encrypted login area sections to their non-encrypted front page. I ignored it because I preferred to use the old page I had bookmarked. Several months later I got a message after logging in that I was using an old version of the login page that would be going away soon, and to start logging in from the front page and change my bookmarks accordingly.
I ignored it, and now, several more months later, the old page is still there. I'm not being told its going away like I was. Seems a few other customers expressed some displeasure at the change.
"Wondering why the RIAA hasn't been hit with racketeering charges over its shady legal fight against file-sharing? Ars Technica looks at why the RIAA has been able to dodge RICO charges. '"Right off the bat there are some problems with the predicate claims for RICO," explained IP attorney Rich Vazquez.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, thanks for saving me from the time I would have wasted reading this article. As I know it has to be junk to say that XviD is better than h.264 at low bitrates,
psst!
Hence, a need for a new invention...
The tinfoil nightcap!
Correction: The companies who bought off the representatives of the U.S. government.
There's all sorts of people in the upper floors of this house! Of course we need a president who can deal with foreign policy issues we face.
Just get them declared terrorists somehow by the White House, we'll be invading their corporate headquarters by next Tuesday.
It was done so the microwave would adjust its performance based on how old it is. That way the longer you use it, the less efficiently it cooks food, prompting you to buy a new microwave after 7 or so years instead of being one of those consumers companies hate (that buys an appliance and keeps using it for 15 or 20 years).
Are there any other benefits? Not to underscore the vest's foremost job (stopping bullets) but if there is only a "slight" improvement over existing vests I don't find this all that newsworthy.
Without answers to these questions, these vests will be nothing more than a "slightly better for a lot more money" niche solution.
I think part of the problem is all other manufacturers are not Apple. For the difference in price between PC laptops and Mac laptops, I think we [i]should[/i] get a full 8-bit display. Also, if I'm not happy Dell does not make a laptop with an 8-bit display, I can get a Lenovo or Toshiba or whatever that does. It's not like I can go to the [i]other[/i] Macintosh laptop maker and get the product Apple is not offering.
Because we can do no Moore at the moment.
Because the ninjas swoop in and assassinate the writer before he can finish the story. DUH.
Try telling this to the customer. I've worked in retail and tried to get people to sign their card. Some say they don't do it because they want us to check their ID. I tell them they need to write "CHECK ID" on it then, otherwise if someone steals their card the crook can just put in their own version of the "cardholder's signature". I've also pointed out that the card itself says it is not valid unless signed. All this gets you is an earful and a chance for your supervisor to note you as a troublemaker (they don't care).
My cellphone is unlocked, it can be serviced by more than one company. A TiVo can not.
Things like utilities use industry standards. It doesn't matter what company is servicing them, because they have to provide the power in the standard voltage/phase for the home, same with the phone. These are poor examples anyway since they would never cease to exist. If the company servicing them were to get in trouble, they would sell the market to another company. There wouldn't be a time of service not working at all for the customers, despite the business issues.
Also, the A/C and furnace are appliances. With a gas storage cylinder on site like rural areas and a generator, these could function independently of any major company. I can go to my local Wal-Mart and buy refrigerant for my car's A/C. That's hardly the same as the closed system of TiVo.
Yeah, I don't subscribe to digital cable for that reason. Digital cable is just a way of getting people used to paying per-TV for their service and dealing with DRM in their homes. Whenever someone calls and complains about how often their digital cable box is on the fritz or has inexplicably lost it's authorization from the head end, I think "gee, you wouldn't have to deal with these issues if you just stuck with analog cable".
My cablemodem and cellphone are not tied to a single provider. If T-Mobile goes out of business, I can get service on the same cellphone with AT&T. The cablemodem follows industry stand specs, I can take it to pretty much any provider that serves my area.
If TiVo goes away you have no one else to turn to.
Simple. I wouldn't own a device whose functionality was tied to it contacting some company that could disappear whenever its business plans failed. Same reason I would not use "rental" software.
I think I've only had two on t-Mobile. And after talking to the sales rep about the kind of customer I am (the kind who gets off contract and STAYS off, buying replacement phones unsubsidized) I never got called again. I also took the opportunity to make a few complaints the salesmen didn't have a response for. I think I'm on some unofficial "don't bother trying" list now. :-)
Back in the Classic Mac OS days, there was an extension that would make a little icon of the type of disk being accessed flash on the menu bar when there was activity. This effectively replaced the HD activity LED, floppy LED, and CD-ROM LED using no additional power.
Can you name any more lights, though? Nope. You just covered all the lights on a Mac laptop. Oh, wait, there is the light on the iSight when its active, and the caps lock key light. But still. The point is there is no flashing HD activity light, no flashing network port or WiFi light and no illumination on the vol+/- keys.
Interesting, since my modem and router only flash when in use (or their having trouble). If my cable modem and router are flashing all the time when I'm not doing anything with the network, I take it as a sign I have spyware.
My recommendation is to cover them up. I put a piece of electrical tape over the front of my modem so only the bottom two amber lights (online and standby on my Motorola SB5220) are exposed. And they would never be on at the same time, so I only have one LED showing all the time then.
I also did the same thing with the bright flashing power light on the front of my monitor when the PC's off (what was wrong with the dim amber standby light, I do not know).
I put a piece of paper in front of the router lights, tucked under and folded so its angled upwards in front of the display. I can pull it down to view the lights if I need to.
No they don't. I work in call center where Time-Warner reps work. Nobody gets commission unless they're in the telemarketing (outbound) department.
It would more obvious to Windows users how insecure the product is if they made patches available as soon as they wrote them. Installing 5 patches at once has less negetive PR-effect that installing a different patch at 5 different times.
I've heard people who say they don't update because they get sick of downloading patches, don't think they are of that much importance, etc. Maybe its because almost all the patches are for "critical venerabilities". It's like crying wolf after awhile. The term becomes meaningless because it happens so often. The joke here is it's not crying wolf, all those venerabilities really do have security risks.
It's not dead if we go back in time. Also, I have the exact date the foal was conceived right here, I suggest we go back and beat his mother this time before he's born.
I had a fully encrypted account login page bookmarked and used it, and at some point in the future they add an encrypted login area sections to their non-encrypted front page. I ignored it because I preferred to use the old page I had bookmarked. Several months later I got a message after logging in that I was using an old version of the login page that would be going away soon, and to start logging in from the front page and change my bookmarks accordingly.
I ignored it, and now, several more months later, the old page is still there. I'm not being told its going away like I was. Seems a few other customers expressed some displeasure at the change.
So is Ars Technica trying to get RICO-suave?
[ducking]