The major hurdle is that there are about 35,000 cinema projectors in the country that need to be converted to digital at about $100,000 a shot. Add in the cost of the satellites, storage, retrofit for data, etc. and the average multiplex is looking at an investment of well over $1,000,000. Sure, the investment will pay back in ease of distribution and whatnot, but where does the million come from? The studios sure aren't going to pay for it - the razor-thin margins they give back to the theaters are why popcorn costs $28 a pound. And theater owners know that Joe Public won't stand for a ticket price hike when most people wouldn't notice or appreciate the jump in quality.
Basically it's a case of which comes first - the chicken or the egg? Or the cart before the horse. Except the chicken is a $100,000 digital projector and the horse is a $28 bucket of popcorn.
MXF is the new, proprietary video compression method jointly sponsored by Microsoft and MTV. The new Most eXtreme Format is the video compression of choice for today's most hard-core, edgy, in-your-face artists with an attitude!
Ashlee Simpson says "When I'm performing for a half-time show of 10,000 screaming fans, I want to make sure that every bit of the live energy is caught perfectly! I give 100% for my fans and want to make sure they get every bit of my performance!"
MXF... in your FACE, Quicktime! This isn't your father's archive-quality lossless video compression algorithm!
(and keep an eye out for Ogg Vorbis 2 - by Mountain Dew!)
> I know Macs are (well, were) more expensive, even though they're really not,
Oh, really?
> when you finally jam that ugly cheapass Dell with enough video cards and sound cards and disk burners to make it comparable to a Mac that comes with all of it, standard.
I had to buy a Powerbook for school that cost me $2500. It has 512 megs of ram and an 80 gig drive. For about the same price I built a similarly-performing PC with 5.1 surround, a Radeon 9700 AIW, a 20" LCD monitor, 200 gigs of drive space, and an Athlon 2700 - and that was two years ago when all that stuff cost twice what it does now! Considering that non-laptop Apples cost just about as much as the portables, I really have to ask where this guy gets his PC parts. "Big Al's House of 1200% Markup?!"
I know he's writing an opinion piece and not hard journalism, but for #*&$'s sake...
> Can a company pay you to put their competitor's site on your list?
It's not my list, actually. It's just a webpage that you tweak to go after the site(s) of your choice. The source is available and anyone's free to host a SpamVampire page wherever they like. The one I link to is hosted by a particularly active participant in the SpamCop project. I trust his judgement in whether or not a SpamVampire target is legitimate. So to answer your question, any company that would pay you to attack their competitor is a) evil, and b) stupid, since they could have done it themselves for free.
> Or can the list be compromised by a company sending out spams to you purportedly being from their competitor?
Since there's no "list," then the only way to compromise the system is to joe-job someone and hope they end up on a vampire site. Again, it's all up to the page host to determine the legitimacy of the target. But if you can't tell what's spam and what isn't these days, then...
Gaah... I really need to refresh before I post to define things. I'm starting to sound like the guy who calls you up in the middle of the night to tell you he just got the joke you told him over lunch.
H'lo?
Dave! It's Mike!
Mike? Grmf... it's 3am!
"That's not my wife! I ride a unicycle!" WAAAAHAHAHA!
When ordinary people (not paid lobbyists) begin to come together in support of (or against) a specific issue, the issue is said to have "grass-roots support." Since the support comes from people without a financial stake in the outcome, that support is seen as "untainted" and is more likely to attract the attention and support of other people. Over the years, politicians and corporations have been caught putting out misleading press releases and funding fake "concerned citizens' groups" in an effort to make an issue appear to have grass-roots support where it really doesn't.
Aah yes, that little known musical genre that was known primarily for its driving backbeat. Traditionally the beat was pounded out on a large bass drum with a heavy, oversized, wooden drumstick that was commonly known as...
I thought the same thing until I pondered it for a minute. What he's saying is that the baseline has shifted. At first everybody on campus was a happy, freewheeling cat and all was good... but if you had an iPod then you had that early-adopter, i-sussed-out-the-cool-new-gadget first that makes all the freshmen girls swoon. Over time, however, things changed. Now you *have* to own an iPod or you're an outcast, a loser, a guy who won't get the chicks without a crate of whiskey and a roofie the size of a urinal puck.
And that, children, is the miracle of Easter.
Or something.
Re:Sounds like a piracy crackdown, not a ban.
on
China Bans 50 Games
·
· Score: 1
Considering that the US government has done exactly nothing to limit our net access to Al-Jazeera, Islam-uber-alles propaganda sites, or the many videos of heads getting lopped off in the name of jihad, I'd like to think that they would - at most - raise a fuss about it and then let the marketplace bankrupt the pubisher with no government intervention. Admittedly I might be giving the feds too much credit, but I really hope they'd take heed of that whole 1st Amendment thing we love so much.
(And I only put Al-Jazeera in that list because they'd be an easy target for government intervention.)
> when I was 13 years old I was walking around the house for about 20 minutes trying to find the screw driver I just had,
20 minutes?
When I was 31 I spent a good half an hour wandering around the house trying to find my glasses. Suddenly I found them on a table, put them on, and immediately thought "great, now I can find... wait, what was I looking for?"
I spent another ten minutes looking around before I remembered what I was doing.
At that point I said "you know, I should just go back to using drugs. Clearly I'm not meant to cope with reality."
You're right. You're absolutely right. I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly apologize for insulting Michael's intelligence and demeaning his character. I am a bad and horrible person, and I hereby retract my statement in which I referred to him as... um...
Hey, naiv? Help me out here. Exactly where is it that I said something about Michael's intelligence? I've re-read my post a few times now and just can't seem to find it. I saw the bit where I pointed out a typo in his post - which I thought was useful and constructive considering his position here at good old Slashdot. And then there was the bit where I humorously suggested that he resign as an editor since, y'know, missing an error in the very first word of a post is kind of the exact *opposite* of good editing. I'd say that's pretty meaningful. And I thought the "Lil' Editors' Fun Club" bit was worth a chuckle, so I'm going to have to give myself a point for self-expressive.
So yeah, if you could get back to me on that intelligence thing I'd really appreciate it. It's always nice to get some input from an informed source.
Slashdot Mirror
"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far aw -
STREAMING...
Cinema operator? Naah, think bigger.
Digital system + trojan + bittorrent = "Irish cinema -projector- busted for distribution of 133t 0-day filmz!"
The major hurdle is that there are about 35,000 cinema projectors in the country that need to be converted to digital at about $100,000 a shot. Add in the cost of the satellites, storage, retrofit for data, etc. and the average multiplex is looking at an investment of well over $1,000,000. Sure, the investment will pay back in ease of distribution and whatnot, but where does the million come from? The studios sure aren't going to pay for it - the razor-thin margins they give back to the theaters are why popcorn costs $28 a pound. And theater owners know that Joe Public won't stand for a ticket price hike when most people wouldn't notice or appreciate the jump in quality.
Basically it's a case of which comes first - the chicken or the egg? Or the cart before the horse. Except the chicken is a $100,000 digital projector and the horse is a $28 bucket of popcorn.
And somehow the egg is Orrin Hatch.
It's a floor wax!
The Bean is no more than a monstrous Wi-Fi hax0r antenna!
The real geeks clicked the link and got the joke.
Good thing you found that AC button...
> Just because you consider a sixty-cycle hum a catchy tune makes it music not.
Yeah, but wait 'til you hear Tiesto's club mix.
Ironically enough, "the devil is the devil" returns only 975 hits. Satan needs a new agent.
MXF is the new, proprietary video compression method jointly sponsored by Microsoft and MTV. The new Most eXtreme Format is the video compression of choice for today's most hard-core, edgy, in-your-face artists with an attitude!
Ashlee Simpson says "When I'm performing for a half-time show of 10,000 screaming fans, I want to make sure that every bit of the live energy is caught perfectly! I give 100% for my fans and want to make sure they get every bit of my performance!"
MXF... in your FACE, Quicktime! This isn't your father's archive-quality lossless video compression algorithm!
(and keep an eye out for Ogg Vorbis 2 - by Mountain Dew!)
> I know Macs are (well, were) more expensive, even though they're really not,
Oh, really?
> when you finally jam that ugly cheapass Dell with enough video cards and sound cards and disk burners to make it comparable to a Mac that comes with all of it, standard.
I had to buy a Powerbook for school that cost me $2500. It has 512 megs of ram and an 80 gig drive. For about the same price I built a similarly-performing PC with 5.1 surround, a Radeon 9700 AIW, a 20" LCD monitor, 200 gigs of drive space, and an Athlon 2700 - and that was two years ago when all that stuff cost twice what it does now! Considering that non-laptop Apples cost just about as much as the portables, I really have to ask where this guy gets his PC parts. "Big Al's House of 1200% Markup?!"
I know he's writing an opinion piece and not hard journalism, but for #*&$'s sake...
> Can a company pay you to put their competitor's site on your list?
It's not my list, actually. It's just a webpage that you tweak to go after the site(s) of your choice. The source is available and anyone's free to host a SpamVampire page wherever they like. The one I link to is hosted by a particularly active participant in the SpamCop project. I trust his judgement in whether or not a SpamVampire target is legitimate. So to answer your question, any company that would pay you to attack their competitor is a) evil, and b) stupid, since they could have done it themselves for free.
> Or can the list be compromised by a company sending out spams to you purportedly being from their competitor?
Since there's no "list," then the only way to compromise the system is to joe-job someone and hope they end up on a vampire site. Again, it's all up to the page host to determine the legitimacy of the target. But if you can't tell what's spam and what isn't these days, then...
> Spam is a fact of life, now. There's nothing you can do about it, except take a defensive position.
My sig politely disagrees with you.
Gaah... I really need to refresh before I post to define things. I'm starting to sound like the guy who calls you up in the middle of the night to tell you he just got the joke you told him over lunch.
H'lo?
Dave! It's Mike!
Mike? Grmf... it's 3am!
"That's not my wife! I ride a unicycle!" WAAAAHAHAHA!
What?!
Best joke ever, buddy!
That was *six days ago*!!
Too funny, man... okay, have a good night!
When ordinary people (not paid lobbyists) begin to come together in support of (or against) a specific issue, the issue is said to have "grass-roots support." Since the support comes from people without a financial stake in the outcome, that support is seen as "untainted" and is more likely to attract the attention and support of other people. Over the years, politicians and corporations have been caught putting out misleading press releases and funding fake "concerned citizens' groups" in an effort to make an issue appear to have grass-roots support where it really doesn't.
Fake grass = Astroturf.
Not to mention "could of done."
Ace school system you have there...
He does? That rotten bastard!
Aah yes, that little known musical genre that was known primarily for its driving backbeat. Traditionally the beat was pounded out on a large bass drum with a heavy, oversized, wooden drumstick that was commonly known as...
the log o' rhythm.
Moran.
I agree completely. If you aren't going the pronounce the "h" then why use it at all?
I thought the same thing until I pondered it for a minute. What he's saying is that the baseline has shifted. At first everybody on campus was a happy, freewheeling cat and all was good... but if you had an iPod then you had that early-adopter, i-sussed-out-the-cool-new-gadget first that makes all the freshmen girls swoon. Over time, however, things changed. Now you *have* to own an iPod or you're an outcast, a loser, a guy who won't get the chicks without a crate of whiskey and a roofie the size of a urinal puck.
And that, children, is the miracle of Easter.
Or something.
Considering that the US government has done exactly nothing to limit our net access to Al-Jazeera, Islam-uber-alles propaganda sites, or the many videos of heads getting lopped off in the name of jihad, I'd like to think that they would - at most - raise a fuss about it and then let the marketplace bankrupt the pubisher with no government intervention. Admittedly I might be giving the feds too much credit, but I really hope they'd take heed of that whole 1st Amendment thing we love so much.
(And I only put Al-Jazeera in that list because they'd be an easy target for government intervention.)
We thank our anonymous cowardly friend for posting this response, but do note that he said:
>At least if you played Switzerland you could get to pick a couple of weapons
We thank you for your submission, but we regret to inform you that your post does not meet our current needs.
Thank you.
Troll?
If you're gonna mod him down, at least have the insight to post why he's wrong. Do you know about some games that got banned? Any? One?
> when I was 13 years old I was walking around the house for about 20 minutes trying to find the screw driver I just had,
20 minutes?
When I was 31 I spent a good half an hour wandering around the house trying to find my glasses. Suddenly I found them on a table, put them on, and immediately thought "great, now I can find... wait, what was I looking for?"
I spent another ten minutes looking around before I remembered what I was doing.
At that point I said "you know, I should just go back to using drugs. Clearly I'm not meant to cope with reality."
You're right. You're absolutely right. I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly apologize for insulting Michael's intelligence and demeaning his character. I am a bad and horrible person, and I hereby retract my statement in which I referred to him as... um...
Hey, naiv? Help me out here. Exactly where is it that I said something about Michael's intelligence? I've re-read my post a few times now and just can't seem to find it. I saw the bit where I pointed out a typo in his post - which I thought was useful and constructive considering his position here at good old Slashdot. And then there was the bit where I humorously suggested that he resign as an editor since, y'know, missing an error in the very first word of a post is kind of the exact *opposite* of good editing. I'd say that's pretty meaningful. And I thought the "Lil' Editors' Fun Club" bit was worth a chuckle, so I'm going to have to give myself a point for self-expressive.
So yeah, if you could get back to me on that intelligence thing I'd really appreciate it. It's always nice to get some input from an informed source.