> The answer, and I swear I'm not making this up, was "Windows 3.1." There was a pause while everyone in the room absorbed this, then he added "But we're considering porting it to Win95."
Heh, no real surprise there.. you will find that quite some medical equipment is controlled by machines running DOS or DOS+Windows 3.x
Since such a controlling computer is almost always a dedicated machine that runs a very well defined set of software, that is no problem whatsoever, and actually, it is a better idea then running this on more modern windows versions.
Why?
In case of DOS and DOS/Windows you can very well tell what the machine + software are going to do in each and every situation you can think of, with modern windows versions that is impossible.
That said, Linux or *BSD would be able to offer this and offer a nicer environment then DOS.
Anyway.. when you want to make something that is easy to use well, and hard to use wrongly, then start by making the design of the thing easy to udnerstand and eliminate any unpredictability in your software.
Havign a decent GUI is not needed for this, alltho it can help, depending on the task at hand.
Athlon XP (2600+, was a 2000+ initially) with 1GB memory and a gforce4 with 64mb... you are prolly right that it can run better, but this should definitely be a playable combi, and if not, I have a little bit of room for upgrading still without spending a lot.
> What an absolutely stupid statement. It's not possible to tell the difference between good/bad music, because the quality of music can only be measured subjectively. There is nothing such as good or bad music in an absolute sense.
Quality is something that can be measured somewhat objectively, Taste in the other hand..
When looking at quality of mustic, you can look at the quality of composition, arrangement and performance for example (not to mention the quality of recording and mixing, but that is not exactly part of the music itself in many (but not all) cases)
When people talk about good/bad music, they are talking about what they like, that is where the confusion comes from.
> However, one can make certain objective observations about U2. It is evident that they didn't need to use naked girls in their music videos to increase the popularity of their albums. They also have many hits that were/are very popular despite not being in a movie soundtrack.
Since when is popular and good the same thing?
> U2, in my opinion, is a great band. The albums mentioned are also some of my favorites. I had no Idea that they were regarded as highly as they are. Whether you like their music is dependent on your taste in music. However, one should have the intelligence to give credit where credit is due.
I am not saying that anythign they made after the Joshua Tree is utter crap, actually, when compared to lots of music released during the same time, it comes out rather well. That said, it comes nowhere close to their earlier albums in my opinion.
> They succeeded only because many people enjoyed their music. Their success didn't depend on the peripheral publicity that accompanies music these days.
Uh yes it did. Overly used in tv comemrcials overhere at least (Its a beautifull day), extreme level of attention and coverage on music radio and tv stations etc.
Those may not be the 'tricks' that annoy you or that are cheap in your book, but it s just a slightly different approach to hype generation.
> i agree with what you're saying but there will ever by a "PC" that the offers ease of use of a console - simply because game manufacturers won't be developing for that system for very long.
Well, if you turn such a 'boot & play' system into a moving target as well, then yes.
> There's no guarantee consumers are going to stick to buying that model, as there are always better coming out, unlike the console where there's only one option.
This is partially a matter of standarisation, for example:
GamePC 1.0 introduced 2006 requires a minimum of a 8ghz cpu with 64bit extentions and 1gb memory..
3 years later, GamePC 1.1 spec gets introduced which requires a 12ghz cpu with 64bit extentions and 2gb memory..
A game can claim to be compatible with the 1.0 or 1.1 standard, and should pass a playability test before being allowed to use the appropriate logo for it.
This all is no different from how programs are made to be Windows XX compatible, except for the 'boot & play' option.
They may run on something else.. but they are tested to work on a specific version.
> so you'll always need to upgrade regularly to keep up.
I did build myself a new PC 1 1/2 years ago, it seems I wont have to upgrade to play Doom 3.
The PC before that is now some 6 years odl almost, and well, got replaced when it became too bothersome to play Enemy Territory on it while running other things in the background.. and no, it wont run Doom 3... alltho it is uopgradable to a system that could just run doom 3 for some 200 euro or so. (need a faster cpu and a riser card)
> Why should i spend my time buidling a machine? Will i save enough money to make it worth my time?
The savings are in money, choice of quality components, and knowing a lot better what you are using.
> How about support - with Dell i get a better chance that the company will be around in 2-3 years when parts start to go bad.
And with your home built machien that is completely and utterly irrelevant. Your videocard gives up? you goto the first computer shop that is willing to sell you a video card with specs that you like and a price you accept, you buy it and stick it in. You do not have anythign whatsoever to do with if the 'brand' survives, there is no 'vrand' except the brands of the seperate components, and those are easily replaced.
When Dell goes belly up, you have no option left whatsoever when their boxes break.
> Most people simply don't want to be drawn into a hobbyist project when they can order a customized system from Dell that is guaranteed to work out of the box.
First of all.. guaranteed to work out of the box? hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe, sure.
Anyway.. putting things together yourself means that: - you can decide on what goes in there, ie, no crappy components, and proper drivers for everything - you know what went in there - you know what to get when hardware breaks
Alternatively, you can spend quite a bit more money on crappy hardware from the likes of Dell.
I built my last machine for approx 2/3 of what a comparable machine would cost from Dell.. except for me havign twice the amount of memory, a better disk, a better video card, and a much better cd writer.
> Yeah, the editors of Rolling Stone and the studio engineers who also participated in the top 500 list have no idea what good music is.
Maybe they do, maybe they don't. THe thing is that this is not even about good music, but about music they believe their target public will be interested in.
> Just because you don't happen to like the same music doesn't mean they are wrong.
I gave an opinion about music, taste plays a rather important role in that. They have a different opinion, fine.
Why I responded to your comment is because you happen to have an opinion, well, state it instead of using some magazine as 'proof'.
> Personally I don't like half the top 100 but so what? I never understood the fascination with Elvis other than him being the first popular rock and roll artist, yet I understand that his music is generally considered to be some of the best of all time and with so many people saying so I guess I must just not get it.
Thta is the difference between quality and taste. Elvis' quality was mostly in performance tho, the quality of the music itself is not that outstanding.
> Btw I have about as diverse musical preferences as you can get, it's not unusual for me to go to a heavy metal concert and a classical orchestral concert on back to back nights =)
Same here, and add some techno and opera to it for good measure.
> I didn't simply pull those numbers because they were numbers, rather I used them to show that U2 has done something at least worthy of praise since the Joshua Tree.
The numbers distract from your opinion, as if you need someone to tell you what to appreciate, that was my entire issue with them.
Heh, and if I go for what such polls say I'd be listening to a lot more crap then I do.
I suggest listening with your ears (and brain), not with your eyes..
Or in other words, such lists can be very nice for suggestions, but wont tell you what is good or not. Add to that the fact that most people don't have a clue about the difference between good/bad music and like/dislike.
> The NASA program did employ Werner Van Braun but he was a black sheep to some extent and didn't really contribute as much as people tend to think.
Nah, he only contributed by proving that it was possible to build a practical liquid fuel rocket and did much of the research for building a multi-stage rocket before he ever started working for NASA.
He may not have contributed that much directly to the US space program, but almost anything upto and including the Apollo project is pretty much based on the concepts that he developed.
Him being a sortof black sheep? how surprising, his multi-stage rocket design was intended initially for being able to hit the USA with missiles, and his name is soemhow associated with some other not so favorable things.
At any rate, denying his role and where the technology came from feels similar to how the north Korean government is claiming all kinds of inventions.. pure propaganda.
> I'm not saying that Wes needed to go Japanese on us, but neither should some pop-psych jump on the ass of someone who utters the popular assertion that for Wes to make things right, he oughta make sure the freshly minted orphans get a good shot at making it to adulthood without getting lost in the shuffle, ie: "for the rest of their lives".
That depends entirely what you mean by making sure..
Making sure as in, putting in attention and time in order to get them the best position possible? yes. As in, carry the financial consequences for bringing them up? no.
Orphans exist due to many reasons, and are the victim of some situation beyond their control in all cases. There is no reason why they should all of a sudden get a better chance because they became orphan as the consequence of the actions of a rich person while those who become orphans due to their parents being killed by some homeless junkie out for money get no chance. Rather, society should make sure orphans get a fair chance in life, regardless of why they became orphan.
> If your tires are getting bald, if you don't check your brakes regularly, your windshield is dirty, adjusting the radio, thinking about mating, etc, then there's a strong possibility that a rear-ender is in fact a fuck-up, not an accident. He is responsible for making the kids orphans.
That is why the concept of neglect (and criminal neglect) exists.
The legal system can deal rather well with the concept you are describing,
> How Wes deals emotionally with his actions is personal. How he deals with it financially is a legal and business decision.
Uh, how he deals with it financially has direct consequences for his personal life, it is not just a legal and business decision.
> How society deals with people not giving due consideration to what they're doing is by guilty-tripping them, en mass. As a result, other people are made better aware of Wes' fuck-up, and adding up the personal, financial, and social costs, may be less likely to repeat any number of automotive fuck-ups.
Ok, now lets get a few things clear here:
First of all I do not know the exact circumstances of this specific incident, so I cannot know if Wes fucked up in a way that would make for neglect or even criminal neglect, but if so, the legal system has the tools to deal with that.
Second, what you describe has never ever resulted in a more aware society (take a look at Japan with regards to social pressure and creating a guild complex). WHat it can cause very easily is a few other things: - A society where you need insurance for every silly tiny idiotic thing you might possibly do. - A society where you get lawyers hunting down victims of accidents to convince them to sue. - A society where noone dares taking any risks.
Last but not least, you are reasoning from the point of view that whenever something bad happens, there must be someone who can be blamed for causing it, and who can be sued. Now, I am not saying those things can't be true, at times there is someone who messed up in a way that can well be called neglect, and should be sued. I find it amazingly simplistic to assume that that is alwasy the case however, and I believe that using it as your starting point comes down to ignoring human nature also. Mistakes happen, live with it.
> £200 every 3-4 years is not going to keep my pc up to spec.
True, but then, a pc can be used for a lot more then gaming.
To me the big advantage of consoles has always been the consumer friendlyness of them.. you buy a device, you rent or buy discs with content, and your are set. Its not more complex then a dvd player to connect, and as simple as a cd player to operate..
The big advantage of pcs has always been flexibility, almost anything that a computer could be usefull for can in theory be done by a pc (not always very efficiently tho)
A device that combines those things can have a pricetag like a pc because it offers everything a pc offers, yet it also offers the ease of use of a console for gaming (and presumably audio/video playback)
> A car accident is one thing, but telling someone to do something which directly kills dozens of people, well, that's something else.
In consequences it is definitely something else. I cannot judge the situation becauuse I don't have enough information, but in both cases the cause can be the same, human error.
I am not saying that people should not be held responsible for their mistakes btw, but a society that does not accept the fact that people make mistakes and provides a way to deal with those without burdening people for the rest of their life is also a society that stops people from doign anythign that might involve any form of risk, resulting in passiveness and lack of progress in the end.
> I really pity the pilot of that plane, not sure who to trust. I also can't say I have a lot of sympathy for the air traffic controller.
WHich I can understand, but I pity both. The pilot for obvious reasons, but the air traffic controller had to live with knowing what his decision resulted in for the rest of his (in this case not very long) life.
If this was a mistake out of sloppyness, which I got the impression it was, then a response like yours is even more understandable, but I still do not believe society as a whole is served by dumping those people.
> If I were Wes Watkins, I'd devote the rest of my life looking after the well-being of those orphans.
You know.. being involved in such an accident changes you for life, its not like most people who get involved in this will ever be able to put it aside and forget about it.
Adding social pressure to that is not going to solve much at all, not for the victims either.
No matter how terrible the results, accidents happen, and we'll haev to live with that. Yes, we need to deal with the consequences, but an attitude that results in more people paying for the rest of their life as a result from accidents is not going to accomplish that, it is only going to generate more 'guilty' people who are too much stuck in solving their guilt issue and can't contribute to societuy as a whole as a result.
> so these should always be deinterlaced the same way.
Not true.
A 60 fields/sec (30 frames/sec, or 30/1.001 to be exact) video can consist of either 60 half frames in nice pairs, or of 48 half frames resulting from the telecine process.
The first is easy to de-interlace without causing severe tearing in high motion scenes by simply merging the 2 'half frames' in a pair. (there is some messyness there still with regards to order, top field first or bottom field first)
If you'd do this on what was once 24fps movie material that has been converted to 60fields/sec video, you end up merging half frames that come from a different frame originally for part of the frames displayed, resulting in tearing of the picture.
The cheap way to deal with this is a line doubler, but that makes you end up with half of the vertical resolution. The proper way is to do a on-the-fly conversion back to 24fps.
This is in fact what many modern tvs attempt to do (at times quite succesfully)
This will never be as good as using a 24fps progressive scan dvd in an appropriate player, but it will definitely do a much better job then any method based on combining pairs of fields to create 30 frames/sec progressive video.
Detection of this is not very difficult in theory, as a result of the telecine process you end up with some duplicate fields, and those normally occur in a regular patern. In practise, lots of problems come from the imperfect nature of analog video signals. As said before, I am pretty sure that this is being done, having been involved in it from the sideline for a bit, and knowing someoen who is deeply involved with making the microcode for the hardware that is doing the job.
Anyway, it is those paterns that is being looked for, and that causes a slight delay. I'm being told btw that actually some sets reduce it to a 3 field delay but as a result will have a far less smooth change to 72fps display.. more suitable for gaming tho.
Anyway.. lets see.. 3 frames is 1/10th of a second.. it may matter in some games, but I bet it doesn't in quite a few.
On another note, for pal framerates you don't have to deal with all this, you either merge fields or you get interlaced video... that part is nicely simple (macrovision in its newest variants is the more painfull part with pal.. besides having to figure out what the top and bottom fields are.. oh, and lets not even talk about the 4% speedup of original 24fps material)
Hmm.. my gf got me kinda hooked on TF originally.. not playing that anymore tho, mostly playing Enemy Territory nowadays. we are both original doom players tho.
Heh, just in case, I rather like discussions as well:)
Tax on succession rights and a will and such do exist in substantial parts of Europe, so it is not that much of an abnormaly. That said, it is not soemthing peopel are happy with really..
Anyway... relatively recent developments in how companies operate make an idea like you suggested more practical then it used to be since most companies already have some form of shared ownership.
Many smaller companies are still owned by a single person, and while you are right that his/her sons or daughters might not be interested in taking over the company, giving them the chance to do so means that quite a part of them will. I believe this to be desirable because it provides a better guarantee for stability, which for as far as I am aware is a requirement for prosperity.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't have a reference at hand, but it is well known, and used intensively in compressing video and pictures.
In most cases, you will not see that the resolution in blue is only like 1/4th of that of green in your average mpeg movie and jpeg picture.
> The answer, and I swear I'm not making this up, was "Windows 3.1." There was a pause while everyone in the room absorbed this, then he added "But we're considering porting it to Win95."
Heh, no real surprise there.. you will find that quite some medical equipment is controlled by machines running DOS or DOS+Windows 3.x
Since such a controlling computer is almost always a dedicated machine that runs a very well defined set of software, that is no problem whatsoever, and actually, it is a better idea then running this on more modern windows versions.
Why?
In case of DOS and DOS/Windows you can very well tell what the machine + software are going to do in each and every situation you can think of, with modern windows versions that is impossible.
That said, Linux or *BSD would be able to offer this and offer a nicer environment then DOS.
Anyway.. when you want to make something that is easy to use well, and hard to use wrongly, then start by making the design of the thing easy to udnerstand and eliminate any unpredictability in your software.
Havign a decent GUI is not needed for this, alltho it can help, depending on the task at hand.
Athlon XP (2600+, was a 2000+ initially) with 1GB memory and a gforce4 with 64mb... you are prolly right that it can run better, but this should definitely be a playable combi, and if not, I have a little bit of room for upgrading still without spending a lot.
> I can keep on talking but I guess you get the idea ;)
;P
And I guess we agree
> What an absolutely stupid statement. It's not possible to tell the difference between good/bad music, because the quality of music can only be measured subjectively. There is nothing such as good or bad music in an absolute sense.
Quality is something that can be measured somewhat objectively, Taste in the other hand..
When looking at quality of mustic, you can look at the quality of composition, arrangement and performance for example (not to mention the quality of recording and mixing, but that is not exactly part of the music itself in many (but not all) cases)
When people talk about good/bad music, they are talking about what they like, that is where the confusion comes from.
> However, one can make certain objective observations about U2. It is evident that they didn't need to use naked girls in their music videos to increase the popularity of their albums. They also have many hits that were/are very popular despite not being in a movie soundtrack.
Since when is popular and good the same thing?
> U2, in my opinion, is a great band. The albums mentioned are also some of my favorites. I had no Idea that they were regarded as highly as they are. Whether you like their music is dependent on your taste in music. However, one should have the intelligence to give credit where credit is due.
I am not saying that anythign they made after the Joshua Tree is utter crap, actually, when compared to lots of music released during the same time, it comes out rather well. That said, it comes nowhere close to their earlier albums in my opinion.
> They succeeded only because many people enjoyed their music. Their success didn't depend on the peripheral publicity that accompanies music these days.
Uh yes it did. Overly used in tv comemrcials overhere at least (Its a beautifull day), extreme level of attention and coverage on music radio and tv stations etc.
Those may not be the 'tricks' that annoy you or that are cheap in your book, but it s just a slightly different approach to hype generation.
> i agree with what you're saying but there will ever by a "PC" that the offers ease of use of a console - simply because game manufacturers won't be developing for that system for very long.
Well, if you turn such a 'boot & play' system into a moving target as well, then yes.
> There's no guarantee consumers are going to stick to buying that model, as there are always better coming out, unlike the console where there's only one option.
This is partially a matter of standarisation, for example:
GamePC 1.0 introduced 2006 requires a minimum of a 8ghz cpu with 64bit extentions and 1gb memory..
3 years later, GamePC 1.1 spec gets introduced which requires a 12ghz cpu with 64bit extentions and 2gb memory..
A game can claim to be compatible with the 1.0 or 1.1 standard, and should pass a playability test before being allowed to use the appropriate logo for it.
This all is no different from how programs are made to be Windows XX compatible, except for the 'boot & play' option.
They may run on something else.. but they are tested to work on a specific version.
> so you'll always need to upgrade regularly to keep up.
I did build myself a new PC 1 1/2 years ago, it seems I wont have to upgrade to play Doom 3.
The PC before that is now some 6 years odl almost, and well, got replaced when it became too bothersome to play Enemy Territory on it while running other things in the background.. and no, it wont run Doom 3... alltho it is uopgradable to a system that could just run doom 3 for some 200 euro or so. (need a faster cpu and a riser card)
> Why should i spend my time buidling a machine? Will i save enough money to make it worth my time?
The savings are in money, choice of quality components, and knowing a lot better what you are using.
> How about support - with Dell i get a better chance that the company will be around in 2-3 years when parts start to go bad.
And with your home built machien that is completely and utterly irrelevant. Your videocard gives up? you goto the first computer shop that is willing to sell you a video card with specs that you like and a price you accept, you buy it and stick it in. You do not have anythign whatsoever to do with if the 'brand' survives, there is no 'vrand' except the brands of the seperate components, and those are easily replaced.
When Dell goes belly up, you have no option left whatsoever when their boxes break.
> Most people simply don't want to be drawn into a hobbyist project when they can order a customized system from Dell that is guaranteed to work out of the box.
First of all.. guaranteed to work out of the box? hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe, sure.
Anyway.. putting things together yourself means that:
- you can decide on what goes in there, ie, no crappy components, and proper drivers for everything
- you know what went in there
- you know what to get when hardware breaks
Alternatively, you can spend quite a bit more money on crappy hardware from the likes of Dell.
I built my last machine for approx 2/3 of what a comparable machine would cost from Dell.. except for me havign twice the amount of memory, a better disk, a better video card, and a much better cd writer.
> Yeah, the editors of Rolling Stone and the studio engineers who also participated in the top 500 list have no idea what good music is.
Maybe they do, maybe they don't. THe thing is that this is not even about good music, but about music they believe their target public will be interested in.
> Just because you don't happen to like the same music doesn't mean they are wrong.
I gave an opinion about music, taste plays a rather important role in that. They have a different opinion, fine.
Why I responded to your comment is because you happen to have an opinion, well, state it instead of using some magazine as 'proof'.
> Personally I don't like half the top 100 but so what? I never understood the fascination with Elvis other than him being the first popular rock and roll artist, yet I understand that his music is generally considered to be some of the best of all time and with so many people saying so I guess I must just not get it.
Thta is the difference between quality and taste.
Elvis' quality was mostly in performance tho, the quality of the music itself is not that outstanding.
> Btw I have about as diverse musical preferences as you can get, it's not unusual for me to go to a heavy metal concert and a classical orchestral concert on back to back nights =)
Same here, and add some techno and opera to it for good measure.
> I didn't simply pull those numbers because they were numbers, rather I used them to show that U2 has done something at least worthy of praise since the Joshua Tree.
The numbers distract from your opinion, as if you need someone to tell you what to appreciate, that was my entire issue with them.
I accept your opinion, but beg to differ.
Heh, and if I go for what such polls say I'd be listening to a lot more crap then I do.
I suggest listening with your ears (and brain), not with your eyes..
Or in other words, such lists can be very nice for suggestions, but wont tell you what is good or not. Add to that the fact that most people don't have a clue about the difference between good/bad music and like/dislike.
Seeing how most of their work from the last 15 years is over polished, it might actually make for a possibly not entirely uninteresting album..
> The Joshua Tree is one of the top albums of all time.
And the last decent album U2 ever made.
I vauguely remember something called Rattle and Hum.. and didn't bother to keep track after that.
About as much as your government does. At least Moore has the excuse of creative freedom.
> The NASA program did employ Werner Van Braun but he was a black sheep to some extent and didn't really contribute as much as people tend to think.
Nah, he only contributed by proving that it was possible to build a practical liquid fuel rocket and did much of the research for building a multi-stage rocket before he ever started working for NASA.
He may not have contributed that much directly to the US space program, but almost anything upto and including the Apollo project is pretty much based on the concepts that he developed.
Him being a sortof black sheep? how surprising, his multi-stage rocket design was intended initially for being able to hit the USA with missiles, and his name is soemhow associated with some other not so favorable things.
At any rate, denying his role and where the technology came from feels similar to how the north Korean government is claiming all kinds of inventions.. pure propaganda.
Luckily you are right and the world is wrong....
Well, in fact that happens at times, but this is not one of them.
*lol*
I think you have a point there.
> I'm not saying that Wes needed to go Japanese on us, but neither should some pop-psych jump on the ass of someone who utters the popular assertion that for Wes to make things right, he oughta make sure the freshly minted orphans get a good shot at making it to adulthood without getting lost in the shuffle, ie: "for the rest of their lives".
That depends entirely what you mean by making sure..
Making sure as in, putting in attention and time in order to get them the best position possible? yes. As in, carry the financial consequences for bringing them up? no.
Orphans exist due to many reasons, and are the victim of some situation beyond their control in all cases. There is no reason why they should all of a sudden get a better chance because they became orphan as the consequence of the actions of a rich person while those who become orphans due to their parents being killed by some homeless junkie out for money get no chance. Rather, society should make sure orphans get a fair chance in life, regardless of why they became orphan.
> If your tires are getting bald, if you don't check your brakes regularly, your windshield is dirty, adjusting the radio, thinking about mating, etc, then there's a strong possibility that a rear-ender is in fact a fuck-up, not an accident. He is responsible for making the kids orphans.
That is why the concept of neglect (and criminal neglect) exists.
The legal system can deal rather well with the concept you are describing,
> How Wes deals emotionally with his actions is personal. How he deals with it financially is a legal and business decision.
Uh, how he deals with it financially has direct consequences for his personal life, it is not just a legal and business decision.
> How society deals with people not giving due consideration to what they're doing is by guilty-tripping them, en mass. As a result, other people are made better aware of Wes' fuck-up, and adding up the personal, financial, and social costs, may be less likely to repeat any number of automotive fuck-ups.
Ok, now lets get a few things clear here:
First of all I do not know the exact circumstances of this specific incident, so I cannot know if Wes fucked up in a way that would make for neglect or even criminal neglect, but if so, the legal system has the tools to deal with that.
Second, what you describe has never ever resulted in a more aware society (take a look at Japan with regards to social pressure and creating a guild complex). WHat it can cause very easily is a few other things:
- A society where you need insurance for every silly tiny idiotic thing you might possibly do.
- A society where you get lawyers hunting down victims of accidents to convince them to sue.
- A society where noone dares taking any risks.
Last but not least, you are reasoning from the point of view that whenever something bad happens, there must be someone who can be blamed for causing it, and who can be sued. Now, I am not saying those things can't be true, at times there is someone who messed up in a way that can well be called neglect, and should be sued. I find it amazingly simplistic to assume that that is alwasy the case however, and I believe that using it as your starting point comes down to ignoring human nature also. Mistakes happen, live with it.
There was a time when a good sword and being better at handling it would do...
Om a certain part of the world they replaced that with guns and abbility to draw and shoot quickly..
I still prefer the sword method.. more interesting for the public.
> sorry i'm so slow..
:)
Hehe.. no problem
> £200 every 3-4 years is not going to keep my pc up to spec.
True, but then, a pc can be used for a lot more then gaming.
To me the big advantage of consoles has always been the consumer friendlyness of them.. you buy a device, you rent or buy discs with content, and your are set. Its not more complex then a dvd player to connect, and as simple as a cd player to operate..
The big advantage of pcs has always been flexibility, almost anything that a computer could be usefull for can in theory be done by a pc (not always very efficiently tho)
A device that combines those things can have a pricetag like a pc because it offers everything a pc offers, yet it also offers the ease of use of a console for gaming (and presumably audio/video playback)
> A car accident is one thing, but telling someone to do something which directly kills dozens of people, well, that's something else.
In consequences it is definitely something else. I cannot judge the situation becauuse I don't have enough information, but in both cases the cause can be the same, human error.
I am not saying that people should not be held responsible for their mistakes btw, but a society that does not accept the fact that people make mistakes and provides a way to deal with those without burdening people for the rest of their life is also a society that stops people from doign anythign that might involve any form of risk, resulting in passiveness and lack of progress in the end.
> I really pity the pilot of that plane, not sure who to trust. I also can't say I have a lot of sympathy for the air traffic controller.
WHich I can understand, but I pity both. The pilot for obvious reasons, but the air traffic controller had to live with knowing what his decision resulted in for the rest of his (in this case not very long) life.
If this was a mistake out of sloppyness, which I got the impression it was, then a response like yours is even more understandable, but I still do not believe society as a whole is served by dumping those people.
> If I were Wes Watkins, I'd devote the rest of my life looking after the well-being of those orphans.
You know.. being involved in such an accident changes you for life, its not like most people who get involved in this will ever be able to put it aside and forget about it.
Adding social pressure to that is not going to solve much at all, not for the victims either.
No matter how terrible the results, accidents happen, and we'll haev to live with that. Yes, we need to deal with the consequences, but an attitude that results in more people paying for the rest of their life as a result from accidents is not going to accomplish that, it is only going to generate more 'guilty' people who are too much stuck in solving their guilt issue and can't contribute to societuy as a whole as a result.
> Analog streams are always 60Hz/30fps,
True
> so these should always be deinterlaced the same way.
Not true.
A 60 fields/sec (30 frames/sec, or 30/1.001 to be exact) video can consist of either 60 half frames in nice pairs, or of 48 half frames resulting from the telecine process.
The first is easy to de-interlace without causing severe tearing in high motion scenes by simply merging the 2 'half frames' in a pair. (there is some messyness there still with regards to order, top field first or bottom field first)
If you'd do this on what was once 24fps movie material that has been converted to 60fields/sec video, you end up merging half frames that come from a different frame originally for part of the frames displayed, resulting in tearing of the picture.
The cheap way to deal with this is a line doubler, but that makes you end up with half of the vertical resolution. The proper way is to do a on-the-fly conversion back to 24fps.
This is in fact what many modern tvs attempt to do (at times quite succesfully)
This will never be as good as using a 24fps progressive scan dvd in an appropriate player, but it will definitely do a much better job then any method based on combining pairs of fields to create 30 frames/sec progressive video.
Detection of this is not very difficult in theory, as a result of the telecine process you end up with some duplicate fields, and those normally occur in a regular patern. In practise, lots of problems come from the imperfect nature of analog video signals. As said before, I am pretty sure that this is being done, having been involved in it from the sideline for a bit, and knowing someoen who is deeply involved with making the microcode for the hardware that is doing the job.
Anyway, it is those paterns that is being looked for, and that causes a slight delay. I'm being told btw that actually some sets reduce it to a 3 field delay but as a result will have a far less smooth change to 72fps display.. more suitable for gaming tho.
Anyway.. lets see.. 3 frames is 1/10th of a second.. it may matter in some games, but I bet it doesn't in quite a few.
On another note, for pal framerates you don't have to deal with all this, you either merge fields or you get interlaced video... that part is nicely simple (macrovision in its newest variants is the more painfull part with pal.. besides having to figure out what the top and bottom fields are.. oh, and lets not even talk about the 4% speedup of original 24fps material)
Hmm.. my gf got me kinda hooked on TF originally.. not playing that anymore tho, mostly playing Enemy Territory nowadays. we are both original doom players tho.
Ah well..
Heh, just in case, I rather like discussions as well :)
Tax on succession rights and a will and such do exist in substantial parts of Europe, so it is not that much of an abnormaly. That said, it is not soemthing peopel are happy with really..
Anyway... relatively recent developments in how companies operate make an idea like you suggested more practical then it used to be since most companies already have some form of shared ownership.
Many smaller companies are still owned by a single person, and while you are right that his/her sons or daughters might not be interested in taking over the company, giving them the chance to do so means that quite a part of them will. I believe this to be desirable because it provides a better guarantee for stability, which for as far as I am aware is a requirement for prosperity.