"Same way burger joints typically have an "extreme" burger to make the "big" menu seem more "normal"."
Good point. This is how drink sizes have changed in the fast food industry. Once the current small size in most places was the only size. Then came a bigger size, introduced as large. Then came a bigger size, now called large, the one before called medium, and first one small.
Then came yet another bigger size, which is now large, the large is now medium, the medium is now small, and the small is now the kids size at some places.
"do you people really not realize why violence is not as harshly restricted in games, TV, and movies as illicit sex is? It's not that hard to figure out."
I don't. How about you explain to us?
How about you explain to us why most of the world is okay with sex and in fact restrict violence in movies/tv/etc,
but our militant Puritan heritage would certainly not allow that?
"Think about it. You've got a game where the whole point is to steel, kill and blow things up and people are fine with that. But oh, no, show nudity and even a sex scene... we can't have that now can we? The citizens of this country have one seriously fucked up mentality! It's a never ending source of amazement for me. Oh and remember kids, you can't have manslaughter without laughter!"
Until the President, Senators, and members of the House of Representatives encourage their very own children to enlist at the same time they publicly support the War in Iraq and keeping troops over there, I wouldn't take too much stock into what the government thinks.
"A better mmorpg would be "The Mall" where you can buy items, take them to the car, go home, get dressed in those items (mod your appearance) and go back to the mall. "
Didn't we already have this and it bombed?
I'm referring to the SIMS Online of course.
I was just about to post how I figured with the popularity of the Sims with women, this mall MMOG is a likely thing.
But not so considering the massive failure that was TSO.
If there was a MMO football game, a small minority (little kids who should just stick to Madden on their GBA SP anyways) will hate it because not everyone can be a QB or WR (and probably have to play defense. No point in having 22 people per team. Just 11 with people playing both sides of the ball).
The rest of us will enjoy the realism and teamwork needed to have a good team. I personally would not mind playing O-Line. In fact I would enjoy the opportunity to try out every position, offense and defense, and see which one I am good at.
Should we even allow these women to have DVR's?
on
Women Control the DVR
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"Three-quarters of the women surveyed said that the reason they fell in love with DVR is that they are extremely intuitive and much easier than a VCR.""
Think about it. Women (And many Americans, male and female), back in the day of the VCR, couldn't figure out how to set the clock. (P.S. I wonder if this is why most DVD's players don't have a clock. Sure you don't need a clock on a DVD player
If given a TV properly hooked up to a VCR, and the remote for the VCR, and nothing else, you should be able to SET THE CLOCK within five minutes. If you can't, you should be shot.
And we are giving these people MORE technology? I think there is a strong argument that people don't deserve to get the new tech toys if you can't understand simple things like setting the clock on the vcr.
I remember back in the day when I used to watch a lot of the Annenburg-CPB Channel (Sue me. I can't get enough of The Mechanical Universe and its simple HS level calculus applied to physics AND Mireille in "French in Action."),
They used to advertise a show and the clip they showed was interesting and I always got a kick out of it: A bunch of college grads (All disciplines), at graduation, were handed a simple light bulb, ONE wire, and a battery, and asked to light up the bulb (basically create a very basic circuit).
All but one showed couldn't do it. They even said it was impossible. After we saw one guy figure it out, they'd cut to a professor asking (paraphrasing), "If college educated graduates don't even understand the basics of electricity, what does that say about a society that tremendously relies on electricity?"
I am even suggesting that most people should be allowed near a computer, until they get a good understanding of it (hardware and software). That, however, would have the impact of putting Best Buy's rip off techies, "The Geek Squad," out of business.
"Actually after searching around a bit the only one I could find was from Panasonic with a $1500 price tag,"
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.
If we are talking about OTA, then you should be looking for ATSC tuners. Walmart sells the USDTV ATSC tuner for $150.
The current market for ATSC tuners is usually between $200-500, but we'll see more of the USDTV-like ATSC tuners sold at Walmart way under 200, probably $99 when analog goes dark.
And that's why the FCC only mandates digital 480i (Which is better than analog 480i, but nothing special), right?
While more and more network affiliates (excluding PBS, where some affiliates do have 24/7 HD, but it is usually a loop of programming) are getting the ability to broadcast HD, NONE BROADCAST 24/7 HD. Most are broadcasting digital 480i.
The mandated conversion is not about HD. I wish it was as I love HD, but sadly it's not.
By the way, digital 480i, at its best = watching a DVD on a player DVD on a crappy TV using composite or s-video connections. Nothing special.
How about when, I believe in Ep. V, Obi-Wan says to Yoda,
"The boy was our last hope."
and Yoda replies,
"No. There is another." (Referring to Leia OF COURSE)
How does Obi-Wan forget Leia after the events of Episode III? Obi-Wan was there for the birth of Luke AND Leia. AND held Leia in his arms. AND is well aware Leia was sent away with Organa.
You can't have a top 100 list without MEMENTO and Clerks.
MEMENTO is a revolutionary way to present a story. And no, it's not like the backwards episode of "Seinfeld." It's MUCH more than that.
CLERKS is the ultimate low budget films that proves that good movies can exist without much "Action." This is all about dialogue, and is sadly ignored.
If you haven't seen these films, you NEED to see them.
Voom did NOT fail because "nobody cares about HD."
HD is growing in popularity like crazy. That's why you always hear about more and more HD channels being launched and more and more programs being filmed in AND aired iN HD.
Voom failed for many reasons, but it wasn't lack of HD content:
1.) Voom failed to offer the SD channels you expect from a DBS provider. I think Sci-Fi channel was not on their system either ever, or for a long time. Thus if you were an HD enthusiast, you were reluctant to go to Voom because you would miss some channels that carried non-HD content you wanted.
2.) Tied to #1, Voom should have tried to flat out compete with DirecTV/Dish. Get all the core SD channels. Offer a package of just those SD channels for non-HDTV people, and undercut DirecTV/Dish prices. Of course you'd have a package with the SD + all the HD for the HD people. That way you not only would get the HD freaks, but had some appeal to the masses looking for something cheaper than Cable/Dish/DirecTV.
3.) Voom initially required a customer to cough up lots of cash to get it (~$700), although Dish already had been successful with its (Essentially) no upfront cost program, where you had free installation, free receiver (now free DVR), etc. Voom later went to that model, but it was too late by then.
4.) Their WORST mistake: Signing an exclusive in-store deal with *Sears.* Best Buy is the #1 electronics retailer in America, Wal-Mart is #2 quickly gaining on #1. Voom went with Sears, which hadn't been a big electronics player since the 80's. Nobody goes to Sears, and nobody gets satellite service from there. On top of that, their Voom show-off setups were horrible and the people that saw it were disgusted by it.
Voom had its fair share of problems, and it deserved to tank. BUT lack of interest in HD was not one of them. They had great HD content and had 99% of HD networks available in the US.
If anyone else tries to set up a Voom-like DBS service again, they will certainly learn from those mistakes and model themselves after Dish Network.
Re:Sorry Folks: HD just not worth the effort.
on
Voom No More
·
· Score: 1
"The picture we currently have is more than adequate for general TV."
The picture we had in the 50's was adequate for general TV, but I seriously doubt you'd want to go back to the crappy blurry B&W.
"Most people don't feel that they need to be able to see every pore in Dan Rather's nose to be able to understand the evening news."
Dan Rather isn't on TV anymore, and NO NATIONAL NETWORK does their evening news in HD. 99% of local affiliates don't do any of their news in HD either.
"Whatever entertainment value you get out of the O.C. does not depend upon being able to count Mischa Barton's arm hairs."
Correct. OC fans could care less about HD. Ditto that for Young and the Restless fans (believe it not, it's filmed in HD and shown in HD everyday on CBS). But HD enthusiasts watch these shows now that they are HD.
"Go into an electronics store and look hard at a HDTV picture (areas of large black are some of the worst) and you can see the individual blocks of picture information that are not noticeable on the non HD units."
Come on now. You should know better. Of course HDTV looks like sh*t in Electronics stores! The Best Buy's and Fry's of the world don't know what the f*ck they are doing. Go to a home of a Home Theater Enthusiast and have him show you HD. Only an nostalgic idiot would not be blown away.
"Then add the fact that 99.9% of back catalogue movies and old TV shows were not filmed in sharp enough focus to gain anything from HD and you have to draw one conclusion:"
You must be one of those nostalgic idiots. Try looking forward and you'll see where HD can take us.
Actually, you would believe if you have been reading stories here and elsewhere about Best Buy getting out of the low-end consumer electronics market.
More and more BB's are trying to be high-end stores, with employees in these "Test" stores" trained to look for certain types of customers and show them to the high-end equipment.
The BB president said himself he would love to get rid of the customers who just come in to buy the low-end stuff, try to manipulate rebates and/or sell those products on EBay.
This is in response to the projection that BestBuy will eventually be passed by Walmart in 1-2 years as the #1 home electronics seller in the US.
We know it's been category A, but there is ONE exception: Your undergrad must have met a specific accreditation requirement. Check out the general requirements bulletin of the USPTO exam if you don't believe me.
This doesn't affect most people, but a friend of mine went to undergrad at a small state school in Missouri which was NOT accredited. She discovered in law school that she wouldn't be allowed to sit for the patent bar, and ever since law school has been working in a COMPLETELY non-related field. In fact she never uses anything related to Comp Sci in line of legal work.
I keep trying to find BG torrents but I can only find ones for the last eps of Season 1. Seems like nobody captures the eps from the Sci-Fi channel and I need to see eps 4-13.
Any recommendations on how to get those episodes? btefnet definitely is not a good source for BG eps, and neither is the Torrent Reactor site.
The end of late fees, the beginning of restocking fees, but many ignorant customers don't know about the restocking fees because at the BB stores they don't talk about that.
They just say "go ahead and keep the stuff an extra few days if you need it."
I think they mean the standard for online *console* gaming. I am not foolish enough to compare to PC gaming.
Anyone care to give out the numbers of people playing any kind of Gamecube game online with the use of Nintendo's shitty dial-up or broadband adapter???
Slashdot Mirror
Wireless HEADSET's today, for XBOX, cost around $70.
If you get your information straight, you'd see that $100 for the extra's is not so bad, mostly due to the wireless headset.
"Same way burger joints typically have an "extreme" burger to make the "big" menu seem more "normal"."
Good point. This is how drink sizes have changed in the fast food industry. Once the current small size in most places was the only size. Then came a bigger size, introduced as large. Then came a bigger size, now called large, the one before called medium, and first one small.
Then came yet another bigger size, which is now large, the large is now medium, the medium is now small, and the small is now the kids size at some places.
Sorry for the off topic analogy.
"do you people really not realize why violence is not as harshly restricted in games, TV, and movies as illicit sex is? It's not that hard to figure out."
I don't. How about you explain to us?
How about you explain to us why most of the world is okay with sex and in fact restrict violence in movies/tv/etc,
but our militant Puritan heritage would certainly not allow that?
"Think about it. You've got a game where the whole point is to steel, kill and blow things up and people are fine with that. But oh, no, show nudity and even a sex scene ... we can't have that now can we? The citizens of this country have one seriously fucked up mentality! It's a never ending source of amazement for me. Oh and remember kids, you can't have manslaughter without laughter!"
Gotta love the Puritan States of America!
Until the President, Senators, and members of the House of Representatives encourage their very own children to enlist at the same time they publicly support the War in Iraq and keeping troops over there, I wouldn't take too much stock into what the government thinks.
They don't have to rely on ESRB, I'll give you that.
But parents need to do their DUE DILIGENCE when it comes to the video games their children are playing.
It is extremely hypocritical for a parent to say forbid a child from seeing R-rated movies, but have their way with any video game they can buy.
It is also hypocritical to allow kids to see R-rated movies, and then complain about video games their children are playing.
Those are the issues. The ESRB, an industry self-regulating body, is not the issue.
"A better mmorpg would be "The Mall" where you can buy items, take them to the car, go home, get dressed in those items (mod your appearance) and go back to the mall.
"
Didn't we already have this and it bombed?
I'm referring to the SIMS Online of course.
I was just about to post how I figured with the popularity of the Sims with women, this mall MMOG is a likely thing.
But not so considering the massive failure that was TSO.
Agreed.
If there was a MMO football game, a small minority (little kids who should just stick to Madden on their GBA SP anyways) will hate it because not everyone can be a QB or WR (and probably have to play defense. No point in having 22 people per team. Just 11 with people playing both sides of the ball).
The rest of us will enjoy the realism and teamwork needed to have a good team. I personally would not mind playing O-Line. In fact I would enjoy the opportunity to try out every position, offense and defense, and see which one I am good at.
"Three-quarters of the women surveyed said that the reason they fell in love with DVR is that they are extremely intuitive and much easier than a VCR.""
Think about it. Women (And many Americans, male and female), back in the day of the VCR, couldn't figure out how to set the clock. (P.S. I wonder if this is why most DVD's players don't have a clock. Sure you don't need a clock on a DVD player
If given a TV properly hooked up to a VCR, and the remote for the VCR, and nothing else, you should be able to SET THE CLOCK within five minutes. If you can't, you should be shot.
And we are giving these people MORE technology? I think there is a strong argument that people don't deserve to get the new tech toys if you can't understand simple things like setting the clock on the vcr.
I remember back in the day when I used to watch a lot of the Annenburg-CPB Channel (Sue me. I can't get enough of The Mechanical Universe and its simple HS level calculus applied to physics AND Mireille in "French in Action."),
They used to advertise a show and the clip they showed was interesting and I always got a kick out of it:
A bunch of college grads (All disciplines), at graduation, were handed a simple light bulb, ONE wire, and a battery, and asked to light up the bulb (basically create a very basic circuit).
All but one showed couldn't do it. They even said it was impossible. After we saw one guy figure it out, they'd cut to a professor asking (paraphrasing),
"If college educated graduates don't even understand the basics of electricity, what does that say about a society that tremendously relies on electricity?"
I am even suggesting that most people should be allowed near a computer, until they get a good understanding of it (hardware and software). That, however, would have the impact of putting Best Buy's rip off techies, "The Geek Squad," out of business.
"Actually after searching around a bit the only one I could find was from Panasonic with a $1500 price tag,"
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.
If we are talking about OTA, then you should be looking for ATSC tuners. Walmart sells the USDTV ATSC tuner for $150.
The current market for ATSC tuners is usually between $200-500, but we'll see more of the USDTV-like ATSC tuners sold at Walmart way under 200, probably $99 when analog goes dark.
"Of course it does."
And that's why the FCC only mandates digital 480i (Which is better than analog 480i, but nothing special), right?
While more and more network affiliates (excluding PBS, where some affiliates do have 24/7 HD, but it is usually a loop of programming) are getting the ability to broadcast HD, NONE BROADCAST 24/7 HD. Most are broadcasting digital 480i.
The mandated conversion is not about HD. I wish it was as I love HD, but sadly it's not.
By the way, digital 480i, at its best = watching a DVD on a player DVD on a crappy TV using composite or s-video connections. Nothing special.
How about when, I believe in Ep. V, Obi-Wan says to Yoda,
"The boy was our last hope."
and Yoda replies,
"No. There is another." (Referring to Leia OF COURSE)
How does Obi-Wan forget Leia after the events of Episode III? Obi-Wan was there for the birth of Luke AND Leia. AND held Leia in his arms. AND is well aware Leia was sent away with Organa.
You can't have a top 100 list without MEMENTO and Clerks.
MEMENTO is a revolutionary way to present a story. And no, it's not like the backwards episode of "Seinfeld." It's MUCH more than that.
CLERKS is the ultimate low budget films that proves that good movies can exist without much "Action." This is all about dialogue, and is sadly ignored.
If you haven't seen these films, you NEED to see them.
DLP is the ONLY way to see it. I also saw it at an AMC theatre at midnight, where they had plenty of ANALOG showings.
Funny how the ANALOG showing lines had people decked out in SW gear, but the DLP crowd were just educated SW geeks.
Anyone who voluntarily sees Ep 3 ANALOG when they have access to DLP is not a true SW fan.
A true fan would want to see it in the best form possible. In its original (no film) form.
Well the director of this movie is Chris Nolan, who you might know as the brilliant guy that brought us MEMENTO.
No surprise that Batman Begins looks so damn good: So much of it has to do with Chris Nolan as director.
Voom did NOT fail because "nobody cares about HD."
HD is growing in popularity like crazy. That's why you always hear about more and more HD channels being launched and more and more programs being filmed in AND aired iN HD.
Voom failed for many reasons, but it wasn't lack of HD content:
1.) Voom failed to offer the SD channels you expect from a DBS provider. I think Sci-Fi channel was not on their system either ever, or for a long time. Thus if you were an HD enthusiast, you were reluctant to go to Voom because you would miss some channels that carried non-HD content you wanted.
2.) Tied to #1, Voom should have tried to flat out compete with DirecTV/Dish. Get all the core SD channels. Offer a package of just those SD channels for non-HDTV people, and undercut DirecTV/Dish prices. Of course you'd have a package with the SD + all the HD for the HD people. That way you not only would get the HD freaks, but had some appeal to the masses looking for something cheaper than Cable/Dish/DirecTV.
3.) Voom initially required a customer to cough up lots of cash to get it (~$700), although Dish already had been successful with its (Essentially) no upfront cost program, where you had free installation, free receiver (now free DVR), etc. Voom later went to that model, but it was too late by then.
4.) Their WORST mistake: Signing an exclusive in-store deal with *Sears.* Best Buy is the #1 electronics retailer in America, Wal-Mart is #2 quickly gaining on #1. Voom went with Sears, which hadn't been a big electronics player since the 80's. Nobody goes to Sears, and nobody gets satellite service from there. On top of that, their Voom show-off setups were horrible and the people that saw it were disgusted by it.
Voom had its fair share of problems, and it deserved to tank. BUT lack of interest in HD was not one of them. They had great HD content and had 99% of HD networks available in the US.
If anyone else tries to set up a Voom-like DBS service again, they will certainly learn from those mistakes and model themselves after Dish Network.
"The picture we currently have is more than adequate for general TV."
The picture we had in the 50's was adequate for general TV, but I seriously doubt you'd want to go back to the crappy blurry B&W.
"Most people don't feel that they need to be able to see every pore in Dan Rather's nose to be able to understand the evening news."
Dan Rather isn't on TV anymore, and NO NATIONAL NETWORK does their evening news in HD. 99% of local affiliates don't do any of their news in HD either.
"Whatever entertainment value you get out of the O.C. does not depend upon being able to count Mischa Barton's arm hairs."
Correct. OC fans could care less about HD. Ditto that for Young and the Restless fans (believe it not, it's filmed in HD and shown in HD everyday on CBS). But HD enthusiasts watch these shows now that they are HD.
"Go into an electronics store and look hard at a HDTV picture (areas of large black are some of the worst) and you can see the individual blocks of picture information that are not noticeable on the non HD units."
Come on now. You should know better. Of course HDTV looks like sh*t in Electronics stores! The Best Buy's and Fry's of the world don't know what the f*ck they are doing. Go to a home of a Home Theater Enthusiast and have him show you HD. Only an nostalgic idiot would not be blown away.
"Then add the fact that 99.9% of back catalogue movies and old TV shows were not filmed in sharp enough focus to gain anything from HD and you have to draw one conclusion:"
You must be one of those nostalgic idiots. Try looking forward and you'll see where HD can take us.
Actually, you would believe if you have been reading stories here and elsewhere about Best Buy getting out of the low-end consumer electronics market.
More and more BB's are trying to be high-end stores, with employees in these "Test" stores" trained to look for certain types of customers and show them to the high-end equipment.
The BB president said himself he would love to get rid of the customers who just come in to buy the low-end stuff, try to manipulate rebates and/or sell those products on EBay.
This is in response to the projection that BestBuy will eventually be passed by Walmart in 1-2 years as the #1 home electronics seller in the US.
" You think killing prostitutes are bad? Wait until you see soldiers team-killing each other in CounterStrike."
America's Army, using the CS engine, makes more sense for this statement, especially considering its military and gov't ties.
No, you can do it in 2.5. I know plenty of people at plenty of ABA-approved law schools that do it in 2.5.
You still end getting the same amount of units as everyone else (in the 90's range), BUT you finish early because you take summer classes.
We know it's been category A, but there is ONE exception: Your undergrad must have met a specific accreditation requirement. Check out the general requirements bulletin of the USPTO exam if you don't believe me.
This doesn't affect most people, but a friend of mine went to undergrad at a small state school in Missouri which was NOT accredited. She discovered in law school that she wouldn't be allowed to sit for the patent bar, and ever since law school has been working in a COMPLETELY non-related field. In fact she never uses anything related to Comp Sci in line of legal work.
I keep trying to find BG torrents but I can only find ones for the last eps of Season 1. Seems like nobody captures the eps from the Sci-Fi channel and I need to see eps 4-13.
Any recommendations on how to get those episodes? btefnet definitely is not a good source for BG eps, and neither is the Torrent Reactor site.
Thanks.
The end of late fees, the beginning of restocking fees, but many ignorant customers don't know about the restocking fees because at the BB stores they don't talk about that.
They just say "go ahead and keep the stuff an extra few days if you need it."
I think they mean the standard for online *console* gaming. I am not foolish enough to compare to PC gaming.
Anyone care to give out the numbers of people playing any kind of Gamecube game online with the use of Nintendo's shitty dial-up or broadband adapter???
Didn't think so.
I remember the Hardball series didn't have an MLB license, so they just city names, but team logos (And colors) were different.
It was no big deal to Hardball fans, as we had the real players.