The evil part is the proprietary multiconnector at the back of all these popular consoles. Component video is just 3 "phone" (or "RCA") connectors, which are physically identical to composite video and analog audio connectors. Thus, if the device actually had the normal 3 phone jacks on the back, you could just use any decent 3-head video/left-audio/right-audio cable at $5 a pop. It's the multiconnector that allows manufacturers to lock in these absurd prices ($60).
I've noticed that many people in this thread mention waiting for the "format war" to end before they make any decision regarding an upgrade to either BluRay or HD-DVD. I'm tickled by the idea because no one is fighting this war! It's like Sony and Toshiba have both said "soldiers, charge!" but there is no movement. Each side has big missles, bombs, and fighters that they advertise to the other side with leaflets, but the soldiers (early adopters) just sit there on both sides of the battlefield, waiting for the war to fight itself.
If early adopters don't even charge into battle (as is usually the case), the war will never happen. Both sides will die of starvation before a single bomb is lobbed. That's your "format war" - a glaring contest between two camps of megacorporations who each have no followers.
You can pry my CRT out of my cold, dead hands. If I have to lift weights to maintain the ability to move my 21" Sony tube, then I'll gladly do it. I'll continue hoping that companies will invest a lot in SED, since it has the potential to show the best of both worlds. Until then, I lament that Sony has discontinued their Trinitron tubes and hope that my current one will last until SED is viable.
I work for the newspaper for my uni where we have an office full of Dell LCD screens, except for the photo editor. He uses two large Dell CRTs (which have Sony tubes in them) for his photo editing because the LCDs just can't approach the color representation. This whole Plasma v. LCD v. DLP battle bores me as someone who values the color and contrast of a CRT, and worries me that people have forgotten what is so great about CRTs. Who cares if my 32" TV weighs 100 lbs? It's worth it in a home theater.
I'm primarily afraid that any pro-CRT views will soon be relegated to the same class of people who insist that LPs have better quality than CDs. The other/.ers who love CRTs will be the ones sitting in the back of the room when we're well into our years, saying "Back in my day, TVs weighed 500lbs, and they looked better too! Whippersnapper!". That, and I'm only 23.
Sony lost its "walkman" trademark for just the same reason: It became an everyday word for a portable cassette player with earphones, so everyone may call his product "walkman".
While it's true that Sony lost the Walkman trademark in Austria due to technicalities, it remains under their control everywhere else.
I take it you're from the South. The Coke example is interesting, as Pepsi is the primary one fighting it with their long running Ask for Coke* campaign. Pepsi does not want people associating "Coke" with cola.
This is bad for those of us living in the South because "coke" (lowercase) has come to mean "whichever black soft drink you serve" even though I really only want Coke. Sometimes I just don't want Pepsi, and if you don't serve Coke, I'd rather have sweet tea. The problem is that waiters at Pepsi-only restaurants will often bring Pepsi when the client asks for Coke, leaving the client wondering why this Coke tastes so sugary.
As an Atlantan I'm all for Coke being the "standard" black soft drink, but I'd rather the name stayed specific to the brand.
Surfing through a proxy is slower than surfing directly. Surfing through Tor could potentially be much slower, even, because you lose the caching nature of the web's TCP/IP route-finding and because data is constantly being encrypted and decrypted. FoxyProxy (mentioned in the article) provides the ability to selectively use Tor or another proxy based on the URL, which is just the right amount of choice I'd like.
It's annoying, however, that the HOWTO includes the step "Set Firefox so that it only keeps cookies till you close Firefox (Edit/Preferences/Privacy/Cookies)". Cookies have a point, and I'd rather not kill them so often except for Google, alone.
Any chance you could move your signature to the offical signature field so that my Slashdot "hide signatures" preference makes a difference? It's pretty lame self-promotion.
True, "predicted" is sort of a weasel word; some people predicted more, and some people predicted less.
It's the sort of phrase that sounds meaningful but doesn't necessarily contain any substance. It goes along with the Fox News statement "some people say..." that makes the viewer think there are people who hold a certain belief without providing any actual facts to confirm.
I have worked on two friends' Dell Pentium D-based desktops (these are dual-core) and it's amazing how much closer they are to that zero-latency mark. It's likely that these two machines have faster harddrives, ram, and FSB settings, so those are all factors as well. However, if you played with a top-of-the-line system you'd probably agree that we're quite close to that goal. I'd never experienced that kind of low latency.
The other problem is that programs will always continue to bloat until they hit that threshold of "acceptable" latency on each new machine. Whereas version "1" of a program might only load plugins as you use them, version "2" comes out after processors are 4x faster and the developer decides to load all the plugins at the start since the delay is only 1 second longer. Later, version "3" preloads even more stuff, etc. It's a vicious cycle (just look at Vista).
Wow, I've never read a more biased article. I have a feeling [H] has a deep love for AMD and they're just convincing themselves that the AMD procs they just bought are still awesome. When it comes to graphics-intensive games, we all know that processor speed has comparatively little to do with performance. However, other tests of raw processing speed have shown significant improvements on the Intels, and they make no conciliatory mention of that in the conclusion. All they did was say, in 11 pages, that the CPU doesn't affect a certain collection of games.
Also, plenty of people have no qualms with catching the latest flick in glorious camcorder-vision. It's basically transcoding several times with D-to-A and A-to-D conversions that yield terrible quality, but I know lots of students who aren't concerned with the lack of image or sound quality. They simply want to see the film, hear the jokes, and watch the story unfold. Many of the/. crowd wouldn't put up with that, but then again many of us are probably buying DVDs legally anyway.
You'd probably appreciate the MyUglySpace competition put on by Ze Frank. The goal of the competition is to create the ugliest possible MySpace page. Many of the entries are lame, but some are really pushing the envelope of CSS-based vomit. I just like the contest because it gave me a use for my MySpace account.
So some of us who didn't like the idea of Windows continuously phoning home and didn't install WGA. What exactly will be enforcing this automatic shutdown? Which other misrepresented update will they release near fall that adds this "feature"? Is it a security release we've already received, or one to come in the future? I don't know many people out there who would install "KB 999666: Windows Anti-anti-WGA Automatic Shutdown Update" if they've already made a conscious decision not to install WGA.
Or, was this part of SP2? SP1? Built into XP from the start? We got complacent to secret codes for installation. Some people got complacent to "Activation". Now we're supposed to get complacent to automatic shutdowns?
Oh well, I'm not too worried. Even if I screw up and accidentally install this auto-shutdown update and they erroneously decide that my completely legit copy of XP is bootleg, the hack community will have a fix before the sun goes down.
Just do yourself a favor; before you go condemning this guy, sign up for an AOL free trial and try to cancel a month later. See how far you get.
YMMV, but I told AOL that I was cancelling (after like 2 weeks) because they didn't have any international dialup numbers. The rep cancelled the account without much hassle. Give it a try!
This is exemplified in one of the PC v. Mac ads put out by Apple, where the SHG (sarcastic, hip guy) is ready to go but the BWG (boring white guy) says that he needs to first remove all the trial software that comes preinstalled. Reformatting is the best course of action. Apple realises people don't want the crap, and I'm happy that the ad brings it to the public's attention. I'm generally annoyed by those ads due to its subconscious manipulation, but that one point is a valid one.
It's not so much that you need to use hygiene products, it's that we need you to use them. It's a necessity if you want to be a respected member of society. I'm talking about shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant... not cologne or Axe.
In some ways it's sad, yes, that a company can't build decent drivers for its own products (VIA), but Microsoft can build functioning drivers for hardware they didn't make. On the other hand, I think this goes along with the typical case in which Microsoft's drivers provide a base level of functionality quite reliably.
In most cases MS's hardware drivers are quite reliable even if they omit cutting-edge features from the more complicated pieces of hardware, like video cards. In that case they let you get up and running until you have time to tackle ATI or nVidia's native drivers. However, in the case of generic hardware like SATA or network cards, they tend to be very stable. This is something that MS seems to do right but gets little press, but I'm happy it works this way.
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So how are you supposed to know how much performance you're getting for X money without benchmarks like these? Don't be so arrogant.
Quit being so negative. I like Slashdot's new PayPal monitoring service!
Hell is rare?
The evil part is the proprietary multiconnector at the back of all these popular consoles. Component video is just 3 "phone" (or "RCA") connectors, which are physically identical to composite video and analog audio connectors. Thus, if the device actually had the normal 3 phone jacks on the back, you could just use any decent 3-head video/left-audio/right-audio cable at $5 a pop. It's the multiconnector that allows manufacturers to lock in these absurd prices ($60).
I've noticed that many people in this thread mention waiting for the "format war" to end before they make any decision regarding an upgrade to either BluRay or HD-DVD. I'm tickled by the idea because no one is fighting this war! It's like Sony and Toshiba have both said "soldiers, charge!" but there is no movement. Each side has big missles, bombs, and fighters that they advertise to the other side with leaflets, but the soldiers (early adopters) just sit there on both sides of the battlefield, waiting for the war to fight itself.
If early adopters don't even charge into battle (as is usually the case), the war will never happen. Both sides will die of starvation before a single bomb is lobbed. That's your "format war" - a glaring contest between two camps of megacorporations who each have no followers.
You can pry my CRT out of my cold, dead hands. If I have to lift weights to maintain the ability to move my 21" Sony tube, then I'll gladly do it. I'll continue hoping that companies will invest a lot in SED, since it has the potential to show the best of both worlds. Until then, I lament that Sony has discontinued their Trinitron tubes and hope that my current one will last until SED is viable.
I work for the newspaper for my uni where we have an office full of Dell LCD screens, except for the photo editor. He uses two large Dell CRTs (which have Sony tubes in them) for his photo editing because the LCDs just can't approach the color representation. This whole Plasma v. LCD v. DLP battle bores me as someone who values the color and contrast of a CRT, and worries me that people have forgotten what is so great about CRTs. Who cares if my 32" TV weighs 100 lbs? It's worth it in a home theater.
I'm primarily afraid that any pro-CRT views will soon be relegated to the same class of people who insist that LPs have better quality than CDs. The other /.ers who love CRTs will be the ones sitting in the back of the room when we're well into our years, saying "Back in my day, TVs weighed 500lbs, and they looked better too! Whippersnapper!". That, and I'm only 23.
I'd let her hit me.
While it's true that Sony lost the Walkman trademark in Austria due to technicalities, it remains under their control everywhere else.
This is bad for those of us living in the South because "coke" (lowercase) has come to mean "whichever black soft drink you serve" even though I really only want Coke. Sometimes I just don't want Pepsi, and if you don't serve Coke, I'd rather have sweet tea. The problem is that waiters at Pepsi-only restaurants will often bring Pepsi when the client asks for Coke, leaving the client wondering why this Coke tastes so sugary.
As an Atlantan I'm all for Coke being the "standard" black soft drink, but I'd rather the name stayed specific to the brand.
*I assumed you meant "Ask for PepsiCola"
Surfing through a proxy is slower than surfing directly. Surfing through Tor could potentially be much slower, even, because you lose the caching nature of the web's TCP/IP route-finding and because data is constantly being encrypted and decrypted. FoxyProxy (mentioned in the article) provides the ability to selectively use Tor or another proxy based on the URL, which is just the right amount of choice I'd like.
It's annoying, however, that the HOWTO includes the step "Set Firefox so that it only keeps cookies till you close Firefox (Edit/Preferences/Privacy/Cookies)". Cookies have a point, and I'd rather not kill them so often except for Google, alone.
Any chance you could move your signature to the offical signature field so that my Slashdot "hide signatures" preference makes a difference? It's pretty lame self-promotion.
It's the sort of phrase that sounds meaningful but doesn't necessarily contain any substance. It goes along with the Fox News statement "some people say..." that makes the viewer think there are people who hold a certain belief without providing any actual facts to confirm.
I have worked on two friends' Dell Pentium D-based desktops (these are dual-core) and it's amazing how much closer they are to that zero-latency mark. It's likely that these two machines have faster harddrives, ram, and FSB settings, so those are all factors as well. However, if you played with a top-of-the-line system you'd probably agree that we're quite close to that goal. I'd never experienced that kind of low latency.
The other problem is that programs will always continue to bloat until they hit that threshold of "acceptable" latency on each new machine. Whereas version "1" of a program might only load plugins as you use them, version "2" comes out after processors are 4x faster and the developer decides to load all the plugins at the start since the delay is only 1 second longer. Later, version "3" preloads even more stuff, etc. It's a vicious cycle (just look at Vista).
Wow, I've never read a more biased article. I have a feeling [H] has a deep love for AMD and they're just convincing themselves that the AMD procs they just bought are still awesome. When it comes to graphics-intensive games, we all know that processor speed has comparatively little to do with performance. However, other tests of raw processing speed have shown significant improvements on the Intels, and they make no conciliatory mention of that in the conclusion. All they did was say, in 11 pages, that the CPU doesn't affect a certain collection of games.
So when are those 8x8 trucks going to be available to the general public?
Or for that matter, when are those 64-core mobos going to be available?
Users losing interest in this particular news story follow an impulse function.
OpenDNS != OpenNIC
Also, plenty of people have no qualms with catching the latest flick in glorious camcorder-vision. It's basically transcoding several times with D-to-A and A-to-D conversions that yield terrible quality, but I know lots of students who aren't concerned with the lack of image or sound quality. They simply want to see the film, hear the jokes, and watch the story unfold. Many of the /. crowd wouldn't put up with that, but then again many of us are probably buying DVDs legally anyway.
No, it's aFRAID array. Oops, forgot the space.
You'd probably appreciate the MyUglySpace competition put on by Ze Frank. The goal of the competition is to create the ugliest possible MySpace page. Many of the entries are lame, but some are really pushing the envelope of CSS-based vomit. I just like the contest because it gave me a use for my MySpace account.
So some of us who didn't like the idea of Windows continuously phoning home and didn't install WGA. What exactly will be enforcing this automatic shutdown? Which other misrepresented update will they release near fall that adds this "feature"? Is it a security release we've already received, or one to come in the future? I don't know many people out there who would install "KB 999666: Windows Anti-anti-WGA Automatic Shutdown Update" if they've already made a conscious decision not to install WGA.
Or, was this part of SP2? SP1? Built into XP from the start? We got complacent to secret codes for installation. Some people got complacent to "Activation". Now we're supposed to get complacent to automatic shutdowns?
Oh well, I'm not too worried. Even if I screw up and accidentally install this auto-shutdown update and they erroneously decide that my completely legit copy of XP is bootleg, the hack community will have a fix before the sun goes down.
YMMV, but I told AOL that I was cancelling (after like 2 weeks) because they didn't have any international dialup numbers. The rep cancelled the account without much hassle. Give it a try!
This is exemplified in one of the PC v. Mac ads put out by Apple, where the SHG (sarcastic, hip guy) is ready to go but the BWG (boring white guy) says that he needs to first remove all the trial software that comes preinstalled. Reformatting is the best course of action. Apple realises people don't want the crap, and I'm happy that the ad brings it to the public's attention. I'm generally annoyed by those ads due to its subconscious manipulation, but that one point is a valid one.
It's not so much that you need to use hygiene products, it's that we need you to use them. It's a necessity if you want to be a respected member of society. I'm talking about shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant ... not cologne or Axe.
In most cases MS's hardware drivers are quite reliable even if they omit cutting-edge features from the more complicated pieces of hardware, like video cards. In that case they let you get up and running until you have time to tackle ATI or nVidia's native drivers. However, in the case of generic hardware like SATA or network cards, they tend to be very stable. This is something that MS seems to do right but gets little press, but I'm happy it works this way.