Re:Joe Sixpack isn't even using his 1080p right
on
Beyond HDTV
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· Score: 2
Analog is watchable/listenable way past the point when digital hits the cliff. It might be annoyingly noisy or staticky, but you will be able to watch and hear what is happening. Analog cellular was the same; it could get very noisy but you'd still understand the caller. Digital cellular tends to have silent dropouts and you lose whole parts of the conversation.
Of course, analog consumes bandwidth the way a Hummer H1 drinks gasoline, so it's not all good.
Any company that sells locked phones without having factory unlocked phones available is crap.
Give kudos to Apple here - you can buy an unlocked one without any hacking required. Just click on "buy" on the Apple site or pop into an Apple store.
I'm changing carriers when my contract is up in early August and it's literally just going to be a SIM card change and a number port and I'll be up and running with my existing device and still be contract-free.
The battery issue is somewhat annoying, but I can see why Apple preferred to have a hard-to-remove back to preserve the ergonomics. Besides, with decent care (frequent charging) my iPhone 3G battery, now 3 years old, still works pretty well.
Easy to fix. Increase the fines for traffic light violations. Good drivers remain unaffected; bad ones have a greater incentive to reform their behaviour. Make it revenue neutral to keep it fair, if you like.
Gas was 84.9 cents a gallon (4.2-odd litres by the way in Canada) and changed to 19.9 cents a litre here in Regina, Saskatchewan. That's an increase of about 0.7 cents per gallon or under a tenth of a cent per litre - less than 1%, not the 40% you quoted.
Of course there is some abuse at times due to the confusion but that disappears once the market settles down.
As for roundabouts, I like them because people in countries that use them a lot tend to prefer them, and they have the experience to know how well they work once people figure them out. Short term pain for long term gain.
You're going to build vending machines and parking meters that take paper money and install them for every Canadian city for free? Great!
Personally, I'll stick to my $1 and $2 coins. A century ago, the quarter was the smallest coin and I'm quite sure it bought more than a $2 coin buys today, so we're fine.
This. I'm Canadian so I have more options, but here in Saskatchewan I can use my unlocked iPhone with any of the three carriers here (Rogers, Telus, SaskTel) and when I travel to the US, I use my prepaid AT&T service (or I could use T-Mobile). And I use Orange in the UK. It's a godsend being able to use this phone everywhere I go for very little cost.
$35 for 5 GB here in Canada, but I find 250 MB is enough. That gives me connectivity without a lot of expense. The only time I ever upgrade to the bigger data package is if I know I'll be attending some sporting events. I sometimes stream the TV broadcast onto my iPad so I can see replays, hear the commentary, etc. (The people who sit around me love it.) But I've had my iPad since August, and in only one month have I needed the bigger package.
My main television was a 27" Sony Trinitron Wega flatscreen 4:3 CRT until December 31. (It's still in use, in the bedroom.) I now have a nice 46" 1080p Panasonic plasma in the living room but aside from the clearly increased size of the image, I can't say the quality of the image is all that different. A bigger screen needs higher quality to look as sharp as a smaller screen with a lower resolution input, after all.
Truthfully the biggest improvement has been HD channels - not because they're HD, but because the image is clearly superior to most SD channels over cable. I have an HD cable box on my Sony CRT and downconvert HD content to 480i on it. You'd think this was a waste of time, until you see it. The quality on HD (even downconverted) is amazing compared to the SD. This means that SD TV content generally sucks - the TV can display far better quality than it's getting. (DVDs look beautiful, so there's nothing wrong with SD per se.)
While I use Netflix a little, I still prefer physical media. If I buy it, I want to own it. And to this middle-aged person's eyes, the audio and video I get on streaming sources, while reasonable, are a pale shadow of what I can get off even DVD, let alone Blu-Ray.
Easily solved. Increase the gas tax. Not only does this restore the revenue, but it creates greater incentive for those who drive inefficient vehicles to change to more efficient ones.
A mileage tax might seem to make sense in some ways, but imagine the logistics of collecting. Unless you are going to make every road a toll road (and good luck with that project), a fuel tax increase is going to be far easier and cheaper to implement.
Here's the great thing about buying a CD: I have a pressed original that will last for a century, most likely, *and* I can make.mp3,.flac,.ogg or whatever format extractions I want. I get the best of both worlds.
The real issue is that no competing carrier had technology easily compatible with AT&T's. (T-Mobile does in 2G but the 3G band they use is not on the current iPhone.).
In Canada, Bell and Telus built 3G GSM HSPA+ networks and Apple signed contracts with them. We have three carriers selling the iPhone now (in addition to incumbent Rogers), and a regional carrier (SaskTel), while it doesn't sell the iPhone, has a new network that works with it (so you can buy an unlocked iPhone - also available in Canada - and use it there).
Apple didn't have the same options in the US. Still, I'm surprised to see a Verizon iPhone before a T-Mobile one because the latter would be useful with other carriers (e.g. Wind in Canada) and would be only a minor variation from the existing hardware.
Or you could spend less. Having high-ratio zooms is a compromise.
I spent about the same as you did on my 16/2.8 fisheye, 17-35/2.8, 50/1.4, 80-200/2.8 and 75-300/4.5-5.6 and only lack a little at the long end. The 75-300 is a good lens and the other lenses are fantastic lenses. (All Nikkors.)
If only the Kodachrome plugin for PhotoShop could make actual slides that you can project. I haven't seen a digital projector that can touch the quality of a projected slide yet.
Foreigners sometimes have service, too. I've got prepaid AT&T and T-Mobile accounts for my US trips (each has different advantages), so I count toward 2 Americans having service, even though I'm not American and don't live in the country. 100% saturation merely means there are as many active lines as there are people, but it says nothing of how those lines are distributed.
Basic 3G is UMTS, 384kbps. EDGE can attain those speeds but typically, 200kbps is extremely good bandwidth and 100kbps is very good. 50kbps is not atypical. I've never gotten faster than 150kbps on EDGE.
On the other hand, I find that it is not at all difficult to get a full 384kps out of a UMTS device.
EDGE and GPRS seem much more affected by voice and messaging traffic than UMTS and HSPA are.
The other thing people forget is that regulation does not preclude competition.
Alberta is a good example. Alberta has decided that automobile insurance is complicated and that it's hard for people to understand. Alberta therefore has created an industry-standard wording (in partnership with the industry) so that when you buy auto insurance, the basic policy and the common options are identical from one carrier to another.
Despite this, there is massive auto insurance competition there. People buy insurance based on price and service. It is not necessary to compare products because they are identical.
A regulated net-neutral Internet would be the same. You know your traffic will get carried. What you decide is how much you want to pay, and how fast and how latent you need your connection to be. It is a lot easier for the average person to understand product differences if all that is involved is speed, latency and cost. Those are all things you can explain to someone in a minute or two.
Companies will compete on those factors. Markets without major competition will not have that advantage, but they do not have it not either. At least people will know that certain traffic will not be carried differently than others.
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Analog is watchable/listenable way past the point when digital hits the cliff. It might be annoyingly noisy or staticky, but you will be able to watch and hear what is happening. Analog cellular was the same; it could get very noisy but you'd still understand the caller. Digital cellular tends to have silent dropouts and you lose whole parts of the conversation.
Of course, analog consumes bandwidth the way a Hummer H1 drinks gasoline, so it's not all good.
Any company that sells locked phones without having factory unlocked phones available is crap.
Give kudos to Apple here - you can buy an unlocked one without any hacking required. Just click on "buy" on the Apple site or pop into an Apple store.
I'm changing carriers when my contract is up in early August and it's literally just going to be a SIM card change and a number port and I'll be up and running with my existing device and still be contract-free.
The battery issue is somewhat annoying, but I can see why Apple preferred to have a hard-to-remove back to preserve the ergonomics. Besides, with decent care (frequent charging) my iPhone 3G battery, now 3 years old, still works pretty well.
Easy to fix. Increase the fines for traffic light violations. Good drivers remain unaffected; bad ones have a greater incentive to reform their behaviour. Make it revenue neutral to keep it fair, if you like.
Citation?
Gas was 84.9 cents a gallon (4.2-odd litres by the way in Canada) and changed to 19.9 cents a litre here in Regina, Saskatchewan. That's an increase of about 0.7 cents per gallon or under a tenth of a cent per litre - less than 1%, not the 40% you quoted.
Of course there is some abuse at times due to the confusion but that disappears once the market settles down.
As for roundabouts, I like them because people in countries that use them a lot tend to prefer them, and they have the experience to know how well they work once people figure them out. Short term pain for long term gain.
You're going to build vending machines and parking meters that take paper money and install them for every Canadian city for free? Great!
Personally, I'll stick to my $1 and $2 coins. A century ago, the quarter was the smallest coin and I'm quite sure it bought more than a $2 coin buys today, so we're fine.
This. I'm Canadian so I have more options, but here in Saskatchewan I can use my unlocked iPhone with any of the three carriers here (Rogers, Telus, SaskTel) and when I travel to the US, I use my prepaid AT&T service (or I could use T-Mobile). And I use Orange in the UK. It's a godsend being able to use this phone everywhere I go for very little cost.
True as long as you have 3G GSM (WCDMA). 2G/2.5G GSM (i.e. GPRS or EDGE) pauses the data connection to let the call go through.
$35 for 5 GB here in Canada, but I find 250 MB is enough. That gives me connectivity without a lot of expense. The only time I ever upgrade to the bigger data package is if I know I'll be attending some sporting events. I sometimes stream the TV broadcast onto my iPad so I can see replays, hear the commentary, etc. (The people who sit around me love it.) But I've had my iPad since August, and in only one month have I needed the bigger package.
My main television was a 27" Sony Trinitron Wega flatscreen 4:3 CRT until December 31. (It's still in use, in the bedroom.) I now have a nice 46" 1080p Panasonic plasma in the living room but aside from the clearly increased size of the image, I can't say the quality of the image is all that different. A bigger screen needs higher quality to look as sharp as a smaller screen with a lower resolution input, after all.
Truthfully the biggest improvement has been HD channels - not because they're HD, but because the image is clearly superior to most SD channels over cable. I have an HD cable box on my Sony CRT and downconvert HD content to 480i on it. You'd think this was a waste of time, until you see it. The quality on HD (even downconverted) is amazing compared to the SD. This means that SD TV content generally sucks - the TV can display far better quality than it's getting. (DVDs look beautiful, so there's nothing wrong with SD per se.)
While I use Netflix a little, I still prefer physical media. If I buy it, I want to own it. And to this middle-aged person's eyes, the audio and video I get on streaming sources, while reasonable, are a pale shadow of what I can get off even DVD, let alone Blu-Ray.
Easily solved. Increase the gas tax. Not only does this restore the revenue, but it creates greater incentive for those who drive inefficient vehicles to change to more efficient ones.
A mileage tax might seem to make sense in some ways, but imagine the logistics of collecting. Unless you are going to make every road a toll road (and good luck with that project), a fuel tax increase is going to be far easier and cheaper to implement.
There certainly have been bad batches of pressed discs, and these are what has likely generated the doubt, but the incidents have been isolated.
CD audio isn't lossy audio unless the studio compresses the dynamic range of the sound - in which case any digital download is likely to be the same.
Here's the great thing about buying a CD: I have a pressed original that will last for a century, most likely, *and* I can make .mp3, .flac, .ogg or whatever format extractions I want. I get the best of both worlds.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those that understand binary and those that don't.
The real issue is that no competing carrier had technology easily compatible with AT&T's. (T-Mobile does in 2G but the 3G band they use is not on the current iPhone.).
In Canada, Bell and Telus built 3G GSM HSPA+ networks and Apple signed contracts with them. We have three carriers selling the iPhone now (in addition to incumbent Rogers), and a regional carrier (SaskTel), while it doesn't sell the iPhone, has a new network that works with it (so you can buy an unlocked iPhone - also available in Canada - and use it there).
Apple didn't have the same options in the US. Still, I'm surprised to see a Verizon iPhone before a T-Mobile one because the latter would be useful with other carriers (e.g. Wind in Canada) and would be only a minor variation from the existing hardware.
3G GSM (UMTS/HSPA), yes. 3G CDMA (EvDO), no.
I shot a dozen rolls of it this year, and ten last year. The problem is that not enough people did, and now it's gone.
Or you could spend less. Having high-ratio zooms is a compromise.
I spent about the same as you did on my 16/2.8 fisheye, 17-35/2.8, 50/1.4, 80-200/2.8 and 75-300/4.5-5.6 and only lack a little at the long end. The 75-300 is a good lens and the other lenses are fantastic lenses. (All Nikkors.)
If only the Kodachrome plugin for PhotoShop could make actual slides that you can project. I haven't seen a digital projector that can touch the quality of a projected slide yet.
Somebody might care. We call it "history".
Look at museums around the world - many of the items are pretty ordinary items that have become extraordinary because of the passage of time.
The key then is to put some sexy content on IPv6 so that people *WANT* to be there.
Perhaps Slashdot can start by only allowing first posts from IPv6-enabled hosts. That will get all the "f1rst p0st!" people over within minutes. :)
Foreigners sometimes have service, too. I've got prepaid AT&T and T-Mobile accounts for my US trips (each has different advantages), so I count toward 2 Americans having service, even though I'm not American and don't live in the country. 100% saturation merely means there are as many active lines as there are people, but it says nothing of how those lines are distributed.
Basic 3G is UMTS, 384kbps. EDGE can attain those speeds but typically, 200kbps is extremely good bandwidth and 100kbps is very good. 50kbps is not atypical. I've never gotten faster than 150kbps on EDGE.
On the other hand, I find that it is not at all difficult to get a full 384kps out of a UMTS device.
EDGE and GPRS seem much more affected by voice and messaging traffic than UMTS and HSPA are.
Please request again. I, for one, would be happy to pay for a zmachine client for my Kindle.
The other thing people forget is that regulation does not preclude competition.
Alberta is a good example. Alberta has decided that automobile insurance is complicated and that it's hard for people to understand. Alberta therefore has created an industry-standard wording (in partnership with the industry) so that when you buy auto insurance, the basic policy and the common options are identical from one carrier to another.
Despite this, there is massive auto insurance competition there. People buy insurance based on price and service. It is not necessary to compare products because they are identical.
A regulated net-neutral Internet would be the same. You know your traffic will get carried. What you decide is how much you want to pay, and how fast and how latent you need your connection to be. It is a lot easier for the average person to understand product differences if all that is involved is speed, latency and cost. Those are all things you can explain to someone in a minute or two.
Companies will compete on those factors. Markets without major competition will not have that advantage, but they do not have it not either. At least people will know that certain traffic will not be carried differently than others.