"Now wrap your silk handkerchief around the plutonium pellet, and tie it with your ribbon. Hold it between your palms. Isn't this a functional, yet beautiful little hand warmer? And remember, it'll stay warm for over six thousand years. What a lovely little multi-generational trinket we've created."
I noticed that myself. I opened up the GIFs used on the site, couldn't find anything embedded in them. One does have to wonder how long they have had this page prepared?
Or do physicists still think everything is doomed to continue flying apart until the heat death of the universe in the distant future? Is the Big Crunch back in the picture?
The cable companies never wanted to cede control by supporting cable card. Requirements and a deadline were set and the cable companies continued to fight to either eliminate or delay them, obviously without trying their hardest to implement something against their own best interests. Their delaying tactics seem to have worked since they have people blaming the govt or the technology for how poorly the cards work. I can't really blame the teacher for setting an arbitrary deadline when the kid does a bad job of writing his paper just because he waited till the last night. That's closer to what I see has happened.
I am very willing to believe this. Can you give me some supporting links? I'd like to look over the information for myself.
This has been unusually enlightening for a/. discussion. Thank you.:)
Wow, so the cable companies' stalling and delaying tactics are working!
It's like not starting to write your term paper until the night before it's due and then complaining about the due date and how it's going to impact the quality of your work.
Do you think these problems are unsolvable over time?
Yes the problems are solvable, but by 2006 probably not, considering each line of digital sets seems to have its own issues. True, it's not like the cable companies didn't know about the deadline, BUT, with a few dozen television set manufacturers (many of whom just entered the market two years ago and less than eight of whom introduced their first cable card ready sets in 2004), half a dozen companies that make cable cards who are still producing beta grade products, and half a dozen major cable players buying from several vendors, there are a lot of variables to take into account.
I was a C band satellite afficionado in the 80's. I watched most of the spectrum go dark in 1986. I hate cable companies myself, but my six megabit per second internet connection can't be delivered by satellite, my alternative connections are less than adequate, and I get a more affordable bundled deal when I get digital cable.
I was happy to ditch my cable box and get a cable card, but experiencing the deployment difficulties first-hand as an early adopter, not by hearsay, I tend to agree that cable companies and hardware manufacturers need more time to work out the kinks in this technology.
With HDTV the FCC set an arbitrary time table for implementation and spectrum reassignment with no regard for market demand. Does it make sense for them to at least listen to the concerns of the companies and individuals who will be implementing and purchasing the new technology, or is it better if they just blindly stick to an artbitrary schedule and ignore all outside commentary? From your comment you would seem to prefer the latter?
In my opinion, which admittedly is not worth a whole hell of a lot, Congress and the FCC screw things up enough without them completely forgoing industry and consumer feedback.
I realize this is/., but sometimes nefarious government bodies actually make rational decisions based on verifiable facts. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.:)
In a market the size of Columbus, Ohio, I am served by Time Warner. I am the 30th installation, and the first in my region (grouped with Columbus). According to the tech who installed my cable card, roll out has been held up since mid-summer 2004 due to glitches, some of which have caused HDTV's to require factory servicing to repair. Even with nine months of delay, the technology is far from being mature and bug free.
With a Scientific Atlanta cable card installed, my TV (Sony KD-34XS955) periodically freezes/locks (it ain't just a Windoze thang) and needs a cold reboot. I am told that the problem can be fixed by having Sony come and install a firmware update for my set. I am calling them next week.
As a cable provider, can you imagine having to do this for every digital set in your service area? To me, it's no wonder they want a delay. The replacement to set top boxes is just not yet ready for prime time.
At one time I knew the man on a first name basis. He appears to have developed a taste for public money.
It appears he's become fee hungry, like the rest of Ohio's Republicans. With Ohio Republicans, like our lame duck Governor Taft -- who stands a snowball's chance in Hell of moving on to the U.S. Senate, we know him too well to advance him -- we get the worst of both worlds. Not only do we get the spend-thrift tendencies for which Republicans have historically been known, we get the urge to tax that is usually attributed to Democrats.
Basically with our current Ohio-brand Republican government in place, Ohio taxpayers get screwed, and we don't even get held close and kissed.
I have been following this news for several years. For me, and the thousands like me who get no relief from medication I am pleased to see this project moving forward.
can be viewed here, since the site linked to by the article appears to be/.'ed.
LumiLeds makes the LEDs: red, green, and blue. The bulb life of 20,000 hours is fantastic, but I agree that chances are poor this will throw a bright enough image to be useful in daylight or bright room situations. The Lumileds site suggests that the maximum brightness for a Lumileds Luxeon LED is 120 lumens.
"How can I circumvent the laws of the country where I'll be living?" If you do, and if you're caught (and you're likely to be -- surveillance is widespread) you will pay a penalty. The Peoples' Republic does as it will, and impassioned pleas from your embassy might keep you from hard labor in the Chinese version of a gulag, but they probably wouldn't keep you from a period of re-education inside a Chinese jail cell before you're kicked out of the country as a persona non grata.
On the other hand, if you don't feel you are entitled to special privileges, and obey the same laws as the locals you'll probably get along swimmingly.
I won't make any guesses in regards to your nationality, but when you're traveling abroad, you do *not* take the laws of your country with you. For your information the laws of the country you are visiting supercede those of your country of citizenship. If you go on a spree, there's nothing to keep you from being tried twice for your crimes, once in the Peoples' Republic and again in your home country.
My advice, if you're already planning on breaking the law, don't go.
Insofar as there was a problem with the lawsuit, it was more that it would have been largely ineffectual, not that Ellison's anger was misplaced.
Ineffectual might be too strong of a term. Although the settlement doesn't seem to penalize anyone, it apparently proved his point, and motivated AOL to clarify and enforce their position on piracy. I don't particularly like the man on a personal level, but I agree wholeheartedly with his stance on piracy. It's hard to feel sorry when the "victim" of piracy is a multimillionaire/celebrity/multibillionaire -- are they going to miss this little bit of money -- yet others who are not in their financial positions do suffer when their work is freely copied.
Unfortunately, this is Slashdot, a forum whose bulk of members look at a few abuses of copyright (overly long terms, "Access Control Mechanisms", etc), looks at one specific industry that really doesn't need copyright but has it anyway (software - 90% of all programming is done for private institutions, not as software for sale), and promptly declares copyright evil and unnecessary, and anyone trying to make a living from it likewise.
Generalizations are easier to deal with than nuance. Slashdot may be a deeply intelligent community, but it's not very world-wise.:)
I met the man back in the mid 80's, but I'm not him. Apparently you come down on the side of "everything should be free." Good for you, but quite respectfully, if you worked in a capacity where you relied on written, musical, or visual content to put food on your table I suspect you'd feel very differently. As a content author whose income is protected by copyright law, although I agree today's media tends to produce watered-down, overexpensive product, there would be *none* if there were no financial incentive to produce it. "Starving artist" sounds fantastically noble on paper, until you're the one starving.:)
Frivolity is apparently subjective, contingent upon whether or not one's income relies on the sale of copyrighted material. FYI, AOL has settled with Mr. Ellison.
Thank you for your comment. Without digital out, this WOULDN'T be an ideal HTPC. Still, I could see popping one of these on the home network and using it to play back streaming divx and mp3 content, for not much more than a dedicated digital media appliance. It wouldn't be the audiophile's choice, but throw in the super drive (or whatever they call their DVD writer) and you've still got a relatively powerful, very inconspicuous little device that can at least replace the el cheapo DVD player/recorder, the el cheapo CD player, and the MSN TV box.:)
... the open box deal, and the extra 10% off that day for open box items I paid $1350 plus tax for mine.:) This set has the same picture tube as the XBR range of sets, it has HDMI, cable card compatibility, and a built in dtv/qam tuner -- it just lacks DVI-D and PIP. I really couldn't go wrong.:)
-Joe
P.S. The only thing you'll definitely want to be aware of is a convergence issue in these sets. It can be remedied by a visit from a Sony tech, who will correct it for you, for free.
Specs are here. 1440 x 900. It's the best HDTV picture I have seen. The XBR for $200 more has a DVI-D input, but the HDMI input on my set can take a DVI to HDMI adapter and be used as a PC monitor.
The sharpness, color saturation, and brightness of this set far exceeded anything else being offered on the sales floor of the Best Buy where I found it, and after a visit by a Sony tech to adjust the electron gun focus I wouldn't trade it for any plasma or rear projector I've seen.
Samsung has an LCD that does true 1080P, but from what I understand the panel has problems with brightness, blurring, and contrast...
CRT technology is completely mature. I don't know that it can get any better, but from my own personal experience it's definitely not a technology that has anything to prove. Granted, my set is a two hundred pound behemoth, but that's a tradeoff I was willing to give for the best picture in the electronics store.:)
I saw this movie. Plants and people flash frozen, "dramatic climate shift already under way." Doesn't the article end with a direct quote from Dennis Quaid's character?
We have been keeping records of weather for at best a few centuries. The planet has been around for over forty million centuries. What on Earth makes us believe that the miniscule fraction of a percentage of that period that humans have deigned to scribble down temperatures anywhere near approaches what is "normal" over the space of eons, not to mention millenia, or even centuries? We have no idea what is "normal" in regards to climate.
This is not an excuse to wantonly pollute, but the "dramatic change" that causes such hystrionics in the press would seem to be a more frequent occurance than long-term stability. If we as a civilization plan on enduring for millenia, and not centuries, sooner or later we had better get comfortable with the idea that weather extremes will happen, with or without our intervention. Although our species would probably survive a climate shift, our civilizations don't seem to have the kind of mobility such survival would require.
My point would be that by its very nature climate changes, to survive we'd best get used to the idea and deal with it.
PSSST!!! I've heard the rumor that Apple is planning on ditching Motorola's chips for IBM processors in their upcoming Macintoshes. Has anyone elseo heard about something called a "G5"? Some say it might also be 64 bit? Heavens-to-Betsy, let's post it to/.'s FP.
Please, oh please hire someone who can write complete, well-ordered sentences. Pauses in sentences are not delineated by periods. Spend a little extra money to acquire an employee who knows the proper use of the comma. However solid your technology may be, your sales pitch is rendered less than convincing by your amateurish use of the English language.
Slashdot Mirror
"Now wrap your silk handkerchief around the plutonium pellet, and tie it with your ribbon. Hold it between your palms. Isn't this a functional, yet beautiful little hand warmer? And remember, it'll stay warm for over six thousand years. What a lovely little multi-generational trinket we've created."
I noticed that myself. I opened up the GIFs used on the site, couldn't find anything embedded in them. One does have to wonder how long they have had this page prepared?
Who is pissed off at the PearPC project?
-Joe G.
Or do physicists still think everything is doomed to continue flying apart until the heat death of the universe in the distant future? Is the Big Crunch back in the picture?
-Joe G.
This has been unusually enlightening for a
-Joe G.
I was a C band satellite afficionado in the 80's. I watched most of the spectrum go dark in 1986. I hate cable companies myself, but my six megabit per second internet connection can't be delivered by satellite, my alternative connections are less than adequate, and I get a more affordable bundled deal when I get digital cable.
I was happy to ditch my cable box and get a cable card, but experiencing the deployment difficulties first-hand as an early adopter, not by hearsay, I tend to agree that cable companies and hardware manufacturers need more time to work out the kinks in this technology.
With HDTV the FCC set an arbitrary time table for implementation and spectrum reassignment with no regard for market demand. Does it make sense for them to at least listen to the concerns of the companies and individuals who will be implementing and purchasing the new technology, or is it better if they just blindly stick to an artbitrary schedule and ignore all outside commentary? From your comment you would seem to prefer the latter?
In my opinion, which admittedly is not worth a whole hell of a lot, Congress and the FCC screw things up enough without them completely forgoing industry and consumer feedback.
I realize this is
-Joe G.
In a market the size of Columbus, Ohio, I am served by Time Warner. I am the 30th installation, and the first in my region (grouped with Columbus). According to the tech who installed my cable card, roll out has been held up since mid-summer 2004 due to glitches, some of which have caused HDTV's to require factory servicing to repair. Even with nine months of delay, the technology is far from being mature and bug free.
With a Scientific Atlanta cable card installed, my TV (Sony KD-34XS955) periodically freezes/locks (it ain't just a Windoze thang) and needs a cold reboot. I am told that the problem can be fixed by having Sony come and install a firmware update for my set. I am calling them next week.
As a cable provider, can you imagine having to do this for every digital set in your service area? To me, it's no wonder they want a delay. The replacement to set top boxes is just not yet ready for prime time.
-Joe G.
At one time I knew the man on a first name basis. He appears to have developed a taste for public money.
It appears he's become fee hungry, like the rest of Ohio's Republicans. With Ohio Republicans, like our lame duck Governor Taft -- who stands a snowball's chance in Hell of moving on to the U.S. Senate, we know him too well to advance him -- we get the worst of both worlds. Not only do we get the spend-thrift tendencies for which Republicans have historically been known, we get the urge to tax that is usually attributed to Democrats.
Basically with our current Ohio-brand Republican government in place, Ohio taxpayers get screwed, and we don't even get held close and kissed.
I have been following this news for several years. For me, and the thousands like me who get no relief from medication I am pleased to see this project moving forward.
-Joe G.
Some friends have several. Some seem to be colored deeper than others, but they do fluoresce nicely under black light.
can be viewed here, since the site linked to by the article appears to be /.'ed.
LumiLeds makes the LEDs: red, green, and blue. The bulb life of 20,000 hours is fantastic, but I agree that chances are poor this will throw a bright enough image to be useful in daylight or bright room situations. The Lumileds site suggests that the maximum brightness for a Lumileds Luxeon LED is 120 lumens.
-Joe G.
Can't you folks do any better than this?
"How can I circumvent the laws of the country where I'll be living?" If you do, and if you're caught (and you're likely to be -- surveillance is widespread) you will pay a penalty. The Peoples' Republic does as it will, and impassioned pleas from your embassy might keep you from hard labor in the Chinese version of a gulag, but they probably wouldn't keep you from a period of re-education inside a Chinese jail cell before you're kicked out of the country as a persona non grata.
On the other hand, if you don't feel you are entitled to special privileges, and obey the same laws as the locals you'll probably get along swimmingly.
I won't make any guesses in regards to your nationality, but when you're traveling abroad, you do *not* take the laws of your country with you. For your information the laws of the country you are visiting supercede those of your country of citizenship. If you go on a spree, there's nothing to keep you from being tried twice for your crimes, once in the Peoples' Republic and again in your home country.
My advice, if you're already planning on breaking the law, don't go.
-Joe G.
Peace,
-Joe G.
Peace,
-Joe G.
I met the man back in the mid 80's, but I'm not him. Apparently you come down on the side of "everything should be free." Good for you, but quite respectfully, if you worked in a capacity where you relied on written, musical, or visual content to put food on your table I suspect you'd feel very differently. As a content author whose income is protected by copyright law, although I agree today's media tends to produce watered-down, overexpensive product, there would be *none* if there were no financial incentive to produce it. "Starving artist" sounds fantastically noble on paper, until you're the one starving. :)
Frivolity is apparently subjective, contingent upon whether or not one's income relies on the sale of copyrighted material. FYI, AOL has settled with Mr. Ellison.
Thank you for your comment. Without digital out, this WOULDN'T be an ideal HTPC. Still, I could see popping one of these on the home network and using it to play back streaming divx and mp3 content, for not much more than a dedicated digital media appliance. It wouldn't be the audiophile's choice, but throw in the super drive (or whatever they call their DVD writer) and you've still got a relatively powerful, very inconspicuous little device that can at least replace the el cheapo DVD player/recorder, the el cheapo CD player, and the MSN TV box. :)
... the open box deal, and the extra 10% off that day for open box items I paid $1350 plus tax for mine. :) This set has the same picture tube as the XBR range of sets, it has HDMI, cable card compatibility, and a built in dtv/qam tuner -- it just lacks DVI-D and PIP. I really couldn't go wrong. :)
-Joe
P.S. The only thing you'll definitely want to be aware of is a convergence issue in these sets. It can be remedied by a visit from a Sony tech, who will correct it for you, for free.
Specs are here. 1440 x 900. It's the best HDTV picture I have seen. The XBR for $200 more has a DVI-D input, but the HDMI input on my set can take a DVI to HDMI adapter and be used as a PC monitor.
...
:)
The sharpness, color saturation, and brightness of this set far exceeded anything else being offered on the sales floor of the Best Buy where I found it, and after a visit by a Sony tech to adjust the electron gun focus I wouldn't trade it for any plasma or rear projector I've seen.
Samsung has an LCD that does true 1080P, but from what I understand the panel has problems with brightness, blurring, and contrast
CRT technology is completely mature. I don't know that it can get any better, but from my own personal experience it's definitely not a technology that has anything to prove. Granted, my set is a two hundred pound behemoth, but that's a tradeoff I was willing to give for the best picture in the electronics store.
A thirteenth month should be called "Bob", just because.
I saw this movie. Plants and people flash frozen, "dramatic climate shift already under way." Doesn't the article end with a direct quote from Dennis Quaid's character?
We have been keeping records of weather for at best a few centuries. The planet has been around for over forty million centuries. What on Earth makes us believe that the miniscule fraction of a percentage of that period that humans have deigned to scribble down temperatures anywhere near approaches what is "normal" over the space of eons, not to mention millenia, or even centuries? We have no idea what is "normal" in regards to climate.
This is not an excuse to wantonly pollute, but the "dramatic change" that causes such hystrionics in the press would seem to be a more frequent occurance than long-term stability. If we as a civilization plan on enduring for millenia, and not centuries, sooner or later we had better get comfortable with the idea that weather extremes will happen, with or without our intervention. Although our species would probably survive a climate shift, our civilizations don't seem to have the kind of mobility such survival would require.
My point would be that by its very nature climate changes, to survive we'd best get used to the idea and deal with it.
You mean the "rumors" aren't officially "news" until they appear on /.? Forget what we've been reading since Febuary on http://www.anandtech.com, http://www.tomshardware.com, http://www.theinquirer.net, http://www.arstechnica.com, http://www.hardocp.com, http://www.aceshardware.com, and of course http://www.intel.com, it's not true until it appears on /. ...
/.'s FP.
PSSST!!! I've heard the rumor that Apple is planning on ditching Motorola's chips for IBM processors in their upcoming Macintoshes. Has anyone elseo heard about something called a "G5"? Some say it might also be 64 bit? Heavens-to-Betsy, let's post it to
Please, oh please hire someone who can write complete, well-ordered sentences. Pauses in sentences are not delineated by periods. Spend a little extra money to acquire an employee who knows the proper use of the comma. However solid your technology may be, your sales pitch is rendered less than convincing by your amateurish use of the English language.
I've read four, unless something came after Tehanu.
$54.95 per month, 3 mbps down/384 kbps up. In this town DSL *starts* at $49.95 for 768 kbps down/128 kbps up.