Actually the visual fidelity of the originals really isn't that good by modern standards. A few years ago they released dvds with the original *unedited* and the remastered versions, and they originals look very fuzzy and kind of cheesy by comparison. It's the sort of thing you might not notice on an old CRT, but the LCD screen I had definitely revealed some limitations in the original film prints.
Can you suggest some tips on getting involved with ETL/data modeling work? I'm coming from an accounting background but have experience with Perl and VBA. Haven't messed around with Java too much, and my personal projects are too small to be useful for learning about back-end data flow.
Sure, 8 cores. That'll handle a few servos, audio input/output, light sensor, and video processing, all done natively. After all, it's a microcontroller, good for gadgets and robots. It's not like you're running MapReduce on it.
Another option is to use the Parallax Propeller microcontroller. It's got 8 cores, 80Mhz clock speed, and 32k of ram, and you can either program in its higher-level Spin language or get right down into assembler. The Arduino is fun to learn on and accessible to people who don't have a strong programming background, but working with the Propeller is like advancing to the varsity squad.
"The perennial problem of IT: It's benefits are several degrees removed from its efforts, from the POV of an accountant."
There is an easy way to fix this, as the article suggests: get to know a couple of your accountants, see what kind of work they do and how they use Excel, then write a quick macro to format their data, spread it across several tabs, or email their colleagues. This simple work makes a real impact, and they will quickly understand IT's benefits.
'spontaneously gathering' may work for a few thousand people for a couple years, but the cat's now out of the bag. if you want to throw technicalities at BLM, they can probably find a technicality to toss all the campers off the land. burning man gets away with it every year because it brings money into a depressed area, which requires coordination. if you want to relinquish all responsibility, you're opening yourself up to being controlled by other, outside influences. i think the tradeoff's worth it.
There are serious logistical challenges to building a city in the desert. Organizers must secure permits, hire portapotty cleaners (who come every day), give out art grants, etc, and these things cost serious money. Burning Man isn't spontaneous and people have realized that for 50,000 people to live civilly with each other, there need to be some rules and a modicum of organization. (The "rules," IIRC, are mostly about adhering to the laws of federal park lands, which the playa is.)
I've been twice and old timers always say it's not like it used to be...even people who have been there only three times. But they keep going back, because not-what-it-used-to-be is still better than anything-else-that's-going-on.
I think that for general purpose gadget-making, an Arduino board (http://www.arduino.cc/) is more versatile. They're commonly used by artists for the straightforward input-output commands but I'm sure that someone clever enough could make some killer projects. Also, it's a helluva lot cheaper and fully open source.
how about Crusader: No Remorse (and it's awesome sequel) that will only run on DOS? That was a great game, FMV included, but it's impossible to play on modern hardware. DOSbox just doesn't run it fast enough.
Of course you're free to avoid coffee to minimize your risk of diabetes, but to the original point of the article, it's been demonstrated that drinking coffee regularly can ward off Alzheimer's. I believe it's mostly related to the high levels of caffeine in the drink, but I wanted to offer the point to your calculus.
I just wanted to say: right on. Whether politics, commerce, or technology, people are still people and they do this same dance every day with every opinion! If I had mod points I'd pass them on; in the meantime please accept some real-world karma.
It's like that Star Trek TNG episode when Picard, Guinan, Ro, and someone else get transformed into children. He's still the same Captain Picard, but no one can take him seriously and he ends up relieving himself of duty. As I hope we nerds are aware of, physical appearance goes a long way in others' perception of you, even in an intellectual context.
I agree completely. I don't think a hard drive (solid state or otherwise) will make the Wii better in any appreciable way. Not enough people are downloading that much stuff from VC to make it worthwhile.
A wireless sensor bar makes perfect sense. 3rd parties are snatching up revenue that Nintendo is just letting slip away for no good reason. Hobbyists such as ourselves are undeterred either way, and I used to trip over the skimpy cord all the time.
Also, a light gun would open up tremendous opportunities for new gameplay, by which I mean it would be awesome and totally sweet. Who wouldn't want one?
You're quite right; this sort of behavior has also arisen in Game Theory situations. Consider the following:
Someone has 10 pieces of candy. He may split it with you any way they wish, and you can either accept his division or reject it completely, which leaves both of you with nothing. Most adults will accept a distribution up to about 70-30; any more than that and you think the decision-maker is greedy and you'll punish him by rejecting the deal. That is, you take a personal loss to enforce a notion of fairness. This is an "irrational" choice in economics, because you are not pursuing your narrow self-interest and accepting anything they give you. Interestingly, this is how children behave -- they'll take even one piece of candy and let the other have 9.
Obviously, we need these sorts of traits if we're to stick together and stop a rhino from charging. Surprise! Humans are a social species.
Again, it seems like you were in on scenes where adults set the tone and would moderate you (or parent you, if you will) according to Rules of Polite Society. Nowadays it's the bratty teenagers in charge and I find their banter on WoW as bad as their insipid myspace pages.
I agree that if their parents knew what they were saying, kids would probably be more civil.
Perhaps it's another symptom of large societies. I remember those early 90s where it really seemed like everyone knew everyone and you had to guard your reputation because there were only so many places to hang out. But these days since everyone's online everywhere you can alienate tons of people and still meet new ones.
One of the things I've noticed as I've gotten older (I'm 24 now) and worked in an office environment is the natural tendency for people to be civil towards each other. There's some petty politics, sure, but this common courtesy is what keeps a collection of strangers (ie, society) together. It's instinctual, but can break down when one is granted anonymity.
Teenagers just aren't like this. Some of the things I said - and were said to me - in high school really were pretty fucking mean. Most adults in the real world wouldn't last a second if they talked that way to each other and it's still hard for us to believe that kids say such graphic stuff to other kids' faces. Did some of you have similar experiences? Younger people just don't have the verbal restraint and consequences instinct that older folks do, so they have no reason not to spew the garbage that goes through their minds. If I'd had a large forum like an MMOG to be offensive when I was 15 I probably would have done the same thing; instead, all I had were aol chat rooms. Teenagers just don't have the same social wiring as adults do, and we're used to interacting with obnoxious teens on our terms... and it's alarming to journey into their world where civilized behavior isn't compulsory.
I don't think the answer is more authority. When have teenagers ever responded well to that? They'll grow out of it eventually.
There's some economics behind why even if a game cost much less than a marquee to produce, the price point would be the same: most consumers judge a product's quality by its price. Pricing a new 360 game at $40 would send a subconscious message to consumers that the game isn't as good as the $60 one. Ever notice how tickets for an indie film with a budget of $100,000 cost the same as tickets to Michael Bay's newest nonsense? Most people would look at the prices and assume that a movie that only costs $5 to see is half as good as a $10 movie. The industry has an interest in keeping a stable price point that doesn't necessarily reflect the cost of bringing a product to market.
I should note that the audience for throwback games (ie, Live Arcade and Virtual Console) is different and not subject to the same phenomenon; that's an entirely different market where costs have already been met and all sales are extra gravy. This principle applies to newly released commodities, generally in the entertainment industry where value is more abstract.
Recent digital formats have snowed the market because they offered obvious advantages over existing technologies that had been around for years. CDs and DVDs overtook magnetic tapes because they were more durable, had better resolution, (generally) offered more storage space, and gave you the option of skipping directly to a specific song or movie scene. Plus, magnetic tape media had been on the market for several years, so most consumers felt they had gotten their money's worth out of their old hardware.
Many of the discussions surrounding HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray seem to assume that consumers will necessarily pick one. But why should they pick either? The only advantages these formats offer over current DVDs is slightly better video resolution (no novel access features or rugged construction) and more storage space for.....10 extra director's commentaries? I suppose certain video games would enjoy having a 50GB media, but honestly, who's going to make a game that takes up fifty gigabytes?
Whether or not Blu-Ray's horizontal line count is superior to HD-DVD's is irrelevant. What's relevant is how superior it is to the current standard - 480i on DVD. I think that the difference is negligible, unless you have equipment costing thousands of dollars. Even on old televisions DVDs were an obvious improvement over VHS tapes, which were literally wearing out from time and use. HD-CDs sound wonderful, but only on the right hardware. And very few people are willing to spend an extra $5000 on speakers just to hear greater clarity of the 10khz frequency. The costs far outweigh the benefits.
Plus, I just bought a DVD player three years ago! Suddenly it's obsolete? I don't think so - the T-1000 still looks pretty sweet on DVD, and my discs are in great shape. Asking me to pay an extra $300 for a player, plus $30 for a new movie, plus $2000 for a new tv, plus $100 for the cables needed to even hook up HD components, just doesn't justify a really nice solar flare.
Does anyone else remember that one of the early, great selling points of DVDs was that you didn't have to rewind them? Wasn't that awesome? And now we take it for granted.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually the visual fidelity of the originals really isn't that good by modern standards. A few years ago they released dvds with the original *unedited* and the remastered versions, and they originals look very fuzzy and kind of cheesy by comparison. It's the sort of thing you might not notice on an old CRT, but the LCD screen I had definitely revealed some limitations in the original film prints.
Can you suggest some tips on getting involved with ETL/data modeling work? I'm coming from an accounting background but have experience with Perl and VBA. Haven't messed around with Java too much, and my personal projects are too small to be useful for learning about back-end data flow.
I thought the internet was tubular.
Sure, 8 cores. That'll handle a few servos, audio input/output, light sensor, and video processing, all done natively. After all, it's a microcontroller, good for gadgets and robots. It's not like you're running MapReduce on it.
Another option is to use the Parallax Propeller microcontroller. It's got 8 cores, 80Mhz clock speed, and 32k of ram, and you can either program in its higher-level Spin language or get right down into assembler. The Arduino is fun to learn on and accessible to people who don't have a strong programming background, but working with the Propeller is like advancing to the varsity squad.
"The perennial problem of IT: It's benefits are several degrees removed from its efforts, from the POV of an accountant." There is an easy way to fix this, as the article suggests: get to know a couple of your accountants, see what kind of work they do and how they use Excel, then write a quick macro to format their data, spread it across several tabs, or email their colleagues. This simple work makes a real impact, and they will quickly understand IT's benefits.
'spontaneously gathering' may work for a few thousand people for a couple years, but the cat's now out of the bag. if you want to throw technicalities at BLM, they can probably find a technicality to toss all the campers off the land. burning man gets away with it every year because it brings money into a depressed area, which requires coordination. if you want to relinquish all responsibility, you're opening yourself up to being controlled by other, outside influences. i think the tradeoff's worth it.
There are serious logistical challenges to building a city in the desert. Organizers must secure permits, hire portapotty cleaners (who come every day), give out art grants, etc, and these things cost serious money. Burning Man isn't spontaneous and people have realized that for 50,000 people to live civilly with each other, there need to be some rules and a modicum of organization. (The "rules," IIRC, are mostly about adhering to the laws of federal park lands, which the playa is.) I've been twice and old timers always say it's not like it used to be...even people who have been there only three times. But they keep going back, because not-what-it-used-to-be is still better than anything-else-that's-going-on.
Seriously, at some point won't all this space be enough for anybody?
I think that for general purpose gadget-making, an Arduino board (http://www.arduino.cc/) is more versatile. They're commonly used by artists for the straightforward input-output commands but I'm sure that someone clever enough could make some killer projects. Also, it's a helluva lot cheaper and fully open source.
how about Crusader: No Remorse (and it's awesome sequel) that will only run on DOS? That was a great game, FMV included, but it's impossible to play on modern hardware. DOSbox just doesn't run it fast enough.
http://www.google.com/search?q=coffee+alzheimer
I just wanted to say: right on. Whether politics, commerce, or technology, people are still people and they do this same dance every day with every opinion! If I had mod points I'd pass them on; in the meantime please accept some real-world karma.
It's like that Star Trek TNG episode when Picard, Guinan, Ro, and someone else get transformed into children. He's still the same Captain Picard, but no one can take him seriously and he ends up relieving himself of duty. As I hope we nerds are aware of, physical appearance goes a long way in others' perception of you, even in an intellectual context.
I agree completely. I don't think a hard drive (solid state or otherwise) will make the Wii better in any appreciable way. Not enough people are downloading that much stuff from VC to make it worthwhile.
A wireless sensor bar makes perfect sense. 3rd parties are snatching up revenue that Nintendo is just letting slip away for no good reason. Hobbyists such as ourselves are undeterred either way, and I used to trip over the skimpy cord all the time.
Also, a light gun would open up tremendous opportunities for new gameplay, by which I mean it would be awesome and totally sweet. Who wouldn't want one?
Someone has 10 pieces of candy. He may split it with you any way they wish, and you can either accept his division or reject it completely, which leaves both of you with nothing. Most adults will accept a distribution up to about 70-30; any more than that and you think the decision-maker is greedy and you'll punish him by rejecting the deal. That is, you take a personal loss to enforce a notion of fairness. This is an "irrational" choice in economics, because you are not pursuing your narrow self-interest and accepting anything they give you. Interestingly, this is how children behave -- they'll take even one piece of candy and let the other have 9.
Obviously, we need these sorts of traits if we're to stick together and stop a rhino from charging. Surprise! Humans are a social species.
I agree that if their parents knew what they were saying, kids would probably be more civil.
Perhaps it's another symptom of large societies. I remember those early 90s where it really seemed like everyone knew everyone and you had to guard your reputation because there were only so many places to hang out. But these days since everyone's online everywhere you can alienate tons of people and still meet new ones.
One of the things I've noticed as I've gotten older (I'm 24 now) and worked in an office environment is the natural tendency for people to be civil towards each other. There's some petty politics, sure, but this common courtesy is what keeps a collection of strangers (ie, society) together. It's instinctual, but can break down when one is granted anonymity. Teenagers just aren't like this. Some of the things I said - and were said to me - in high school really were pretty fucking mean. Most adults in the real world wouldn't last a second if they talked that way to each other and it's still hard for us to believe that kids say such graphic stuff to other kids' faces. Did some of you have similar experiences? Younger people just don't have the verbal restraint and consequences instinct that older folks do, so they have no reason not to spew the garbage that goes through their minds. If I'd had a large forum like an MMOG to be offensive when I was 15 I probably would have done the same thing; instead, all I had were aol chat rooms. Teenagers just don't have the same social wiring as adults do, and we're used to interacting with obnoxious teens on our terms... and it's alarming to journey into their world where civilized behavior isn't compulsory. I don't think the answer is more authority. When have teenagers ever responded well to that? They'll grow out of it eventually.
There's some economics behind why even if a game cost much less than a marquee to produce, the price point would be the same: most consumers judge a product's quality by its price. Pricing a new 360 game at $40 would send a subconscious message to consumers that the game isn't as good as the $60 one. Ever notice how tickets for an indie film with a budget of $100,000 cost the same as tickets to Michael Bay's newest nonsense? Most people would look at the prices and assume that a movie that only costs $5 to see is half as good as a $10 movie. The industry has an interest in keeping a stable price point that doesn't necessarily reflect the cost of bringing a product to market. I should note that the audience for throwback games (ie, Live Arcade and Virtual Console) is different and not subject to the same phenomenon; that's an entirely different market where costs have already been met and all sales are extra gravy. This principle applies to newly released commodities, generally in the entertainment industry where value is more abstract.
Recent digital formats have snowed the market because they offered obvious advantages over existing technologies that had been around for years. CDs and DVDs overtook magnetic tapes because they were more durable, had better resolution, (generally) offered more storage space, and gave you the option of skipping directly to a specific song or movie scene. Plus, magnetic tape media had been on the market for several years, so most consumers felt they had gotten their money's worth out of their old hardware. Many of the discussions surrounding HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray seem to assume that consumers will necessarily pick one. But why should they pick either? The only advantages these formats offer over current DVDs is slightly better video resolution (no novel access features or rugged construction) and more storage space for.....10 extra director's commentaries? I suppose certain video games would enjoy having a 50GB media, but honestly, who's going to make a game that takes up fifty gigabytes?
Whether or not Blu-Ray's horizontal line count is superior to HD-DVD's is irrelevant. What's relevant is how superior it is to the current standard - 480i on DVD. I think that the difference is negligible, unless you have equipment costing thousands of dollars. Even on old televisions DVDs were an obvious improvement over VHS tapes, which were literally wearing out from time and use. HD-CDs sound wonderful, but only on the right hardware. And very few people are willing to spend an extra $5000 on speakers just to hear greater clarity of the 10khz frequency. The costs far outweigh the benefits.
Plus, I just bought a DVD player three years ago! Suddenly it's obsolete? I don't think so - the T-1000 still looks pretty sweet on DVD, and my discs are in great shape. Asking me to pay an extra $300 for a player, plus $30 for a new movie, plus $2000 for a new tv, plus $100 for the cables needed to even hook up HD components, just doesn't justify a really nice solar flare.
Does anyone else remember that one of the early, great selling points of DVDs was that you didn't have to rewind them? Wasn't that awesome? And now we take it for granted.