I don't know if I'm just in a foul mood the past few days, or someone who doesn't like me is hunting me down with their mod points because I almost never get negative moderation and I'm just getting hammered the past two days.
YMMV, but with an analog antenna, I receive almost nothing at my house. When I first switched to satellite this was an issue to get local channels. With a DTV antenna, I get all of them perfectly. It is an all-or-nothing affair, but I get every channel with perfect picture now. Not that it matters much because DirecTV finally threw in my local channels for free.
You're still making ridiculous statements that pixelated, low-resolution images are good enough. Buy a huge TV, stretch out that low-res picture and then tell me again that the picture is good enough.
And if you're going to be building a home theater PC in the future, then BluRay drives will probably be pretty cheap. Right now a DVD drive will run you around $30, though sometimes NewEgg can get you then for $25 or so. A BluRay drive will run you $50. DVD and CD-ROM drives are basically the same price. Before you know it, BluRay drives will be in the same boat.
A blank disc may have more value than Terminator Salvation. I can put a better movie on the blank disc!
I'm saying the cost of a BluRay disc is not that much more expensive than the cost of a DVD. If they can sell DVDs for around $10, then a BluRay shouldn't cost $35.
On release Tuesday, my neighborhood retailers (Nebraska Furniture Mart) sells the new DVDs for around $13, while charging $35 for the same movie on BluRay. Wal*Mart has a plethora of DVDs for under $10.
The content on the BluRay edition is often the same. Even worse, I've seen instances where the DVD has more content, despite the BluRay discs having more room for content. This is especially true of children's movies (of which I buy tons for my daughter).
The Kung-fu Panda DVD included a bonus disc with a new 30-minute semi-sequel to Kung-fu Panda. The BluRay lacked this content. Yet the BluRay was twice the price. And when I pre-ordered the BluRay, I was not aware of this.
I'm a firm believer in paying for content. What I don't understand is the industry overpricing for BluRay movies and then complaining that BluRay sales aren't high enough.
Again, this is supply and demand. I imagine if prices on BluRay movies were more reasonable, demand would rise.
Most movies that haven't turned a profit before DVD/BluRay release are considered failures.
These sales increase profits, which off-set the losses from failed blockbusters and such, but at this point, anything over the cost of the media itself (and DVD authoring) is profit.
There were only so many film distribution channels before. Now with more options, everyone is trying to compete on price. Consumers win, and the movie studio sees smaller profit margins.
That being said, the two best films I saw this year are District 9 (made for $30 millionish and looked as good as the $200 million dollar films I see) and Lovely, Still (made for $2 million).
Hollywood thinks the way to make more money is to spend $200-million plus on a movie. I thought Dark Knight looked great on IMAX. But the solutiuon isn't always higher budgets for films.
If the industry is crying about lower profits, maybe they shouldn't throw away so much film on big budgets for crappy films.
Your sound is only as good as the media itself (MP3 or whatever), the device putting out the sound, and then the speakers/headphones themselves. I'm not sure the MP3 format is the bottleneck for quality here in the iPod generation.
There is always the live experience.
That being said, I'm content to trade out a little bit of quality for a great deal of conveinence.
Wikipedia says 8-track had already completely disappeared in Europe in 1978. The first CD wasn't released until 1982. And because most cars only had cassette decks for some time after that, it wasn't really CDs that were killing off 8-tracks in 1982. And it took a little while for CDs to gain popularity. Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen an 8-track on sale during my life. I purchased casettes solely as a child. So I'm not sure where you get this idea that 8-tracks were selling well up until CDs came along.
Casette's tape speed was half that of 8-track. Not to mention, you couldn't get a quadraphonic casette.
I said casettes had ARGUABLY inferior sound because there are plenty of people who do make that argument.
I never owned an 8-track personally. If I had one to compare now, it would be with old catridges, and thusly it would be hard to make a fair comparison.
Not to mention that the.WAV files on a CD contain audio not detectable by the human ear. MP3s are lossy formats, but most of what is lost the human ear can't hear.
Your logic operates under the assumption that a movie has a fixed value, that intrinsically all films are worth $20.
In a free market, value is determined by supply and demand.
You're trying to validate theft of IP by a product losing value due to low demand. Just because an item is placed on sale, that doesn't mean you are entitled to pay nothing for it.
Actually audio did get a new format, MP3. Losing the physical media was the best thing to happen to music. CD adoption was huge not just because it sounded better than tapes (casette tapes overtook 8-tracks despite having arguably inferior sound) but because they were conveinent.
No rewinding the tape. No searching for a song. People loved how easy it was to listen to music.
Digital music further seperated individual songs from albums, and made it easier to listen to your music on different devices wherever you are. You can carry 40 GB of music in your pocket much more easily than you can carry 1,000 physical discs.
iTunes and digital music outlets keep saying digital music sales are great. I don't see why the RIAA wants to spread constant doom and gloom. How does that help the industry and the artists they supposedly represent?
DVDs sales are going down, but some of that gap is Amazon Unbox, Netflix, iTunes, DVRs, Hulu, etc.
The movie industry gets paid from all of these sources (including DVRs in that movie companies are paid to air movies on cable).
BluRay sales aren't huge because some retailers keep insisting on charging $35 for BluRay movies. We all know the cost of the disc is minimal. Amazon can sell BluRays for $10-$20. I'm not going to pay $35 for a movie, and I'm not alone on that issue.
I don't understand retailers trying to charge $35 for a BluRay movie and then complaining that BluRay sales aren't that great. I get all my BluRay movies on Amazon and usually pay in the $15-$20 range.
* Self healing NTFS that allows you to fix HDD problems while a drive is mounted. * In theory you can hot-patch updates without needing a reboot now, except most updates still ask for a reboot. * Per-application volume control. * The nifty taskbar. * Window tiling tricks * DirectX 11 * ipv6 * Microsoft bribes you if you say Windows 7 is great. They just bought my daughter a pony.
That being said, 7 isn't light-years better than XP. And in some ways it has regressions (mainly the same UI regressions Vista had in comparison to XP).
The size of your TV makes a huge difference. My first HDTV ever was a 32" TV, and the difference between HD and standard TV didn't seem that great. Then I got a 56" TV, and the differences were jarring. I can't stand to watch normal TV now.
Likewise, the difference in quality with BluRay is also suddenly more prevalent on a larger screen.
Microsoft has said it repeatedly. They've directly said it is more secure than Snow Leopard and Linux, and they've outright said it is the most secure OS ever.
Run your laptop on full CPU utilization and watch it drain the battery. Leave it idle and watch the battery last.
Modern CPUs intentionally underclock and undervolt when they are idle to save on power. Intel calls it SpeedStep and AMD calls it Cool'n'Quiet. These features are well documented.
On top of that, these computers would normally go into hibernate at night and use next to no electricity. But with SETI@Home running 24/7, they'd never go to hibernate.
There is a sizable difference in power consumption, but the figure also includes replacing 2,400 processors ruined by running at 100% for 24/7, and labor to fix a bunch of his mistakes.
From TFA, the figure of $1.2 to $1.6 million dollars counts lost electricity, the cost of replacing something like 2,400 procesors ruined by running 24x7 at 100% utilization, the cost of labor to uninstall the software (apparently it doesn't have an uninstall option the way he has it installed), auditing the systems, redoing all his sloppy wiring, etc.
They spent $15,000 having 5 different companies come in to do audits to try and figure out why CPUs were at 100% utilization. Apparently the first 4 companies have never heard of the task manager. At those rates, I'm not shocked they figure it will cost over 1 million dollars to audit the 5,000 boxes and fix everything.
I get billed out at over $100/hr when I do consulting work. But even I can't believe it costs $15,000 to look in the damned task manager and see SETI is tying up the CPU.
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On my next date, she whips out her cell phone camera, snaps a quick shot, shoots it off to Google, and gets results on me.
"Honey, that chicken is a filthy liar! She so wanted it at the time!"
I don't know if I'm just in a foul mood the past few days, or someone who doesn't like me is hunting me down with their mod points because I almost never get negative moderation and I'm just getting hammered the past two days.
YMMV, but with an analog antenna, I receive almost nothing at my house. When I first switched to satellite this was an issue to get local channels. With a DTV antenna, I get all of them perfectly. It is an all-or-nothing affair, but I get every channel with perfect picture now. Not that it matters much because DirecTV finally threw in my local channels for free.
You're still making ridiculous statements that pixelated, low-resolution images are good enough. Buy a huge TV, stretch out that low-res picture and then tell me again that the picture is good enough.
And if you're going to be building a home theater PC in the future, then BluRay drives will probably be pretty cheap. Right now a DVD drive will run you around $30, though sometimes NewEgg can get you then for $25 or so. A BluRay drive will run you $50. DVD and CD-ROM drives are basically the same price. Before you know it, BluRay drives will be in the same boat.
A blank disc may have more value than Terminator Salvation. I can put a better movie on the blank disc!
I'm saying the cost of a BluRay disc is not that much more expensive than the cost of a DVD. If they can sell DVDs for around $10, then a BluRay shouldn't cost $35.
On release Tuesday, my neighborhood retailers (Nebraska Furniture Mart) sells the new DVDs for around $13, while charging $35 for the same movie on BluRay. Wal*Mart has a plethora of DVDs for under $10.
The content on the BluRay edition is often the same. Even worse, I've seen instances where the DVD has more content, despite the BluRay discs having more room for content. This is especially true of children's movies (of which I buy tons for my daughter).
The Kung-fu Panda DVD included a bonus disc with a new 30-minute semi-sequel to Kung-fu Panda. The BluRay lacked this content. Yet the BluRay was twice the price. And when I pre-ordered the BluRay, I was not aware of this.
I'm a firm believer in paying for content. What I don't understand is the industry overpricing for BluRay movies and then complaining that BluRay sales aren't high enough.
Again, this is supply and demand. I imagine if prices on BluRay movies were more reasonable, demand would rise.
Most movies that haven't turned a profit before DVD/BluRay release are considered failures.
These sales increase profits, which off-set the losses from failed blockbusters and such, but at this point, anything over the cost of the media itself (and DVD authoring) is profit.
I'm sure life was better in black-and-white as well.
It's a little thing called competition.
There were only so many film distribution channels before. Now with more options, everyone is trying to compete on price. Consumers win, and the movie studio sees smaller profit margins.
That being said, the two best films I saw this year are District 9 (made for $30 millionish and looked as good as the $200 million dollar films I see) and Lovely, Still (made for $2 million).
Hollywood thinks the way to make more money is to spend $200-million plus on a movie. I thought Dark Knight looked great on IMAX. But the solutiuon isn't always higher budgets for films.
If the industry is crying about lower profits, maybe they shouldn't throw away so much film on big budgets for crappy films.
Your sound is only as good as the media itself (MP3 or whatever), the device putting out the sound, and then the speakers/headphones themselves. I'm not sure the MP3 format is the bottleneck for quality here in the iPod generation.
There is always the live experience.
That being said, I'm content to trade out a little bit of quality for a great deal of conveinence.
Truly it is a myth that streaming, artifact-ridden video that people download is inferior to 1080p video with uncompressed 8.1 channel audio.
There is no evidence to support the myth whatsoever. I have just been lied to by the man.
Wikipedia says 8-track had already completely disappeared in Europe in 1978. The first CD wasn't released until 1982. And because most cars only had cassette decks for some time after that, it wasn't really CDs that were killing off 8-tracks in 1982. And it took a little while for CDs to gain popularity. Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen an 8-track on sale during my life. I purchased casettes solely as a child. So I'm not sure where you get this idea that 8-tracks were selling well up until CDs came along.
Casette's tape speed was half that of 8-track. Not to mention, you couldn't get a quadraphonic casette.
I said casettes had ARGUABLY inferior sound because there are plenty of people who do make that argument.
I never owned an 8-track personally. If I had one to compare now, it would be with old catridges, and thusly it would be hard to make a fair comparison.
Not to mention that the .WAV files on a CD contain audio not detectable by the human ear. MP3s are lossy formats, but most of what is lost the human ear can't hear.
Your logic operates under the assumption that a movie has a fixed value, that intrinsically all films are worth $20.
In a free market, value is determined by supply and demand.
You're trying to validate theft of IP by a product losing value due to low demand. Just because an item is placed on sale, that doesn't mean you are entitled to pay nothing for it.
Actually audio did get a new format, MP3. Losing the physical media was the best thing to happen to music. CD adoption was huge not just because it sounded better than tapes (casette tapes overtook 8-tracks despite having arguably inferior sound) but because they were conveinent.
No rewinding the tape. No searching for a song. People loved how easy it was to listen to music.
Digital music further seperated individual songs from albums, and made it easier to listen to your music on different devices wherever you are. You can carry 40 GB of music in your pocket much more easily than you can carry 1,000 physical discs.
iTunes and digital music outlets keep saying digital music sales are great. I don't see why the RIAA wants to spread constant doom and gloom. How does that help the industry and the artists they supposedly represent?
DVDs sales are going down, but some of that gap is Amazon Unbox, Netflix, iTunes, DVRs, Hulu, etc.
The movie industry gets paid from all of these sources (including DVRs in that movie companies are paid to air movies on cable).
BluRay sales aren't huge because some retailers keep insisting on charging $35 for BluRay movies. We all know the cost of the disc is minimal. Amazon can sell BluRays for $10-$20. I'm not going to pay $35 for a movie, and I'm not alone on that issue.
I don't understand retailers trying to charge $35 for a BluRay movie and then complaining that BluRay sales aren't that great. I get all my BluRay movies on Amazon and usually pay in the $15-$20 range.
* Self healing NTFS that allows you to fix HDD problems while a drive is mounted.
* In theory you can hot-patch updates without needing a reboot now, except most updates still ask for a reboot.
* Per-application volume control.
* The nifty taskbar.
* Window tiling tricks
* DirectX 11
* ipv6
* Microsoft bribes you if you say Windows 7 is great. They just bought my daughter a pony.
That being said, 7 isn't light-years better than XP. And in some ways it has regressions (mainly the same UI regressions Vista had in comparison to XP).
XP came out in 2002. It is almost 8 years old.
But your point remains.
The size of your TV makes a huge difference. My first HDTV ever was a 32" TV, and the difference between HD and standard TV didn't seem that great. Then I got a 56" TV, and the differences were jarring. I can't stand to watch normal TV now.
Likewise, the difference in quality with BluRay is also suddenly more prevalent on a larger screen.
Once you go Blu, you'll never go back.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ei=DNQXS4WbKI7JlAf0msjzAg&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&ved=0CAYQBSgA&q=%22windows+7%22+%22most+secure%22+ever&spell=1
Microsoft has said it repeatedly. They've directly said it is more secure than Snow Leopard and Linux, and they've outright said it is the most secure OS ever.
Your post is in the cloud. Does that make your post some meta-commentary? Is my post meta-meta?
What are you talking about? With 48 distinct cores, I can finally turn on Aero!
Did I just get modded troll for quoting the article?
I broke the sacred /. commandment of not reading TFA!
What was I thinking?
Run your laptop on full CPU utilization and watch it drain the battery. Leave it idle and watch the battery last.
Modern CPUs intentionally underclock and undervolt when they are idle to save on power. Intel calls it SpeedStep and AMD calls it Cool'n'Quiet. These features are well documented.
On top of that, these computers would normally go into hibernate at night and use next to no electricity. But with SETI@Home running 24/7, they'd never go to hibernate.
There is a sizable difference in power consumption, but the figure also includes replacing 2,400 processors ruined by running at 100% for 24/7, and labor to fix a bunch of his mistakes.
From TFA, the figure of $1.2 to $1.6 million dollars counts lost electricity, the cost of replacing something like 2,400 procesors ruined by running 24x7 at 100% utilization, the cost of labor to uninstall the software (apparently it doesn't have an uninstall option the way he has it installed), auditing the systems, redoing all his sloppy wiring, etc.
They spent $15,000 having 5 different companies come in to do audits to try and figure out why CPUs were at 100% utilization. Apparently the first 4 companies have never heard of the task manager. At those rates, I'm not shocked they figure it will cost over 1 million dollars to audit the 5,000 boxes and fix everything.
I get billed out at over $100/hr when I do consulting work. But even I can't believe it costs $15,000 to look in the damned task manager and see SETI is tying up the CPU.
I love that it took 5 different technology companies to figure out why the PCs were running slow.
The first 4 have never heard of the Task Manager.
I used to run SETI until I read an article that SETI finished scanning their entire spectrum twice.
http://xkcd.com/638/