Yes, it's crippled. It's basically Net Yaroze for PS3.
But it's more open than any other major platform.
You can stop at your Emotion Engine. That's Xbox fanboy dumbass bullshit. PS2 has Emotion Engine. You aren't happy with what it provided? Perhaps that's because you don't even understand what was promised!
Here's Seamus Blackey of Microsoft claiming Xbox will have Toy Story graphics. Graphics it didn't deliver.
All this Emotion Engine hating is just misplaced Xbox fanboyism. Select something to hate, make up stuff to hate about it.
The boomerang controllers were not real. I have a friend who works at SCEA. He told me a long time ago. They never received a single operating boomerang controllers. Up until recently, they only had DualShock 2s, then they got the new DS3 you saw at E3.
Someone on the internet mocked up the boomerang days after Sony first showed it. He showed you couldn't even hold it and reach all the buttons.
It was just a mockup, it was never real.
Your list of proprietary stuff is hilarious.
AAC is proprietary to Dolby. You're thinking of ATRAC. UMD was ultra retarded. BluRay isn't a failure yet, nor is it any more or less proprietary than HD-DVD, or even DVD. You cannot make a DVD player without joining the DVDCCA. It's proprietary. Memory Stick is no more or less proprietary than SD. The SD consortium are very controlling assholes. Note that MMC is a lot more open.
I agree Sony is doing very poorly lately, and are indeed moving at a glacial pace.
Final note, if you still think this slide reflects anything about what the hardware will leave to be desired, you truly do not understand the issue yet. This measurement is of an operation you never should do, and the slide underscores that. It simply will not be an issue.
To go on this big rant about Sony finally reaping what they sow, only to see that other people who actually know what they are talking about explain that the slide means and why it was by design and doesn't really matter.
Short version: for some dumb reason "local memory" is a name for a specific type of memory in the system, not the memory local to the particular processor. In this case, "local memory" means memory on the RSX (graphics processor). So it is saying that reading back data from the RSX area is very slow.
The fix: don't bother. Just like on any other platform, there isn't a lot of reason to transfer data out of the GPU memory. Transfer it in when you need it, and when it isn't needed anymore, throw it away, only to reload it later.
This would only hurt you wanted to do processing on the graphics card and bring the results back to the rest of the system. That's unusual on any system, it would be extra unusual on PS3 because Cell already has 7 special execution units in the Cell that that do the kind of operations a GPU does very quickly.
PS3 is the most open of any major video gaming systems. It will come with Linux on it and you can make your own apps and games if you want. That's a big step for gaming consoles, they're always locked up tightly to ensure revenue streams. This is not a new thing from Sony, really Nintendo did the work developing that business model.
I have to say, for $600, it'd better be a little open. What a joke.
You can't even buy an FX-62 yet (I just checked newegg). How is it tried and true?
Guess how those who benchmarked the FX-62s got them? They got them as favors from AMD. And they were given them on the condition they not benchmark them against Conroe! So why do you trust them and not the Conroe reviewers?
Anyway, the people on xtremesystems.org have Conroes already, and on their systems, not under the eye of Intel. They seem to like it.
This just seems like more smokescreen from the AMD fanboys. Why do people suddenly develop a case of not trusting internet benchmarkers when it starts to make Intel look good?
The Fed adjusted the money supply, not the prime rate back then.
And the prime rate only adjust one thing. Ask anyone who has bought a house. The mortgage rates never dropped as much as prime did, and when prime jumped way up, mortgage rates remained lower.
Interest rates were so high back then because the cost of living was going up rapidly (despite a lack of wage growth).
This is the operative part: Supply-side economics asserts that the contraction component of stagflation was caused by the inflation induced rise in real tax rates (see bracket creep). In addition certain states in the USA had laws against nominal interest rates being above a certain level and in the midst of inflation this forced real interest rates to be negative. In some places this caused a collapse in finance for business.
Reagan was a 100% supply-side guy (see the trickly-down theory). It became unprofitable for people to invest in the future due to negative real interest rates, partially due to the rate of return being knocked down by high taxes.
His tax cuts freed up a lot of money to invest in starting companies, and that's what happened. Perhaps it was more psycological than anything, or perhaps you even disbelieve it. There's room for both of those theories. But I believe it.
Maybe he was just in the right place at the right time, economically, I dunno. But presided over a long period of economic growth and prosperity and very low antagonism between the two political parties. It's tough not to like that, having lived through it.
I did feel his death was played for far too much Republican gain. Especially letting G.W.B give the eulogy, when they had nothing in common.
And now that you remind me, I am not thrilled about the death squads either. I kinda lumped that in with the wars, but in a way they're even worse.
I think Reagan was a very good president. I'm not excited about the deficit, also he started a few too many wars for me (as Republicans seem to do).
But he did some things right, he made the business climate work in this country. If you weren't around in the 70s for 14% interest rates, perhaps you read what he did and misinterpret it. The government was taking too much money from businesses and disincenting people to build businesses, expand the economy and build this country.
He also understood that once elected, you represent the entire country, not just the people who elected you. This is very unlike George W. Bush. When California had problems with his buddy Kenny Lay extorting money from the citizens and turning the lights out, he did nothing except invite his Texas buddies over to figure out how to make it possible to extort better. Cheney said it wasn't a federal government problem, and that "it's classic economics, price caps will neither increase supply nor reduce demand". And yet, months later when price caps were finally put in place, they solved the problem immediately by ending the profiteering immediately. Prices went down, supply returned to 100%. Bush didn't care about what happened to people in California, actually seeming to prefer to extract revenge on them for not voting for him.
And the McCain. I used to be a huge McCain fan. But have you seen him recently? Did you see him on Meet the Press? After Karl Rove push-polled a rumor that McCain fathered a bi-racial baby out of wedlock in 2000, and McCain he could never get past that, that Rove was a bad person. Now he's kissing Rove's ass. He said (correctly) Jerry Falwell was an agent of hate. And now he speaks at Liberty University?
I liked McCain. He stood for something. He stood for inclusion, he stood for conservatism that didn't mean the government telling everyone what to do and not bolstering Southern Christianity as the national religion.
Now he's useless to me. If he'll flip on those things, what will he stand up for?
Libraries shouldn't be facilitating IP theft like that.
And are you arguing in later paragraphs that this isn't fair? Fair? Are you 10 years old? Going to run to mommy and daddy saying that your big brother isn't playing fair?
No one ever said life is fair.
I don't know what the "angry man yells at cloud" thing you refer to is. I don't see food ever being cheaper/more effective to replicate than to grow, so I don't see the situation arising. And Africa isn't starving for any reason that food replicators would fix anyway. Look up what happened in Somalia. Look at what is happening in Sudan right now. It's the same thing that Bob Geldof tried to fix with Live Aid. The problem isn't drought, the problem is their leaders are using food as a weapon against their own people. They only give food to those who have allegiance to them and pay tribute to them. The others starve. And if you try to send food in, they'll disrupt your food delivery chain to ensure that the people they don't want fed don't get fed. That's what happened when to Live Aid's food aid. That's what happened to US and UN food aid since then. And that's how we ended up in Somalia and making a mess of it.
Boy, when I think of it, that just isn't fair. Who do I complain to about this?
Another post asks a little better question, when half of people download, will I make half of people criminals? The answer is that I wouldn't. I would prefer to see the companies fix their business plans, or even to change the law. And it's starting. ABC offers their shows now, at least some of them.
But in the meantime, each time I download something I shouldn't, I don't tell myself that I'm being forced into this. I'm doing it for my own reasons, right or wrong.
You act like you're a victim, that you're cornered by them.
What about not watching it at all?
Again, I'm not saying I never downloaded a TV show from the net, but when I do it, I don't tell myself that I'm being forced to do this. I've made a conscious decision to do what I did. And you are also.
Your argument about theft is ridiculous. You're trying to apply your own definition to the word to make what you're doing not theft. Words have lots of meanings in English. What happens when someone steals a kiss? Did they actually take something away from someone? When two lovers steal away? Long before the MPAA got political, people were stealing cable? Did the cable company actually not have something anymore? The Russians stole the atomic bomb and other secrets from the US in the 50s, before the MPAA even existed. Yet all they did was duplicate information they weren't supposed to have.
All these are examples of stealing in the English language. No one was actually deprived of property in any of the cases. Stop trying to redefine the language because you don't like that a word is applied to you.
I never said I never broke copyright law. But I don't kid myself about it when I do it. Sometimes I'm doing it for the right reasons, sometimes I'm not. But I don't lie to myself about it.
You made the argument about being similar to used bookstores to bolster your argument. It is useless as an argument, because of the reasons I point out. If used bookstores duplicated books and sold them, then it'd be a useful argument, they would indeed be similar.
Your hypothetical situation does indeed arise. I know people who have gotten back episodes that way and then began to watch the show. However, regardless of whether it helps the company or not, it's illegal, it's stealing their content. If the company is smart enough to allow you to view back episodes to get caught up, that's great. If the company doesn't do it, it isn't up to you to change their business model.
It is their right to hold on to their stuff so tight that they lose gobs of money. You don't get to remold their goals because you think you know better, even when actually you do know better.
Again, just like a non-duplicatable object, if you don't like how they sell it, you are free not to buy it. You aren't free to rip it off.
Not at all. Only one person has the book at one time. Not so with bittorrenting.
As to 24 and such TV shows, there are more and more people stealing these shows daily. Those people are unlikely to watch it first run, they are viewing it off the internet, with no ads.
That's lost revenue.
As to whether the companies could be smarter, that's not for you to decide. Why not walk into the GM headquarters and explain "you're not selling your stuff in the right way, I'm gonna start stealing cars off your assembly lines and selling them the ways I see fit".
See how that goes over.
This is a ridiculous reverse justification for theft.
If you don't think the company is doing a good job, then don't patronize them. But don't steal their stuff either. Just like you would with an object you cannot copy, like a car.
I'm not an expert, I just happened to read some stuff on airliners.net over the last couple days.
In AA 191, when one engine went, some of the pilot's indicators stopped working. It included the flap position (as opposed to setting) indicators. It also included the shaker that told when a stall was about to occur. There was a system to engage backup power to these systems, but it was not activated. They were probably too distracted.
These indicators were not replicated on the co-pilot's side (which was still powered), so they had no way to know the slats were retracting and it was entering a stall.
I also learned some other stuff, like that the DC-10's crash record still isn't great, despite very good results after the bugs were ironed out.
To me, if you kill a significant amount of people ironing out the bugs in your plane, it's an engineering disaster. I know not everyone agrees.
I personally am glad of that. MS is not the first company to promise to replace the file system with an associative database, nor are they the first to not fall through. Apple promised it for Copland. There is no evidence at this time that doing this is a good idea or even possible. MS is slathering an associative layer on top of NTFS (last I heard), which is a pretty good compromise. If it turns out to have benefit, they can rewrite the file system later and if it turns out to be useless, you don't have to pay the penalty for it.
Will they support WPA2 natively, without 170MB of updates?
That's a pretty stupid question. They'll roll the 170MB of updates into the initial release. All they need to do is write an installer script. You could do it yourself by slipstreaming XP. I don't really blame MS for this, 802.11 is a nightmare because of the updates. As more appliances support it, it gets worse and worse. How many can't even use WPA because they have a Nintendo DS, or media streaming device that doesn't support it? They need to pick a standard and stick with it.
Does the UI remain responsive during heavy calculations (I do a lot of 3D)?
No, MS hasn't figured out how to create CPU out of thin air. If you use up a limited resource, your machine will get slow. This is not a new thing.
Can I install games without worrying about which version of DirectX is installed?
This hasn't been a problem for years. Games always come with the DirectX installer they need. You just run it if you aren't 100% sure you have it already.
Will the new version of Office install things I'll have to disable, like toolbars, fast find, and Word integration into Outlook express?
Office isn't part of Vista. If you don't like it, don't run it. I don't.
Do I still need to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to do things?
Surely, because there's a security reason for that. Ctrl+Alt+Delete is a system trap on PCs. It cannot be captured by any process, it goes straight to the OS. So when you press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and a login window pops up, you know that it comes from the OS and isn't a false one put up to steal your password. Also, the system trap can't be blocked or rerouted, so using it to bring up the Task Manager means the Task Manager always (well, more than it would otherwise) comes up.
I ran Win95 beta until Microsoft shipped OSR2. It was a matter of necessity.
Win95 worked well for me, even before OSR2. It did get even better with OSR2.
I just borrowed a Nokia N80 today. I started it up and it did ask for the time. I turned on the update feature and nothing changed, but then again I had set it correctly already. I believe you, I have no reason to try messing it up and turning the feature back off and on again.
This UI is pretty bad (it's a Series 60 phone). I came from a Sony-Ericsson W810i, which has a great UI. This is a nightmare, as you mention, it takes like 3 extra clicks to do everything. In one particular path (creating a text message?) every step along the way took an extra click, including the send action (which has a single key on the S-E).
It has a nice display though. Camera is good, if the camera on my W810i weren't excellent (and auto focus) I might have better stuff to say about the N80 camera.
It's crashed on me 3 times in 8 hours and put up the message "General: System Error !" at one point.
It does do a few things well, I'll say that. The main screen showing appointments and other stuff is nice. But mostly, it's a mess. Even the keyboard lock doesn't work well.
It's a slider, so sliding it closed should lock it. It doesn't. It asks you, and if you don't answer, it doesn't lock. I should be able to change that in a setting, but despite having a bewildering array of options, that doesn't seem to be in there. When I put it in my pocket, the phone often slides open a bit, which automatically unlocks it. Sliding it back close in your pocket doesn't relock it (it just asks again) and so you have to remove it from your pocket, open it, close it, answer yes, and try to be more careful putting it in your pocket next time, or else it's back to step 1.
I guess S-E doesn't have a true time update option (just the auto hours/time zone adjustment I spoke of). Perhaps their next phones (k800/k790) will, as they are a new generation of software and hardware.
This thing is maddening. It supports Wi-Fi, but the settings are so crappy, it's difficult to configure.
Some of them would have been on such a list if it existed, I suppose. But they wouldn't have been on a "can't drive a U-Haul truck in New York City" list. Not being able to fly here isn't the largest impediment ever. There's other ways to get here.
And also, keeping people out by name is a pretty poor defense anyway. You do end up punishing anyone who actually flies under their own name (like Cat Stevens), but anyone with malacious intent will just fly under a different name. Some of these wanted people already have 3 names, how difficult is it to get another?
This whole thing is an exercise on closing the barn door after the horses are out.
Why protected against such a specific attack when there are other equally effective attacks? The reason I can think of is CYA and PR, not protection.
You just picked the wrong country to rip on, sheep-boy. The US may be too busy right now to manage another large-scale war, but I don't think New Zealand will present much of a problem. You'd better start learning how to shoot or surrender.
Look forward to some new guests soon. And remember, you brought it on yourself.
Remember, the hijackers in 2001 were all in the country legally. We had all the info on them we needed, either it just didn't add up or we failed to act upon it.
There's no way I'm surrendering my email address (amongst other things) to fly.
You mean like that double decker highway that collapsed during an LA earthquake?
That double decker highway that collapsed was in Oakland, and it collapsed during a San Francisco (technically Santz Cruz) earthquake.
I agree with your other points. People do hold software to different standards. Although I also agree with the problem of the "patch mentality". Game manufacturers in particular are doing an awful job lately producing quality software the first time around right now.
The expected boom in nuclear power plant construction forcast in the 1970s and early 1980s never materialized, mainly due to Thre Mile Island and Chernobyl.
The boom in nuclear plant construction in the 70s and early 80s didn't occur because of an incident that didn't occur until 1986? Is there some kind of prescience going on here?
Power plant construction in the US was already at a very low ebb by the time Chernobyl happened. TMI plus a bunch of poorly informed "greens" jumping to the wrong conclusions had already put the hurt on the US nuclear industry. That plus horrible mismanagement of the regulations that made it impossible to build a plant without truly astounding cost overruns.
I can't speak to what happened outside the US, but at least France went right ahead and did a great job utilizing nuclear power safely and effectively.
I think you're right about the outdated part. Although every time I try to verify it, it doesn't update. Perhaps I was fooled by bad info from him and a phone that doesn't have the feature?
Anyway, thanks for performing the experiment on your phone. It's helpful to be corrected so I don't keep repeating bad information.
I never had to enter the time into a phone until I got a GSM phone. My first phone was analog (in 1992) and didn't have a clock. My first digital phone used CDMA (1995ish) and got the time from the system when you turned it on. My 2nd and 3rd CDMA phones were the same way.
I've had two GSM phones and each one asks me for the time the first time you set it up. My new one has a fancy wizard that asks you even.
So it seemed like a big step backward to me. Maybe my next GSM phone will set the time automatically when I first turn it on like my 1995 CDMA phone did.
I went there too. The problem to me seemed that it had to be somewhat affordable. So the "rides" had to be scaled back from regular Disney stuff.
So the whole thing played as extremely low-rent. It had none of the magic and wonder you expected of Disney. You ended up seeing computer graphics and stuff you could see at home instead of animatronics and large-scale dark rides.
The ESPNZone was right next door, and altough it was completely Dave & Buster's knockoff, it worked because you didn't expect so much.
All traces are disappearing from the net, but there is a system called Maxivision 48 that allowed 48 fps using only 20% (or something) more film than a regular 24 fps film.
It used standard 35mm film stock, but removed the analog audio tracks along the side (rarely used anymore anyway) and reduced the pulldown (the amount the film advances with each frame). Basically, it was Super 35 withj a 3-perf pulldown, running at 48 (or optionally 24) fps.
There is an excellent article on Super 35 on wikipedia, perhaps you can get the idea from there.
Anyway, I'd like to see higher frame rates too. It'd take some work to make sure that various TV transfers (including DVDs, both high def and regular) can still be made from the high frame rate movies without looking funny.
BTW, I my other post, I meant to say Passage to India was shot in 35mm. Big typo. The rest of the post goes along with that, pointing out how 70mm flat doesn't make a lot of sense.
No, IMAX films aren't (usually) shot at 60fps. IMAX burns through film because the frames are many times larger than the frame on a 35mm film and even larger than those on a 70mm film (since IMAX runs the film sideways through the projector and camera).
The big cost to shooting 65mm (or IMAX) is the processing. A regular film has dailies, zillions of effects shots and such. The first IMAX film with even a SINGLE effect was shot over 5 years after IMAX came out because of the expense of doing effects, both as a process and in making them high-res enough to look right. Printing 70mm film costs 5x as much as regular 35mm (super 35, etc.). That precludes using it on most productions. I with 70mm (shot in 65mm, not 35mm blowups) was still around.
I hate to use Wikipedia, but imax.com is all-Flash now. So enjoy this link.
And I believe it, as the economics of shooting in 70mm are pretty dismal. Additionally, A Passage to India is shot in flat (1.66:1), and a 1.66:1 70mm movie would make no sense at all, 70mm movies are all about 2.35:1 (usually2.20:1).
Note that most "70mm" films where actually shot in 65mm, including those by David Lean, whom you seem to be referring to.
I really wish 70mm (65mm) would come back. But I expect it never will. It just costs too much. I agree with you (at least what I think you said) that digital will be the next format that delivers what 70mm did.
Note that there are 60fps IMAX movies already, a few of them. The vast amount of film limits the length of the features though, so it doesn't happen much. What did you mean by "converting the IMAX catalog" to 60fps? There's no way to convert 24fps to 60fps (at least that improves anything). Once something is shot in 24fps, it's stuck in 24fps forever.
I don't think it's stupid to support 1080p...
on
How the PS3 Hit $600
·
· Score: 1
PS3 supporting 1080p doesn't really hurt it. You're absolutely right that most current HDTVs won't accept a 1080p signal (mine doesn't and the one I had before this one didn't either). But that just means that PS3 will have to support alternate outputs that these TVs do support, like 1080i or 720p. This will mean PS3 has no real advantage over (for example) Xbox 360 on those TVs, but it won't be at a disadvantage either.
But most HDTVs going forward will accept 1080p input (even of many of them can't even render it at full spatial/temporal resolution) and so you'll be happy the PS3 supports it already when you buy a new TV later (if you buy one before PS3 becomes obsolete).
To be honest, supporting 1080p is essentially free for PS3 anyway. All current HDTV chipsets that do DVI can output 1080p over DVI/HDMI anyway, so it didn't add any cost to the unit beyond what just adding HDMI in the first place added.
When Xbox 360 gets its refresh I expect it will sprout a 1080p-capable HDMI connector too. I'll even predict when.
It'll happen in early 2007 (perhaps Feb or March or even as late as E3), and it'll use a 65nm processor, laptop HD-DVD drive (if HD-DVD is still viable at that time, otherwise a laptop DVD drive) and will have a single HDMI output alongside the current connector. This is just a guess based upon a good understanding of the cost of making the current 360 and how MS could make it cheaper to make. It's just a prediction though, you don't always completely redesign something just to save a few bucks, as shown by how MS never did a full redesign on the original Xbox, despite the money there to be saved.
Either way, they poured a ton of money into them and got virtually nothing for it. They got one or two awful games and nothing else. And even to get those they had to put tons of MS employees on the projects. It's still a condemnation of the model, even if they didn't actually purchase the company outright.
I don't know if they own all of RARE either, they certainly own the portion Nintendo used to own though, which is something like half.
Slashdot Mirror
I said it was the most open.
n veiled/2100-1040_3-250632.html
Yes, it's crippled. It's basically Net Yaroze for PS3.
But it's more open than any other major platform.
You can stop at your Emotion Engine. That's Xbox fanboy dumbass bullshit. PS2 has Emotion Engine. You aren't happy with what it provided? Perhaps that's because you don't even understand what was promised!
Here's Seamus Blackey of Microsoft claiming Xbox will have Toy Story graphics. Graphics it didn't deliver.
http://netscape.com.com/Microsoft+got+game+Xbox+u
All this Emotion Engine hating is just misplaced Xbox fanboyism. Select something to hate, make up stuff to hate about it.
The boomerang controllers were not real. I have a friend who works at SCEA. He told me a long time ago. They never received a single operating boomerang controllers. Up until recently, they only had DualShock 2s, then they got the new DS3 you saw at E3.
Someone on the internet mocked up the boomerang days after Sony first showed it. He showed you couldn't even hold it and reach all the buttons.
It was just a mockup, it was never real.
Your list of proprietary stuff is hilarious.
AAC is proprietary to Dolby. You're thinking of ATRAC.
UMD was ultra retarded.
BluRay isn't a failure yet, nor is it any more or less proprietary than HD-DVD, or even DVD. You cannot make a DVD player without joining the DVDCCA. It's proprietary.
Memory Stick is no more or less proprietary than SD. The SD consortium are very controlling assholes. Note that MMC is a lot more open.
I agree Sony is doing very poorly lately, and are indeed moving at a glacial pace.
Final note, if you still think this slide reflects anything about what the hardware will leave to be desired, you truly do not understand the issue yet. This measurement is of an operation you never should do, and the slide underscores that. It simply will not be an issue.
To go on this big rant about Sony finally reaping what they sow, only to see that other people who actually know what they are talking about explain that the slide means and why it was by design and doesn't really matter.
Short version: for some dumb reason "local memory" is a name for a specific type of memory in the system, not the memory local to the particular processor. In this case, "local memory" means memory on the RSX (graphics processor). So it is saying that reading back data from the RSX area is very slow.
The fix: don't bother. Just like on any other platform, there isn't a lot of reason to transfer data out of the GPU memory. Transfer it in when you need it, and when it isn't needed anymore, throw it away, only to reload it later.
This would only hurt you wanted to do processing on the graphics card and bring the results back to the rest of the system. That's unusual on any system, it would be extra unusual on PS3 because Cell already has 7 special execution units in the Cell that that do the kind of operations a GPU does very quickly.
PS3 is the most open of any major video gaming systems. It will come with Linux on it and you can make your own apps and games if you want. That's a big step for gaming consoles, they're always locked up tightly to ensure revenue streams. This is not a new thing from Sony, really Nintendo did the work developing that business model.
I have to say, for $600, it'd better be a little open. What a joke.
You can't even buy an FX-62 yet (I just checked newegg). How is it tried and true?
Guess how those who benchmarked the FX-62s got them? They got them as favors from AMD. And they were given them on the condition they not benchmark them against Conroe! So why do you trust them and not the Conroe reviewers?
Anyway, the people on xtremesystems.org have Conroes already, and on their systems, not under the eye of Intel. They seem to like it.
This just seems like more smokescreen from the AMD fanboys. Why do people suddenly develop a case of not trusting internet benchmarkers when it starts to make Intel look good?
The Fed adjusted the money supply, not the prime rate back then.
And the prime rate only adjust one thing. Ask anyone who has bought a house. The mortgage rates never dropped as much as prime did, and when prime jumped way up, mortgage rates remained lower.
Interest rates were so high back then because the cost of living was going up rapidly (despite a lack of wage growth).
See below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation
This is the operative part:
Supply-side economics asserts that the contraction component of stagflation was caused by the inflation induced rise in real tax rates (see bracket creep). In addition certain states in the USA had laws against nominal interest rates being above a certain level and in the midst of inflation this forced real interest rates to be negative. In some places this caused a collapse in finance for business.
Reagan was a 100% supply-side guy (see the trickly-down theory). It became unprofitable for people to invest in the future due to negative real interest rates, partially due to the rate of return being knocked down by high taxes.
His tax cuts freed up a lot of money to invest in starting companies, and that's what happened. Perhaps it was more psycological than anything, or perhaps you even disbelieve it. There's room for both of those theories. But I believe it.
Maybe he was just in the right place at the right time, economically, I dunno. But presided over a long period of economic growth and prosperity and very low antagonism between the two political parties. It's tough not to like that, having lived through it.
I did feel his death was played for far too much Republican gain. Especially letting G.W.B give the eulogy, when they had nothing in common.
And now that you remind me, I am not thrilled about the death squads either. I kinda lumped that in with the wars, but in a way they're even worse.
I think Reagan was a very good president. I'm not excited about the deficit, also he started a few too many wars for me (as Republicans seem to do).
But he did some things right, he made the business climate work in this country. If you weren't around in the 70s for 14% interest rates, perhaps you read what he did and misinterpret it. The government was taking too much money from businesses and disincenting people to build businesses, expand the economy and build this country.
He also understood that once elected, you represent the entire country, not just the people who elected you. This is very unlike George W. Bush. When California had problems with his buddy Kenny Lay extorting money from the citizens and turning the lights out, he did nothing except invite his Texas buddies over to figure out how to make it possible to extort better. Cheney said it wasn't a federal government problem, and that "it's classic economics, price caps will neither increase supply nor reduce demand". And yet, months later when price caps were finally put in place, they solved the problem immediately by ending the profiteering immediately. Prices went down, supply returned to 100%. Bush didn't care about what happened to people in California, actually seeming to prefer to extract revenge on them for not voting for him.
And the McCain. I used to be a huge McCain fan. But have you seen him recently? Did you see him on Meet the Press? After Karl Rove push-polled a rumor that McCain fathered a bi-racial baby out of wedlock in 2000, and McCain he could never get past that, that Rove was a bad person. Now he's kissing Rove's ass. He said (correctly) Jerry Falwell was an agent of hate. And now he speaks at Liberty University?
I liked McCain. He stood for something. He stood for inclusion, he stood for conservatism that didn't mean the government telling everyone what to do and not bolstering Southern Christianity as the national religion.
Now he's useless to me. If he'll flip on those things, what will he stand up for?
Libraries shouldn't be facilitating IP theft like that.
And are you arguing in later paragraphs that this isn't fair? Fair? Are you 10 years old? Going to run to mommy and daddy saying that your big brother isn't playing fair?
No one ever said life is fair.
I don't know what the "angry man yells at cloud" thing you refer to is. I don't see food ever being cheaper/more effective to replicate than to grow, so I don't see the situation arising. And Africa isn't starving for any reason that food replicators would fix anyway. Look up what happened in Somalia. Look at what is happening in Sudan right now. It's the same thing that Bob Geldof tried to fix with Live Aid. The problem isn't drought, the problem is their leaders are using food as a weapon against their own people. They only give food to those who have allegiance to them and pay tribute to them. The others starve. And if you try to send food in, they'll disrupt your food delivery chain to ensure that the people they don't want fed don't get fed. That's what happened when to Live Aid's food aid. That's what happened to US and UN food aid since then. And that's how we ended up in Somalia and making a mess of it.
Boy, when I think of it, that just isn't fair. Who do I complain to about this?
Another post asks a little better question, when half of people download, will I make half of people criminals? The answer is that I wouldn't. I would prefer to see the companies fix their business plans, or even to change the law. And it's starting. ABC offers their shows now, at least some of them.
But in the meantime, each time I download something I shouldn't, I don't tell myself that I'm being forced into this. I'm doing it for my own reasons, right or wrong.
You said you have no choice but to download it?
You act like you're a victim, that you're cornered by them.
What about not watching it at all?
Again, I'm not saying I never downloaded a TV show from the net, but when I do it, I don't tell myself that I'm being forced to do this. I've made a conscious decision to do what I did. And you are also.
Your argument about theft is ridiculous. You're trying to apply your own definition to the word to make what you're doing not theft. Words have lots of meanings in English. What happens when someone steals a kiss? Did they actually take something away from someone? When two lovers steal away? Long before the MPAA got political, people were stealing cable? Did the cable company actually not have something anymore? The Russians stole the atomic bomb and other secrets from the US in the 50s, before the MPAA even existed. Yet all they did was duplicate information they weren't supposed to have.
All these are examples of stealing in the English language. No one was actually deprived of property in any of the cases. Stop trying to redefine the language because you don't like that a word is applied to you.
I never said I never broke copyright law. But I don't kid myself about it when I do it. Sometimes I'm doing it for the right reasons, sometimes I'm not. But I don't lie to myself about it.
You made the argument about being similar to used bookstores to bolster your argument. It is useless as an argument, because of the reasons I point out. If used bookstores duplicated books and sold them, then it'd be a useful argument, they would indeed be similar.
Your hypothetical situation does indeed arise. I know people who have gotten back episodes that way and then began to watch the show. However, regardless of whether it helps the company or not, it's illegal, it's stealing their content. If the company is smart enough to allow you to view back episodes to get caught up, that's great. If the company doesn't do it, it isn't up to you to change their business model.
It is their right to hold on to their stuff so tight that they lose gobs of money. You don't get to remold their goals because you think you know better, even when actually you do know better.
Again, just like a non-duplicatable object, if you don't like how they sell it, you are free not to buy it. You aren't free to rip it off.
Used books is similar to duping data?
Not at all. Only one person has the book at one time. Not so with bittorrenting.
As to 24 and such TV shows, there are more and more people stealing these shows daily. Those people are unlikely to watch it first run, they are viewing it off the internet, with no ads.
That's lost revenue.
As to whether the companies could be smarter, that's not for you to decide. Why not walk into the GM headquarters and explain "you're not selling your stuff in the right way, I'm gonna start stealing cars off your assembly lines and selling them the ways I see fit".
See how that goes over.
This is a ridiculous reverse justification for theft.
If you don't think the company is doing a good job, then don't patronize them. But don't steal their stuff either. Just like you would with an object you cannot copy, like a car.
I'm not an expert, I just happened to read some stuff on airliners.net over the last couple days.
In AA 191, when one engine went, some of the pilot's indicators stopped working. It included the flap position (as opposed to setting) indicators. It also included the shaker that told when a stall was about to occur. There was a system to engage backup power to these systems, but it was not activated. They were probably too distracted.
These indicators were not replicated on the co-pilot's side (which was still powered), so they had no way to know the slats were retracting and it was entering a stall.
I also learned some other stuff, like that the DC-10's crash record still isn't great, despite very good results after the bugs were ironed out.
To me, if you kill a significant amount of people ironing out the bugs in your plane, it's an engineering disaster. I know not everyone agrees.
There's still no WinFS, promised back in '96.
I personally am glad of that. MS is not the first company to promise to replace the file system with an associative database, nor are they the first to not fall through. Apple promised it for Copland. There is no evidence at this time that doing this is a good idea or even possible. MS is slathering an associative layer on top of NTFS (last I heard), which is a pretty good compromise. If it turns out to have benefit, they can rewrite the file system later and if it turns out to be useless, you don't have to pay the penalty for it.
Will they support WPA2 natively, without 170MB of updates?
That's a pretty stupid question. They'll roll the 170MB of updates into the initial release. All they need to do is write an installer script. You could do it yourself by slipstreaming XP. I don't really blame MS for this, 802.11 is a nightmare because of the updates. As more appliances support it, it gets worse and worse. How many can't even use WPA because they have a Nintendo DS, or media streaming device that doesn't support it? They need to pick a standard and stick with it.
Does the UI remain responsive during heavy calculations (I do a lot of 3D)?
No, MS hasn't figured out how to create CPU out of thin air. If you use up a limited resource, your machine will get slow. This is not a new thing.
Can I install games without worrying about which version of DirectX is installed?
This hasn't been a problem for years. Games always come with the DirectX installer they need. You just run it if you aren't 100% sure you have it already.
Will the new version of Office install things I'll have to disable, like toolbars, fast find, and Word integration into Outlook express?
Office isn't part of Vista. If you don't like it, don't run it. I don't.
Do I still need to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to do things?
Surely, because there's a security reason for that. Ctrl+Alt+Delete is a system trap on PCs. It cannot be captured by any process, it goes straight to the OS. So when you press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and a login window pops up, you know that it comes from the OS and isn't a false one put up to steal your password. Also, the system trap can't be blocked or rerouted, so using it to bring up the Task Manager means the Task Manager always (well, more than it would otherwise) comes up.
I ran Win95 beta until Microsoft shipped OSR2. It was a matter of necessity.
Win95 worked well for me, even before OSR2. It did get even better with OSR2.
I just borrowed a Nokia N80 today. I started it up and it did ask for the time. I turned on the update feature and nothing changed, but then again I had set it correctly already. I believe you, I have no reason to try messing it up and turning the feature back off and on again.
This UI is pretty bad (it's a Series 60 phone). I came from a Sony-Ericsson W810i, which has a great UI. This is a nightmare, as you mention, it takes like 3 extra clicks to do everything. In one particular path (creating a text message?) every step along the way took an extra click, including the send action (which has a single key on the S-E).
It has a nice display though. Camera is good, if the camera on my W810i weren't excellent (and auto focus) I might have better stuff to say about the N80 camera.
It's crashed on me 3 times in 8 hours and put up the message "General: System Error !" at one point.
It does do a few things well, I'll say that. The main screen showing appointments and other stuff is nice. But mostly, it's a mess. Even the keyboard lock doesn't work well.
It's a slider, so sliding it closed should lock it. It doesn't. It asks you, and if you don't answer, it doesn't lock. I should be able to change that in a setting, but despite having a bewildering array of options, that doesn't seem to be in there. When I put it in my pocket, the phone often slides open a bit, which automatically unlocks it. Sliding it back close in your pocket doesn't relock it (it just asks again) and so you have to remove it from your pocket, open it, close it, answer yes, and try to be more careful putting it in your pocket next time, or else it's back to step 1.
I guess S-E doesn't have a true time update option (just the auto hours/time zone adjustment I spoke of). Perhaps their next phones (k800/k790) will, as they are a new generation of software and hardware.
This thing is maddening. It supports Wi-Fi, but the settings are so crappy, it's difficult to configure.
Some of them would have been on such a list if it existed, I suppose. But they wouldn't have been on a "can't drive a U-Haul truck in New York City" list. Not being able to fly here isn't the largest impediment ever. There's other ways to get here.
And also, keeping people out by name is a pretty poor defense anyway. You do end up punishing anyone who actually flies under their own name (like Cat Stevens), but anyone with malacious intent will just fly under a different name. Some of these wanted people already have 3 names, how difficult is it to get another?
This whole thing is an exercise on closing the barn door after the horses are out.
Why protected against such a specific attack when there are other equally effective attacks? The reason I can think of is CYA and PR, not protection.
You just picked the wrong country to rip on, sheep-boy. The US may be too busy right now to manage another large-scale war, but I don't think New Zealand will present much of a problem. You'd better start learning how to shoot or surrender.
Look forward to some new guests soon. And remember, you brought it on yourself.
(BTW, I'm kidding.)
They did actually interview the people involved in this club. It's quite possible they expressed their influences, instead of having to guess at them.
This headling is misleading, even the original article doesn't act like this is a trend, just one case.
(I'm American)
And I have a problem with this.
Remember, the hijackers in 2001 were all in the country legally. We had all the info on them we needed, either it just didn't add up or we failed to act upon it.
There's no way I'm surrendering my email address (amongst other things) to fly.
You mean like that double decker highway that collapsed during an LA earthquake?
That double decker highway that collapsed was in Oakland, and it collapsed during a San Francisco (technically Santz Cruz) earthquake.
I agree with your other points. People do hold software to different standards. Although I also agree with the problem of the "patch mentality". Game manufacturers in particular are doing an awful job lately producing quality software the first time around right now.
The expected boom in nuclear power plant construction forcast in the 1970s and early 1980s never materialized, mainly due to Thre Mile Island and Chernobyl.
The boom in nuclear plant construction in the 70s and early 80s didn't occur because of an incident that didn't occur until 1986? Is there some kind of prescience going on here?
Power plant construction in the US was already at a very low ebb by the time Chernobyl happened. TMI plus a bunch of poorly informed "greens" jumping to the wrong conclusions had already put the hurt on the US nuclear industry. That plus horrible mismanagement of the regulations that made it impossible to build a plant without truly astounding cost overruns.
I can't speak to what happened outside the US, but at least France went right ahead and did a great job utilizing nuclear power safely and effectively.
I think you're right about the outdated part. Although every time I try to verify it, it doesn't update. Perhaps I was fooled by bad info from him and a phone that doesn't have the feature?
Anyway, thanks for performing the experiment on your phone. It's helpful to be corrected so I don't keep repeating bad information.
I never had to enter the time into a phone until I got a GSM phone. My first phone was analog (in 1992) and didn't have a clock. My first digital phone used CDMA (1995ish) and got the time from the system when you turned it on. My 2nd and 3rd CDMA phones were the same way.
I've had two GSM phones and each one asks me for the time the first time you set it up. My new one has a fancy wizard that asks you even.
So it seemed like a big step backward to me. Maybe my next GSM phone will set the time automatically when I first turn it on like my 1995 CDMA phone did.
I went there too. The problem to me seemed that it had to be somewhat affordable. So the "rides" had to be scaled back from regular Disney stuff.
So the whole thing played as extremely low-rent. It had none of the magic and wonder you expected of Disney. You ended up seeing computer graphics and stuff you could see at home instead of animatronics and large-scale dark rides.
The ESPNZone was right next door, and altough it was completely Dave & Buster's knockoff, it worked because you didn't expect so much.
At least that was my experience.
All traces are disappearing from the net, but there is a system called Maxivision 48 that allowed 48 fps using only 20% (or something) more film than a regular 24 fps film.
e ma.comi visioncinema.com/maxivisioninfo1002.pdf
(late addition)
Perhaps you can see the info you want on the wayback machine:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://maxivisioncin
And mostly the PDF at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050312073714/www.max
(/late addition)
It used standard 35mm film stock, but removed the analog audio tracks along the side (rarely used anymore anyway) and reduced the pulldown (the amount the film advances with each frame). Basically, it was Super 35 withj a 3-perf pulldown, running at 48 (or optionally 24) fps.
There is an excellent article on Super 35 on wikipedia, perhaps you can get the idea from there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_35
Anyway, I'd like to see higher frame rates too. It'd take some work to make sure that various TV transfers (including DVDs, both high def and regular) can still be made from the high frame rate movies without looking funny.
BTW, I my other post, I meant to say Passage to India was shot in 35mm. Big typo. The rest of the post goes along with that, pointing out how 70mm flat doesn't make a lot of sense.
No, IMAX films aren't (usually) shot at 60fps. IMAX burns through film because the frames are many times larger than the frame on a 35mm film and even larger than those on a 70mm film (since IMAX runs the film sideways through the projector and camera).
The big cost to shooting 65mm (or IMAX) is the processing. A regular film has dailies, zillions of effects shots and such. The first IMAX film with even a SINGLE effect was shot over 5 years after IMAX came out because of the expense of doing effects, both as a process and in making them high-res enough to look right. Printing 70mm film costs 5x as much as regular 35mm (super 35, etc.). That precludes using it on most productions. I with 70mm (shot in 65mm, not 35mm blowups) was still around.
I hate to use Wikipedia, but imax.com is all-Flash now. So enjoy this link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAX
IMAX is 24fps. There are higher-speed variants, but the majority of the content is 24fps, and as I said, once 24fps, always 24fps.
A Passage to India was shot in 70mm. IMDB says so
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0087892/technical
And I believe it, as the economics of shooting in 70mm are pretty dismal. Additionally, A Passage to India is shot in flat (1.66:1), and a 1.66:1 70mm movie would make no sense at all, 70mm movies are all about 2.35:1 (usually2.20:1).
Note that most "70mm" films where actually shot in 65mm, including those by David Lean, whom you seem to be referring to.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0066319/technical
I really wish 70mm (65mm) would come back. But I expect it never will. It just costs too much. I agree with you (at least what I think you said) that digital will be the next format that delivers what 70mm did.
Note that there are 60fps IMAX movies already, a few of them. The vast amount of film limits the length of the features though, so it doesn't happen much. What did you mean by "converting the IMAX catalog" to 60fps? There's no way to convert 24fps to 60fps (at least that improves anything). Once something is shot in 24fps, it's stuck in 24fps forever.
PS3 supporting 1080p doesn't really hurt it. You're absolutely right that most current HDTVs won't accept a 1080p signal (mine doesn't and the one I had before this one didn't either). But that just means that PS3 will have to support alternate outputs that these TVs do support, like 1080i or 720p. This will mean PS3 has no real advantage over (for example) Xbox 360 on those TVs, but it won't be at a disadvantage either.
But most HDTVs going forward will accept 1080p input (even of many of them can't even render it at full spatial/temporal resolution) and so you'll be happy the PS3 supports it already when you buy a new TV later (if you buy one before PS3 becomes obsolete).
To be honest, supporting 1080p is essentially free for PS3 anyway. All current HDTV chipsets that do DVI can output 1080p over DVI/HDMI anyway, so it didn't add any cost to the unit beyond what just adding HDMI in the first place added.
When Xbox 360 gets its refresh I expect it will sprout a 1080p-capable HDMI connector too. I'll even predict when.
It'll happen in early 2007 (perhaps Feb or March or even as late as E3), and it'll use a 65nm processor, laptop HD-DVD drive (if HD-DVD is still viable at that time, otherwise a laptop DVD drive) and will have a single HDMI output alongside the current connector. This is just a guess based upon a good understanding of the cost of making the current 360 and how MS could make it cheaper to make. It's just a prediction though, you don't always completely redesign something just to save a few bucks, as shown by how MS never did a full redesign on the original Xbox, despite the money there to be saved.
Either way, they poured a ton of money into them and got virtually nothing for it. They got one or two awful games and nothing else. And even to get those they had to put tons of MS employees on the projects. It's still a condemnation of the model, even if they didn't actually purchase the company outright.
I don't know if they own all of RARE either, they certainly own the portion Nintendo used to own though, which is something like half.