If you transition to a non-government regulated technology though:
Reel Film -> VHS vs Betamax -> Laserdisc -> VideoCD -> DVD -> HD-DVD vs. Blu Ray
With UMD and Divx discs mixed in there in a manner that don't really match the progression.
I'd argue that Laserdisc and VCD (and probably HD-DVD and Blu Ray, too early to tell) are also outliers that don't belong in the progression either. Most people went directly from VHS to DVD, and I wager that many will go from DVD to direct video downloads of some sort. Businesses will gladly introduce a new format/standard every year if they think they can get away with it. Even in the absence of regulation, market forces (i.e. consumers) pick the winners and tend to be conservative, placing a greater emphasis on compatibility and convenience over improved quality or features.
Audio formats have an even more streamlined progression:
Phonograph discs -> Audio CD -> MP3
Leaving lots of orphaned formats that the market rejected (8-track, DAT, MiniDisc, SACD, DVD-Audio, pick-your-favorite-DRM-laced-audio-file, etc.)
Why the heck would you need to transcode them to.mp3? So they'll play on your Nuvi?
... or iRiver... or cell phone... or DVD player... or car stereo. Whatever marginal benefits AAC may have over MP3, it is far from being universally supported.
Be happy. If pure market forces decided you'd have likely had to replace your TV's 4x as often.
I disagree 100%. Over the past 70 years, the NTSC standard has evolved from a mono sound, black & white picture to include color, stereo sound, second audio program and closed captions. These non-trivial changes were done without breaking backward compatibility with the original standard, not because of government protection, but because of market forces. No reasonable business wants to tick of a large installed base of users, even if starting fresh with a new standard would have been cleaner and easier. That's why Microsoft and Apple try to maintain backward compatibility with each new OS version, even if it means creating an emulation layer. They aren't mandated by the government to do it, they do it because of market forces.
I've tried to explain to my mom that she's not utilizing the full power of her graphics card and that if she wants large fonts, she can adjust the font size in the display properties to be whatever she wants. I even set it up for her once. The next time I came over, it was set back to 640 X 480 because "it looks better". Apparently big blocky fonts are easier for seniors to see than big smooth fonts. Who knew?
The article doesn't mention one of the biggest advantages (to publishers) of on-line game distribution, an advantage that PC game publishers discovered long ago. You can sell unfinished games and then release the actual working game later as hundreds of megabytes of downloadable 'patches'.
But there was one other, and to this day I have yet to find anyone who doesn't think I'm nuts when I describe it: It was an adventure game with multiple players with multiple classes where the players used a keyboard
I can't confirm or deny your sanity, but the game did exist (though it wasn't very popular). The game was called Thayer's Quest.
surprisingly Windows 2000 appears to be the winner when it comes to performance with SSD
How is it surprising that a decade-old operating system runs faster on modern hardware than modern operating systems bloated with extra features? They should have tested MS-DOS as well, I'd bet they would have a new 'winner'.
Finally we have definitive proof that the Mona Lisa evolved from simple polygons instead of being "intelligently designed" by that fictional Leonardo guy.
Considering all the actors, musicians, etc. that supported Obama (and contributed to his fund raising efforts), don't expect any positive changes to copyright law under his administration. If anything, Democrats are even more protective of Big Content than the Repulicans (remember; the Copyright Term Extension act and the DCMA came during the Clinton administration).
we use LiFE, batteries as well, which are much safer than LiIon
I'm assuming you mean lithium iron sulfide (LiFeS) or lithium iron disulfide (LiFeS2)? I had a hell of a time finding any information on them, since Googling "LiFE" & "battery" gets you hundreds of hits about "battery life", even with quotes around "LiFE". Does anyone know a way to force Google to respect mixed upper/lower case search terms?
Anyways cloning humans isn't against human rights or unethical. Would you debate your existence if someone told you that you were cloned? What if humanity lost its ability to naturally procreate? Would it suddenly change to not being against God's will? Humans play God every day when we take or prolong life, and I say if it's for the better of humanity, I'm sure God would be cool with it.
The GP only said that cloning of dead people was unethical, they didn't say anything about God (Do you believe that only religious people can be ethical?). Doing any medical procedure to someone without their consent, even after they are dead, is unethical. It doesn't matter whether the procedure is cloning, medical experimentation, or harvesting organs for transplant. As your own link states, it is debatable whether Einstein consented to any experimentation on his brain, and he certainly did not consent to being cloned.
Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Mammoths became extinct about 10,000 years ago, though some scientists believe that there were still pockets of mammoth populations on isolated islands as late as 3500 years ago.
Re:Examples are not nerdy
on
American Nerd
·
· Score: 1
Appreciation of Classic Fantasy != Nerd. There is the subculture who speak elvish and whatnot, but it's difficult to make the case that this makes them "nerds" rather than being classified as "geek" (American nomenclature), "otaku" (Japanese nomenclature), or simply obsessive fanatics.
Perhaps, but there it's hard to deny that there is a significant overlap between nerds and obsessive fans of fantasy/sci-fi/comics/manga/Monty Python/whatever. Not all obsessive fans are smart enough to be nerds, but I think you would be hard pressed to find a nerd who was not an obsessive fan of something.
I have recently read a book that was supposedly written by an alien. He claimed that: the Moon is empty inside...global warming is caused solely by the sun...advanced civilization on Earth millenia ago...terraforming technology...constant danger from alien races that would want us dead...weapons that could destroy souls...Galactic Union...US government is planning a *fake* "alien invasion".
This is the craziest thing I ever read. Everyone knows the scientific consensus is that global warming is caused entirely by human activity. The rest of it seems plausible though.
So, I know this is a recurring joke around here on Slashdot... but you can actually demonstrate this fact by using the Lunar Laser Ranging thingy they installed.
Since unmanned Soviet landers had similar laser ranging thingies, that hardly proves that men have landed on the moon.
I see Lego announcing a change in which country it resides in, to one more favorable towards corporations in trademark laws.
They're already in one. Lego has been able to keep Mega Blocks from selling in Europe until now via this bogus trademark law, but that was the last holdout. Most countries have already ruled against Lego on this issue.
Is there any surprise? The media (with the exception of Fox News) has always had a pretty large liberal bias.
The media is certainly biased, but the real bias is not left or right but commercial. Media outlets are businesses and are biased toward whatever sells papers or advertising space. In this campaign, that was Obama. The right-wing outlets bashed him and the left-wing outlets praised him, but both gave him more coverage than his boring opponent, and as they say in Hollywood, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Just ask Ted Stevens, who won his senate seat despite being convicted of corruption just weeks before the election.
Linux is fine since you can always upgrade it, but what about older hardware MP3 players? I have some older players that don't work with MP3s encoded with a variable bit rate. If the MP3s being sold with this logo are truly "100% compatible", does that mean that they are encoded with the lowest common denominator MP3 format that will work in even the oldest players? And is that really a good thing?
Doesn't open-sourcing a DRM implementation make it extraordinarily easy to circumvent? If you have access to the workings, surely you can remove it.
That depends on how it's implemented. OpenPGP is open-source, but it is no less secure than closed-source PGP. Having the source code shows you how the encryption works, but without the specific key that the content was encrypted with, you're out of luck.
Another angle is that sometimes posters get modded informative, while being factually wrong. Then at least I prefer to mod overrated rather than troll or offtopic.
I agree, in fact, I think we need a few more mod categories like Uninformative (for the posts you mention with factual errors) and Unfunny (for attempts at humor that fall flat). Just like Funny, Unfunny would not affect karma, but would be useful for filtering out bad jokes.
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<em> seems to work fine for me (most browsers render <em> as italics).
I'd argue that Laserdisc and VCD (and probably HD-DVD and Blu Ray, too early to tell) are also outliers that don't belong in the progression either. Most people went directly from VHS to DVD, and I wager that many will go from DVD to direct video downloads of some sort. Businesses will gladly introduce a new format/standard every year if they think they can get away with it. Even in the absence of regulation, market forces (i.e. consumers) pick the winners and tend to be conservative, placing a greater emphasis on compatibility and convenience over improved quality or features.
Audio formats have an even more streamlined progression:
Phonograph discs -> Audio CD -> MP3
Leaving lots of orphaned formats that the market rejected (8-track, DAT, MiniDisc, SACD, DVD-Audio, pick-your-favorite-DRM-laced-audio-file, etc.)
... or iRiver ... or cell phone ... or DVD player ... or car stereo. Whatever marginal benefits AAC may have over MP3, it is far from being universally supported.
I disagree 100%. Over the past 70 years, the NTSC standard has evolved from a mono sound, black & white picture to include color, stereo sound, second audio program and closed captions. These non-trivial changes were done without breaking backward compatibility with the original standard, not because of government protection, but because of market forces. No reasonable business wants to tick of a large installed base of users, even if starting fresh with a new standard would have been cleaner and easier. That's why Microsoft and Apple try to maintain backward compatibility with each new OS version, even if it means creating an emulation layer. They aren't mandated by the government to do it, they do it because of market forces.
I've tried to explain to my mom that she's not utilizing the full power of her graphics card and that if she wants large fonts, she can adjust the font size in the display properties to be whatever she wants. I even set it up for her once. The next time I came over, it was set back to 640 X 480 because "it looks better". Apparently big blocky fonts are easier for seniors to see than big smooth fonts. Who knew?
The article doesn't mention one of the biggest advantages (to publishers) of on-line game distribution, an advantage that PC game publishers discovered long ago. You can sell unfinished games and then release the actual working game later as hundreds of megabytes of downloadable 'patches'.
I can't confirm or deny your sanity, but the game did exist (though it wasn't very popular). The game was called Thayer's Quest.
How is it surprising that a decade-old operating system runs faster on modern hardware than modern operating systems bloated with extra features? They should have tested MS-DOS as well, I'd bet they would have a new 'winner'.
Finally we have definitive proof that the Mona Lisa evolved from simple polygons instead of being "intelligently designed" by that fictional Leonardo guy.
That's why the Tucker Sedan failed; no one likes a triclops.
Considering all the actors, musicians, etc. that supported Obama (and contributed to his fund raising efforts), don't expect any positive changes to copyright law under his administration. If anything, Democrats are even more protective of Big Content than the Repulicans (remember; the Copyright Term Extension act and the DCMA came during the Clinton administration).
I'm assuming you mean lithium iron sulfide (LiFeS) or lithium iron disulfide (LiFeS2)? I had a hell of a time finding any information on them, since Googling "LiFE" & "battery" gets you hundreds of hits about "battery life", even with quotes around "LiFE". Does anyone know a way to force Google to respect mixed upper/lower case search terms?
The GP only said that cloning of dead people was unethical, they didn't say anything about God (Do you believe that only religious people can be ethical?). Doing any medical procedure to someone without their consent, even after they are dead, is unethical. It doesn't matter whether the procedure is cloning, medical experimentation, or harvesting organs for transplant. As your own link states, it is debatable whether Einstein consented to any experimentation on his brain, and he certainly did not consent to being cloned.
Dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Mammoths became extinct about 10,000 years ago, though some scientists believe that there were still pockets of mammoth populations on isolated islands as late as 3500 years ago.
Perhaps, but there it's hard to deny that there is a significant overlap between nerds and obsessive fans of fantasy/sci-fi/comics/manga/Monty Python/whatever. Not all obsessive fans are smart enough to be nerds, but I think you would be hard pressed to find a nerd who was not an obsessive fan of something.
By sharing it with the pilot.
This is the craziest thing I ever read. Everyone knows the scientific consensus is that global warming is caused entirely by human activity. The rest of it seems plausible though.
Since unmanned Soviet landers had similar laser ranging thingies, that hardly proves that men have landed on the moon.
They're already in one. Lego has been able to keep Mega Blocks from selling in Europe until now via this bogus trademark law, but that was the last holdout. Most countries have already ruled against Lego on this issue.
The media is certainly biased, but the real bias is not left or right but commercial. Media outlets are businesses and are biased toward whatever sells papers or advertising space. In this campaign, that was Obama. The right-wing outlets bashed him and the left-wing outlets praised him, but both gave him more coverage than his boring opponent, and as they say in Hollywood, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Just ask Ted Stevens, who won his senate seat despite being convicted of corruption just weeks before the election.
Wile E. Coyote claims prior art.
Linux is fine since you can always upgrade it, but what about older hardware MP3 players? I have some older players that don't work with MP3s encoded with a variable bit rate. If the MP3s being sold with this logo are truly "100% compatible", does that mean that they are encoded with the lowest common denominator MP3 format that will work in even the oldest players? And is that really a good thing?
Loss of fatty skin? When I hit middle age, that's when I started getting fatty skin.
That depends on how it's implemented. OpenPGP is open-source, but it is no less secure than closed-source PGP. Having the source code shows you how the encryption works, but without the specific key that the content was encrypted with, you're out of luck.
I agree, in fact, I think we need a few more mod categories like Uninformative (for the posts you mention with factual errors) and Unfunny (for attempts at humor that fall flat). Just like Funny, Unfunny would not affect karma, but would be useful for filtering out bad jokes.