Am I missing the math? 5% -> 60% is a 12x increase; flourescent lamps have an efficacy of 4x incandescent, and HPS is (roughly) 5x. It doesn't seem possible, as the surface temperature of HPS or flourescent is almost at ambient.
Are they measuring in something other than lumens/watt?
With a magnetic ballast, flourescent lamps do flicker at 50 or 60 hz, but electronic ballasts operate in the kHZ range.
The frame rate for tv is 30HZ with NTSC, and 25HZ for PAL (effectively matched to the power supply). You do get interesting results when you record with NTSC equipment outside of the US under flourescent (magnetic ballast) equipment...
The reason we use incandescent lamps for projectors is that you need a point source to be able to focus the image. A flourescent source is too large (a 13W biax lamp would need to be 60" away from a projector to focus the image!), but metal halide lamps work well for high wattages.
What is amazing is that this is about 3x more efficient than flourescent or High Intensity Discharge lamps! That doesn't quite sound possible... but that is what they are saying!
I'm sorry, but the idea that anyone c/w/should pay more money for television service is preposterous! The only real way that people can get more value from TV is by eliminating the middlemen, and their share of the profits.
Fundementally, these industries all believe they have something that people want and need. People go out and spend thousands on a "home theater system!" Disposable income aside, WTF?!
I would love to see a statistical breakdown of (1) distribution of number of hours people watch commercial television, premium television, and pay-per view (2) comparison of this data to video/dvd rentals (3) distribution of cost of entertainment systems, qty. per household...
It's funny; print media seems to be the most effective format for direct advertising. Nothing in the electronic realm has come close to the same level of effectiveness.
People actually buy some magazines and papers for the ads! Is it just that the time spent on a computer is more focused than the time spent browsing a newspaper?
Playing the "no law" rant, the only purpose of congress getting involved is to implement the exact points you don't want: to make mandatory, uniform, standardized security method for copyright control!
Not to troll, but Read the Bill. Specifically, the first four items below. Here are the "findings" as stated on www.senate.gov:
(1) The lack of high quality digital content continues to hinder consumer adoption of broadband Internet service and digital television products.
(2) Owners of digital programming and content are increasingly reluctant to transmit their products unless digital media devices incorporate technologies that recognize and respond to content security measures designed to prevent theft.
(3) Because digital content can be copied quickly, easily, and without degradation, digital programmers and content owners face an exponentially increasing piracy threat in a digital age.
(4) Current agreements reached in the marketplace to include security technologies in certain digital media devices fail to provide a secure digital environment because those agreements do not prevent the continued use and manufacture of digital media devices that fail to incorporate such security technologies.
(5) Other existing digital rights management schemes represent proprietary, partial solutions that limit, rather than promote, consumers' access to the greatest variety of digital content possible.
(6) Technological solutions can be developed to protect digital content on digital broadcast television and over the Internet.
(7) Competing business interests have frustrated agreement on the deployment of existing technology in digital media devices to protect digital content on the Internet or on digital broadcast television.
(8) The secure protection of digital content is a necessary precondition to the dissemination, and on-line availability, of high quality digital content, which will benefit consumers and lead to the rapid growth of broadband networks.
(9) The secure protection of digital content is a necessary precondition to facilitating and hastening the transition to high-definition television, which will benefit consumers.
(10) Today, cable and satellite have a competitive advantage over digital television because the closed nature of cable and satellite systems permit encryption, which provides some protection for digital content.
(11) Over-the-air broadcasts of digital television are not encrypted for public policy reasons and thus lack those protections afforded to programming delivered via cable or satellite.
(12) A solution to this problem is technologically feasible but will require government action, including a mandate to ensure its swift and ubiquitous adoption.
(13) Consumers receive content such as video or programming in analog form.
(14) When protected digital content is converted to analog for consumers, it is no longer protected and is subject to conversion into unprotected digital form that can in turn be copied or redistributed illegally.
(15) A solution to this problem is technologically feasible but will require government action, including a mandate to ensure its swift and ubiquitous adoption.
(16) Unprotected digital content on the Internet is subject to significant piracy, through illegal file sharing, downloading, and redistribution over the Internet.
(17) Millions of Americans are currently downloading television programs, movies, and music on the Internet and by using `file-sharing' technology. Much of this activity is illegal, but demonstrates consumers' desire to access digital content.
(18) This piracy poses a substantial economic threat to America's content industries.
(19) A solution to this problem is technologically feasible but will require government action, including a mandate to ensure its swift and ubiquitous adoption.
(20) Providing a secure, protected environment for digital content should be accompanied by a preservation of legitimate consumer expectations regarding use of digital content in the home.
(21) Secure technological protections should enable content owners to disseminate digital content over the Internet without frustrating consumers' legitimate expectations to use that content in a legal manner.
(22) Technologies used to protect digital content should facilitate legitimate home use of digital content.
(23) Technologies used to protect digital content should facilitate individuals' ability to engage in legitimate use of digital content for educational or research purposes.
Because money is so tight, I can at best afford a capital replacement rate of 25%-33% (15-20 units) per year.
Don't do it; you give the reason yourself! If the company can't commit to $36k for doing all the upgrades at once then it simply isn't viable to look at it as a wholesale upgrade (licensing issues aside).
A case could be made for maintenance upgrades... RAM here, HD there, maybe even a processor or two, to the users who need it the most.
But, be careful proposing a capital upgrade (long-term project):
Will the existing equipment be viable for three-four more years?
Will the upgraded equipment be viable to anyone in the company in another two years?
Will the OS be maintainable in two or three years?
At what point will the company need to buy new equipment to support obsolescence?
Does the company plan on expanding or contracting in the short-term?
Is this proposal really to provide additional job security? Seriously... it can backfire if the company's needs aren't consistent.
I think you will find that it isn't in anybody's interests to make a long-term plan on upgrading the existing equipment, but... a short-term plan (with known comprimises) is great for deferring costs for a little while.
(If your proposal had offered a 60-70% savings, it might be another animal, but 40% doesn't cover the risks too well IMHO.)
Not that I entirely disagree with what you are saying, but... let's look at the costs of producing an album (by the current model).
Musician's time to compose, practice, perfect several songs.
Studio time to record said songs. Not cost effective to record only one song, so they need to get ten or so done at once.
Mastering time to make the music "sound good" on a recorded medium. Again, not cost effective for a single track.
Graphic Design for album cover, etc.
Marketing effort to promote the album.
If the external costs to the band were minimized, we would have lower quality recordings (studio level), less skilled mastering, packaging that isn't as pretty, and more difficulty finding out about the music. Furthermore, the bands still have to create ten songs to have an attractive cost/song.
You have addressed the last item, which may account for 25-50% of the cost of the music. Where does the rest of the money come from? The recording labels are really a lending institution for musicians. (Much like the maffia is a lending institution for gamblers.) There is a lot of bad debt, but the musicians pay back the labels through a share of their royalties.
IANM(usician), but without the record labels, how can the bands afford to produce "quality" music? Sure you can master something at home on your PC, but it doesn't sound anywhere near as good as if it is done by a pro. Sure, you can record in the garage, but...
I would think that the MP/RIAA's best shot is to produce different mixes of their products so people would find more value in what is made... and get so much music out there that it isn't practical for people to keep it on their HD's.
Not nearly that simple. Do you cut off HK? Taiwan? Think of the bus. implications of that; companies would have to have private links (no problem), but there will always be a way around.
There just isn't a way to cut someone off completely, especially when they have friends...
So, that concession is for the drunks... what about the prostitutes? What do they get?
Seriously, though-- the glass doors do a lot for reducing the time that a train spends going into a station (stopping before entering, just in time slowing down, etc.). Not to mention reducing the ability of people to jump in front of the trains and stop the whole thing for a few hours. Some places (Singapore, HK, and I think the London lines that use it) it also does a lot to cut out the wind from the trains.
The reason all of this has come about isn't (just) because CD's are expensive; it's also largely due to the fact that the CDDA media format is no longer appropriate.
I have a few hundred CD's in an egg crate that I never bother to listen to anymore; it's just too much of a hassle to deal with it. But, I do download MP3's of some of the music, and hell, i even PURCHASED (pirate) compilations of MP3's that I already had the original CD's of!
I think the focus on CD's is that it's something that the average person can better associate with a tangible thing. If you talk about just one track of one CD, people are more sympathetic.
My favorite quote from the article - Elvis Costello:
''They've loaded the game so the house has been winning for a long time. Now it's time maybe for the house not to win for a while. Maybe they have to take some losses.''
...so, things aren't quite as profitable as they used to be. Welcome to the "new economy!"
8 Pounds of lead in a CRT, for starters! The stuff can not go into landfills (or into the sea if that is what you prefer)!
This is perfectly reasonable. The alternative is for people to just mothball everything in their homes and offices, similar to the program for dealing with waste from nuke power plants.
No, it isn't recycling (for the most part); this is about internalizing the costs.
Unfortunately, the computer (and consumer electronics as a whole) industry lives on a product cycle of a few years, and the products are a little bit harder on the environment than styrofoam cups.
I only wish it were easy to pull the mpeg-2 streams out of the TiVo and put them on my hard drive.
This is the reason I can't justify buying one yet. The fact that you are only given fairly small time-shifting windows (until the drive is full), and no ability to space shift / archive information off (VHS? Talk about defeating the whole purpose!) fails to make it attractive. The ability to clip video is also missing.
TiVo seems to do a great job as a consumer toy for today; I don't argue that. I would prefer a computer-based (open-protocol) solution to give myself the flexibility to play with the information, and yes, share information between different locations.
But... it isn't there yet. Is it just copyright fear?
If only they would devote a little bit of the millions of dollars they're spending on this ad campaign to help stop illegal downloading... but that wouldn't help them sell more CD burners, would it.
Hilary Rosen, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America.
Gee, if only the RIAA would devote a little bit of the millions of dollars they're spending on campaigning for legislation, maybe they could actually develop a plan for giving consumers what they want!
Why would any tech company risk being associated with stripping the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens.
Why? Because you they might see a way that they can make money! Power is all about controlling the terms! Look at the/. thread today on IBM/Sun! Companies and individuals alike have the right to stand up for their own best interests-- that's the whole idea of a government and the free market alike.
And, as far as divix goes, even legislation couldn't have saved that... flawed on too many levels beyond just the pay-per-use concept.
What I don't understand is the constant refusal of the entertainment industry to give consumers what they do want when it comes to marginalizing the "artistic value" of actors, producers, directers, and others offer! If you can just give people unfinished crap, and let them sort it out for themselves, and make money in the process...
As someone else pointed out, it isn't over until consumer's rights are spelled out in law, be it a la Digital Consumer's bill of rights, or something else.
Condensation can only happen if the water temperature is less than the ambient wet-bulb temperature. (If the relative humidity is 100%, the wet bulb temperature is the same as the dry bulb temperature, or "normal" temperature.)
These systems are all taking water that is quite hot (methinks 140F), and letting it cool to ambient temperature only, so there is no danger of condensation. (Unless, of course, the water resivor is outside or in the fridge.)
I'm not sure what the critical temperature is at the CPU, but a 50F delta between supply and return with water is fine, as long as there is a reasonable flow...
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I did pay $50 for two years, and I still got the damn ad! In that sense... I think the parent was spot on...
Am I missing the math? 5% -> 60% is a 12x increase; flourescent lamps have an efficacy of 4x incandescent, and HPS is (roughly) 5x. It doesn't seem possible, as the surface temperature of HPS or flourescent is almost at ambient.
Are they measuring in something other than lumens/watt?
With a magnetic ballast, flourescent lamps do flicker at 50 or 60 hz, but electronic ballasts operate in the kHZ range.
The frame rate for tv is 30HZ with NTSC, and 25HZ for PAL (effectively matched to the power supply). You do get interesting results when you record with NTSC equipment outside of the US under flourescent (magnetic ballast) equipment...
The reason we use incandescent lamps for projectors is that you need a point source to be able to focus the image. A flourescent source is too large (a 13W biax lamp would need to be 60" away from a projector to focus the image!), but metal halide lamps work well for high wattages.
What is amazing is that this is about 3x more efficient than flourescent or High Intensity Discharge lamps! That doesn't quite sound possible... but that is what they are saying!
I'm sorry, but the idea that anyone c/w/should pay more money for television service is preposterous! The only real way that people can get more value from TV is by eliminating the middlemen, and their share of the profits.
Fundementally, these industries all believe they have something that people want and need. People go out and spend thousands on a "home theater system!" Disposable income aside, WTF?!
I would love to see a statistical breakdown of (1) distribution of number of hours people watch commercial television, premium television, and pay-per view
(2) comparison of this data to video/dvd rentals
(3) distribution of cost of entertainment systems, qty. per household...
Anybody know where this info is freely available?
Integrating IM with TiVo... sure would make it easy to send ads to individual people, eh?
It's funny; print media seems to be the most effective format for direct advertising. Nothing in the electronic realm has come close to the same level of effectiveness.
People actually buy some magazines and papers for the ads! Is it just that the time spent on a computer is more focused than the time spent browsing a newspaper?
If so... why don't TV ads work...?
Playing the "no law" rant, the only purpose of congress getting involved is to implement the exact points you don't want: to make mandatory, uniform, standardized security method for copyright control!
Further evidence that no law is the best law?
(1) The lack of high quality digital content continues to hinder consumer adoption of broadband Internet service and digital television products.
(2) Owners of digital programming and content are increasingly reluctant to transmit their products unless digital media devices incorporate technologies that recognize and respond to content security measures designed to prevent theft.
(3) Because digital content can be copied quickly, easily, and without degradation, digital programmers and content owners face an exponentially increasing piracy threat in a digital age.
(4) Current agreements reached in the marketplace to include security technologies in certain digital media devices fail to provide a secure digital environment because those agreements do not prevent the continued use and manufacture of digital media devices that fail to incorporate such security technologies.
(5) Other existing digital rights management schemes represent proprietary, partial solutions that limit, rather than promote, consumers' access to the greatest variety of digital content possible.
(6) Technological solutions can be developed to protect digital content on digital broadcast television and over the Internet.
(7) Competing business interests have frustrated agreement on the deployment of existing technology in digital media devices to protect digital content on the Internet or on digital broadcast television.
(8) The secure protection of digital content is a necessary precondition to the dissemination, and on-line availability, of high quality digital content, which will benefit consumers and lead to the rapid growth of broadband networks.
(9) The secure protection of digital content is a necessary precondition to facilitating and hastening the transition to high-definition television, which will benefit consumers.
(10) Today, cable and satellite have a competitive advantage over digital television because the closed nature of cable and satellite systems permit encryption, which provides some protection for digital content.
(11) Over-the-air broadcasts of digital television are not encrypted for public policy reasons and thus lack those protections afforded to programming delivered via cable or satellite.
(12) A solution to this problem is technologically feasible but will require government action, including a mandate to ensure its swift and ubiquitous adoption.
(13) Consumers receive content such as video or programming in analog form.
(14) When protected digital content is converted to analog for consumers, it is no longer protected and is subject to conversion into unprotected digital form that can in turn be copied or redistributed illegally.
(15) A solution to this problem is technologically feasible but will require government action, including a mandate to ensure its swift and ubiquitous adoption.
(16) Unprotected digital content on the Internet is subject to significant piracy, through illegal file sharing, downloading, and redistribution over the Internet.
(17) Millions of Americans are currently downloading television programs, movies, and music on the Internet and by using `file-sharing' technology. Much of this activity is illegal, but demonstrates consumers' desire to access digital content.
(18) This piracy poses a substantial economic threat to America's content industries.
(19) A solution to this problem is technologically feasible but will require government action, including a mandate to ensure its swift and ubiquitous adoption.
(20) Providing a secure, protected environment for digital content should be accompanied by a preservation of legitimate consumer expectations regarding use of digital content in the home.
(21) Secure technological protections should enable content owners to disseminate digital content over the Internet without frustrating consumers' legitimate expectations to use that content in a legal manner.
(22) Technologies used to protect digital content should facilitate legitimate home use of digital content.
(23) Technologies used to protect digital content should facilitate individuals' ability to engage in legitimate use of digital content for educational or research purposes.
Yes, it tells them they need to pass a law to mandate a closed system for playing content!
Don't do it; you give the reason yourself! If the company can't commit to $36k for doing all the upgrades at once then it simply isn't viable to look at it as a wholesale upgrade (licensing issues aside).
A case could be made for maintenance upgrades... RAM here, HD there, maybe even a processor or two, to the users who need it the most.
But, be careful proposing a capital upgrade (long-term project):
Will the existing equipment be viable for three-four more years?
Will the upgraded equipment be viable to anyone in the company in another two years?
Will the OS be maintainable in two or three years?
At what point will the company need to buy new equipment to support obsolescence?
Does the company plan on expanding or contracting in the short-term?
Is this proposal really to provide additional job security? Seriously... it can backfire if the company's needs aren't consistent.
I think you will find that it isn't in anybody's interests to make a long-term plan on upgrading the existing equipment, but... a short-term plan (with known comprimises) is great for deferring costs for a little while.
(If your proposal had offered a 60-70% savings, it might be another animal, but 40% doesn't cover the risks too well IMHO.)
Not that I entirely disagree with what you are saying, but... let's look at the costs of producing an album (by the current model).
Musician's time to compose, practice, perfect several songs.
Studio time to record said songs. Not cost effective to record only one song, so they need to get ten or so done at once.
Mastering time to make the music "sound good" on a recorded medium. Again, not cost effective for a single track.
Graphic Design for album cover, etc.
Marketing effort to promote the album.
If the external costs to the band were minimized, we would have lower quality recordings (studio level), less skilled mastering, packaging that isn't as pretty, and more difficulty finding out about the music. Furthermore, the bands still have to create ten songs to have an attractive cost/song.
You have addressed the last item, which may account for 25-50% of the cost of the music. Where does the rest of the money come from? The recording labels are really a lending institution for musicians. (Much like the maffia is a lending institution for gamblers.) There is a lot of bad debt, but the musicians pay back the labels through a share of their royalties.
IANM(usician), but without the record labels, how can the bands afford to produce "quality" music? Sure you can master something at home on your PC, but it doesn't sound anywhere near as good as if it is done by a pro. Sure, you can record in the garage, but...
I would think that the MP/RIAA's best shot is to produce different mixes of their products so people would find more value in what is made... and get so much music out there that it isn't practical for people to keep it on their HD's.
... but the "virtual laws of physics?"
Not nearly that simple. Do you cut off HK? Taiwan? Think of the bus. implications of that; companies would have to have private links (no problem), but there will always be a way around.
There just isn't a way to cut someone off completely, especially when they have friends...
So, that concession is for the drunks... what about the prostitutes? What do they get?
Seriously, though-- the glass doors do a lot for reducing the time that a train spends going into a station (stopping before entering, just in time slowing down, etc.). Not to mention reducing the ability of people to jump in front of the trains and stop the whole thing for a few hours. Some places (Singapore, HK, and I think the London lines that use it) it also does a lot to cut out the wind from the trains.
The reason all of this has come about isn't (just) because CD's are expensive; it's also largely due to the fact that the CDDA media format is no longer appropriate.
I have a few hundred CD's in an egg crate that I never bother to listen to anymore; it's just too much of a hassle to deal with it. But, I do download MP3's of some of the music, and hell, i even PURCHASED (pirate) compilations of MP3's that I already had the original CD's of!
I think the focus on CD's is that it's something that the average person can better associate with a tangible thing. If you talk about just one track of one CD, people are more sympathetic.
My favorite quote from the article - Elvis Costello:
8 Pounds of lead in a CRT, for starters! The stuff can not go into landfills (or into the sea if that is what you prefer)!
This is perfectly reasonable. The alternative is for people to just mothball everything in their homes and offices, similar to the program for dealing with waste from nuke power plants.
No, it isn't recycling (for the most part); this is about internalizing the costs.
Unfortunately, the computer (and consumer electronics as a whole) industry lives on a product cycle of a few years, and the products are a little bit harder on the environment than styrofoam cups.
This is the reason I can't justify buying one yet. The fact that you are only given fairly small time-shifting windows (until the drive is full), and no ability to space shift / archive information off (VHS? Talk about defeating the whole purpose!) fails to make it attractive. The ability to clip video is also missing.
TiVo seems to do a great job as a consumer toy for today; I don't argue that. I would prefer a computer-based (open-protocol) solution to give myself the flexibility to play with the information, and yes, share information between different locations.
But... it isn't there yet. Is it just copyright fear?
The premise of the argument was that Logicon overstated the state's computer maintenance costs as $3.6M. (Actual cost $400k, 9x overstatement!)
IANL, and I don't know if the contract is direct with Oracle or Logicon, but if it was through the latter, I would have to think it would be fraud.
Kind of ironic that Billy lived in Lawrence friggin Kansas, on the wrong side of the tracks!
The law itself is not the code, but the decision to enact it. The part of the code that is public record is their modifications.
And, as far as divix goes, even legislation couldn't have saved that... flawed on too many levels beyond just the pay-per-use concept.
What I don't understand is the constant refusal of the entertainment industry to give consumers what they do want when it comes to marginalizing the "artistic value" of actors, producers, directers, and others offer! If you can just give people unfinished crap, and let them sort it out for themselves, and make money in the process...
As someone else pointed out, it isn't over until consumer's rights are spelled out in law, be it a la Digital Consumer's bill of rights, or something else.
Condensation can only happen if the water temperature is less than the ambient wet-bulb temperature. (If the relative humidity is 100%, the wet bulb temperature is the same as the dry bulb temperature, or "normal" temperature.)
These systems are all taking water that is quite hot (methinks 140F), and letting it cool to ambient temperature only, so there is no danger of condensation. (Unless, of course, the water resivor is outside or in the fridge.)
I'm not sure what the critical temperature is at the CPU, but a 50F delta between supply and return with water is fine, as long as there is a reasonable flow...
That was my initial take, too.
But, I don't think you have the license to broadcast music in a company without paying the licensing fees, much like a DJ or Musak.
Anybody know for sure?