1. An act of overcoming or penetrating an obstacle or restriction. 2. A major achievement or success that permits further progress, as in technology.
While optical computing is a neato thing and it will probably make a splash in the computer world by enabling high performance systems to basically do things faster, is it really going to change the way we do computing? I mean, over the years, we have changed the way we do computing from a hardware standpoint. Things have advanced, technologies have come and gone and we have seen great strides in manufacturing techniques that have given us very small systems that you can carry in your pocket. But have we really changed the way we do the computing or are we just advancing hardware?
Optical computing isn't really a breakthrough in the sense that it will make such a difference that we will have to rethink how we program systems to utilize this technology the best that we can. Then again, much of the things being listed as breakthroughs really aren't.
What would it take to make a breakthrough? Well, cars that drive themselves safely and reliably. That would be a breakthrough because it would defintly change habits for people. Cheap, affordable space travel would be a breakthrough because it would change how we traverse the globe and even open space. Those are just a couple of things that would make an impact that could be considered a breakthrough. They would not only change the way we do things but they would also progress technology by making it available to a general consumer. That means profit margins which bring dollars for R&D to continually improve the technology.
Optical computing is, again, a nice advancement but a breakthough, unlikely. It's not changing how we do something, it's just offering a different approach and it won't advance anything until it gets cheaper but, by then, it'll be eclipsed by the next "breakthrough". In the same line of thought, the biggest blunder of a breakthrough in recent history is the Segway. While yeah it is a neat idea, it's not going to change anything. It amounts to nothing more than a scooter with a gyroscope in it and if the idea was so great to begin with, wouldn't we be using scooters already? There are just inherent problems with the idea because there are sacrifices and concessions that need to be made just to make the statement that the Segway will change cities forever. Where is the incentive to make that change? A Segway isn't a breakthrough because it's answering a question that nobody asked.
Cure cancer, that's a breakthrough. Solve traffic congestion, big deal. It will be a temporary fix until more people get Segways and just move the congestion to a different area. Along the same lines, find a way to use a different sepectrum of light to build a laser that at least triples the density of media storage space, that's a breakthrough. It changed everything from how we watch movies to how we store pictures of little Jimmy and little Sally on thier first day of school. It also advanced technology forcing the rest of the industry to find ways to use that technology to the best of its ability. It also changed other industries because now people have the ability to store large amounts of data. That changed everything from DVD players to digital cameras and we are seeing gear that is not afraid to use large amounts of space to provide much more content because there is media out there that can handle it. Finding a way to make a computer run faster, that's not necessarily a breakthrough. All the major chip manufacturers have been doing that for decades. Using optics is just a different way, not a breakthrough.
AOL refusing to release the video because of a leak will only get a video that may not have had a whole ton of news coverage instantaneous exposure on every news network in the nation. Mainly because of the "pirating" aspect of the story and how hot anything concerning pirating, stealing intellectual property, rootkits, DRMs and the RIAA tends to be.
Weird Al is a bright guy and I wouldn't put it past him to use the media's "chicken little syndrome" against them and get his video worldwide promotion for free. His video will still do quite well and he'll still sell albums. The guy can do no wrong and everything he releases meets some level of success. Weird Al is a talented guy who deserves to profit from his talent but even when it seems he can't, he's smart enough to know how to make it a profitable experience anyway.
...it's the reflective surface behind the pits that is important. That has the potential to wear out and become unusable even with an archive quality media. Vinyl will also wear out if played over and over again. However, if the LP is stored as a master and not played, it's potantial shelf life will dwarf a CD because the materials the LP is made from are not as susceptible to corrosion as a CD/DVD can be. Damage and wear from regular use is the biggest culprit next to breakage for both CDs and LPs. If you store your originals where they cannot be broken or worn and make copies to use and abuse, your LP will last longer on a shelf than a CD.
A shining example of what you are writing about can be found in the reviews at TireRack.com. A single tire can have 1,000 reviews and only about 50-100 of them are worth anything. So many are either BEST TIRE EVAR!!! or WORST TIRE EVAR!!! with no rational basis for the claim. Weeding through all of the reviews is tedious and time consuming but it will actually produce results you can use to make a decision on buying a tire.
The biggest drawback is that while it requires work, it also requires a certain amount of cognitive abilty and a realization that the world outside your front door is far bigger than it seems. That seems to be lacking in many people and it's even more apparent on the Internet. I guess that is one of the drawbacks to the Internet. While it has defintly made the world "smaller" and more accessible to share information, it has also given that same level of access to those who have ill intentions or are on some lemming-ish crusade with no basis in reality like "fanbois", "astroturfers" and "specoholics" like you stated.
I wouldn't be surprised if people felt that now
on
What Is Real On YouTube?
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Most of the people in the Slashdot community have been "online" for decades now. We have watched the Internet become something so big that a signal entity can't wield enough power to control it any longer. Yet, like all modern entertainment and communication formats, there is a certain amount of deception that takes place. For years people have made the on-going joke that the "girl" with the screen name of "supersexysweet16" is actually some fat guy in his underwear either screwing around or preying on juveniles. Now, we have news organizations like Dateline activly trapping people with deceptive tactics that the police have been using to nab predators for a while.
Asking the question "Will user-generated video sites increasingly confront visitors with the disturbing possibility that the video they're watching is not a home video at all, but a sophisticated ad campaign?" at this point in the history of the Internet is just silly and evidence that the "Anonymous Reader" is woefully out of touch with reality and needs to quit being so naive. Deception is everywhere. Even the bum on the street begging for your change may not even be a REAL bum. There are so many deceptive acts taking place out there and if YouTube letting some unscrupulous ad agency post an ad to generate revenue is the biggest worry I have then I'd say I'm doing pretty good.
In other words, big deal. I'm not going to YouTube to determine what's real and what's not or who's lying to me about what. It's so inconsequential that I don't even care who's going to get sent up the river for such a travesty. I'm going to YouTube to be entertained and even commercials are entertaining at times. Just watch the commercials on the SuperBowl for evidence of that. If someone on YouTube wants to lie to me about it then fine, it's not going to impact my life adversely because I don't believe everything I read, see or hear. Especially if there is only one instance of bad press like the Samsung phone when there are droves of people out there with opinions that are the polar opposite. It's on me if I am so gullible to not see through something as silly as that Samsung video that was posted. It's even worse if I base a consumer decision on such a video and limit my research to just that video. Shame on me for being such a stooge if that were true.
...that has been an issue as old as the ages. Kids always want to be bigger, faster and stronger. they always want to be like adults. They will grow up too fast whether we like it or not.
The real issue is that kids are increasingly being exposed to adult situations and ideas way sooner than previous generations and it has been progressing steadily. Kids are dealing with adult themes and situations earlier and earlier in life. The question we should be asking is why, not how or whether it really is happening or not.
Many parents use electronics like computers and video games as babysitters and becoming increasinly less involved in thier kids lives. This indirectly puts more stress and decision making requirements on a child that is not mentally mature enough to handle such things. On top of that, while video games, movies and the Internet do not directly cause violence and other deplorable behavior, they do expose kids to such themes and ideas. Since more and more kids are lacking a closer level of parental supervision, these themes are being plugged in to kids heads at an age when they should be questioning them but can't because they lack the parental authority figure to go to for guidance. Hence they attempt to make sense of it themselves. Since everyone tells them these things in these mediums are bad, it is confusing for a child who sees these things glorified by not only the industries present but also the adults that they tend to look to for both active and passive levels of guidance. When they see adults who seem to garner enjoyment from them, what kind of mixed message does it send? Does the child question it and if they do, who do they question? The babysitter? The daycare teacher?
Blaming the industries for poor parenting habits will not put the blame in the correct spot and will not fix the problem because the problem nor the solution are there. The problem and solution are in the home and if parents are so worried about kids "growing up too fast" then why don't they start treating thier kids like kids and teach, nuture and raise thier children to be fine, upstanding adults?
Electronics have not brought the death of childhood. Egotistical, self-absorbed pseudo-parents have brought the death of childhood. The lack of parental guidance for today's youths has many causes. Those such as single parenthood are not to blame. Those are different cicumstances. However, I have several co-workers who have spouses that also work and they send thier young children to day care for 8-12 hours a day and even on weekends just so they can do what they want to do. How is that behavior good for teaching a child responsiblity? How is it good for the cognitive development of the child? How is it good for the social development of the child? Leaving the child to fend for itself in an environment that does not offer the emotional security of the parent/child relationship does not foster good decision making processes. It only serves to put children in positions where they need to act like adults to navigate many stressful and sometimes hostile social environments. What is even more amazing is that these intelligent, highly educated adults can not figure out why thier children are "acting out" and basically exhibiting all the signs of classic abadonment issues.
The author of this article blames electronics and continually passes the buck on why our children seem to be missing thier childhood. Electronics and technology are not to blame. The only thing they have done is make it easier for parents to neglect thier children.
...there is a major difference between the two that has nothing to do with how fast they run and how soon they become out of date?
Over and over and over again, we see the same stuff rehashed with the two sides forming up quickly. Both sides can be stereotyped and categorized. At some finer levels of classification, one can actually start to see similarities in personality traits of the users of both systems.
All that aside though, there are just some facts that cannot be refuted. Consoles are always behind the curve in hardware performance. Consoles don't need to be cutting edge though because they are optimized to run what they run and they can't and don't need to do much else. Consoles are cheap and easy to use. That's a given. Some days I wish my computer just turned on and did what I needed it to do without me telling it to do it. Both can play using multiple players but a console doesn't require that each player has his/her own console. The list can go on and on.
The major difference that tips the favor in the "PC Elitist's" favor is the fact that all those people out there dumping big money into extremely high performance rigs are what drives the market. Without them, it is safe to say that console gaming would be no where near the level that it is now because it is likely that the hardware would not exist in that thread.
Sure, we have the rules of computing power will double every so often and market growth will follow that and such but the only reason those exist is because the demand for the performance is there. The faster and more powerful these PC's become, the more we find we can do with them. The more we can do, the more we want to do it faster. Since consoles are a packaged deal and unmodifiable and unupgradable, it's the PC market that drives the advancements. Not by the users though. It drives the market because both PC and console game users demand better graphics, faster game play, more complex games and better A.I. in the games. The console manufacturers use PC's to develop that hardware and without the PC, the console would not be.
So yeah, I own several consoles and several PC's and anyone with two eyes and even remedial levels of intelligence can see that a PC is a tool used to make the toys of console gaming. It's not about which is better and who the elitist is. It's about where it all came from and if the PC makes the console and continues to stay light years ahead of the console all the while improving the console then how can the console be better? Is it better because millions of kids beg mom and dad to buy it for them for some holiday or birthday? Is it better because more people with little inclination to computer useage can participate in the gaming experience? It's hard to say because nothing in the posted article actually directly relates to system performance but rather relates to demographical stereotypes that use performance, useability and functional characteristics as indrect support of ideas based more in social similarties than physical facts of hardware.
The final question I have to ponder is if consoles are so great then how come some of the best titles ever released for the PC have to be "dumbed down" for the consoles just so they can run a basic version of a game that was much more complex and involved on a PC platform? If it is all about a "gaming experience" then why can't the people involved in such arguments realize that the "money pit" of a PC has much more potential for being an immersive experience than any console ever could? That seems like the fundamental object of most of the arguements coming from the console side of the war and it directly contradicts thier argument and only serves toshow proof that the PC is a superior platform, even by the console lover's standard.
If we are going to compare consoles vs. PC's then compare consoles to PCs. If we are going to compare console users to PC users then compare the users but don't put it under the guise of consoles vs. PC's. Then maybe the arguments wouldn't get out of hand and never finish. Otherwise, we will continue to see the same silly arguments like this article posed over and over ad nauseum.
They are not the only way to garner revenue from a site. Look at eBay. It costs me nothing to browse the marketplace there and if I want to bid, my account is free. If I want to sell my wares there, it'll cost me. However, because of those fees, eBay's ads are not intrusive and barely noticable.
The whole allure to YouTube is the fact that it's free to watch. I REALLY can't stand going to a site to watch some linked video only to have to sit and wait for the ad to load first and then I have to wait for the ad to finish playing and then I still have to wait for the video I went there to see to finish loading. I'll click out of that browser window before the ad even finishes playing. It's a waste of time. What is even more infuriating is depending on server load, it can take forever to load that ad because that same ad is being loaded by millions of computers all trying to view different videos.
That is what kills these sites, these excessive ads and membership fees. I think eBay has one of the best revenue generating models out there. Whether they are profitable or not is in the hands of thier management. I think that if YouTube wants to stay on top of the game yet be attractive enough to get investors to infuse capital then they need to start looking at a fee based system subsidized by ads and maybe a premium, fee based viewer service.
Charging the average viewer to see an amateur video that quite possibly will suck more wind than a Hoover is a sure fire way to piss off your viewers. Bombarding them with ads just to make them wait and surf through the crap only to view that same amateur crap mentioned above will also alienate them. After all, most of us could live a full and healthy life without ever viewing little Jimmy's guitar rif video on YouTube. However, little Jimmy might just be dashed in his dreams of being a guitar hero if he can't get his video out on the internet. So charging the viewers who don't have the necessity to see the video will not work. They won't be as willing to pay for something they don't need. For that kind of pricing to work, you actually need a commodity that people want. I'm not going to pay to watch someone else's crap. If it's free for me to watch, I will gladly go for the lark. However, if I have a video that I just gotta have out there and YouTube is my place of choice to host it then charge me out the wazoo to get it up there. After all, that perceived need to gain acceptance of my internet based peers who will view my video comes pretty damn close to making hosting services for my video a commodity. Therefore flat fee pricing would work there.
Now if YouTube has issues with excessive bandwidth and offensive things being posted then, charging a nominal fee to post the videos will help squash those problems. It will help because people will be less likely to waste thier money posting crap and then linking to it from many other sites. The viewership will not likely drop off in that respect but might actually pick up because like what was said above about quality vs. massive content, you will gain viewers looking for quality viewing and not just massive amounts of content.
Most "audiophiles" that would fall for such snake oil and con-artistry (is that even a word?) have little to no interest in home theater. Most of those interested in home theater are looking for high picture quality and high impact sound. This technology just doesn't seem like it's going to measure up to the performance needed.
I could see something like these TCP/IP In-wall Speakers being able to use wireless beause there would eventually be enough bandwidth in wireless networks to handle a full frequency response range. Especially with the new technologies on the horizon. That's not snake oil though, that's honest technology. I could see someone trying to sell such a silly idea to an audiophile in that respect though.
That's not to say that someone won't try selling it. However, the fundamental definition of audiophile doesn't even mention home theater/multi-channel sound reproduction let alone video hardware.
From The American Heritage Dictionary:
audiophile (ôd--fl) n. -- A person having an ardent interest in stereo or high-fidelity sound reproduction.
Then again, that definition does not encompass the insanity that surrounds the most extreme of "audiophiles".
Well, since most nations govern thier own air space, how do we regulate how high that air space goes? One of the largest air space issues is the threat from other countries using not only airplanes but orbital craft to covertly spy on other countries. We assume that the private sector has controlled air space and regulated themselves because we don't see the government agencies behind all air traffic in any country until something goes wrong. Then every administration, department and ministry is on the TV telling us what happened. Air traffic is strictly controlled by governments around the world yet you can still get on a plane and safely and easily fly around the globe due to regulation and standardization.
Beyond tourist trap visits to space stations and the moon, what is the purpose of space travel? Most countries are too small in area to warrant regular jaunts into space just to travnsverse thier land area. More fuel would be expended trying to enter a low Earth orbit only to descend mere minutes later to reach your destination then would be to hop into a modern jet plane and just take teh trip across the country. While this seems spectacular to the average traveler, at what cost does this convienince come? There are many factors here that contribute to even this latest "look at space tourism". I would love to see something like this happen and I'd probably be one of the first in line to have the chance to leave this rock even if it was for a few short hours. I just don't see any feasible answer yet. Sure, there will be teething problems but look what we have to spend just to send 7 people in to orbit now. How are we going to send a load of people large enough to justify the cost? Especially for tourism only?
Lastly, how does "oceanic" or "naval" law apply? Ocean going ships do not cross that many borders while transversing oceans aside from international waters and they certainly don't fly over land and make international secrets vulnerable. The U.S. isn't the only country with things it wishes to hide. Also, how will the tax payers not front the bill? It seems that you are applying the model of the U.S. which has a good deal less regulation in these areas than other countries and it doesn't really apply. If we wanted to use the U.S. as an example of taxpayers fronting the bill then who do you think pays for the FAA and all it's air traffic controllers and other national security agecies that handle things like homeland security which reaches into air space like the U.S. Coast Guard and even the U.S. Navy?
It's not so cut and dry on who pays for what or how such international ventures are governed. When one of these "ideas" pops up that addresses such international governing issues then we will start seeing some progress in to actual space travel. Other wise Virgin's idea of just a quick launch into space amounts to no more than the space equivalent of a glass bottom boat or submarine ride and that is where it will stay unless they can get some long term goals outlined and a viable use for space travel other than mere tourism and at a costly sum to boot.
How do we regulate space? Don't think we won't have to. We can regulate our own air space but with the need for orbits, for there to be regulation at individual country levels, that's alot of stuff in geosychronous orbit.
Who would be the regulating body? If we leave space up to the private sector and traveling by space becomes a viable alternative, what's to stop the private companies from gouging the consumer? I'm sure we could find a way to regulate on an international level through a conglomerate made of a series of coutries with a viable interest. We have another international organization designed to protect a commodity. We call it OPEC and they are the bane of any oil using nation out there...in some people's eyes that is.
Then again, if we think planes and terrorism is bad, just think what would happen with such ships and stations for tourist travel. On top of that, how would all these people get there?
But what environmental impacts would there be? I mean sure, there is a good, viable business model to cash in on people's "pie in the sky" dreams but is it sustainable? What resources would we need to do this effectivly, safely and cleanly. Rocket launches are a dirty affair when it comes to the environment, safety and the checkbook.
This is something that needs more than a business model. I mean, there needs to be a way to show profit for the private sector to be interested so that capital can be raised to fund the project but where are the long term goals and plans? We have been hearing about this stuff for a couple of decades now with promise after promise after promise. When is somebody going to actually look at this with a REAL feasability model instead of some rich dude forking over the cash to hitch a ride on a natonally funded science mission?
OK, well, you are approaching the same statement from two different ways. The AC is assessing the actual risk of each cause of death and then comparing the cost of those risks to the rationality of the general public's reaction to said risk. In that vein, the AC states that asthma is a better place to place dollars in research for fighting the threat to human life. While he may be statistically correct, he is not thinking in the rational or rather irrational way that a terrorist attack forces emotion into the decision.
Until there is a cure for the various diseases, most people see them as a death sentence or a decree to a lifetime of suffering. While it is quite morbid to think so, there is nothing a regular joe can do to stop such diseases. That's why we have doctors and they are working to mitgate such risks. There is evidence of that and we are doing something about it. Because of this though, diseases are a faceless aggressor and there is no place to assign outrage for someone who has been unaffected by such a disease.
However, in a terrorist attack, if we are doing something about terrorists, then the attacks shouldn't be happening. On top of that, with diseases being an agressor whose only face is that of it's victims and it's a sort of pseudo-face at that, there is no place for feelings to go. We need something to be angry at and since we can't see a disease without the help of sophisticated equipment, all we see is symptoms and those who suffer from them. We can't very well be angry at those who are suffering, it defies all logic, even the broken logic. Until you have a loved one taken out by a disease, it doesn't register to you because there is no place for the anger to go. It either becomes displaced or forgotten about. After a terrorist attack, you have photos, names and organizations taking claim. There is a face. There is a being who is activly trying to destroy other beings and bring harm. This triggers the fight or flight mentality because there is a focal point for the anger and outrage. Americans, sometimes to thier detriment, don't back down from fights. Never have, likely never will. That is just in our nature and culture. The same idea happens in a bar. If someone cold cocks you in the back of the head, you aren't going to ask for another or just blow it off as one of those things that "just happens". You're going to turn around and look for the miserable, mud-sucking, son-of-a-motherless-goat that did it and beat his/her aft regions into a pasty mess on the floor.
In that respect, the two options cannot be associated as risks and they cannot be compared in thier reactions to risks because they fundamentally garner polar opposites in reactions.
Now the second idea compares statistical evidence which also doesn't quite match up. On one side you have asthma that winks out people in the thousands every year. But those thousands don't happen in one day. It's apples to oranges in statistical comparisons. If a terrorist attack can wink out in one day as many people as asthma does in one year, add up those numbers for the entire sample period for asthma and make them even comparisons in that sense. For example if terrorism world wide kills 9K people a year and asthma worldwide kills 10K people a year then asthma is a greater threat. If we average out the daily deaths for asthma we get roughly 27.4 deaths per day if someone dies from asthma every day. If we look at how many days out of the year we get people dying from terrorism, we are looking at a vastly different figure. The WTC incident showed us that we can make up the lions share of deaths from asthma in one day and probably make up the rest of the deficit in as little as 4 more days. The issue with the risk is how do we assess the risk level? We need an event that defines it like the daily death rate for each to compare. Also what time frame do we use? Depending on how we look at the data, it will tell a different story each time.
In this topic, we are comparing a one day event like 9/11 or the London bombings to as
Please, don't trying turning me into that pariah of the electronics world, an audiophile. Yes, I am enthusiatic about audio and I would qualify in most peoples views of the literal definition of an audiophile but, my background is in engineering and I am firmly grounded in the reality that I cannot change the laws of physics.
That being said, the Audigy cards are "noisy". They are noisy because even though they can have said output, the PCI slot the card is plugged into is a huge souce of noise. Add to the fact that the line output isn't necessarily a true line output and there are circuts in line to control things like output gain and volume which will muddy up and color the sound. These are subjective terms, I know but let me try to illustrate my point.
Think of a row of grade schoolers. You whisper "Rodney likes to play bumper bowling." in the first kid's ear and have them whisper down the line. By the time you get to the end, the last kid says that he heard "Rubber baby buggy bumpers." Similar sounds and structures to the words but decidedly not what was put in the first kid's ear.
Think of that row of kids as a circuit. It can be shown that the lower the number of kids in the circuit, the less mangled the message will be when the last kid gets it. Another way to solve the problem is to use a higher level of kid. So we use high schoolers or college students and you can make a reasonable assesment that the message would retain more integrity with the same number of students because they are more developed.
The same ideas go for electronics. The SB stuff is certainly adequate for your average Joe. Nothing wrong with it at all, in fact, I myself own 7 different SB products and I am pleased with thier operation. However, like the DVD player discussion, the SB products are affordable because of the level of components. Tolerances and specs are not as tight and sound quality can suffer because of that. It is not noticable on much of the equipment marketed to non-audiophile types because they tend not to buy gear that can show those inadequacies. However, if I am putting together a high dollar, ultimate HT experience, a Sound Blaster Audigy will not necessarily give me the "audiophile grade" of performance I am looking for even though the box says it will.
The only saving grace for the Audigy is the digital output because digital either is or isn't and is fairly unaffected by environment variables like an analog signal can be. However, if there is noise in the processing circuits on the SB board then it will be transferred to the signal that is digitaized and encoded and pass through to the amplification circuit. Amplifiers are dumb things and will amplify sound very well. They will also amplify noise encoded in the signal from the signal source. So, it behooves the designer of the HT to use as clean of a signal source as possible in order to garner the best performance from his/her overall setup.
Personally, if I knew of a better choice, I would forgoe the Sound Blaster cards in favor of a more signal quality minded card that didn't have so any features and options to appeal to a larger demographic of users.
Since asthma killed more people in 2001 than died in 9/11, I would suggest that we should lose as many or fewer of our rights as Americans, than we do in our reaction to asthma.
After that, could you then elaborate on how this statement exhibits risk assessment?
It is not very clear to me how you can associate the risk of asthma related deaths to the deaths of those in WTC incident. Please do not blast me for having an ad hominem attack because I have not attacked your argument in any way. I have merely asked for clarification so that I better able to form a coherent response to your argument because it seems that you get one of two responses. You get either righteous indignation or total silence and that may be because you see your argument as valid and understandable but I'll bet I'm not the only one sitting here scratching my head and saying "Huh?"
I can see the negative points already made and I do share the same sentiments. There is a huge potential for abuse and given the shifty practices of any administration over the years, not just the current ones, this does not bode well for Joe College Student.
On the other hand, much of this info is already available and tracked by credit agencies and listed in your individual credit report. That information is also readily available to whomever wants it and can pay for it. The government is not necessarily doing anything out of the ordinary. It just depends on what info they are collecting and how they are going to use it.
Now, do not forget that back in the previous administration, there were several Chinese national students rounded up for spy-like operations, visas were revoked and they were deported. Those students got here on incentives and grants presented to them by the U.S. so that thier students could come here to study. Great idea! I'm happy to see the world coming here to learn. We have some of the best research facilities on the planet in this country and we should be sharing our knowledge. However, when those we trust to share the knowledge wish to use it against us, that is detrimental. Check out photos of China's Navy and Air Force and compare it to not only the U.S. aresenal but also Russian, British and French aresenals and you will see why. Here is just a small sampling of what China has been doing. China's Secret War Those current operations have direct links to the information those students who were deported were stealing and sending home. When those students returned to China after thier deportation, they were treated as heros.
They are just one example. Even our "friends" are trying to gleam information about sensitive programs so they can copy the designs and have the same capabilities without the controls or paying for the rights to the technology that has been developed by scientists in other countris like the U.S., Russia and European nations.
Tracking this info will allow the government to help identify potential threats and watch them for signs of espionage. However, given past performances of our government, it will go past the line of reason and turn normal, law abiding college students into criminals.
In addition to what has already been said about higher picture quality, many DVD players also have onboard DACs for the analog RCA outputs. They also can have expensive toslink outputs for fiber connections between HT components. Virtually all high end DVD players also now have not only the toslink and component video outputs but some even have discrete outputs for each channel of your audio system.
These $2K DVD players can have quite the level of bells and whistles but buttons and programming features are cheap compared to the processing requirements needed for DACs, audio output management and picture management. In addition, any output also requires a transformer of some sort and an entire circuit for output. The output circuit electronics are usually very high quality and those parts are not cheap. Neither is the educated labor necessary to design and refine those circuits.
The reason things are of such high quality and is because cheap components allow things like coloration of sound, poor performance of circuits and noisy circuits that introduce chatter and interference into the system. When that noise and interference reach your amplification circuits and display circuits, they get amplified too. This leads to poor performance in not only picture reproduction but also audio reproduction.
These DVD players are expensive because alot of talent and design has been sunk into them to provide those who wish to get the best experience they can out of movie viewing can do so. Add to that the fact that these high dollar units are test beds for features that get trickled down to other, cheaper units and that is why we have 20-50 dollar DVD players that can do what they do.
A home theater is just like any computer system. All the parts interact and it is only as good as your weakest component. If I am going to load up with 50K worth of Martin Logan speakers being driven by Conrad-Johnson amps with a Krell pre-amp stage and a Pioneer Elite plasma display, I am certainly not going to use a 50 dollar DVD player as the source for all the sound and video in the home theater. At that point, the shortcomings of the DVD player would be glaringly obvious.
Now, if only one could get a decent sound card to do discrete 7.1 channel output with digital decoding (preferrably hardware decoding) for an affordable price, that whole media PC idea might actually gain some ground in the marketplace.
...what is even more interesting is that the question was posed to slashdot users who are the very people that are seemingly incapable of having valid "normal" relationships. I mean, after all, most of the people here work in the IT/Computer Sciences industries and therefore would be the exact demographic the poster is referring to when questioning the social motivation of similar personalities in a group.
Anyway, irony aside, the problem is not limited souly to gender differences. People are intimidated and fearful of what they don't understand. If you are new to a group/department, you are not understood by existing members of said group. Therefore, it is not unreasonable at all to expect to be met with a certain level of trepidation towards interaction on a non-professional/work related level.
That being said, there are certain stigmas related to sexual harrassment in the work place and many guys have either experienced the short end of that stick first hand or known someone who had that luxury. The stigma comes from many of those incidents being unjustified or unfairly accusatory. The bigger problem lies in the fact that many, many guys out there have no confidence in HR or managements ability to decipher the clues as to what really happened and treat those involved fairly. What ends up happening is some poor schlub gets shafted because some girl turned on the waters works and put the fear of lawyers into management. So they do what they think they need to do to avoid an embarrassing public display which could affect the bottom line. Said guy goes down in flames and his co-workers hold a vigil for him at a local bar and one more chapter of G.R.O.S.S. forms and the stigma of girls in the workplace expands.
Is it fair? No, not necessarily but you can't blame people who are often pegged as being "annoying" or "socially inept" or "misunderstood" for being gun-shy in the face of such a situation. I have seen it happen and unfortunatly the good, talented and skilled girls pay for the poor behavior of the less desireable co-workers.
What can you do to get past that stigma? No need to be crude and discuss genitalia of either gender. You're defintly not a guy so don't act, dress, talk or behave like one. Don't even have any silly ideals, crusades or over-bearing group building efforts.
Simply be yourself. You want to be part of "the guys" then understand this. The only thing "the guys" are is a group of friends with common interests. The comfort zone doesn't come from those common interests but rather from the fact that they have been working together longer and have probably had some high stress situations where they had to put out a "fire" so to speak or meet an impossible deadline that required long hours. Those periods of high stress really show who's worth what and create bonding experiences because they all know they can rely on each other. It's got nothing to do with whether you have twigs and berries or not so don't make it about that.
Do what they all did. Be yourself, behave the way you would with your female friends. Certainly don't go with the gender specific stuff but when you are all talking about a song you like or a car you like or a restaurant you like, you are doing what the guys are doing. They just use different words and mannerism. Also, being yourself is important. Don't blend in, group dynamics thrive on diversity, not similarities. You bring something to the table that no one else can, YOU! So be you, you're the best one at being you. If you try to be someone else, you will never be as good at that.
Lastly, step up, learn your job and do it the best you can. If they ask for people to stay late to help with a project, volunteer. If they have a difficult project that no one wants to do, volunteer. If you see a problem that you have experience with fixing, get with someone, share your ideas and make it work. If you make yourself part of the professional team you will become part of the non-professional team...whether you like it or not.
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A breakthrough is
1. An act of overcoming or penetrating an obstacle or restriction.
2. A major achievement or success that permits further progress, as in technology.
While optical computing is a neato thing and it will probably make a splash in the computer world by enabling high performance systems to basically do things faster, is it really going to change the way we do computing? I mean, over the years, we have changed the way we do computing from a hardware standpoint. Things have advanced, technologies have come and gone and we have seen great strides in manufacturing techniques that have given us very small systems that you can carry in your pocket. But have we really changed the way we do the computing or are we just advancing hardware?
Optical computing isn't really a breakthrough in the sense that it will make such a difference that we will have to rethink how we program systems to utilize this technology the best that we can. Then again, much of the things being listed as breakthroughs really aren't.
What would it take to make a breakthrough? Well, cars that drive themselves safely and reliably. That would be a breakthrough because it would defintly change habits for people. Cheap, affordable space travel would be a breakthrough because it would change how we traverse the globe and even open space. Those are just a couple of things that would make an impact that could be considered a breakthrough. They would not only change the way we do things but they would also progress technology by making it available to a general consumer. That means profit margins which bring dollars for R&D to continually improve the technology.
Optical computing is, again, a nice advancement but a breakthough, unlikely. It's not changing how we do something, it's just offering a different approach and it won't advance anything until it gets cheaper but, by then, it'll be eclipsed by the next "breakthrough". In the same line of thought, the biggest blunder of a breakthrough in recent history is the Segway. While yeah it is a neat idea, it's not going to change anything. It amounts to nothing more than a scooter with a gyroscope in it and if the idea was so great to begin with, wouldn't we be using scooters already? There are just inherent problems with the idea because there are sacrifices and concessions that need to be made just to make the statement that the Segway will change cities forever. Where is the incentive to make that change? A Segway isn't a breakthrough because it's answering a question that nobody asked.
Cure cancer, that's a breakthrough. Solve traffic congestion, big deal. It will be a temporary fix until more people get Segways and just move the congestion to a different area. Along the same lines, find a way to use a different sepectrum of light to build a laser that at least triples the density of media storage space, that's a breakthrough. It changed everything from how we watch movies to how we store pictures of little Jimmy and little Sally on thier first day of school. It also advanced technology forcing the rest of the industry to find ways to use that technology to the best of its ability. It also changed other industries because now people have the ability to store large amounts of data. That changed everything from DVD players to digital cameras and we are seeing gear that is not afraid to use large amounts of space to provide much more content because there is media out there that can handle it. Finding a way to make a computer run faster, that's not necessarily a breakthrough. All the major chip manufacturers have been doing that for decades. Using optics is just a different way, not a breakthrough.
AOL refusing to release the video because of a leak will only get a video that may not have had a whole ton of news coverage instantaneous exposure on every news network in the nation. Mainly because of the "pirating" aspect of the story and how hot anything concerning pirating, stealing intellectual property, rootkits, DRMs and the RIAA tends to be.
Weird Al is a bright guy and I wouldn't put it past him to use the media's "chicken little syndrome" against them and get his video worldwide promotion for free. His video will still do quite well and he'll still sell albums. The guy can do no wrong and everything he releases meets some level of success. Weird Al is a talented guy who deserves to profit from his talent but even when it seems he can't, he's smart enough to know how to make it a profitable experience anyway.
...it's the reflective surface behind the pits that is important. That has the potential to wear out and become unusable even with an archive quality media. Vinyl will also wear out if played over and over again. However, if the LP is stored as a master and not played, it's potantial shelf life will dwarf a CD because the materials the LP is made from are not as susceptible to corrosion as a CD/DVD can be. Damage and wear from regular use is the biggest culprit next to breakage for both CDs and LPs. If you store your originals where they cannot be broken or worn and make copies to use and abuse, your LP will last longer on a shelf than a CD.
I agree completely. Everything in moderation.
A shining example of what you are writing about can be found in the reviews at TireRack.com. A single tire can have 1,000 reviews and only about 50-100 of them are worth anything. So many are either BEST TIRE EVAR!!! or WORST TIRE EVAR!!! with no rational basis for the claim. Weeding through all of the reviews is tedious and time consuming but it will actually produce results you can use to make a decision on buying a tire.
The biggest drawback is that while it requires work, it also requires a certain amount of cognitive abilty and a realization that the world outside your front door is far bigger than it seems. That seems to be lacking in many people and it's even more apparent on the Internet. I guess that is one of the drawbacks to the Internet. While it has defintly made the world "smaller" and more accessible to share information, it has also given that same level of access to those who have ill intentions or are on some lemming-ish crusade with no basis in reality like "fanbois", "astroturfers" and "specoholics" like you stated.
Most of the people in the Slashdot community have been "online" for decades now. We have watched the Internet become something so big that a signal entity can't wield enough power to control it any longer. Yet, like all modern entertainment and communication formats, there is a certain amount of deception that takes place. For years people have made the on-going joke that the "girl" with the screen name of "supersexysweet16" is actually some fat guy in his underwear either screwing around or preying on juveniles. Now, we have news organizations like Dateline activly trapping people with deceptive tactics that the police have been using to nab predators for a while.
Asking the question "Will user-generated video sites increasingly confront visitors with the disturbing possibility that the video they're watching is not a home video at all, but a sophisticated ad campaign?" at this point in the history of the Internet is just silly and evidence that the "Anonymous Reader" is woefully out of touch with reality and needs to quit being so naive. Deception is everywhere. Even the bum on the street begging for your change may not even be a REAL bum. There are so many deceptive acts taking place out there and if YouTube letting some unscrupulous ad agency post an ad to generate revenue is the biggest worry I have then I'd say I'm doing pretty good.
In other words, big deal. I'm not going to YouTube to determine what's real and what's not or who's lying to me about what. It's so inconsequential that I don't even care who's going to get sent up the river for such a travesty. I'm going to YouTube to be entertained and even commercials are entertaining at times. Just watch the commercials on the SuperBowl for evidence of that. If someone on YouTube wants to lie to me about it then fine, it's not going to impact my life adversely because I don't believe everything I read, see or hear. Especially if there is only one instance of bad press like the Samsung phone when there are droves of people out there with opinions that are the polar opposite. It's on me if I am so gullible to not see through something as silly as that Samsung video that was posted. It's even worse if I base a consumer decision on such a video and limit my research to just that video. Shame on me for being such a stooge if that were true.
...that has been an issue as old as the ages. Kids always want to be bigger, faster and stronger. they always want to be like adults. They will grow up too fast whether we like it or not.
The real issue is that kids are increasingly being exposed to adult situations and ideas way sooner than previous generations and it has been progressing steadily. Kids are dealing with adult themes and situations earlier and earlier in life. The question we should be asking is why, not how or whether it really is happening or not.
Many parents use electronics like computers and video games as babysitters and becoming increasinly less involved in thier kids lives. This indirectly puts more stress and decision making requirements on a child that is not mentally mature enough to handle such things. On top of that, while video games, movies and the Internet do not directly cause violence and other deplorable behavior, they do expose kids to such themes and ideas. Since more and more kids are lacking a closer level of parental supervision, these themes are being plugged in to kids heads at an age when they should be questioning them but can't because they lack the parental authority figure to go to for guidance. Hence they attempt to make sense of it themselves. Since everyone tells them these things in these mediums are bad, it is confusing for a child who sees these things glorified by not only the industries present but also the adults that they tend to look to for both active and passive levels of guidance. When they see adults who seem to garner enjoyment from them, what kind of mixed message does it send? Does the child question it and if they do, who do they question? The babysitter? The daycare teacher?
Blaming the industries for poor parenting habits will not put the blame in the correct spot and will not fix the problem because the problem nor the solution are there. The problem and solution are in the home and if parents are so worried about kids "growing up too fast" then why don't they start treating thier kids like kids and teach, nuture and raise thier children to be fine, upstanding adults?
Electronics have not brought the death of childhood. Egotistical, self-absorbed pseudo-parents have brought the death of childhood. The lack of parental guidance for today's youths has many causes. Those such as single parenthood are not to blame. Those are different cicumstances. However, I have several co-workers who have spouses that also work and they send thier young children to day care for 8-12 hours a day and even on weekends just so they can do what they want to do. How is that behavior good for teaching a child responsiblity? How is it good for the cognitive development of the child? How is it good for the social development of the child? Leaving the child to fend for itself in an environment that does not offer the emotional security of the parent/child relationship does not foster good decision making processes. It only serves to put children in positions where they need to act like adults to navigate many stressful and sometimes hostile social environments. What is even more amazing is that these intelligent, highly educated adults can not figure out why thier children are "acting out" and basically exhibiting all the signs of classic abadonment issues.
The author of this article blames electronics and continually passes the buck on why our children seem to be missing thier childhood. Electronics and technology are not to blame. The only thing they have done is make it easier for parents to neglect thier children.
...there is a major difference between the two that has nothing to do with how fast they run and how soon they become out of date?
Over and over and over again, we see the same stuff rehashed with the two sides forming up quickly. Both sides can be stereotyped and categorized. At some finer levels of classification, one can actually start to see similarities in personality traits of the users of both systems.
All that aside though, there are just some facts that cannot be refuted. Consoles are always behind the curve in hardware performance. Consoles don't need to be cutting edge though because they are optimized to run what they run and they can't and don't need to do much else. Consoles are cheap and easy to use. That's a given. Some days I wish my computer just turned on and did what I needed it to do without me telling it to do it. Both can play using multiple players but a console doesn't require that each player has his/her own console. The list can go on and on.
The major difference that tips the favor in the "PC Elitist's" favor is the fact that all those people out there dumping big money into extremely high performance rigs are what drives the market. Without them, it is safe to say that console gaming would be no where near the level that it is now because it is likely that the hardware would not exist in that thread.
Sure, we have the rules of computing power will double every so often and market growth will follow that and such but the only reason those exist is because the demand for the performance is there. The faster and more powerful these PC's become, the more we find we can do with them. The more we can do, the more we want to do it faster. Since consoles are a packaged deal and unmodifiable and unupgradable, it's the PC market that drives the advancements. Not by the users though. It drives the market because both PC and console game users demand better graphics, faster game play, more complex games and better A.I. in the games. The console manufacturers use PC's to develop that hardware and without the PC, the console would not be.
So yeah, I own several consoles and several PC's and anyone with two eyes and even remedial levels of intelligence can see that a PC is a tool used to make the toys of console gaming. It's not about which is better and who the elitist is. It's about where it all came from and if the PC makes the console and continues to stay light years ahead of the console all the while improving the console then how can the console be better? Is it better because millions of kids beg mom and dad to buy it for them for some holiday or birthday? Is it better because more people with little inclination to computer useage can participate in the gaming experience? It's hard to say because nothing in the posted article actually directly relates to system performance but rather relates to demographical stereotypes that use performance, useability and functional characteristics as indrect support of ideas based more in social similarties than physical facts of hardware.
The final question I have to ponder is if consoles are so great then how come some of the best titles ever released for the PC have to be "dumbed down" for the consoles just so they can run a basic version of a game that was much more complex and involved on a PC platform? If it is all about a "gaming experience" then why can't the people involved in such arguments realize that the "money pit" of a PC has much more potential for being an immersive experience than any console ever could? That seems like the fundamental object of most of the arguements coming from the console side of the war and it directly contradicts thier argument and only serves toshow proof that the PC is a superior platform, even by the console lover's standard.
If we are going to compare consoles vs. PC's then compare consoles to PCs. If we are going to compare console users to PC users then compare the users but don't put it under the guise of consoles vs. PC's. Then maybe the arguments wouldn't get out of hand and never finish. Otherwise, we will continue to see the same silly arguments like this article posed over and over ad nauseum.
They are not the only way to garner revenue from a site. Look at eBay. It costs me nothing to browse the marketplace there and if I want to bid, my account is free. If I want to sell my wares there, it'll cost me. However, because of those fees, eBay's ads are not intrusive and barely noticable.
The whole allure to YouTube is the fact that it's free to watch. I REALLY can't stand going to a site to watch some linked video only to have to sit and wait for the ad to load first and then I have to wait for the ad to finish playing and then I still have to wait for the video I went there to see to finish loading. I'll click out of that browser window before the ad even finishes playing. It's a waste of time. What is even more infuriating is depending on server load, it can take forever to load that ad because that same ad is being loaded by millions of computers all trying to view different videos.
That is what kills these sites, these excessive ads and membership fees. I think eBay has one of the best revenue generating models out there. Whether they are profitable or not is in the hands of thier management. I think that if YouTube wants to stay on top of the game yet be attractive enough to get investors to infuse capital then they need to start looking at a fee based system subsidized by ads and maybe a premium, fee based viewer service.
Charging the average viewer to see an amateur video that quite possibly will suck more wind than a Hoover is a sure fire way to piss off your viewers. Bombarding them with ads just to make them wait and surf through the crap only to view that same amateur crap mentioned above will also alienate them. After all, most of us could live a full and healthy life without ever viewing little Jimmy's guitar rif video on YouTube. However, little Jimmy might just be dashed in his dreams of being a guitar hero if he can't get his video out on the internet. So charging the viewers who don't have the necessity to see the video will not work. They won't be as willing to pay for something they don't need. For that kind of pricing to work, you actually need a commodity that people want. I'm not going to pay to watch someone else's crap. If it's free for me to watch, I will gladly go for the lark. However, if I have a video that I just gotta have out there and YouTube is my place of choice to host it then charge me out the wazoo to get it up there. After all, that perceived need to gain acceptance of my internet based peers who will view my video comes pretty damn close to making hosting services for my video a commodity. Therefore flat fee pricing would work there.
Now if YouTube has issues with excessive bandwidth and offensive things being posted then, charging a nominal fee to post the videos will help squash those problems. It will help because people will be less likely to waste thier money posting crap and then linking to it from many other sites. The viewership will not likely drop off in that respect but might actually pick up because like what was said above about quality vs. massive content, you will gain viewers looking for quality viewing and not just massive amounts of content.
Most "audiophiles" that would fall for such snake oil and con-artistry (is that even a word?) have little to no interest in home theater. Most of those interested in home theater are looking for high picture quality and high impact sound. This technology just doesn't seem like it's going to measure up to the performance needed.
I could see something like these TCP/IP In-wall Speakers being able to use wireless beause there would eventually be enough bandwidth in wireless networks to handle a full frequency response range. Especially with the new technologies on the horizon. That's not snake oil though, that's honest technology. I could see someone trying to sell such a silly idea to an audiophile in that respect though.
That's not to say that someone won't try selling it. However, the fundamental definition of audiophile doesn't even mention home theater/multi-channel sound reproduction let alone video hardware.
From The American Heritage Dictionary:
audiophile (ôd--fl) n. -- A person having an ardent interest in stereo or high-fidelity sound reproduction.
Then again, that definition does not encompass the insanity that surrounds the most extreme of "audiophiles".
Well, since most nations govern thier own air space, how do we regulate how high that air space goes? One of the largest air space issues is the threat from other countries using not only airplanes but orbital craft to covertly spy on other countries. We assume that the private sector has controlled air space and regulated themselves because we don't see the government agencies behind all air traffic in any country until something goes wrong. Then every administration, department and ministry is on the TV telling us what happened. Air traffic is strictly controlled by governments around the world yet you can still get on a plane and safely and easily fly around the globe due to regulation and standardization.
Beyond tourist trap visits to space stations and the moon, what is the purpose of space travel? Most countries are too small in area to warrant regular jaunts into space just to travnsverse thier land area. More fuel would be expended trying to enter a low Earth orbit only to descend mere minutes later to reach your destination then would be to hop into a modern jet plane and just take teh trip across the country. While this seems spectacular to the average traveler, at what cost does this convienince come? There are many factors here that contribute to even this latest "look at space tourism". I would love to see something like this happen and I'd probably be one of the first in line to have the chance to leave this rock even if it was for a few short hours. I just don't see any feasible answer yet. Sure, there will be teething problems but look what we have to spend just to send 7 people in to orbit now. How are we going to send a load of people large enough to justify the cost? Especially for tourism only?
Lastly, how does "oceanic" or "naval" law apply? Ocean going ships do not cross that many borders while transversing oceans aside from international waters and they certainly don't fly over land and make international secrets vulnerable. The U.S. isn't the only country with things it wishes to hide. Also, how will the tax payers not front the bill? It seems that you are applying the model of the U.S. which has a good deal less regulation in these areas than other countries and it doesn't really apply. If we wanted to use the U.S. as an example of taxpayers fronting the bill then who do you think pays for the FAA and all it's air traffic controllers and other national security agecies that handle things like homeland security which reaches into air space like the U.S. Coast Guard and even the U.S. Navy?
It's not so cut and dry on who pays for what or how such international ventures are governed. When one of these "ideas" pops up that addresses such international governing issues then we will start seeing some progress in to actual space travel. Other wise Virgin's idea of just a quick launch into space amounts to no more than the space equivalent of a glass bottom boat or submarine ride and that is where it will stay unless they can get some long term goals outlined and a viable use for space travel other than mere tourism and at a costly sum to boot.
How do we regulate space? Don't think we won't have to. We can regulate our own air space but with the need for orbits, for there to be regulation at individual country levels, that's alot of stuff in geosychronous orbit.
Who would be the regulating body? If we leave space up to the private sector and traveling by space becomes a viable alternative, what's to stop the private companies from gouging the consumer? I'm sure we could find a way to regulate on an international level through a conglomerate made of a series of coutries with a viable interest. We have another international organization designed to protect a commodity. We call it OPEC and they are the bane of any oil using nation out there...in some people's eyes that is.
Then again, if we think planes and terrorism is bad, just think what would happen with such ships and stations for tourist travel. On top of that, how would all these people get there?
But what environmental impacts would there be? I mean sure, there is a good, viable business model to cash in on people's "pie in the sky" dreams but is it sustainable? What resources would we need to do this effectivly, safely and cleanly. Rocket launches are a dirty affair when it comes to the environment, safety and the checkbook.
This is something that needs more than a business model. I mean, there needs to be a way to show profit for the private sector to be interested so that capital can be raised to fund the project but where are the long term goals and plans? We have been hearing about this stuff for a couple of decades now with promise after promise after promise. When is somebody going to actually look at this with a REAL feasability model instead of some rich dude forking over the cash to hitch a ride on a natonally funded science mission?
OK, well, you are approaching the same statement from two different ways. The AC is assessing the actual risk of each cause of death and then comparing the cost of those risks to the rationality of the general public's reaction to said risk. In that vein, the AC states that asthma is a better place to place dollars in research for fighting the threat to human life. While he may be statistically correct, he is not thinking in the rational or rather irrational way that a terrorist attack forces emotion into the decision.
Until there is a cure for the various diseases, most people see them as a death sentence or a decree to a lifetime of suffering. While it is quite morbid to think so, there is nothing a regular joe can do to stop such diseases. That's why we have doctors and they are working to mitgate such risks. There is evidence of that and we are doing something about it. Because of this though, diseases are a faceless aggressor and there is no place to assign outrage for someone who has been unaffected by such a disease.
However, in a terrorist attack, if we are doing something about terrorists, then the attacks shouldn't be happening. On top of that, with diseases being an agressor whose only face is that of it's victims and it's a sort of pseudo-face at that, there is no place for feelings to go. We need something to be angry at and since we can't see a disease without the help of sophisticated equipment, all we see is symptoms and those who suffer from them. We can't very well be angry at those who are suffering, it defies all logic, even the broken logic. Until you have a loved one taken out by a disease, it doesn't register to you because there is no place for the anger to go. It either becomes displaced or forgotten about. After a terrorist attack, you have photos, names and organizations taking claim. There is a face. There is a being who is activly trying to destroy other beings and bring harm. This triggers the fight or flight mentality because there is a focal point for the anger and outrage. Americans, sometimes to thier detriment, don't back down from fights. Never have, likely never will. That is just in our nature and culture. The same idea happens in a bar. If someone cold cocks you in the back of the head, you aren't going to ask for another or just blow it off as one of those things that "just happens". You're going to turn around and look for the miserable, mud-sucking, son-of-a-motherless-goat that did it and beat his/her aft regions into a pasty mess on the floor.
In that respect, the two options cannot be associated as risks and they cannot be compared in thier reactions to risks because they fundamentally garner polar opposites in reactions.
Now the second idea compares statistical evidence which also doesn't quite match up. On one side you have asthma that winks out people in the thousands every year. But those thousands don't happen in one day. It's apples to oranges in statistical comparisons. If a terrorist attack can wink out in one day as many people as asthma does in one year, add up those numbers for the entire sample period for asthma and make them even comparisons in that sense. For example if terrorism world wide kills 9K people a year and asthma worldwide kills 10K people a year then asthma is a greater threat. If we average out the daily deaths for asthma we get roughly 27.4 deaths per day if someone dies from asthma every day. If we look at how many days out of the year we get people dying from terrorism, we are looking at a vastly different figure. The WTC incident showed us that we can make up the lions share of deaths from asthma in one day and probably make up the rest of the deficit in as little as 4 more days. The issue with the risk is how do we assess the risk level? We need an event that defines it like the daily death rate for each to compare. Also what time frame do we use? Depending on how we look at the data, it will tell a different story each time.
In this topic, we are comparing a one day event like 9/11 or the London bombings to as
It might. Dunno though. I'll look around but in the meantime would you happen to have a link I could follow?
Please, don't trying turning me into that pariah of the electronics world, an audiophile. Yes, I am enthusiatic about audio and I would qualify in most peoples views of the literal definition of an audiophile but, my background is in engineering and I am firmly grounded in the reality that I cannot change the laws of physics.
That being said, the Audigy cards are "noisy". They are noisy because even though they can have said output, the PCI slot the card is plugged into is a huge souce of noise. Add to the fact that the line output isn't necessarily a true line output and there are circuts in line to control things like output gain and volume which will muddy up and color the sound. These are subjective terms, I know but let me try to illustrate my point.
Think of a row of grade schoolers. You whisper "Rodney likes to play bumper bowling." in the first kid's ear and have them whisper down the line. By the time you get to the end, the last kid says that he heard "Rubber baby buggy bumpers." Similar sounds and structures to the words but decidedly not what was put in the first kid's ear.
Think of that row of kids as a circuit. It can be shown that the lower the number of kids in the circuit, the less mangled the message will be when the last kid gets it. Another way to solve the problem is to use a higher level of kid. So we use high schoolers or college students and you can make a reasonable assesment that the message would retain more integrity with the same number of students because they are more developed.
The same ideas go for electronics. The SB stuff is certainly adequate for your average Joe. Nothing wrong with it at all, in fact, I myself own 7 different SB products and I am pleased with thier operation. However, like the DVD player discussion, the SB products are affordable because of the level of components. Tolerances and specs are not as tight and sound quality can suffer because of that. It is not noticable on much of the equipment marketed to non-audiophile types because they tend not to buy gear that can show those inadequacies. However, if I am putting together a high dollar, ultimate HT experience, a Sound Blaster Audigy will not necessarily give me the "audiophile grade" of performance I am looking for even though the box says it will.
The only saving grace for the Audigy is the digital output because digital either is or isn't and is fairly unaffected by environment variables like an analog signal can be. However, if there is noise in the processing circuits on the SB board then it will be transferred to the signal that is digitaized and encoded and pass through to the amplification circuit. Amplifiers are dumb things and will amplify sound very well. They will also amplify noise encoded in the signal from the signal source. So, it behooves the designer of the HT to use as clean of a signal source as possible in order to garner the best performance from his/her overall setup.
Personally, if I knew of a better choice, I would forgoe the Sound Blaster cards in favor of a more signal quality minded card that didn't have so any features and options to appeal to a larger demographic of users.
Did I actually make sense?
MillionthMonkey,
Could you please clarify this statement:
Since asthma killed more people in 2001 than died in 9/11, I would suggest that we should lose as many or fewer of our rights as Americans, than we do in our reaction to asthma.
After that, could you then elaborate on how this statement exhibits risk assessment?
It is not very clear to me how you can associate the risk of asthma related deaths to the deaths of those in WTC incident. Please do not blast me for having an ad hominem attack because I have not attacked your argument in any way. I have merely asked for clarification so that I better able to form a coherent response to your argument because it seems that you get one of two responses. You get either righteous indignation or total silence and that may be because you see your argument as valid and understandable but I'll bet I'm not the only one sitting here scratching my head and saying "Huh?"
I can see the negative points already made and I do share the same sentiments. There is a huge potential for abuse and given the shifty practices of any administration over the years, not just the current ones, this does not bode well for Joe College Student.
On the other hand, much of this info is already available and tracked by credit agencies and listed in your individual credit report. That information is also readily available to whomever wants it and can pay for it. The government is not necessarily doing anything out of the ordinary. It just depends on what info they are collecting and how they are going to use it.
Now, do not forget that back in the previous administration, there were several Chinese national students rounded up for spy-like operations, visas were revoked and they were deported. Those students got here on incentives and grants presented to them by the U.S. so that thier students could come here to study. Great idea! I'm happy to see the world coming here to learn. We have some of the best research facilities on the planet in this country and we should be sharing our knowledge. However, when those we trust to share the knowledge wish to use it against us, that is detrimental. Check out photos of China's Navy and Air Force and compare it to not only the U.S. aresenal but also Russian, British and French aresenals and you will see why. Here is just a small sampling of what China has been doing. China's Secret War Those current operations have direct links to the information those students who were deported were stealing and sending home. When those students returned to China after thier deportation, they were treated as heros.
They are just one example. Even our "friends" are trying to gleam information about sensitive programs so they can copy the designs and have the same capabilities without the controls or paying for the rights to the technology that has been developed by scientists in other countris like the U.S., Russia and European nations.
Tracking this info will allow the government to help identify potential threats and watch them for signs of espionage. However, given past performances of our government, it will go past the line of reason and turn normal, law abiding college students into criminals.
In addition to what has already been said about higher picture quality, many DVD players also have onboard DACs for the analog RCA outputs. They also can have expensive toslink outputs for fiber connections between HT components. Virtually all high end DVD players also now have not only the toslink and component video outputs but some even have discrete outputs for each channel of your audio system.
These $2K DVD players can have quite the level of bells and whistles but buttons and programming features are cheap compared to the processing requirements needed for DACs, audio output management and picture management. In addition, any output also requires a transformer of some sort and an entire circuit for output. The output circuit electronics are usually very high quality and those parts are not cheap. Neither is the educated labor necessary to design and refine those circuits.
The reason things are of such high quality and is because cheap components allow things like coloration of sound, poor performance of circuits and noisy circuits that introduce chatter and interference into the system. When that noise and interference reach your amplification circuits and display circuits, they get amplified too. This leads to poor performance in not only picture reproduction but also audio reproduction.
These DVD players are expensive because alot of talent and design has been sunk into them to provide those who wish to get the best experience they can out of movie viewing can do so. Add to that the fact that these high dollar units are test beds for features that get trickled down to other, cheaper units and that is why we have 20-50 dollar DVD players that can do what they do.
A home theater is just like any computer system. All the parts interact and it is only as good as your weakest component. If I am going to load up with 50K worth of Martin Logan speakers being driven by Conrad-Johnson amps with a Krell pre-amp stage and a Pioneer Elite plasma display, I am certainly not going to use a 50 dollar DVD player as the source for all the sound and video in the home theater. At that point, the shortcomings of the DVD player would be glaringly obvious.
Now, if only one could get a decent sound card to do discrete 7.1 channel output with digital decoding (preferrably hardware decoding) for an affordable price, that whole media PC idea might actually gain some ground in the marketplace.
...what is even more interesting is that the question was posed to slashdot users who are the very people that are seemingly incapable of having valid "normal" relationships. I mean, after all, most of the people here work in the IT/Computer Sciences industries and therefore would be the exact demographic the poster is referring to when questioning the social motivation of similar personalities in a group.
Anyway, irony aside, the problem is not limited souly to gender differences. People are intimidated and fearful of what they don't understand. If you are new to a group/department, you are not understood by existing members of said group. Therefore, it is not unreasonable at all to expect to be met with a certain level of trepidation towards interaction on a non-professional/work related level.
That being said, there are certain stigmas related to sexual harrassment in the work place and many guys have either experienced the short end of that stick first hand or known someone who had that luxury. The stigma comes from many of those incidents being unjustified or unfairly accusatory. The bigger problem lies in the fact that many, many guys out there have no confidence in HR or managements ability to decipher the clues as to what really happened and treat those involved fairly. What ends up happening is some poor schlub gets shafted because some girl turned on the waters works and put the fear of lawyers into management. So they do what they think they need to do to avoid an embarrassing public display which could affect the bottom line. Said guy goes down in flames and his co-workers hold a vigil for him at a local bar and one more chapter of G.R.O.S.S. forms and the stigma of girls in the workplace expands.
Is it fair? No, not necessarily but you can't blame people who are often pegged as being "annoying" or "socially inept" or "misunderstood" for being gun-shy in the face of such a situation. I have seen it happen and unfortunatly the good, talented and skilled girls pay for the poor behavior of the less desireable co-workers.
What can you do to get past that stigma? No need to be crude and discuss genitalia of either gender. You're defintly not a guy so don't act, dress, talk or behave like one. Don't even have any silly ideals, crusades or over-bearing group building efforts.
Simply be yourself. You want to be part of "the guys" then understand this. The only thing "the guys" are is a group of friends with common interests. The comfort zone doesn't come from those common interests but rather from the fact that they have been working together longer and have probably had some high stress situations where they had to put out a "fire" so to speak or meet an impossible deadline that required long hours. Those periods of high stress really show who's worth what and create bonding experiences because they all know they can rely on each other. It's got nothing to do with whether you have twigs and berries or not so don't make it about that.
Do what they all did. Be yourself, behave the way you would with your female friends. Certainly don't go with the gender specific stuff but when you are all talking about a song you like or a car you like or a restaurant you like, you are doing what the guys are doing. They just use different words and mannerism. Also, being yourself is important. Don't blend in, group dynamics thrive on diversity, not similarities. You bring something to the table that no one else can, YOU! So be you, you're the best one at being you. If you try to be someone else, you will never be as good at that.
Lastly, step up, learn your job and do it the best you can. If they ask for people to stay late to help with a project, volunteer. If they have a difficult project that no one wants to do, volunteer. If you see a problem that you have experience with fixing, get with someone, share your ideas and make it work. If you make yourself part of the professional team you will become part of the non-professional team...whether you like it or not.
Above all, HA