Overall, both the US and Candian systems are very good conceptually -- they just both fail dismally in practice.
Both suffer from serious shortcomings in proportional representation. A party squeaks into power with barely 50% of parliament / congress / etc, and they can run the country like there is no opposition at all.
Both also suffer from serious shortcomings in letting the meritous reach the top. Both countries are starting to foster dynasties -- the law says anyone can become president / prime-minister, and while its true that any one can run -- increasingly only members from certain powerful families ever actually manage it.
And that's increasingly serving those families more and more and the citizens of either country less and less.
Its not enough for democracy that everyone can vote, and anyone can win by law, it actually has to work. Specific protections are required to ensure that everyone's vote is actually represented in the resulting government, and that being rich and connected are not the biggest factors in who forms that government.
Just as a free market doesn't work when power is concentrated in the hands of a small number of corporations who can erect barriers to entry, create cartels, and price fix -- a free country stops working when the power is concentrated in the hands of a small number of parties.
I'm not sure which country is less screwed up. The US is a 2 party system that simply flips power back and forth. Canada has several parties but most of them are irrelevant and many are the fragments of the shattered Progressive Conservative party -- fragments which are coalescing back together. And the BQ is hardly a postive force in Canadian politics -- the constant focus on Quebec is like the annoying pandering to the 'Swing states', only 10x worse.
Overall I guess Canada seems to be preserving its 'instability' better, the American balance seems very precarious -- if one party ever manages to polarize the issues enough to capture a solid 55% of the vote the US would become little more than a monarchy that is legally required to crown a new king (chosen by the party) every 8 years.
Hopefully it never comes to that, but while Orwell's 1984 didn't happen... it may just be late... it still seems to be coming.
Murder is illegal regardless of how many people were affected by the deed.
Conversely a big part of determining the legality of the various business practices of monopolies/near monopolies is dependant on how they affect the market, and how much of the market they affect, and *if* they affect the market.
The Skype/Intel deal definately fits the pattern of what an abusive monopoly might to to ensure competitors products are deemed undesirable... but if it didn't actually affect the market, how exactly was the market or consumer abused?
From the outside, it appears that they handed AMD some massive smoking-gun evidence for their lawsuit, in exchange for a piece of nebulous marketing fluff that 99.9% of their potential customers won't care about. I don't see any way that Intel could come out ahead on this sort of thing, so... why the hell did they do it?
Maybe Intel also saw it as a bit marketing fluff that 99.9% of their potential customers won't care about.
How anti-competitive is it if 99.9% of the market doesn't care and isn't really affected by it? Has any damage been done?
(Don't get me wrong, I think Intel is in the wrong here too, but this 'smoking gun' might be little more than a half loaded water pistol.)
~40" seems to be the transition point from "regular" to "large", and as for seeing the difference between HDTV and EDTV (480p) its a function of your viewing distance, and screen size... so there is no set cutoff point.
Your DVR comment is rather interesting.
As you SURELY know, a great deal of content on the HD channels is not really HD. In particular, most movie content broadcast in HD is actually still coming from DVD quality sources; after all most movies aren't actually available in HD, even to the networks.
Therefore most HD movies currently being broadcast really shouldn't look any better than your DVDs. If they are its probably related to how the DVD player is hooked up to your TV (you aren't using RCAs or svideo are you?) or perhaps your DVD player or TV has a weak upscaler, or if its a particularly inexpensive DVD player perhaps the decoder isn't terribly great.
I've personally experienced it both ways; sometimes a movie broadcast in HD is actually worse looking than my DVD copy. In those cases I suspect its because they compressed the HD signal to move it through a more limited bandwidth satellite uplink or something.
More acurately: provided you have large screen equipment or sit rather unusually close to your tv.
Wish I could remember that site which had the mouseover comparisons of the two formats.
Precisely the sort of nonsense that I refer to by people sitting unusually close to their TVs. Mousing over the difference sitting under 36 inches away from the screen is meaningless. Have someone ELSE do the mouseover while you sit in a chair 8 feet away. Then decide if its worth a $1000 player, and re-purchasing all your movies again.
On a big projection system it can be a big difference at normal viewing distances, but on a regular size "hdtv" its almost irrelevant, unless you're in the habit of watching your TV from 3 feet away.
"Hobbit" is something that Tolkien thought up. So that term can be protected with copyrights or trademarks.
Copyright: No.
You can't copyright the word hobbit. Nor can you copyright the "idea" of small humanoids, enamoured with snacks and round doors.
Trademark: Yes.
You can trademark the word hobbit, as well as the likeness of a hobbit. (Well *you* probably can't at this stage, but Tolkien could have.) However, afaik Tolkien, nor his estate has ever done this.
-------- A more interesting question is the general copyright-ability of 'fictional' worlds. Can I write novels that take place in Asimov's, Niven's, Heinlein's, [etc] worlds?
Can I write a write a novel on some random planet "with the sun of Trantor, seat of the galactic empire, as the 2nd brightest star? If not, why not, exactly?
What about a novel set in the "Star Trek" universe? Obviously I can't use any registered trademarks -- the phrase "Star Trek" in caps, or as a logo, etc. But the world itself? Its political structures, history? What about individual characters? I'm not copying anything that's been written, the novel will be all my own prose, and an original story, I'm just drawing on what the reader might already know. A quick search of a trademark database reveals that "Klingon" and "Ferengi" are both trademarked, so I might not be able to refer to them... but in general most fictional universes are largely untrademarked. Its really only the large franchises that have any.
Ultimately I think its pretty weak to write and sell unlicensed novels set in the star trek universe -- but that doesn't necessarily make it illegal.
You can burn your itunes tracks to AIFF or MP3 *today*.
You have no gaurantee that you will be able to do that tomorrow, or that it will even be legal tomorrow.
I have nothing against buying songs from itunes, or even "licenses to listen to songs", but I want a license that guarantees that once I've paid for the license to a song, I can listen to it whenever I want on whatever device I want, without having to circumvent DRM, or break the law. I want to be able to play it in my friends cars when I go out with them. I'd like to transfer that license to someone else should I choose to, and if I die with it it should be passed on as part of my estate.
Sound outrageous? It shouldn't, I get ALL of that with a CD.
Typically the application is to share a single 3g connection with multiple users. (e.g. getting 5 or 6 company laptops onto the internet at a tradeshow while only needing 1 evdo card, and associated service plan.)
I don't know of anyone who uses them to create mobile hotspots for the general public... although I suppose one could.
Sorry, but by attacking my society as a whole you open yourself up to retaliation.
This right here justifies why the American Terror Alert level is "Elevated". I mean, this guy attacked your society as a whole! Just now! You all saw it. He's probably planning to blow something up too.
Sounds to me like you need to memorize a few words, like "spelling" and "dictionary."
Ouch. One would have thought the "retaliation" would at least be on target...like for example: rebutting "Why the MPAA/RIAA is bad for America" but no, that's probably hard... so you mocked his spelling.
Try to post intelligently without being insulting...
Glad to hear it. You'd be surprised how many dusty broom closets get called "server rooms". Or maybe you wouldn't be.:)
Still, a PSU dieing to heat death in a properly maintained server room with proper air circulation around the servers is either in an absolutely horrid case. (Which doesn't seem likely given what you've said...) or the result of fan that died within the PSU, ultimately causing a heat death.
I just can't see *any* decent brand name PSU in a proper environment getting heat fried unless the PSU fan failed first. Fans are moving parts... they're going to die from time to time, more often on the cheap PSUs, but no fan will run forever.
If that's what happened; I'd guess you just had bum luck. Although on some level, the 'silent/quiet' PSUs could theoretically last longer -- the fan is off or spinning at lower rpms so should wear out slower.
480p is roughly 300,000 pixels. 480i is obviously half that (no "order of magnitude" here). 720p is more than 900,000 pixels
You don't have to be an expert. Pixel count really means squat; "more is always better" but as the numbers go up the difference it makes is exponentially less.
The image quality leap from 640x480 (300k pixels) to 800x600 (480k) is a huge leap in quality, but adds only 180k pixels.
The leap from 800x600 to 1024x768 (780k) is significant, but its *less* dramatic an improvement than the jump from 640x480 to 800x600, yet it adds nearly twice as many pixels.
You can see the effect yourself playing with your desktop, with a hi-res background, and your normal desktop icons, and menus visible.
---
Furthermore the difference between 480p and 720p on an HTDV is not a pixel count comparison at all, because the 480p will have been upscaled to 720p. So the pixel count is identical. The only difference is that the upscaled image will have interpolated some of the pixel data while the actual 720p image will have 'real' data for all those pixels. On many types of scenes, particularly where there is a lot of motion (ie virtually all games) the upscaled image will be very good.
Its like the difference between a decent quality jpg vs a bitmap. At normal viewing distances they are practically indistinguishable, they'd have to be side by side or you'd have to really get up close and know what to look for or you'd never know the difference.)
I'm not saying HDTV isn't a significant upgrade over EDTV. But in practice its less then the difference 800x600 to 1024x768, in a world where practically everyone is still running 640x480.
HDTV *really* shines on static highly detailed scenes that are moving slowly. It *IS* a dramatic improvement there. And its why slow moving pans and static images are the most popular HD 'demo' material -- because the extra detail available is actually visible. In the real world you might see the credits at the end of movies are perfectly crisp and readable for example. But it's far less relevant on scenes with a lot of motion (ie most games) due to the 'blurring' effect of motion. If the scene is getting motion blurred then the extra detail is getting "lost", and a 480p upscaled image ends up looking much the same.
I have an HDTV and really, the difference between a DVD (upscaled 480p) and broadcast HD (720p) is not nearly as dramatic as the difference between whatching regular TV and watching a DVD.
Except this "*One* HDTV" isn't a rare situation. Every single X360 kiosk I've ever seen in person has a HDTV hooked up to it. /sigh
This is actually getting wearisome. Doesn't anybody read before posting? Seriously!
I didn't say ONLY ONE hdtv was a rare situation. In fact I said that most places would have ONLY ONE hdtv. The problem with having ONLY ONE hdtv is that it doesn't accomplishing anything in terms of letting consumers see the DIFFERENCE between the various systems.
Its self evident that you won't be able see the different between Mortal Kombat 34 on an xbox360 and ps3 or revolution if there is ONLY ONE large hdtv demo screen set up with one of the 3 consoles (right now, of course that one console is the new xbox360, for obvious reasons).
This is not remotely true AFAIK. Care to name some of these Xbox360 titles? [at 480p]
I've read on several gaming forums now that many of the launch titles didn't operate internally at 720p, couldn't use FSAA, and suffered other graphics degrading choices due to performance issues. I concede that I do not know how much truth there is to it, and doubt that anyone but the developer could know for sure.
I was just in Best Buy this afternoon. The X-Box 360 demo box was hooked up to a 50" widescreen HDTV with surround sound.
And? This sounds exactly like what I said there would be.
Would you like anything to go with that crow?
What crow!? Did you even READ my post or did you stop as soon as you saw what you quoted, because the VERY next paragraph to the one you quoted said:
Sure there is usually a 40"+ plasma with a console hooked up to it for some feature game from the console with the highest margin, but that isn't putting the 3 systems 'side-by-side'...
If anything, the crow is yours.
*One* HDTV setup won't give consumers any comparative idea of the relevative graphics 'quality' of the 3 systems. (And I quote 'quality', because there is the matter of finding 'comparable' sources. An xbox exclusive might look better than a revolution 'exclusive' -- but its hard to compare two different games. You really need the same image on both TVs to make any sort of real judgement but that leads to other issues:
The quality of the port is probably more important the actual resolution when comparing graphics.
And then there are several xbox 360 titles that aren't actually rendering 720p, they're rendering at 480p and then upscaling to 720p. And for xbox360 titles like *that* the xbox upscaling makes no difference at all because your HDTV will take the Revolution's native 480p and upscale to 720p/1080i as well. So then its just a question of which upscaler is higher quality. On an expensive TV, I'd bet on the TV. On a cheap TV, *maybe* the xbox will do the better job.)
Are you being ignorant on purpose? I never mentioned NTSC. Who cares if you can tell the difference between NTSC and HDTV on a 32" screen?
The Revolution will support 480p (so called "EDTV") which is an order of magnitude better than NTSC. In fact, experts consider 480p to be much closer to HDTV in appearance than NTSC.
Now EDTV vs HDTV on a 32" screen; sure side by side you can spot the difference. Whoop-de-doo. The average person, on a 32" screen at normal viewing distance would not be able to identify whether they were looking at an EDTV or HDTV image UNLESS they were side by side for them to make a direct comparison.
Only on large TVs (~50" and up) does the difference between EDTV and HDTV really become apparent.
NTSC is a different ball game. And in this case, an irrelevant one.
Then again, so is color. Why not just make it black and white?
1) Because you can see the difference between color and monochrome even on a 2.5" gameboy screen. Meanwhile 480p and 720p/1080i are impossible to tell apart until you compare them on a 40" HDTV or better, and even then its pretty minor -- hardly "night vs day" like "color vs monochrome".
2) Because the incremental cost and performance drain of color on todays hardware is effectively zero. That is, in fact, what Nintendo is predicting... by the next generation of consoles the cost of supporting HD won't add anything to the price of the unit.
Not a lot of people are using HD sets yet but most of the new ones being sold are HD systems.
Its an interesting gamble by Nintendo. But, although marketshare dynamics are important, they didn't only consider the marketshare of HD.
HD is a performance drain.
HD textures require lots of memory, HD video requires lots of disk space, HD rendering is like quadruple the number of pixels that have to be computed.
That has several side effects - it raises the cost of the hardware, as you need more memory, faster gpus, etc - as well as imposes longer level load times and other annoyances.
And they predict that most people won't even benefit from it - at least during the lifecycle of this generation of consoles.
Even if they don't have such a TV, families will walk into the store next Christmas season and see PS3, X-Box, and Nintendo screens side by side in demo areas, and next to the other two, the Nintendo will look like something from a 1980s arcade machine.
Hardly. At the local Electrnics boutiques, BestBuys, Future Shops, and Circuit Cities these "demo screens" are mounted into mini 'arcade' stands between game racks and tend to be a whopping 15" sdtv, so any "hd-ness" will be invisible.
Sure there is usually a 40"+ plasma with a console hooked up to it for some feature game from the console with the highest margin, but that isn't putting the 3 systems 'side-by-side'. But even there the revolution will support 480p (progressive scan), and so there is no reason it can't look as good as DVD, which stands up quite well as compared to hdtv. (Indeed I have DVDs that look better than much of the 'hdtv' that comes in over the air - due to compression.
So what families will really see when they walk in at Christmas is that the Nintendo is almost half the price (meaning they can get their kid something in addition to the Nintendo that year). And that 'half price'-ness comes in significant part because they skipped HD this go around.
I'm not sure if it was the "right" move. Only time will tell, but its nothing like the ridiculous 1980's arcade game comparison you portray. Its DVD quality picture at half the price of xbox360.
Meanwhile, the 360 will have a year's worth of new games to show off, the PS3 will have its usual stable of Sony exclusives, and the Revolution will have.... what?
Precisely. The Revolution has the potential to give us something truly new. We don't know *what* the games are going to be and that's half the point. Though of course we can expect representation from their iconic franchises -- mario, zelda, metroid, etc.
The gaming market is now big enough to handle three major players. Probably more.
The market maybe, store shelves, not so much.
There's only room for "one winner" at the retailers... one will be up front, featured on the big plasma, with a good selection of games prominently displayed and the others will be available but comparatively marginalized to varying degrees, with less shelf space and less game and accessory selection.
All three consoles are probably going to end up making lots and lots of money.
Microsoft will have to stop losing money on the xbox before I'll buy into 'making lots and lots' of it.
The only people who care about a "winner" between the three consoles are drooling fanboys of one platform or another.
Not trying to flame here but I just don't get why everyone wants to install Linux and Windows on expensive Mac hardware.
Because some of us like Macs AND Linux AND Windows. And some of us NEED Macs, and Linux and Windows. And carrying 2 laptops around is a pain in the ass, and one expensive mac is still cheaper than that same mac plus a windows laptop.
Few people doing this wan't to put OS X away and never use it, but they can't afford or do not wish to put all their other OSes away and never use them either.
Now OS-X on commodity hardware, that's something to get excited about.
Ironically that is actually less useful to those of us who want a Mac and Mac OS X but can't leave PC hardware completely behind.
Its less useful because a) some of us actually PREFER the Mac hardware, and want to use a Macbook Pro over some garish "commodity hardware" laptop.
b) we want to use OS X on a supported platform, not some community hack-fest. Think IT professionals and tech types in particular or evironments where OS X is their preferred primary OS, not a hobby project, that works when it works, and breaks everytime Apple patches.
I for example prefer OS X. I use it as my primary OS. And I would use a legally purchased and fully Apple supported MacBook Pro with OS X exclusively if I could. However, one task that I regularly perform involves flashing the firmware of devices using vendor supplied software. This software is terrible and does not run reliably under Virtual PC. So I need to drag a windows box around too just to run this software. If I could get Windows to boot on a MacBook, that would be a godsend. I could have my laptop and OS of choice, without having to drag around a windows box.
I also enjoy a number of windows only games. Currently I have a PC for those. I'd rather get a "MacTower Pro" and boot windows when i want to play a game instead of having two towers and a KVM under my desk.
I find it boggling that people keep repeating that they don't understand why people want windows/linux on intel Macs. Its not that hard to understand.
Slashdot Mirror
Overall, both the US and Candian systems are very good conceptually -- they just both fail dismally in practice.
Both suffer from serious shortcomings in proportional representation. A party squeaks into power with barely 50% of parliament / congress / etc, and they can run the country like there is no opposition at all.
Both also suffer from serious shortcomings in letting the meritous reach the top. Both countries are starting to foster dynasties -- the law says anyone can become president / prime-minister, and while its true that any one can run -- increasingly only members from certain powerful families ever actually manage it.
And that's increasingly serving those families more and more and the citizens of either country less and less.
Its not enough for democracy that everyone can vote, and anyone can win by law, it actually has to work. Specific protections are required to ensure that everyone's vote is actually represented in the resulting government, and that being rich and connected are not the biggest factors in who forms that government.
Just as a free market doesn't work when power is concentrated in the hands of a small number of corporations who can erect barriers to entry, create cartels, and price fix -- a free country stops working when the power is concentrated in the hands of a small number of parties.
I'm not sure which country is less screwed up. The US is a 2 party system that simply flips power back and forth. Canada has several parties but most of them are irrelevant and many are the fragments of the shattered Progressive Conservative party -- fragments which are coalescing back together. And the BQ is hardly a postive force in Canadian politics -- the constant focus on Quebec is like the annoying pandering to the 'Swing states', only 10x worse.
Overall I guess Canada seems to be preserving its 'instability' better, the American balance seems very precarious -- if one party ever manages to polarize the issues enough to capture a solid 55% of the vote the US would become little more than a monarchy that is legally required to crown a new king (chosen by the party) every 8 years.
Hopefully it never comes to that, but while Orwell's 1984 didn't happen... it may just be late... it still seems to be coming.
Very true. But irrelevant.
Murder is illegal regardless of how many people were affected by the deed.
Conversely a big part of determining the legality of the various business practices of monopolies/near monopolies is dependant on how they affect the market, and how much of the market they affect, and *if* they affect the market.
The Skype/Intel deal definately fits the pattern of what an abusive monopoly might to to ensure competitors products are deemed undesirable... but if it didn't actually affect the market, how exactly was the market or consumer abused?
From the outside, it appears that they handed AMD some massive smoking-gun evidence for their lawsuit, in exchange for a piece of nebulous marketing fluff that 99.9% of their potential customers won't care about. I don't see any way that Intel could come out ahead on this sort of thing, so... why the hell did they do it?
Maybe Intel also saw it as a bit marketing fluff that 99.9% of their potential customers won't care about.
How anti-competitive is it if 99.9% of the market doesn't care and isn't really affected by it? Has any damage been done?
(Don't get me wrong, I think Intel is in the wrong here too, but this 'smoking gun' might be little more than a half loaded water pistol.)
What I don't see is why this is any more secure than a smart card.
This puts a keypad on the device.
All current pin number + smart card doors have the keypad mounted on the door. This doesn't.
Your suggestion of an induction card reader to eliminate visible door fixtures doesn't give you a keypad.
The "knock" aspect screams gimmick to me.
Calling it "knocking" might be gimmicky marketing, but using audible/vibration to transmit data instead of RF is hardly a 'gimmick'.
~40" seems to be the transition point from "regular" to "large", and as for seeing the difference between HDTV and EDTV (480p) its a function of your viewing distance, and screen size... so there is no set cutoff point.
Your DVR comment is rather interesting.
As you SURELY know, a great deal of content on the HD channels is not really HD. In particular, most movie content broadcast in HD is actually still coming from DVD quality sources; after all most movies aren't actually available in HD, even to the networks.
Therefore most HD movies currently being broadcast really shouldn't look any better than your DVDs. If they are its probably related to how the DVD player is hooked up to your TV (you aren't using RCAs or svideo are you?) or perhaps your DVD player or TV has a weak upscaler, or if its a particularly inexpensive DVD player perhaps the decoder isn't terribly great.
I've personally experienced it both ways; sometimes a movie broadcast in HD is actually worse looking than my DVD copy. In those cases I suspect its because they compressed the HD signal to move it through a more limited bandwidth satellite uplink or something.
, provided you have quality equipment
More acurately: provided you have large screen equipment or sit rather unusually close to your tv.
Wish I could remember that site which had the mouseover comparisons of the two formats.
Precisely the sort of nonsense that I refer to by people sitting unusually close to their TVs. Mousing over the difference sitting under 36 inches away from the screen is meaningless. Have someone ELSE do the mouseover while you sit in a chair 8 feet away. Then decide if its worth a $1000 player, and re-purchasing all your movies again.
On a big projection system it can be a big difference at normal viewing distances, but on a regular size "hdtv" its almost irrelevant, unless you're in the habit of watching your TV from 3 feet away.
"Hobbit" is something that Tolkien thought up. So that term can be protected with copyrights or trademarks.
Copyright: No.
You can't copyright the word hobbit. Nor can you copyright the "idea" of small humanoids, enamoured with snacks and round doors.
Trademark: Yes.
You can trademark the word hobbit, as well as the likeness of a hobbit. (Well *you* probably can't at this stage, but Tolkien could have.) However, afaik Tolkien, nor his estate has ever done this.
--------
A more interesting question is the general copyright-ability of 'fictional' worlds. Can I write novels that take place in Asimov's, Niven's, Heinlein's, [etc] worlds?
Can I write a write a novel on some random planet "with the sun of Trantor, seat of the galactic empire, as the 2nd brightest star? If not, why not, exactly?
What about a novel set in the "Star Trek" universe? Obviously I can't use any registered trademarks -- the phrase "Star Trek" in caps, or as a logo, etc. But the world itself? Its political structures, history? What about individual characters? I'm not copying anything that's been written, the novel will be all my own prose, and an original story, I'm just drawing on what the reader might already know. A quick search of a trademark database reveals that "Klingon" and "Ferengi" are both trademarked, so I might not be able to refer to them... but in general most fictional universes are largely untrademarked. Its really only the large franchises that have any.
Ultimately I think its pretty weak to write and sell unlicensed novels set in the star trek universe -- but that doesn't necessarily make it illegal.
How long has it been since gas has been 1.79?
1.79 per Liter.
Sure, but ebay is pretty crappy
A solid competitor, or at least the threat of one, might light the fire under ebay, and make *it* a better place.
Because if the law changes those mp3s might become illegal, and players might refuse to play them, even if I made them "today".
Plus iTunes ALREADY doesn't satisfy my requirement that the song licenses be transferrable and inheritable.
You can burn your itunes tracks to AIFF or MP3 *today*.
You have no gaurantee that you will be able to do that tomorrow, or that it will even be legal tomorrow.
I have nothing against buying songs from itunes, or even "licenses to listen to songs", but I want a license that guarantees that once I've paid for the license to a song, I can listen to it whenever I want on whatever device I want, without having to circumvent DRM, or break the law. I want to be able to play it in my friends cars when I go out with them. I'd like to transfer that license to someone else should I choose to, and if I die with it it should be passed on as part of my estate.
Sound outrageous? It shouldn't, I get ALL of that with a CD.
Typically the application is to share a single 3g connection with multiple users. (e.g. getting 5 or 6 company laptops onto the internet at a tradeshow while only needing 1 evdo card, and associated service plan.)
I don't know of anyone who uses them to create mobile hotspots for the general public... although I suppose one could.
Sorry, but by attacking my society as a whole you open yourself up to retaliation.
This right here justifies why the American Terror Alert level is "Elevated". I mean, this guy attacked your society as a whole! Just now! You all saw it. He's probably planning to blow something up too.
Sounds to me like you need to memorize a few words, like "spelling" and "dictionary."
Ouch. One would have thought the "retaliation" would at least be on target...like for example: rebutting "Why the MPAA/RIAA is bad for America" but no, that's probably hard... so you mocked his spelling.
Try to post intelligently without being insulting...
Oh the delicious irony.
They'll probably be thoroughly filtered and censored for their reading pleasure.
With relevant but not too obtrusive text ads inserted at the top, sides, and bottom.
Glad to hear it. You'd be surprised how many dusty broom closets get called "server rooms". Or maybe you wouldn't be. :)
Still, a PSU dieing to heat death in a properly maintained server room with proper air circulation around the servers is either in an absolutely horrid case. (Which doesn't seem likely given what you've said...) or the result of fan that died within the PSU, ultimately causing a heat death.
I just can't see *any* decent brand name PSU in a proper environment getting heat fried unless the PSU fan failed first. Fans are moving parts... they're going to die from time to time, more often on the cheap PSUs, but no fan will run forever.
If that's what happened; I'd guess you just had bum luck. Although on some level, the 'silent/quiet' PSUs could theoretically last longer -- the fan is off or spinning at lower rpms so should wear out slower.
-cheers
Seriously, I don't care what the sound level is in the server room.
:)
"Server room" or "broom closet with servers in it"? Filling a closet with milk doesn't mean you have a fridge. Same goes for server rooms.
If you are having heat problems:
1) Make sure the server room is adequately ventilated and that the air is circulating properly to avoid "hotspots".
2) If necessary get an air conditioner to bring ambient temperature down.
Putting a PSU without a fan in many cases will cause your CPU to overheat. The way to fix it is guess what?
Adding a fanless liquid cooling system?
480p is roughly 300,000 pixels. 480i is obviously half that (no "order of magnitude" here). 720p is more than 900,000 pixels
You don't have to be an expert. Pixel count really means squat; "more is always better" but as the numbers go up the difference it makes is exponentially less.
The image quality leap from 640x480 (300k pixels) to 800x600 (480k) is a huge leap in quality, but adds only 180k pixels.
The leap from 800x600 to 1024x768 (780k) is significant, but its *less* dramatic an improvement than the jump from 640x480 to 800x600, yet it adds nearly twice as many pixels.
You can see the effect yourself playing with your desktop, with a hi-res background, and your normal desktop icons, and menus visible.
---
Furthermore the difference between 480p and 720p on an HTDV is not a pixel count comparison at all, because the 480p will have been upscaled to 720p. So the pixel count is identical. The only difference is that the upscaled image will have interpolated some of the pixel data while the actual 720p image will have 'real' data for all those pixels. On many types of scenes, particularly where there is a lot of motion (ie virtually all games) the upscaled image will be very good.
Its like the difference between a decent quality jpg vs a bitmap. At normal viewing distances they are practically indistinguishable, they'd have to be side by side or you'd have to really get up close and know what to look for or you'd never know the difference.)
I'm not saying HDTV isn't a significant upgrade over EDTV. But in practice its less then the difference 800x600 to 1024x768, in a world where practically everyone is still running 640x480.
HDTV *really* shines on static highly detailed scenes that are moving slowly. It *IS* a dramatic improvement there. And its why slow moving pans and static images are the most popular HD 'demo' material -- because the extra detail available is actually visible. In the real world you might see the credits at the end of movies are perfectly crisp and readable for example. But it's far less relevant on scenes with a lot of motion (ie most games) due to the 'blurring' effect of motion. If the scene is getting motion blurred then the extra detail is getting "lost", and a 480p upscaled image ends up looking much the same.
I have an HDTV and really, the difference between a DVD (upscaled 480p) and broadcast HD (720p) is not nearly as dramatic as the difference between whatching regular TV and watching a DVD.
Except this "*One* HDTV" isn't a rare situation. Every single X360 kiosk I've ever seen in person has a HDTV hooked up to it. /sigh
This is actually getting wearisome. Doesn't anybody read before posting? Seriously!
I didn't say ONLY ONE hdtv was a rare situation. In fact I said that most places would have ONLY ONE hdtv. The problem with having ONLY ONE hdtv is that it doesn't accomplishing anything in terms of letting consumers see the DIFFERENCE between the various systems.
Its self evident that you won't be able see the different between Mortal Kombat 34 on an xbox360 and ps3 or revolution if there is ONLY ONE large hdtv demo screen set up with one of the 3 consoles (right now, of course that one console is the new xbox360, for obvious reasons).
This is not remotely true AFAIK. Care to name some of these Xbox360 titles? [at 480p]
I've read on several gaming forums now that many of the launch titles didn't operate internally at 720p, couldn't use FSAA, and suffered other graphics degrading choices due to performance issues. I concede that I do not know how much truth there is to it, and doubt that anyone but the developer could know for sure.
I was just in Best Buy this afternoon. The X-Box 360 demo box was hooked up to a 50" widescreen HDTV with surround sound.
And? This sounds exactly like what I said there would be.
Would you like anything to go with that crow?
What crow!? Did you even READ my post or did you stop as soon as you saw what you quoted, because the VERY next paragraph to the one you quoted said:
Sure there is usually a 40"+ plasma with a console hooked up to it for some feature game from the console with the highest margin, but that isn't putting the 3 systems 'side-by-side'...
If anything, the crow is yours.
*One* HDTV setup won't give consumers any comparative idea of the relevative graphics 'quality' of the 3 systems. (And I quote 'quality', because there is the matter of finding 'comparable' sources. An xbox exclusive might look better than a revolution 'exclusive' -- but its hard to compare two different games. You really need the same image on both TVs to make any sort of real judgement but that leads to other issues:
The quality of the port is probably more important the actual resolution when comparing graphics.
And then there are several xbox 360 titles that aren't actually rendering 720p, they're rendering at 480p and then upscaling to 720p. And for xbox360 titles like *that* the xbox upscaling makes no difference at all because your HDTV will take the Revolution's native 480p and upscale to 720p/1080i as well. So then its just a question of which upscaler is higher quality. On an expensive TV, I'd bet on the TV. On a cheap TV, *maybe* the xbox will do the better job.)
Are you being ignorant on purpose? I never mentioned NTSC. Who cares if you can tell the difference between NTSC and HDTV on a 32" screen?
The Revolution will support 480p (so called "EDTV") which is an order of magnitude better than NTSC. In fact, experts consider 480p to be much closer to HDTV in appearance than NTSC.
Now EDTV vs HDTV on a 32" screen; sure side by side you can spot the difference. Whoop-de-doo. The average person, on a 32" screen at normal viewing distance would not be able to identify whether they were looking at an EDTV or HDTV image UNLESS they were side by side for them to make a direct comparison.
Only on large TVs (~50" and up) does the difference between EDTV and HDTV really become apparent.
NTSC is a different ball game. And in this case, an irrelevant one.
Pretty lame troll.
... by the next generation of consoles the cost of supporting HD won't add anything to the price of the unit.
Then again, so is color. Why not just make it black and white?
1) Because you can see the difference between color and monochrome even on a 2.5" gameboy screen. Meanwhile 480p and 720p/1080i are impossible to tell apart until you compare them on a 40" HDTV or better, and even then its pretty minor -- hardly "night vs day" like "color vs monochrome".
2) Because the incremental cost and performance drain of color on todays hardware is effectively zero. That is, in fact, what Nintendo is predicting
Not a lot of people are using HD sets yet but most of the new ones being sold are HD systems.
Its an interesting gamble by Nintendo. But, although marketshare dynamics are important, they didn't only consider the marketshare of HD.
HD is a performance drain.
HD textures require lots of memory, HD video requires lots of disk space, HD rendering is like quadruple the number of pixels that have to be computed.
That has several side effects - it raises the cost of the hardware, as you need more memory, faster gpus, etc - as well as imposes longer level load times and other annoyances.
And they predict that most people won't even benefit from it - at least during the lifecycle of this generation of consoles.
Even if they don't have such a TV, families will walk into the store next Christmas season and see PS3, X-Box, and Nintendo screens side by side in demo areas, and next to the other two, the Nintendo will look like something from a 1980s arcade machine.
Hardly. At the local Electrnics boutiques, BestBuys, Future Shops, and Circuit Cities these "demo screens" are mounted into mini 'arcade' stands between game racks and tend to be a whopping 15" sdtv, so any "hd-ness" will be invisible.
Sure there is usually a 40"+ plasma with a console hooked up to it for some feature game from the console with the highest margin, but that isn't putting the 3 systems 'side-by-side'. But even there the revolution will support 480p (progressive scan), and so there is no reason it can't look as good as DVD, which stands up quite well as compared to hdtv. (Indeed I have DVDs that look better than much of the 'hdtv' that comes in over the air - due to compression.
So what families will really see when they walk in at Christmas is that the Nintendo is almost half the price (meaning they can get their kid something in addition to the Nintendo that year). And that 'half price'-ness comes in significant part because they skipped HD this go around.
I'm not sure if it was the "right" move. Only time will tell, but its nothing like the ridiculous 1980's arcade game comparison you portray. Its DVD quality picture at half the price of xbox360.
Meanwhile, the 360 will have a year's worth of new games to show off, the PS3 will have its usual stable of Sony exclusives, and the Revolution will have.... what?
Precisely. The Revolution has the potential to give us something truly new. We don't know *what* the games are going to be and that's half the point. Though of course we can expect representation from their iconic franchises -- mario, zelda, metroid, etc.
The gaming market is now big enough to handle three major players. Probably more.
The market maybe, store shelves, not so much.
There's only room for "one winner" at the retailers... one will be up front, featured on the big plasma, with a good selection of games prominently displayed and the others will be available but comparatively marginalized to varying degrees, with less shelf space and less game and accessory selection.
All three consoles are probably going to end up making lots and lots of money.
Microsoft will have to stop losing money on the xbox before I'll buy into 'making lots and lots' of it.
The only people who care about a "winner" between the three consoles are drooling fanboys of one platform or another.
Agreed.
A real Canadian would apologise.
We're sorry you feel that way.
Not trying to flame here but I just don't get why everyone wants to install Linux and Windows on expensive Mac hardware.
Because some of us like Macs AND Linux AND Windows. And some of us NEED Macs, and Linux and Windows. And carrying 2 laptops around is a pain in the ass, and one expensive mac is still cheaper than that same mac plus a windows laptop.
Few people doing this wan't to put OS X away and never use it, but they can't afford or do not wish to put all their other OSes away and never use them either.
Now OS-X on commodity hardware, that's something to get excited about.
Ironically that is actually less useful to those of us who want a Mac and Mac OS X but can't leave PC hardware completely behind.
Its less useful because
a) some of us actually PREFER the Mac hardware, and want to use a Macbook Pro over some garish "commodity hardware" laptop.
b) we want to use OS X on a supported platform, not some community hack-fest. Think IT professionals and tech types in particular or evironments where OS X is their preferred primary OS, not a hobby project, that works when it works, and breaks everytime Apple patches.
I for example prefer OS X. I use it as my primary OS. And I would use a legally purchased and fully Apple supported MacBook Pro with OS X exclusively if I could. However, one task that I regularly perform involves flashing the firmware of devices using vendor supplied software. This software is terrible and does not run reliably under Virtual PC. So I need to drag a windows box around too just to run this software. If I could get Windows to boot on a MacBook, that would be a godsend. I could have my laptop and OS of choice, without having to drag around a windows box.
I also enjoy a number of windows only games. Currently I have a PC for those. I'd rather get a "MacTower Pro" and boot windows when i want to play a game instead of having two towers and a KVM under my desk.
I find it boggling that people keep repeating that they don't understand why people want windows/linux on intel Macs. Its not that hard to understand.