From what I hear they're awful. A lot are written by high school students, according to my coworker, and he personally found them rather stupid and boring. But he recommended them to me as a way to pick up contemporary spoken Japanese.
That said it's not because they're composed on cellphones that makes them interesting - they originally were cellphone downloads, if I am not mistaken. So a lot of people downloaded them when they had nothing else to do and read them during down time. Plus I think they tend to probably appeal to the high school set (in regard to themes, style, etc).
"I don't want to sell anything manufactured or processed. I don't want to manufacture anything that will be sold or processed. And i don't want to process anything that was manufactured or sold..."
It's probably b/c of that stupid iPhone autocorrect feature that always seems to pick the absolute most incorrect word you might be typing...
Oh, and it's so nice that Apple doesn't allow you to TURN THAT FEATURE OFF>.!!!
The only really meaningful, interesting social interactions are (for the most part) with the friends you bring with you to facebook. The discussions occuring in the groups they have are mindnumbing compared to usenet newgroups (which is saying something). So it's not a place (imho) to meet people, but in keeping up with friends and friends of friends or in finding old, lost friends, it's quite reasonable.
I have come into contact with some old friends with whom I've lost touch via facebook so for that alone, i'm happy to have an account.
Some of the developed apps are cute and fun and they do add a component to socializing with your friends. My vampire gets attacked all the time, a sheep is thrown at me, a cookie is given to me,...
And some of the apps are actually interesting: flixster embedded in facebook to allow for comparing movies and sharing reviews with friends, visual bookshelf to list your books read/want to read/currently reading and compare against friends.
Yes, I like facebook ok and i can really see how kids in high school, just graduating high school, in college, or just graduating from college would find it a Killer App.
And in Cupertino and Austin, the iTunes business teams are high-fiving. As the industry insists on implementing 20-year old business models, Apple Inc. no longer really needs to update their iTunes services, as it will be another 25 years before the industry realizes that PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO BUY PLASTIC DISCS ANYMORE......
---
At which time, the RIAA will re-introduce magnetic tape media...
-goro-
On the one hand, Firefox users are insignificant and so won't negatively affect a website's hit.
On the other hand, they do not click on ads thus "stealing" revenue.
So if they are insignificant enough to not worry about, then why go out of your way to ban them?
I thought the Image Constraint Token was only for Component Video and NOT HDMI? iirc (and i could be wrong), the Image Constraint Token was to limit the image quality to 480p via Component or to let the full image thru.
I have the OPPO Digital player that plays Xvids and a 50" Samsung DLP HDTV. I've burned 720p HD Xvids onto CDRs and then tried to watch them on my tv, but it doesn't play the video, only audio. So there's SOMETHING about it that isn't supporting Higher than 480p res yet.
I remember those old EggHead B&M stores. Shortly after they all went away, I noticed that NewEgg sprung up online. I just assumed that NewEgg was the reincarnation of Egghead. ANyone know for sure?
I wonder. I mean, who really wants to play BR discs and watch them in 1080p on their computer screens? Still, if AACS gets hacked, then we could still ripp the content in nice HD-glory, and once ripped, strip of DRM (like how Shrink strips DVDs of Macrovision, region locking, PUOPs), and save as an.ISO file or convert to a nice x.264 Matroska file, which, given the 1080p source and the (say) 20" screen, should look just fine (and better than DVDs).
For people talking about quality of DVD vs. HD, I'll say that HD is noticeably better (and just comparing OTA HD). It's not just the resolution increase, but it's the storage capacity/bandwidth increase. One of the biggest irritants for me with DVDs are the noticeable compressions artifacts. If there were a DVD25 (25GB SD DVD) that allowed for SD DVD but with a 3x increased bitrate, that ALONE would make me happy. Now add in 2.5x resolition and... well, hopefully that won't reintroduce artifacts:P
btw, I've heard that BR was going to use h.264 and WMV-HD while HD-DVD was going to conitnue to use MPEG2. Somewhere else, i heard that neither was going to use h.264 and that both were going to use MPEG2. Can someone confirm?
I recall one of the reasons for early adopters to buy into DVD ($30) was that it was CHEAPER than Laserdiscs ($39.99 msrp) or VHS (mostly rental priced at $99.99 msrp).
It will be a much tougher sell to get people to jump onto the BR bandwagon, i think.
My only guess is that paying $2 per ep for an entire season run is prohibitive for most, but paying $2 for an ep to see what people are talking about is not. Once you pay the $2 for the ep and like it, then you can note to watch it live for free.
The 3 factors that are different from iTunes and usenet/BT are:
1. Cost. Xvids are free. iPod format (what are they, Quicktime?) are $2 per ep
2. Quality. Xvids are 480p or 720p. iPod format is like 240p?
3. Choice. usenet/BT has just about anything on it includign HBO and SHOWTIME shows. iTunes has limited selection of NBC and ABC shows.
If iTunes wre cheaper, say, $20/month flat fee unltd downloads (a la Netflix) and had a wide range of shows, would anyone bother to watch live?
Hell, why do people watch live NOW? Why not just DVR it?
AIUI, BluRay has decided to NOT use new codecs (h.264) for BluRay and instead is going to use MPEG-2 combined with the larger capacity to do HD.
-goro-
Does anyone use the ACD or this new 30" Dell for watching vids? I've got the 24" Dell on my Alienware with the ATI X1800XT and use it to watch Xvids all the time and I love it. The card has built in h.264 decoding and watching 720p and 1080p vids on teh 24 incher is great. I'm thinking about sticking the 30" on also and using that to primarily watch vids of HD stuff until BluRay and HD-DVD war gets worked out.
I recall reading that MS wanted Sony to remove the DRM from the BluRay drive so that it would output a clean (non-DRMd) stream to the XBox. Sony declined and that's why they went with HD-DVD. This begs the question as to what kind of DRM is on the HD-DVD video stream.
Right now, i have a nice dvd player that will play Xvids, but it chokes on hires Xvids and won't recognize Matroska containers at all. Give me a good dvd player that will play h.264 video from MKVs and I'd gladly forget all about Sony's BLUR-ay and HDDVD.
Any time I'm looking for something (say XFILES), I get swamped with bootlegs and pseudo-boots and sometimes the only way to "tell" that it's not an R1 authentic DVD is to look at where the seller is selling from.
I bought the HISTORY OF BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD dvd for a good but not great price. It was a reasonable price and i was just browsing around so i wasn't too diligent, but it seemed fine. Then i get it and it's a color-laster printed cover, with a DVD+R. Grrrrrreat. I cold've just resold it on ebay but they prolly would've shut ME down...
-goro-
Slashdot Mirror
So they're just like blogs...
"I don't want to sell anything manufactured or processed. I don't want to manufacture anything that will be sold or processed. And i don't want to process anything that was manufactured or sold..."
-goro-
It's probably b/c of that stupid iPhone autocorrect feature that always seems to pick the absolute most incorrect word you might be typing... Oh, and it's so nice that Apple doesn't allow you to TURN THAT FEATURE OFF>.!!!
The only really meaningful, interesting social interactions are (for the most part) with the friends you bring with you to facebook. The discussions occuring in the groups they have are mindnumbing compared to usenet newgroups (which is saying something). So it's not a place (imho) to meet people, but in keeping up with friends and friends of friends or in finding old, lost friends, it's quite reasonable. I have come into contact with some old friends with whom I've lost touch via facebook so for that alone, i'm happy to have an account. Some of the developed apps are cute and fun and they do add a component to socializing with your friends. My vampire gets attacked all the time, a sheep is thrown at me, a cookie is given to me, ...
And some of the apps are actually interesting: flixster embedded in facebook to allow for comparing movies and sharing reviews with friends, visual bookshelf to list your books read/want to read/currently reading and compare against friends.
Yes, I like facebook ok and i can really see how kids in high school, just graduating high school, in college, or just graduating from college would find it a Killer App.
And in Cupertino and Austin, the iTunes business teams are high-fiving. As the industry insists on implementing 20-year old business models, Apple Inc. no longer really needs to update their iTunes services, as it will be another 25 years before the industry realizes that PEOPLE DON'T WANT TO BUY PLASTIC DISCS ANYMORE...... --- At which time, the RIAA will re-introduce magnetic tape media... -goro-
... except about the "Internet age."
Kids that surf the internet have lowered attention spans...
On the one hand, Firefox users are insignificant and so won't negatively affect a website's hit. On the other hand, they do not click on ads thus "stealing" revenue. So if they are insignificant enough to not worry about, then why go out of your way to ban them?
I thought the Image Constraint Token was only for Component Video and NOT HDMI? iirc (and i could be wrong), the Image Constraint Token was to limit the image quality to 480p via Component or to let the full image thru.
So now a good reason for the iPhone to not have video recording!
I have the OPPO Digital player that plays Xvids and a 50" Samsung DLP HDTV. I've burned 720p HD Xvids onto CDRs and then tried to watch them on my tv, but it doesn't play the video, only audio. So there's SOMETHING about it that isn't supporting Higher than 480p res yet.
I remember those old EggHead B&M stores. Shortly after they all went away, I noticed that NewEgg sprung up online. I just assumed that NewEgg was the reincarnation of Egghead. ANyone know for sure?
And it's Gooogle.
== online Gambling even if you mean online RPG.
For people talking about quality of DVD vs. HD, I'll say that HD is noticeably better (and just comparing OTA HD). It's not just the resolution increase, but it's the storage capacity/bandwidth increase. One of the biggest irritants for me with DVDs are the noticeable compressions artifacts. If there were a DVD25 (25GB SD DVD) that allowed for SD DVD but with a 3x increased bitrate, that ALONE would make me happy. Now add in 2.5x resolition and ... well, hopefully that won't reintroduce artifacts :P
btw, I've heard that BR was going to use h.264 and WMV-HD while HD-DVD was going to conitnue to use MPEG2. Somewhere else, i heard that neither was going to use h.264 and that both were going to use MPEG2. Can someone confirm?
It will be a much tougher sell to get people to jump onto the BR bandwagon, i think.
The 3 factors that are different from iTunes and usenet/BT are:
1. Cost. Xvids are free. iPod format (what are they, Quicktime?) are $2 per ep
2. Quality. Xvids are 480p or 720p. iPod format is like 240p?
3. Choice. usenet/BT has just about anything on it includign HBO and SHOWTIME shows. iTunes has limited selection of NBC and ABC shows.
If iTunes wre cheaper, say, $20/month flat fee unltd downloads (a la Netflix) and had a wide range of shows, would anyone bother to watch live?
Hell, why do people watch live NOW? Why not just DVR it?
Any confusion arising from this will be cleared up to the consumer by the diligent, highly reliable, intelligent workers at Best Buy.
AIUI, BluRay has decided to NOT use new codecs (h.264) for BluRay and instead is going to use MPEG-2 combined with the larger capacity to do HD. -goro-
-goro-
I recall reading that MS wanted Sony to remove the DRM from the BluRay drive so that it would output a clean (non-DRMd) stream to the XBox. Sony declined and that's why they went with HD-DVD. This begs the question as to what kind of DRM is on the HD-DVD video stream.
Right now, i have a nice dvd player that will play Xvids, but it chokes on hires Xvids and won't recognize Matroska containers at all. Give me a good dvd player that will play h.264 video from MKVs and I'd gladly forget all about Sony's BLUR-ay and HDDVD.
Any time I'm looking for something (say XFILES), I get swamped with bootlegs and pseudo-boots and sometimes the only way to "tell" that it's not an R1 authentic DVD is to look at where the seller is selling from. I bought the HISTORY OF BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD dvd for a good but not great price. It was a reasonable price and i was just browsing around so i wasn't too diligent, but it seemed fine. Then i get it and it's a color-laster printed cover, with a DVD+R. Grrrrrreat. I cold've just resold it on ebay but they prolly would've shut ME down... -goro-
-goro-
-goro-
"We've lost thousands of men to this insidious weapon."
"Well why don't you just NOT pick it up?"
-goro-