As I recall, the Nevada casinos are required to post the expected payout and odds on the machines.
I'm just another person adding some unsubstantiated facts, but what I've read is that Vegas casinos have a required payout for the entire casino, but that the restrictions are much more lax for the specific machines. I saw this in a story relating to a large gambling win (someone won several million on a Superbowl a couple of years back), and how the casino really doesn't care because they'll just reduce the odds on the slot machines to come in exactly on the mandated casino wide payout ratio. Slot machines are a brilliant aspect of the casinos because they're one game where they really can have insurance over their income.
Indeed, it is a tax haven up here. After paying the three taxes on gas (something like 58% of the cost of gas...and the government has the audacity to talk about constraints and controls on the oil companies when people get up in arms about high gas prices...), approximately 95% of my weekly commute is on an electronic toll road (the 407 ETR) where I'm paying 12.95 cents per kilometer driven (that's ~20 cents per mile) to some Spanish consortium who was basically handed land that was supposed to be the 403 extension, long set aside at the tax payers expense, all because there are no viable alternative routes as the existing highways, like the QEW, are a 100km long traffic jam. At the same time the provincial government is acting as the toll collectors for this private enterprise, and is in, from a conspiratorial perspective, curiously disregarding the public non-toll infrastructure (who'd know if collusion was a part of the deal : The entire bid and agreement was a secret process and is largerly secret from the public eye).
One quick nitpick though: Yes I know we have the best hospitals -It's easy to have awesome healtcare for the president at the Mayo clinic, but that's of little relevence to Jimmy in the middle of nowheresville. A better measure of the quality of healthcare is average lifespan - Canada's average livespan is 79.6. Japan's is 80.91. Italy is 79.25. The United States of America is 77.4.
Microsoft ships their browser for free with the OS
It's a pretty wide gap of logic to call shipping it with the OS "free". The last time I checked Windows XP cost $200.
MS is slapped on the wrist by the Gov't and promises to play nice, ships OS update to remove the IE icon from the desktop.
Indeed, Microsoft had to release a tool to allow the end user to pretend it didn't exist if they wanted. However the "removing an icon" isn't some big win for the consumer: That whole debate was about the right of VAR's, not consumers, to choose what you would get. In other words it's moving the forceful control from one large company to another. (Don't think Mega Hardware Company wanted the right because they love you. They want the right to get into lucrative cross promotion agreements. If Microsoft didn't maintain brand control over your desktop, I wouldn't at all be surprized to see some brands shipping with ads on the desktop. Maybe preinstalled Gator).
MS announces even tighter integration of IE into the OS.
To me the tighter integration is exactly what many critics wanted: Now to get IE 7 (or the integrated simile) you'll have to buy the next operating system: There is no way anyone can call that "free". Microsoft's claims that it was part and parcel with the operating system before was hard to justify given that one could download the same newer version for older OS', and even for alternate OS'.
This is the specific point of the parent and grandparent post: ATI's action was questionable and bordering on fraudulent, but they were "optimizing" a game that people actually play, with a specific branch for quake that altered settings accordingly: 99.9+% of the times that this "optimization" would take effect would be people actually playing the game, versus gathering benchmark numbers. The quake hack didn't have a "if (bBenchmarking)" condition.
From what it sounds like, nvidia purportedly altered something for the specific purposes of deceiving a benchmark. A benchmark has the sole purpose of benchmarking, so there is absolutely no justification for "optimizations" for a benchmark.
The point is that ATI had a pretty tenuous justification (that they were optimizing for Quake 3 as it's the engine behind a large number of games), but if this is the case then nvidia has none.
Of course, you could've bought a tap for $10 at the hardware store and done it yourself.
And had bits of metal floating around in my oil, scoring the inside of the engine... No, I won't be doing that, thanks, though that is the wrong way to do it. Instead you have to drop the oil pan (can't do that in the driveway), replace the oil pan gasket, tap and clean the pan, and replace.
Sure, if you own all the tools and have handy access to an car lift, etc. Otherwise it's a dangerous bitch trying to elevate your car and crawl under it to discover that you need a 47/55 Johnsson 17/44 Special Crank that is only useful on one model of one make of car, etc.
Having said that, I just got the oil pan in my car re-tapped because the guys at the place where I get it changed, and have for the past two years, liberally stripped it and even when specifically requested to look at it pretended that nothing was wrong. $300 because someone is too eager with a wrench.
They just don't take the games as seriously as you do and enjoy making a mockery of your competition.
Yes, they don't take it seriously enough that they covertly and as secretly as possible spend hours every night attempting to earn the respect for their gameplay...clearly they're, err, "mocking" (at least after they're caught). You must be the kid who sent love notes to girls, and when they laughed you away claimed that you were "just joking". The world is all a retrospective laugh to the pathetic.
an online gamer calling someone else the 'weak of the herd'?!?
Yes, "online gamers" are a real rare breed these days, now aren't they. 1989 called: They'd like you to move out and maybe get your own place in the modern world, where pretty much everyone partakes in this newfangled thing called "the internet". The only ones who would proudly proclaim that they don't participate in online gamers are the dumb.
Having said that, the point is that healthy, "competitive" adults like a fair challenge, even if it means losing. I'm not the greatest player in many of the games I play, yet when I am beaten I can respect the gameplay of the opponent, and accept defeat graciously. That is unless you magically get blindsided time after time, and then spectate the culprit to watch an obvious wallhacker and aimbotter at work, smashing down everything around them. I remember first going online with Diablo to give it a shot to find 900 hp "level 2s" who would just sit in the dungeon killing everyone who came along: These are the anti-social a-holes who sneak out at night to kick down snowmen and smash pumpkins.
Most cheats are well known. For Quake III based, OGC (that's an interesting page in general with good screenshots) is well known and often suspected.
However I think the problem isn't so much at LAN games where you have actual physical people who'll clearly see if you're turning on auto-aim or wallhacks, but rather online games where every person is isolated, and the only monitoring is the realism of their gameplay. Some guys, like Urban Terror, allow some players to spectate, or to spectate after they die, and this can allow one to look over someone's shoulder and determine, to a pretty good accuracy, if their play seems skillfully good, or unreasonable. Wallhackers, for instance, are generally brutally obvious.
Most online games I've played have been ruined by hackers. From Diablo, to Quake 3, to America's Army. Cheaters in online games are not only morally reprehensible, they seem to have a very weak desire to be challenged, and hence can often be considered the weak of the herd.
Brilliant application, thanks for pointing it out. I'm a huge fan of Opera, so adding this to the whole OS is pretty sweet. I'm very surprized I haven't heard about this app before.
This whole discussion is just a riot (who ever thought we'd see Mac fans regurgitate from the depths yet again to tell the world why their platform is superior, and by extrapolation they are superior. Reading that it took OS X, a open rip of FreeBSD, to beat Windows because "they waited until they got it right and stable" is especially funny given that NT 3.5 was rock solid, but then MS decided to lean more towards the client arena [i.e. high performance video]), and I've restrained myself after idiotic post after idiotic post, however I enjoy replying to the outright lies.
Um.... You do know that most of NT was purchaced by MS, not written by them, right?
It was, was it? In what raving fanatics fanzine pat-each-other-on-the-back and convince yourselves your fantasty world is reality site did you read that? Please provide some facts to back up this BS.
The reality, of course, is that NT was developed in-house along with IBM, in an effort to make the "New Technology" operating system to replace Windows 3.1 (though the Apple camp stayed with Windows 3.1-style technology until, oh, about 2000). IBM and Microsoft parted ways, with IBM taking their ball home and calling it OS/2, and Microsoft continuing theirs as NT. I'm eagerly waiting your facts to the contrary (though it'll be the classic FUD that is seen on Slashdot: Proof through repetition. Wait, Microsoft uses Berkeley style sockets, like virtually every IP-using OS on the market---THEY RIPPED THE BSD STACK!)
The fact that the parent post was moderated up to +5 says so much about Slashdot...
I work in enterprise development and analysis, and it's funny how different the "real world" is from the "fantasy world" that many Slashdotters manufacture for themselves here, patting each other on the back and assuring themselves of their righteousness.
Ah, correlating for your own political benefit (I'm going to guess that you're from Alberta...just a wild guess). Well the dollar has gained about 13% in the past couple of months, so I guess we'd damn well better vote the Liberals back in to keep this going, means that they're directly responsible for its valuation.
Of course the reality is that our dollar value is completely controlled by the US government (as they value or devalue their own). It has little to do with the actions of the Liberals, or the "soft hearted" (are you "hard hearted"? I think you're looking for a disparaging word for Liberal supporters, but if "soft hearted" is the best you can come up with then you should buy a thesaurus).
This joke has never been very funny, however now with a plummeting US $ (the Canadian dollar has gained about 14% against the US $ in the past couple of months), it really seems tired. For the record $8,494 US $ is about $11,806 Canadian $.
why in the hell do I want to actually see the film as it was made if it means that my image will be slightly smaller (vertically, but not missing anything).
The irony is that most films are shot in a format that is largely the same as TV. Of those that aren't, the 4:3 format is a serious consideration when they film the movie, so in most cases the transition is simply chopping out irrelevant crap.
Resolution tends not to change significantly. It's the same as with larger televisions. You don't get a higher resolution picture, just a larger one.
You see here's the funny thing: Your TV doesn't know, or care, whether you're watching widescreen or P&S : The DVD is feeding it a signal that seems to have a significant number of black lines, followed by some image, followed by more black lines. Apart from a few special TVs, the resolution IS completely lost. Even for those TVs that have circuitry to detect this and to narrow the scan gun to the widescreen area, the aperature grill has a fixed number of points. Again you lose resolution.
Perhaps the problem here is watching shitty movies where shot composition doesn't matter and you don't really care whether you actually see the image properly.
Good old elitism. The last bastion of the idiotic sputtering fools.
Ugh....I should have previewed...forgot about the damn less than character...
I've noticed that more and more programs on my TV are being letterboxed...
No, that's to cater to the sucker mentality that letterbox=elite (as is evidenced throughout this thread): When a show or commercial wants to seem classy or refined, here comes the letterbox!
The reality, of course, is that watching a letterboxed movie on a <27" 4:3 TV is the height of absurdity (unless the movie has cinematic qualities which require it to be letterbox, like wide scenic vistas. The overwhelming majority of movies are dramas and comedies where P&S is absolutely sufficient to convey the theater experience in the home). The usable resolution is dramatically reduced (your TV doesn't suddenly sprout more lines of resolution...so suddenly instead of 500 lines of resolution you have 300 or so), giving you a technically inferior picture, all the while the elitists crow about how letterbox is the only way to go...uh huh.
For a couple of movies I get the letterboxed, but by and large I get P&S full screen. It's a waste of resolution to do otherwise.
I've noticed that more and more programs on my TV are being letterboxed...
No, that's to cater to the sucker mentality that letterbox=elite (as is evidenced throughout this thread): When a show or commercial wants to seem classy or refined, here comes the letterbox!
The reality, of course, is that watching a letterboxed movie on a require it to be letterbox, like wide scenic vistas. The overwhelming majority of movies are dramas and comedies where P&S is absolutely sufficient to convey the theater experience in the home). The usable resolution is dramatically reduced (your TV doesn't suddenly sprout more lines of resolution), giving you a technically inferior picture, all the while the elitists crow about how letterbox is the only way to go...uh huh.
For a couple of movies I get the letterboxed, but by and large I get P&S full screen. It's a waste of resolution to do otherwise.
Upon re-reading this I have come to realize that you perhaps were not-so-subtly taking issue with the fact that I indicted China in the exporting of devastating diseases. SARS, of course, originated most likely in the Guangdong province of China where they practice ultra-intensive livestock farming, and hygeine of livestock is rare. The Spanish Flu, another worldwide pandemic, also is suspected of originating in the Guangdong province of China. The Asian Bird Flu, a flu that was thankfully contained by a massive effort (and could be considered a "SARS beta version"), again originated in the Guangdong province of China. Viruses have a habit of forming where there is a lack of hygeine (referring to animals held in quarters that disallow them from persuing instinctive hygeine), and lots of hosts to facilitate mutations. Couple that with a government that likes to cover up epidemics, and you have the virus factory that is China. This, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with Chinatown in Toronto (and any correlation would be an act of astounding racism on the part of the wanna-be-PC bleeding heart).
Yes, when I proclaimed that we were making quick headway creating a vaccine for SARS, that was apocalyptic. Whatever.
There are a lot of people, probably including yourself, that believe that by proclaiming the best, it'll magically come about. This tends to be a Western phenomena, which is why we don't wear masks in public: It offends us if someone else wears a mask because that weakens our delusion of invincibility.
Actually Chinatown was hit just the same as every other entertainment and food venue in the city, but in a hilarious bit of reverse racism, everyone rallied to applaud poor Chinatown, and to ostracize society for their racism (ignore the fact that Chinatown is primarily patronized by Chinese, and hence it was self-directed "racism", if any at all). Oh good hearted people all! At the same time restaurants through the city were wondering why politicians weren't lining up at their door, when they had just as bad of a drop in business.
One thing I hold pride about Canada, versus say China, is that we don't bullshit, and we're very transparent: We _did_ have a short lived epidemic (which is that it quickly spread) that some heroic healthcare got under control. Being pedantic about terminology just reeks of information supression.
I'd say you are safer in toronto than in the states...at least your are less likely to get shot.
You absolutely are safer in absolute terms, and indeed you seem a little defensive that I mentioned "Toronto" and "SARS" in the same paragraph. Yes your chance of getting SARS visiting Toronto is negligable (and certainly far less than being mugged in New York), however my whole point was that this is not, and has never been, a "Toronto" problem : We live in a world of jetliners and quick travel - It's a world problem. Do you think SARS will disappear into the ether? Of course it won't. It'll likely take hold in several third world nations where it'll reappear in the "First World" every so often, at tremendous costs.
The entire reason for the Toronto case was inept health care workers that were not on the lookout for these symptoms
Yes, because every single health care worker in Ontario is inept, and every single health care worker in BC is brilliant and informed. BULLSHIT, and it points a giant flashlight on your naevity. Both system of health care workers have access and knowledge of the same information (Ontario's government put out the same alert as BC), but BC got LUCKY (yes, LUCKY) because the front-line worker who got the first case happened to be one rare individual who kept up on the updates, while Toronto got unlucky that the front-line worker there didn't. I assure you, and I'll say this with certainty, that both locals probably have the same ratio of people who follow the medical listservs and those who don't. Don't buy into the politicizing BS lines from those who want to use a situation for their political advantage.
Sure there have been some "younger" people die from SARS in Toronto but most are very old.
Did I say otherwise? There have been a 39 and a 44 year old healthy males dying. The doctor who first alerted the West was in perfect shape and died at 44 in Hong Kong. There are very few illnesses that do that in a 10 day period (and they are among the world's most feared).
A nurse travelled on a commuter train from Toronto to Burlington and back WITHOUT INFECTING ANYBODY.
Thanks for the lesson, Sherlock. The funny thing is that I take that GO train. The nurse in question didn't talk or sneeze during the entire ride, which was likely the saving grace. In Hong Kong whole apartment complexes, or a large percentage thereof, have come down with it just by going by each other in common areas, and you're pretending they have to French kiss each other to get it.
If you are not around a hospital with an infected person, you have no chance of contacting the virus.
Did you miss the whole point of my message? A individual in Malaysia claimed that they were "safe" from SARS in Malaysia : No they aren't. It's one guy who thinks he has a cold and is too manly to see his doctor that could cause a major outbreak. We have it contained in Canada due to extraordinary measures of health care workers (despite the know-it-all armchair criticism of assholes like you, or politicians trying to score some point by stabbing them in the back), but it takes just one more guy flying in, and one more bit of bad luck. This holds true for the entire world, btw, not just Canada. As a Canadian I'm under little increased risk than a guy in Phoenix or New Zealand : Unless you shut down global travel...
Stop the sensationalism.
Oh, gee, I'm sorry. 6% death rate. 23 dead in Toronto alone (ignore the indirect death rate, which is those that are going to die because of deferred treatment due to a devastated health care system). SARS is very likely to take hold in third world nations that can't effectively contain it, and it may very well become a part of life. Sticking your head in the sand and proclaiming that it's no biggie.
As a bit of clarification if any Torontonian calls me on my declaration of downtown Toronto as "Ground Zero": Ground zero is really Scarborough to the East, however I was speaking more with symbology of the visualization of Toronto by the world. Cheers!
In Canada month/day/year is also common (largely because we share so much technical literature with the US). The reasoning often given is that most people say "October 5th, 2003", and not "The fifth of October, 2003", so the numerical ordering follows the verbal ordering.
Having said that, they both stink because of the existence of the other. The simple fact that I have to wonder what "02/03/05" refers to because of the competing standards renders them all flawed. The only standard that anyone should use is the ISO 8601, which is as you mention yyyy-mm-dd (it's hardly a "Japanese" system - It's been used and advocated as a "metric" sort of date for many decades).
I live in Malaysia, which is relatively safe from SARS
I wouldn't really proclaim that it's "relatively safe from SARS" : All it takes it one infected person. Toronto (I am sitting in a building beside First Canadian Place in downtown Toronto right now...ground zero, if you will, of the Canadian epidemic) has suffered billions of dollars of economic damage, and some 23 deaths, because one sneezing person came home from a visit to Hong Kong. No one is safe from SARS, and the reality is that after we've got the vectors from the first person (which has largely been heroic health care staff who deserve tremendous respect), it's only a plane ride away from the next guy, and then it's all started again. For those who thought this was just a disease the elderly should worry about (as a hilarious Daily Show humored "If you're 80 with respiratory illness, you should make your peace with God before you go around licking doorknobs"), note that here in Toronto we've had a 39 and a 44 year old, both with no other reported medical conditions, die from SARS.
BTW: For those who think asking some questions at the airport, or doing thermal scans, are protection, realize that while they're better than nothing, they really are more of an illusion of safety than a true protection: They depend upon a person to be in a very specific state of the disease to be evident, but it's still extremely likely to get by in prior or latter stages, at which point it starts all over again. Why Toronto got hit hard while other cities didn't is largely a result of blind (bad) luck than anything else.
Thankfully the virus suspected, the coronavirus, they have had some success making vaccines for (unlike most other virses), so there is hope against this disease that is currently causing about a 6-7% death rate, and some claim that a vaccine is right around the corner. That'll hold us over until the next disease filters out of the "intensive livestock" of the provinces of China which has been quite effective at incompetently exporting weapons of mass destruction.
Slashdot Mirror
As I recall, the Nevada casinos are required to post the expected payout and odds on the machines.
I'm just another person adding some unsubstantiated facts, but what I've read is that Vegas casinos have a required payout for the entire casino, but that the restrictions are much more lax for the specific machines. I saw this in a story relating to a large gambling win (someone won several million on a Superbowl a couple of years back), and how the casino really doesn't care because they'll just reduce the odds on the slot machines to come in exactly on the mandated casino wide payout ratio. Slot machines are a brilliant aspect of the casinos because they're one game where they really can have insurance over their income.
Indeed, it is a tax haven up here. After paying the three taxes on gas (something like 58% of the cost of gas...and the government has the audacity to talk about constraints and controls on the oil companies when people get up in arms about high gas prices...), approximately 95% of my weekly commute is on an electronic toll road (the 407 ETR) where I'm paying 12.95 cents per kilometer driven (that's ~20 cents per mile) to some Spanish consortium who was basically handed land that was supposed to be the 403 extension, long set aside at the tax payers expense, all because there are no viable alternative routes as the existing highways, like the QEW, are a 100km long traffic jam. At the same time the provincial government is acting as the toll collectors for this private enterprise, and is in, from a conspiratorial perspective, curiously disregarding the public non-toll infrastructure (who'd know if collusion was a part of the deal : The entire bid and agreement was a secret process and is largerly secret from the public eye).
One quick nitpick though: Yes I know we have the best hospitals -It's easy to have awesome healtcare for the president at the Mayo clinic, but that's of little relevence to Jimmy in the middle of nowheresville. A better measure of the quality of healthcare is average lifespan - Canada's average livespan is 79.6. Japan's is 80.91. Italy is 79.25. The United States of America is 77.4.
Microsoft ships their browser for free with the OS
It's a pretty wide gap of logic to call shipping it with the OS "free". The last time I checked Windows XP cost $200.
MS is slapped on the wrist by the Gov't and promises to play nice, ships OS update to remove the IE icon from the desktop.
Indeed, Microsoft had to release a tool to allow the end user to pretend it didn't exist if they wanted. However the "removing an icon" isn't some big win for the consumer: That whole debate was about the right of VAR's, not consumers, to choose what you would get. In other words it's moving the forceful control from one large company to another. (Don't think Mega Hardware Company wanted the right because they love you. They want the right to get into lucrative cross promotion agreements. If Microsoft didn't maintain brand control over your desktop, I wouldn't at all be surprized to see some brands shipping with ads on the desktop. Maybe preinstalled Gator).
MS announces even tighter integration of IE into the OS.
To me the tighter integration is exactly what many critics wanted: Now to get IE 7 (or the integrated simile) you'll have to buy the next operating system: There is no way anyone can call that "free". Microsoft's claims that it was part and parcel with the operating system before was hard to justify given that one could download the same newer version for older OS', and even for alternate OS'.
This is the specific point of the parent and grandparent post: ATI's action was questionable and bordering on fraudulent, but they were "optimizing" a game that people actually play, with a specific branch for quake that altered settings accordingly: 99.9+% of the times that this "optimization" would take effect would be people actually playing the game, versus gathering benchmark numbers. The quake hack didn't have a "if (bBenchmarking)" condition.
From what it sounds like, nvidia purportedly altered something for the specific purposes of deceiving a benchmark. A benchmark has the sole purpose of benchmarking, so there is absolutely no justification for "optimizations" for a benchmark.
The point is that ATI had a pretty tenuous justification (that they were optimizing for Quake 3 as it's the engine behind a large number of games), but if this is the case then nvidia has none.
Of course, you could've bought a tap for $10 at the hardware store and done it yourself.
And had bits of metal floating around in my oil, scoring the inside of the engine... No, I won't be doing that, thanks, though that is the wrong way to do it. Instead you have to drop the oil pan (can't do that in the driveway), replace the oil pan gasket, tap and clean the pan, and replace.
...it's cheaper...
Sure, if you own all the tools and have handy access to an car lift, etc. Otherwise it's a dangerous bitch trying to elevate your car and crawl under it to discover that you need a 47/55 Johnsson 17/44 Special Crank that is only useful on one model of one make of car, etc.
Having said that, I just got the oil pan in my car re-tapped because the guys at the place where I get it changed, and have for the past two years, liberally stripped it and even when specifically requested to look at it pretended that nothing was wrong. $300 because someone is too eager with a wrench.
They just don't take the games as seriously as you do and enjoy making a mockery of your competition.
Yes, they don't take it seriously enough that they covertly and as secretly as possible spend hours every night attempting to earn the respect for their gameplay...clearly they're, err, "mocking" (at least after they're caught). You must be the kid who sent love notes to girls, and when they laughed you away claimed that you were "just joking". The world is all a retrospective laugh to the pathetic.
an online gamer calling someone else the 'weak of the herd'?!?
Yes, "online gamers" are a real rare breed these days, now aren't they. 1989 called: They'd like you to move out and maybe get your own place in the modern world, where pretty much everyone partakes in this newfangled thing called "the internet". The only ones who would proudly proclaim that they don't participate in online gamers are the dumb.
Having said that, the point is that healthy, "competitive" adults like a fair challenge, even if it means losing. I'm not the greatest player in many of the games I play, yet when I am beaten I can respect the gameplay of the opponent, and accept defeat graciously. That is unless you magically get blindsided time after time, and then spectate the culprit to watch an obvious wallhacker and aimbotter at work, smashing down everything around them. I remember first going online with Diablo to give it a shot to find 900 hp "level 2s" who would just sit in the dungeon killing everyone who came along: These are the anti-social a-holes who sneak out at night to kick down snowmen and smash pumpkins.
Most cheats are well known. For Quake III based, OGC (that's an interesting page in general with good screenshots) is well known and often suspected.
However I think the problem isn't so much at LAN games where you have actual physical people who'll clearly see if you're turning on auto-aim or wallhacks, but rather online games where every person is isolated, and the only monitoring is the realism of their gameplay. Some guys, like Urban Terror, allow some players to spectate, or to spectate after they die, and this can allow one to look over someone's shoulder and determine, to a pretty good accuracy, if their play seems skillfully good, or unreasonable. Wallhackers, for instance, are generally brutally obvious.
Most online games I've played have been ruined by hackers. From Diablo, to Quake 3, to America's Army. Cheaters in online games are not only morally reprehensible, they seem to have a very weak desire to be challenged, and hence can often be considered the weak of the herd.
Brilliant application, thanks for pointing it out. I'm a huge fan of Opera, so adding this to the whole OS is pretty sweet. I'm very surprized I haven't heard about this app before.
Though they're not quite as bad as the Klingon speaking mentally ill in Oregon...
This whole discussion is just a riot (who ever thought we'd see Mac fans regurgitate from the depths yet again to tell the world why their platform is superior, and by extrapolation they are superior. Reading that it took OS X, a open rip of FreeBSD, to beat Windows because "they waited until they got it right and stable" is especially funny given that NT 3.5 was rock solid, but then MS decided to lean more towards the client arena [i.e. high performance video]), and I've restrained myself after idiotic post after idiotic post, however I enjoy replying to the outright lies.
Um.... You do know that most of NT was purchaced by MS, not written by them, right?
It was, was it? In what raving fanatics fanzine pat-each-other-on-the-back and convince yourselves your fantasty world is reality site did you read that? Please provide some facts to back up this BS.
The reality, of course, is that NT was developed in-house along with IBM, in an effort to make the "New Technology" operating system to replace Windows 3.1 (though the Apple camp stayed with Windows 3.1-style technology until, oh, about 2000). IBM and Microsoft parted ways, with IBM taking their ball home and calling it OS/2, and Microsoft continuing theirs as NT. I'm eagerly waiting your facts to the contrary (though it'll be the classic FUD that is seen on Slashdot: Proof through repetition. Wait, Microsoft uses Berkeley style sockets, like virtually every IP-using OS on the market---THEY RIPPED THE BSD STACK!)
The fact that the parent post was moderated up to +5 says so much about Slashdot...
I work in enterprise development and analysis, and it's funny how different the "real world" is from the "fantasy world" that many Slashdotters manufacture for themselves here, patting each other on the back and assuring themselves of their righteousness.
Ah, correlating for your own political benefit (I'm going to guess that you're from Alberta...just a wild guess). Well the dollar has gained about 13% in the past couple of months, so I guess we'd damn well better vote the Liberals back in to keep this going, means that they're directly responsible for its valuation.
Of course the reality is that our dollar value is completely controlled by the US government (as they value or devalue their own). It has little to do with the actions of the Liberals, or the "soft hearted" (are you "hard hearted"? I think you're looking for a disparaging word for Liberal supporters, but if "soft hearted" is the best you can come up with then you should buy a thesaurus).
This joke has never been very funny, however now with a plummeting US $ (the Canadian dollar has gained about 14% against the US $ in the past couple of months), it really seems tired. For the record $8,494 US $ is about $11,806 Canadian $.
Cheers
why in the hell do I want to actually see the film as it was made if it means that my image will be slightly smaller (vertically, but not missing anything).
The irony is that most films are shot in a format that is largely the same as TV. Of those that aren't, the 4:3 format is a serious consideration when they film the movie, so in most cases the transition is simply chopping out irrelevant crap.
Resolution tends not to change significantly. It's the same as with larger televisions. You don't get a higher resolution picture, just a larger one.
You see here's the funny thing: Your TV doesn't know, or care, whether you're watching widescreen or P&S : The DVD is feeding it a signal that seems to have a significant number of black lines, followed by some image, followed by more black lines. Apart from a few special TVs, the resolution IS completely lost. Even for those TVs that have circuitry to detect this and to narrow the scan gun to the widescreen area, the aperature grill has a fixed number of points. Again you lose resolution.
Perhaps the problem here is watching shitty movies where shot composition doesn't matter and you don't really care whether you actually see the image properly.
Good old elitism. The last bastion of the idiotic sputtering fools.
Ugh....I should have previewed...forgot about the damn less than character...
I've noticed that more and more programs on my TV are being letterboxed...
No, that's to cater to the sucker mentality that letterbox=elite (as is evidenced throughout this thread): When a show or commercial wants to seem classy or refined, here comes the letterbox!
The reality, of course, is that watching a letterboxed movie on a <27" 4:3 TV is the height of absurdity (unless the movie has cinematic qualities which require it to be letterbox, like wide scenic vistas. The overwhelming majority of movies are dramas and comedies where P&S is absolutely sufficient to convey the theater experience in the home). The usable resolution is dramatically reduced (your TV doesn't suddenly sprout more lines of resolution...so suddenly instead of 500 lines of resolution you have 300 or so), giving you a technically inferior picture, all the while the elitists crow about how letterbox is the only way to go...uh huh.
For a couple of movies I get the letterboxed, but by and large I get P&S full screen. It's a waste of resolution to do otherwise.
I've noticed that more and more programs on my TV are being letterboxed...
No, that's to cater to the sucker mentality that letterbox=elite (as is evidenced throughout this thread): When a show or commercial wants to seem classy or refined, here comes the letterbox!
The reality, of course, is that watching a letterboxed movie on a require it to be letterbox, like wide scenic vistas. The overwhelming majority of movies are dramas and comedies where P&S is absolutely sufficient to convey the theater experience in the home). The usable resolution is dramatically reduced (your TV doesn't suddenly sprout more lines of resolution), giving you a technically inferior picture, all the while the elitists crow about how letterbox is the only way to go...uh huh.
For a couple of movies I get the letterboxed, but by and large I get P&S full screen. It's a waste of resolution to do otherwise.
...due to hysteria and ignorance....
Upon re-reading this I have come to realize that you perhaps were not-so-subtly taking issue with the fact that I indicted China in the exporting of devastating diseases. SARS, of course, originated most likely in the Guangdong province of China where they practice ultra-intensive livestock farming, and hygeine of livestock is rare. The Spanish Flu, another worldwide pandemic, also is suspected of originating in the Guangdong province of China. The Asian Bird Flu, a flu that was thankfully contained by a massive effort (and could be considered a "SARS beta version"), again originated in the Guangdong province of China. Viruses have a habit of forming where there is a lack of hygeine (referring to animals held in quarters that disallow them from persuing instinctive hygeine), and lots of hosts to facilitate mutations. Couple that with a government that likes to cover up epidemics, and you have the virus factory that is China. This, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with Chinatown in Toronto (and any correlation would be an act of astounding racism on the part of the wanna-be-PC bleeding heart).
Yes, when I proclaimed that we were making quick headway creating a vaccine for SARS, that was apocalyptic. Whatever.
There are a lot of people, probably including yourself, that believe that by proclaiming the best, it'll magically come about. This tends to be a Western phenomena, which is why we don't wear masks in public: It offends us if someone else wears a mask because that weakens our delusion of invincibility.
Actually Chinatown was hit just the same as every other entertainment and food venue in the city, but in a hilarious bit of reverse racism, everyone rallied to applaud poor Chinatown, and to ostracize society for their racism (ignore the fact that Chinatown is primarily patronized by Chinese, and hence it was self-directed "racism", if any at all). Oh good hearted people all! At the same time restaurants through the city were wondering why politicians weren't lining up at their door, when they had just as bad of a drop in business.
One thing I hold pride about Canada, versus say China, is that we don't bullshit, and we're very transparent: We _did_ have a short lived epidemic (which is that it quickly spread) that some heroic healthcare got under control. Being pedantic about terminology just reeks of information supression.
I'd say you are safer in toronto than in the states...at least your are less likely to get shot.
You absolutely are safer in absolute terms, and indeed you seem a little defensive that I mentioned "Toronto" and "SARS" in the same paragraph. Yes your chance of getting SARS visiting Toronto is negligable (and certainly far less than being mugged in New York), however my whole point was that this is not, and has never been, a "Toronto" problem : We live in a world of jetliners and quick travel - It's a world problem. Do you think SARS will disappear into the ether? Of course it won't. It'll likely take hold in several third world nations where it'll reappear in the "First World" every so often, at tremendous costs.
The entire reason for the Toronto case was inept health care workers that were not on the lookout for these symptoms
Yes, because every single health care worker in Ontario is inept, and every single health care worker in BC is brilliant and informed. BULLSHIT, and it points a giant flashlight on your naevity. Both system of health care workers have access and knowledge of the same information (Ontario's government put out the same alert as BC), but BC got LUCKY (yes, LUCKY) because the front-line worker who got the first case happened to be one rare individual who kept up on the updates, while Toronto got unlucky that the front-line worker there didn't. I assure you, and I'll say this with certainty, that both locals probably have the same ratio of people who follow the medical listservs and those who don't. Don't buy into the politicizing BS lines from those who want to use a situation for their political advantage.
Sure there have been some "younger" people die from SARS in Toronto but most are very old.
Did I say otherwise? There have been a 39 and a 44 year old healthy males dying. The doctor who first alerted the West was in perfect shape and died at 44 in Hong Kong. There are very few illnesses that do that in a 10 day period (and they are among the world's most feared).
A nurse travelled on a commuter train from Toronto to Burlington and back WITHOUT INFECTING ANYBODY.
Thanks for the lesson, Sherlock. The funny thing is that I take that GO train. The nurse in question didn't talk or sneeze during the entire ride, which was likely the saving grace. In Hong Kong whole apartment complexes, or a large percentage thereof, have come down with it just by going by each other in common areas, and you're pretending they have to French kiss each other to get it.
If you are not around a hospital with an infected person, you have no chance of contacting the virus.
Did you miss the whole point of my message? A individual in Malaysia claimed that they were "safe" from SARS in Malaysia : No they aren't. It's one guy who thinks he has a cold and is too manly to see his doctor that could cause a major outbreak. We have it contained in Canada due to extraordinary measures of health care workers (despite the know-it-all armchair criticism of assholes like you, or politicians trying to score some point by stabbing them in the back), but it takes just one more guy flying in, and one more bit of bad luck. This holds true for the entire world, btw, not just Canada. As a Canadian I'm under little increased risk than a guy in Phoenix or New Zealand : Unless you shut down global travel...
Stop the sensationalism.
Oh, gee, I'm sorry. 6% death rate. 23 dead in Toronto alone (ignore the indirect death rate, which is those that are going to die because of deferred treatment due to a devastated health care system). SARS is very likely to take hold in third world nations that can't effectively contain it, and it may very well become a part of life. Sticking your head in the sand and proclaiming that it's no biggie.
As a bit of clarification if any Torontonian calls me on my declaration of downtown Toronto as "Ground Zero": Ground zero is really Scarborough to the East, however I was speaking more with symbology of the visualization of Toronto by the world. Cheers!
In Canada month/day/year is also common (largely because we share so much technical literature with the US). The reasoning often given is that most people say "October 5th, 2003", and not "The fifth of October, 2003", so the numerical ordering follows the verbal ordering.
Having said that, they both stink because of the existence of the other. The simple fact that I have to wonder what "02/03/05" refers to because of the competing standards renders them all flawed. The only standard that anyone should use is the ISO 8601, which is as you mention yyyy-mm-dd (it's hardly a "Japanese" system - It's been used and advocated as a "metric" sort of date for many decades).
I live in Malaysia, which is relatively safe from SARS
I wouldn't really proclaim that it's "relatively safe from SARS" : All it takes it one infected person. Toronto (I am sitting in a building beside First Canadian Place in downtown Toronto right now...ground zero, if you will, of the Canadian epidemic) has suffered billions of dollars of economic damage, and some 23 deaths, because one sneezing person came home from a visit to Hong Kong. No one is safe from SARS, and the reality is that after we've got the vectors from the first person (which has largely been heroic health care staff who deserve tremendous respect), it's only a plane ride away from the next guy, and then it's all started again. For those who thought this was just a disease the elderly should worry about (as a hilarious Daily Show humored "If you're 80 with respiratory illness, you should make your peace with God before you go around licking doorknobs"), note that here in Toronto we've had a 39 and a 44 year old, both with no other reported medical conditions, die from SARS.
BTW: For those who think asking some questions at the airport, or doing thermal scans, are protection, realize that while they're better than nothing, they really are more of an illusion of safety than a true protection: They depend upon a person to be in a very specific state of the disease to be evident, but it's still extremely likely to get by in prior or latter stages, at which point it starts all over again. Why Toronto got hit hard while other cities didn't is largely a result of blind (bad) luck than anything else.
Thankfully the virus suspected, the coronavirus, they have had some success making vaccines for (unlike most other virses), so there is hope against this disease that is currently causing about a 6-7% death rate, and some claim that a vaccine is right around the corner. That'll hold us over until the next disease filters out of the "intensive livestock" of the provinces of China which has been quite effective at incompetently exporting weapons of mass destruction.