So many memories of those early /. days have come flooding back.

RIP Roblimo.

Happy Birthday /.

It is difficult to fathom that the site has been around for 20 years, because I've "only" been online for 25 or so and I can't possibly be that old. Right? Right??

The electric company subscription service provides the voltage and amperage I need (all the time) when I need it (right now.) Without it, life would be very difficsy8907^#!Z NO CARRIER

I view streaming content on a variety of devices off of a perfectly acceptable cable internet connection and I still see the compression, but the worst of it is seen on the "main" family TV. Netflix offers the best experience (followed by Amazon Video, followed by the truly horrific Google Play), but it's still there.

I fully admit that I am not a hardcore video guy and not obsessed with tweaking a bunch of TV settings so there is indeed room to make adjustments. That said, I'm very happy with up-scaled DVDs of the same movies on the same TV. Adjusting contrast/brightness would only force the shadows even deeper for disk-based video and that's not an acceptable trade-off.

I should clarify my previous statement above. When I wrote "Visible gradients ruin every single scene always" I didn't meant to imply I'm seeing gradients all the time. I'm only seeing them in scenes containing large percentages of darkness/black.

Call it anything you want: "Netflix uses bagels to compress video" I don't really care. I just wish they would take a closer look at the darkest parts of a scene and stop compressing the hell out of it. Visible gradients ruin every single scene always.

I too read this when I was young, as a part of a science fiction anthology book we had in school. It is the one story from that time that has always stuck with me. The over-shadowing sense of futility and loss in the story really triggered something in my brain.

2005 wasn't that long ago, was it?

http://it.slashdot.org/story/0...

[[Actually if it had had the 5MP iPhone 4 camera, (which is probably what he assumed since I assumed it too until I looked at the tech specs) he would not have been joking, that could replace a P&S for most people.]]

You don't understand the difference between "better than" and "willing to settle for."

People who are replacing their digital cameras for the iPhone 4 camera are not doing so because it is better than their point and shoot. It's not. They're giving up a number of features they don't understand, don't know how to work, or don't find important for a single button, slower operation, and lower image quality.

Are these studies the follow-ups mentioned here?

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/07/contrails.climate/index.html

My main machine is a P4 1.6Ghz with 2GB of RAM running XP. I did upgrade the video card a year or two ago with something that has a whole 128MB of RAM on it.

4 IDE drives, USB 2.0 (just "full speed" not "high-speed") and an external firewire 400 drive with a flaky controller makes for a...well, sluggish computing experience.

Lately, I've started to give up on it for any sort of heavy lifting (Adobe Lightroom). I started looking at building a new one again, but pretty much have figured out that Dell can do all the work for me for the same money. (for what I can spend)

From what I understand the reason people get offended is that M$ implies there is something evil about making $$$.

I just get offended by people saying 'M$' because it paints the Linux community as a bunch of pimply-faced teenage dorks that think that calling Microsoft 'M$' is like the greatest insult in the world. I use Linux at work. It's a great developer platform. I use it t home for my server. Great at that, too. Just have a windows box for games. So you can call me a Linux geek... but I hate two things about the linux community:
Those that insult proprietary companies like a kid would
Those that insult others trying to learn Linux (if someone was to say "RTFM" to a newbie in real life, I'd kick him in the nards)

Really? 401k is a retirement, long-term investment. The market goes up and down, so unless you plan on cashing out your 401k TODAY or next year, I say now is the time to put MORE into the 401k. It's the stock market! When it's low, put in more money, when it's high sell off!

Never ever ever react to a sudden change in the stock market on a long term investment, unless it's something like enron...

I'm in the iPhone camp and have both of these apps on my iPhone.

The only reason I'd flip to android is that I can write java apps to the android... if you want to write an app to your iPhone, its objective-C, which I know you probably prefer, Barbie, but I'm a java guy ;)
Another advantage of iPhone is maturity. The androids are still level 1.0. I like to wait for the next gen (which is why I have an iPhone 3G, and never had the original iPhone).

LOL! Love the subject, johndiii :D

As with everyone, I'm surprised you lasted this long. A threat to pay is a last resort, company will fall out from under you if you leave, kind of threat, or a threat to someone you want to quit so you don't have to go through any company policy severance...

If you are looking for a job in the states, let me know. My company always appreciates a good developer, and we do placement jobs if you don't want consulting.

Yup... spiders kill the bugs that can carry disease and stuff. As long as they are like up in the ceiling or out of the way areas making webs, I let'm go...