CES 2014

[ark_ader]

Is anyone here attending this year?

Looks like a nice year for wearable toys and bendable phones and tablets. 

[ark_ader]

One of the worst CES shows ever.

All the same crap just rebadged.

No cool freebies, but plenty of pens.

Two more days to go so I hope it gets better.

[Howard_Casto]

I wasn't really hopeful tbh.  It seems like these last few years tech has been at a standstill.  Things get faster and cheaper, but new things don't get invented.  Kind of sad really.

[BadMouth]

Go pester Dave Foley and tell him that we meant no harm in placing bets on his prison time.
http://ces14.mapyourshow.com/5_0/exhibitor_details.cfm?exhid=T0009190

[kahlid74]

I wasn't really hopeful tbh.  It seems like these last few years tech has been at a standstill.  Things get faster and cheaper, but new things don't get invented.  Kind of sad really.

Hasn't Kickstarter basically turned into the "things being invented".  How many of the items at CES came from Kickstarter?  Resurgence of smart watches (Pebble).  VR (Occulus).  I'm not soap boxing Kickstarter as you already know where I stand on that.  My point was more if you were hoping to get inventions out of CES perhaps that portion of CES now resides in Kickstarter?

[Malenko]

go upstairs, I heard thats where the party is.

[Howard_Casto]

I wasn't really hopeful tbh.  It seems like these last few years tech has been at a standstill.  Things get faster and cheaper, but new things don't get invented.  Kind of sad really.

Hasn't Kickstarter basically turned into the "things being invented".  How many of the items at CES came from Kickstarter?  Resurgence of smart watches (Pebble).  VR (Occulus).  I'm not soap boxing Kickstarter as you already know where I stand on that.  My point was more if you were hoping to get inventions out of CES perhaps that portion of CES now resides in Kickstarter?

No kickstarter is a service that allows crackpots to get their worthless products investors via the idgit masses.  The OR and pebble are prime examples of this actually.  Are they cool tech?  Sure!  Will the OR ever get a proper release with proper game support or will the pebble ever actually become useful... probably not, which is why traditional investors wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole. 

Typically the big electronics companies create or acquire all the big ideas.  Things are just stagnant atm.  Unless you can get excited about 4k tvs.... a tv with a resolution so high absolutely nothing will be able to take advantage of it for at least 5-10 years, maybe longer. 

[BadMouth]

I like that 3D tvs are already being discontinued.   
I hope the movie theaters follow soon.

[wp34]

I like that 3D tvs are already being discontinued.   
I hope the movie theaters follow soon.

Big +1

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah I knew that wouldn't catch on.  Until they give us real 3d it never will.  Stereoscopic pictures are NOT 3d.  3D would be if I walked around my living rom and the perspective of the image changed as I moved.  What they pass off as 3d is a glorified view master.....  neat as a novelty but useless for a full-length feature.

[Howard_Casto]

Heh you know almost immediately after I wrote that thing about the pointlessness of 4k tvs the idgits over at dealnews.com wrote an article about how 4k tvs are here and content is here as well.  I can't stand people that don't know what they are talking about on websites designed to find coupons giving tech advice.  Amazon and Netflix are offering a SELECT sampling of 4k shows, which is great if you like ---smurfy--- compressed streams of video that just happen to output at a high resolution.  And they erroneously stated that Sony has an archive of 4k films, which isn't true.  What Sony has done is take 4k MASTERS to re-record their library to Blu-ray... which btw can only handle 1080p.  Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that Sony is keeping copies of these transfers for the replacement to Blu-ray, but that hasn't even been announced yet. 

And cable and sat can only handle 1080i in most places. 

So yeah, you don't have a media player, and your video game consoles, sat and cable boxes don't support it, but 4k tvs are sure here!  Morons....

[Generic Eric]

Is anyone here attending this year?

Looks like a nice year for wearable toys and bendable phones and tablets. 

How easy is it for a civilian to see the "good stuff?"  I thought you had to be a credentialed journalist to navigate through their.

[ark_ader]

Is anyone here attending this year?

Looks like a nice year for wearable toys and bendable phones and tablets. 

How easy is it for a civilian to see the "good stuff?"  I thought you had to be a fully credential journalist to navigate through their.

As a big wig of a software company, I get invited to attend.

[SavannahLion]

Heh you know almost immediately after I wrote that thing about the pointlessness of 4k tvs the idgits over at dealnews.com wrote an article about how 4k tvs are here and content is here as well.  I can't stand people that don't know what they are talking about on websites designed to find coupons giving tech advice.  Amazon and Netflix are offering a SELECT sampling of 4k shows, which is great if you like ---smurfy--- compressed streams of video that just happen to output at a high resolution.  And they erroneously stated that Sony has an archive of 4k films, which isn't true.  What Sony has done is take 4k MASTERS to re-record their library to Blu-ray... which btw can only handle 1080p.  Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that Sony is keeping copies of these transfers for the replacement to Blu-ray, but that hasn't even been announced yet. 

And cable and sat can only handle 1080i in most places. 

So yeah, you don't have a media player, and your video game consoles, sat and cable boxes don't support it, but 4k tvs are sure here!  Morons....

My understanding is that if you purchase a certain 4k TV you would receive, what is essentially, an external HDD with a selection of 4k films. I think Samsung was giving theirs away for free with their 4k screens. SONY's $700 box looks like a glorified NAS. Probably has limited space (it has a USB port labeled "Extra HDD") and trickles new movies overnight over its Gigabit ethernet port.

I also think it's immensely stupid to be introducing 4k screens when the market is still struggling with the last "upgrade" we did. For example, we see a ton of weird screen resolutions in the LCD market. A screen might boast 1280x800 resolution to which the manufacturer might boast it supports 720p video. Yet you either have to have the dreaded black bars or stretching to get it to fit. WTF? Why? How many videos on Youtube are cropping up now that have elongated resolutions that virtually make the camera and screen (usually a phone) useless for filming anything other than Jonah Falcon's dong? Yeah, I love looking at family photos with their heads cut off but I can see fifteen miles on either side of them. Or photos with missing arms but I can clearly see the moon, mars and an orbiting artificial satellite above them. I'm not talking about specialty screens either.

Of course, what do I know? I absolutely love the quad color screens. 

[Howard_Casto]

I didn't know that, but it doesn't sound any better honestly.  What's a Blu-ray disc 16 gigs?  That takes up a bit of space and takes quite a while to download.  Now imagine each film taking up 64 gigs or more. 

Yeah the fact that 720p screens are still produced still boggles my mind, much less the oddball resolutions you were talking about.  While we are at it, what about picture frames?  A lot of them are 16:9.... too bad most cameras still take pics in 4:3. 

It reminds me of hidef actually.  Hi def sets were actually sold 20 years before HD ever really made it to market.  It took that long for the infrastructure to be ran for them to catch on.  It won't take that long this time obviously, but like I said, cable and sat providers are struggling to get to true 1080p at this point.... 4k just isn't happening anytime soon.  And while some people keep touting that cable/sat is dead, last time I checked it's still the only way to watch many cable shows and premium networks like HBO and Showtime.... until that changes it's here to stay. 

I don't have any problems with the tvs themselves... I just can't understand why they are selling the cart before the horses are available to pull it.

[Ond]

I think the sell point on these 4K TVs at the moment is the scaling quality when applied to existing media primarily Blu-Ray.  It's a lot of dollars to shell out just for that though.  One benefit of the latest and greatest next thing, the older stuff gets cheaper (generally).  Maybe I can finally afford a new 1080p projector in the next 6-12 months!  Isn't 4K technology analogous to 64Bit CPUs when they first came out?  All that improved processing power and little or no software to take advantage of it?  I don't think we're too far off 'wall vision' as in Arnie's apartment in Total Recall or the 360 3D TV for that matter.

[BadMouth]

Yeah the fact that 720p screens are still produced still boggles my mind,

Before Christmas there was a groupon deal for Sam's Club where you got $40 worth of stuff for signing up for a membership.
The local one didn't have half the free items, so they just gave me a $40 gift card. 
This was my first time in a Sam's Club.
I was blown away by the number of 32" 720p tvs for sale at really lousy prices.

For some applications I'd buy a 720p tv if it were a crazy good deal, but the prices are comparable to 1080 models.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah that's kind of what I meant.  In this day and age a 720p tv should be a throw-away model, costing 100 dollars or less... yet they sell for around the same price as comparable 1080p model.  Ridiculous!

[ark_ader]

The Sony booth was disappointing. 



Oculus rift was fun to play but hurt my forehead when they were putting it on, so they will need to add some padding.  They had it at the Intel stand.  It was laughable watching the Intel guys pushing their HD graphics out to to the next gen games.  Something told me that either they were getting their game on    and providing better GPU support, or there was hidden 3rd party hardware being run.  Most likely it was that Xbox 360 on the shelf...



Nvidia booth was boring.  They had a monster tower PC and three 40 inch displays playing some racing game.  Maybe I should have shown pictures of my Infinity set up.  Something told me that that would not go down very well.  No freebies, no nothing.  It was a cheap date the whole show.  It was android hell, as everyone in there had some sort of tablet.  Lots of gaming devices for..iPhone.  Logitech had one and it was complete crap (I told them it was) then I asked if they supported Android which has a larger market share.  That did draw a few blank stares. 



No Xbox One or Microsoft to be seen on the floor.  Casio had their BT G-shock watches with android support.  My question of: if the watch was G-shock ie deep water, hard knocks or altitude, would your phone be too?  Which made the product pretty silly, and rather large/heavy than your average pebble or chingchong-wa-pingpong knock off.

There was an Android 3D tablet, that just ran 3d in movie mode and one other App without glasses (but it made your eyes hurt), but the home screen and app screen was normal for $400.00  Didn't someone say that 3D was dying a death?    The huge LG 3D wall was impressive.

Go pester Dave Foley and tell him that we meant no harm in placing bets on his prison time.
http://ces14.mapyourshow.com/5_0/exhibitor_details.cfm?exhid=T0009190

He wasn't there but the booth was uninspiring, shoved into the back of the south hall where the mom and pop booths were.  You would really have to search for it.  He was demoing 4K TVs.  But nearly every Tom, Dick and Harry was too.  So once you have passed the LG booth (they had a huge 3D wall) and Samsung, it was pretty much old hat after that.



There was some arcade related toys.  Pinballs.



An cord and cable company touting a Space Invaders clone game.  Who would have thought that one would be so cool?  Complete with tokens (I tried snagging one...nope)



Lots of 3D printing companies and the stuff they had was impressive.  Actually I asked Santa Claus for one next year.   

So day four made up for the rest of the week, and they started giving some of their PR stuff away.  Guess lugging it around or shipping it didn't appeal.  The winner of the show had to be engadget and their live interviews.

[SavannahLion]

Yes yes yes.

I didn't know that, but it doesn't sound any better honestly.  What's a Blu-ray disc 16 gigs?  That takes up a bit of space and takes quite a while to download.  Now imagine each film taking up 64 gigs or more. 

I was just speculating about the port on Sony's box, but I can't think of any other reason for its existence. Updates? Then why need a Gigabit port then? But yeah, I wondered the same myself. Why buy such a high resolution and for what? upconverting? Seeing that stage prop in the shadows on Batman? Lame.

Yeah the fact that 720p screens are still produced still boggles my mind, much less the oddball resolutions you were talking about.  While we are at it, what about picture frames?  A lot of them are 16:9.... too bad most cameras still take pics in 4:3. 

720 resolutions have their place. Just not at the huge dimensions they're touting. But take a closer look at some of those cheap TV's though. It may support 720p but the screen isn't actually a true 720px screen. Sometimes those cheap screens have weird ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow--- resolutions like 1280x800 or 1300x700 which makes absolutely no sense. I have a theory as to why there are so many weird screen resolutions. But ah...

There were two "professional" photographers at my brothers wedding. One had a standard 4:3 digital camera while the other one had, what they called IIRC a wide-pan camera. It's not quite panoramic though. The pictures are long so that it can take a picture of a single person from head to toe, or a wide group of people standing shoulder to shoulder. That's fine, but how the ---fudgesicle--- are you going to put that in a wedding album? You actually have to re-frame the photo so it doesn't look like ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- which is exactly what the wedding photographer did (added a border like what you see at state fairs and theme parks). They also made a DVD mixing the two together in a video (complete with lame music) and it looked a mess.

To give you an idea of how stupid it looks, here is a video of a panoramic-like perspective that was on the news a few days ago. (No, I don't know why it was the news, our station does stupid ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- like that sometimes). The camera was likely a camera phone but professional cameras are not exempt.

[Howard_Casto]

Ark... that 3d android tablet if it's the one I'm thinking about has been in development for a while.  It was supposed to compete with the 3ds, which ironically barely totes it's 3d functionality now.  It just kept getting delayed for a release. 

I honestly can't think of a use for a 720p screen.  Even a puny 24 inch tv has a noticeable resolution benefit from a 1080p output.... so I guess maybe for 19 inchers?  Do they still make those?

[SavannahLion]

I honestly can't think of a use for a 720p screen.  Even a puny 24 inch tv has a noticeable resolution benefit from a 1080p output.... so I guess maybe for 19 inchers?  Do they still make those?

Sort of, I got one about six months ago for my camper (part of a project I discussed in another thread). AFAICT, they're sold as bait and switches. Entice people with ads for super cheap, show them how stupidly small they are (a 19" 16:9 is not the same size as a 4:3 screen. I don't give a flying ---fudgesicle--- what some sales ---uvula--- will tell you), then bump the mark up to a much larger screen. Radio Shack is really bad about that. Best Buy does it, but it's not so painfully obvious. Frys does it too, but their sales ---Deutsche Frankfurters--- are absolute morons to the N'th degree.

(I'm not joking about the Frys people, they are the dumbest sales people I ever encountered.)

[Howard_Casto]

Oh I know.  I had to explain aspect ratios to a salesman the last time I bought a tv in person.  He should have been embarrassed that he knew so little about the product he was selling, but nope... he didn't think the fact that tv sizes are measured diagonally and that a 16:9 ratio actually makes the height of a tv smaller than it's 4:3 counterpart was relevant information. 

[pbj]

It's not relevant information because most people never had anything bigger than a 27" CRT and nowadays nobody buys anything smaller than a 32" widescreen.

But good on you for educating salespeople on ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- nobody cares about.

 

[Howard_Casto]

Well stupid people might not care about it PBJ... but if your job is to help your consumers you sure as hell should. 

[SavannahLion]

Well stupid people might not care about it PBJ... but if your job is to help your consumers you sure as hell should.

Exactly. Case in point.

Once in a while, I have to replace legacy components in certain PCs. The reasons for not replacing the PC outright varies and not really the point. I had a PC with a fried ISDN. And since the ISP bumped their fees up and good ISDN boxes are a PITA to find I decided to downgrade to dialup. I was in a hurry and decided to hit Frys since I noted they had dialup modems just prior to Christmas. I went back but they decided to move some stuff around and I couldn't find them. So a sales dick comes up, asks if I need help. Without a second thought I say, "I need an old school modem." This draws a blank stare. "You know... a telephone modem... a dialup? 56k?" He tells me they're not out yet.

What?

"We don't have that technology yet. You'll have to get it from the telephone company."

"No, I'm talking old school modem. Old style. Before they had DSL, Cable or whatever."

"I told you sir, we don't have something that new yet . You have to get it directly from the telephone company."

I asked him how ---smurfing--- stupid is he and to go find me someone with a brain that isn't entirely dedicated to breathing. He left in a huff but a different sales dick at least 10 years younger than I and twenty-five years younger than the first dick overheard the exchange and knew exactly what I was talking about. Of course he admitted having no familiarity with dialup but he at least he knew of it.

I was floored. I don't expect them to know anything about Commodore but if the product is in the store in your assigned department (dick #1 photo was on that isle) then you ought to at least know it exists. Even better, realize it's old tech and not some fancy new dongle. 

[pbj]

Yeah, Fry's is pretty much banned in my household.  I'm pretty easy going in stores and still get frustrated to no end.  Damn shame, I live like 5 miles away from one now.


 

[ark_ader]

Well stupid people might not care about it PBJ... but if your job is to help your consumers you sure as hell should.

Exactly. Case in point.

Once in a while, I have to replace legacy components in certain PCs. The reasons for not replacing the PC outright varies and not really the point. I had a PC with a fried ISDN. And since the ISP bumped their fees up and good ISDN boxes are a PITA to find I decided to downgrade to dialup. I was in a hurry and decided to hit Frys since I noted they had dialup modems just prior to Christmas. I went back but they decided to move some stuff around and I couldn't find them. So a sales dick comes up, asks if I need help. Without a second thought I say, "I need an old school modem." This draws a blank stare. "You know... a telephone modem... a dialup? 56k?" He tells me they're not out yet.

What?

"We don't have that technology yet. You'll have to get it from the telephone company."

"No, I'm talking old school modem. Old style. Before they had DSL, Cable or whatever."

"I told you sir, we don't have something that new yet . You have to get it directly from the telephone company."

I asked him how ---smurfing--- stupid is he and to go find me someone with a brain that isn't entirely dedicated to breathing. He left in a huff but a different sales dick at least 10 years younger than I and twenty-five years younger than the first dick overheard the exchange and knew exactly what I was talking about. Of course he admitted having no familiarity with dialup but he at least he knew of it.

I was floored. I don't expect them to know anything about Commodore but if the product is in the store in your assigned department (dick #1 photo was on that isle) then you ought to at least know it exists. Even better, realize it's old tech and not some fancy new dongle. 

I hate to break this this to you, but Frys do not sell 56K modems.  Actually you would be hard pushed to walk into your local wallymart and find one too.  Most of the PC guys at Frys hold an A+ and they are quite knowledgeable when it comes to hardware.  No so much Apple orientated, which I do agree with you on that point, but most of the time they know their ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.

Other than ebay and Amazon, the rest of the "local stores" do not stock them.  IF a sales person doesn't understand you, try educating them with your professional experience instead of your wise ass experience.   

[Slippyblade]

...but if your job is to help your consumers you sure as hell should.

Except that it's not a salesman's job to "help" the consumer, it's to sell crap to them.  In bucketfuls preferably.  Very little of a salesman's training is about the product, most of it is "overcoming the objection".  In a lot of retail settings product knowledge is considered a detriment because it might get in the way of selling the PHB's "flavor of the week".

I hate to break this this to you, but Frys do not sell 56K modems.  Actually you would be hard pushed to walk into your local wallymart and find one too.  Most of the PC guys at Frys hold an A+ and they are quite knowledgeable when it comes to hardware.

http://www.frys.com/product/2666952?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Ark, have you ever been in a Fry's?  Obviously they sell modems, that link goes right to one.  The techs over in the Installation and Repair bays might be A+, but the sales monkeys are lucky to have a pulse.  I was offered a job at my local Fry's and turned it down when I went over the job specs.

[kahlid74]

I wasn't really hopeful tbh.  It seems like these last few years tech has been at a standstill.  Things get faster and cheaper, but new things don't get invented.  Kind of sad really.

Hasn't Kickstarter basically turned into the "things being invented".  How many of the items at CES came from Kickstarter?  Resurgence of smart watches (Pebble).  VR (Occulus).  I'm not soap boxing Kickstarter as you already know where I stand on that.  My point was more if you were hoping to get inventions out of CES perhaps that portion of CES now resides in Kickstarter?

No kickstarter is a service that allows crackpots to get their worthless products investors via the idgit masses.  The OR and pebble are prime examples of this actually.  Are they cool tech?  Sure!  Will the OR ever get a proper release with proper game support or will the pebble ever actually become useful... probably not, which is why traditional investors wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole. 

Typically the big electronics companies create or acquire all the big ideas.  Things are just stagnant atm.  Unless you can get excited about 4k tvs.... a tv with a resolution so high absolutely nothing will be able to take advantage of it for at least 5-10 years, maybe longer.

We've disagreed on this before and we still do and it's cool, I respect your opinion on it.  For me, I have seen more cool tech and innovation come out of Kickstarter than CES could ever give me.  I get they are geared towards different audiences but for me, innovation isn't found at CES anymore.

I also strongly disagree with you about the OR and Pebble but time will tell in both cases.

[pbj]

Fry's doesn't sell modems in my city.

 

[SavannahLion]

Well stupid people might not care about it PBJ... but if your job is to help your consumers you sure as hell should.

Exactly. Case in point.

Once in a while, I have to replace legacy components in certain PCs. The reasons for not replacing the PC outright varies and not really the point. I had a PC with a fried ISDN. And since the ISP bumped their fees up and good ISDN boxes are a PITA to find I decided to downgrade to dialup. I was in a hurry and decided to hit Frys since I noted they had dialup modems just prior to Christmas. I went back but they decided to move some stuff around and I couldn't find them. So a sales dick comes up, asks if I need help. Without a second thought I say, "I need an old school modem." This draws a blank stare. "You know... a telephone modem... a dialup? 56k?" He tells me they're not out yet.

What?

"We don't have that technology yet. You'll have to get it from the telephone company."

"No, I'm talking old school modem. Old style. Before they had DSL, Cable or whatever."

"I told you sir, we don't have something that new yet . You have to get it directly from the telephone company."

I asked him how ---smurfing--- stupid is he and to go find me someone with a brain that isn't entirely dedicated to breathing. He left in a huff but a different sales dick at least 10 years younger than I and twenty-five years younger than the first dick overheard the exchange and knew exactly what I was talking about. Of course he admitted having no familiarity with dialup but he at least he knew of it.

I was floored. I don't expect them to know anything about Commodore but if the product is in the store in your assigned department (dick #1 photo was on that isle) then you ought to at least know it exists. Even better, realize it's old tech and not some fancy new dongle. 

I hate to break this this to you, but Frys do not sell 56K modems.  Actually you would be hard pushed to walk into your local wallymart and find one too.  Most of the PC guys at Frys hold an A+ and they are quite knowledgeable when it comes to hardware.  No so much Apple orientated, which I do agree with you on that point, but most of the time they know their ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.

Other than ebay and Amazon, the rest of the "local stores" do not stock them.  IF a sales person doesn't understand you, try educating them with your professional experience instead of your wise ass experience. 

You've proven that you missed the point.

Would you like to come visit my local Frys and remind them they don't sell modems? Apparently they didn't get the memo.

Please don't tell me you have A+ cert.

[SavannahLion]

Fry's doesn't sell modems in my city.

That's what I would expect and, out of respect, something Ark probably overlooked. I have two local Frys which cover beyond the outskirts of the city. That means there are relatively a lot of people who still live in areas within the Frys market where dial up or satellite are the only options. So it would be reasonable to find a Frys that actually does sell dial-up modems. I know this because I saw said modems there just a short while ago. The minor detail he missed. The same might not be true in some place like... the Bay Area where ISP market saturation is pretty thorough and a consumer has a myriad of options to choose from. I would not assume the Frys that covers that market would carry modems.

Actually I don't know what the bay area market is like but I figure there's a lot of techies living there. It still proves my point. Stores will cater their product selection to their specific markets.

[pbj]

Two Fry's in Houston.  Neither of them stocks modems per their website.  I can't follow whatever point you're trying to make.

 

[SavannahLion]

Two Fry's in Houston.  Neither of them stocks modems per their website.  I can't follow whatever point you're trying to make.

Frys in my city carries modems because there are still customers who use them. Frys in Houston might not because customers in Houston don't use them. Ark blundered by saying Frys (implying all) don't carry them.

[pbj]

Okay, I can tell that's extremely important to you.

 

[ark_ader]

Two Fry's in Houston.  Neither of them stocks modems per their website.  I can't follow whatever point you're trying to make.

 

The point he is making is that he is ignorant. It must have tickled him pink finding some kid that knows less than he does and belittled the poor guy to his amusement.

I have to work with these rimjobs every day, and to be honest, it only brings the worst out of people.  I treat ignorant people like mushrooms and hope they leave to go infect another company.  You cannot reason with them.  Its like saying that an employee has an in-depth knowledge of an item at their store just because it is on their website. 

[ark_ader]

Two Fry's in Houston.  Neither of them stocks modems per their website.  I can't follow whatever point you're trying to make.

Frys in my city carries modems because there are still customers who use them. Frys in Houston might not because customers in Houston don't use them. Ark blundered by saying Frys (implying all) don't carry them.

They will order them for you, but I was in my local fry's last night and after asking two people in hardware, all they had was Adsl and one cable modem.  I'm sure you can order many obscure items at frys.  But if I wanted one today, it would be fun trying to find one.

Edit:  just tried that link and the site said the modem was available at my store.  Sure it is!   

[pbj]

It's par for the course around here, I'm afraid.  Did you see the other thread where the jackass was bragging about berating a salesguy for not knowing about how to measure 4:3 CRTs?

Nobody sells them anymore, charities won't accept them (there is a literal mountain of them dumped beside a donation trailer in my part of town), and nobody has purchased one since 2005.  But, by golly, let's educate people.

 

[knave]

Not exactly on topic but If I needed a dialup modem today I would only need to go root around in my Garage.

...Um...

(anybody want to buy a modem? How about an ISA 10baseT nic?) Man I need to donate more stuff!