Comments

  • Gear & Gadgets

    Gadget Myths—Exposed!

    By Posted on 4.30.2008 12 Comments

    The readers have spoken—and I shall heed your call! Based on the flurry of responses from a Grouse column last month (in which I bemoaned the snake oil sales tactics of the overpriced cable market), theres clearly a hunger out there for clarity when it comes to parsing the jargon-filled nonsense thats used to market consumer electronics. Hype is always to be expected when it comes to sales, but unfortunately sometimes conventional wisdom gets swept up in the hubbub and eventually we find ourselves believing in techie urban legends. Great for sellers, not so much for consumers. So taking my own advice, Im following the Gadgetry Golden Rule and passing on a five choice bits of somewhat counter-intuitive wisdom Ive had need for and which may inform your next purchase. Pay it forward—hit the comments section with your own, and spread the word.

    5.9.2008 at 11:09am - Comment by bsncsasd

    And actually, to comment on someone else's statement that surround is always better than direct sound... Not true. The human brain focuses and images to sounds just the same way we do it to visual cues. You just don't pay attention to it as much. So imagine having to watch a movie inside a bubble... with 360 degrees of viewing surface. It would confuse and irritate you. Listening to music in surround for long enough will almost imperceptibly confuse your brain, eat up your 'cpu', give you a headache, and generally rub your brain the wrong way.

  • Gear & Gadgets

    Gadget Myths—Exposed!

    By Posted on 4.30.2008 12 Comments

    The readers have spoken—and I shall heed your call! Based on the flurry of responses from a Grouse column last month (in which I bemoaned the snake oil sales tactics of the overpriced cable market), theres clearly a hunger out there for clarity when it comes to parsing the jargon-filled nonsense thats used to market consumer electronics. Hype is always to be expected when it comes to sales, but unfortunately sometimes conventional wisdom gets swept up in the hubbub and eventually we find ourselves believing in techie urban legends. Great for sellers, not so much for consumers. So taking my own advice, Im following the Gadgetry Golden Rule and passing on a five choice bits of somewhat counter-intuitive wisdom Ive had need for and which may inform your next purchase. Pay it forward—hit the comments section with your own, and spread the word.

    5.9.2008 at 11:04am - Comment by bsncsasd

    No one has yet commented on the most hyped-up part of the 1080p mumbo-jumbo. The "P" part. It stands for progressive, and differentiates the way the scan lines are traced. I.e. in progressive, all 1080 lines are traced in order, 1-2-3-etc. In a normal TV (every single one ever made before the advent of the 1080p crap) traces lines 1-3-5-7, and then goes back to 2-4-6-8, etc. It's called interlaced. This was invented mostly for computer monitors, so that people staring at the screen for 8 hours a day wouldn't get a headache from the very subliminal yet perceptable flickering that you get with interlaced scanning. This is awesome for computers, but seriously, how many people sit 18" from their TV for 8 hours a day? If you've got that much time on your hands, and are that lazy, you probably can't afford a 1080p TV anyway. I find it amusing that people will pay more for a 1080p TV than a 1080i TV and none of them know what it even means... Yay hype!

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