Awesome as always. I just I had more of them - it's what keeps me going on my bus ride into university!

[much pedantry and irrelevance redacted]

Topically, AMD had a presentation at SIGGRAPH [6] on video encoding using the GPU. It goes into how their Accelerated video Transcoding (or AVT) works with ATI Stream and is worth perusal.

[6] http://ati.amd.com/products/firepro/Siggraph_2008_video_encode_fina...

[pedantry redacted]

Re The Foundry Company: None of what AMD has laid out as the future of The Foundry Company required them to split into two companies. It looks like the Abu Dhabi investors find AMD's fabrication plants more useful than their processor or graphics device design division; that's why they've insisted that AMD split up, and decided to buy majority stock in the resulting Foundry Company. Still, this gets AMD some badly-needed funds to keep going as a design house.

Re the Eee PC's Shift key: Try SharpKeys, it's easier to use than Auto Hotkeys, and doesn't have to keep running. [14] (It effectively modifies the NT keyboard driver's scancode map in the Registry, and the scancode map remains persistent even if you uninstall SharpKeys. That mechanism has worked since at least Windows NT 4.0, by the way.) [nobody-cares redaction]

Those who use Linux on these netbooks and want to swap the up arrow and right shift key can use xmodmap or its GUI equivalent in GNOME or KDE to do this rather easily.

[14] http://www.randyrants.com/sharpkeys/

Re TV shows: I've really enjoyed Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the UK Top Gear and House. Speaking of House, there's a medical doctor who reviews, among other things, House and Fringe episodes every week, including the soap opera aspect, the medical mystery, the diagnostic effort and the final solution. [silliness redacted] The reviews are worth a read. [15] (He also examines comic books and other shows in a medical context.)

Gregory House being a jerk is actually pretty enjoyable to watch. I've been watching the show for three years, and it's still great to watch the reactions of the other characters to House's antics, and House's reaction to other people's antics. They all play off each other, and Hugh Laurie is awesome as ever. I don't watch it for the medical content, I watch it for Hugh Laurie.

Lost turned me completely off JJ Abrams shows, so no Fringe for me. And I think Heroes has jumped the shark, although I still watch it. I agree with Jordan, though, in that the flashbacks (seen through Hiro's eyes) do a decent job of exposition.

[15] http://www.politedissent.com/

Edit: Better now?

error error...

Cyril needs a lozenge or something. Or some helium.

Another great show guys!

I think this is the best season yet for Heroes. The problem with the second season was it started off slow and got cut short because of the writers strike, so the last 7 episodes were paced at blazing speed. Which ruined the show, I think season 2 killed the show for most people.

That said I’m loving the third season, but it seem I’m in the minority. I like what they’ve done as this season’s theme is ‘Villains’. It seems one of the main points they’re making is what makes a villain just comes down to circumstance, except for those that are the complete evil scheming bast%^&. The original Heroes show started out in the superman style of black & white morality it’s become something closer to batman with a lot of grey moral ambiguity. It looks like some sections on of Middle America can’t deal with that, they like to know they’re rooting for the good guys when sometimes things aren’t that straightforward. That said I didn’t like what they’ve done to Hiro’s character in the opening couple of episodes. Also I think people have a hard time with all the time travel in the show. I’ve always felt the show revolved around Hiro.

The main power struggle between the Petrellis is interesting. When I watched the first season and we heard about the death of the father, and the fact we never got to meet him, I knew he would be showing up and even said it back then as it was an obvious plot device to use later. I hope this show doesn’t get cancelled in the fall.

Concerning House, I asked two doctors (1 from Britian, the other from out west) about the medical "mysteries" that show on House. Although they were hesitant to come out and say it, they alluded that for the most part the symptoms are pretty close, and such diseases are out there. One doctor said what really makes it "unbelievable" is the time frame, saying that often times it would take days/weeks/months for some of these symptoms to show. I responded true enough, but they do have to make the show exciting, and I can live with the "hollywoodizing" of shrinking the time frame down.

House is a jerk. But it's really not him I'm interested in, it's his support staff trying to adjust to him, and his co-worker/boss trying to figure him out. And for this reason, I hope they don't ever change Houses character, and the producers have shown they are willing to shake the cast up to keep things fresh. I especially loved the first half of season 4 as House was "interviewing" all the new people.

One great show that I've just been introduced to (actually heard about it on one of the TR forum threads) is Chuck. Great show. I've already asked for Season 1 to be under the Christmas tree.

But Top Gear FTW!

The best show on TV is Dexter. Dexter is by far the best show on TV. Period!!

Also, great overview of the entire GPGPU situation. Really it's all been a lot of nothing, we haven't come very far in years. I'm hoping OpenCL will at least get the movement really going.

Who does the artwork for your podcast graphics? Do they do all TR feature article artwork?

I would love to see (listen, right?) consecutive weeks for AMD.

How can you not be surprised Intel stole the show with Core i7 and then AMD have all the cover for them in one single event. I really didn't expect that. I expect Core i7 to be the topic for most of November and AMD tries to counter this within December. And they do it to counter both Intel and Nvidia at the same time!

This is only my second Pod cast so my take on it is based on limited information, but Is Cyril doing this in his sleep? The pod cast already has a very verbose format, but Cyrils gravely ahhhhs are hard to listen too.

why dont I get a play button for the podcast in FF? theres nothing there to click on in FF but its there in IE7.

I like Hulu a lot, and it seems all the good shows are on the site, but most of the good ones are only open to residents of the US. That means us lowly Canadians are left with the stork.

Is that the longest front page comment's post ever?

WHOA. Scott's first sentence kind of sounded like Dr Drew from loveline.

I have to vote this as one of the most informative podcasts to date IMO. Lots of "insider" info mentioned. A big thumbs up from me.