Top 10 Things You CAN'T Have For Christmas 230
Zothecula writes "It's getting a little late for a last minute Christmas shopping list, but not to worry, most of us outside the Forbes Top 100 couldn't afford any of these anyway! Still, it's fascinating to look at what's possible if the word 'budget' isn't in your vocabulary, so here's a look at what you won't be getting for Christmas (CT: Warning, gizmag features really intrusive advertising) this year – the most outrageous examples of high-end overkill from 2010."
Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
Fairly poor “top 10” list. Nothing on this list was particularly extreme, and not really “geek” oriented.
I guess the problem with this kind of list is that _everything_ has an extreme. Pick something you like, and some millionaire probably has an obscenely expensive version of it. This list was mostly the extreme versions of things I have no interest in.
Often with these extreme versions they’ve just taken something existing and covered it in gold/diamonds/rare metals/rare woods.. which isn’t all that interesting to me either. I remember there was some vodka (touted as the worlds most expensive) that was basically just garden variety high-end vodka with a column of diamonds down the center.
The only thing on this list that really held any interest for me was those speakers, but at that cost it’s totally not worth the novelty, and they probably look terrible close up (as this kind of stuff tends to look great at a very specific angle but look ridiculous from everywhere else).
Ah well, can’t spend it all on philanthropic interests.. I guess after a while you run out of shit to do with that much money.
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It is not original either.
Designs like the Domespace have been around for ages. It is a pity they are not used especially in places like Florida where you really need them.
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Are you nuts? Those speakers probably sound just awful. May as well just slap a Bose badge on them.
Cool stuff, I suppose, though it's a fool that buys something electronic which has value added to it. A digital Leica with a (probably small) 18MP sensor will probably look no better than a panasonic P&S. Why would you spend so much money on a case when the internals are going to be out of date in 3 years. And titanium? Really? Can we just get over that fairly commonplace metal? Call me back when you make
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While the titanium M9 is sort of dumb the sensor is "full-frame" (24mmx36mm) so it's going to be a whole lot better than a point-and-shoot. But no better than the regular M9 which is "only" $7000.
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Well, I'll stand corrected on that. Squeezing 18MP into even a DX size is dicey (which I presumed they did). Leica made very nice, if exceptionally price, film cameras.
Still, a premium like that for a camera with a limited shelf life (sensor tech and electronics tech) is pretty foolish. I still say titanium is not a very useful metal. Better to clad Mg for the weight) or go all the way to a high-nickel stainless, imho. Or, as I said, use Beryllium Aluminum. It's not that much more expensive, but it has the
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for a camera with a limited shelf life
I've always wondered why DSLRs weren't designed to use a sensor cartridge. You buy a body, you buy a sensor, and you can swap out the sensor every few years.
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The body IS the sensor cartridge. Other than that it's basically a screen, CPU, shutter, battery and lens mount. You probably want to upgrade the screen and CPU every once in a while anyway, and the shutter will wear out over time.
The real money in a camera system (and the most important from a quality POV) is in the lens. You keep the lenses, you switch out the body (sensor).
Re:Meh (Score:4, Funny)
I'm pretty sure I won't be getting a hot wife for Christmas, especially from my current wife.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure I won't be getting a hot wife for Christmas, especially from my current wife.
Well, she could, but you'd probably have to get her a hot husband in exchange.
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As I understand it, women aren't quite as obsessed with appearance as men. Though I'm betting she wouldn't mind a husband with a pleasant personality for a change.
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Don't you believe it. I hesitate to say it's common, but it's by no means unknown for women to marry an ugly nurturing man then have a wild affair with a rugged, good-looking bloke.
The ugly man winds up bringing up the good-looking man's kids as his own.
I don't know if it's always planned - my guess is it's got more to do with some primeval instinct to have the kids of the man with the best genes but have them looked after by the most kind sweet & thoughtful man.
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If you want your wife to swing that way, she should feel like she is the hottest one in the room. That way she she will feel more secure and hopefully have just as much fun as you do.
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br. And no, my wife doesn't read slashdot (although, I should probably show her this post).
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
The speakers looked good. However other goods such as the diamond inlaid TV set were pretty pointless.
With electronics, adding bling is pretty much the best people can do for selling ultra-expensive devices. Mainly because of the economy of scale market. If a boutique company made a cell phone that was slimmer than an iPhone, and only made 100 copies, the cost would be astronomical (tens to hundreds of millions of dollars), even factoring out the fact that the device would need a lot of QA testing. The only exception would be taking a motherboard from an existing device and putting it in a custom case, perhaps replacing some components (like the camera or screen) and making sure the OS can work with the modifications. Regression testing is important too.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
"The speakers looked good. However other goods such as the diamond inlaid TV set were pretty pointless."
They are all pointless. My one and only Christmas gift I'll get, I'm getting it every year:
Peace of mind.
Since a dozen years or so, I don't accept gifts and I don't give them so no shopping stress, no disappointments to see or feel for me.
It's heaven on earth.
Re:Meh (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that people think you are a jerk. Yeah you get what you want out of it and you haven't conformed to societal traditions, but other people like getting and giving gifts. If you feel it's gone too far, there are other ways to improve the issue that don't require robbing other people of their enjoyment of the traditions. An easy one is shop online or throughout the year and buy whenever you see something people might like. The money wasted on the gift, if you view it that way, isn't that big a deal in the end. It's just money and other things are more important.
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It was never a tradition here, it was imprinted on us by US television, just like Halloween and other customs like it.
Here the tradition is to give gifts on St. Nikolaus day, on 6th of December and only to kids.
Now kids come trick and treating _and_ the original 2 times a year, Candlemas and Easterday, where the kids are making noise on the streets to call for mass, because the week before eastern, the Church bells are silent.
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Forgot to add the video link for the kids making noise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LzP4Hlo4jQ [youtube.com]
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The celebration of Christmas was not originally about Christianity. It was absorbed into the Christian faith in part as a means of converting those that celebrated the solstice. Jesus was not born in the winter, but sometime when the shepherds were still in the fields with their flocks (Luke 2:8, "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night"), which is spring through autumn.
The sentiment of feasting and celebrating family around the time of th
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I'm a lot like you, but I do give gifts and receive them. I just completely ignore holidays.
For instance, I was out shopping a few years ago and saw a fedora in a store that I thought a friend would like. So, I bought it and gave it to him. No need to wait for a birthday or Hallmark holiday.
Kindness (and, in turn, gratitude) knows no season.
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Yep ugly as fuck, like most diamond-encrusted things. Old faux-wood TVs are less ugly.
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Top 10 Things you CAN'T Have for Christmas
Funny value of "can't", for two things that are the same order of magnitude in price as a car. I could buy the speakers or the camera. I wouldn't, but to say I CAN'T is stupid.
Re:Meh - Now with even more useless extreme (Score:5, Funny)
More extreme things we can't afford:
1) Diamond-tipped pizza cutter with baby elephant ivory handle
2) Stadium seat cushion made from puma hide and filled with narwhal blubber
3) Beer cozy built from the insulation of the original NASA space suits
4) Sofa throw blanket woven from the used toupees of William Shatner
5) A 1:3 scale replica of the "Stay-Puff" Marshmallow Man crafted from albino bat guano
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11) Snorting lunar dust of an alien hookers third tit
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6) Flying car. With unicorn horn gearshift.
Oh, that's not so bad. You have the leftover narwahl horn from extracting its blubber for item 2, so there's your gearshift!
No wasted parts. You're green now!
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The money spent of even silly luxury items doesn't exactly go in to a black hole, you know.
For example, people gawk at the opulence of things like the Newport mansions and tsk tsk at the concentration of wealth, but the lavish spending on those places bootstrapped many industries in that area that exist today. Some well known architectural firms, fashion labels and art museums owe their existence to a few family's mad drive to mirror European royalty.
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Some well known architectural firms, fashion labels and art museums
And most of the money that goes into these places goes where?
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But it kind of does. Trickle-down is a myth. Making jobs for one construction crew is nothing economically compared with putting 40 crews to work with the same outlay.
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But .... but ... exoskeleton!! Powered freaking exoskeleton.
Of course, I'd need the bigger LandWalker [gizmag.com] version, but it comes with guns, so that's OK.
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It's not an exoskeleton, it's a walker.
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The article says it's an exoskeleton. The LandWalker article says it's an exoskeleton ... what's the difference? No working arms?
I'd probably buy that distinction.
Not only that (Score:2)
But most of it didn't matter in the slightest. So there are some thing that rich people can buy that are substantially better, or simply different, than what a normal person can. In fact I'd say that is what makes someone rich: The ability to purchase at least one thing that middle class people can't that is better or makes life better in a non-trivial way.
However that wasn't what this list was. The sub boat is really the only thing that qualifies. A diamond studded TV? No, that's all show. Doesn't matter t
My list: (Score:3)
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Some things I want ought to be so easy we shouldn't have to think about them, but apparently politics and business prejudice make it difficult or impossible. Here's a brief list:
Can'tz? (Score:2)
So... (Score:2)
Does this mean that I can actually have a pony? I didn't see that on the list.
Just saying....
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but it's coming from amazon and will be shipped in several boxes. Some assembly required.
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Sounds delicious!
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Instead of pony, package contained bobcat. Would not buy again.
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I got a cougar [urbandictionary.com]. Would definitely buy again. :-P
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Contents of boxes: a petri dish, a few tiny organic granules packed in dry ice, a test tube full of goo, and some guy wearing a trenchcoat with a video camera.
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Go to the rural parts of Florida'a panhandle, where the recession is still in full swing. My sister in law was telling me that horses in great health and condition generally were selling for $25. The owners can't afford to feed them and the risk of a vet bill is just too much. Mules I think she said were 5 for $5.
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the rural parts of Florida's panhandle, where the Great Depression is still in full swing
FTFY
ZipBuds girl (Score:3)
I don't know about the article in question, but the ZipBuds girl has reminded me that I need to check the air in my tires.
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Can't find pichers, please help!
Intrusive Adverising (Score:3)
Warning, gizmag features really intrusive advertising
Well, let's not link to it, then.
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well than how else would I get to see boring shit I can't get?
Think people, think~
My #1 missing present (Score:2)
#1 (Score:2)
peace and happiness ?
Here's a top 3 (Score:2)
1. A kid
2. Sex
3. A girlfriend
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1. A kid
2. Sex
3. A girlfriend
Umm, try reversing the order on you list. It might work better. Be most careful, however, of the inadvertent conversion of $GIRLFRIEND to $WIFE as that automatically produces a GOTO END argument that you cannot change.
Re:Here's a top 3 (Score:5, Funny)
The idea of studding something in diamonds to... (Score:4, Insightful)
...make it the "most expensive" object in its class is more of an art stunt than a technology stunt, and a fairly unimaginative one at that. The $2.3million television is $2.3 million because it has $2.3 million worth of diamonds on it - the actual price of the television without the diamonds doesn't even change the rounding.
At what point in time is this more about the diamonds than the fact that they may or may not be attached to a gadget?
Answer: The initial concept.
It's kind of like the "most expensive pizza" being so because it's covered in luxury foods like rare caviar and then topped off with gold flakes. It's more art project than food.
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Well, its like the gold flakes part.
Luxury foods like caviar are still foods, and actually relate to the intended function of pizza, unlike diamonds on a TV.
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It just goes to show what great times we live in. It used to be that only the rich could afford the horse carriage, then only the rich could afford a car, than only the rich could afford a tv etc etc. These days everybody (in the developed world at least) can afford pretty much all the conveniences that latest technology provides. Really poor people (as in Africa) would laugh at the people in the US calling themselves poor even though they have a flat screen TV and an SUV in the garage of their 2000 sf. hom
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Think of it this way: you're not studding your universal remote in diamonds, you're enabling your diamonds as a universal remote.
Diamonds have no real value, but people pay a fortune for them. DeBeers held a monopoly on them until the Canadian kimberlite miners told them to fuck off and started dumping rocks on the market. Did the prices drop? Nope.
People are dumb. Supply and Demand is a crock of shit. And I bet those speakers sound terrible.
i know i know! (Score:5, Funny)
ducks
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To wives and girlfriends. May they never meet.
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Try this [gizmag.com]. ;-)
The airdeck (Score:2)
Really, who buys this crap? (Score:2)
I'm not sure what surprises me more... That companies produce crap like this, or that they expect there's enough of a market for people to buy crap like this.
I mean, the number of people to whom money is no object is a countable number. Furthermore, the larger percentage of people who's wealth is publicly tracked (such as Warren Buffet or Bill Gates) do not invest in expensive throw-away baubles.
Therefore have to assume that items such as these are purchased by people who's wealth is NOT tracked, such as Sa
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It's all part of the scumbag chain of finance. The people on Wall St. who take home obscene salaries and bonuses for completely F*CKING UP our economy need to spend their money on something, so why not this junk? It's about as superficial as their understanding of integrity and humility, which makes it a perfect match.
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Who buys this crap? A surprisingly large number of people.
There are about 62 yachts in the world over 250 feet in length. [wikipedia.org] There are about 120 private jets in the Boeing 747 size and up. Some are used by heads of state, but most are owned by private parties. Big jets are popular with Russian oligarchs; if you have business interests in Siberia, going there in comfort needs proper support facilities.
There are people who are just into buying expensive stuff, most of which they don't use. I've known a f
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I'm not sure what surprises me more... That companies produce crap like this, or that they expect there's enough of a market for people to buy crap like this.
There is. You should read the leaked Citigroup "plotonomy" document. The hyper-rich are nearly half the market.
#1 on the list (Score:2)
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We are the United States Government. We don't *do* that sort of thing!
The List (Score:5, Informative)
One gift that brings them all (Score:2)
A DeLorean car, including a working Flux Capacitor, and MrFusion just to be green. Not only you will be able to get all those gifts, you will own Las Vegas too. If is asking too much, i could be happy with an antigrav hoverboard.
Too bad i can't have them for christmas.
A *real* geek top10-can't-have list (Score:2)
1. Space shuttle.
2. F22.
3. Megan Fox.
4. Nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
5. Cray X1E
6. Having Woz as your on-staff technical advisor.
7. A copy of the NIST F1 atomic clock.
8. A gigawatt laser.
9. All the digits of pi
10. Your own website that's as popular as /.
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Re:advertising? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:advertising? (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny and troll? Interesting choices there mods - I'm completely serious, so why don't you comment and justify your moderation choices. Sites that show ads and provide content for free are typically only able to do so because of the money that they receive from adverts. If you block the ads, then this becomes less likely to be profitable in the long term and these sites will cease to exist. If the inconvenience of seeing the ads is less than the value of the site, then I am happy to see the ads. If it isn't, then I am happy to go without the content. Apparently not having an entitlement mentality is either funny or a troll.
In unrelated news, this is probably the first time that commodore64_love and I have ever agreed on anything.
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That way, you punish the intrusive advertisement funded sites for their poor choice. Over time, they may learn their lesson.
I'm more than happy to allow ads that, for instance, don't cover up vast parts of the UI, aren't animated, don't play sounds, and don't suck my bandwidth with useless crap I have no desire for.
Text-based is nice, too. That way, I can actually get to the content, instead of having to
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There is a middle ground
"People standing in the middle of the road look like road kill to me." - Linus Torvalds
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This is why I have never clicked the remove ads button on /. I don't mind supporting sites that don't have the godawful pop over flash ads. Now reading that Gizmag site nearly made my eyes bleed with the ads, I have no problem blocking the ads there...just have to find the addin for Chrome I suppose.
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Troll is unfortunate, but I think you're hilarious.
If you block the ads, then this becomes less likely to be profitable in the long term and these sites will cease to exist.
Okay.
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If a site is funded by adverts
The Internet that the site is using to deliver its storefront for free was funded by me, as is the last mile. If I choose to listen to only half of what they're saying, then that's the way they'll have to take it.
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I used a browser with NoScript and Flashblock, nothing popped up at me...I don't remember seeing any ads to be honest.
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CT: Warning, gizmag features really intrusive advertising) this year – the most outrageous examples of high-end overkill from 2010
No kidding. AdBlock identified and blocked 15 tracking items, and I'm sure it didn't get them all.
Re:Bleh. (Score:4, Funny)
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Be careful, you might cause him to have a coronary :)
Re:As the old saying goes... (Score:5, Funny)
Only the rich can afford poor quality
Thank god they got to keep those juicy tax breaks. Think of all the rotating wooden house builders and the hard-working people in the jet balcony industry. And the children.
God bless us, everyone.
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The dome house is actually appealing to me in a few ways.
1. It's a dome, and as we all know, from geometry class, that means it has less surface area in ratio to the volume that it encloses. This means less building materials used to provide the same amount of living space. Also with less surface area there is less loss or gain of heat.
2. Because it's a dome it should be more structurally resistant to natural disaster scenarios. It will be affected less by high winds and if constructed properly to earthquak
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I'd rather have a monolithic cement dome home, which wouldn't be practical to rotate.
I'd also rather spend those millions of dollars to help more than 44 million Americans [nytimes.com] below the poverty line, many of whom don't have domes, homes, apartments or boxes of their own.
But a nice rotating view does sound pretty cool. And anyway, if the impoverished really want "food" and "shelter", maybe they should pitch in and build some rotating homes. That's where the real money is.
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...or help build them, get paid for doing so, and not be impoverished any more.
Of course, if you're demonizing and punishing "the rich" for the high crime of having money, the solution will be that money will leave the country, so there will be greater "equality" by lowering the top. After all, better that everyone have one coconut than someone has ten while everyone else has five, right?
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I didn't see any Zipbuds on that link.
The things I saw were much larger.
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I don't know what you would expect with this kind of fluff all over the front page. This site is just putting more regular mainstream crap to expand its audience. A simple news aggregator is all we have here now with the same stories like all the other ones have. Ahhh, the love of money
With ad blocking, and judicious cookie blocking, it's not really a problem. Slashdot constantly has stories I never see on network TV, so I forgive the occasional symbolic sacrifice to our oligarchic overlords. I mean, we all need good crops and a productive hunting season.
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Doubtful. Half-way through the term of any president, you'll likely find someone making the same statement. It'll be especially strong if they side with the opposing political party.
You just have to hope that you agree with the positions of the puppeteer that is controlling the next incompetent hack more than the one controlling the current one.
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Its already been at least 10 years since we had one of those.
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I agree, that's not even out of range of normal for full-range speakers. Mine cost $3800 from eBay, listed for $5500, and they are the middle of the range they come from. The glass is certainly not a particularly good material (too springy) but it all depend
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I thought the bike was pretty nice, but it's a horrifically bad deal. There are plenty of bikes that are very nearly as good for a small fraction of the price.
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If anybody does buy that thing
The only person who would buy it is the guy in this [youtube.com].For the money, you'd be better off getting four of those Panasonic 152" 4k screens.