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TFA is slashdotted, so those who wish to read it can see Google's cache:

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:http://hardwarebug.org/2010/03/03/ogg-objections/&hl=en&strip=1

Thank you Slashdot user alsaan for pointing this out farther down the comment stream.

For those who don't like to read the original, here is my inline summary combined with my opines on each point from the article:

== List of points addressed in article:

* "'open source' does not guarantee 'better'": While this is true from a technical standpoint, I believe it is important to keep ones destiny in ones own hands. In the (closely related) Theora vs h264 discussion, It is inadvisable to subscribe to a format monoculture under the legal control of a group with no observable vested interest aside from growing the userbase of people they will later gouge with fees. I am to understand that any dangers present in the transient patents pertaining to Theora and Vorbis have been legally neutralized. I do not know if this is true for the ogg container itself, more research is recommended.

* Generality: TFA criticizes OGG for ostensibly being able to handle any video or audio codec, while only in practice being able to easily handle Theora and Vorbis. A> I don't think anyone wants to use OGG to handle any other codecs, and B> TFA goes on to praise Matroska as a pan-galactic container format. I agree. To this end, does anyone know if Matroska is patent encumbered itself? Could it carry Theora/Vorbis payloads? Could this be a superior replacement or even alternative to popular support of OGG only in HTML 5 implementations?

* Overhead: OGG introduces an average of 1% bloat to your files. When one uses workarounds to reduce codec latency in realtime applications, this can climb to 7%. If only plastic packaging for consumer electronics were as unobtrusive as a 7% filesize increase.

* Latency: TFA bundles all of it's latency concerns into the fact that getting acceptable latency control drives overhead up to 7% of filesize. TFA then commences to soil itself over this measurement.

* Random Access: TFA states OGG is a bear to seek through. It doesn't provide any direct measurements or observations to quantify this point however, so unless someone in the crowd wants to test this (I'm too lazy xD), I'll consider this point up in the air.

* Timestamps/AV sync: TFA links to a whole nother article to complain about this one, which I can't access since the site is down. Back to the crowd: has anyone noticed ogg-related AV sync problems? yes/no? I haven't played enough ogg myself to know. :

* Complexity: OGG is apparently a bear to write encoders and decoders for. While not a customer-facing problem, devs are people too, so I feel your pain. But I think devs prefer freedom to create an encoder or decoder over convenience to get cornholed for creating one six years down the road.

TFA closes on the same point which I've actually been itching to suggest to the author since I began reading it:

* "If all the standard formats are indeed covered by patents, the only proper solution is to design a new, good format which is not, this time hopefully avoiding the old mistakes."

I agree wholeheartedly, and that's the beauty of open standards. If you don't like this format, why can you not create or advocate your own alternative? Is Matroska patented? (I've never heard such myself..) If it is, can author not hobble together his own patent-skirting alternative? People would rally behind it. If Matroska is free from patent encumbering, can we load it with Theora/Vorbis? Again, people are not championing the OGG container, simply trying to avoid h264's patents or anything similar. We'll take whatever format of roughly comparable properties comes our way. :P

Google cache link: http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:http://hardwarebug.org/2010/03/03/ogg-objections/&hl=en&strip=1

ZDNet, an InfoWorld competitor, was about to go public with an exposé on Randall C. Kennedy and Devil Mountain Software, but InfoWorld actually beat it to the punch by disclosing the matter itself.

InfoWorld's editor in chief, Eric Knorr, should be commended for dealing this matter quickly and decisively when he discovered Mr. Kennedy's deception. At the same time, he should think very carefully about the series of decisions that led to this outcome.

Randall C. Kennedy was an InfoWorld blogger known for his outrageous, inflammatory posts. Often these posts appeared to disregard the facts, overinflate the issues, or otherwise ignore the tenets of basic journalism in favor of sensationalism and manufactured furor. Doubtless InfoWorld appreciated the traffic such posts drove to its site. What it should have realized, however, was that beyond contributing to InfoWorld's success, Mr. Kennedy had a personal incentive for generating that traffic: promoting his own company, Devil Mountain Software. With that as his motive, he had far less incentive to consider InfoWorld's journalistic integrity when crafting his blog posts. Preserving that integrity was the job of InfoWorld's editorial staff. They failed to do so.

Compounding the issue is InfoWorld's decision to partner with Mr. Kennedy on the "Windows Sentinel" project, InfoWorld's in-house branded version of Devil Mountain Software's exo.performance.network Windows monitoring product. The original post announcing Windows Sentinel is currently hidden behind a password, but the Google cache clearly shows that InfoWorld was aware that Mr. Kennedy was behind Devil Mountain Software all along:

Today, I'm happy to announce the beta version of InfoWorld Windows Sentinel, a joint project with the exo.performance.network founded by InfoWorld Contributing Editor Randall C. Kennedy. ... According to Randall, the main point is "to develop a more concise picture of the Windows computing landscape.

InfoWorld's editorial staff should have seen that allowing a contributor to use InfoWorld's brand to promote his own company's products and/or services constituted a conflict of interest at best, and at worst, a serious breach of InfoWorld's responsibility to provide truthful, unbiased reporting to its readers.

InfoWorld needs to think very carefully about how to proceed in future if it hopes to recover its integrity after this incident. In an age where publications are under increasing pressure to demonstrate their power to drive revenue, it is more important than ever that editors take a stand for the paramount importance of high-quality, thorough, accurate reporting and editorials, untainted by financial interests or the pursuit of personal gain. InfoWorld stumbled by continuing to support Randall C. Kennedy when it should have, at the very least, questioned his judgment. It can and must do better.

Pedantic-- Apple never announced ZFS for OS X

More pedantic: Yes they did. Apple had ZFS touted as a feature for OS X 10.6 until a couple of months before 10.6 shipped... without ZFS. Archive.org doesn't seem to have recent caches of Apple's web page, but the Google cache has this. For those who can't be bothered to click on the link:

For business-critical server deployments, Snow Leopard Server adds read and write support for the high-performance, 128-bit ZFS file system, which includes advanced features such as storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshots.

They did have an entire page explaining why ZFS was great, but I couldn't find it in ten seconds of looking through the Google cache.

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:E6SCqgDxxGAJ:www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/mfreed/erroneous-dmca-notices-and-copyright-enforcement-part-deux+freedom+to+tinker+erroneous+dmca&hl=en&gl=uk&strip=1

What happened to the 999,995th (or thereabouts) story?

It existed, and then was deleted.

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:iS4Q7wEpG2cJ:entertainment.slashdot.org/story/09/12/10/1333202/The-Star-Wars-Christmas-Special-Still-Exists+site:entertainment.slashdot.org+slashdot+star+wars+holiday+special&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk/

999,995 wasn't deleted because it was a dupe. We have those all the time, and it wasn't a dupe.

It probably had nothing to do with copyright threats from Lucas for links to places to find the episode.

No, it was deleted because (much like the rumored two sequels to The Matrix), there was no such thing as The Star Wars Holiday Special.

What happened to the 999,995th (or thereabouts) story?

It existed, and then was deleted.

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:iS4Q7wEpG2cJ:entertainment.slashdot.org/story/09/12/10/1333202/The-Star-Wars-Christmas-Special-Still-Exists+site:entertainment.slashdot.org+slashdot+star+wars+holiday+special&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk/

Hit Google, you'll get things like this

Looks like Windows IIS + MSSQL again.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/10/the-ps3-laptop-from-ben-heck-to-engadget-with-love/ http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:ujKhv5mRgIAJ:benheck.com/04-10-2008/playstation-3-portable+ben+heck+ps3+laptop&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Maybe the mods don't think that sucking donkey balls is bad? (Search the page for "Specialty Foods" -- work safe)

Cached version of the above page as it seems to have died

Galileo was pushing the sun-centered universe and was persecuted by the Church for it.

That's not true. The Church were quite happy with the heliocentric version of the way the solar system worked - it meant that by using those calculations, they could determine the exact date of Easter much more precisely. Previously their system had Easter moving throughout the year unpredictably, whereas under a heliocentric system it could be pinned down to within a month.

They persecuted Galileo because he had some un-politically correct things to say about the church and the Pope. That didn't stop them using the calculations though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei#Church_controversy

By 1616 the attacks on Galileo had reached a head, and he went to Rome to try to persuade the Church authorities not to ban his ideas. In the end, Cardinal Bellarmine, acting on directives from the Inquisition, delivered him an order not to "hold or defend" the idea that the Earth moves and the Sun stands still at the centre. The decree did not prevent Galileo from discussing heliocentrism hypothesis (thus maintaining a facade of separation between science and the church). For the next several years Galileo stayed well away from the controversy. He revived his project of writing a book on the subject, encouraged by the election of Cardinal Barberini as Pope Urban VIII in 1623. Barberini was a friend and admirer of Galileo, and had opposed the condemnation of Galileo in 1616. The book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was published in 1632, with formal authorization from the Inquisition and papal permission.

Pope Urban VIII personally asked Galileo to give arguments for and against heliocentrism in the book, and to be careful not to advocate heliocentrism. He made another request, that his own views on the matter be included in Galileo's book. Only the latter of those requests was fulfilled by Galileo. Whether unknowingly or deliberately, Simplicio, the defender of the Aristotelian Geocentric view in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was often caught in his own errors and sometimes came across as a fool. This fact made Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems appear as an advocacy book; an attack on Aristotelian geocentrism and defense of the Copernican theory. To add insult to injury[neutrality disputed], Galileo put the words of Pope Urban VIII into the mouth of Simplicio. Most historians agree Galileo did not act out of malice and felt blindsided by the reaction to his book.[90] However, the Pope did not take the suspected public ridicule lightly, nor the blatant bias. Galileo had alienated one of his biggest and most powerful supporters, the Pope, and was called to Rome to defend his writings.

So this tell us that by using a character called Simplicio as the geocentric supporter in the book, and making him appear an idiot, having Simplicio repeat the words of the Pope made the Pope look like an idiot. This is what damned Galileo, not heliocentrism.

The Vatican Supported Astronomy
Did the Church Study Astronomy ?

"SOME biologists and neuroscientists will always be around who say what you want. If you can show that the mainstream opinion is against me, I'll happily concede the point, and thank you for enlightening me, but I doubt it."

Some studies of insect locomotion (which was where this discussion started) which use experimental data, modelling, or a mixture of the two to show that a great deal of locomotion sensing and control happens either in the limbs themselves before they reach any nerve centres, or in the thoracic ganglia. Nerve stimulation experiments have also shown that the characteristic "dual tripod" gait of hexapods is a mechanical oscillatory cycle that runs automatically when single nerves in the brain or mesothoracic ganglia are stimulated. The same is true for wing beats (which is some types share both muscles and central ganglia with the legs), which will cycle repeatedly when nerves in the thoracic ganglia are stimulated. The notable similarity in the data gathered from not only animals of the same species, but but those of different but closely related ones indicates that these movements are produced by a fixed "hardware" pattern generator, similar in principle to the electro-mechanical sequencers used in dishwashers and washing machines before microprocessor control became common:

(Note I apologise in advance for some of these only abstracts. Full scientific papers and book texts are hard to find on the web):

http://jn.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/82/1/512
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/45436/abstract

http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/ejnr/abstract.00009274-200419070-00019.htm;jsessionid=KwpKVK0J1jTLRRXsZmb2QJJ53LlxD8s1Tnhv6l5Fqj9qNF2ncS7l!-1104825961!181195629!8091!-1

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v283/n5749/abs/283768a0.html

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/109692463/abstract

http://www.cell.com/biophysj/abstract/S0006-3495(65)86706-6

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:5jTmyj1E8ywJ:biology.queensu.ca/~locust/Publications/locust%2520flight.pdf+insect+proprioceptors+ganglia&cd=75&hl=en&ct=clnk

"Oh really? You read it's mind then?"

There is absolutely no evidence that insects have anything that fits the description of a "mind" to read. Note though that some spiders may well have minds, e.g. Portia labiata, which displays a level of intelligence that makes many small mammals look like warm-blooded morons.

"Humans are predictable too. Doesn't mean they're not intelligent. They're just creatures of habit."

Humans are predictable en-masse, but not individually. Most insects on the other hand are entirely predictable individually, i.e. they always react in precisely the same way to the same sets of stimuli as another insect of the same species.

"Well, Jellyfish ARE pretty dumb, you know. The most complex behaviour I know of is in Box Jellyfish, which use simple visual contrast to avoid obstacles."

All jellyfish are sensitive to a variety of external factors such as light, orientation, water currents, temperature, and a variety of types of touch, so they're by no means as unsophisticated as you're trying to make out. It's notable that you avoid trying to deal with echinoderms, which like most animals with radial rather than bilateral symmetry, also lack cen

If only the pictures would load, it seems to be slashdotted.

Google cache link: http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:phzPunjGi58J:www.hobbymedia.it/14893/sottomarino-radiocomandato+http://www.hobbymedia.it/14893/sottomarino-radiocomandato&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:iea-Wfc_rVgJ:vampire.isux.com/ROMs/+%22http://vampire.isux.com/ROMs/%22&cd=1&hl=da&ct=clnk&gl=dk&client=firefox-a

Here's the google cache: http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:hfakwNq-YlQJ:www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/05/login_2009_keynote_gaming_in_t.html+http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/05/login_2009_keynote_gaming_in_t.html&hl=en&gl=uk&strip=1

That's the phrase used by the rest of the English-speaking world and the TRIPS agreement. In the words of a USPTO patent attorney, "Industrial application is essentially the same as our utility standard set forth in 35 USC 101".

The utility standard in 35 USC 101 just means that it has to be useful for something... But, as I said, that can include use in entertainment. Simply put, the invention has to provide some benefit to the public.

That's the phrase used by the rest of the English-speaking world and the TRIPS agreement. In the words of a USPTO patent attorney, "Industrial application is essentially the same as our utility standard set forth in 35 USC 101".

The exact link to Google's cache is this. Regards

But more than two months ago (before the book was available), Amazon had the wrong title in its database, and sadly did not change its title.

The review I have submitted also did have the correct link also to ISTE publisher - who collaborate with Wiley.

For reference, Google did cache my submission here

Apparently the nice guy who approved my submission changed the URL to what Amazon incorrectly kept, probably because Amazon is the more usual book seller.

Neither he nor me can be blamed of the errors in Amazon's database.

Regards

I can use Google(cache). I learn it from a book.

but google wont let you down! the cache (link will change, but you can just Google the url for a new one), because the top 6 images are remotely hosted it will still work while the actual server is being ddosd and i doubt that the conficker guys are going to take down google.

google cache still works.
only the 3 important images will load though. if they don't you may be infected (or you may have a bad connection)

ITNews links to a discussion threat at whirlpool.net.au which has been deleted because it is "handeled by the authorities".

And again it is a known issue of Google which reveals the deleted thread: http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:uf9L_DtjAzYJ:forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1165021.html+http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm%3Ft%3D1165021&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk

- Martin ;-)

Seems a lot of 4gb cards are SDHC and/or don't work in non-HC cardslots.

A quick google search, a Sandisk FAQ and even the Wikipedia article we both referenced state "SDHC allows standard-compliant capacities in excess of 2 GB." seem to suggest this might be the case.

Kingston even state SDHC starts at 4gb. Not claiming I understand why, but I've had some experience of 4gb cards not working in non-SDHC, some cameras don't seem to like anything more than 2GB. YMMV! HTH!