Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Squashing, N'Synch, Yopy
Waitaminute, what happens there between the "lead" stage and the "gold" stage again? HomerSimpson writes: "Recently on /. I read of a compression scheme reported to provide huge gains for the compression of random data. New Scientist reports, however, that the claims are unlikely at best."
Perhaps we can watch some other bands be slaughtered instead? eruditorium writes: "Apparently, the negative public reaction to n'sync's appearence in episode 2 has caused lucas to drop their cameo. See it here on Scifi Wire." san1701 links to another similar posting about this important issue at TheForce.Net.
On-again, off-again is not good for electronic projects. cd_Csc writes: "CNET is reporting on Samsung's newest Windows CE based PDA and mentioned (as a side note) that, 'A Samsung representative also confirmed the cancellation of Yopy, the company's planned Linux-based PDA.'"
Update: 01/11 02:41 GMT by T : Looks like it's not quite that simple: Bill Kendrick writes "LinuxDevices.com caught wind of today's Slashback regarding the Yopy PDA's demise.
Well, fortunately for Yopy fans, they got the real scoop directly from G.Mate..." Thanks for the quick response, Bill, and sorry for spreading false information.
Imagine explaining to your kids what VCRs were. jimmcq writes: "Slashdot previously ran a story asking about Hacking the New Replay TV Units. There have been several recent breakthroughs to allow a PC to emulate a Replay 4000 so that video can be shared in both directions. The source code has been released under the GPL. There are also several variations including a java version and an Apache/PHP Server."
It wasn't that the OS was free, just that the implementing company was charging up the wazoo for their services. With no standard, easy to use embedded Linux dev tools (no, gcc and its ilk are not easy to use) and a crappy user experience in the standard Linux shells, Linux is a pain in the ass to support.
CE, OTOH, has a ton of really nice stuff and very reasonable licensing from Microsoft (though a little higher for "Pocket PC 2002"-certified licenses).
The real reason N*Sync's cameo was dropped was because Natalie Portman can't keep up with the dance steps.
I am !amused.
Looks like the clones themselves are the ones being attacked. For once Hollywood (or Lucas at least) actually listened!
Maybe he's just planning on compressing them 100:1 with that new algorithm so that nobody can see them. Perhaps due to the repetitive and unoriginal nature of all "clone" (or "popular") music, a higher compression ratio would be achieved. Think of it, I only need to store one song to hear every 500 out there
A solution to the problem with music today
Does that mean he'll add a five minute spot to the film where Jar-Jar gets brutally murdered?
__
LilDebbie
Come on slashdotters, get those anger votes in!!! We can change history and have a Jar-Jar-free Episode II and III. Let's get those Natalie Portman nude scenes in there while we're at it. Gee, I never thought mob rule could be more fun than good ol' democracy...
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
TiVo just plain out rocks. I hacked it to add an 80gig drive to give me 100 hours of shitty recording, or 50ish on the good quality. It is silent, looks like it belongs with my other home theater equipment and integrates just dandy with my sat box and my cable. I can't even think of bringing a computer into my setup.
Just one man's not so humble opinion.
Not bad considering Star Wars producer Rick McCallum is quoted as saying he and Lucas are not influenced by the internet...
Sourceforge, part of VA Software, disables downloads from Simply GNUstep, a project they host....
...after Slashdot, another part of VA Software, posts a story about it.
Way to support the community, guys.
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
From now on, everytime I want to go see a starwars movie, I'll have to think of the fact that George Lucas was going to put N'sync in a star wars movie. He's utterly ruined any chance I had to like any further movie he could ever make. The only way this N'sync thing could have ever been ok, is if they were going to be filmed being killed in real life, or maybe if they were filmed having their vocal cords torn out by Jar-Jar Binks. That may also help me to appreciate episode 1 in a whole new way. Sure, take them out now, that you've already ruined it for me.
If it is true that the Yopy is being killed after - it's most likly that Microsoft told them that they had to do it. Samsung, the parent of G.Mate, is really getting in bed with Microsoft : Their new phones are Stinger (WinCE) based, their new DVD will play Windows WMF audio files and their new tablet is WinCE based.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
This may be a bit off topic, actually I posted it on the original thread but got no responses - /.'ers who have some math skills to give me some advice / explain why it is a bad idea (TM).
/.'ers to give me some advice on an idea for a "Kick Ass Compression" - appologies in advance for the clumsy language.
:)
and I was hoping for some
I'd like some fellow
Take a block of data - throw it against an algorithm that outputs a specific value ( I'm thinking of CRC, MD5 hash or what not), do that several times against several different algorithms which generate a similar kind of value. Record the two (or more) values, then encapsulate the small block of data into larger blocks - I'm thinking only 3 or 4 levels of encapsulation would be needed (because if you calculated the crc of the entire file, a program could decide which choice (in decoding a "block" if there are multiple ones, which I'm fairly sure there will be) is correct.
Now people use md5 hashes/crc checks to verify whether the file they downloaded hasn't been modified, so I'm assuming that it is fairly difficult to get the exact value (especially with a known size). Using this "property" (I'm not sure if that is a correct word) you could decode the data into one of several (hundred??thousand??) byte streams (possibilities of uncompressed data) and by comparing byte streams between algorithm A and B, the byte streams would match at one (would it be possible to have more? I suppose it depends on the algorithms used) point, which would be the proper "uncompressed" (rather derived or something) data.
Basically there are many possibilities for each type of "hash", but if you compare the many output strings, you will eventually find matches.
I'm pretty sure it would take a shitload of computing power in decompressing - be horribly inefficient - but computers are fairly fast nowadays, and I think that this could be a viable at some point. 100:1 compression probably not, and there would be a lower limit imposed on the file size based on the possible choices (I think the possible choices would stretch to near infinity pretty fast, if anything, the computing time would set a "lower limit")
Maybe I'm just plain wrong - but could something like this be useable? Any advice / abuse would be appreciated
Thanks!
(Hmm.. a recent moderation of one of my comments, I found it quite funny)
Moderation Totals: Redundant=2, Insightful=1, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=5.
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This marks the first time the whining and bitching of slashdot users has actually had a tangible effect on the real world! Rejoice!
But wait! Think of the larger implications! If we keep this up, Microsoft will just give up one day and shut their doors! I know it!
Congratulations.
-=tonyt=-
Does this mean no Jar Jar and more space battles? All right!
Samsung... Too bad. I would have liked to see some more diversity in PDA OSes. I guess PalmOS is decent, though. Anyone have word on whether or not there is a PalmOS Emulator for PCs?
Everything is mainstream now.
This is a shame.... this was seen (not by me, but reported here previously) at several trade shows and drew a lot of good reviews. I wonder if it was just a big pipe dream and great mockups or if was dropped for other reasons. Hardware really sucks to sell, and it's quite possible that this system was complete and ready to go, but sales would have to be unrealistically high, or the price would be unrealisticaly high to expect it to sell at all :(
I wonder if there's any chance of this system still making it out into the world in the form of GPLed software, patches, or an emulator for people to hack around with. Maybe sometime in the future this will still surface (fingers crossed).
*cough pigeon hole cough*
Idiot.
Go Kathryn Thurber!
It's not like they were going to be in the whole movie. I think if Lucas had just done it and not let anyone tell the press, it would end up being one of those cool 'trivia' entries at IMDb:
"* 30 seconds into the first scene, the boy-band N*Sync can bee seen to the right of the transport. 5 seconds later, they are blown to bits."
Oh well. I mean, I hate all those processed-pop bands, but it would have been cool in retrospect if it had been done tounge in cheek. I mean, after all, 'Attack of the clones' and boy bands? Who can't see the irony?
Of course, having used both, and owning a TiVo, I must say that I find the TiVo user interface a thousand times better then a ReplayTV..
Free Mac Mini
Here's a story on eetimes concerning the compression of VoIP packet headers that claims a 40:2 ratio. Compressed Real-Time Protocol ain't a 100:1, but this is real technology that sounds like it will be in use by cisco and motorola pretty soon.
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20020108S0054
The basic idea is that the compression of the packet header becomes more and more important as the compression of the payload of the packet also increases.. since the compression ratio for the actual data is already pretty good, effnet is working on compressing the packet headers with good success. They claim an increase in traffic over a t-1 from 90 VoIP channels up to 234..
that's real.
"A Samsung representative also confirmed the cancellation of Yopy, the company's planned Linux-based PDA."
Remember the fancy Yopy demos on CeBIT 2000? The add-on camera on top of one of them? The amazingly colorful display? The concept of extensibility with e. g. a GSM cell phone, a GPS receiver, a TV set, some storage and whatever.
Exactly that kind of concept has actually been available for about a year - not Samsung's Yopy but Compaq's iPAQ, and it's running GNU/Linux.
It was not, then why stop at 100:1 compression? If the compression scheme was able to compress ramdom data at this ratio, then why not feeding it with its own output and get 10000:1 the second time, and do that a few more times?
PPA -- the girl next door.
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
To follow up, key-producing functions like MD5 are only useful for creating placeholders for the real information you're trying to store.
What, you were actually serious? This isnt magic mystical land, you know! You can't bend the laws of information theory and discrete math just because you've "got a really cool idea."
Go Kathryn Thurber!
Lucas is such a known control freak, I *highly* doubt that he got rid of the cameo (if he did) because of public uproar. Supposedly, he put in the cameo because his daughter is major fan on N'Sync.
I don't understand what the big deal was anyway. It's not as if they were singing the theme song or something. If you don't like their music, grow up and deal with it.
Not to mention that I bet 98% of the whiners have never even listened to one of their albums.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Perhaps with enough negative reaction, we can get Anakin to slice Jar Jar in half with that fancy new lightsabre he has.
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
The Yopy was Dropped by Samsung, but was re-designed by g.mate the comapny that was in cortrol of the unit all along. It's got just about the same specs as most of the pda's coming out now, but with and odd keyboard layout. check out or Personally I'll be getting the Zaurus shortly, and from what I've seen this is the Linux PDA to get.
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
As I uderstand it - any hash function just maps your file (A large number) into another number(smaller). A particular hash number can represent many files - yours and a bunch of junk files. If you add a clue to the message, like your file originally was 5432323 Bytes large and contains the string "I'm a weasel, here me roar", than the combined clue and hash number and seperator strings between the cules and hash number will either be larger than your original file, or will not describe the origional file precisly - your message will describe many more files than you'd like.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
I personally wouldn't object at all to seeing NSuck dreessed up in some drooling alien costume, and then watching them be hacked up with a lightsaber.
"Royal Consumer Information Products, best known for low-cost commodity appliances like shredders and postal scales, this week became the first to announce a low-cost color PDA based on the Linux operating system.
The $299 device, set for launch in the U.S. by the middle of this year, will be one of the cheapest color handhelds on the market, and also promises to bring Linux to a wider potential market. New color devices from Palm, for example, cost about $100 more than Royal's handheld. "
Best Slashdot Co
Who knows. But I'm right about that MD5, and about the poster being guilty of verbal diarrhea. I hope his karma gets slaughtered.
Go Kathryn Thurber!
d'oh
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Anyone else notice the title:
Squashing N'Sync, indeed!
:)
Fellowship 9/11
Step 1: collect underpants.
Step 3: profit!
Hash functions are also nice for caching static files locally.
Too lazy to get into that right now, though.
Go Kathryn Thurber!
right - decoding the MD5 hash would give you several possiblities - the real file and a whole bunch of garbage byte streams.
but if you use another hashing algorithm, you will get your original file and a whole bunch of garbage byte streams.
If you find exact matches from both of the algorithims, you have found your original file.
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Democracy is mob rule. The majority gets what the majority wants. Wish that I could say I'm glad that I don't live in a democracy, but the U.S. of A. is becoming less of a republic and more of a democracy. Quite a shame I say. What began as a wonderful form of government that was by the people and for the people has degenerated in people for the government and by the government....
So anyway, let's practice that mob-rule/democracy thing and get some soft-core action between Anakin and the queen!!!
Marnex Products
No, sorry, it won't work.
Basically, each side will have a copy of every potential message, and you simply want to choose that message from a list.
That'll work if your message list is relatively small. But if your potential message is anything, well, then that list will be rather (ahem) large. And that's where your scheme breaks down.
Just do a thought experiment with 2^65536 different messages. That's not unreasonable. Go from there.
The problem with the millions of half-thought out compression ideas is exactly that: They're half thought out. It's easy to think "Well I'll just search for sequences in pi because pi is infinitely long and if you had an infinite number of monkeys....". It all comes down to entropy or the variability in a particular bit space (yup I yabbled about this in another post), and the simple cold hard reality is that 1 byte can represent no more than 256 different "realities", versus 2 bytes which can hold 65536 different values : 2 bytes cannot POSSIBLY represent every combination of values that could be contained by even 3 bytes (which has 16777216 different combinations): There is no trick or slight of hand to get around this basic mathematical fact.
That basic fact immediately discounts and proves impossible any compressibility of random data, absolutely and non-refutably. Imagine up ways to store floating point numbers, or to "3d encapsulate the space-time continuum", but it all comes down to entropy, and the limitation of it when trying to represent X amount of data in
"Then, a miracle occurs."
3 Wolves and a Sheep voting on what's for dinner.
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
But there could be garbage byte streams which match both hashes, right? In fact there probably are many of these. How many hashes would you need to get a unique answer? How much data would that entail? Look up the pigeon hole principle (the real one, not zeosync's weird obfuscated one) to see how to prove that you can't possibly come up with an algorithm that compresses all byte streams of a given length into a smaller size. This doesn't prove that your approach can't work, but might make it more intuitively apparent why it is likely that such compression is not feasible.
Seriously. This is a hoax. Did anyone actually look at the name of the guy who supposedly broke the story?
It was "Joey Fatone".
I can't believe this got any play.
Holy moly, folks! He was just posting an idea, wondering if it was valid. Now he knows it's not. You don't have to rip him apart!
What is with the title of the New Scientist article - Big data compression claim gets squashed?
The article in no way squashes the claim, it merely quotes one math researcher, who is "sceptical".
The idea with most hashes is that you can go forward, but you can't (reasonably) go backwards (i.e. you can't "decode" a hash): i.e. I can safely transmit a hash of my password because you can't magically "decode" it back to my password. Of course an infinite number of data streams would lead to the same hash (i.e. this is the entropy thing again : An SHA1 hash is only 160 bits long, so obviously there will be collisions [though it's designed to avoid that, of course it will happen given an infinite amount of input]), so obviously you can't just say well "give me the string that leads to that hash!" because there's an infinite number of strings that would lead to the same hash.
His idea is A)totally unoriginal and B)doesn't withstand even most basic critical analysis.
Go Kathryn Thurber!
I hope my posting about the N'SUCK cameo and all of other slashdotters comments were read personally by Lucas. Even though I'm sure it was only part of the equation, I'd like to believe I played a small part in saving the Star Wars series from boy band hell. Thanks to everyone who replied to my very first slashdot article!
Since (it seems) a small voice can actually change the world, I'd like to make a few more wishes while I'm at it:
Planet Replay is a ReplayTV 4000 show sharing site. Currently its small, but has over 500 shows listed already. Not bad for its first few weeks.
People think Microsoft is the answer. Microsoft is just the question, "No" is the answer.
Slightly more detail, with photos:t ml
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4430982785.h
I always associated Royal with low-quality, but if they're not actually building the hardware themselves, and if there will be Linux synching, well that might be pretty cool. Nothing about Mac software though.
I'm sure this will be a very unpopular view, but personally I think N'Sync got the shaft on this one, and it's apparently all because of insecure, immature Star Wars fanboys.
So George Lucas has a 14 year old daughter, and he thought he'd shut her up by giving N'Sync 3 seconds of screen time. Big fucking deal. It's not like this affects the integrity of the film in any way, shape, or form. It was a fucking cameo for God's sake, and a very short one at that. Rich and famous people get cameo's in movies and TV all the time. 99% of you wouldn't have even noticed it until the DVD came out, and you found the exact time refrence on the Internet.
I don't listen to N'Sync or anything like it, but I've never understood why anyone would hate them. Christ, they're a band. It's not like pop music should be taken as a personal affront by anyone. No one is making you listen to it. N'Sync isn't running around the country raping your girlfriends and daughters. What, are you so insecure you can't stand it that some boy band is more popular with teenage girls than you are?
You don't think N'Sync aren't big-time Star Wars fans? You don't think they weren't psyched to get this? Any of you people would be thrilled by an opportunity like this. Basically what this comes down to is petty jealosy, pure and simple. N'Sync is already rich and famous, why should they be so lucky. How dare they bespoil my movie, those bastards. Grow up, all you lamer fanboys who bitched and moaned about this. Don't you have better things to worry about besides who get's blown up by blaster fire in a movie?
It hurts when I pee.
The Star Wars franchise went into the toilet with their first Muppet. George Lucas might be able to make another good movie if he can stop fondling his inner child long enough. In a few years, he'll be crawling around his Skywalker ranch wearing nothing but a big diaper, licking a really big lollipop.
JUST YOU WAIT AND SEE
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
1) Your schema works, theoretically, but...
:)
2) there's no reason to assume you gain anything by doing these transforms. On average, you will have 1:1 compression ratio. Unless...
3) your functions are not just generic CRC, MD5, etc. but rather some smart functions that allow to describe some patterns in the original file in a compact way. I this case, what you described is just another way of modelling of your original data.
JFYI, most of the current compressor algorithms work logically in 2 steps:
a) find the optimal way to model the original data; transform the original data using the new "alphabet" (in other words, map it into the new parametric space)
b) apply one of the entropy coding schemes (Huffman, arithmetic, range-coding, etc.)
The (b) part is easily presented/solved mathematically (btw, the arithmetic coding is the optimal one). However, the (a) part is complex. Most importantly, modelling it context-dependent. IMHO, the standard hash functions will not work well
and wow, by my count, you've lost about 10 karma.
The thing about hashes is that they're one-way functions, you have to have a copy of every possible message and its hash.
If you send *only* 16-byte messages, no larger, no smaller, that's 2^(8*16) = 2^128 possible messages. Each message is 16 bytes, so 2^132 bytes, or 5.4e39 bytes. Oops, twice that since you need to store what each message transform to, so call it an even 1e40 bytes.
Let's say a 100GB = 1e11 disk costs $100=1e2 in volume today. You'll need only 1e40/1e11 = 1e29 disks, costing a low, low $1e31. That's
$10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
I will leave other considerations - where will you store these disks, how will you power them, etc., as an exercise for the reader.
Fortunately, the sum total of all bit patterns of less than 16 bytes is the same. (Ignoring the storage requirements for the hashed value, I assume you'll create a 'bin' for each hash value.) Unforutnately, the price doubles again as you add each bit.
A second exercise for the reader: how may bits can you handle before you need more storage requirements than number of atoms in the earth? I haven't done the math, but I doubt it's more than a hundred bytes or so.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
If only public opinion worked so well all the time! You know there were thousands of god damn screaming girls making annoyances out of themselves trying to get n'sync in that movie. They probably wrote 30 letters a piece approving it (while the backstreet lovers only wrote 5 negative ones). I don't especially like star wars (not that it isn't good) but i'm sitting here smiling to myself for the first time in a couple weeks over this. Maybe democracy will prevail.
I keep getting taken to 'The Universe is turquoise, say astronomers' when I click on the compression link. The same thing when I do it from within their site on their own link.
"Apparently, the negative public reaction to n'sync's appearence in episode 2 has caused lucas to drop their cameo."
Judging by the cult-ish following of his movies, I thought George Lucas was in the business of making public opinion, not bowing to it.
You have to be from another planet...You can't turn on a radio,tv or sat without hearing them "sing"
On this article? Are you kidding me? I post at 0, dude. Anything of mine at 1 or above means I'm in the black.
Go Kathryn Thurber!
Okay, so Lucas has removed N*Sync's cameo. This doesn't change the fact that Lucas "sold out" by his willingness to include them in the first place.
::Colz Grigor
Combine that with the disappointment of SW:TPM and the result is that Lucas' reputation, in my eyes, is shot. He no longer intends to produce a movie that is geared toward my age/intelligence bracket. So I'll be returning the favor by not going to see SW:AotC in the theatres. Maybe I'll just have to wait until it bubbles up on my NetFlix queue... In fact, you're all invited to my place when it does so you don't have to waste your money seeing it in the theatre.
The R.S.V.P. list begins today...
--
I'm going try and not sound too snide here, but I'm not sure I can help it. It's a simple fact that you cannot develop a lossless compression algorithm which will compress all inputs to smaller outputs. Period.
.gz or the lack thereof is included in the output of the program.
People sometimes ask if college is worthwhile for studying CS. One good thing about it is that you learn not to try and design impossible compression algorithms. This isn't like P=NP, or any other hard CS problem which isn't completely answered. Or like the speed of light being absolute, which may or not be true. You simply can't design an algorithm which will make all inputs smaller, and have it be reversable.
For those of you who have not had any 101 level CS classes, here's why. If all outputs from your algorithm are smaller than the inputs, then you have fewer possible outputs than inputs. If this is the case, there have to be multiple inputs which compress to the same output. When it comes time to decompress the output, you will have no way of knowing which input was used to generate the output. Hence your algorithm will not be able to properly decompress the output.
Compression algorithms work because they are designed to make the typical file smaller, while compressing the uncommon inputs into larger outputs. Usually the common files have lots of redundancy in them, which makes it fairly easy to design compression algorithms, especially for readable text.
Actually, most good compression programs cheat a little bit. If they detect that the output is going to be larger than the input, they don't compress the file at all. Which means that all outputs are one bit larger than the output file size, because one bit of information is stored in the fact that the program did or did not compress the file. Logically, that
Now lossy compression is a whole different story. You can compress as much as you want, based upon how much loss you think is acceptable. I could easily design a lossy image compression scheme that compressed all pictures down to a single bit, but some folks might find that simply calling pictures 'light' and 'dark' is a little too lossy to be useful. But the important fact is that in any lossy compression scheme, there are multiple inputs which map to single outputs. And that's fine because you don't care if you get the exact file back when you decompress the output.
If you're saying what I think you're saying, you are :)
If i get you right, you get a bunch of hashes (crc, md5 etc). You then transmit them to the recipient who generates a list of all files that each could represent, and finds the one that is in all lists. Superficial objections: very slow, large amount of disk space, hashes may not be reversible except by brute force which is unthinkable (hash all possible n-byte files and look for this).
Deeper objection: this does not seem to take advantages in patterns in the data, and this is the only way compression can work. If n bytes can be compressed into n-1, then the data is redundant. Therefore, if this method works, it should work for everything. This would then compress everything, which is impossible, even more so (!?) since every compressed file would have the same size. To see why, compress all 256^N n byte files into B byte concatenated hashes==compressed files (less than N bytes). For the process to be reversible, the compressed files must be unique, however there are only 256^B Executive summary: compress all possible files, they are all smaller. There are not enough smaller files, so compressed files are not unique. Thus it is not reversible.
The result of this is that compression will (on average) mean that there is more than one file satisfying all hashes. For a unique file satisfying all hashes, on average the total hashes will be at least as big as the file.
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
I suppose the correct question to ask is how many possible solutions are there in "decoding" a hash that was "encoded" with a known algorithim - especially if you know the block size. Certainly less than the 2^(8*16) that you used in your example above. Sure, there are an [close to an?]infinite number of possibilities, but most of those possibilities wouldn't equal the "compressed" data (the hash).
Another thing would be is it possible to "decode" a hash inteligently - because there would be almost no way that this would work if you had to "brute force" all the data. I suppose this will get to something like "we can't do this intelligently and brute force will take too much time"
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Yeah, but if we just said "No, it won't work", he wouldn't have believed us. In fact, there is a small but real chance that he still won't believe us ;-)>
Lucas has done Camoe himself. About halfway through Beverly Hills Cop 3, Eddie Murphy jumps in front of a couple about to board a ride in the amusement park. The male half of the couple is none other than George Lucas.
Help fight continental drift.
The new scientist is linking to the wrong article not slashdot.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Who fucking cares if N*Sync or anyone else is in Star Wars as a cameo? It won't make any difference at all to the ultimate quality of the film. Now they see the hate and anger rising up out of the fans, and Lucas sees what he's created ... I bet we get 10 more minutes of Jar Jar as a result.
sulli
RTFJ.
First Lucas includes a death scene of a boy band at the request of his daughter. Then he removes it at the request of a howling Internet mob. Obviously Lucas learnt everything he knows about artistic integrity from George Costanza.
Maybe it would save time if he posted any script changes to Slashdot and we can mod them up and down: (Score 3, 'Funny'; Score 4, 'Jah-Jah suffering visibly'; Score 0 'Overrated')
N'SYNC.... /. ...... WTF!
+ or - N'SYNC SHOULD NOT BE MENTIONED at all on this site, unless it is accompanied by some mention of http://goatse.cx
Waiting for your mother.
"The 'N Sync guys were shot as extras, and whether they're in or out won't be determined until the final edit," Hale says.
s yn c_cut_from_quot_clones_quot__1.html
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/eo/20020110/en/_n_
Um, you're missing the point. Yes you can extract mpeg2 data from replaytv, but you can also advertise it via ReplayServer back to the real replaytv 4k, making your computer a video server. That feature, and a nice 1TB array, would make your little tivo upgrade seem quaint by comparison.
Can we please trade N-Sync for Jar Jar? I can live with a 60-second scene featuring N-Sync if it means no Jar Jar. I don't even need to see him die. I just need not to see him at all. Or to hear him. Especially to hear him.
Please?
Yes. My sources indicate that a wookie will rip his arms off.
Whose arms shall the wookie rip off: Jar-Jar Bites or George "This-space-for-rent-or-product-placement" Lucas?
Jar-Jar is an enormously annoying figure to adults, beloved of children, and therefore killing him in a bloody mass of dismembered limbs, although satisfying to the adults, would make the movie traumatic for the young-uns.
If the wookie was to tear off George's arms, it'd be some measure of justice for Episode 1, Jar-Jar, etc. and it could be done in a backroom so no kiddies need be traumatized. And the adults would still be satisfied.
The great story of good and evil and redemption evolved in the middle 3 movies (Ep IV-VI) with Campbellian overtones is being sold down the river by a man whose vision has lost its way in favour of a big paycheck. There were a lot of worthwhile Mythic elements amidst the entertainment of the original movies, and the story had a certain power. Jar-Jar the rastafarian doppelganger and even fancy high-kicking Darth Maul (of few words, and a cheesy death) can't conceal the deeper emptiness in Episode 1, which is about to be (by all appearances) surpassed in its vaccuity by Episode 2: Attack of the Clowns.
George... how could you? How did they ever get to you man....?
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
He was asking a question about compression. One of the topics of this article is compression. Moderators, learn to read the writeups before you start modding people down. Or at least learn to read *something*. Anything. Please. It's really not asking too much of you to have the faintest glimmering of a clue when moderating, is it? Thanks.
The Dutch railway company is blocking non-IE users. Pass it on and submit a complaint. Thanks.
Pushin' 'n dealin', shovin' 'n stealin'
Good riddance to you, dimwit. One less numbskull in my way when I watch the movies. And by the way, their first muppet was in the original movie. Did you ever see it? And Jar-jar wasn't a muppet, he was computer-generated.
"Because of Jar Jar Binks, I have not seen Phantom Menace, and don't intend to."
Jesus Christ, you people whine a lot. It's only a fricken movie. You have no financial stake in it. And it's not like you go to them because it will impress your friends. If you like the story, go see it, otherwise go see Scream 54, or some animated Disney softcore porn. Go beat off at home to one of those t&a flicks at Blockbuster. Just stop acting like George Lucas has to make the movie you always dreamed of, just because you may have seen a couple of his previous movies.
Hell, instead of using CG extras, they could get those thousands of fans to be REAL extras. We all know it would look a hell of a lot better.
why couldn't you say:
"My image file is variation #5432234534234223234432223443322 with hash value of 34334fa3de3ade33. Just for good measure, it's also 1200x1800 pixels, 24bits/pixel."
Of course, it'd be a royal impossibility to figure out how many variations there were, and which "variation number" you had (and then do the reverse to "decompress" it)... but wouldn't that be theoretically possible?
In theory, you could represent a 20MB image file with a 1k hash/data stream.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Remember the compression challenge?
m l
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/04/24/0457247.sht
'nuff said
Those that suggest you "dance like no one is watching" really want to see you make a complete fool of yourself.
If they'd done that, I swear I would've had to stand in front of the theatre and protest, I swear that I would
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
Wait, you mean I've been using the wrong term all this time? No, it can't be. I'm ruined as a computer consultant. My customers will all laugh at me now.
Damn you, send me your name, address, and phone number so my family of lawyers can contact you because I am going to sue you for costing me $4800 a day in lost wages. My cousins Larry, Moe, and Curley will be calling real soon, from my home phone.
Signed,
Bernard Shifman
Shifman Consulting
2828 N. Burling St.
Ste. 402
Chicago, IL 61108
This post is NOT flamebait.
It's easy. Pick 256 strings at random, each
100 bytes long. Put them in a table and use
the index into the table as the compressed file.
Oh, that didn't work to compress your data?
I guess your data wasn't random, because the
table was full of random data and your data
was not in there.
-- The Programmer in Chief
"People sometimes ask if college is worthwhile for studying CS. One good thing about it is that you learn not to try and design impossible compression algorithms."
I learned that from the comp.compression faq.
"Compression algorithms work because they are designed to make the typical file smaller, while compressing the uncommon inputs into larger outputs."
The trick is to convert seemingly random/uncommon
data into less-random data. Finding equations
which do the trick takes much processing power.
While we're exiling the assembly-line, sugar sweetened, boy band pop, an we get some of our own favorite tunesters?
We'll toss Jar Jar Binks and replace him with Jimmy Jimmy Buffett maybe?
To mail me, take out the hoopie, dammit.
Oh MY GOD!
Panda Huggles, indeed. Priceless stuff!
why couldn't you say:
"My image file is variation #5432234534234223234432223443322 with hash value of 34334fa3de3ade33. Just for good measure, it's also 1200x1800 pixels, 24bits/pixel."
You could say that. But there are (exactly) 2^51840000 variations of a 1200x1800x24bit picture.
That means it's very likely that your index number will be very very large - typically as large as the image itself. Sometimes you'll be able to send a very small file (rare). Most times you'll have to send a very large message. For the vast majority of useful messages, you'll have zero compression plus protocol overhead.
That's not very good compression.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
For once Hollywood (or Lucas at least) actually listened!
Two wrongs don't make a right. The subtle reason why N'Sync being in the film is wrong is that it is product placement, like having the wookie sip a Pepsi. Removing them due to fan protest is the wrong reason. If Lucas was the 'artist' we'd like to think our best filmmakers are, fan opinion would not be a reason to change an artistic decision. Consider: N'Sync now has sufficient cause to consider George Lucas a whore. (I say this at known risk of being downmodded, but please think about it before calling this flamebait.) That's irony!
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
First time I've seen a "consumer product" advertise here. Fine, fine product, though I personally find it undrinkable.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
And there you have it.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
A point that is continually missed with all the people pooh-poohing their claims is that their marketing dept. is not likely to factor in the size of the compression/decompression engine when making their claims. I can see that is it quite possible to claim 100:1 compression rates on a block of random data if your compressor/decompressor is over 100 times the size of any block. What is impossible would be if you were talking about those compression ratios on the data plus the engine. I just invented a compression decompression engine that can get better than 100:1 on any random file on the internet ... it's called a URL ... unfortunately the size of my engine is the size of the internet :]
The majority gets what the majority wants.
That should read "everybody gets what the majority wants."
And in America (but spreading) majority==most money. Still, the good old days when majority==most armaments can be found here and there...
This sig left unintentionally blank.
I wonder if the N'Sync boys cried like a Backstreet Boy right before they were blown up.
You have those Jar Jar lines down pat, pal! "Oh, dokey!"
* As agreed, this post will serve as payment for sucking me off this morning. Thanks again.
... probably still in there.
theforce.net : Bye, Bye, Bye 'NSync? Not So Fast
- sigs are for wimps.
Because the variation # would actually be a VERY long number, probably longer than the original file. Yes, there are that many mappings of long files to a single hash value...
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
I wouldn't worry too much about the Samsung / G-Mate relationship. It seems to me that G-Mate gave up on them about a year ago when they spec'd out the first Yopy / "YDK" for Samsung. The newest Yopy is quite cool and has a lot of room for potential. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on one of them - and for 399 - if the cell phone attachment could work in the US .. it's not a bad deal.
Just my $0.02
From the unseasonably-warm dept.
Warm here in Minnesota too. If you've been paying any attention whatsoever to the weather in the last 10 years you have to wonder if climate change is playing a role. I'm convinced it is.
It's going to be pretty difficult for skeptics to argue the scientific merits of the "theory" of climate change when they can walk outside on any given day and experience it firsthand.
We need to do something about this pronto. Otherwise our descendents are going to have a lot more important things to chat about than compression schemes and pop bands.
Are you an utter fucking control freak?
Is it your mission to crush all whiners out there?
Thus far I've seen 4 comments from you with NOTHING constructive to add. Just "You're whining!!! YOU'RE WHINING!!! WAAAH!!!" drivel.
And what's with this fascination of telling everyone to masturbate to low-rent movies? Deep-seated psychological problems?
Dude, some people would be happy if Georgie *would* listen. They're *quite* aware that they don't own the project, but it would be GREAT if George didn't have a Messiah Complex, and would listen to the fans.
But here's info for you - unless you can physically prevent people from posting, your flames aren't going to stop anything. And whining about whining is just lame.
Any good sources on turning my pc with an ATI all in wonder into a PVR?
I'm glad I'm not the only person disgusted with the fake and shallow nature of pop culture, which takes the low intelligence and malleability (read: ability to be manipulated) of the individual as its alpha and omega.
Lucus can't even stick to his guns with cameo's.
Film making by commitee just doesn't work.
He should have stuck with his original bad idea.
His flip flopping just proves to me how little vision he actually has.
How to Reduce the Expression of Practically Random Information Sequences
"Practically Random". What does that mean. I have looked in Google and it does not appear to be a standard term. I doubt that they have achieved 100:1 without stretching the definition of practically.
Also, while it seams like a great idea to send the key to lookup the full content as a compression scheme, this does not work for random data. Just think about how big the key would have to be to uniquely identify every possible piece of content. The key would be the same size as the data being referenced if a simple mechanism like this was used to store every possible content combination. You can compress they key, but this is the same problem as compressing the data.
Everybody I know had a negative reaction to the news that they would be included in Episode 2.
This news is better than I'd ever hoped to hear. I admire those that are responsible for this outcome.
Despite the rising cost of living, it remains a popular activity.
More info on the drop of Nsync from EP2 can be found on Ananova
[alk]
and trust me, it shines through in your comments.
hey, don't worry, i only got about 45 points left...
That would actually be cool!
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Just a thought: what if the dictionary elements created during compression were not included in the output file itself but somewhere on the Net?
there shouldnt be any problem sharing these taped shows over the 'net, since its within fair use to share it, so why is it limited only to replay ppl? if you're allowed to share shows you've taped on VHS and so on, you should be able to share shows you've taped using replay and tivo and so on.. since htey're in a format that can be played on the computer so its generally readable by anybody with a decent computer and space.. why isnt there more of a central place to share these shows? I would assume that this would be legal and practical.. and it would enable a lot of people to enjoy and find shows they've missed!
Does anybody want yopy.org? It's coming up for renewal, and I have no interest in renewing it. But neither do I want a domain name speculator to get it.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
"The trick is to convert seemingly random/uncommon data into less-random data. Finding equations which do the trick takes much processing power."
Um, OK. Whatever. Are you trying to say that with enough processing power, you can compress all inputs into smaller outputs? It you think that, you miss the whole point. See, you are focused on the "seemingly random" input, and sure, you might be able to compress the ones that only "seem" to be random, but aren't. What you are forgetting is that we are talking about all possible inputs, including the random ones. Just because you think you have some great way of compressing some inputs does not mean you have some way of compressing all inputs.
"That basic fact immediately discounts and proves impossible any compressibility of random data, absolutely and non-refutably."
Well, that's a little harsh for talking about a statistical phenomenon. Since random numbers are randomly distributed in state space as well as numerically, it is true that roughly 50% of N-bit numbers will contain N bits of entropy; the other 50% will contain less. 25% will contain N-2 bits of entropy, and so on. In fact, one randomly chosen number in every 2^(N-1) will contain only one bit of entropy (you have to pick all 1's sooner or later)!
Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.
Hey, man, you can borrow my THX laserdiscs any day you want ;)
I should watch them soon to see if they're speckling: that would suck.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Saw the news blurb about N'Sync on Sci-fi, and looked through the headlines...Didn't see a title about it. (N'Synch just didn't enter into my mind to make the connection at this late hour after coding.)
So what did I do?
Resubmit the story.
Makes me wish I could reject it myself for the reason of "Stupidity" so the editors won't have to look at it and risk reposting it.
Obviously Lucas' integrity was already in question. N*Sync was a horrible idea in the first place.
But at least have the courage to stick with something if you decide on it in spite of its obvious idiocy.
We might as well be getting congressmen to make movies now.
I completely agree with your post. I suggest, however that you move from hate to a more enlightened perspective- why hate idiots when you can laugh at them from a distance??? Both are perfectly futile as objective outlooks, but the seconds leads to lower blood pressure and fewer strokes/heart attacks/psychotic episodes.
:P
-----
IMUHO the truly funny thing about all of this is that anyone who understands classical science fiction understands that the relationship between Star Wars and SF is exactly the same as the relationship between N*sync and the thousands of excellent, non-manufactured musicians performing in bars and clubs across the world.
People who crave epic fantasy productions** (in the Campbellian sense****) have no modern epic fantasy productions to enjoy. Therefore they become excited by the most trite and pitiful semblance thereof, provided it is well advertised. I.E. Star Wars becomes the biggest smash hit in hollywood history, and people who should know better still worship it 23 years later. Mel Brooks understood it in 1987, yet the collective slashdot audience does not (even today, even with his help).
People who crave beautiful, passionate, exciting music** have no (readily apparent) beautiful modern music to enjoy. Therefore they become excited by the most trite and pitiful semblance thereof, provided it is well advertised. I.E. N*sync becomes becomes the biggest smash hit in music history, while Derek Dick, the greatest lyricist in the world, holds an estate sale to feed his wife and daughter. Weird Al understood it well before 1985, yet the vast majority of targets*^*^* do not (even today, even with his help).
It's hilarious.
-----
The original SW was vain, insipid, proselytizing, and fscking annoying- a symptom of a diseased culture- if for no other reason than that there is no better alternative. With all the incredible pieces of art which have been produced in that field, in the seminal literature which both defines and accompanies humanity as we progress towards our destiny, a story about a white trash farmer's son who blows up a space station is the best we can hope for??? At least the Good Guys(tm) win.
Star Wars was successful because 1) it was (fairly) well done (especially in comparison with other sf films of the time) 2) it was advertised like no other film in history and 3)Lucas understood enough about human nature to know what appealed to the people he was trying to sell to. EXACTLY the same reasons N*synch are successful. The reason you don't remember it is because your parents were the victims, not yourselves. Or, perhaps, because the advertising that was targetted at you was successful, while N*sync advertising is not successful b/c it is not targetted at you.
David Brin, back before the trolls drove him from slashdot, had an incredible post about this exact subject. Too bad I don't have time to try to find it...
6 prophecies:
[1] In 10 years, current N*sync fans will not be fans of (insert 2012 boy band name here). They will have children, and say that fans of (insert 2012 boy band name here) are vain, insipid, proselytizing, and fscking annoying. The reason they are fans of N*sync today is that the advertisements for N*sync(2002) are targetted towards them, while the advertisements for N*sync(2012) will be targetted at their children.
[2]You will pay to take your children to see Star wars Episode VII- and it will suck just as badly as I-VI. People who think Star Wars Episode I was awesome will agree that it sucks.
[3]Your children will love it. They will also have N*Sync(2012) posters above their beds.
[4]You won't understand your children's POV, and your children will think "parents just don't uderstand...".
[5]Lucasfilms/"Free Lance Entertainment" (lol) will laugh all the way to the bank
[6]Rev. Neh Scudder will still think 1-5 are hilarious.
Rev. Neh
First Prophet
**all people, as in, symptomatic of human nature. Endemic. See any Joseph Campbell book for details.
****either Joseph or John
*^*^* {that select portion of western civilization which has sufficient disposable income to purchase large quantities of compact disks, i.e. 14 year old girls}
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
I thought that the idea of putting a boy band cameo into a star wars movie was a BAD idea. Then I thought it over. In 10 years, its a good bet that most people will only vaguely remember who they were and even fewer people will actually recognize them.
Secondly, although it might have been somewhat tacky, placing members of a boy band as clones had a certain ironic twist to it that made the whole idea work out well.
And third... the opportunity to see a boy band get blown to bits overrules my desire to not see an uncorruptable starwars movie. Its already been contaminated anyways. It's got JarJar.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Virtually random data, or data that is generated by a complex, yet predictable formula, could potentially be subjected to a rather complex curve fitting excersize to reveal the original formula, or at least enough of the formula to reproduce the data.
In fact, for any finite group of numbers, you can produce a function that will generate those numbers. However, unless an obvious pattern is recognized and exploited, the function will likely be larger than the data it is trying to reproduce. Its the recognition of significantly long patterns that would achieve the 100:1 lossless ratio.
Although I've never tried to, I don't think its beyond the realm of probability to be able to recreate a formula for a generated list of data, if that data was created by a formula in the first place. However, this presents a couple of problems.
First of all, if the data IS easily stored in a formula, why would large quantities of this data exist in data form when it could be just as easily stored in formula form and have the application generate it realtime as needed. Basically, even if this program does work this way, it would only be useful where data was poorly concieved in the first place.
Secondly, how much virtually random data is there anyways? Where high speed, high volume compression is the most useful would be for video transmission, and yet we still achieve greater rates than this for acceptable rates of lossy compression, and in any event, recorded video and audio has a natural element to it which would break it out of the "virtual" qualifier.
Of course, there's no saying that they use an approach even closely resembling this. But something to think about anyways.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
when you combine hash algorithems, all you have is a larger, morecomplex hashing algorithem. You still have a ton of garbage files when your finished.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
My image file is variation #5432234534234223234432223443322 with hash value of 34334fa3de3ade33
Of course, it'd be a royal impossibility to figure out how many variations there were
No, actualy. Just take the size of your hash, and the size of your file and subtract. then take 2that. Quite simple, no? Of course, when you combine that data you end up with a file of the same size.
Really, is it to much to ask that people who call themselves 'geeks' have at least a simple understanding of mathimatics?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
then advanced alien civilizations have been sending us transmissions after all, just in tiny super compressed data packets, and we just couldn't understand them. Now we will get to join the universal community...
...when will the REAL information age begin?
rhy
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Hi there! Meesa Jar Jar Binks!
See meesa new movie 'Episode 2: Attack of the Jar Jar Clones' in May 2002!
Yousa think meesa gonna die?
I don'ta think so!
You simply can't design an algorithm which will make all inputs smaller, and have it be reversable.
Um, you don't need college to know that. I know that, and I have no student loans! ;)
Just a minor point that no-one seems to have spotted, if you'll forgive me going into coding theory for a second :
the aim of all compression systems is to get the file size as low as possible. This means removing all unnecessary information, which is equivalent to making the entropy as low as possible. A bit stream with an entropy of zero is otherwise known as "random data".
So this lot reckon they can compress "virtually random" data by a factor of 100? Either they've comprehensively broken all of Shannon's laws or they've got a very dubious definition of "virtually" which means it's 100 times bigger than a random string. I don't care what buzzwords they wrap around it, it's got to be one of the two.
Oh, and one other point : output from most compression programs is as near to random as makes no difference. So they're going to get a 10:1 compression ratio on an already gzipped file?
BTW, I hope the Yopy does make it. The Yopy looks like a nifty device, and I'm probably going to buy one.
I'm glad they dumped the n-sync cameo, but I'd rather have them in the movie than Jar Jar Binks.
I've been looking up in Google how random number generators (RNG) are made. What comes up are a lot of discussions regarding RNGs in encryption schemes. The goal there is to make sure you CAN'T determine the seed based on the output and the algorithm. However, what I'm looking for is the reverse. I WANT to find a RNG where I can find a seed for an arbitrary random number.
What if:
I had 65,535 different "reversible" RNG algorithms that I use to generate seeds from. I find the shortest (or most compressible) seed and store that with the index to the algorithm I need to reproduce the "almost random" string of data.
I have no idea if any of this is feasible (probably not). I'm just trying to brainstorm what the Zeo guys have come up with.
"Lessis-Moore", invented by the smart lzip people - lzip.sf.net
Folks such as myself haven't purchased a PVR becasue we would like the option of archiving shows off to something other than crappy VCR tapes. Being able to setup a PC server with a bunch of my favorite shows or burn them to a writable DVD is a BIG attraction. I've watched the TIVO hacking with GREAT interest but it's not "there" yet. It doesn't help that they cannot even discuss this on the d*mned TIVO discussion board!
The Replay on the other hand, while apparently lacking some of the AWESOME smarts the TIVO has for program guides\recording, is MUCH easier to grab video from. TIVO just released their second revision but nothing there seems to make my needs any easier to fulfill (okay USB might make it a little easier but..) meanwhile the ReplayTV boxes look like a homerun.
I'm going to wait a bit longer before purchasing to see if the Replay hackers run into problems and to see if the TIVO folks finally get something out that will do what I want. It's a REAL shame that TIVO isn't supporting this or I'd be all over it. I still might buy a TIVO if I spot one cheap at WalMart but so far my local shop has had NONE. (shrug)
Anyway, that's why this is important to some of us. The manufacturer isn't giving us what we want but the hackers ARE and my hat's off to them for it.
P.S. No, I'm now willing to buy an ATI card and try to do this myself. I want it EASY for the woman to use too.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Remember, someone with a different P.O.V may find your attitude a source of ammusement as well. It's all relative, and it's all good (from a certain point of view, to bring in a Star Wars reference). Smugness can be really ugly. It may be hilarious; but that's life, which we know is grossly unfair. No matter, we just try to do what we can. Lamenting the glaring inequities will only give you an ulcer. Turning people on to the beauty in life is a pleasure and a gift. And, it's doing your part to help "right the wrong", so to speak. Dude, it's a fscking movie, chill. It was intended to be entertainment, not capital-A Art. It's Flash Gordon with a better budget. And also, it is a fantasy, not sf. 2001: A Space Odyssey is sf. I disagree here. The first SW movie was successful because at the time of release, there was nothing like it, and word of mouth spread like wildfire. I was 13 at the time, and by chance walked into the second showing on the day it opened. There were about 10 other people in the theater. By the weekend, there were lines around the block. Advertising didn't do that.
Lucas made his money because 20th Century Fox didn't think the movie would do any business, and much to their later regret, gave him full rights to merchandising. That, more than anything else, is the evil that George Lucas foisted on the world. He milked the tremendous surprise success of SW and its sequels for everything it was worth, much to the dismay of people who get ill at the sight of "I love R2-D2" shoelaces.
From that point on, GL knew he could make any SW movie he wanted - there would be a built in HUGE audience, and he made all the merchandising money. He really doesn't have to intentionally create characters that translate well into dolls/lunchboxes/etc. It'll just happen anyway.
N*sync, and any other boy band one can think of, are totally manufactured entities from the get go, that have demographics factored in, and are totally market driven. But, this is nothing new. The entertainment industry has been doing this for as long as people have parted with cash to escape from reality. And, that's a long time.
So, don't get all righteous about the fact that bland entertainment always eclipses art - it's always been that way. And, some of the bland entertainment is just that - entertaining. As time goes by, the good stuff sticks around, and the crap fades away into the mists of time (Don't assume that Beethoven and his contemporaries that still get performed now were the only people composing at that time, for example - we don't know the others because they weren't good enough to last).
I try to keep my pedantic tendencies under control, but sometimes...
GTRacer
- Wouldn't have bitched if any of the previous 10 uses had been correct...
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
N'Sync and Lucas are both whores. We had "sufficient cause to consider George Lucas a whore" even before this matter. Remember Episode 1? Remember the complete box collection that came out 3 months after the OTHER complete box collection? Remember that damn Star Wars arcade game that fanatics would play FOR A DOLLAR A GAME?! (It wasn't even that great...)
Don't get me wrong, I still like the Star Wars series, but it's turned George Lucas into the dark side (of the buck).
Zodiac Survey
No, if gzipping a gzip'ed file doesn't make it any smaller, then the claim "gzip can compress any data" is a hoax.
And rightfully so - such a claim is ridiculous on its face. I suggest that those of you fascinated by the possibilities of compressing random data try:
bash:~$ cdbash:/tmp$ head --bytes=1000 <
bash:/tmp$ ls -l randfile
bash:/tmp$ gzip -c -1 < randfile > randfile.1.gz
bash:/tmp$ gzip -c -9 < randfile > randfile.9.gz
bash:/tmp$ ls -l rand*
There can be no algorithm that (losslessly) compresses all 1000 byte files to 999 byte files. (Hiding data in the filename or in other hidden files on the system -- don't laugh, there was a DOS-based "compression" program that did just this -- doesn't count). In fact, I'd be willing to bet that if a file were made by the process above, (reading out of /dev/random) then it is highly likely that the resulting file has the property that no program can be written that: 1) is smaller the data itself, and 2) produces that data as its output.
Hm. Now I'm actually interested in that problem - what do you suppose the probability is that a random 1000 byte file will be compressible by gzip? What is the maximum possible probability for any compression algorithm? (Obviously there's an upper bound of 50%, but I'm thinking it might be even less than that)
All your Spoony Bard Are Belong To Us !!
And now for something completely different.
You assume the George Lucas was somehow seduced to the dark side. I would contend that achieving enormous financial success and power through mass-marketing was his intention all along.
George Lucas introduced the world to the power of mass- cross- marketing of film properties. Others had done it, but no one was as successful as he was, with the original Starwars. The marketing hype ramped up with each successive movie, and correspondingly, the substance of the movies slid downward. The development of characters, plots, and concepts had taken a back seat to the needs of marketing by the time Return of the Jedi arrived.
No one got to George Lucas. He intended to go where he has, from the beginning.
You absolutely don't have the right to "share" things you videotape from the TV. In fact, the only acceptable use of VCRs for broadcast TV is something called "time-delayed viewing"... which basically legally means you can tape it to watch later, but that's it... you can't store it forever to watch over and over, nor can you give it out to friends
"Fair Use" doesn't mean "what I think is fair"...
The reason why copying replay files to computers isn't allowed is because the "time-delay" feature is a part of DVR systems.
The reason that studios don't want to allow this is because once you run a whole series in reruns and it's recorded into dvd quality files that can be freely shared, then you have no reason to go to the store and buy their DVDs.
This would be OK with me if it weren't for one fact:
Some shows you will NEVER be able to buy on VHS or DVD - EVER.
Thus, the only way to watch them again in the future is to keep an archive. It is like out-of-print books, except at least with such a thing there is a physical copy, whereas there isn't with a broadcasted show (OK, maybe if you had a real fast starship that could race ahead of the signal in space, then flip around and intercept it - maybe you could get it that way).
Here is a good and recent example: Fox's Millennium.
You will most likely NEVER see any of the episodes come out on a VHS tape or DVD - yeah, say it is syndicated, but so are the old episodes of X-Files, and some of those ARE available on VHS (and DVD?). However, it is unlikely you will EVER get the entire X-Files series on tape or DVD, in order, etc - to watch again - thus the need for archiving.
Another (but older, and not as good) example was the series (ABC?) called "Covington Cross" - not the best show by any stretch, but still an OK show to watch - yet, where can I buy the VHS tape or DVD of the few episodes that exist? Huh? NOWHERE!
Archives are a way of preserving this stuff - how often do you hear about a "lost movie" or photographs being found in a back room of some dusty/moldy warehouse 75-100 years after they were made - and then of course the long, arduous and EXPENSIVE task of restoration that has to be done to view them again? What about things like those early audio-record based "video" recordings of Nipkow disk transmissions - those could have easily been thrown out as "noise", if anybody had a record player to play them with at all!
Archives prevent this loss, so that such information may be preserved for future generations. We do this with books already (LOC), but the only audio and video that goes into the LOC are the bits the studios let out (ie, the published works - not the broadcasted one-hit-wonder works).
Oh, one other series I would love to get in a collection - but I can't: The A-Team
When? When?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Of course, because Hate leads to suffering ;).
Over the years, I've had countless debates with people who attribute the success of Star Wars to one or another facet. Obviously the stellar score, the mindblowing special effects, novel dramatic pacing, excellent performances (for the most part) and even marketing played into it. But what drew it all together was that it was a rollicking good adventure tale.
I was first exposed to Star Wars by the Alan Dean Foster novel I found on a paperback rack when I was 10 or so. It immediately took its place among my little collection of prized "adult" books. My parents hadn't quite caught on that I'd outgrown Tom Swift, so I read my copies of Jaws, Planet of the Apes, Lucifer's Hammer, and Star Wars fetishistically until they fell apart.
But my point is this: I was utterly hooked and fascinated with the story, even though it was nearly a year before I convinced my parents to take the family out and see it! A lot of great work by very talented people came together to produce the phenomenon that was Star Wars. But what held it together and gave it staying power was the story behind it that resonated. As a counter-example I offer the Phantom Menace. A lot of good work there, but it is essentially empty.
friend, check out the facts n' history n' stuff...
the USofA was never a democracy in the first place, it was originally a Republic (i think). Ergo, democracy really has no place at all in a discussion of USian politics, unless you are suggesting that it might be worth a try. don't let the G-men hear you say that, tho... look where it got fellas like Patrice Lumumba (assassinated) and the quarter-million or more Indonesians killed by the CIA-backed Suharto... and they didn't even live here
Don't ask. Go see.
mod dis shit up
Security through promiscuity is no better than security through obscurity.
It's so cute to see people who don't know the facts and just hate the rich...
The top 50%? They pay 95.2% of the taxes.
The bottom 50%? They pay 4.8% of the income taxes.
Who's getting eaten?
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)