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Slashback: Dataplay, XviD, PPC
Pins and needles, pawns and bishops. s20451 writes "It looked grim earlier in the week, but following a fifth game meltdown by Kramnik and a brilliant game 6 by Fritz, the computer has tied the match 3-3. Betting on the computer in game 6 would have brought you a 7-1 return! I'll be on the phone to Vegas."
The new, new, new economy has room for camels. SwiftOne writes "According to their website, The Perl Journal has gotten enough subscriptions to begin online release (the planning of which was previously covered, along with the concerns about not reaching their goal. The first (next) issue is expected in early November."
Maybe it was the 15th-mover disadvantage. melt writes "Dataplay, the Boulder-based manufacturer of quarter-sized recordable discs and drives, finally called it quits on Friday, October 11, 2002. The remaining 120 employees (who have been on furlough for the past few weeks) have been let go and the company has closed shop. They are looking for a buyer for the remaining pieces. Full story at the Rocky Mtn News web site."
Zoom in until you see little canyons ... Twirlip of the Mists writes "IBM's chief scientist for their iSeries family of servers (a.k.a. the AS/400 family) has an article on iseriesnetwork.com describing the somewhat confusing history of the POWER4 microprocessor. In light of recent speculation about a possible relationship between IBM and Apple, this article is of particular interest. It clears up-- at least partially-- some of the complex, incestuous relationships between the PowerPC architecture, the PowerPC processor family, and the POWER4 processor. As an added bonus, there's some talk about the upcoming POWER5 and POWER6 processors near the end. The key phrase (and disclaimer): 'expected to appear in 2004.'"
Shame on Sigma.
Gruturo writes "After almost 3 months the XviD project and website have reopened, though Sigma Designs has not complied yet with all their requests (they still carry their copyright on many modified sources). In these last 2 1/2 months the project still went underway, although unofficially:
B-frames are practically ready, motion estimation algorithms have been improved, work started for Qpel implementation."
Please stop teasing us. If you liked Cryptonomicon, you've probably been impatiently watching the announcements of when the next Stephenson book would appear. wka writes "Previous false starts notwithstanding, Amazon says Neal Stephenson's new novel Quicksilver will be published in January."
And next week, building box-girder bridges. scubacuda writes "Lawmeme has released Part III to their Law School in a Nutshell series (Part I and Part II were previously featured on /.)"
Why? Isn't nickel-sized SD storage small enough with large enough capacity?
You should try mplayer instead. It supports loading of win32 codecs, streams, vcd's, dvds, tv capture, some Realplayer files, and my favorite feature... anything it can decode, it can convert. Worked good for turning some vcd's into divx for a dialup friend of mine.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
Anyone have any good recommendations on geek books suitable for 26+ hours of flying (and a few couple-hour jetlag-induced insomic sessions)? Besides the Slashdot book review section, I mean. Novels and such...
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Dataplay, the Boulder-based manufacturer of quarter-sized recordable discs and drives, finally called it quits on Friday
Well, can't say I'm surprised. While there are a VERY few uses for drives this small, the demand is pretty dang small. For what I'm sure is much less, you can get much more storage at a resonable size. So while the technology is very, very cool... it realy doesn't have enough people to support it. (Unless it was made by a big manufacturer like IBM that also did many other things...)
Who wants to start the random speculation as to what this one will be about? Or does someone know? I'm a bit curious, personally...
I think it would be more interesting to have a computer play someone in a game of go!... I have heard that if you have a a fast enough computer, with enough memory, that all the possible moves can be mapped into the system. While at go, it's not possible.. Is this correct?
Shame on Sigma
More like shame on me for buying the damn card, what a piece of crap that is... my friend in the DV industry told me his department tested the card and the conclusion was (apart from being crap) that they had really skimped on the hardware acceleration/decoder processor (just so it could do the bare minimum)... looks like they skimped on the 'development' (read. stolen) of the DivX (cough, XVid) implementation and the complete joke they called a 'player'.
The other thing was I had to look when buying it, 'cos NewEgg didn't sell it... only Sigma themselves and CDW sold it (the latter where I got it from). Hmm, NewEgg rules... I must learn to trust my instincts now and think twice to the thought 'Why aren't NewEgg selling it?'. DOH, DOH and thrice DOH! (Shame on me).
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
As cool as quarter size media might be, I'm not entirely sure that is the way the market should go. 3-inch media seem to be a better bet (certainly as far as compatibility goes) and would be far less likely to get lost or get eaten by babies and pets. When I think of the ideal medium, I think of something that can fit into my shirt pocket, but not so small that it get lost in my hair.
While most of Dataplay's technology was quite interresting, it's built in DRM may have been it's downfall. They had to initially market to the early adopters (much of the /. set) who are opposed to DRM. Once a technology has been adopted, it would be easier to accept the DRM due to the fact that a majority of the people who owned it wouldn't object.
Then this guy who says he communicated with the publisher and they indicated that it would be coming out in three parts starting next July, must be telling a story:
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Return triumphant of XviD?
Talk like Yoda, Timothy is beginning. =P
I, however, will just laugh. If, indeed, "everyone" at this company believed in this format, I'm glad to see them tank. There was some sick shit going on there; here's hoping someone incompetent buys them up and kills their wonderful "technology".
How about the 3 volume 'Art Of Computer Programming' by Knuth.
Not quite a novel, but meaty enough to give you loads of info, or technical enough to send you to sleep (depending on your mood at the time)... or if you still need sleep, you could try hitting your head with the books, I know how the engine noise and people can just keep you completely wired during a flight.
Enjoy your flight.
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
Some interesting quotes:
Instead of using a sequence of instructions to perform a common function, the operating system will use a single instruction that causes the entire function to be performed by the POWER5 microprocessor hardware. Examples of these common functions include TCP/IP processing, communications message-passing operations, and virtual memory subsystem operations, to name a few. The interfaces to all of these silicon accelerators will be open so that other operating systems, for example Linux, can take advantage of them.
and
When POWER6 arrives in 2006, it is expected to extend the Fast Path idea to even higher-level software such as DB2 and WebSphere processing. Again, all of the silicon accelerator interfaces will be open, so other software developers wil be able to take advantage of the improved performance.
Bill Gates once said that when a given bit of functionality is sufficiently standardized, it should be part of the OS.
No we will make it part of the CPU.
The law is a weapon of the government, not a protection for the likes of you. Surely you understand that.
Wow....judging from the earlier games it seemed like Kramniks methodical defense with black (whatever happened to the much vaunted "Berlin Wall"?)and vigorous attack with white were going to yield a lossless set for the world champion. But now with a 3-3 set and Fritz going 2.5 - .5 in the last 3 matches, it seems that the computer has "turned the tide"...
IMO, this is only because of Fritz being allowed to make changes to itself to edit its openings. Previous matches were usually charachterized by the games falling into a predictable queen sacrifice. But it looks like by changing the openings around, Fritz is preventing Kramnik from forcing the game into a defensive draw.
Also, The last 2 games have been charachterized by risky Kramnik moves that might be very beneficial against humans, but Fritz is able to play essentially perfect defense. To me, it seems like Kramnik has thrown out his very defensive strategy that gave him a 2 game lead in favor of a more attacking strategy.
5 bucks on Fritz.
I find it kind of strange that Sigma doesn't mention anything on their website...
Try CowboyNeal's Guide to Poll Performance. In this 580 page opus, CowboyNeal explains how time after time, he is able to get onto the ballot, and win a good portion of those times. If you have ever wanted to be popular or at least always in the public eye, CowboyNeal's Guide to Poll Performance is for you!
Recently I had the chance to read about the first 30 pages of a 'redbook' manual for the top-of-the-line pServer, which has several POWER4 CPUs. It was interesting.
Storage doesn't have to removable.
I am an active Perl developer, have been for several years. All the information I need is available on-line: PerlMonks, newsgroups, etc. I have never run across a question I've had that hasn't been asked by someone else, in one form or another.
So give me one good reason why I would choose to spend my hard-earned dollars on a resource that is (1) dated as soon as the PDF hits the mailbox and (2) replicated by on-line resources?
To support the Perl movement, you say? I do that already by teaching others about Perl. That is my contribution to the world of Perl: My time in exchange for evangelization, certainly a cause Larry Wall would find acceptable.
I'm sorry, but in this day and age where information is abundantly available on the 'net, I see journal publication (dead-tree or on-line) as a poor, not-profitable business model. The idea that profit can be made from information is becoming obsolete, especially in the IT world (unless you have control over proprietary information, like Sun or Microsoft).
BTW, I'm using the term "profit" loosely here, to simply mean money available from revenues that can be put back into the business. Nothing in this post is meant to reflect upon the business motives of any of the TPJ organizers.
It's also an excellent book in its own right -- it won the National Book Award in 1974, and it would have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize had the board not considered it obscene and overriden the judges' decision.
26+ hours? Woah man that's a long trip.
What I would do in this situation:
Bring a laptop with FreeBSD, some VCDs, and warfly to see if there is any access points on lost islands or anywhere else.
Of course you can get something from Hemmingway or whatever. I don't think interesting books are hard to find, unless you're looking for something specific.
For myself, I'd grab a book like "An introduction to AI robotics" or "Secrets and lies: digital security in a networked world" or something like that.
I guess I should spend time reading novels and such... but I'm lazy. That's why I'm ignorant on most topics other than computer science.
It has benefits and disadvantages compared to the other major mpeg4 encoders out there: DIVX 4, DIVX 5, and ffmpeg. For decoding, it doesn't matter nearly as much, but it's good to have a lot of encoders around to keep things competitive.
mplayer is not a video codec.
"Bring a laptop with FreeBSD, some VCDs, and warfly blah blah blah stupid shit etc...."
why not just let him use what OS he already has installed, jackass?
Keep in mind that Amazon has been saying January, 2003 ever since they stopped saying January, 2002 and this was updated AFTER the date that Amazon originally claimed that it would come out. In my experience, Amazon generally is accurate about release dates, but I don't trust them on this one.
May i suggest Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door 2003: The Travel Skills Handbook for Independent Travelers His guide books have tons of interesting info on Europe that most people would never think about.
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
Score: -1, Incorrect.
MPlayer is a very good media player for Unixes.
Xvid is an open-source mpeg4 video codec. MPlayer competes with Xine. Xvid competes with Divx.
I can't pass up an opportunity to plug, "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid". I found it in the philosophy section of my local bookstore a month ago and have been devouring it ever since.
Here's an Amazon Link
Then the Java experts are fucking idiots, too.
So are you, apparently. Perhaps you should try learning to spell from a fucking dictionary rather than programmers, who are notoriously bad at it.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
For the sake of us outside the US, just how big is a quarter, anyway?
Be careful! New moon tonight.
Why not read a short story or two
His Saddam Hussein Germ Warfare novel is inexplicably out of print.
If I don't know how to spell a word, how can I look it up to find the spelling?
Chicken-egg problem, Mister.
Karma: Undead.
The real Java experts know how to spell it. Notice the "deprecated" link at the top of the screen.
The morons at "experts exchange" don't.
Okay:
Dataplay, the Boulder-based manufacturer of quarter-sized recordable discs and drives...
Does this mean the discs are 25% of the diameter of a regular compact disc? Does it mean they are 25% of the area of a compact disc? Does this mean they are the size of a US 25 cent coin?
Even the Dataplay web site acts coy about the actual size, saying things like: "DataPlay is a miniature media that can be used to play, record and store anything digital." (from the FAQ)
Does anyone know how big these actually are (or were)?
Sailing over the event horizon
Hey s20451, I bet you didn't like "The Terminator" movies either.
So what was your opinion of Jack Nicholson's performance in Kubrick's (PBUH) rendition of The Shining ?
Yes you are. Stop fooling around!
- Deep Blue was effectively a 10 TeraOp/sec machine. (Since Deep Fritz runs on eight x86 boxes at 4000 mips each at most, DF's hardware is at least 300 times slower than DB's).
- Deep Blue was built with 0.6 micron CMOS and evaluated 200M nodes/sec with 480 parallel chips. A new version built from 0.13 micron CMOS could evaluate 1 billion nodes/sec. A parallel version could evaluate a trillion nodes/sec.
- Deep Fritz's promoters are guilty of false advertising when they claim their program beat Deep Blue in 1995. They could not have beaten Deep Blue in 1995 because Deep Blue did not exist in 1995. The machine they beat was Deep Thought II, a forerunner of Deep Blue with much less chess knowledge, 100 times less raw hardware speed, and 1000 times less effective speed.
- Hsu says he could write a program today that would kick the stuffing out of Deep Fritz, "even in a simul". I presume that he means using Deep Blue-type parallel hardware so it could massively out-search a pure-software implementation like Deep Fritz. With that type of hardware, he's probably right. With pure software, I'd have to ask him to prove it.
- Hsu has a book out about the Deep Blue-Kasparov match, "Behind Deep Blue". It's written for popular audiences and is not very technical, apparently. (I've ordered a copy but hadn't heard of it til seeing the chat transcript).
- The IBM Deep Blue 2 hardware is being donated to the Smithsonian Institution. It's kinda sorta possible that it could be made operational again some day.
Anyway, a bunch of folks on the computer chess newsgroup think Kramnik threw at least one game deliberately just in order to keep the match score from being completely lopsided. That's a pretty serious accusation, but it would explain some things. The loss in the 5th game was a beginner's blunder and Kramnik wasn't particularly in time pressure.Either way, I don't think this match has anything like the quality of the Kasparov-DB2 match.
if only there was a standard for lossless audio on 3-inch DVDs.....
Can MLP be run at 44 kHz 16-bit stereo? If so, use the DV/DA standard. If not, use DVD-Video with blank video and PCM audio.
Now just wait for the 3-inch DVD-R blanks to come out.
Will I retire or break 10K?
a Beowulf cluster of Neal Stephensons using power PC 6 processors from IBMac playing chess against those guys who write the Perl Journal......sorry, I thought I had the funny but I guess someone else has it. -Nasty
Aw, man, just another story about Power PC chips... When will we start seeing stories about particle projection cannons?!?
But you have to question it. While it may seem cool to do things like factor polynomials with one instruction, or do TCP packet header filling, how useful is this?
Because you need much more die space for decoding of instructions, it becomes harder to ramp CISC up to higher clock speeds. That's why RISC was introduced.
Now, unless you've been asleep for 12 years, you know that modern x86 CPUs are a combination: CISC instruction set (and benefits thereof) with a fast-path decoder for most commonly used instructions, with a slower conversion for more complex/less used x86 instructions, all of which are crunched through a RISC core which has more registers and other bits to aid parallel pipelining of instructions. So far this has proven to be really great. Transmeta's even taking it a step further by introducing codemorphing, which lets the entire CPU just be a JIT x86 environment running on a VLIW core.
Why are they going this way? It doesn't really seem to make sense compared to the traditional trends in computer processor design.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Slashback you are in.
Old stories see some new light.
New data to know.
Are you passingly familiar with the Roman alphabet, and how the various letters-- 26 of 'em, you know-- correspond to the sounds of the English language? When you say "dep-ruh-kate," can you picture it in letters? Excellent! You're well on your way to spelling like a pro.
Point your web browser at dict.org, and type the word as you think it should be spelled in the little box. Go ahead, type "depracate." The online dictionary is actually smarter than you are, because it can recognize when you're misspelling a word, and suggest a correct spelling. It's polite, too. It even says, "Perhaps you meant 'deprecate,'" instead of, "It's 'deprecate' you fucking illiterate idiot. Get the fuck off our web site you cocksucker." See how nice dict.org is?
There you go. Now you can look up words without knowing how to spell them. Now get out there in that big, wide world and start spelling things!
I write in my journal
Anyone have any good recommendations on geek books suitable for 26+ hours of flying
;-)
26+ hours? Are you coming from Oz or New Zealand?
I'd suggest-- as you might guess from my nickname-- two of Vernor Vinge's novels: A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. The two are technically a novel and its prequel, but they're really only linked thematically. And they're both outstanding works of science fiction with particular appeal to computer geeks. Both are available in paperback, but they're long enough by far to keep you occupied while you're en route.
Eighteen months ago, my official org-charted job title was "Programmer-at-Arms," inspired by Deepness. These are two really cool books.
I write in my journal
I can't even begin to imagine him actually saying the move was "not very human."
ROFL
It's 13 hours each way, and I'll be damned if I'll pay money to fly books all the way to Europe only to sit about reading them while there. Except for those odd in-between hours that first night/morning, I plan on looking at things which are part of a scenic view, not imagining them.
I'd suggest-- as you might guess from my nickname-- two of Vernor Vinge's novels: A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky.
Way cool. I'll definitely check them out. Thanks for the suggestions!
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Don't you wish someone would dream up and create a music player, maybe with a little tiny hard drive in it, something like 20 gigs say, and have a nice big screen and make it light and small? Oh, and add a great user interface and a simple wheel to make it work very easy. And sync it with a desktop. And let me put whatever songs I want on it without having to help pay for Valenti's new pool lining.
If only...
This format was dead from the get-go, even if they had wised up and just tried for a raw storage format instead of the dark path of consumer annoyance.
CompactFlash and SD cards hold hostage the storage range from 64Mb to 1GB. There was no way another format was going to come in to unseat them, even one somwhat cheaper.
What is needed is something with about a 100gb storage space in the size of a CF card or smaller, for future digital cameras. That would be enough of a lead to unseat CF and SD, and provide enough room for cheap video cameras as well.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's 13 hours each way....
Earlier this year I got roped into a last-minute business trip from to Sydney. (I live in the US.) Thing is-- and I know this makes me sound like a nerd-- I was just getting started on the fourth Harry Potter book, and I was really digging it. So, yeah, I lugged a giant hardcover book from the US to Australia-- about 24 hours from door to door, because I don't live in Los Angeles-- and back.
Was it worth it? Shit, yeah. The in-flight movies were terrible. I've blocked most of 'em out, but I remember turning off "Zoolander." I actually chose to sit there and stare at the back of the seat in front of me rather than watch that steaming pile of crap. If I hadn't had my book, I would have gone quietly nuts.
Come on, teleportation.
I write in my journal
It is obscene; that judgement is correct.
But it is also divine.
In fact, you can pick an arbitrary pair of opposite, highly charged adjectives, and both will likely be a fair description of Gravity's Rainbow. So as well as being tedious and boring, it is also challenging and endlessly fascinating. Not to mention deadly serious and deadly humorous. I can't think of a novel that has more influenced my worldview than this one.
A-and how can you say no to a book that has lame calculus humor in grafitti, or a bunch of drunk Army engineers chasing the protagonist, singing limericks about Doing It with the German V2 rocket hardware?
(Hints for the first-time reader of GR: you don't have to understand it the first time through. Hell, you can just skim it. It's still funny and interesting. Also, gin helps a lot.)I figure one could put 48kHz 24-bit audio on a 3" DVD and still have a significantly longer playtime than a 5" CD.
That's entirely possible with DVDA on a 3" DVD. (I'm not sure whether DVDA goes down to 48 kHz though.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
The last time I flew to England it was on Virgin, and I didn't have a book, laptop, palm pilot, anything. Bad idea. You're dead right: the movies were absolutely horrible. I actually found myself playing Nintendo (think Super Mario-era Nintendo) during the flight the movies were so bad. Hell, there were little kids who wouldn't even play it. But it was better than the movies. I don't even remember what was playing and I don't think I want to see "Undercover Brother" this time, either. Which is why I asked for book recommendations. I honestly thought that Quicksilver would be out in time and hadn't even though about what to get.
Come on, teleportation.
The world is an incredibly small place now; I shudder to think what teleportation will do to it. I remember in the early 80's my older brother went to England and we were beside ourselves because he brought back Dr Who stuff, books (I wanted a British dictionary), records (vinyl, kids: Two Tone stuff, The Clash, The Damned, Buzzcocks, etc, etc) and creepers/Doc Martens because we couldn't get them anywhere in Phoenix. We had to make roadtrips to LA for the music and such and even then we didn't get everything we wanted (although we usually got some things we didn't). Remember "imports"? Man, that was the shit when the copy you ordered came in like 19 weeks later. I still have a blue vinyl Captain Sensible Birthday EP a guy carried back in a suitcase for me. Got a red vinyl copy of Strawberries, signed Madness LPs, some Police B-sides, and a bunch of other junk I have to rip someday, too. But now you can get it all off the Net. Or at Sam Goody. There's about four corporations who own everything, and it's the same stuff no matter where you go.
It used to mean going to England or France or Pakistan or where ever meant that you were going to some place that was different than where you were form. You got and tasted and smelled stuff you couldn't get back home. The most popular restaurant I saw when I was last in London was TGI Fridays and the most popular beer was Budweiser. You could hardly get away from Budweiser. One barkeep was telling me that he ran out of it weekly. The Virgin Megastore there had everything I can get here. I did wind up buying a driving game, though. It was right-hand drive. Now, going there is almost like going to Seattle, except everyone sounds funny. I'l have to remember to stay in th epubs and on the back streets.
Once teleportation hits, the world really will be flat.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
You know, it's pretty understandable that some people would get deprecate and depreciate confused. (or is the other way around, and deprecate and depreciate get some people confused?)
: to pray against (as an evil) b : to seek to avert <deprecate the wrath ... of the Roman : to express disapproval of : make little of <speaks five languages ... but deprecate s this facility -- Time> ... novelists -- New Yorker>
: to lower in estimation or esteem : to lower the price or estimated value of : to fall in value
/-sh&-b&l/ /-"prE-shE-'A-sh&n/ /-'prE-sh&-tiv,
/-shE-"A-t&r/ /-sh&-"tOr-E,
Remember deprecation is what happens to old code, and depreciation is what happens to old computers.
And depricated? That's the condition of a BMW after you remove all the lawyers.
deprecate
Pronunciation: 'de-pri-"kAt
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -cated; -cating
Etymology: Latin deprecatus, past participle of deprecari to avert by prayer, from de- + precari to pray
Date: 1628
1 a archaic
people -- Tobias Smollett>
2
3 a : PLAY DOWN
b: BELITTLE, DISPARAGE
<the most reluctantly admired and least easily deprecated of
depreciate
Pronunciation: di-'prE-shE-"At
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): -ated; -ating
Etymology: Late Latin depretiatus, past participle of depretiare, from Latin de- + pretium price
Date: 15th century
transitive senses
1
2
intransitive senses
synonym see DECRY
- depreciable
adjective
- depreciatingly/-shE-"A-ti[ng]-lE/
adverb
- depreciation
noun
- depreciative
-shE-"A-tiv/ adjective
- depreciator
noun
- depreciatory
-"tor-/ adjective
For the sake of us outside the US, just how big is a quarter, anyway?
They are about half the size of a dataplay disk, actualy.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
TCP in the CPU!? what crack are these guys smoking? The correct thing to do would be to include hardware in the NIC to accelerate TCP/IP stuff.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
What's really necessary to beat a human master at Go is to be able to make some judgement on the relative value of different positions. Computers can't currently do that properly, so while a chess computer searches for that perfect move that forces checkmate, the computer playing Go has a hard time understanding what it's supposed to be searching for.
Well, this really says a lot more about the people writing the Go playing code then it does about the computers themselves.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Who didn't see this happening? They'll publish 3 or 4 issues and then either quietly go away again or they publish 3 or 4 issues and mysteriously need more funds and start asking for more money.
I spent a couple of days last fall on Islay, the very epicenter of Scotch whisky and home to Bowmore and Laphroaig, among others.
And the people in the pubs were drinking a) Budweiser and b) Smirnoff Ice! I stuck with Tennent's lager, to at least feel I'd gone somewhere.
I considered telling them that in the US only sorority girls drink Smirnoff Ice, but had a talk to give in Edinburgh in a couple of days and didn't feel like getting the snot beat out of me beforehand.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Although the main XviD site was taken down for 3 months, the community has still been going strong, testing and debugging the codec. You might want to check them out at their forum
What geek doesn't like the math, science, logic, and illogic in Alice?
± 29 dB
For those of you wondering where the 'box girder bridge' reference originates...
"How To Do It"The cast:
ALAN
John Cleese
NOEL
Graham Chapman
JACKIE
Eric Idle
The sketch:
(Cut to a sign saying 'How to do it'. Music. Pull out to reveal a 'Blue Peter' type set. Sitting casually on the edge of a dais an three presenters in sweaters - Noel, Jackie and Alan - plus a large bloodhound.)
Alan: Hello.
Noel: Hello.
Alan: Well, last week we showed you how to become a gynaecologist. And this week on 'How to do it' we're going to show you how to play the flute, how to split an atom, how to construct a box girder bridge, how to irrigate the Sahara Desert and make vast new areas of land cultivatable, but first, here's Jackie to tell you all how to rid the world of all known diseases.
Jackie: Hello, Alan.
Alan: Hello, Jackie.
Jackie: Well, first of all become a doctor and discover a marvellous cure for something, and then, when the medical profession really starts to take notice of you, you can jolly well tell them what to do and make sure they get everything right so there'll never be any diseases ever again.
Alan: Thanks, Jackie. Great idea. How to play the flute. (picking up a flute) Well here we are. You blow there and you move your fingers up and down here.
Noel: Great, great, Alan. Well, next week we'Ll be showing you how black and white people can live together in peace and harmony, and Alan will be over in Moscow showing us how to reconcile the Russians and the Chinese. So, until next week, cheerio.
Alan: Bye.
Jackie: Bye.
(Children's music.)
Anybody want a peanut?
Okay, now your just being rediculous.
Bernard Weiner: ''Shallow Throat' savages Dem leaders and reveals Bush strategy' Posted on Tuesday, October 15 @ 09:57:09 EDT By Bernard Weiner So many of us were devastated after Congress rolled over and gave Bush his war on Iraq. We needed help in figuring it all out. So I set up the coded signal to "Shallow Throat," the high-ranking GOP mole in the White House who had been so helpful in pointing us in the right direction several times previously.* We met in a nondescript bar in a suburb of Washington, D.C., Shallow Throat wearing a different wig and glasses than last time. I didn't even get a chance to ask a question before Shallow Throat sneered at me with disgust and began raging. "You liberals are so clueless, no wonder you got reamed on the Iraq vote. You wanted to look reasonable to the American public, and not run the risk of looking 'unpatriotic' for the November election. But what you wound up doing was giving Bush cover. You got all the words into the war-resolution that Americans wanted to hear -- 'last resort,' United Nations, diplomacy, inspectors and so on -- but you, and Bush&Co., know that the attack juggernaut is rolling and Bush isn't going to pay the least attention, other than lip-service, to any of it. The war is on, and your lot were cowards, enablers with blood on their hands." "That's not fair," I said, even though I was so angry at the Democrat leadership myself. "They probably figured that unless the Democrats win the election next month, any chance of stopping Bush on his march toward total control disappears." "Yes, I'm aware that your Democratic friends didn't want to risk anything when they believed they might be able to take the House back and even pick up a seat or two in the Senate. I grant you it's a reasonable strategy to stick to the bread-and-butter issues the public cares most about -- the sinking economy, fear of losing jobs, prescription drug-coverage for the elderly, the need for educational reform, etc. -- but it misses the forest for the trees." "I'm listening." "Your Democratic friends are laughed at inside the White House. The Dems in Congress still want to play by the traditional rules -- give a little here, get a little there, compromise and scratch each others' backs, and so on -- but even after watching for nearly two years how Bush&Co. operate, playing real hardball, your friends still don't get it. Bush&Co. want it ALL, they want EVERYTHING, and they'll do whatever it takes to get it. You can't play nicey-nice with these guys. They'll lie, cheat, steal, promise one thing and do another once they've rolled you." "Is that why you're revealing their secrets, even though you're a GOP stalwart?" "I know now how Jim Jeffords felt before he resigned from the Republican Party and gave the Senate to the Democrats: I'm forced every day to play ball with sleaze and power-hunger and hypocrisy and uncompromising zealotry. I choose to stay on the inside, for whatever good I can do there and so that I can let you and your Democrat friends know what's really going on." There was a pause. "But it's getting worse and worse. It's like working in a charnel house, and the stench associated with rapacious greed and the lust for power and total control and running roughshod over the Constitution is getting to me. I don't know how long I can stick around. I take five showers a day just for the illusion that I'm clean." I looked into Shallow Throat's eyes. "I haven't seen you like this before," I said. "You look totally disheartened. It's really that bad, huh?" "You remember the flap when the German justice minister compared Bush's tactics with those of Hitler -- of mesmerizing the population with war-talk while the real issues are swept under the rug? The Bushies got enraged because she hit too close to the mark. The administration's propaganda policy is, who said it?, a weapon of mass distraction -- and it's working. Look at how the Congress caved, look at the absence of major coverage on the shaky economy and the various Bush&Co. scandals." "You're not really comparing Bush to Hitler?" "Of course not. But the Bush people learned a lot from The Third Reich, and other authoritarian regimes, in terms of how to organize and propagandize and frighten and slowly slice away at the veneer of democracy and rule of law. They also learned the value and techniques of bullying, especially with regard to foreign conquest and scaring their critics domestically. And this 'permanent-war' rationale isn't new either. In fact, there's a lot of recycling of nasty ideas and tactics these days." "You're joking, right? You're just exaggerating because you're so frustrated working inside the belly of the beast." "Think again, my friend. The hardright cabal at the heart of Bush&Co. for at least the past decade, ever since the collapse of communism (and even before that), have been thinking about and planning for, and writing about, what they would do if they ever got into power.** Your namby-pamby friends in the Democrat opposition chose to ignore those guys, thinking them far-right kooks, with all their talk about acting aggressively as a superpower, first-strike "pre-emptive" attacks, "benevolent hegemony," control of oil&gas reserves, making sure no other country ever could emerge to challenge the U.S., mangling the Constitution to get what they want, and so on. Now do you understand why the HardRight -- the politicians, the justices, the columnists, et al. -- have fought with so much venom and meanness to get into power? This is their time, as they see it, when they can Take It All -- around the globe, in this country -- and they will crush anyone in their way who tries to stop them. Iraq is just the tip of the iceberg." "It can't all be that dark," I said, my skin beginning to crawl. "The fact that the American people, in poll after poll, for example, were way ahead of their elected representatives in Congress -- wanting U.N. inspectors in Iraq, not going in there without our allies and U.N. approval, and so on -- must count for something." "Sure, thanks to the efforts of liberals and moderates, you've slowed them down a bit, forced them to alter their rhetoric -- once they said there was no need to go to Congress and the United Nations for authorization, but they were forced to bend in those directions. So, big deal. Let's be clear: If they don't get what they want by going the civilized way, they will take what they want anyway. Don't you understand? THESE...ARE...NOT...NICE...PEOPLE. They are playing for keeps. You're talking shadow forces unleashed, my friend." "Isn't there anything that can be done to stop them?" "Short of voting them out of power in 2004 -- or ruining them through investigations and impeachment before then as a result of all their scandals -- all you can hope for right now is to slow them down. If the Democrats take the House and hang on to the Senate, you'll be able to stick some good wood into their spokes -- maybe even get some tough investigations going; you'll force Bush&Co. to figure another way around. But if the GOP loses in November, and the Democrats continue to behave like Bush lap-dogs, the game is over. The Democrats have to become a true opposition party and take it to Bush&Co. straight up. Power is the only thing these Bush guys understand. The Dems have to feel it and be willing to FIGHT, big time, for those things they believe in. I'm not sure your current Dem leaders understand that or have the courage to even try. The young people demonstrating in the streets, and the online political sites have that knowledge, but aren't strong enough yet to be taken seriously. As for the rest of the citizenry, thanks to September 11th and now the renewed terrorist attacks, they're too frightened to want anything but security and seem willing to go along with whatever the Bushies say is necessary." "Up to a point," I interjected. "If Iraq turns out to be a disaster, and more terrorist attacks occur as a result of Bush&Co. policies, and more and more allies get turned off by U.S. arrogance and bullyboy behavior, and the economy continues to tank, and Americans' civil liberties continue to shrink, I think you'll see Americans getting really angry." "Dream on," Shallow Throat said with a sad grin. "These guys are experts at ratcheting up the fear factor and keeping their permanent war going -- plus, don't forget there actually are genuine bad-guy terrorists out there." "I refuse to believe that you can fool all of the people all of the time. The truth will out. And once the American people get angry at their leaders, watch out." "Well," said Shallow Throat, "I'm glad that you and your Democrat friends still have that idealism, because that belief, and the willingness to do something to activate it, is the only thing right now that offers any hope. >From inside the White House, it all looks too scary and awful to even want to think about...And speaking of that place, I've been away too long and someone might begin to wonder where I am. Don't forget: What happens now will determine America's, and the world's, future for a long time. Develop some backbone...quick." And with that, Shallow Throat exited the bar. It took me a half-hour before my legs stopped trembling and I could get up to leave. * See "The 'Shallow Throat' Documents: A Pre-9/11 Bush&Co. Scenario," "'Shallow Throat' Reveals Bush&Co. Weak Spots," and "Advance Draft of Bush's Astounding 9/11-Anniversary Speech." ** A few days after our meeting, in a package sent by regular mail, I received the following books and articles from Shallow Throat, which chillingly laid it all out: "From Containment to Global Leadership? America & the World After the Cold War," by Zalmay M. Khalilzad (currently the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan; published by Rand Corporation, 1995); Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan's "Towards a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy (Foreign Affairs, July-August 1996); Nicholas Lemann's "The Next World Order" (New Yorker, April 1, 2002); Jay Bookman's "The President's Real Goals in Iraq" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 29, 2002) and "An Empire by Any Other Name" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 10, 2002); "The National Security Strategy," issued by The White House. Bernard Weiner, a poet and playwright, was the San Francisco Chronicle's theater critic for nearly 20 years. A Ph.D. in government & international relations, he has taught at various universities and published in The Nation, Village Voice, The Progressive, and widely on the internet.
heh - perhaps not quite what you're looking for, but when i flew to Australia 2 years ago, I bought a rio volt & packed several of Terry Pratchette's Discworld novels, as well as a hefty chunk of Douglas Adams, as audio books. Sure it's a lot slower then reading them, but when you've got time.... Plus you don't need light &, esp for Douglas, I find I get more from the novels by apreciating them at a slower pace.
"Sanity is not statistical", George Orwell, "1984"
It is becoming the new standard in high pirating circles, and will soon take over completely. Watch for it.
from the dataplay article:
Yeah, the economy is in the pits and it will be hard to find another job, but with that much effort put into a format that the consumer needs, that was the real disappointment.
Guess if the consumer "needed" Data Play, you wouldn't be closing your doors...
Smirnoff Ice?! It has a chemical in it which makes you crave it fortnightly... :-)
I drank Caffrey's and Harp and Bass and many "regional" beers/ales often given to Yanks to make them feel they'd had their money's worth. I also enjoyed Stella Artois (ordered simply as "Stella") because it reminded me of what pedestrian American beer could have been. My favorite beer I had while there was a couple of pints I had in a pub called the Leinster Arms. I have no idea what it was called, but it was good, and went well with a generic pub lunch. That I'll probably never have it again is just as well, I suppose, since it was a bit of culture which would likely be cheapened if enjoyed anywhere but then and there.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Geez... I had never even thought to go back to the classics...
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Dude, chances are pretty good that you (and the majority of the lcd impaired /. crowd) are sitting in front of one. Old news.
__________________________________
Move on perl monger main frame chess playing media slaying people, nothing to see here...
The reason I thought of it is I just got it, and I'm enjoying the book rather a lot so far. Buy.com has it cheaper than Amazon (that appears to be their "thing" recently) and the book is a decent-quality hardcover. I feel like it was a darn good deal.
± 29 dB
Where Dataplay does (did?) have a cooler formfactor, it was only 500mb and write once.
:) And it's rewriteable! No DRM either :)
Phillips now has a bluelaser system, working prototype, the size of a two euro coin which holds one gig of data
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
Wow! Annotated by Garnder! I'm definitely going to have to get that.
I've just recently started encoding all my DivX movies with XviD and found the quality to be greatly superior to the old DIV3 (DivX 3.11, the hacked MS codec). While "P2P-style" 700MB single-CD rips still seem to be a bit heavy on the artifacts with movies longer than 100 minutes, I've found it to be much more tolerable than DIV3 was. If you'd like to try out the XviD codec but you've already ripped (err... backed up) all you DVDs, I hear Don Pablos (it's a mexican resturant... but if you live near one you probably already know that) is giving away free Blockbuster Movie rental certificates with the purchase of certain meals. Yum.
;)
As for DataPlay... People are pretty happy with compact discs as they stand now. I've never heard any of my friends or their friends or anyone I've met in real life ever tell me they had complaints about the audio quality of CDs. Mostly, people seem to think CDs are just too expensive and a few agree they're too easily scratched. I don't know what kind of crack the inventor of these DataPlay discs was on, but "smaller" is not a good primary selling point. For me, I want as much music available as possible at my fingertips and it was a hard drive based player that provided that. Shame DataPlay wasn't into those, the name would have worked.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
These folks missed the boat. Not even IBM can make a go of microdrives, that's why they sold the division. I want one of those 1G models. If these folks can make a compact flash drive that fits their disks, that would be cool. They have a big race to beat falling compact flash prices.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Yeah, I would like to see articles on the technical differences between the Inner Sphere and Clan PPCs as well as Extended Range PPCs versus standard PPCs. >;-)
Brought to you by Team SPAM! where we believe: "Information in the noise!"
Pickup the Hardcover of War of Honor by David Weber. Bring a laptop & extra batteries, spend the flight reading the 22 excellent Science Fiction Novels and collections on the free (And freely redistributable) CD included with the hardcover.
The Friends of Honor CD is something new in publishing, a CD containing unencumbered E-Texts of 22 current books, with a license which simply specifies that you can't charge for copies.
www.baen.com for more info.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
Bring the whole "Dune" series with you! :)
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
While Gravity's Rainbow was awesome, may a recomend a similair but even better novel, "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace. Its longer, its funnier and I feel that it is also better written.
Its almost sci-fi, and it is quite possibly the most awesome book I have ever read.
Of course, one could always just bring three or four Dostoyevsky novels. I find they are excellent for traveling.
Write ONCE media.
If cameras and PDA's were the target, this was the first fatal flaw.
(multisession sure, but that just eats up even more precious space)
EXPENSIVE MEDIA
($11.66 each, $0.46/MB. Compare that to MD- DATA2 650MB discs at $2.00 (And they're rewritable)
Digital Rights Managment, included FREE! for those who can't govern themselves.
Trying to fill a niche that the might of Sony couldn't for 10 years
Proprietary transport. With no S/PDIF digital out. In other words, NO FAIR USE.
UGLY and EXPENSIVE players.
Media -begging- to be lost.
;)
How long do you think you could keep from losing this $11 gem??
I could add many more reasons but I have to get to work!
Maybe we could keep this list growing and send it to the (out of work) CEO...but then again, I'm sure they already knew what a horrible format it was before unit 1 shipped. This is a blatant attempt to copy Minidisc's design and burden it down with DRM (as well as package and market it to kids) ---NEXT!
-=Chud-Wretch
Damn, this cracks me up! Look:
;-)
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=1, Flamebait=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=1, Funny=1, Total=5.
Talk about not being able to make up your minds....
I write in my journal
He's not dead yet, either.
Karma: Undead.
What does "depreciate" have to do with anything?
The arguement is whether "deprecate" is spelled "depricate" or "depracate", both of which are wrong.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Mirriam-Webster (the site I linked) offers the same spelling correction.
It's interesting that, of all the moderations applied to your comment, slashdot picks "Offtopic" as the one to display.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
It's interesting that, of all the moderations applied to your comment, slashdot picks "Offtopic" as the one to display.
I'm not positive, but I believe that in cases of, oh, a 5-way tie, Slashdot shows the most recently applied moderation. I think.
I write in my journal
Hm, it seems like you just went to the wrong places... really, Budweiser is dogs piss, I fing it amazing that people here in Britain drink it.
Without getting into specialist ales, you should try some bitter like Directors, or Youngs Ordinary. If you have to go for a lager, the most consistently quality is good old Stella, affectionately known as Wifebeater due to its sometimes excessive behaviour altering side effects. Caffreys is good for an almost hangover free 10 to 14 pint pub crawl (may take additional training).
And really, calling TGIs a restaurant is pushing it, eh?
I find it amazing people anywhere drink it. I know a joke which applies here:
Q: Why is drinking Budweiser like having sex in a canoe?
A: Because it's fscking close to water.
Thank you, thank you. I'm here all week...
Without getting into specialist ales, you should try some bitter like Directors, or Youngs Ordinary. If you have to go for a lager, the most consistently quality is good old Stella, affectionately known as Wifebeater due to its sometimes excessive behaviour altering side effects. Caffreys is good for an almost hangover free 10 to 14 pint pub crawl (may take additional training).
I'll give the bitters a go, for certain. And I hadn't noticed the altering effects of Stella. But I'm normally fairly even tempered even in the face of the worst alcoholic adversity. If you're ever in the US, try King Cobra (or any other "beer" which comes in a 40 ounce bottle) if you want a sample of American riot beer.
I really appreciate the pub crawl advice. We're planning on doing a Soho crawl. I'll defintely keep the Caffreys advice in mind (as long as I'm able to, at least).
And really, calling TGIs a restaurant is pushing it, eh?
Yeah, that's certainly giving it something it shouldn't have. I just didn't know the word for "pretentious meat market-ish place which serves awful food and is filled with idiotic, cologne-drenched beeper salesmen either yelling at some inane sporting event on a loud TV or trying to tag the nearest waitress".
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Hard to say. I personally suspect it displays the most negative, as I've had comments with, say, 3 "Interesting" and 1 "Flamebait" and it displays "Flamebait".
Well, I've been planning to mess with slashcode after this semester is over, I guess that's something to look for.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Admittedly it was maybe 15 years ago, but when my wife and I visited London/York/environs, I'd just walk into a pub and ask for a half pint of their ``best bitter''. Got a great taste every time, and some real variability---none of this universal taste nonsense.
Can I hope there are still enough bastions of decent beer that I won't have to use a guidebook to find them next trip?
I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. -- desert rain on http://www.dailykos.com/user/
Real programmers don't draw flowcharts. Flowcharts are, after all, the
illiterate's form of documentation. Cavemen drew flowcharts; look how
much good it did them.
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