Jon Bringing WMV9 to Linux

julie-h writes "DVD Jon has done it again. This time it wasn't Apple the target, but Microsoft's WMV9 video format. There is as always a working Proof of Concept program with screenshots."

Comments

it's Christian according to Declaration

[TheoMurpse]

George Washington, America's first president, signed Thanksgiving Day into existence...he made it obviously a Christian day of thanking God..it originally was NOT the "yay settlers!" day it has become

i think the most relevant statement in his 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation when he created Thanksgiving Day is:

"And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions"

there is literally NOTHING in his proclamation of thanksgiving about the Pilgrims, or any other settler group...TAKE THAT MY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER!!

Re:it's Christian according to Declaration

[Reducer2001]

Washington and most of the other founding father's were diests.
They believed in God, but were not Christians.

Re:it's Christian according to Declaration

[moof1138]

Unfortunately, the link is down, here's the Google Cache.

Your story is incomplete and slightly inaccurate. First, George Washington was probably not a Christian, but a Deist, and while there are spiritual overtones to that proclamation, he clearly avoided any Christian references.

While Washington did devote a day in November to Thanksgiving, it was not a continuing holiday. It was Lincoln who established Thanksgiving day as we know it.

While there is no language in the proclamation regarding the Pilgrims, the Pilgrims' had a day of thanks after their struggles, and when the day of thinksgiving was announced there was some discord among the colonies, with many feeling the hardships of a few Pilgrims did not warrant a national holiday. It is clear that Washington's proclamation was an echo of the Pilgrim's Thanksgiving. So your elementary school teacher was actually correct.

Read more about it here

Re:Slashdotted already

[Mulletproof]

Oh, so it's taboo to link to another person's site without their permission? And how many times have you done that yourself again?

More times than you can possibly count, more than likely.

Re:Traditions change

[AntiOrganic]

While I appreciate your ability to plagiarize George Carlin's "Brain Droppings" almost word-for-word, this is not entirely founded in fact. Here's an article from The Straight Dope addressing this very issue:

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mgenteindios.h tml

Dear Straight Dope:

What's the truth about the origin of the term "American Indian"? Schoolchildren have long been taught that Columbus thought he had reached the Indies, and therefore called the inhabitants "Indians." But lately I've been hearing the story that: (a) The Indies weren't even called the Indies at the time, but Hindustan; (b) Columbus didn't call the locals "Indians" but referred to them as "una geste in Dios", meaning "a people in God"; (c) somehow this caused people in Spain to start using the term "Indians"; and (d) Europeans then started using the geographical term "Indies" through back-formation. This explanation sounds like wishful thinking to me, with (c) and (d) particularly hard to swallow. Yet I've seen this stated as fact on some Indian Web sites, and it's doubtless being taught as fact in some schoolrooms. Is it possible to find the truth in this matter? --Steven Doyle, Atlanta, Georgia

SDSTAFF George replies:

The best way to determine the truth in cases like this, Steve, is to go to the source--in this case, Columbus's original letter, through which word of the new lands and their inhabitants was disseminated throughout Europe (see links below). In this letter Columbus repeatedly refers to India and Indians, and says nothing whatever about "a people in God."

First, let's get the supposed phrase right. The Spanish word for people is gente, not geste. Note that the supposed derivation requires Columbus to have made an error in spelling, since "in" in Spanish is en; the word in doesn't exist in the language. I'll have more to say on this point later.

Second, let's dispose of the notion that India was called something else at the time. The name, derived from the Indus River (from Sanskrit sindhu, "a river"), goes back to antiquity. Alexander the Great referred to the Indus (Indos), and to the region's inhabitants as Indikoi, as early as the third century B.C. The name passed from Greek into Latin and thence into other European languages, the earliest citation in English being in 893 A.D. by King Alfred the Great. At the time of Columbus's voyage, "India" or "the Indias/Indies" was often used to refer to all of south and east Asia. Columbus carried with him a passport from Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, written in Latin and dispatching him "toward the regions of India" (ab partes Indie) on their behalf. Martin Beheim's globe of 1492, which predated the voyage, clearly labels the region as "Indie." "Hindustan," also derived from the Indus River, is a much later term, not appearing in English until 1665. In any case, in Spanish that name is not Hindustan but Indostan.

Third, let's look at what Columbus actually said. The admiral wrote a letter, in Spanish, detailing his discoveries while off the Azores during his homeward voyage. He forwarded this to the royal court, then at Barcelona, shortly after his storm-driven arrival in Lisbon on March 4, 1493. The original manuscript has not survived, but a printed copy made shortly after its receipt has. In the first paragraph Columbus says "In 33 days I passed from the Canary Islands to the Indies" (en 33 días pasé de las islas de Canaria a las Indias). His first reference to the inhabitants comes in the second paragraph: "To the first [island] which I found I gave the name San Salvador . . . the Indians call it Guanahaní" (A la primera que yo hallé puse nombre San Salvador . . . los Indios la llaman Guanahaní). In all he makes six references to India or the Indies, and four to Indios. Nowhere in the letter does he use a phrase resembling una gente in Dios. He says little of the spiritual beliefs of