Testing is rarely usable. In fact, it's often more broken than Sid, or at least the broken state lasts longer with Testing. YMMV.
I'd say it varies quite a bit. I've used testing regularly for the past 4 years on multiple desktops and servers, and never had any major problems. I can't even say the same thing about the Mandrake, Redhat, and SuSE boxes I've had to administer, when even in their stable versions they seem to be quite a bit more buggy than Debian/testing.
Yeah, a friend of mine bought the iHP-120 recently, and it's the nicest portable music player I've used yet. Not only is there OGG support in addition to other formats, but it just mounts as a USB(2) HD that you can throw files onto, no stupid DRM crap to deal with. Plus, the headphone output is practically distortionless when cranked to full volume, which is *really* nice is you own a good pair of headphones.
Hrm, maybe we just need to pester them to make a portable movie player device?:)
It's a fun game! Moderate the first mention of OGG Vorbis as a troll, because, you know, people aren't allowed to express format preferences... and then, moderate the second mention as redundant, because it is too politely worded to be a troll!
Yeah, I know "don't complain about moderation". Good thing this is an open forum and I can complain about retarded moderation if I want.
That Sony one looks really nice, and it does everything I need except one... I need OGG Vorbis support, as my entire audio library is on my server in Q6 encoded files.:)
So, does anyone know of another similar player, that does both MPEG4 (or compatible, like XVid) and OGG Vorbis?
Oh, and even if the PDF is saying it was produced from MS Windows with the help of PDFmaker -- be assured that the original document was written with the help of OpenOffice.org. vlendec should be able to confirm this, since he is also one of the authors...
You just know this guy weighs over 300 pounds and is sitting at home with a bag of cheetos on his gut searching Google and posting anonymous insults on Slashdot to make himself feel better.;P
I'm not sure what you were talking about re: the SNES and dual CPUs. I believe you were thinking of the Turbo Graphics 16, which had dual CPUs, but was outshone by the SNES and its superior graphics chipset. Clearly, the Playstation was far superior hardware in every way to the SNES.
AFAIK the DMCA doesn't apply to UK companies like Which? magazine, but then again, I've been hearing grumblings that they're looking at making their own version of the DMCA.
what does illegal music sound like? i'm not familiar with that particular genre..
I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish by pretending you don't know what I mean. I don't think it is inaccurate to refer to the bootleg mp3s on file-sharing networks as "illegal music." Granted, there is another way to read that phrase, but only a pedant would choose it.
And I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish by: a) saying that all music sharing is piracy (and therefor illegal), and b) inferring that music sharing is bad for the music industry.
In fact, quite a bit of legal sharing goes on. Most of the independant bands I listen too have enouraged me to download their songs off Gnutella, not to mention my extensive collection of music from bands like the Grateful Dead, whose music is perfectly legal to share, trade, record or copy, with anyone you wish.
"The Slashdot crowd has access to lots and lots and lots of bandwidth, unlike most of the rest of the world. As such, the ~200K streaming rate they're talking about is all most people can sustain right now."
Yes, but this doesn't have to mean bad quality. Take a look at the VP3 codec (that's being wrapped into OGG as we speak) at 200k/sec, and you'll see you can get really close to NTSC quality with 200k/sec. And that's full screen, widescreen will look even better because there's less vertical picture information to compress.
I've actually had at least 4 systems which had intermittent crashes, lockups and general failures that you would expect would be attributed to the cheap hardware in them... however this same equipment worked flawlessly for months on end once Windows was replaced with linux. My current workstation is custom built from quality parts, but still Windows 2000 sometimes hard reboots (no bluescreen, nothing) when I skip tracks when playing CDs, or trying to digitize video with my TV Wonder.
The problem here is that cheap hardware doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the hardware, just that it doesn't perform as well as competitors, or the drivers are not as well developed, etc, etc. The OS is still responsible to make sure your machine does not lock up, crash, reboot, corrupt data, etc., if this hardware's drivers malfunction. If you can't even do some simple error checking of what your device drivers are doing, I blame the OS, not the hardware. The question is, if other operating systems work fine on the same cheap hardware that windows crashes and burns on, why are you so quick to defend Microsoft's poor software?
Hell, Windows XP still has networking problems on all hardware with other versions of Windows using Microsoft's own protocols, so why would you expect that other parts of the OS are functioning as they should?
That's still not a reasonable arguement to me, considering we don't have huge collision problems on campus with 802.11, and we do gaming just fine on it with standard ethernet-type latency. Plus, is this a problem with Bluetooth as well?
The way this is worded seems like they're inventing their own tech. My question here is, why are they reinventing the wheel? Why not use an existing wireless networking standard so that not only can the consoles interoperate with each other, but with your PC and anything else that uses an existing standard?
I actually tried to contact Nintendo to get a Virtual Gameboy SDK a while back, and there response was basically that "your company must be affiliated with an official Nintendo developer/publisher, and you'll get your development resources through them".
Why don't we do something with the heat generated by our computers? Our machines use huge amounts of electricity, and a lot of that energy is converted to heat which is then just wasted. Isn't there some way we can reuse this heat to produce more electricity? I thought I read something about an invention Nasa made that would convert heat to electricity... this would be certainly nice for those dual 1.8 Ghz systems, not only conserving energy use but making them run cooler as well.
I don't want to sound like I'm slamming the Audio ReQuest mentioned in the last post, it's probably a very well designed product. But I went to the page and saw what it could do (connect to a network, transfer files with SMB) and realized that hey, the people this is targetted at already have computers. So can someone explain to me the advantage of having one of these dedicated systems for $800, when you can get a sound card with a digital output for $100-200 and essentially do the same thing with your existing hardware?
I don't know, it just seems like this is a product people will buy to impress each other, but not because it actually suplies a needed function. I understand mobile mp3 players, since you're not going to lug your desktop around with you, but surely when you're at home you'll just use your computer to play your MP3s?
This is a great piece, it's good to see some hard figures on violence rates once in a while rather than always listening to speculation. However, I'd really like to see some number outside of the US. Does anyone have these kind of statistics gathered for Canada or for some of the countries in Europe? It'd be a little easier to tie these numbers to internet use and mass media if we sampled all the countries that have widespread internet access.
My first guess would be the heat issue. Every Intel CPU I have ever come into contact with (including the 486 and the P120 beside me, which are the really cheap, low power-style chips like you've suggested) put off a lot of heat. I'm sure it's too much to be squished in with the rest of the tiny handheld circuitry to avoid damage.
>Why they are using the QT file format is beyond me - it allows sprites
>and 3d models to be in a movie format - seems useful for little more
>than advertisements.
I would think that it would be obvious: to make the standard more versitile. You forgot some of the other things that Quicktime includes, such as having a text track (ie subtitles, lyrics, etc), having non-destructive special effects, and having more than one of the same kind of track (which will probably make it a lot easier to implement the "multiple-camera-angles" feature some DVDs have). I'm sorry that sprites and 3d models only suggest advertising to you, but it seems perfectly reasonable considering that Quicktime is designed to be used with a wide range of software on a bunch of platforms (And yes I know that the lack of public codecs prevents Linux addoption right now, but how long until someone creates a public format like PNG for movies, or ports something like the discussed DiVX?). The format is designed to encompass everything you could want to do with it, and as such IMO is a great choice for the MPEG4 standard.
Jon writes:
> btw: MP3 is MPEG 2 (or MPEG 2.5) audio layer III, not MPEG 1, i have no clue what audio compression MPEG 1 uses,
> i imagine it's just RLE PCM or something else as gay.
Actually, if you check the website of the company who invented MP3, it is indeed MPEG 1, Layer 3 audio. MPEG 2 and 4 have their own codecs.
As far as what compression MPEG1 uses in movies, it of course uses MPEG1 Layer 1 and 2 audio, because the MPEG1 standard was created before MP3 came into existance.
AFAIK the above is a simplified version of what is correct, but I would be happy if anyone would like to deal more with specifics. I'm not trying to spread my understanding of MPEG as the "whole truth", which is apparently what Jon does. Check your facts before posting please.
"In Canada you are not allowed to own a handgun or rifle even if you are a battered wife and your husband is kicking the door in and the cops are 20 minutes away. Nazis."
This post got moderated up!? It's so obviously a troll!<BR><BR> In case you are completely clued out from reality, a "battered wife" may indeed own a handgun or rifle. She just has to register it, like any other law abiding citizen.<BR><BR> Perhaps it's just having a higher value of human life that you disagree with, and if so, who's the Nazi here?<BR>
Check out www.icab.de, their browser has supported the alpha channel in PNG images for months, as well as anti-aliased fonts (part of the Mac window toolkit). Is it just me or are there too many OSS users out there that have stopped keeping up with other platforms, and so are really impressed when some piece of old tech makes it to linux?
> According to the Judge in the DeCSS case, any > device which can be used to circumvent > copyprotection is illegal according to > DMCA- even if circumventing copy protection is > not it's primary use, right? So essentially every (de)compression utility for every operating system could potentially be used to cirvumvent some kind of copy protection, and therefor be illegal under the DMCA..
Someone should copywrite a 5 line piece of nothing, then secure it with an EULA that excludes everyone, and make many different copies with many different compression schemes that are self extracting. Then, they should sue the makers of the compression schemes (in a group if possible) and force the law to strike down the DMCA, since we know nothing really gets done outside of trial.
It seems apparent to everyone that after the black album the band took some time off, and a turn for the worse. Hair cutting, logo changing, and bad music ensued once you returned to the limelight. The Napster suit seems to be just the latest in the list of questionable moves by the band.
So, in the years between the black album and "Load", were you actually abducted by space aliens and replaced here on Earth?
Slashdot Mirror
Testing is rarely usable. In fact, it's often more broken than Sid, or at least the broken state lasts longer with Testing. YMMV.
I'd say it varies quite a bit. I've used testing regularly for the past 4 years on multiple desktops and servers, and never had any major problems. I can't even say the same thing about the Mandrake, Redhat, and SuSE boxes I've had to administer, when even in their stable versions they seem to be quite a bit more buggy than Debian/testing.
Actually, I believe that the Duron name refers to the lower-end 32-bit chips, whereas Semperon will be lower-end 64-bit chips.
Feel free to correct me, though.
Yeah, a friend of mine bought the iHP-120 recently, and it's the nicest portable music player I've used yet. Not only is there OGG support in addition to other formats, but it just mounts as a USB(2) HD that you can throw files onto, no stupid DRM crap to deal with. Plus, the headphone output is practically distortionless when cranked to full volume, which is *really* nice is you own a good pair of headphones.
:)
Hrm, maybe we just need to pester them to make a portable movie player device?
It's a fun game! Moderate the first mention of OGG Vorbis as a troll, because, you know, people aren't allowed to express format preferences... and then, moderate the second mention as redundant, because it is too politely worded to be a troll!
Yeah, I know "don't complain about moderation". Good thing this is an open forum and I can complain about retarded moderation if I want.
That Sony one looks really nice, and it does everything I need except one... I need OGG Vorbis support, as my entire audio library is on my server in Q6 encoded files. :)
So, does anyone know of another similar player, that does both MPEG4 (or compatible, like XVid) and OGG Vorbis?
You just know this guy weighs over 300 pounds and is sitting at home with a bag of cheetos on his gut searching Google and posting anonymous insults on Slashdot to make himself feel better.
I'm not sure what you were talking about re: the SNES and dual CPUs. I believe you were thinking of the Turbo Graphics 16, which had dual CPUs, but was outshone by the SNES and its superior graphics chipset. Clearly, the Playstation was far superior hardware in every way to the SNES.
AFAIK the DMCA doesn't apply to UK companies like Which? magazine, but then again, I've been hearing grumblings that they're looking at making their own version of the DMCA.
:P
I'm just glad I live in Canada.
In fact, quite a bit of legal sharing goes on. Most of the independant bands I listen too have enouraged me to download their songs off Gnutella, not to mention my extensive collection of music from bands like the Grateful Dead, whose music is perfectly legal to share, trade, record or copy, with anyone you wish.
"The Slashdot crowd has access to lots and lots and lots of bandwidth, unlike most of the rest of the world. As such, the ~200K streaming rate they're talking about is all most people can sustain right now."
Yes, but this doesn't have to mean bad quality. Take a look at the VP3 codec (that's being wrapped into OGG as we speak) at 200k/sec, and you'll see you can get really close to NTSC quality with 200k/sec. And that's full screen, widescreen will look even better because there's less vertical picture information to compress.
I've actually had at least 4 systems which had intermittent crashes, lockups and general failures that you would expect would be attributed to the cheap hardware in them... however this same equipment worked flawlessly for months on end once Windows was replaced with linux. My current workstation is custom built from quality parts, but still Windows 2000 sometimes hard reboots (no bluescreen, nothing) when I skip tracks when playing CDs, or trying to digitize video with my TV Wonder.
The problem here is that cheap hardware doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the hardware, just that it doesn't perform as well as competitors, or the drivers are not as well developed, etc, etc. The OS is still responsible to make sure your machine does not lock up, crash, reboot, corrupt data, etc., if this hardware's drivers malfunction. If you can't even do some simple error checking of what your device drivers are doing, I blame the OS, not the hardware. The question is, if other operating systems work fine on the same cheap hardware that windows crashes and burns on, why are you so quick to defend Microsoft's poor software?
Hell, Windows XP still has networking problems on all hardware with other versions of Windows using Microsoft's own protocols, so why would you expect that other parts of the OS are functioning as they should?
That's still not a reasonable arguement to me, considering we don't have huge collision problems on campus with 802.11, and we do gaming just fine on it with standard ethernet-type latency. Plus, is this a problem with Bluetooth as well?
The way this is worded seems like they're inventing their own tech. My question here is, why are they reinventing the wheel? Why not use an existing wireless networking standard so that not only can the consoles interoperate with each other, but with your PC and anything else that uses an existing standard?
Doing otherwise just seems silly to me.
I actually tried to contact Nintendo to get a Virtual Gameboy SDK a while back, and there response was basically that "your company must be affiliated with an official Nintendo developer/publisher, and you'll get your development resources through them".
I've been thinking about this for a while now:
Why don't we do something with the heat generated by our computers? Our machines use huge amounts of electricity, and a lot of that energy is converted to heat which is then just wasted. Isn't there some way we can reuse this heat to produce more electricity? I thought I read something about an invention Nasa made that would convert heat to electricity... this would be certainly nice for those dual 1.8 Ghz systems, not only conserving energy use but making them run cooler as well.
Just a thought.
I don't want to sound like I'm slamming the Audio ReQuest mentioned in the last post, it's probably a very well designed product. But I went to the page and saw what it could do (connect to a network, transfer files with SMB) and realized that hey, the people this is targetted at already have computers. So can someone explain to me the advantage of having one of these dedicated systems for $800, when you can get a sound card with a digital output for $100-200 and essentially do the same thing with your existing hardware?
I don't know, it just seems like this is a product people will buy to impress each other, but not because it actually suplies a needed function. I understand mobile mp3 players, since you're not going to lug your desktop around with you, but surely when you're at home you'll just use your computer to play your MP3s?
This is a great piece, it's good to see some hard figures on violence rates once in a while rather than always listening to speculation. However, I'd really like to see some number outside of the US. Does anyone have these kind of statistics gathered for Canada or for some of the countries in Europe? It'd be a little easier to tie these numbers to internet use and mass media if we sampled all the countries that have widespread internet access.
My first guess would be the heat issue. Every Intel CPU I have ever come into contact with (including the 486 and the P120 beside me, which are the really cheap, low power-style chips like you've suggested) put off a lot of heat. I'm sure it's too much to be squished in with the rest of the tiny handheld circuitry to avoid damage.
>Why they are using the QT file format is beyond me - it allows sprites
>and 3d models to be in a movie format - seems useful for little more
>than advertisements.
I would think that it would be obvious: to make the standard more versitile. You forgot some of the other things that Quicktime includes, such as having a text track (ie subtitles, lyrics, etc), having non-destructive special effects, and having more than one of the same kind of track (which will probably make it a lot easier to implement the "multiple-camera-angles" feature some DVDs have). I'm sorry that sprites and 3d models only suggest advertising to you, but it seems perfectly reasonable considering that Quicktime is designed to be used with a wide range of software on a bunch of platforms (And yes I know that the lack of public codecs prevents Linux addoption right now, but how long until someone creates a public format like PNG for movies, or ports something like the discussed DiVX?). The format is designed to encompass everything you could want to do with it, and as such IMO is a great choice for the MPEG4 standard.
Jon writes:
> btw: MP3 is MPEG 2 (or MPEG 2.5) audio layer III, not MPEG 1, i have no clue what audio compression MPEG 1 uses,
> i imagine it's just RLE PCM or something else as gay.
Actually, if you check the website of the company who invented MP3, it is indeed MPEG 1, Layer 3 audio. MPEG 2 and 4 have their own codecs.
As far as what compression MPEG1 uses in movies, it of course uses MPEG1 Layer 1 and 2 audio, because the MPEG1 standard was created before MP3 came into existance.
AFAIK the above is a simplified version of what is correct, but I would be happy if anyone would like to deal more with specifics. I'm not trying to spread my understanding of MPEG as the "whole truth", which is apparently what Jon does. Check your facts before posting please.
"In Canada you are not allowed to own a handgun or rifle even if you are a battered wife and your husband is kicking the door in and the cops are 20 minutes away. Nazis."
This post got moderated up!? It's so obviously a troll!<BR><BR>
In case you are completely clued out from reality, a "battered wife" may indeed own a handgun or rifle. She just has to register it, like any other law abiding citizen.<BR><BR>
Perhaps it's just having a higher value of human life that you disagree with, and if so, who's the Nazi here?<BR>
Check out www.icab.de, their browser has supported the alpha channel in PNG images for months, as well as anti-aliased fonts (part of the Mac window toolkit). Is it just me or are there too many OSS users out there that have stopped keeping up with other platforms, and so are really impressed when some piece of old tech makes it to linux?
> According to the Judge in the DeCSS case, any
> device which can be used to circumvent
> copyprotection is illegal according to
> DMCA- even if circumventing copy protection is
> not it's primary use, right?
So essentially every (de)compression utility for every operating system could potentially be used to cirvumvent some kind of copy protection, and therefor be illegal under the DMCA..
Someone should copywrite a 5 line piece of nothing, then secure it with an EULA that excludes everyone, and make many different copies with many different compression schemes that are self extracting. Then, they should sue the makers of the compression schemes (in a group if possible) and force the law to strike down the DMCA, since we know nothing really gets done outside of trial.
It seems apparent to everyone that after the black album the band took some time off, and a turn for the worse. Hair cutting, logo changing, and bad music ensued once you returned to the limelight. The Napster suit seems to be just the latest in the list of questionable moves by the band.
So, in the years between the black album and "Load", were you actually abducted by space aliens and replaced here on Earth?