Were it only Apple that worked against Theora, I'd agree; that's not the case, however. Microsoft and Google - yes, Google - also apposed Theora.
As Stallman is happy to say: There's a difference between "open" and "free". Software can be "open" but not be "free". An open standard doesn't mean it's a free standard; don't confuse the two.
In contrast, a proprietary spec is one where they just give you a black box and say "the magic happens here" - as is the case with Windows Media audio/video. This isn't the case with H.264 - everything about it is fully described.
There is a difference between a specification and a standard.
The patent-encumbered AAC, MP3, H.264, etc. are actual standards, governed by a recognized standards body. Vorbis, Theora, and VP8 are self-published specifications, much like Windows Media. The fact that Vorbis, et al. are more open than Windows Media does not make them a "standard". Until it is recoginized and ratified by an actual standards body, it isn't a standard; it's yet another vendor specification.
I can crap in a box and call it a "standard." That doesn't mean it is a standard.
Don't get me wrong -- Vorbis is excellent, Theora is pretty good. VP8 is still a train wreck that needs cleaning up, but at least it creates decent video. None are recognized standards. They are self-published specificaitons, and in the case of VP8, the specification consists of a reference implementation and nothing else.
On the other hand, AAC and H.264 are standards, goverend by a recognized standards body. There is a legitimacy given by the standards body that doesn't exist for a self-published specification, and there is merit to the process. There is a full specification (that goes into agonizing detail) that is entirely separate from a reference implementation.
A gratis published specification is not necessarily an open standard.
An open standard doesn't have to be gratis, nor does it have to be patent free.
Apple and Microsoft are supporting actual open, standards-body controlled audio and video standards, and are choosing to ignore a few self-published fiat specifications. There is prudence in sticking to ISO standards, even if it irks the Free Software world, and I respect the decision.
I'm for free software; I support Vorbis, Theora, and VP8. They are great pieces of free software. A couple even have a decent written specification. But until I see a recognized standards body give a stamp of approval, and more importantly, the turning of the standard over to the standards body (rather than the parent company - Xiph or Google, retaining it), I won't see Vorbis, Theora, or VP8 as anything other than a free software alternative to the actual standardized formats.
Constitutional protection only applies to US citizens.
Um, no. All trials and criminal investigations done on US soil provide the same protections whether they are a citizen or not. Part of the reasoning behind using Guantanamo as a prison is that it's in Cuba.
The shooting across the border argument is still valid - you don't have to injure or kill a person for a crime to be committed; there's still property damage, which is part of the case against Gary.
The $100 theft argument isn't particularly honest. The problem comes down to one's ability to 'reach' into a foreign country and commit a crime. One's reach is long indeed on the internet.
One additional issue is that many Americans are insulted at the minuscule amount of respect being given to their court system. The US courts are not show trials; being extradited does not mean he is even likely to get a guilty verdict. A core principle of the court system in the US is "Better a murderer go free than an innocent man be imprisoned. Most of the 'terrorists' tried at the military tribunals in Guantanamo have been acquitted and sent home. The lack of physical harm and Gary's mental condition and state will be heard and taken into account. In all honesty, while the potential sentence is rather harsh, the actual sentence will likely be little more than a slap on the wrist.
I'm from a species classified as an animal. Part of being an animal is we eat other living things - or living things that were recently alive...
I eat other life forms. I don't have an irrational bias that eliminates entire classes of food energy. As a sensitive, enlightened, 21st century animal, I choose not to let prejudices decide what living things I eat. If it will keep my body going, I'll consume it as a chemical energy source. If it has cells, I'll eat it. I don't care what its metabolism is. I don't care if it's a solar vampire that draws its energy from the sun. If the need arises, I'll even eat my own species.
You're absolutely right; but only from the perspective of Mozilla and free software in general - and only in the USA. Apple is most likely already paying the maximum licensing fee for MPEG4/H.264; supporting H.264 in any way won't cost them more than it already is.
On the other hand, what do they have to gain by supporting ogg? The goodwill of a few percent of possible customers? Is that really worth what it would (or more accurately, could) cost them if they get sued for patent infringement? The penalties go up for willful infringement, and given Apple's a licensee, it seems a bad idea to risk infringing on the patent license, given they know what is in it.
I see the cost-benefit working out in favor of ogg for Firefox & Opera (and free software in general).
For Apple & Microsoft, whom are already paying the licensing fees for other products, it makes sense to use their already existing H.264 licenses; the work is already done, and they also gain access to the vast market of devices that can play H.264 (with hardware decoding, no less).
I can't fault anybody for following what makes the most sense in their situation. For Apple (and Microsoft), there is just very little to gain -- and possibly a great deal to lose -- in supporting ogg.
It'll be interesting to see what the outcome of the Bilski supreme court case; and if it results in software patents going away. One can dream...
Apple dropped ZFS from Snow Leopard because they were worried about getting sued by NetApp, so there's some merit to the argument that Apple may simply be avoiding a lawsuit.
Google supports Theora development, and Google is a pretty juicy target, too... so it doesn't quite add up there.
The place I do think it does add up is simple: MPEG is an ISO standard, and H.264 is also an ITU standard. It has very broad support and many, many implementations.
Ogg more or less a self-proclaimed standard, with much of it designed by fiat (and by one man), with few implementations other than Xiph's own references (which, being BSD licensed, are simply copied into other products). As I recall when VP3 was donated to Xiph, a bit part of the reason was to spite the MPEG-LA and ISO, because they didn't choose VP3 (and On2 would never get patent royalties). It was sort of a 'poisioning the well' sort of deal.
Don't get me wrong; the Xiph codecs are excellent, and Monty is exceptionally good. But supporting the Xiph codecs makes only a little more sense (due to their openness and patent-free status) than supporting Sorenson, VC-1/Windows Media, Real, or VP8 (rumors of Google freeing it notwithstanding; it ain't happened yet.)
They work great; but MPEG-4 and H.264 are ubiquitous, well documented, etc. There are advantages to limiting the number of supported codecs.
"Finders Keepers" is a quaint little saying made by children, usually to try to justify their own greed.
Adults do things differently; we have the rule of law. "Finders Keepers" is pretty much the opposite of what the law requires in just about every state in the USA, as well as most other developed nations. Yes, the police actually do serve as a giant lost and found department (among other things), complete with official notices sent by mail to tell people that the item they found has been unclaimed after 90 days; some even provide certificates to prove transference of ownership.
If you drive away in a random person's car, even though your keys were in it, it's still grand theft. If you sell the car because the auto manufacturer didn't report it as stolen, then you're trafficking in stolen goods. If you buy the car with any idea that the seller isn't the legitimate owner of the car, you've purchased stolen property.
And if you're unlucky enough to have been caught doing any of this in the USA, you'll wind up in prison, and will probably learn of many new and demeaning uses for the rectal cavity.
You need 60 votes, not 2/3, to break a filibuster and close debate. That's not quite the same thing as needing that many votes to pass a bill. It's worth noting that a filibuster is much easier to do than in years past where the senators had to be present to defeat a vote to close debate. Now a senator has to do is say they are filibustering and go home - they don't even have to be present or speaking to filibuster anymore. Whatever happened to a reading of the works of Shakespeare on C-Span? Oh well...
The Democrats had enough votes to prevent a filibuster, and closed debate. At that point, only a simple majority was needed to pass the bill -- which is only 51 votes assuming everybody does vote.
In fact, any Senate vote on legislation (such as the healthcare) needs only 51 votes (which the Democrats certainly had) to pass. Many talking heads ignore this fact, and concentrate on the idea that breaking a filibuster is the same as voting for legislation. It's not. But most pundits (from every side of the political spectrum) aren't interested in presenting the facts or telling the whole truth. Their business is to get people to listen to the commercials during their shows. The way they do it is good 'ol fashioned demagoguery and chest thumping; calling to people's emotions (usually outrage and anger -- easy targets) rather than a listener's head.
A 2/3 majority (ie. 67 votes) is needed for treaties and constitutional amendments, and is fairly rare. (Contrary to popular belief, the Senate killed Kyoto long before W. was involved - it didn't have the votes in the Senate to pass.)
As the Democrats had already passed the point of filibuster, they used 'reconciliation' to finish the health care bill; Filibusters aren't allowed for reconciliation, and the constitutionally mandated simple majority is all that's needed to pass.
In spite of the recent bluster an berating, reconciliation has been used by the Republicans many times during the W. years for things that suited their ends, and were certainly as expensive, if not moreso. (Such as the Iraq war...)
I feel sorry for your network. Seriously. Every new PC I've looked at recently (outside of netbooks) has gigabit ethernet built-in. Every new mac (excluding the MacBook Air) has gigabit ethernet (even the Apple TV has gigabit ethernet). Even a cheap $30 netgear gigabit switch can get nearly theoretical peak speeds on all ports simultaneously (I've tortured a many in the past) - note this is not a one-to-many saturation; it was four individual one-to-one links, each pushing around 980 Mbit/sec over the 8-port switch, simultaneously.
So I guess it depends on what you consider a 'ridiculously fast network'. A gigabit wired network for eight machines can be had for less than $60 these days.
Another point: Just because the SATA interface is capable of transferring data faster than the network (only 3x the speed, though), it by no means the disk can actually transfer the data at the speed of the interface -- even under ideal conditions (linear read of large, contiguous files). The thing the 'faster' SATA interface buys you is when you're hitting the disk's 8-16MB RAM cache.
Gigabit can transfer ~100 MB/sec. Most disks can sustain around 50 MB/sec or so, usually less. I daily thrash the disks on a $10k SAN with 15k RPM disks using nothing more than NFS and gigabit ethernet. The network is still faster than that disk array - and that's with new and fairly expensive disk hardware.
My view: Far too many people had what their Star Wars universe was. Then when Lucas didn't give them exactly what they wanted (all 300 million versions of 'exactly what I wanted'), the results are predictable.
Here's a news flash: Episodes 4-6 were every bit as bad as Episodes 1-3.
Now go back and read it again.
It's just nostalgia that keeps many fans from admitting that episodes 4-6 were a long way from the best movies ever made. They had fantastic special effects, sound effects, and an even better musical score.
Yet movie reviews at the time blasted episodes 4-6 as being effects-coated bad movies. Just like Transformers 2 or Battlefield Earth...
The critics need to take their rose-colored glasses off, and realize that the original Star Wars trilogy is not, and never was the deep universe critics imagined in their heads. Most of the "depth" was written in the decades that followed the release of the movies, and most of that was also "non-canon."
Lucas discarded much of the well-liked but non-canon lore that was written between the two trilogies. This upset many a fanboy.
Now I liked the entire Star Wars saga. But I also liked it for what it was - a family dinner at McDonalds; not fine dining at a five-star restaurant. You can have a good time at both. But nobody should ever mistake Episodes 4-6 as being in the same league as the greatest movies ever made.
I'm pretty far from a fan of pure capitalism. What I am a fan of is personal responsibility, and that one should honor the agreements they have willingly entered - regardless of the terms of the agreement. It has nothing to do with capitalism or any economic theory - it has to do with personal ethics and integrity.
Nobody forced anyone to join Xbox Live. It's purely for recreation.
While it's true that there are uneven contract laws, you admit that this isn't a good example of an uneven contract.
A lot of the so-called "disabling" comes down to this: EVERYTHING on an Xbox has DRM up the wazoo. And nearly everything requires the xbox to contact Xbox live to authorize the DRM - each and every time.
Why aren't the people who modded their xbox suing the companies who made the mods? The mod clearly is the source of their being banned; if the mod maker had done their job correctly, Microsoft wouldn't have been able to detect the modded xbox. It can be argued that the mod chips were defective products that ultimately caused the disabling of the customer's device.
Is it because the mod chips come with a blanket statement refusing liability for any damages? Why isn't anybody railing against the mod chip makers for having blanket statements that they can't be held responsible for damages?
I don't mean to sound like I'm defending Microsoft, but...
If you enter into any contract, you have to abide by the rules. There's NOTHING new here. Online service, game service (like Xbox Live), Phone service... even a lawn mowing service has terms to its contract.
Guess what kids? Your actions have consequences. You should have the maturity to own up to those consequences.
Contracts (and contract law) aren't anything remotely new. They've been thought out by many a great thinker for millennia. Calling contract law a "growth market" is about as far from the truth as it gets. Contracts are one of the oldest, most hashed-out, and most concrete aspects of law in any society. The entire point of contract law is to avoid lawsuits, specifically because there is so little wiggle room if both parties agree to the contract.
I'll also throw in with EyeTV. But, the thing to remember with EyeTV is that everything centers around TV: * TV Broadcasts * Output(s) from TV tuners (Sattelite/Cable) - and you would want an IR blaster for channel changing
EyeTV does not play DVD's, or any other media other than that which is recorded by EyeTV.
But what EyeTV does, it does well: * TV Guide Integration is pretty good, with a number of providers, depending on your locale * Scheduling (and auto-scheduling of series) * Editing of TV episodes - it's good enough for cropping out commercials if you want to keep the show. * Good hardware support * Easy to use * Auto (or manual) Exports to a variety of formats. (Whatever QuickTime supports - which is pretty much anything if you have the right plugin) * Easy (and automated, if desired) exporting to iTunes (for iPod or Apple TV's) * Can stream to an iPod Touch or iPhone * iPhone/iPod Touch interface application. * Integrates with ElGato's "Turbo.264" hardware, which is a USB H.264 encoding accelerator. Not the best compression quality, but it's generally faster than a dual-core Intel box. * If you have EyeTV on other macs in your network, it can use Bonjour to stream the TV shows to the other machines.
So while it has a number of features that are quite Apple-centric (ie. good iPod/Apple TV integration), iPod Touch/iPhone application, etc... it still lets you export to pretty much whatever format you want easily. Or, if you don't want to do it that way, you can look inside the "eyetv" recording, and you'll find the raw MPEG stream, and you can use whatever software you want to export it.
Try learning more about what Xbox Live provides, and what being banned means: * Xbox Live involves more than the subscriber "gold" level. The "Gold" level enables a number of things, but guess what? The "free" level is required for a great deal of other xbox functionality. Lose that, and you're going to miss out on much of what the Xbox can do. * "Disabling Xbox HDD Functionality." The DRM requires that the xbox connect to Xbox Live for this to work. It checks the DVD, then checks the serial of the DVD, verifies it's not in use elsewhere (simultaneously), and then it will let you play. Oddly enough, Valve's Steam does the same thing for steam games. You may not like the way the DRM works, but that doesn't change the fact it requires Xbox Live (though not the "gold" service) to work. For non-banned consoles, games installed to the HDD don't work if you swap the hard drive to a new console -- you have to delete & re-install the game. (Having done this in the past week, I know this for certain). Yup - if you install the game to the hard drive, it gets the Xbox Live DRM, so if Xbox Live doesn't work, you're out of luck. * "Netflix, game add-ons, music, and arcade games for example" - all of which are obtained through Xbox Live, and have the same DRM. Xbox Live's DRM is pretty strict - those of us who've replaced an Xbox 360 have found out that all of those things are locked to the console, and require xbox live service to function. If you replace the xbox, you have to get the DRM moved to the new console, then delete and re-download all of your xbox live content. All of the downloads (netflix, game add-ons, music, and arcade games) are also subject to the xbox live terms of service, at least on the xbox. Break the terms of service, and you forfeit the ability to access the content. Nothing new here. * "Obtaining information from Xbox consoles without permission of the owner" - this permission was given when you signed up for Xbox Live. Xboxes are pretty chatty, if you care to look at their traffic. So are windows machines, talking back to the mothership regularly...
In other words, I don't think anybody should be surprised; Microsoft has long been a proponent of strong DRM (and their DRM at that), and closed non-open appliances. Even with the "original" xbox, it's been accepted that modding the xbox can get you banned. The whole issue has already happened before with the original Xbox.
If you want a hackable machine, build your own PC, and run a "Free" OS like Linux. Don't buy a heavily DRM'd appliance like the Xbox, and then complain that it is disabled when the mothership finds out you didn't use it in the prescribed way.
Look - it comes down to this: To get on Xbox live, you have to agree to the terms of service. The terms of service is a contract. The banned users agreed to it. If anybody violates the terms of the contract by modifying their Xbox in any way, Microsoft is more than justified in enforcing its contract, meaning they can cut off violators of its TOS.
It's simple contract law. The service requires an unmodded xbox. If a consumer doens't hold up their end of the contract, Microsoft has no obligation to hold up its end.
It's no different for other services - Telephone, internet, Cable or sattelite TV, etc. If you violate the contract you made for the service, then you have absolutely no right to force the provider to continue providing the service.
I find this to be similar to people who are familiar with the sound of LP's, or tube amps.
A listener becomes accustomed to the particular artifacts introduced by the technologies in question - ie. the "warmer" (though distorted) sound of a tube amp, or an LP record. So regardless of the actual fidelity of the recording or reproduction, listeners tend to prefer the distortions they are used to hearing.
And compressed audio seems to be no different. Young listeners are to showing a preference for music whose distortions are characteristic of MDCT compression (MP3, AAC, Dolby Digital, etc.) This shouldn't be a suprise, given young listeners didn't grow up with CD's, LP's or tube amps -- they grew up with MDCT compression, and their ears are used to it.
AC-3 (Dolby Digital) alone can be found on almost everything that isn't a pure audio recording - Digital TV (at least with North America's ATSC), DVD's, and in movie theatres.
ie. "It went downhill from there." Can mean: 1.) The situation was bad, and worsened over time. 2.) The hard part is over, and everything fell into place. (ie. things became better/easier with time)
The problem with self-appinted grammarians tends to be that they are ignorant (willfully or blissfully) that "correct" English grammar depends on the particular dialect used. What may be correct Grammar in one dialect is subtly incorrect in another. In a global environment such as Slashdot, posters are often berated for using grammar and idioms that are correct for their dialect of English.
No spoken language is set in stone - they evolve over time, with phrases often acquiring meanings opposite of the original.
Or, given the number of them that are tech companies, it could be that they are "hogging" them to increase pressure to move to IPv6... because they believe moving to IPv6 is the "right thing" to do.
Sure, it'll piss off the MCSE's who still struggle with IPv4 and think that NAT is a firewall, but the rest of the world won't really care. Vista, OS X, Linux, and *BSD all support IPv6 out of the box now, as do most browsers. IPv6's stateless autoconfig is a beautiful thing.
All the ISP's have to do is start routing IPv6 to their customers. The Tier-1 and most tier-2 providers already use and route IPv6.
But there is a certain similarity: VRML plugins often used OpenGL to render the 3D content; and the idea seems very similar - have 3D content on the web.
I know in my state, it is a hostile work environment, and things like freedom of speech and religion don't apply because employees are a "captive audience" to something completely unrelated to the business at hand.
Hence, you can't preach religion or political points of view in the workplace unless they have a very clear business purpose.
If your employer is a religion (ie. clergy/church) or politics (a political campaign), then obviously you knew what you were getting into when you took the job, and have implied consent to those points of view.
But if you're making disk defragmentation software... yeah, neither faith or politics have a business purpose.
Now whether the employer actually has a constitutional right to force his employees to take Scientology classes is up for debate, but you can't win that debate by citing any number of lower laws.
It depends, actually. I know in my home state (of Utah, no less), there have been judgements passed down that "freedom of religion" and "freedom of speech" do not apply in the workplace. (This covers both political and religious speech, by the way).
There are limits to constitutionally "guaranteed" rights. Yelling fire in a crowded theater isn't protected as freedom of speech, nor is slander or libel. The freedom of the press doesn't mean the press has a universal right to hide a source from the courts in all circumstances.
Similarly freedom of religion doesn't mean you can violate laws (federal or state) to practice your religion - for example, Mormons abandoned polygamy because the law trumped their religious beliefs. (Of course, there is a small splinter group who disagree -- and they are currently being prosecuted in Utah, Texas, and Arizona.)
There is no doubt in my mind that there are limits to the "constitutionally protected" freedom of religion.
In Utah, at least, you don't have the freedom to preach or evangelize religion (or political views) in the workplace. This is because a company's employees comprise a "captive audience" who aren't free to leave or otherwise avoid a person who is pushing their own agenda on a captive audience, which then creates a hostile work environment. It's not even legal to have a religious (or anti-religious, political, philisophical, etc.) text in view of others in a public workspace.
In my mind, it's a good thing; an employee shouldn't be forced to endure the preaching of a religious, philisophical, or political point of view. An employee is there to do trade their labor and skills for money, not become a diciple.
I live in a highly religious state. But even here, there are laws against religion in the workplace. You can't have a religious book on display in your office/cube, and you can't evangelize a faith at work. (Actually, the same goes for political speech, but I digress...)
I don't recall the specifics, but it was along the line of freedom of speech or religion doesn't apply when the audience isn't free to ignore it or leave. ie. you don't have a right to force your views upon what amounts to a captive audience.
Unlike somebody preaching in a street, on a streetcorner, or knocking at your doorstep, you can't just leave work without consequences.
You can leave a church. On a street, you can walk past. On a doorstep, you can slam the door in their faces and have the police arrest them if they don't leave immediately.
But you can't get up and leave your job without risking your livelihood and career.
In this case, it's probable that you'd still get fired for suing them for practicing religion at work - so either way, you're out of a job. Employers generally don't even need a reason to fire an employee.
But if you get an attorney involved, the offending employer will have to pay for breaking the law, most likely with a stiff amount of punitive damages to "make an example" to discourage other employers from doing the same thing.
True, after getting an attorney involved, you'd still be out of a job. There's not much that can be done about that. That part of the outcome is indeed the same.
But there are differences: you'll have also made life a bit better for people with the same problem. As a bonus, you'll have paid for your attorney's next vacation, and possibly retirement (providing one fewer attorney to worry about if only for a while)
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Were it only Apple that worked against Theora, I'd agree; that's not the case, however. Microsoft and Google - yes, Google - also apposed Theora.
As Stallman is happy to say: There's a difference between "open" and "free". Software can be "open" but not be "free". An open standard doesn't mean it's a free standard; don't confuse the two.
In contrast, a proprietary spec is one where they just give you a black box and say "the magic happens here" - as is the case with Windows Media audio/video. This isn't the case with H.264 - everything about it is fully described.
There is a difference between a specification and a standard.
The patent-encumbered AAC, MP3, H.264, etc. are actual standards, governed by a recognized standards body. Vorbis, Theora, and VP8 are self-published specifications, much like Windows Media. The fact that Vorbis, et al. are more open than Windows Media does not make them a "standard". Until it is recoginized and ratified by an actual standards body, it isn't a standard; it's yet another vendor specification.
I can crap in a box and call it a "standard." That doesn't mean it is a standard.
Don't get me wrong -- Vorbis is excellent, Theora is pretty good. VP8 is still a train wreck that needs cleaning up, but at least it creates decent video. None are recognized standards. They are self-published specificaitons, and in the case of VP8, the specification consists of a reference implementation and nothing else.
On the other hand, AAC and H.264 are standards, goverend by a recognized standards body. There is a legitimacy given by the standards body that doesn't exist for a self-published specification, and there is merit to the process. There is a full specification (that goes into agonizing detail) that is entirely separate from a reference implementation.
A gratis published specification is not necessarily an open standard.
An open standard doesn't have to be gratis, nor does it have to be patent free.
Apple and Microsoft are supporting actual open, standards-body controlled audio and video standards, and are choosing to ignore a few self-published fiat specifications. There is prudence in sticking to ISO standards, even if it irks the Free Software world, and I respect the decision.
I'm for free software; I support Vorbis, Theora, and VP8. They are great pieces of free software. A couple even have a decent written specification. But until I see a recognized standards body give a stamp of approval, and more importantly, the turning of the standard over to the standards body (rather than the parent company - Xiph or Google, retaining it), I won't see Vorbis, Theora, or VP8 as anything other than a free software alternative to the actual standardized formats.
No, they don't depend on it. They like it. That's all.
Constitutional protection only applies to US citizens.
Um, no. All trials and criminal investigations done on US soil provide the same protections whether they are a citizen or not. Part of the reasoning behind using Guantanamo as a prison is that it's in Cuba.
The shooting across the border argument is still valid - you don't have to injure or kill a person for a crime to be committed; there's still property damage, which is part of the case against Gary.
The $100 theft argument isn't particularly honest. The problem comes down to one's ability to 'reach' into a foreign country and commit a crime. One's reach is long indeed on the internet.
One additional issue is that many Americans are insulted at the minuscule amount of respect being given to their court system. The US courts are not show trials; being extradited does not mean he is even likely to get a guilty verdict. A core principle of the court system in the US is "Better a murderer go free than an innocent man be imprisoned. Most of the 'terrorists' tried at the military tribunals in Guantanamo have been acquitted and sent home. The lack of physical harm and Gary's mental condition and state will be heard and taken into account. In all honesty, while the potential sentence is rather harsh, the actual sentence will likely be little more than a slap on the wrist.
I'm from a species classified as an animal. Part of being an animal is we eat other living things - or living things that were recently alive...
I eat other life forms. I don't have an irrational bias that eliminates entire classes of food energy. As a sensitive, enlightened, 21st century animal, I choose not to let prejudices decide what living things I eat. If it will keep my body going, I'll consume it as a chemical energy source. If it has cells, I'll eat it. I don't care what its metabolism is. I don't care if it's a solar vampire that draws its energy from the sun. If the need arises, I'll even eat my own species.
You're absolutely right; but only from the perspective of Mozilla and free software in general - and only in the USA. Apple is most likely already paying the maximum licensing fee for MPEG4/H.264; supporting H.264 in any way won't cost them more than it already is.
On the other hand, what do they have to gain by supporting ogg? The goodwill of a few percent of possible customers? Is that really worth what it would (or more accurately, could) cost them if they get sued for patent infringement? The penalties go up for willful infringement, and given Apple's a licensee, it seems a bad idea to risk infringing on the patent license, given they know what is in it.
I see the cost-benefit working out in favor of ogg for Firefox & Opera (and free software in general).
For Apple & Microsoft, whom are already paying the licensing fees for other products, it makes sense to use their already existing H.264 licenses; the work is already done, and they also gain access to the vast market of devices that can play H.264 (with hardware decoding, no less).
I can't fault anybody for following what makes the most sense in their situation. For Apple (and Microsoft), there is just very little to gain -- and possibly a great deal to lose -- in supporting ogg.
It'll be interesting to see what the outcome of the Bilski supreme court case; and if it results in software patents going away. One can dream...
Apple dropped ZFS from Snow Leopard because they were worried about getting sued by NetApp, so there's some merit to the argument that Apple may simply be avoiding a lawsuit.
Google supports Theora development, and Google is a pretty juicy target, too... so it doesn't quite add up there.
The place I do think it does add up is simple: MPEG is an ISO standard, and H.264 is also an ITU standard. It has very broad support and many, many implementations.
Ogg more or less a self-proclaimed standard, with much of it designed by fiat (and by one man), with few implementations other than Xiph's own references (which, being BSD licensed, are simply copied into other products). As I recall when VP3 was donated to Xiph, a bit part of the reason was to spite the MPEG-LA and ISO, because they didn't choose VP3 (and On2 would never get patent royalties). It was sort of a 'poisioning the well' sort of deal.
Don't get me wrong; the Xiph codecs are excellent, and Monty is exceptionally good. But supporting the Xiph codecs makes only a little more sense (due to their openness and patent-free status) than supporting Sorenson, VC-1/Windows Media, Real, or VP8 (rumors of Google freeing it notwithstanding; it ain't happened yet.)
They work great; but MPEG-4 and H.264 are ubiquitous, well documented, etc. There are advantages to limiting the number of supported codecs.
"Finders Keepers" is a quaint little saying made by children, usually to try to justify their own greed.
Adults do things differently; we have the rule of law. "Finders Keepers" is pretty much the opposite of what the law requires in just about every state in the USA, as well as most other developed nations. Yes, the police actually do serve as a giant lost and found department (among other things), complete with official notices sent by mail to tell people that the item they found has been unclaimed after 90 days; some even provide certificates to prove transference of ownership.
If you drive away in a random person's car, even though your keys were in it, it's still grand theft. If you sell the car because the auto manufacturer didn't report it as stolen, then you're trafficking in stolen goods. If you buy the car with any idea that the seller isn't the legitimate owner of the car, you've purchased stolen property.
And if you're unlucky enough to have been caught doing any of this in the USA, you'll wind up in prison, and will probably learn of many new and demeaning uses for the rectal cavity.
You need 60 votes, not 2/3, to break a filibuster and close debate. That's not quite the same thing as needing that many votes to pass a bill. It's worth noting that a filibuster is much easier to do than in years past where the senators had to be present to defeat a vote to close debate. Now a senator has to do is say they are filibustering and go home - they don't even have to be present or speaking to filibuster anymore. Whatever happened to a reading of the works of Shakespeare on C-Span? Oh well...
The Democrats had enough votes to prevent a filibuster, and closed debate. At that point, only a simple majority was needed to pass the bill -- which is only 51 votes assuming everybody does vote.
In fact, any Senate vote on legislation (such as the healthcare) needs only 51 votes (which the Democrats certainly had) to pass. Many talking heads ignore this fact, and concentrate on the idea that breaking a filibuster is the same as voting for legislation. It's not. But most pundits (from every side of the political spectrum) aren't interested in presenting the facts or telling the whole truth. Their business is to get people to listen to the commercials during their shows. The way they do it is good 'ol fashioned demagoguery and chest thumping; calling to people's emotions (usually outrage and anger -- easy targets) rather than a listener's head.
A 2/3 majority (ie. 67 votes) is needed for treaties and constitutional amendments, and is fairly rare. (Contrary to popular belief, the Senate killed Kyoto long before W. was involved - it didn't have the votes in the Senate to pass.)
As the Democrats had already passed the point of filibuster, they used 'reconciliation' to finish the health care bill; Filibusters aren't allowed for reconciliation, and the constitutionally mandated simple majority is all that's needed to pass.
In spite of the recent bluster an berating, reconciliation has been used by the Republicans many times during the W. years for things that suited their ends, and were certainly as expensive, if not moreso. (Such as the Iraq war...)
I feel sorry for your network. Seriously. Every new PC I've looked at recently (outside of netbooks) has gigabit ethernet built-in. Every new mac (excluding the MacBook Air) has gigabit ethernet (even the Apple TV has gigabit ethernet). Even a cheap $30 netgear gigabit switch can get nearly theoretical peak speeds on all ports simultaneously (I've tortured a many in the past) - note this is not a one-to-many saturation; it was four individual one-to-one links, each pushing around 980 Mbit/sec over the 8-port switch, simultaneously.
So I guess it depends on what you consider a 'ridiculously fast network'. A gigabit wired network for eight machines can be had for less than $60 these days.
Another point: Just because the SATA interface is capable of transferring data faster than the network (only 3x the speed, though), it by no means the disk can actually transfer the data at the speed of the interface -- even under ideal conditions (linear read of large, contiguous files). The thing the 'faster' SATA interface buys you is when you're hitting the disk's 8-16MB RAM cache.
Gigabit can transfer ~100 MB/sec. Most disks can sustain around 50 MB/sec or so, usually less. I daily thrash the disks on a $10k SAN with 15k RPM disks using nothing more than NFS and gigabit ethernet. The network is still faster than that disk array - and that's with new and fairly expensive disk hardware.
My view: Far too many people had what their Star Wars universe was. Then when Lucas didn't give them exactly what they wanted (all 300 million versions of 'exactly what I wanted'), the results are predictable.
Here's a news flash: Episodes 4-6 were every bit as bad as Episodes 1-3.
Now go back and read it again.
It's just nostalgia that keeps many fans from admitting that episodes 4-6 were a long way from the best movies ever made. They had fantastic special effects, sound effects, and an even better musical score.
Yet movie reviews at the time blasted episodes 4-6 as being effects-coated bad movies. Just like Transformers 2 or Battlefield Earth...
The critics need to take their rose-colored glasses off, and realize that the original Star Wars trilogy is not, and never was the deep universe critics imagined in their heads. Most of the "depth" was written in the decades that followed the release of the movies, and most of that was also "non-canon."
Lucas discarded much of the well-liked but non-canon lore that was written between the two trilogies. This upset many a fanboy.
Now I liked the entire Star Wars saga. But I also liked it for what it was - a family dinner at McDonalds; not fine dining at a five-star restaurant. You can have a good time at both. But nobody should ever mistake Episodes 4-6 as being in the same league as the greatest movies ever made.
I'm pretty far from a fan of pure capitalism. What I am a fan of is personal responsibility, and that one should honor the agreements they have willingly entered - regardless of the terms of the agreement. It has nothing to do with capitalism or any economic theory - it has to do with personal ethics and integrity.
Nobody forced anyone to join Xbox Live. It's purely for recreation.
While it's true that there are uneven contract laws, you admit that this isn't a good example of an uneven contract.
A lot of the so-called "disabling" comes down to this: EVERYTHING on an Xbox has DRM up the wazoo. And nearly everything requires the xbox to contact Xbox live to authorize the DRM - each and every time.
Why aren't the people who modded their xbox suing the companies who made the mods? The mod clearly is the source of their being banned; if the mod maker had done their job correctly, Microsoft wouldn't have been able to detect the modded xbox. It can be argued that the mod chips were defective products that ultimately caused the disabling of the customer's device.
Is it because the mod chips come with a blanket statement refusing liability for any damages? Why isn't anybody railing against the mod chip makers for having blanket statements that they can't be held responsible for damages?
I don't mean to sound like I'm defending Microsoft, but...
If you enter into any contract, you have to abide by the rules. There's NOTHING new here. Online service, game service (like Xbox Live), Phone service... even a lawn mowing service has terms to its contract.
Guess what kids? Your actions have consequences. You should have the maturity to own up to those consequences.
Contracts (and contract law) aren't anything remotely new. They've been thought out by many a great thinker for millennia. Calling contract law a "growth market" is about as far from the truth as it gets. Contracts are one of the oldest, most hashed-out, and most concrete aspects of law in any society. The entire point of contract law is to avoid lawsuits, specifically because there is so little wiggle room if both parties agree to the contract.
I'll also throw in with EyeTV. But, the thing to remember with EyeTV is that everything centers around TV:
* TV Broadcasts
* Output(s) from TV tuners (Sattelite/Cable) - and you would want an IR blaster for channel changing
EyeTV does not play DVD's, or any other media other than that which is recorded by EyeTV.
But what EyeTV does, it does well:
* TV Guide Integration is pretty good, with a number of providers, depending on your locale
* Scheduling (and auto-scheduling of series)
* Editing of TV episodes - it's good enough for cropping out commercials if you want to keep the show.
* Good hardware support
* Easy to use
* Auto (or manual) Exports to a variety of formats. (Whatever QuickTime supports - which is pretty much anything if you have the right plugin)
* Easy (and automated, if desired) exporting to iTunes (for iPod or Apple TV's)
* Can stream to an iPod Touch or iPhone
* iPhone/iPod Touch interface application.
* Integrates with ElGato's "Turbo.264" hardware, which is a USB H.264 encoding accelerator. Not the best compression quality, but it's generally faster than a dual-core Intel box.
* If you have EyeTV on other macs in your network, it can use Bonjour to stream the TV shows to the other machines.
So while it has a number of features that are quite Apple-centric (ie. good iPod/Apple TV integration), iPod Touch/iPhone application, etc... it still lets you export to pretty much whatever format you want easily. Or, if you don't want to do it that way, you can look inside the "eyetv" recording, and you'll find the raw MPEG stream, and you can use whatever software you want to export it.
Try learning more about what Xbox Live provides, and what being banned means:
* Xbox Live involves more than the subscriber "gold" level. The "Gold" level enables a number of things, but guess what? The "free" level is required for a great deal of other xbox functionality. Lose that, and you're going to miss out on much of what the Xbox can do.
* "Disabling Xbox HDD Functionality." The DRM requires that the xbox connect to Xbox Live for this to work. It checks the DVD, then checks the serial of the DVD, verifies it's not in use elsewhere (simultaneously), and then it will let you play. Oddly enough, Valve's Steam does the same thing for steam games. You may not like the way the DRM works, but that doesn't change the fact it requires Xbox Live (though not the "gold" service) to work. For non-banned consoles, games installed to the HDD don't work if you swap the hard drive to a new console -- you have to delete & re-install the game. (Having done this in the past week, I know this for certain). Yup - if you install the game to the hard drive, it gets the Xbox Live DRM, so if Xbox Live doesn't work, you're out of luck.
* "Netflix, game add-ons, music, and arcade games for example" - all of which are obtained through Xbox Live, and have the same DRM. Xbox Live's DRM is pretty strict - those of us who've replaced an Xbox 360 have found out that all of those things are locked to the console, and require xbox live service to function. If you replace the xbox, you have to get the DRM moved to the new console, then delete and re-download all of your xbox live content. All of the downloads (netflix, game add-ons, music, and arcade games) are also subject to the xbox live terms of service, at least on the xbox. Break the terms of service, and you forfeit the ability to access the content. Nothing new here.
* "Obtaining information from Xbox consoles without permission of the owner" - this permission was given when you signed up for Xbox Live. Xboxes are pretty chatty, if you care to look at their traffic. So are windows machines, talking back to the mothership regularly...
In other words, I don't think anybody should be surprised; Microsoft has long been a proponent of strong DRM (and their DRM at that), and closed non-open appliances. Even with the "original" xbox, it's been accepted that modding the xbox can get you banned. The whole issue has already happened before with the original Xbox.
If you want a hackable machine, build your own PC, and run a "Free" OS like Linux. Don't buy a heavily DRM'd appliance like the Xbox, and then complain that it is disabled when the mothership finds out you didn't use it in the prescribed way.
Look - it comes down to this: To get on Xbox live, you have to agree to the terms of service. The terms of service is a contract. The banned users agreed to it. If anybody violates the terms of the contract by modifying their Xbox in any way, Microsoft is more than justified in enforcing its contract, meaning they can cut off violators of its TOS.
It's simple contract law. The service requires an unmodded xbox. If a consumer doens't hold up their end of the contract, Microsoft has no obligation to hold up its end.
It's no different for other services - Telephone, internet, Cable or sattelite TV, etc. If you violate the contract you made for the service, then you have absolutely no right to force the provider to continue providing the service.
I find this to be similar to people who are familiar with the sound of LP's, or tube amps.
A listener becomes accustomed to the particular artifacts introduced by the technologies in question - ie. the "warmer" (though distorted) sound of a tube amp, or an LP record. So regardless of the actual fidelity of the recording or reproduction, listeners tend to prefer the distortions they are used to hearing.
And compressed audio seems to be no different. Young listeners are to showing a preference for music whose distortions are characteristic of MDCT compression (MP3, AAC, Dolby Digital, etc.) This shouldn't be a suprise, given young listeners didn't grow up with CD's, LP's or tube amps -- they grew up with MDCT compression, and their ears are used to it.
AC-3 (Dolby Digital) alone can be found on almost everything that isn't a pure audio recording - Digital TV (at least with North America's ATSC), DVD's, and in movie theatres.
A great example is the phrase "going downhill"
ie. "It went downhill from there."
Can mean:
1.) The situation was bad, and worsened over time.
2.) The hard part is over, and everything fell into place. (ie. things became better/easier with time)
The problem with self-appinted grammarians tends to be that they are ignorant (willfully or blissfully) that "correct" English grammar depends on the particular dialect used. What may be correct Grammar in one dialect is subtly incorrect in another. In a global environment such as Slashdot, posters are often berated for using grammar and idioms that are correct for their dialect of English.
No spoken language is set in stone - they evolve over time, with phrases often acquiring meanings opposite of the original.
I've always been unimpressed with MathType.
It's an upgrade vs. MS Equation Editor, but there's nothing it can do that you can't do more easily with LyX.
Harder to use + expensive doesn't do well compared to 'easier & free'
I used LyX quite a bit; the equation editor is pretty quick to work with (better than MS Equation Editor or similar addons).
LyX is generally much faster than straight LaTeX - and there's a much shallower learning curve.
Additionally, LyX works on pretty much whatever platform you want to use.
Or, given the number of them that are tech companies, it could be that they are "hogging" them to increase pressure to move to IPv6... because they believe moving to IPv6 is the "right thing" to do.
Sure, it'll piss off the MCSE's who still struggle with IPv4 and think that NAT is a firewall, but the rest of the world won't really care. Vista, OS X, Linux, and *BSD all support IPv6 out of the box now, as do most browsers. IPv6's stateless autoconfig is a beautiful thing.
All the ISP's have to do is start routing IPv6 to their customers. The Tier-1 and most tier-2 providers already use and route IPv6.
But there is a certain similarity: VRML plugins often used OpenGL to render the 3D content; and the idea seems very similar - have 3D content on the web.
I know in my state, it is a hostile work environment, and things like freedom of speech and religion don't apply because employees are a "captive audience" to something completely unrelated to the business at hand.
Hence, you can't preach religion or political points of view in the workplace unless they have a very clear business purpose.
If your employer is a religion (ie. clergy/church) or politics (a political campaign), then obviously you knew what you were getting into when you took the job, and have implied consent to those points of view.
But if you're making disk defragmentation software... yeah, neither faith or politics have a business purpose.
Now whether the employer actually has a constitutional right to force his employees to take Scientology classes is up for debate, but you can't win that debate by citing any number of lower laws.
It depends, actually. I know in my home state (of Utah, no less), there have been judgements passed down that "freedom of religion" and "freedom of speech" do not apply in the workplace. (This covers both political and religious speech, by the way).
There are limits to constitutionally "guaranteed" rights. Yelling fire in a crowded theater isn't protected as freedom of speech, nor is slander or libel. The freedom of the press doesn't mean the press has a universal right to hide a source from the courts in all circumstances.
Similarly freedom of religion doesn't mean you can violate laws (federal or state) to practice your religion - for example, Mormons abandoned polygamy because the law trumped their religious beliefs. (Of course, there is a small splinter group who disagree -- and they are currently being prosecuted in Utah, Texas, and Arizona.)
There is no doubt in my mind that there are limits to the "constitutionally protected" freedom of religion.
In Utah, at least, you don't have the freedom to preach or evangelize religion (or political views) in the workplace. This is because a company's employees comprise a "captive audience" who aren't free to leave or otherwise avoid a person who is pushing their own agenda on a captive audience, which then creates a hostile work environment. It's not even legal to have a religious (or anti-religious, political, philisophical, etc.) text in view of others in a public workspace.
In my mind, it's a good thing; an employee shouldn't be forced to endure the preaching of a religious, philisophical, or political point of view. An employee is there to do trade their labor and skills for money, not become a diciple.
Well, I'd argue the outcome wouldn't be the same.
I live in a highly religious state. But even here, there are laws against religion in the workplace. You can't have a religious book on display in your office/cube, and you can't evangelize a faith at work. (Actually, the same goes for political speech, but I digress...)
I don't recall the specifics, but it was along the line of freedom of speech or religion doesn't apply when the audience isn't free to ignore it or leave. ie. you don't have a right to force your views upon what amounts to a captive audience.
Unlike somebody preaching in a street, on a streetcorner, or knocking at your doorstep, you can't just leave work without consequences.
You can leave a church. On a street, you can walk past. On a doorstep, you can slam the door in their faces and have the police arrest them if they don't leave immediately.
But you can't get up and leave your job without risking your livelihood and career.
In this case, it's probable that you'd still get fired for suing them for practicing religion at work - so either way, you're out of a job. Employers generally don't even need a reason to fire an employee.
But if you get an attorney involved, the offending employer will have to pay for breaking the law, most likely with a stiff amount of punitive damages to "make an example" to discourage other employers from doing the same thing.
True, after getting an attorney involved, you'd still be out of a job. There's not much that can be done about that. That part of the outcome is indeed the same.
But there are differences: you'll have also made life a bit better for people with the same problem. As a bonus, you'll have paid for your attorney's next vacation, and possibly retirement (providing one fewer attorney to worry about if only for a while)