I experienced an injury in my teens that caused nerve damage to my left [forearm and] hand. I have gross motor skills with it but lack the ability to use my fingers individually or to distinctly feel what/where I'm touching.
I have adjusted to this over the years in ways like switching to the Dvorak right-hand keyboard layout, which works very well [though I have no comment on the normal Dvorak layout].
I've been a PC gamer for years and have rarely had issues using various controllers because most PC games have fully programmable controls.
Console games, on the other hand [and regardless of platform] usually don't offer any better than a couple of layouts which all make the presumption that you're not only right-handed but have two fully functioning hands.
Given that fact, I basically gave up any hope of over being able to play console games with standard gamepads because the controls are nearly always laid out in a way that makes using them next to impossible for me [not that any other kind of control is any better with them].
I've never understood the lack of programmable controls on gaming consoles [the only reason I have ever come up with is laziness on the part of programmers], considering how simple the addition would be. This would not only make it possible for people like me to create layouts that are at least playable [if not optimal] but would also help lefties.
1. Pretty much any digital camera
2. Hugin [http://hugin.sourceforge.net/]
That's pretty much all you need. If you want better precision, a spherical tripod head helps a great deal. The panosaurus is the least expensive you will likely find.
Oh. So.. things are reaching the same point that they were at [in many places] in, say, 1991.. when places like where I am had internet [telnet, really] access through our local university's one 9600bps pipe..
Really, is anyone surprised about this? Considering the huge amount of intended-for-infrastructure money that providers have utterly squandered over the past 20 years? I doubt it would really happen at the scale they seem to describe here, but.. yeah.
By my experience [I work in a tech capacity within the English dept. of a small university, though I'd note my students are usually exceptional with their language skills] the vast majority of people who speak English as a first language barely have a functional grasp on its use.
Several years ago while working in the service department of a local retailer, a farmer [this is on the Canadian prairies] brought in his entire system with the power bar it had been plugged into.
This was one of those power bars that we'd either shrug or laugh off the "$15,000 insurance" advertised on its packaging.
This guy's home was fed by an overhead power line that split from the mains line between his work sheds and house at a lamp post.
The lamp post got struck by lightning.
That was the ONLY time I've ever seen one of those insurance claims go through because the power bar exploded - shortly after the computer's motherboard, PSU, hard drive, and CRT did the same.
We didn't joke about the power bars' insurance coverage after that.
As someone who types with only one hand [nerve damage to left hand/arm] I'd like to point out that Dvorak exists in three standard layouts: two-handed, left-handed, and right-handed. I've been typing on QWERTY since I was about 10, and typing on Dvorak-RH since I was 18. The difference in speed isn't actually great, but the difference in required range of motion and therefore repetitive strain injury is significant. It's worth it for that alone; QWERTY spreads keys so far apart that typing with one hand is painful after only a few minutes.
That said, it's really only good for English, which isn't an issue to me but would of course be for people who type more often in other languages. ..Just wanted to point out that there are other reasons for other keyboard layouts, accessibility for the disabled among them.
Quicktime under OS X is extensible - you can add codecs [provided that someone writes them]. Under Windows, you're stuck with what Apple gives you, which is very little.
Pretty much the only issue that keeps me from using iTunes is the lack of format support.
My music/recording collection [I am occasionally a sound recordist among other things] contains tracks in mp3, mp4, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, Wavpack, AC3, DTS, MPC, and a few other formats. iTunes under Windows supports only 2 of those formats for playback, let alone transcoding/conversion. I'll admit that I'm hardly the average user, but even for basic use iTunes simply doesn't cut it for me.
The other thing I'd like to see more players support is Replaygain, which, unlike Apple's volume levelling function, actually works properly for most material put through it.
Foobar2000 [even with it messy archaic default interface] is leagues better than either iTunes or Amarok in terms of format support, tag editing, transcoding.. better in every sense other than the default GUI, in fact.
I've been watching Songbird with interest for quite a while; for me it has the potential to replace fb2k if people write format support plugins for it.
This entire argument is both specious and irrelevant.
That producers would be in an uproar about the loss of fidelity caused by lossy encoding is pretty ridiculous. Why don't they instead address the loss of quality caused by producers, record company flacks, and especially mastering engineers who insist on bitpushing the crap out of almost everything released in any digital format since the mid-late 1990s?
The loss of dynamic range in current recordings is plain as day. CDs [and everything else encoded from them] used to actually have some dynamic range. Nowadays everything is so limited [in the dynamics compression sense] by the time it gets pressed to a CD or encoded to anything you'll find at an online store that things like listening fatigue are totally commonplace.
When the producers start asking questions like, "What did that album sound like BEFORE its dynamic range was reduced to a head-splitting 4dB?" - then I'll start taking their arguments seriously.
The loss of decently-done MP3 encoding is nothing compared to the complete mutilation caused by bitpushing. There are so many albums that have come out in the past 8-10 years that leave me asking, "What did this sound like when the band and engineers actually mixed it, before it got destroyed by the producer, record company, and/or mastering engineer whose only criteria are make it sound louder?"
The JS encoding usually used by MP3 encoders isn't doing what you seem to think it does. It's simply a more efficient way of encoding exactly the same thing - by, rather than encoding left and right channels, encoding a sum and difference [usually known as M and S for Mid and Side] of the left and right channels. This actually HELPS the sound quality sometimes, by reducing phase-shifting in the mono part [i.e. identical in both channels] of a 2-channel stereo signal.
As someone who regularly works on images whose uncompressed size [at only 8-bit/channel RGB] is in excess of 150MB, I find the quest for a new standard pretty relevant.
I also find that the suggestion that MS's "open licensing" won't allow for use in GPL'd software suggests that this format might already be dead on the water.
This may be half-correct.. but Sony's Connect Store DRM as used originally for their own ATRAC formats for Minidisc, HiMD, and their current Walkman line of products has never, to my knowledge, been cracked.
It *has* been bypassed by various means [at the cost of a single generation loss in transcoding] but again, to my knowledge, it has never actually been cracked.
There could be many reasons for this, including the dismal sound quality of the Connect store's LP2-encoded [132kbps] tracks, the rather small audience compared to any other major form of DRM'd media for sale, or the fact that Sony eventually relaxed their DRM on self-created or recorded tracks to the point where it's basically nonexistent unless you actually tell it to be turned on yourself.
I say all of this as a user of HiMD for location recording. Mind you, I now use a 24-bit PCM flash recorder most of the time instead.
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I experienced an injury in my teens that caused nerve damage to my left [forearm and] hand. I have gross motor skills with it but lack the ability to use my fingers individually or to distinctly feel what/where I'm touching.
I have adjusted to this over the years in ways like switching to the Dvorak right-hand keyboard layout, which works very well [though I have no comment on the normal Dvorak layout].
I've been a PC gamer for years and have rarely had issues using various controllers because most PC games have fully programmable controls.
Console games, on the other hand [and regardless of platform] usually don't offer any better than a couple of layouts which all make the presumption that you're not only right-handed but have two fully functioning hands.
Given that fact, I basically gave up any hope of over being able to play console games with standard gamepads because the controls are nearly always laid out in a way that makes using them next to impossible for me [not that any other kind of control is any better with them].
I've never understood the lack of programmable controls on gaming consoles [the only reason I have ever come up with is laziness on the part of programmers], considering how simple the addition would be. This would not only make it possible for people like me to create layouts that are at least playable [if not optimal] but would also help lefties.
What you're describing is almost exactly how Rosetta Stone [as seen on TV] works.
Take:
1. Pretty much any digital camera
2. Hugin [http://hugin.sourceforge.net/]
That's pretty much all you need. If you want better precision, a spherical tripod head helps a great deal. The panosaurus is the least expensive you will likely find.
Oh, plus
3. Lots of patience.
Have fun!
Great. Just what I need - a computer with an attention span potentially shorter than mine.
Fantastic. Now how about ANY support for ODF with Office 2008 for the Mac?
Oh. So .. things are reaching the same point that they were at [in many places] in, say, 1991 .. when places like where I am had internet [telnet, really] access through our local university's one 9600bps pipe..
Really, is anyone surprised about this? Considering the huge amount of intended-for-infrastructure money that providers have utterly squandered over the past 20 years? I doubt it would really happen at the scale they seem to describe here, but.. yeah.
By my experience [I work in a tech capacity within the English dept. of a small university, though I'd note my students are usually exceptional with their language skills] the vast majority of people who speak English as a first language barely have a functional grasp on its use.
Chuck has a Mac, though..
Several years ago while working in the service department of a local retailer, a farmer [this is on the Canadian prairies] brought in his entire system with the power bar it had been plugged into.
This was one of those power bars that we'd either shrug or laugh off the "$15,000 insurance" advertised on its packaging.
This guy's home was fed by an overhead power line that split from the mains line between his work sheds and house at a lamp post.
The lamp post got struck by lightning.
That was the ONLY time I've ever seen one of those insurance claims go through because the power bar exploded - shortly after the computer's motherboard, PSU, hard drive, and CRT did the same.
We didn't joke about the power bars' insurance coverage after that.
As someone who types with only one hand [nerve damage to left hand/arm] I'd like to point out that Dvorak exists in three standard layouts: two-handed, left-handed, and right-handed. I've been typing on QWERTY since I was about 10, and typing on Dvorak-RH since I was 18. The difference in speed isn't actually great, but the difference in required range of motion and therefore repetitive strain injury is significant. It's worth it for that alone; QWERTY spreads keys so far apart that typing with one hand is painful after only a few minutes.
..Just wanted to point out that there are other reasons for other keyboard layouts, accessibility for the disabled among them.
That said, it's really only good for English, which isn't an issue to me but would of course be for people who type more often in other languages.
Not trolling, or at least, not intentionally. :)
Quicktime under OS X is extensible - you can add codecs [provided that someone writes them]. Under Windows, you're stuck with what Apple gives you, which is very little.
Pretty much the only issue that keeps me from using iTunes is the lack of format support.
.. better in every sense other than the default GUI, in fact.
My music/recording collection [I am occasionally a sound recordist among other things] contains tracks in mp3, mp4, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, Wavpack, AC3, DTS, MPC, and a few other formats. iTunes under Windows supports only 2 of those formats for playback, let alone transcoding/conversion. I'll admit that I'm hardly the average user, but even for basic use iTunes simply doesn't cut it for me.
The other thing I'd like to see more players support is Replaygain, which, unlike Apple's volume levelling function, actually works properly for most material put through it.
Foobar2000 [even with it messy archaic default interface] is leagues better than either iTunes or Amarok in terms of format support, tag editing, transcoding
I've been watching Songbird with interest for quite a while; for me it has the potential to replace fb2k if people write format support plugins for it.
Stereo != 2 channels. Stereo == anything greater than a point source [monaural]. 5.1 surround is multichannel stereo, for example.
Google = Chaotic Neutral Apple = Lawful Evil Microsoft = Chaotic Evil FOSS = true neutral
You beat me to the nitpicking. :)
Huzzah! Death to bitpushing!
This entire argument is both specious and irrelevant.
That producers would be in an uproar about the loss of fidelity caused by lossy encoding is pretty ridiculous. Why don't they instead address the loss of quality caused by producers, record company flacks, and especially mastering engineers who insist on bitpushing the crap out of almost everything released in any digital format since the mid-late 1990s?
The loss of dynamic range in current recordings is plain as day. CDs [and everything else encoded from them] used to actually have some dynamic range. Nowadays everything is so limited [in the dynamics compression sense] by the time it gets pressed to a CD or encoded to anything you'll find at an online store that things like listening fatigue are totally commonplace.
When the producers start asking questions like, "What did that album sound like BEFORE its dynamic range was reduced to a head-splitting 4dB?" - then I'll start taking their arguments seriously.
The loss of decently-done MP3 encoding is nothing compared to the complete mutilation caused by bitpushing. There are so many albums that have come out in the past 8-10 years that leave me asking, "What did this sound like when the band and engineers actually mixed it, before it got destroyed by the producer, record company, and/or mastering engineer whose only criteria are make it sound louder?"
The JS encoding usually used by MP3 encoders isn't doing what you seem to think it does. It's simply a more efficient way of encoding exactly the same thing - by, rather than encoding left and right channels, encoding a sum and difference [usually known as M and S for Mid and Side] of the left and right channels. This actually HELPS the sound quality sometimes, by reducing phase-shifting in the mono part [i.e. identical in both channels] of a 2-channel stereo signal.
As someone who regularly works on images whose uncompressed size [at only 8-bit/channel RGB] is in excess of 150MB, I find the quest for a new standard pretty relevant. I also find that the suggestion that MS's "open licensing" won't allow for use in GPL'd software suggests that this format might already be dead on the water.
I'd take this as flamebait except for the fact that I'm in full agreement.
This may be half-correct .. but Sony's Connect Store DRM as used originally for their own ATRAC formats for Minidisc, HiMD, and their current Walkman line of products has never, to my knowledge, been cracked.
It *has* been bypassed by various means [at the cost of a single generation loss in transcoding] but again, to my knowledge, it has never actually been cracked.
There could be many reasons for this, including the dismal sound quality of the Connect store's LP2-encoded [132kbps] tracks, the rather small audience compared to any other major form of DRM'd media for sale, or the fact that Sony eventually relaxed their DRM on self-created or recorded tracks to the point where it's basically nonexistent unless you actually tell it to be turned on yourself.
I say all of this as a user of HiMD for location recording. Mind you, I now use a 24-bit PCM flash recorder most of the time instead.