Well, if this lot got a (5, informative) and two (4, insightful)s last time, it should be worth a try....
"Here's a link to an interview with the author, with his explanation of why vorbis is better than mp3. http://www.advogato.org/article/56.html
One thing that everyone seems to be missing, is that Vorbis supports bitrates of 16kbps-128kbps per channel! Since it uses better algorithms than MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3), it has the potential to sound much better. It's not done yet, and the development team is still making changes to it that will affect the quality. I'm going to wait and see how it works, but it sounds like it will be excellent when it gets done.
It's terrific to finally see an open, IP-free audio codec with (seemingly) great sound and compression efficiency. One of the things most often complained about at Slashdot is the lack of Quicktime players for Linux, and more specifically, lack of a player capable of playing moviescompressed with Quicktime 4's Sorenson codec. Many sites, especially those of the movie industry, have adopted Sorenson because it has genuine advantages over industry-standard MPEG video: Sorenson produces significantly better video quality at the bitrates preferred on the Internet today. While Sorenson and Microsoft's proprietary offerings are gaining ground, the use of free video standards like MPEG is becoming more and more scarce.
The only feasible way of reversing this trend is to come up with a superior video codec and distribute it freely. Until now, many people have argued that developing a good media codec involves such high-end mathematics that developing one under traditional Open Source development model is not possible. It is high time that someone proved them wrong."
...oh all right then, I'll settle for (score:13, reundant)
On game two or three, go to the maze in the Black Castle. One screen left of the first maze screen will flicker if you carry an object in there meaning one thing, there's ANOTHER object in there. At the bottom center of this room is a closed off cubicle, use the bridge to get in there and you should pick up a "dot". Carry this to the screen just above the catacombs (one screen down and to the right of the Yellow Castle) and be careful not to lose it as it's the same color as the outside ground. Drop it there and bring two other items onto the screen, run right through the line on the right side of the screen...
Making digital signatures legally binding scares the shit out of me.
2 reasons why it doesn't scare the shit out of me...
1. Here in the UK we have had binding 'digital signatures' for a while - a faxed signature (digitally transmitted, remember) is legally equivalent to an original signed document here.
2. Surely forging a digital signature carries the same penalties as forging a written one - so we are gaining, not losing security here (as all those anti-forging laws will now apply).
- Andy R.
sig... Y2K, only 47.5 years left to fix those bugs!
I've scanned the judgement, and I didn't see anything that stops the operating system chunk from writing (or buying out) a non IE browser and tying it into the OS. Are we just going back to square one?
...we will have two 400Lb. Gorillas rather than one 800Lb. Gorilla...
Well, I for one can't wait to watch them fighting! The writs will fly... if they don't they would clearly begiving each other preferential treatment compared to the rest of the industry, if past performance is anything to go by.
I guess that depends on what you call a new OS and what you call an upgrade. Is Windows 2000 a different OS to Windows 95? How about Win NT and DOS? WinCE on Dreamcast vs Win 98? How about Win95 and Win95+ Service Pack 1?
A line has to be drawn somwhere, and it's not clear where (Dreamcast support features are mandatory in all upgrades to WinNT anyone?). Can Bill simply sidestep this probelm by claiming each update is 'a new OS' and so doesn't have carry over any API compatibility?
Not from where I'm sitting! As far as I can see, all this adds up to is simply making it a bit more difficult for M$ to break the law again in the future.
It does nothing to right any of the damage done by M$'s actions, or punish M$ for breaking the law. Far from being punished, the MiniMe$$es will merely be in exactly the postion M$ should have been in if it stuck to the law in the first place.
Where are the damages for Netscape, Apple etc.? Nothing has been given to the victims, so this is NOT what I call justice.
At which point the US Judge phones a Canadian Judge and says "i've got a statement of fact for you to read". What M$ did wrong, they did wrong in every market. Just because some US states settled, it doesnt mean the rest of the world has.
Bzzzt, big mistake... DO NOT SEND MAIL TO THE REMOVE ADDRESS!
Once you do that, you might well get removed from the "50 million addresses we got from god knows where that might be long out of date or just plain made up" list, but you get put on the "this address is current, read by a human without a spam filter, who actually reads spam right the way through to the end" list. You do NOT want to be there.
Try creating a dummy account at Hotmail just to reply to one of these, and see what happens to your in box if you don't believe me.
As a United Kingdom citizen, I am continually surprised (and annoyed) at the way US law seems to often extend beyond the physical boundaries of the US, especially in the fields of copyright and the internet (DECSS anyone?).
Given that the internet is by it's very nature international, how should it be governed? Can ANY national laws be effectively applied to the net, where cross-border transactions (and re-routing) are the norm?
Seriously, though, I can't work out if I should be worried that I can't understand any of the questions, or pleased that mathematicians are now only left with things I can't understand still to do?
Very true, I've lost track of how many articles and comments on slashdot forget that the internet is not just located in the US.
I'm a firm believer that (bearing in mind that any website is effectively 'multinational' in location, if not content), any 'regluated 'portion of the net will virtually relocate to whatever system of regulation is the most relaxed anywhere in the world, just like the owners of ships do now.
The US seems to be keen on exporting the DCMA and so on, but it can't be long before some government or other gets annoyed at this (or better yet, spots the commerical advantages in saying no to it)
The one area that Macs have always been appreciated is graphics work. However, with the availability of Photoshop, Lightwave/3D Studio (which do not run on Macs), etc. for the PC has rendered (no pun intended) the Mac inferior. SGI machines reign at the high-end and Intel/AMD machines control the low end. With the selection of PC 3D cards being far superior to that of Mac cards, I do not see the Mac regaining much market share in the professional graphics market.
I have to take issue with most of that paragraph. The Mac has plenty of high end rendering software (including many packages that don't run on wintel)
However, that's a bit of a red herring. It's a common misconception that graphics work mostly involves heavy 3D rendering. Sadly, most of us graphic designers don't get to do the 'pretty stuff', we plug away at logos, websites, corporate graphics and publishing. If I could render 3D 10 times faster, I'd have saved about an hour over the last 3 months.
Mac Photoshop and (equally importantly) Quark Xpress are the 'definitive' versions, they started off as Mac only, and the fonts, plug-ins and output drivers have had many years to settle down on the Mac platform.
Going back to another of your points, with 3D graphics cards, lack of 'selection' means standardised drivers, which means reliability and fewer conflicts, but again, this whole discussion is pretty much irrelevant to real world graphic design work. I've had a 3D card in my G3 for over a year, and I've made no use of the 3D abilities since I deleted Tomb Raider.
As for 'regaining share in the high end graphics market', who says Apple ever lost share? Graphic designers are by and large Mac zealots of many years standing (myself included, as if you hadn't guessed) who won't touch wintel with a bargepole. PCs still haven't got over the dodgy fonts legacy, for example M$'s Arial font (just enough of a botch of Helevetica and Univers to avoid copyrigth infringement) is regarded in this office and elsewhere as one of the sure fire signs of a document 'designed by a secretary'.
I'd need a very big incentive to switch platforms, because I'd have to source all my software and fonts again (with no guarantee they even have equivalents out there) as well as learn to cope with a different OS, which would cost a large multiple of the money I'd save by switching to wintel. Even if sticking with Macs would cost my company a few extra thousand pounds (dollars, whatever) it would be a drop in the ocean compared to the costs of re-training or losing zealot staff because of switching. Price/performance isn't the main issue in our choice of machine; reliability, ease of use, our software investment and most importantly familiarity are.
So, you want a $1000 G4 machine running at 500+ Mhz?
The trouble is you are not Apple's perfect customer. The graphic design industry is full of people more concerned with maximium power than cost, and it's been a surprisingly long time since there has been anything capable of running indstry standard apps in the over $4000 range, so there is a pent up demand for this sort of machine, and it seems Apple will have this sector pretty much to themselves for the forseeable future, therefore they won't have to price these boxes too keenly.
So, who will pay over $4000 for the top Macs? Simple - the same people who bought $4000+ Macs last time Apple made them... I vaguely recall my old MacIIfx set-up was in that bracket.
Gates and Ballmer are probably just baffled - considering that for the best part of 20 years, they haven't had to talk to anyone who they can't buy, fire or shut down at the drop of a hat. That can't have done wonders for their social skills.
Actually, come to think of it, Bill did meet someone like that once, and he got a custard pie in the face...
...what a wonderful way to enforce region coding. Simply check for the presence of the (US only) hard drive, and spit those cheap foreign DVDs across the room based on the results. I guess the 3rd part of this announcement is the lack of memory cards, now there is a HD to do their job. No plugging in those 'oops' first release DVD drivers in for the US purchaser.
Slashdot Mirror
"Here's a link to an interview with the author, with his explanation of why vorbis is better than mp3. http://www.advogato.org/article/56.html
One thing that everyone seems to be missing, is that Vorbis supports bitrates of 16kbps-128kbps per channel! Since it uses better algorithms than MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3), it has the potential to sound much better. It's not done yet, and the development team is still making changes to it that will affect the quality. I'm going to wait and see how it works, but it sounds like it will be excellent when it gets done.
It's terrific to finally see an open, IP-free audio codec with (seemingly) great sound and compression efficiency. One of the things most often complained about at Slashdot is the lack of Quicktime players for Linux, and more specifically, lack of a player capable of playing moviescompressed with Quicktime 4's Sorenson codec. Many sites, especially those of the movie industry, have adopted Sorenson because it has genuine advantages over industry-standard MPEG video: Sorenson produces significantly better video quality at the bitrates preferred on the Internet today. While Sorenson and Microsoft's proprietary offerings are gaining ground, the use of free video standards like MPEG is becoming more and more scarce.
The only feasible way of reversing this trend is to come up with a superior video codec and distribute it freely. Until now, many people have argued that developing a good media codec involves such high-end mathematics that developing one under traditional Open Source development model is not possible. It is high time that someone proved them wrong."
...oh all right then, I'll settle for (score:13, reundant)
- Andy R.
- Andy R.
- Andy R.
On game two or three, go to the maze in the Black Castle. One screen
left of the first maze screen will flicker if you carry an object in
there meaning one thing, there's ANOTHER object in there. At the
bottom center of this room is a closed off cubicle, use the bridge
to get in there and you should pick up a "dot". Carry this to the
screen just above the catacombs (one screen down and to the right of
the Yellow Castle) and be careful not to lose it as it's the same color
as the outside ground. Drop it there and bring two other items onto
the screen, run right through the line on the right side of the
screen...
- Andy R.
2 reasons why it doesn't scare the shit out of me...
1. Here in the UK we have had binding 'digital signatures' for a while - a faxed signature (digitally transmitted, remember) is legally equivalent to an original signed document here.
2. Surely forging a digital signature carries the same penalties as forging a written one - so we are gaining, not losing security here (as all those anti-forging laws will now apply).
- Andy R.
sig... Y2K, only 47.5 years left to fix those bugs!
- Andy R.
Well, I for one can't wait to watch them fighting! The writs will fly... if they don't they would clearly begiving each other preferential treatment compared to the rest of the industry, if past performance is anything to go by.
- Andy R.
"Where do you want to go today?" ;-)
- Andy R.
A line has to be drawn somwhere, and it's not clear where (Dreamcast support features are mandatory in all upgrades to WinNT anyone?). Can Bill simply sidestep this probelm by claiming each update is 'a new OS' and so doesn't have carry over any API compatibility?
- Andy R.
- Andy R.
It does nothing to right any of the damage done by M$'s actions, or punish M$ for breaking the law. Far from being punished, the MiniMe$$es will merely be in exactly the postion M$ should have been in if it stuck to the law in the first place.
Where are the damages for Netscape, Apple etc.? Nothing has been given to the victims, so this is NOT what I call justice.
- Andy R.
- Andy R.
Once you do that, you might well get removed from the "50 million addresses we got from god knows where that might be long out of date or just plain made up" list, but you get put on the "this address is current, read by a human without a spam filter, who actually reads spam right the way through to the end" list. You do NOT want to be there.
Try creating a dummy account at Hotmail just to reply to one of these, and see what happens to your in box if you don't believe me.
- Andy R.
Given that the internet is by it's very nature international, how should it be governed? Can ANY national laws be effectively applied to the net, where cross-border transactions (and re-routing) are the norm?
- Andy R.
Oh, BTW I'd like to thank whoever moderated that as "informative" for making me laugh out loud.
- Andy R
Nah, there's an extra N on the right hand side
Seriously, though, I can't work out if I should be worried that I can't understand any of the questions, or pleased that mathematicians are now only left with things I can't understand still to do?
- Andy R.
I'm a firm believer that (bearing in mind that any website is effectively 'multinational' in location, if not content), any 'regluated 'portion of the net will virtually relocate to whatever system of regulation is the most relaxed anywhere in the world, just like the owners of ships do now.
The US seems to be keen on exporting the DCMA and so on, but it can't be long before some government or other gets annoyed at this (or better yet, spots the commerical advantages in saying no to it)
- Andy R.
Of course, our dogs would be more stable if you converted them to eunchs.
Can you imagine a woofwoof cluster of... oh forget it. - Andy R.
I have to take issue with most of that paragraph. The Mac has plenty of high end rendering software (including many packages that don't run on wintel)
However, that's a bit of a red herring. It's a common misconception that graphics work mostly involves heavy 3D rendering. Sadly, most of us graphic designers don't get to do the 'pretty stuff', we plug away at logos, websites, corporate graphics and publishing. If I could render 3D 10 times faster, I'd have saved about an hour over the last 3 months.
Mac Photoshop and (equally importantly) Quark Xpress are the 'definitive' versions, they started off as Mac only, and the fonts, plug-ins and output drivers have had many years to settle down on the Mac platform.
Going back to another of your points, with 3D graphics cards, lack of 'selection' means standardised drivers, which means reliability and fewer conflicts, but again, this whole discussion is pretty much irrelevant to real world graphic design work. I've had a 3D card in my G3 for over a year, and I've made no use of the 3D abilities since I deleted Tomb Raider.
As for 'regaining share in the high end graphics market', who says Apple ever lost share? Graphic designers are by and large Mac zealots of many years standing (myself included, as if you hadn't guessed) who won't touch wintel with a bargepole. PCs still haven't got over the dodgy fonts legacy, for example M$'s Arial font (just enough of a botch of Helevetica and Univers to avoid copyrigth infringement) is regarded in this office and elsewhere as one of the sure fire signs of a document 'designed by a secretary'.
I'd need a very big incentive to switch platforms, because I'd have to source all my software and fonts again (with no guarantee they even have equivalents out there) as well as learn to cope with a different OS, which would cost a large multiple of the money I'd save by switching to wintel. Even if sticking with Macs would cost my company a few extra thousand pounds (dollars, whatever) it would be a drop in the ocean compared to the costs of re-training or losing zealot staff because of switching. Price/performance isn't the main issue in our choice of machine; reliability, ease of use, our software investment and most importantly familiarity are.
- Andy R.
Give it a rest, this is pasta joke.
- Andy R.
Maybe the whole lawsuit threat happened because MS is scared of losing market share in the 'everyone on the net hates us' sector to Metallica?
- Andy R
The trouble is you are not Apple's perfect customer. The graphic design industry is full of people more concerned with maximium power than cost, and it's been a surprisingly long time since there has been anything capable of running indstry standard apps in the over $4000 range, so there is a pent up demand for this sort of machine, and it seems Apple will have this sector pretty much to themselves for the forseeable future, therefore they won't have to price these boxes too keenly.
So, who will pay over $4000 for the top Macs? Simple - the same people who bought $4000+ Macs last time Apple made them... I vaguely recall my old MacIIfx set-up was in that bracket.
- Andy R.
Actually, come to think of it, Bill did meet someone like that once, and he got a custard pie in the face...
- Andy R.
- Andy R.
2 good reasons:
1) All PSX2 modems are Sony modems, so no lost revenue for Sony
2) All PSX2 modems are Sony modems, so there is no messing about with driver support for everything else - important when ram is a limited commodity.
- Andy R.