Please, read again what I said about YouTube videos being intentionally encoded with lower settings for better decoding speed. Or if you don't believe me, download that YT clip from comparison you refer to, open it in MediaInfo and see codec parameters.
This is freaking Baseline profile! It does not even use B-frames not to mention more advanced features like CABAC, new modes of motion prediction or B-pyramid.
All this 'comparison' proves is that you really need to cripple h264 for newest and greatest version of Theora to match.
Now let's see what Theora supports: http://wiki.xiph.org/Theora . Oh my, not even B-frames are supported. Hello guys, 90s called and want their codec back.
Theora is dead end. No matter how much tweaking they have done in Thusnelda it simply cannot change the fact that h264 is at least generation ahead.
Theora as good as h264? Yeah, sure. Sorry, VP3 (which Theora is based on) is previous generation codec, comparable to h263. There is no way for it to be as good as h264 unless you use crappy encoder or wrong settings. I like it how Theora apologists compare YouTube videos encoded to achieve balance between size, quality and decoding speed to Theora on maxed out settings and twist it into "they are comparable". Here is more realistic comparison: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~nick/theora-soccer/ which shows that Theora requires 60% more bandwidth than h264 for similar quality.
Well, that's what you get if you completely ignore rehabilitation aspect and focus solely on punishment. Sure, victims get their vengeance but don't be surprised about repeat offender stats. Why just not return to good old lynching? Way cheaper and more effective.
Politicians would be really grateful.What you want to do is to provide them with great excuse to enact even stricter laws designed to combat those evil hackers.
Looks like good tool for 'enhanced interrogations'. Just direct the weapon at subject that can't run and wait until he is ready to tell you everything he knows and quite a lot of things he actually does not know. Could be marketed as high-tech replacement for traditional hot irons.
For a technical audience like/. this kind of crap is obviously going to fail on a dozen of levels; but those fucktards keep pushing this nonsense, and they probably even believe it. Without even thinking very hard,
What happens when you're out of coverage?
Your are out of luck. What else did you expect?
After all you don't buy the song, you just buy limited license to play it.
What about your own ripped CDs?
You shouldn't have done that. Just buy it again instead.
What about plain old mp3 you bought on eMusic or Amazon?
See previous answer.
What about unencrypted AAC you bought on iTunes but want to listen to on your other phone?
See previous answer.
Planes?
Well, you shouldn't use a cellphone on plane anyway.
Going abroad?
No problem, just don't get heart attack when you receive bill with all those roaming calls to DRM server.
Will the authentication servers always be up? All the time? Riight.
It's your problem, isn't it?
What about the added complexity? How often will the phone crash because of that useless crap?
Complexity? Well, yeah. But users will pay for that anyway.
What about CC-licensed works?
Very nice side-effect - competition gets axed.
Who do you call when the damn thing doesn't work for one reason or another? Who's going to pay for customer service?
You read your contract again where it is plainly said that the service can be out at any time
.
What happens when a user finds he can't listen to lawfully-acquired music? How mad is he going to get? Sword wielding samurai mad?
Well, there is lots of DRM out there already and except for cries of impotent nerd rage on Slashdot we don't see massive customer protests.
Will they pull a Sony or a Microsoft when they realize the exercise is pointless, and leave millions of former customers w/o service? (Answer is obviously YES)
You got that right. And I don't remember hearing anything about MS refunding now useless purchases.
But that won't stop that merry band of fucktards.
Tomorrow, Sarkozy's merry band of obedient scumsuckers is going to vote on the Hadopi law v2, which is equally absurd.
Do you consider general Taguba, who conducted investigation of Abu Ghraib valid source?
His reliability is irrelevant, because the argument which you created based on his testimony is a red herring. The question wasn't whether every single American citizen conducts himself in accordance with international treaties - the question was about policy.
Here is the official policy. Look at conclusion, last paragraph - it is enough to claim "necessity" to provide justification for about any treatment, event that prohibited by Convention Against Torture.
Most relevant here is article 5, talking about spies and saboteurs... Seems pretty clear, doesn't it?
Well, first off, it doesn't say that they have any rights, only that they should be treated humanely. It doesn't promise them a trial, either, it just talks about how trials should be conducted if we decide to have them.
Do you have problems with reading comprehension? Part of the quote you removed states: "They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person..."
Besides you are setting up a strawman here. No matter if they "have rights" or "should be treated humanely" these rules were broken.
Or maybe you consider rape (see Taguba's report) or multiple detainess beaten to death humane? If so, then despite your signature you probably are an American.
In addition to that, this section only deals with captured locals. If you capture, say, a Syrian fighting in Iraq, this section doesn't apply to him.
Also, the argument could easily be made that a good percentage of the fighters are mercenaries, in which case the conventions don't apply to them at all.
That's interesting assertion. Do soldiers from UK and other countries that got dragged into this mess by USA are covered by the convention? They are also not "local" to USA-Iraq war.
What about hordes of mercenaries from companies like Blackwater?
Lastly, the conventions are hopelessly outmoded. Personally I think they need to be scrapped and either rewritten or abandoned entirely. But that's just a personal opinion, and doesn't have any bearing on this discussion.
Unfortunately I have to agree. The conventions are good thing in principle, but in fact they are enforced only against weak countries.
Like Iraq which ratified it in 1956?
Who's fighting Iraq? The American war against Iraq lasted a few weeks - a couple months at most.
Not really. It just changed into guerilla war. This happens about every time when occupational force has overwhelming advantage but local population don't want to just roll over and die (or obey puppet regime installed by their new masters).
That should have been made obvious by the fact that the militants keep blowing up Iraqi police officers, soldiers, and government officials, in addition to torturing and subjugating civilians. Again, this is a situation which the conventions fail to address.
"Iraqi police officers"? Guess what French guerillas were doing to Vichy collaborators during WWII. And they are considered national heros nowadays.
I've not heard a valid example of the US violating it.
Do you consider general Taguba, who conducted investigation of Abu Ghraib valid source? According to him prisoner were raped among other things. Is it good enough example of violation for you?
I also remember (not link this time, but should not be hard to find) of hooded prisoner attached to multiple wires. The whole scene looked like something from Frankenstein.
Remember, the Geneva conventions are primarily concerned with the treatment of uniformed members of national military forces (and includes definitions of such).
Whole 4th convention is about civilians. Most relevant here is article 5, talking about spies and saboteurs (or in American newspeak "illegal enemy combatants"). Direct quote:
"In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be."
Seems pretty clear, doesn't it?
It also is only in force when engaged in war with another state that is also bound by the convention.
Like Iraq which ratified it in 1956? Ah, I forgot: you just need to slap 'liberation' sticker on your invasion and it is ok.
Legally, at least; morally/politically is a different game, of course.
What is the problem? You just need to redefine 'morality', like 'torture' and 'war' got redefined.
No doubt it would be only once... because in revenge they would torch your house, rape your wife and bled you to death instead of just harassing. 'Armed citizen', yeah, any drug gang member is quaking in his boots already. Why so may morons think their guns make them Dirty Harry incarnation?
And how much time you think you will be given to hide your stuff after you hear 'police! open the doors!' ?
Actually they may not knock at all - no-knock warrants are exactly to prevent people like you from hiding or destroying evidence.
And now when it failed we have that idiotic attempt at astroturfing. Come one, "Segway hate"? It could only happen if someone actually used that thing.
Next on Slashdot: reports of overwhelming Zune hate. The reason that prompts people to shout abuse is "they look smug and cool and trendy. iPod crowd just can't stand it".
Why would the founders of Skype be threatening to revoke the licensing agreement? What is their side?
Isn't it obvious? "Gimme more money!"
And why would eBay pay billions of dollars for something without some guarantee that they'd be able to run it for a while?
Their lawyers allowed themselves to get suckered? There is lesson to all those FUDing about how using open sourced pieces of software makes company vulnerable to legal problems. Guess what? With closed source the problem is the same, only worse - you don't have several widely used and well understood licenses - every company creates its own and every time you sign one you risk your legal team missing some well-hidden minefield.
This is like a super-sized version the story about the music industry claiming that it's ridiculous that people would think they could forever listen to their DRM music.
On an individual level, people allow themselves to be screwed for a few dollars at a time, just to be able to listen to the music but - paying more than 2 billion for most of something without a contract ensuring that it's not a total waste of money? Wow.
It worked for a while. But know I guess this goal will be passed to Silverlight. Yeah, I know there is fig leaf in form of Moonlight but let's not kid ourselves - the end result will be just like Wine. Most sides almost kinda working but not really.
Very easily. If there is lots of surveillance on you then there is lots of material from which small parts can be cut and deliberately put out of context.
Small kid fell down and you helped him up? Just put a picture of you doing that side-by-side with information about child rape several days later. Of course nobody directly says you did it but it is suggestive enough.
Or look through the tapes for any contacts with other people (asking directions, time, whatever) and then check if any of them were criminals or acquaintances of criminals. Yup, now you are known to have criminal contacts.
Really? Which parts? Was it Bonobo that got you so enamored? CORBA, GNOME-VFS ? Or maybe GObject pseudo objects (which are quite cute in grotesque sort of way) ?
Please share, because after several minutes of trying to come up with any API that is better in GNOME I still draw blank.
Yes, especially 5th convention is pretty clear that even spies and saboteurs (I'm sure they always wear patches...) are protected. Yes, they can be executed, but only after fair trial. Oh, and "such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity".
You seem to be forgetting about fifth convention that deals specifically with spies and saboteurs.
So why invent weird classifications like "unlawful combatant"?
Direct quote from convention: "In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be."
Slashdot Mirror
Now let's see what Theora supports: http://wiki.xiph.org/Theora . Oh my, not even B-frames are supported. Hello guys, 90s called and want their codec back.
Theora is dead end. No matter how much tweaking they have done in Thusnelda it simply cannot change the fact that h264 is at least generation ahead.
Theora as good as h264? Yeah, sure. Sorry, VP3 (which Theora is based on) is previous generation codec, comparable to h263. There is no way for it to be as good as h264 unless you use crappy encoder or wrong settings. I like it how Theora apologists compare YouTube videos encoded to achieve balance between size, quality and decoding speed to Theora on maxed out settings and twist it into "they are comparable". Here is more realistic comparison: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~nick/theora-soccer/ which shows that Theora requires 60% more bandwidth than h264 for similar quality.
Well, that's what you get if you completely ignore rehabilitation aspect and focus solely on punishment. Sure, victims get their vengeance but don't be surprised about repeat offender stats. Why just not return to good old lynching? Way cheaper and more effective.
Why not? Worked great in Australia.
Politicians would be really grateful.What you want to do is to provide them with great excuse to enact even stricter laws designed to combat those evil hackers.
And I sure don't remember parallelizing a FOR loop with one or two lines of code with it.
GCD is NOT a thread library.
Look at OpenMP then - already included in GCC.
Looks like good tool for 'enhanced interrogations'. Just direct the weapon at subject that can't run and wait until he is ready to tell you everything he knows and quite a lot of things he actually does not know. Could be marketed as high-tech replacement for traditional hot irons.
For a technical audience like /. this kind of crap is obviously going to fail on a dozen of levels; but those fucktards keep pushing this nonsense, and they probably even believe it. Without even thinking very hard,
Your are out of luck. What else did you expect? After all you don't buy the song, you just buy limited license to play it.
What about your own ripped CDs?
You shouldn't have done that. Just buy it again instead.
What about plain old mp3 you bought on eMusic or Amazon?
See previous answer.
What about unencrypted AAC you bought on iTunes but want to listen to on your other phone?
See previous answer.
Planes?
Well, you shouldn't use a cellphone on plane anyway.
Going abroad?
No problem, just don't get heart attack when you receive bill with all those roaming calls to DRM server.
Will the authentication servers always be up? All the time? Riight.
It's your problem, isn't it?
What about the added complexity? How often will the phone crash because of that useless crap?
Complexity? Well, yeah. But users will pay for that anyway.
What about CC-licensed works?
Very nice side-effect - competition gets axed.
Who do you call when the damn thing doesn't work for one reason or another? Who's going to pay for customer service?
You read your contract again where it is plainly said that the service can be out at any time
.
What happens when a user finds he can't listen to lawfully-acquired music? How mad is he going to get? Sword wielding samurai mad?
Well, there is lots of DRM out there already and except for cries of impotent nerd rage on Slashdot we don't see massive customer protests.
Will they pull a Sony or a Microsoft when they realize the exercise is pointless, and leave millions of former customers w/o service? (Answer is obviously YES)
You got that right. And I don't remember hearing anything about MS refunding now useless purchases.
But that won't stop that merry band of fucktards.
Tomorrow, Sarkozy's merry band of obedient scumsuckers is going to vote on the Hadopi law v2, which is equally absurd.
It is for customers own good, don't you know?
His reliability is irrelevant, because the argument which you created based on his testimony is a red herring. The question wasn't whether every single American citizen conducts himself in accordance with international treaties - the question was about policy.
Here is the official policy. Look at conclusion, last paragraph - it is enough to claim "necessity" to provide justification for about any treatment, event that prohibited by Convention Against Torture.
Well, first off, it doesn't say that they have any rights, only that they should be treated humanely. It doesn't promise them a trial, either, it just talks about how trials should be conducted if we decide to have them.
Do you have problems with reading comprehension? Part of the quote you removed states: "They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person ..."
Besides you are setting up a strawman here. No matter if they "have rights" or "should be treated humanely" these rules were broken. Or maybe you consider rape (see Taguba's report) or multiple detainess beaten to death humane? If so, then despite your signature you probably are an American.
In addition to that, this section only deals with captured locals. If you capture, say, a Syrian fighting in Iraq, this section doesn't apply to him.
Also, the argument could easily be made that a good percentage of the fighters are mercenaries, in which case the conventions don't apply to them at all.
That's interesting assertion. Do soldiers from UK and other countries that got dragged into this mess by USA are covered by the convention? They are also not "local" to USA-Iraq war. What about hordes of mercenaries from companies like Blackwater?
Lastly, the conventions are hopelessly outmoded. Personally I think they need to be scrapped and either rewritten or abandoned entirely. But that's just a personal opinion, and doesn't have any bearing on this discussion.
Unfortunately I have to agree. The conventions are good thing in principle, but in fact they are enforced only against weak countries.
Who's fighting Iraq? The American war against Iraq lasted a few weeks - a couple months at most.
Not really. It just changed into guerilla war. This happens about every time when occupational force has overwhelming advantage but local population don't want to just roll over and die (or obey puppet regime installed by their new masters).
That should have been made obvious by the fact that the militants keep blowing up Iraqi police officers, soldiers, and government officials, in addition to torturing and subjugating civilians. Again, this is a situation which the conventions fail to address.
"Iraqi police officers"? Guess what French guerillas were doing to Vichy collaborators during WWII. And they are considered national heros nowadays.
Convention Against Torture
I've not heard a valid example of the US violating it.
Do you consider general Taguba, who conducted investigation of Abu Ghraib valid source? According to him prisoner were raped among other things. Is it good enough example of violation for you? I also remember (not link this time, but should not be hard to find) of hooded prisoner attached to multiple wires. The whole scene looked like something from Frankenstein.
Remember, the Geneva conventions are primarily concerned with the treatment of uniformed members of national military forces (and includes definitions of such).
Whole 4th convention is about civilians. Most relevant here is article 5, talking about spies and saboteurs (or in American newspeak "illegal enemy combatants").
Direct quote: "In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be." Seems pretty clear, doesn't it?
It also is only in force when engaged in war with another state that is also bound by the convention.
Like Iraq which ratified it in 1956? Ah, I forgot: you just need to slap 'liberation' sticker on your invasion and it is ok.
Legally, at least; morally/politically is a different game, of course.
What is the problem? You just need to redefine 'morality', like 'torture' and 'war' got redefined.
No doubt it would be only once... because in revenge they would torch your house, rape your wife and bled you to death instead of just harassing. 'Armed citizen', yeah, any drug gang member is quaking in his boots already. Why so may morons think their guns make them Dirty Harry incarnation?
And how much time you think you will be given to hide your stuff after you hear 'police! open the doors!' ? Actually they may not knock at all - no-knock warrants are exactly to prevent people like you from hiding or destroying evidence.
And now when it failed we have that idiotic attempt at astroturfing. Come one, "Segway hate"? It could only happen if someone actually used that thing.
Next on Slashdot: reports of overwhelming Zune hate. The reason that prompts people to shout abuse is "they look smug and cool and trendy. iPod crowd just can't stand it".
Why would the founders of Skype be threatening to revoke the licensing agreement? What is their side?
Isn't it obvious? "Gimme more money!"
And why would eBay pay billions of dollars for something without some guarantee that they'd be able to run it for a while?
Their lawyers allowed themselves to get suckered? There is lesson to all those FUDing about how using open sourced pieces of software makes company vulnerable to legal problems. Guess what? With closed source the problem is the same, only worse - you don't have several widely used and well understood licenses - every company creates its own and every time you sign one you risk your legal team missing some well-hidden minefield.
This is like a super-sized version the story about the music industry claiming that it's ridiculous that people would think they could forever listen to their DRM music.
On an individual level, people allow themselves to be screwed for a few dollars at a time, just to be able to listen to the music but - paying more than 2 billion for most of something without a contract ensuring that it's not a total waste of money? Wow.
Wow indeed.
Konqueror is not switching to WebKit. No matter how many times developers deny it, some moron from Slashdot just has to bring it up again.
It worked for a while. But know I guess this goal will be passed to Silverlight. Yeah, I know there is fig leaf in form of Moonlight but let's not kid ourselves - the end result will be just like Wine. Most sides almost kinda working but not really.
Very easily. If there is lots of surveillance on you then there is lots of material from which small parts can be cut and deliberately put out of context. Small kid fell down and you helped him up? Just put a picture of you doing that side-by-side with information about child rape several days later. Of course nobody directly says you did it but it is suggestive enough. Or look through the tapes for any contacts with other people (asking directions, time, whatever) and then check if any of them were criminals or acquaintances of criminals. Yup, now you are known to have criminal contacts.
You could start with making a Qt version of The GIMP.
It is called Krita. And actually has usable GUI as a bonus.
wxWidgets is an option as long as you don't mind spending weeks debugging lots of small cross-platform inconsistencies.
Really? Which parts? Was it Bonobo that got you so enamored? CORBA, GNOME-VFS ? Or maybe GObject pseudo objects (which are quite cute in grotesque sort of way) ? Please share, because after several minutes of trying to come up with any API that is better in GNOME I still draw blank.
Some bored guy at Dell marketing would wonder for a 5 minutes if this 0.001% dip in sales is real or maybe a rounding error.
Will Europa be forced to adopt American self-imposed restrictions on free speech ( AKA political correctness) ?
Yes, especially 5th convention is pretty clear that even spies and saboteurs (I'm sure they always wear patches ...) are protected. Yes, they can be executed, but only after fair trial. Oh, and "such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity".
You seem to be forgetting about fifth convention that deals specifically with spies and saboteurs. So why invent weird classifications like "unlawful combatant"? Direct quote from convention: "In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be."