I was always told that the cockroaches will survive a nuclear blast not because they are more resistant to radiation, but because of the sheer number and geographic ubiquitous.
That doesn't make any sense at all... Nuclear winter will affect the whole planet, so geographic location doesn't matter. And the numbers of a creature says nothing about how well it will survive when all plants die from lack of sunlight, and all large animals die from lack of food.
I think it's pretty well established that HUMANS will be the last surviving creature. We know how to dig extremely robust shelters, we have the technology to provide as much energy as could be needed, as well as recycle water, and thanks to methods of preservation, have the ability to stockpile an effectively unlimited supply of food.
I imagine at least the US continues to maintain shelters that fit exactly these parameters, and is constantly staffed with numerous military personnel. Russia (and the other nuclear powers) might also, but I'm somewhat doubtful.
What is it with animals that make make people go yuck that they then think it OK to do horrid things to them?
What is it about plants, that people are only too happy to trample them, or rip them out of the ground?
What is it about the billions of microbes floating in the air around us that we don't give a second thought to MOVING, and thereby killing millions of them for no reason?
I know of no legal source at any price for a Linux DVD decoder.
From about June 2004, Cyberlink has offered a licensed DVD Player for OEMs, and can be found in basically every motherboard that offers the gimmick of DVD playback without booting-up the OS...
It can be found in a few distros like TurboLinux 10. For a couple years there, it was also offered for sale to individuals via Linspire's CNR site, but it has now disappeared.
Funniest thing about it is that it's just a slightly modified (old) version of MPlayer that they've payed licensing fees for. Anybody else could do the same, quite easily.
What you're doing is using "download" in only the most general of terms, when, in fact, it has a much more specific definition that is more appropriate and applicable to this context.
Equivalently, you are arguing that a woman is still a man...
3) Reimplement the required code, distribute only in countries with a more enlightened attitude towards software patents (eg the EU)
That's unintentionally hilarious. Surely you DO realize that Fraunhofer, the company that primarily owns the software patents, is an EU company in Germany.
I guess they're enlightened enough to operate in a country where they don't have to pay to license software patents, but they're only to happy to use them to force others to pay them... And here I thought 'enlightened' and 'hypocrite' were mutually exclusive.
If the guy [...] thought someone was breaking in and tried to defend himself
...he would have to be a complete idiot.
You really think this issue has never come up before? It happens all the time, so there are strict rules in place to prevent such accidents, and ensure blame is properly assigned when it does happen.
Police in most states are required to knock on the door, and usually state that they have a warrant before entering. Besides that, it's beaten into every officer's head that the word "Police" starts every sentence... Every time an officer sees someone, 'Police' will be the first word out of his mouth. That single word is the difference between self defense and a murder conviction, so they make damn sure they say it.
PAL TVs can support NTSC broadcasts, but not the other way around.
There's nothing about PAL that makes it able to play NTSC, and nothing about NTSC that makes it more or less able to play PAL.
What you probably mean is that it's very, very common for PAL TVs to be dual-standard, while it's quite uncommon for NTSC TVs.
(not exactly sure on the details in watching HD on a standard definition TV, but you could at least broadcast digital channels).
The set-top-box/tuner just needs to have a little more horsepower to decode the HD video (compared to standard-def) and it can easily output it at any resolution, in any standard, and to any connector type you could want. That is how ALL digital TV tuners in the US work.
Flash is just as much a proprietary standard as Microsoft Windows (and more proprietary than Silverlight).
The Flash video formats are well understood, and largely standard. I fail to see how Silverlight is any better.
The original standard for Flash video (FLV) used a slightly modified h.263 video codec with MP3 audio, which was quickly reverse engineered by open source players. Flash 7 added On2's VP6 codec, which is proprietary, but at least there are dual suppliers you can license it from.
Future versions of Flash (v.9+) will be switching to 100% standard video and audio formats, using h.264/AVC video, MP3 or AAC audio, and the MP4 container. You can just create a file in Quicktime with its default settings, and Flash (beta versions) will play it.
My objection to Flash video is not the format, but that the source of the video is heavily obfusticated thanks to needing to embed an SWF player app, and only it knowing where the file is. Meanwhile, every non-Flash video is directly embedded in the web page so 3rd party plug-ins can handle them all... JUST NOT FLASH.
If every web page author would simply provide an alternate way to access the video, a direct link to the FLV file (in addition to the embedded SWF player) I would have no objection to Flash. Instead, I just never watch videos on websites that use Flash.
The only difference between a "download" and a "stream" is whether the person who receives the data choses to save it or not.
The two terms overlap significantly, but they are most certainly different.
A stream is generally a real-time, non-interactive broadcast of data, which does not allow you to download either faster or slower than the video should play. If you are on a fast connection, your line will sit largely idle. If you are on a slow connection, significant chunks of the data will have been skipped over, and missing.
Even where streaming isn't done in real-time, a "stream" is at the very least encoded at a data-rate which is low enough for a specified connection (usually: what's available to the general public) to be able to receive it faster than real-time.
A "stream" also generally means that the data in question is organized in such a way that it can be used before the entire file is done being transferred. Also that someone can connect to (start) the stream in the middle, and still have something at least usable. This isn't true of a "progressive download"
Yet brain damaged idiots persist in ignoring or fighting the laws of physics.
Quite ironic that you, out of ignorance, are calling others idiots.
We can all go with CFB's like Gore says and put more mercury in our landfills
First, it's been gone over a million times. The tiny amount of mercury in CFLs is a tiny fraction as much mercury as would be released by burning the amount of coal needed to power an incandescent bulb instead. In addition there are reasonably convenient hazardous waste disposal facilities available in many locales, so the amount of mercury released will be even less still.
We can try ethonal only to discover that (1) it uses more greenhouse gases and (2) the rise on staple crop cost are more likely to cause war and resource fighting than global warming itself.
First off, there have been innumerable studies about ethanol, and they NEVER show it to be an energy sink. Even the horrible efficiency of corn ethanol is still 1/3rd of an energy improvement over burning fossil fuels. And try to remember that corn ethanol is Bush's bright idea, not Gore's.
We can all drive hybrids, never mind they are one of the *least* recyclable cars and no long term plan has been put into place for how to deal with the oodles of battery acid..
They are less recyclable to comparable cars by a nominal amount, and far better than larger vehicles. The battery is pretty much the only recycling issue, and it's not insurmountable at all... Hybrid batteries don't make a dent in the figures, compared to disposal of regular lead-acid car batteries, and (small) batteries in consumer electronics devices.
I'd think everyone that was going to have a pile of servers by now would already have them
There aren't X number of computers needed in the world. As technology marches on, prices fall, and digital systems get more advanced, there become more and more places where computers replace lower-tech systems.
Where once there were binders full of documents, now there is a file server. Where once there was a VCR, now there is a DVR, and probably several newly installed servers on the intranet/internet to serve video to them. etc.
It most definitely isn't a zero-sum game. Markets can grow hugely. Remember, there was a market for only a handful of computers in the world, back when they were gigantic, expensive, and slow. Yet Dell, Apple, and HP aren't completing to build those 5 systems.
Hashes aren't nearly reliable enough. By their very nature, a single hash is shared by multiple files. On such a large scale, even with ridiculously long hashes, there's bound to be multiple such instances.
And we're talking about e-mail here, not normal files. Do you intend to do appropriate mime decoding on all files in each e-mail before hashing and storage, and accurately re-encode all known types of mime when the raw e-mails is again needed for forwarding, POP3 download, and the like? It's obviously MUCH easier to avoid this step.
An obvious problem, but the solution is most certainly not trivial. Running diff over the network, against every file that has the same size, is ridiculously resource intensive, probably more-so than the storage they would stand to save. And the security issues involved would be huge.
There really isn't any good method to do this, without having an explicit "share" option that the user selects.
your proposed solution of creating a separate website doesn't really change a thing;
It does.
First, the above point of far less duplication of data. Second, my original point of removing the overhead of embedding files in an e-mail-like format. Third, throttling traffic as needed is much more acceptable for a file-sharing service than an e-mail service, and could allow them to operate with a lot less headroom.
It's just damn scary to think that so many people would just give out all that data.
If "that data" is important, it's scary that someone would e-mail it at all. The fact that it's stored on Google's servers is so minor as to be a non-issue.
Unless you run your own SMTP server, it's at least being temporarily held for you by some company, who could also indefinitely archive it if they chose. And even if you do run your own server, don't start getting a false sense of security, because everything you send or receive is still going over a dozen companies' lines, in clear text.
Or maybe they know, but it's convenient, and they're willing to take the chance that the naked photos of themselves that they're storing in their hosted email account could be publically released?
Or maybe they're even smarter than you, and either encrypt such info, or simply don't transfer such important info ANYWHERE across the internet to begin with.
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Why does the White House need immunity from prosecution by AT&T?
I didn't realize AT&T had that kind of power.
I also thought I heard the White House was rather pushing for retroactive immunity for the telco.
That doesn't make any sense at all... Nuclear winter will affect the whole planet, so geographic location doesn't matter. And the numbers of a creature says nothing about how well it will survive when all plants die from lack of sunlight, and all large animals die from lack of food.
I think it's pretty well established that HUMANS will be the last surviving creature. We know how to dig extremely robust shelters, we have the technology to provide as much energy as could be needed, as well as recycle water, and thanks to methods of preservation, have the ability to stockpile an effectively unlimited supply of food.
I imagine at least the US continues to maintain shelters that fit exactly these parameters, and is constantly staffed with numerous military personnel. Russia (and the other nuclear powers) might also, but I'm somewhat doubtful.
What is it about plants, that people are only too happy to trample them, or rip them out of the ground?
What is it about the billions of microbes floating in the air around us that we don't give a second thought to MOVING, and thereby killing millions of them for no reason?
So every time they fumigate a TV studio, it's wrong? But it's okay to take a magnifying glass to the ants in your yard, because you feel like it?
You're way too sensitive.
From about June 2004, Cyberlink has offered a licensed DVD Player for OEMs, and can be found in basically every motherboard that offers the gimmick of DVD playback without booting-up the OS...
It can be found in a few distros like TurboLinux 10. For a couple years there, it was also offered for sale to individuals via Linspire's CNR site, but it has now disappeared.
Funniest thing about it is that it's just a slightly modified (old) version of MPlayer that they've payed licensing fees for. Anybody else could do the same, quite easily.
What you're doing is using "download" in only the most general of terms, when, in fact, it has a much more specific definition that is more appropriate and applicable to this context.
Equivalently, you are arguing that a woman is still a man...
That's unintentionally hilarious. Surely you DO realize that Fraunhofer, the company that primarily owns the software patents, is an EU company in Germany.
I guess they're enlightened enough to operate in a country where they don't have to pay to license software patents, but they're only to happy to use them to force others to pay them... And here I thought 'enlightened' and 'hypocrite' were mutually exclusive.
Neither can (free) MP3 playback, but that apparently hasn't stopped you. I fail to see why you have a problem with one, and not the other.
Ditto for video. Install MPlayer and you get all the video and audio codecs and file formats you could want, and it includes CSS support.
"Mom, Dad, I've got something to tell you..."
"What is it Gutsy?"
"...I'm tired of living a lie..."
Even if they don't knock, they do still identify themselves immediately afterwards.
If any witnesses testify that the police officer identified himself before you shot and killed him, you will be going directly to death row.
And yet you still feel the need to redefine the terms to suit you...
It certainly does. You wouldn't download any (non-multimedia) files that way.
The player has little bearing. The contents of the compressed video/audio stream itself has to be constructed to allow this.
No. A stream is still a stream, even if you decide to save it.
You really think this issue has never come up before? It happens all the time, so there are strict rules in place to prevent such accidents, and ensure blame is properly assigned when it does happen.
Police in most states are required to knock on the door, and usually state that they have a warrant before entering. Besides that, it's beaten into every officer's head that the word "Police" starts every sentence... Every time an officer sees someone, 'Police' will be the first word out of his mouth. That single word is the difference between self defense and a murder conviction, so they make damn sure they say it.
There's nothing about PAL that makes it able to play NTSC, and nothing about NTSC that makes it more or less able to play PAL.
What you probably mean is that it's very, very common for PAL TVs to be dual-standard, while it's quite uncommon for NTSC TVs.
The set-top-box/tuner just needs to have a little more horsepower to decode the HD video (compared to standard-def) and it can easily output it at any resolution, in any standard, and to any connector type you could want. That is how ALL digital TV tuners in the US work.
The Flash video formats are well understood, and largely standard. I fail to see how Silverlight is any better.
The original standard for Flash video (FLV) used a slightly modified h.263 video codec with MP3 audio, which was quickly reverse engineered by open source players. Flash 7 added On2's VP6 codec, which is proprietary, but at least there are dual suppliers you can license it from.
Future versions of Flash (v.9+) will be switching to 100% standard video and audio formats, using h.264/AVC video, MP3 or AAC audio, and the MP4 container. You can just create a file in Quicktime with its default settings, and Flash (beta versions) will play it.
My objection to Flash video is not the format, but that the source of the video is heavily obfusticated thanks to needing to embed an SWF player app, and only it knowing where the file is. Meanwhile, every non-Flash video is directly embedded in the web page so 3rd party plug-ins can handle them all... JUST NOT FLASH.
If every web page author would simply provide an alternate way to access the video, a direct link to the FLV file (in addition to the embedded SWF player) I would have no objection to Flash. Instead, I just never watch videos on websites that use Flash.
Sure you can. Nearly every format will allow this, even if not intended. Even AVI. MOV/MP4 being a notable exception.
No, actually that is usually called "progressive download" rather than streaming, though people certainly like to conflate the two for simplicity.
The two terms overlap significantly, but they are most certainly different.
A stream is generally a real-time, non-interactive broadcast of data, which does not allow you to download either faster or slower than the video should play. If you are on a fast connection, your line will sit largely idle. If you are on a slow connection, significant chunks of the data will have been skipped over, and missing.
Even where streaming isn't done in real-time, a "stream" is at the very least encoded at a data-rate which is low enough for a specified connection (usually: what's available to the general public) to be able to receive it faster than real-time.
A "stream" also generally means that the data in question is organized in such a way that it can be used before the entire file is done being transferred. Also that someone can connect to (start) the stream in the middle, and still have something at least usable. This isn't true of a "progressive download"
Quite ironic that you, out of ignorance, are calling others idiots.
First, it's been gone over a million times. The tiny amount of mercury in CFLs is a tiny fraction as much mercury as would be released by burning the amount of coal needed to power an incandescent bulb instead. In addition there are reasonably convenient hazardous waste disposal facilities available in many locales, so the amount of mercury released will be even less still.
First off, there have been innumerable studies about ethanol, and they NEVER show it to be an energy sink. Even the horrible efficiency of corn ethanol is still 1/3rd of an energy improvement over burning fossil fuels. And try to remember that corn ethanol is Bush's bright idea, not Gore's.
They are less recyclable to comparable cars by a nominal amount, and far better than larger vehicles. The battery is pretty much the only recycling issue, and it's not insurmountable at all... Hybrid batteries don't make a dent in the figures, compared to disposal of regular lead-acid car batteries, and (small) batteries in consumer electronics devices.
Unless you are a HAM, listener of shortwave radio, or are involved in some other form of DXing that depends on the ionosphere...
There aren't X number of computers needed in the world. As technology marches on, prices fall, and digital systems get more advanced, there become more and more places where computers replace lower-tech systems.
Where once there were binders full of documents, now there is a file server. Where once there was a VCR, now there is a DVR, and probably several newly installed servers on the intranet/internet to serve video to them. etc.
It most definitely isn't a zero-sum game. Markets can grow hugely. Remember, there was a market for only a handful of computers in the world, back when they were gigantic, expensive, and slow. Yet Dell, Apple, and HP aren't completing to build those 5 systems.
Hashes aren't nearly reliable enough. By their very nature, a single hash is shared by multiple files. On such a large scale, even with ridiculously long hashes, there's bound to be multiple such instances.
And we're talking about e-mail here, not normal files. Do you intend to do appropriate mime decoding on all files in each e-mail before hashing and storage, and accurately re-encode all known types of mime when the raw e-mails is again needed for forwarding, POP3 download, and the like? It's obviously MUCH easier to avoid this step.
With the pleasant trade-off of causing death by hypothermia instead...
Yes that's much closer to accurate, but you'll sound awfully stupid talking about "not poison".
Ah yes, good old XNOR poison... It's been a long time old friend.
An obvious problem, but the solution is most certainly not trivial. Running diff over the network, against every file that has the same size, is ridiculously resource intensive, probably more-so than the storage they would stand to save. And the security issues involved would be huge.
There really isn't any good method to do this, without having an explicit "share" option that the user selects.
It does.
First, the above point of far less duplication of data. Second, my original point of removing the overhead of embedding files in an e-mail-like format. Third, throttling traffic as needed is much more acceptable for a file-sharing service than an e-mail service, and could allow them to operate with a lot less headroom.
If "that data" is important, it's scary that someone would e-mail it at all. The fact that it's stored on Google's servers is so minor as to be a non-issue.
Unless you run your own SMTP server, it's at least being temporarily held for you by some company, who could also indefinitely archive it if they chose. And even if you do run your own server, don't start getting a false sense of security, because everything you send or receive is still going over a dozen companies' lines, in clear text.
Or maybe they're even smarter than you, and either encrypt such info, or simply don't transfer such important info ANYWHERE across the internet to begin with.