Er, I don't know where you've been filling out your FAFSA, but with me, it would simply not let me go any further with the browser I was using, telling me to switch to a proper browser. I could not continue.
And it annoys the crap out of me every time I go to fill out my FAFSA (Federal college financial aid eligibility form, for those who aren't aware of it). They have one of those annoying browser version checker things that only allows some fairly old versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer from Windows or Mac. Nothing from Unixes or Linuxes. Bleah.
Mind's Eye Fiction has been ad-blocker-blocking for years; in fact, its admin developed the technology with an eye to deployment on any other website who wished to pay for it. (Not that I've seen very many that have done so yet.)
Its use on Mind's Eye is sensible and inoffensive, with a view toward providing options rather than depriving them. If someone wants to read the story for free, he has to view the banner ads. If he wants to buy it cheaply, he can do so without them.
Where on that site is the technical info about the device? i.e. how much RAM, what resolution, what peripherals, and so on? It's nice it runs Linux and all, and is only $89, but I'd like to try to figure out just how many e-books it would hold.:)
Frankly, I'm still trying to figure out where he got faeries from. I haven't seen anything like that in Robots in Disguise, though I'm only up to episode 7 so far. Perhaps he's talking about Beast Wars Neo?
Er...have you even been watching the dubbed version of the show? They have been reworking it to fit into the timeline. Sort of. Somehow. The only thing is, there have only been a few little hints dropped, so we TransFans have no idea how they're doing it yet.
Some episodes of the new Transformers: Robots in Disguise anime show are getting delayed, too--for instance, episode 6, in which a skyscraper is blown up and a news announcer apparently makes a comment about "robotic terrorism," was skipped this time around. And I imagine that when the series goes into repeats the first couple of times, probably episode 1 (in which Megatron crashes through a skyscraper) and episode 2 (involving a terrorist bomb) will probably be skipped, too.
It's a bit of a dilemma, you see. On the one hand, every time we make some change to our daily routine because of this despicable terrorist act--dropping episodes, delaying the premiere of shows, editing the World Trade Center out of the Spiderman movie altogether--we are in some small sense handing the terrorists a victory, acknowledging that they've affected us exactly the way they wanted. On the other hand, people should have a right to watch TV to try to forget the tragedy for a while and destress from the whole thing without being reminded of it by what's on the set.
Hopefully the pre-emptions and delays will be only temporary, for just a month or two until such time as people are a little less sensitive. The Buffy episode that was delayed over Columbine was eventually aired, after all. The networks did pay money for these shows, and they'll want to use them sooner or later.
Didn't I see this sort of thing in For Your Eyes Only? The traditional "James Bond is interrupted during post-climax (of the movie, sickos) nookie" scene involving a little remote-control robot with a camera?
I do actually have a region-free player (I got lucky and got one of the AD-600s before they patched the BIOS), but I'm ashamed to admit I don't know Japanese very well, and don't know how to order from a non-English web site. So maybe it's not as bad as I stated. But I would like to be able to order it from somewhere without having to jump through hoops, you know?
You don't need to know Japanese to order a Japanese disc. Check the resource list at the Nausicaa.net shopping page. I think there are some importers and some Japanese stores with English pages listed.
Actually, as the article points out, given Disney's prior reputation, Disney bought into Mononoke pretty much sight unseen, thinking it was going to be another family-friendly film. They bought a Porco Rosso in a poke, as it were, and it backfired on them. There's some speculation that Miyazaki maybe have made this dealbreaker film so different at least in part intentionally, out of a dislike of Disney's animated fare, though I could be misremembering on that point.
But nothing. We still have their wonderful Mononoke DVD release, and the so-so pan and scan of Kiki, of which every copy I've seen is too bright. They also distributed a widescreen Japanese-language Kiki with English subtitles -- but on VHS only. When I want to see any other Miyazaki films, I have no choice but to view pirated versions.
You're forgetting the Manga Video Castle of Cagliostro DVD, which is also so-so in that it's not anamorphic, but it does have a new, accurate subtitle translation and a rather good dub on it.
So is it any wonder that fans of these movies pirate them when there's no legal option for obtaining them? Even Miyazaki fan sites, like Nausicaa.net denounce piracy. But it's sort of two-faced, because that's the only option THEY have for watching the films too. It's very frustrating.
Well, not quite the only option. The Miyazaki films are gradually coming out on DVD in Japan; if you can find a region-free player, you can order the Japanese versions, which also come with rather more extras (usually a whole extra disc) than you would find in a US version--with English subtitles, too.
Also, it's worth noting that one reason Nausicaa.net denounces piracy is that they sort of have to, if they want to remain on good terms with Studio Ghibli and those people close to it, who are the ones who provide them with their information.
Disney didn't just make the decision on the spur of the moment. They apparently did test-market it in some cities in Minneapolis, going full out on advertising and stuff there. Unfortunately, even with the ad campaign, it bombed, and Disney must have decided to cut their losses and not "throw good money after bad" on advertising. Too bad, but these things happen.
AFAICT, there are only two features that e-books have over regular books:
1) You can use the same physical device for multiple content. Unless you are on the space shuttle, who cares?
Well, you may not care, but for me, being able to walk down the street with literally a dozen books in my pocket has been a boredom-fighting lifesaver time and time again. Until they invent personal subspace containers, you just can't do that with a paper book.
2) You can download books from the Internet. Great, except has anybody here tried to use Napster/Gnutella recently? From the moment you first start looking to the moment you are able to use the (correct) file how much time elapses?
Well, for me, usually about thirty seconds to two minutes, if it's a Peanut, Alexlit, or Mind's Eye title--as they include pre-Palm-formatted downloads. All I have to do is buy, download, sync, and go. (The two minutes is in the case of Peanut books, for which I have to punch in my name and credit card number the first time for their DRM.) If it's an HTML book from Baen Webscription or the Baen Free Library, perhaps a little longer; I have to download, unzip them, and feed the table of contents HTML files to iSiloWeb and let it convert them. Which only takes about thirty seconds, even counting selecting the "soft pagination" format option from iSiloWeb's config menus.
Gutenberg or Gnutella'd titles take a little longer, as I have to unwrap the text before running it through a converter--but even then, emacs makes it easy enough that it just takes a couple of minutes and a few Meta-X commands before I'm done. And if it's a Gutenberg book or otherwise freely available, I can even donate it to the Memoware free e-book library when I finish. (Search under "Meadows" there for all the titles I've donated so far.)
For me, reading books on my Visor is fast, convenient, and a sure-fire boredom fighter. But to each his own.
That would be a problem only if the reader could be used for no other worthwhile purposes. I mean, sure, you won't want to shell out for a Rocket just to read e-books . . . but the Palm/Visor/HandEra/Sony has so many more uses than just that. I figure that my Visor has already paid for itself in avoided $25 overdraft fees (thanks to the self-balancing check register program I use) from my bank alone. I take notes in class on it, keep my shopping list, pull down a selection of web newspapers, 'zines, and blogs every day for on-the-go reading, have a calendar to remind me of important dates, a phone/addressbook so I'm never without important numbers . . . it's great. I'd be lost without it now. E-books are great, and were part of the reason I bought the thing in the first place--but they're more like a fringe benefit when you consider all the other worthwhile things for which I use my Visor.
Baen releases new hardcover titles on e-books via Webscription starting two months before their hardcover book release! The first month, you get the first half of the book. The second month, you get the third 1/4 of the book. The third month (the month of its paper publication) you get the final 1/4 of it--which means you have the entire book, complete in e-form, an average of a week or so before it comes out in print.
And Baen has some of the best SF/F authors out there these days. Elizabeth Moon, Eric Flint, David Weber, David Drake, Bujold, Robinson, etc.
I don't have time to go into many details here--I have to head to work--but the article misses the same point that most e-book bashers throughout history have missed. The e-book is not meant to replace the p-book. The e-book works best when it and the p-book supplement and enhance each other. I mean, look at Baen Webscriptions and the Baen Free Library--here we have e-books being sold very cheaply or given away free--in either case, in an open, unencrypted digital format: rich text or HTML. (Or MobiBook for the Palm, but I just use iSilo on the HTML; MobiBook sucks MobiDick.:) And the result? Baen has suddenly been selling a lot more paper books for some reason.
The author of the book cited in the article is missing the point as well. People want to read best-sellers. If there had been some publicity about his book, maybe it would have sold some as an e- or p-book. Chances are it would have sold just as badly if he hadn't listed it electronically.
Well, that's the point. According to the DMCA, if you decrypt something that's "encrypted", even if the vendor tells you how it's encrypted, no matter how simple the encryption is, you've violated the DMCA. (That's what the text says, "If you can read this, you have just violated the DMCA.") Everybody knows that DVDs are encrypted with CSS, and CSS can be decrypted easily using techniques first exhibited in deCSS--but doing so is against the law.
(All right, all right, technically you haven't violated it, but the people who wrote and distributed the program that let you read it--for instance, Sklyarov's e-book reading program that decrypts ROT-13'd e-books--did. But my line is shorter and makes the point better.)
"Buy what you can afford"--that's what I'm going to do this fall, when I upgrade from a BH-6/overclocked 300A combo to something a little faster--an NForce motherboard and a zippy new Athlon.
Of course, when what I can afford is in the vicinity of an Athlon 1.2...well, I'd be a fool not to take that. The way I figure, 1.2 gigahertz will run any game from now until they come up with holographic projectors for virtual reality. Or perhaps even now until the singularity, whichever comes first.:)
Odd.
What's the best way to encode Ogg, then? I tried comparing both OggEnc and BladeEnc at a 160 kbps (average) bitrate--and Ogg came off sounding tinny and flat, like my speakers had suddenly been replaced by a set far smaller, compared to the booming bass of the MP3. If there's a better way, I should try again.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, yeah, that'll teach me not to use the preview button.
Laugh-a while you can, monkey-boy.
Polaroid thought they were in the instant camera business, when they were really in the camera business.
Er, I don't know where you've been filling out your FAFSA, but with me, it would simply not let me go any further with the browser I was using, telling me to switch to a proper browser. I could not continue.
You know, the interesting thing about punditry is that everybody notices when you're wrong, but nobody seems to notice when you're right.
And it annoys the crap out of me every time I go to fill out my FAFSA (Federal college financial aid eligibility form, for those who aren't aware of it). They have one of those annoying browser version checker things that only allows some fairly old versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer from Windows or Mac. Nothing from Unixes or Linuxes. Bleah.
I hope they try to patent it, as there's a very easy case of prior art to be found on Mind's Eye Fiction. Been around for years.
Its use on Mind's Eye is sensible and inoffensive, with a view toward providing options rather than depriving them. If someone wants to read the story for free, he has to view the banner ads. If he wants to buy it cheaply, he can do so without them.
Where on that site is the technical info about the device? i.e. how much RAM, what resolution, what peripherals, and so on? It's nice it runs Linux and all, and is only $89, but I'd like to try to figure out just how many e-books it would hold. :)
Frankly, I'm still trying to figure out where he got faeries from. I haven't seen anything like that in Robots in Disguise, though I'm only up to episode 7 so far. Perhaps he's talking about Beast Wars Neo?
Er...have you even been watching the dubbed version of the show? They have been reworking it to fit into the timeline. Sort of. Somehow. The only thing is, there have only been a few little hints dropped, so we TransFans have no idea how they're doing it yet.
It's a bit of a dilemma, you see. On the one hand, every time we make some change to our daily routine because of this despicable terrorist act--dropping episodes, delaying the premiere of shows, editing the World Trade Center out of the Spiderman movie altogether--we are in some small sense handing the terrorists a victory, acknowledging that they've affected us exactly the way they wanted. On the other hand, people should have a right to watch TV to try to forget the tragedy for a while and destress from the whole thing without being reminded of it by what's on the set.
Hopefully the pre-emptions and delays will be only temporary, for just a month or two until such time as people are a little less sensitive. The Buffy episode that was delayed over Columbine was eventually aired, after all. The networks did pay money for these shows, and they'll want to use them sooner or later.
Didn't I see this sort of thing in For Your Eyes Only? The traditional "James Bond is interrupted during post-climax (of the movie, sickos) nookie" scene involving a little remote-control robot with a camera?
Pardon, I meant to say given Miyazaki's prior reputation. Shoulda used the preview button...
Actually, as the article points out, given Disney's prior reputation, Disney bought into Mononoke pretty much sight unseen, thinking it was going to be another family-friendly film. They bought a Porco Rosso in a poke, as it were, and it backfired on them. There's some speculation that Miyazaki maybe have made this dealbreaker film so different at least in part intentionally, out of a dislike of Disney's animated fare, though I could be misremembering on that point.
Also, it's worth noting that one reason Nausicaa.net denounces piracy is that they sort of have to, if they want to remain on good terms with Studio Ghibli and those people close to it, who are the ones who provide them with their information.
Disney didn't just make the decision on the spur of the moment. They apparently did test-market it in some cities in Minneapolis, going full out on advertising and stuff there. Unfortunately, even with the ad campaign, it bombed, and Disney must have decided to cut their losses and not "throw good money after bad" on advertising. Too bad, but these things happen.
Gutenberg or Gnutella'd titles take a little longer, as I have to unwrap the text before running it through a converter--but even then, emacs makes it easy enough that it just takes a couple of minutes and a few Meta-X commands before I'm done. And if it's a Gutenberg book or otherwise freely available, I can even donate it to the Memoware free e-book library when I finish. (Search under "Meadows" there for all the titles I've donated so far.)
For me, reading books on my Visor is fast, convenient, and a sure-fire boredom fighter. But to each his own.
That would be a problem only if the reader could be used for no other worthwhile purposes. I mean, sure, you won't want to shell out for a Rocket just to read e-books . . . but the Palm/Visor/HandEra/Sony has so many more uses than just that. I figure that my Visor has already paid for itself in avoided $25 overdraft fees (thanks to the self-balancing check register program I use) from my bank alone. I take notes in class on it, keep my shopping list, pull down a selection of web newspapers, 'zines, and blogs every day for on-the-go reading, have a calendar to remind me of important dates, a phone/addressbook so I'm never without important numbers . . . it's great. I'd be lost without it now. E-books are great, and were part of the reason I bought the thing in the first place--but they're more like a fringe benefit when you consider all the other worthwhile things for which I use my Visor.
And Baen has some of the best SF/F authors out there these days. Elizabeth Moon, Eric Flint, David Weber, David Drake, Bujold, Robinson, etc.
Check out the Baen Free Library and Webscriptions sometime. You might be pleasantly surprised.
The author of the book cited in the article is missing the point as well. People want to read best-sellers. If there had been some publicity about his book, maybe it would have sold some as an e- or p-book. Chances are it would have sold just as badly if he hadn't listed it electronically.
(All right, all right, technically you haven't violated it, but the people who wrote and distributed the program that let you read it--for instance, Sklyarov's e-book reading program that decrypts ROT-13'd e-books--did. But my line is shorter and makes the point better.)
Of course, when what I can afford is in the vicinity of an Athlon 1.2...well, I'd be a fool not to take that. The way I figure, 1.2 gigahertz will run any game from now until they come up with holographic projectors for virtual reality. Or perhaps even now until the singularity, whichever comes first. :)
Odd. What's the best way to encode Ogg, then? I tried comparing both OggEnc and BladeEnc at a 160 kbps (average) bitrate--and Ogg came off sounding tinny and flat, like my speakers had suddenly been replaced by a set far smaller, compared to the booming bass of the MP3. If there's a better way, I should try again.