MP3 has great fidelity at high bitrates, but it just wasn't made to scale well to lower bitrates, often employed in streaming.
44kbit AAC(3GPP AAC+ doesn't seem to go beyond that?) sounds very good to my ear. My results are completely subjective, but I'd say it's close to 96kbit lame mp3. Maybe a tad better.
CT AAC+ requires a higher bitrate. To match 3GPP's 44kbit, it seems to need about 64kbit.
FAAC needs about 80kbit. Still better than mp3, but not nearly as impressive as the 3GPP encoder.
I discovered these differences while playing around in MediaCoder. If interested, check it out for yourself, and compare with your own sound card.:)
The skilled innovator is the person who goes into an unknown situation, say a boss that nobody has ever encountered, and figures out a way to beat it (we call that the master chef). They have a skill - they know the game, they know their character, and they know how to solve puzzles.
There's also a difference between team skill and solo skill.
I have a ludicrous amount of solo skill, but I lack team skill; I adapt and learn extremely quick, but eventually somebody comes along that has calculated, studied, and practised much more than me, and easily surpasses me.
I never read guides. I just start playing. A few weeks back I started playing TF2 with some friends, on their own server. Short of L4D and BF2142(a few years back), I've never played any FPS's. For the first ~4 hours I played heavy and was useless. The next day I played another 4 hours, as pyro, and was in the top 3 every game. The day after that I played another few hours - this time on a public server - and got my first 15-kill streak before dying.
Since then I've discovered that I'm not so good in 32p games, but I absolutely dominate in < 12p games. It's not uncommon for me to use a scout, pyro, or spy to kill a demoman, soldier, heavy, medic, etc.; this almost never happens on a server with friends, which are all skilled, but happens plenty on public servers. Often I join a game where one team is a single clan - it's quite hilarious single-handedly dominating them, winning round after round, only to get kicked. It fuels my perception of my own awesomeness.
But on 32p servers, especially with friends, there's just too many people working together. I almost never get past 2k:1d. What can I do when there's 6 sentry guns and four heavies spraying bullets everywhere? Can't get close as a spy - can't destroy all of that even with 2 or 3 guys ubered and firing rockets and demoman bombs. Fighting skilled teams and coordinating so many people is an art, which I don't have. But 1 on 1 (or 1 on 3-4), I almost never lose.;)
I don't like calculation heavy games like WoW. I don't like static maps that people can play and learn to perfection, since I'm not perfect, and anyone that practises endlessly will easily beat me. My ideal game would have completely randomly generated maps, because I adapt so fast while most people don't.:P
And send me more of those horribly unskilled clans so I can feel superior and get accused of hacking. I love it. ^_^
Not to mention the fact that unpleasant side effects like nuclear winter and social chaos, which would presumably do most of the killing after the first couple of days, would be far more severe with more warheads rather than fewer.
But if you go beyond a couple nukes, the effects will be felt globally.:/
If you hit France with 60 nukes, I'm pretty sure all of Europe would pay the price, and much of Africa, Asia, the US, etc.
The change to the climate would be global, and the radiation poisoning would be felt all over. There would probably be radioactive ash clouds coming down all around the earth - wherever the wind takes them.
Hehe, there's some good ones on there! I just picked up Septerra Core and Disciples II. I can live with the hard-coded resolutions of the past; these games are still fun!
It's no surprise to me. Java has long since been the best technology for all things internet. Streaming servers, forum software, indexing/archiving, Web2.0 sites; it's only several dozen times faster than Ruby or PHP, with similar memory usage. And I'm not talking applets here - I mean the backend. Tomcat is even significantly faster than mod_php or fastCGI with their C backends.
Keep in mind that anything Java based has VM overhead. If they included that in the Lucene graphs, then it performed the best while using about as much memory as sqlite. If they didn't, then it's a bit RAM hungry(add another 30MB), but still performs the best.
I've always been a big advocate of using easy languages for complex software. When I was first learning programming, I opted to create Tetris in Javascript. It took me a few days - about 12 hours - but I did it from scratch, without help! Now I could probably do the same task in Java in 2 hours, but working in an "easy" language certainly does help when the code is almost above your head. It helps you keep a larger part of the project in focus, instead of having to focus on the actual code.
And then there's the gains from when you make a mistake. I'm sure some of you will claim to be perfect - but in C/C++, if you mess up and introduce memory leaks, you have to waste time tracking them down, rather than spending that time optimizing, thinking up new algorithms, etc., easier languages are so much better for the average programmer, which may think up an impressive algorithm from time to time, but struggle with implementing it in a low level language.
Flash is effectively a separate app, and it captures keys as well as mouse interaction (e.g. the scroll wheel). It's annoying as hell when you view a video on somewhere like "I Can Haz Cheezburger" and have to click outside it again to scroll down the page, but the chances of Adobe caring are somewhere in the region of "slim to none".
Yes, that is annoying.
So basically, you don't consider HTML5 or AJAX a separate app, even though the limitations are quickly narrowing? Got it.
I still think it makes sense to give people the option. If I try to X out of gmail while it's busy, it pops up a warning. (blocks the close) It's easy to override. Opera has no such prompt for refreshing - it just disallows it completely. It's a bad way of doing things, since there are legitimate uses, and "Silly little Javascript games" are becoming quite common. Hell, most new forum software is built with that technology. All of slashdot is.
10 minute fix time (and then automated repair) seems quite good. My experience with Norton was way worse - but I haven't used them in a half-decade.
Yes yes, flame Microsoft all you want. I disagree with them charging for a solution to their own problem, but you seem overzealously hateful towards them, and not Apple.
Let me ask you - what is the primary way an OSX box gets hacked? Answer: Safari. Sound familiar? See: Microsoft + IE
What's got me worried is that the same guy keeps winning pwn2own with Safari exploits, year after year. He probably has a pile of exploits up his sleeve, as do other people. It's only a matter of time before Mac users get hosed by their browser, just like Windows users once did. (and probably still do)
But isn't HTML5 all about improving the site experience? Not so long ago webpages couldn't be viewed fullscreen, but now they all have a special minimal-UI mode in almost every browser.
Being able to map the F5 key to a task or event in a webpage make sense. Not having an override key doesn't.
If you want more examples of where blocking F5 would be handy (aside from gmail) check out this blog.
Side-Note: Flash blocks every key, but people don't seem to complain about that?:P
Books also don't mysteriously vanish when the publisher goes out of business.
But if Amazon's DRM servers ever go down, all your eBooks go with it!
I know, I know... "What are the chances of Amazon going down?"... well, slim to nil. But what are the chances of them deciding to shut off their DRM servers to save money, in 15 years? I bet those odds are much higher.
PlaysForSure? Uh huh! Burn me once and I'll learn!
Just what you want - an even easier way to lose data from your VM. Why rely on bugs and crashes when an accidental refresh can reboot your machine?!
Better use Firefox so the webpage can disable your F5 key....that's actually one of my annoyances with Opera. You'd be surprised how often I accidentally hit F5 when browsing my gmail.
This is my biggest beef with Microsoft - thinking they know what you want more than you do, and installing crap on my PC(or changing preferences) without asking.
I'm happy with FF 3.5 so far. The link issue that was plaguing me has gone away!
When I first upgraded to FF3, I was angry to find out that links were malfunctioning. For whatever reason, I had to click on them two or three times to get them to do the proper thing.
First click either turns into a back command or picks another link on the page. Second is usually another link on the page. (if first was a back command) Third (or second) goes to the correct location. But spamming clicks on links may also issue a back command, so 2 or 3 clicks per link is the max I could try. Also, holding shift always resulted in a back command, which made opening new windows quite annoying.
Firefox 2 had no such issue on my computers, and FF 3.5 doesn't either. Bless them - it was getting terribly annoying!
Slashdot Mirror
Depends on the format, too, though.
I did some totally subjective comparisons a while back, and found that:
On my computer, with my horrible onboard sound... these formats and bitrates sound the same:
3GPP AAC+ encoded @ 28kbit
ogg vorbis encoded @ 32kbit
lame mp3 encoded @ 72kbit abr
MP3 has great fidelity at high bitrates, but it just wasn't made to scale well to lower bitrates, often employed in streaming.
44kbit AAC(3GPP AAC+ doesn't seem to go beyond that?) sounds very good to my ear. My results are completely subjective, but I'd say it's close to 96kbit lame mp3. Maybe a tad better.
CT AAC+ requires a higher bitrate. To match 3GPP's 44kbit, it seems to need about 64kbit.
FAAC needs about 80kbit. Still better than mp3, but not nearly as impressive as the 3GPP encoder.
I discovered these differences while playing around in MediaCoder. If interested, check it out for yourself, and compare with your own sound card. :)
It could also be argued that strict government regulation spurs innovation.
But I have a feeling many slashdotters would disagree with that, just as they disagree about patents.
The skilled innovator is the person who goes into an unknown situation, say a boss that nobody has ever encountered, and figures out a way to beat it (we call that the master chef). They have a skill - they know the game, they know their character, and they know how to solve puzzles.
There's also a difference between team skill and solo skill.
I have a ludicrous amount of solo skill, but I lack team skill; I adapt and learn extremely quick, but eventually somebody comes along that has calculated, studied, and practised much more than me, and easily surpasses me.
I never read guides. I just start playing. A few weeks back I started playing TF2 with some friends, on their own server. Short of L4D and BF2142(a few years back), I've never played any FPS's. For the first ~4 hours I played heavy and was useless. The next day I played another 4 hours, as pyro, and was in the top 3 every game. The day after that I played another few hours - this time on a public server - and got my first 15-kill streak before dying.
Since then I've discovered that I'm not so good in 32p games, but I absolutely dominate in < 12p games. It's not uncommon for me to use a scout, pyro, or spy to kill a demoman, soldier, heavy, medic, etc.; this almost never happens on a server with friends, which are all skilled, but happens plenty on public servers. Often I join a game where one team is a single clan - it's quite hilarious single-handedly dominating them, winning round after round, only to get kicked. It fuels my perception of my own awesomeness.
But on 32p servers, especially with friends, there's just too many people working together. I almost never get past 2k:1d. What can I do when there's 6 sentry guns and four heavies spraying bullets everywhere? Can't get close as a spy - can't destroy all of that even with 2 or 3 guys ubered and firing rockets and demoman bombs. Fighting skilled teams and coordinating so many people is an art, which I don't have. But 1 on 1 (or 1 on 3-4), I almost never lose. ;)
I don't like calculation heavy games like WoW. I don't like static maps that people can play and learn to perfection, since I'm not perfect, and anyone that practises endlessly will easily beat me. My ideal game would have completely randomly generated maps, because I adapt so fast while most people don't. :P
And send me more of those horribly unskilled clans so I can feel superior and get accused of hacking. I love it. ^_^
Not to mention the fact that unpleasant side effects like nuclear winter and social chaos, which would presumably do most of the killing after the first couple of days, would be far more severe with more warheads rather than fewer.
But if you go beyond a couple nukes, the effects will be felt globally. :/
If you hit France with 60 nukes, I'm pretty sure all of Europe would pay the price, and much of Africa, Asia, the US, etc.
The change to the climate would be global, and the radiation poisoning would be felt all over. There would probably be radioactive ash clouds coming down all around the earth - wherever the wind takes them.
It's not Abandonware if the company owning the rights is still selling it through some venue.
Hehe, there's some good ones on there! I just picked up Septerra Core and Disciples II. I can live with the hard-coded resolutions of the past; these games are still fun!
They want to charge too much money. $5.99/$9.99 DRM-free doesn't fit LucasArts' business model. ;)
It's no surprise to me. Java has long since been the best technology for all things internet. Streaming servers, forum software, indexing/archiving, Web2.0 sites; it's only several dozen times faster than Ruby or PHP, with similar memory usage. And I'm not talking applets here - I mean the backend. Tomcat is even significantly faster than mod_php or fastCGI with their C backends.
Keep in mind that anything Java based has VM overhead. If they included that in the Lucene graphs, then it performed the best while using about as much memory as sqlite. If they didn't, then it's a bit RAM hungry(add another 30MB), but still performs the best.
I've always been a big advocate of using easy languages for complex software. When I was first learning programming, I opted to create Tetris in Javascript. It took me a few days - about 12 hours - but I did it from scratch, without help! Now I could probably do the same task in Java in 2 hours, but working in an "easy" language certainly does help when the code is almost above your head. It helps you keep a larger part of the project in focus, instead of having to focus on the actual code.
And then there's the gains from when you make a mistake. I'm sure some of you will claim to be perfect - but in C/C++, if you mess up and introduce memory leaks, you have to waste time tracking them down, rather than spending that time optimizing, thinking up new algorithms, etc., easier languages are so much better for the average programmer, which may think up an impressive algorithm from time to time, but struggle with implementing it in a low level language.
The OP said YOUR eBooks go down with it, which is just wrong.
Right. You can't download your eBooks ever again! Yes, you can probably keep a copy on SD card, but downloading is now completely out of the picture!
And this is assuming the DRM won't block you from viewing your already downloaded ones, if it can't contact the DRM servers.
Flash is effectively a separate app, and it captures keys as well as mouse interaction (e.g. the scroll wheel). It's annoying as hell when you view a video on somewhere like "I Can Haz Cheezburger" and have to click outside it again to scroll down the page, but the chances of Adobe caring are somewhere in the region of "slim to none".
Yes, that is annoying.
So basically, you don't consider HTML5 or AJAX a separate app, even though the limitations are quickly narrowing? Got it.
I still think it makes sense to give people the option. If I try to X out of gmail while it's busy, it pops up a warning. (blocks the close) It's easy to override. Opera has no such prompt for refreshing - it just disallows it completely. It's a bad way of doing things, since there are legitimate uses, and "Silly little Javascript games" are becoming quite common. Hell, most new forum software is built with that technology. All of slashdot is.
Here's a problem with ESET's Nod32 discussed on March 9, 2009: NOD32 was deleting very critical and required Windows files.
10 minute fix time (and then automated repair) seems quite good. My experience with Norton was way worse - but I haven't used them in a half-decade.
Yes yes, flame Microsoft all you want. I disagree with them charging for a solution to their own problem, but you seem overzealously hateful towards them, and not Apple.
Let me ask you - what is the primary way an OSX box gets hacked? Answer: Safari. Sound familiar? See: Microsoft + IE
What's got me worried is that the same guy keeps winning pwn2own with Safari exploits, year after year. He probably has a pile of exploits up his sleeve, as do other people. It's only a matter of time before Mac users get hosed by their browser, just like Windows users once did. (and probably still do)
It's not FUD. If their servers go down, you aren't downloading a thing off them!
And DRM servers eventually going down is the rule - not the exception. You're gambling with your ownership of stuff.
I'm curious - how much traffic did you get off Betanews?
When I think of places to download Windows stuff, three sites pop into my mind. Betanews/fileforum, MajorGeeks, and Cnet. (ugh - if I have to)
But isn't HTML5 all about improving the site experience? Not so long ago webpages couldn't be viewed fullscreen, but now they all have a special minimal-UI mode in almost every browser.
Being able to map the F5 key to a task or event in a webpage make sense. Not having an override key doesn't.
If you want more examples of where blocking F5 would be handy (aside from gmail) check out this blog.
Side-Note: Flash blocks every key, but people don't seem to complain about that? :P
Books also don't mysteriously vanish when the publisher goes out of business.
But if Amazon's DRM servers ever go down, all your eBooks go with it!
I know, I know... "What are the chances of Amazon going down?" ... well, slim to nil. But what are the chances of them deciding to shut off their DRM servers to save money, in 15 years? I bet those odds are much higher.
PlaysForSure? Uh huh! Burn me once and I'll learn!
Just what you want - an even easier way to lose data from your VM. Why rely on bugs and crashes when an accidental refresh can reboot your machine?!
Better use Firefox so the webpage can disable your F5 key. ...that's actually one of my annoyances with Opera. You'd be surprised how often I accidentally hit F5 when browsing my gmail.
I put Wikipedia on my Laptop a few years ago, for when I'm travelling around with no net access. Since then I periodically update it.
Last I checked, it was only a 2.2GB download gzip'd.
Indeed. Vulnerability, or backdoor? "Fixing" the solution probably involves verifying the text message came from Apple.
Indeed - they're bad for it too. I don't have any Apple software on my PC.
Oh wait... no it isn't.
This is my biggest beef with Microsoft - thinking they know what you want more than you do, and installing crap on my PC(or changing preferences) without asking.
The problem might be worked around somewhat by using DSPs and software decoding optimized for those DSPs, but that's not quite clear.
You mean like what they currently do for H.264? Run DSP codecs on the DSP.
What's really funny is, Youtube has pretty poor H.264 quality.
By tweaking x264 settings(B-frames and motion detection in particular), I've encoded videos to the same quality as Youtube at 1mbit.
(Mostly FRAPS vids of me playing games)
I'm happy with FF 3.5 so far. The link issue that was plaguing me has gone away!
When I first upgraded to FF3, I was angry to find out that links were malfunctioning. For whatever reason, I had to click on them two or three times to get them to do the proper thing.
First click either turns into a back command or picks another link on the page. Second is usually another link on the page. (if first was a back command) Third (or second) goes to the correct location. But spamming clicks on links may also issue a back command, so 2 or 3 clicks per link is the max I could try. Also, holding shift always resulted in a back command, which made opening new windows quite annoying.
Firefox 2 had no such issue on my computers, and FF 3.5 doesn't either. Bless them - it was getting terribly annoying!
.. I know 92% of time statistics are made up, but if you read the article you'll see they have a pretty graph, so I think the data is good.
I am 100% sure your statistics are baloney.
We're #3 - wow that's something to boast about.
In Javascript performance. But javascript is only one factor.
Here, I'll convert it to a car analogy.
Your Hummer is the second loser because it accelerates slower than my Tercel.
What? Other features? They don't matter!