In addition, most people do not even have HDTVs yet.
This first bit is slightly off-topic, so I'll keep it short.
Am I the only one who thinks it's a little silly that so many DVDs are only being made in the "widescreen" format? I mean, I see a DVD box on a shelf in a store, and it has a gold band along the top with the words "widescreen edition."
Now, if you have a normal TV (as most people do), you get a letterboxed picture. Sure, the picture is really sharp, but it's letterboxed! They say DVDs are designed for "TVs of the future." Well, until we get to the future (when HDTV is ubiquitous), DVD sales will be slow because not everyone likes those damn black bars.
If you're a widescreen advocate, reply to this and I'll be happy to discuss it with you. But first I'd like to say that my beef is with letterboxing, not widescreen.
ObOntopic:
By the way, isn't it strange that the DVD manufacturers' contract stipulates that a DVD player may not have a FireWire output? Doesn't FireWire have copy-protection built into it? Or does the movie industry not think FireWire's copy-protection is strong enough?
As far as I know, Macrovision is a strictly analogue copy-protection system. So the video would be processed in this order: MPEG-2 (digital)-> Analogue-> Analogue+Macrovision.
Because this device keeps the video signal digital all the way thru, Macrovision is irrelevant.
I'd love to. But what else can play RealAudio/RealVideo files? Are there any other good players out there for Linux or Windows that can play RealAudio or RealVideo?
RealPlayer keeps bugging me to "register" it. Lately, it's been asking me to download (from within RealPlayer) an "update" for the player, as well. If I do that, it's sure to give away some personal information, like the names of files I've been playing in it, my email address, and other stuff (if it hasn't already...).
Well, I've heard a lot of people say that southern United States is a very different place from the north. There was the Civil War, remember? The South attempted to separate, and was successful, but only for a short time. Then there was reconstruction, and the U.S. was whole again. I'm not totally sure, but I believe there were other separatist ramblings in the South into the 20th century until, finally, in the 1960s, some sort of law was passed explicitly forbidding any kind of secession. I'm not entirely sure on that last point -- someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Sure, Québec has been itching to separate since the late 1960s, but support for separation is waning. It has not gotten to the point of insignificance yet, but it will eventually. Although there is currently a separatist provincial government in power there, opinion polls show that most Quebeckers only elected it to rule, not to separate. This actually has the separatists in a bit of a dilemma.
I'm sure there are still people in the southern U.S. who regularly fly the Confederate flag and dream of the "Conferedate States of America", but these days, there is no significant threat to American unity. Eventually the Québec separatism will fade, too.
I find nothing useful in slaughtering the language to make politically correct fops feel better.
This reminds me of one flaming feminist who wrote on Slashdot:
"The word 'history' says it all. History is just a story about men."
(Groan...) I could dive into an explanation of the etymology of the word "history" and how it is not meant to have any kind of gender-specific connotation at all, but I don't think it's worth it. The fact that Michael Jackson titled one of his boxed sets "HIStory" is irrelevant.
I also have to laugh at feminists who refer to themselves as "womyn" instead of "women" so as to remove the substring "men". OK, "womyn" is a "modification" to the plural noun "women". What is the "modified" singular form?
I see your point, but this isn't about where you get the information from; it's about making sure people agree to a licence agreement before being allowed to view the document. Yes, the information is free one way or the other, but Microsoft wants people to agree to their licence first.
This is why Microsoft is invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in this case. If I recall correctly, the DMCA says that you can't circumvent any mechanism that controls access to copyrighted information or a copyrighted work. I don't agree with that, but that's what the law says. The executable program that you must download and run controls access to the Kerberos document.
Do note, however, that the DMCA does make an exception to that rule for purposes of compatibility. So if Microsoft did not provide Macintosh or Linux versions of the program to view the Kerberos specification, we could argue that those messages on Slashdot that describe how to view the document without going thru the program are there to make the Kerberos specification accessible to Macintosh or Linux users. However, the fact that this also allows people to bypass the licence agreement might create a problem.
Actually, in French, the string "eu" is pronounced a bit like "uhhh." (If you speak German, it's much closer to the German 'ö' sound.) In fact, in come French stories I've read, when a character is confused they go, "Euh...", just like in English they would go "Uh..."
Reporter: What do you think of the new "eu" top-level domain? French Sysadmin: Euh...
I tried every button on the remote control and...I had to sit through ten minutes of trailers, thinking very evil thoughts about what I would like to do to Michael Eisner and the marketing geniuses at Disney.
Marketing geniuses...yeah, right. I'm hoping that people will start spreading word about these abuses and the sales of Disney DVDs drop. Then, maybe Disney will smarten up.
Meanwhile, I've noticed another DVD problem... Almost all of the movies available are in widescreen format only. So, most people (like myself) who own normal TVs, will get a tiny little letterboxed picture. Sometimes it's tolerable, with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, but other times, it's horrid! The X-Files movie, Fight the Future, was transferred to DVD with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio! That's ridiculous! Even a widescreen TV will show a letterboxed picture with an aspect ratio like that!
Some movie studios include a pan-'n-scan version of the movie (reformatted for normal TV sets) on the disc, as well, but most don't. And those that don't try to justify it by saying things like this, on the back of Eyes Wide Shut, "This film is presented in its original format, as Stanley Kubrick intended." I don't care what Mr. Kubrick wanted; it looks like crap on my TV. I'm not made of money; I don't have a 5000-dollar widescreen projection set (which is what they seem to think most people have...)!
So, maybe DVD isn't for me? Well, why are the electronics companies and movie studios pushing it so much? They want everyone to be renting and buying movies on DVD instead of VHS. If that's the case, they should do something so that we all can enjoy them.
Don't get me wrong... Otherwise, I like DVD. That picture might be really small, but it's way sharper than any videotape, and the fact that the movies are on a disk like a CD instead of a tape makes them seem more "permanent." I'm also glad my player can output an anamorphic picture. That'll come in handy in the future, when widescreen TVs come down in price. But for now...
Like I said, I want DVD. But, I also want to enjoy with it my equipment. And if the movie studios don't stop these abusing the ability to lock out the navigation controls (re: 10-minute trailer to sit through) and start catering to normal-TV users, at least until widescreen TVs become cheaper and more common, the DVD market will either grow really slowly, or just wither and die.
Well, that was quite a long rant. I just regret that you're the only one that'll read it, now that this story has moved off Slashdot's front page and is now only accessible via the "search" page. The next time Slashdot does a DVD- or digital-video-related story, I'll post this again, to see if I can get more responses. I'll be sure to mention the 10-minute unskippable trailers on Disney DVDs, too. Thank you for reading my comment.
Streaming and Proprietary Media Formats
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Product Placement
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· Score: 1
A quick question before I begin: Is there something wrong with my Slashdot homepage configuration or have the last few Geeks In Space episodes not been advertised on Slashdot's front page? I had to go directly to the "radio" section to see them. Hey, Rob, Hemos, et al... What's up with that?
Now, let me start by thanking the Slashdot admins for allowing us to downloadGeeks in Space in an open format like MP3. We can each create our own personal Geeks in Space library, and if TheSync disappears or removes Geeks in Space from its repertoire of shows, we'll still be able to find and listen to older episodes. Furthermore, due to the use of an open format like MP3, we're sure to be able to play them even ten years from now. Thanks, guys.
With that said, does anyone here watch the JenniShow or any of the other shows at TheSync? Does it bother you a little that the only way to watch or listen to the other shows is by streaming them? I noticed that some of the more recent episodes of the JenniShow are available for download, but the older ones aren't. Even if you aren't a pack rat like me who archives loads of MP3s and videos, there are other reasons to want to download them. For example, you might have bandwidth problems. At home, I have a crappy old 33.6 kilobaud connection. I can stream audio, but not very good audio. Streaming video through my connection is like watching TV through a cloudy sheet of ice -- that's how bad the picture is. Of course, the stream is often prone to breaking up or experiencing "net congestion." I do have access to a fast connection -- at work. I work at an ISP where I have a T1 connection, but I have to share it with all my coworkers and the sites we host, so the connection speed isn't always super-fast. And besides, I go to work to do work, not watch the JenniShow.
There are other reasons for wanting to download these shows -- as I pointed out earlier, TheSync may go under and take all the episodes of these shows with them, or it might simply decide, "There are too many episodes in this show's archive. It's taking up too much of our disk space. We'll have to delete some."
I know there is a utility for Windows 95/NT called "X-FileGet" by 2B System which can download RealVideo/RealAudio streams (through the "pnm://" protocol), but it doesn't work with the RealMedia G2 servers (which are very common these days) and 2B System seems to have disappeared. I don't know of any Linux or Macintosh equivalent. (For anyone interested, you can pick it up at Tucows. It's shareware.)
Now, I know there are plenty of reasons in favour of streaming. Not everyone wants to wait for a giant, multimegabyte file to finish downloading before listening to or watching it. And for the casual listener/viewer, streaming is just perfect. However, as I've pointed out above, if you really like a certain show, it can be annoying to always have to be connected to watch or listen to it. It would be nice if many of the other shows offered downloads in addition to streaming.
Any comment, folks? I know this is a problem for some people. When Slashdot announced that episodes of StarBlazers were being offered for free by Studio NEXT, one reader had the same gripe I did. Thankfully, another reader was able to give us a URL to download them. Good thing, too -- after watching just one episode, my brother and I were hooked. I'm going to download all 12episodes and burn them onto a CD. It would suck if we could only watch a blurry, postage-stamp-size image that paused and jerked a lot, prevented people from calling the house (re: dial-up), and caused extra network traffic for Studio NEXT.
By the way, thanks again, Rob, for allowing open-format downloads!
Oh God... You're kidding right? No?!? Damn... I'm starting to wonder why I bought a DVD player. Well, at least I got the Apex AD-600A so I can stick to the Man (and the Mouse, sometimes). Unfortunately, it can't defeat the locking out of the fast-forward/rewind controls...
I was under the impression that the reason I couldn't fast-forward through the FBI copyright warning at the beginning was because it wasn't a video stream, but just a still image the player had been instructed to display for a certain amount of time.
But that's really stupid of Disney. Kids aren't going to enjoy a Disney DVD if they're forced to watch a ten minute trailer whenever they pop in their favourite movie. By comparison, the FBI warning is nothing. It stays on the screen for only ten seconds on Die Hard With a Vengeance, and I can easily spend those ten seconds walking back to my seat after loading the disc. But ten minutes...?!? Tell me I misunderstood what you, alhaz, or Bowie J. Poag said!
I sure hope no one thinks Beta died just because it didn't have enough dirty movies for its format.
A much better and more accurate rundown of Beta's rise and fall is available here.
The "urban myths" link you pointed has got to be wrong. Why would any movie company have to approach JVC or Sony to get permission to release movies on VHS or Betamax? JVC's and Sony's licensing schemes don't work like that! You need a license to manufacture VCRs or tapes for their format, not to release movies! I could pick up a few spanking new DVHS decks and a truckload of blank tapes and start cranking out my own DVHS porno movies and I certainly don't need Philips's or JVC's permission to do so.
One thing the link may be right about is the picture quality differences between the formats and the different tape lengths. But it conveniently leaves out an important detail...
The standard recording speed on VHS is SP and runs at 3.33cm/s. The standard recording speed on Beta is BII and runs at only 2cm/s. The picture quality is the same, yes, but Beta is able to record the same picture quality with less tape!
And about the tape lengths... A VHS T-120 is two hours long on SP, but while Beta L-750 tapes advertised only 90 minutes recording time on the BI speed, remember that BII is the standard, which doubles the tape length to three hours. Which is the "inferior technology" with the "shorter tape length" now??
The longest tape length for VHS available during the '80s (when the two formats were sparring) was a T-160, which gives 2 hours and 40 minutes. The longest Beta tape was an L-830, which gave 3 hours and 20 minutes.
Of course, this was only good for prerecorded tapes. If you wanted to squeeze as much material on a tape as possible, you could switch a VHS machine to EP and record 6 hours (T-120) or 8 hours (T-160). But a Beta could only drop down to BIII and get 4.5 hours (L-750) or 5 hours (L-830).
This makes me wonder why Beta used the same 1:1, 1:2, 1:3 ratios for tape speeds as VHS did. It would have made more sense to use 1:1, 1:2, and 1:4. With the slowest tape speed four times slower than the fastest, it would be able to fit 6 hours on an L-750 and 6 hours and 40 minutes on an L-830. Although the longest Beta tape length still wouldn't beaten the longest VHS tape length, it would have at least stood a better chance, due to the "standard" tape lengths (T-120 and L-750) being much more prevalent.
It's worth noting, as long as anyone is still reading this long-winded discussion about tape lengths, that in order to fit more tape into a cassette once the reels are full, the tape must be made thinner. The "original" VHS tapes were T-120s like we have today, and the tape was made thinner to make a T-160. The tape thickness of an L-750 is the same as that of a T-160, and considering that thinner tape is more prone to stretching, crinkling, and breaking, one can see that Beta tapes really couldn't get much longer. An L-1000 Beta tape (4 hours on BII, max. 6 hours on BIII to match a T-120) has finally been invented and can be bought from Absolute Beta, but it's only used by hobbyists.
Also, in case anyone cares, here's the deal with why that Beta machine in your closet or attic only does BII and BIII but not BI: Sony doesn't want you to record on BI because that think that will make the tapes look too short. Originally, BI was the standard, but when RCA and JVC rolled out VHS's LP and EP speeds in the late '70s, Sony knew they'd have to do something. Remember that video cassettes were really expensive then. So, in 1979, Sony decided that BII was the new standard and that all commercial Beta videos should be recorded in that speed. BI recording capability was discontinued. It was later reintroduced in a slightly evolved as "BIs" form on the higher-end SuperBeta machines in starting in 1986, and later in a further-evolved form called BI-SHB (Super Hi-Band) so as to appeal to power users. The only real difference was that its pre-emphasis/de-emphasis curve now matched that of BII and BIII.
Anyway, that was pretty long-winded, wasn't it? But this discussion of tape speeds and like always fascinates me.
Anyway, I'm afraid I don't have any hard proof about the picture quality except my word and everyone else's. However, I can say that given the business with the "standard" tape speed for each format (SP (1:1) and BII (1:2)), try seeing if material recorded in LP (1:2) matches BII (1:2). I've tried, and I can say that it definitely isn't as good. As for BI/BIs/BI-SHB (1:1) vs. SP (1:1), I can say that I was able to copy a segment of a DVD to my Beta machine in BIs, and picture quality looked almost as good as that of the original disc! Using BII (which we have established is practically equal to VHS's SP), the picture looked a little grainy and colour reproduction wasn't as faithful. Well, then, I guess I know what the outcome of a BIs vs. SP comparison would be. I'll have to try a real DVD to VHS SP copy sometime, of course...
Well, that's quite a lot I've written. I thank you if you're still reading. And if you were one of ones who bought VHS in the '80s and sneered at your Beta-using friends, don't worry. Even if you disagree with all that I've written, there's no need to defend VHS's honour. It won the format wars! That's all I have to say about that! (I was a VHS user in the '80s who sneered at Beta users, but in 1990 I got a Beta machine at a garage sale, and I got converted. Rather bad timing though, eh?)
I don't know if I want to post all this, but I might as well since I've taken the time to write it...
Oh, yes. Good ol' Eric Saward. That makes a lot of sense now. Did you know that he was a little paranoid? According to the Sixth Doctor Handbook, Mr. Saward used to call Colin Baker (actor who played the Sixth Doctor) on the phone at night and talk for hours about how he thought the producer, John Nathan-Turner, was trying to either diminish his role or kick him off the show. Eventually Mr. Baker would have to say, "Listen, Eric, I don't think John is trying to fire you. It's 2:00 AM. I need my sleep!"
And of course, there was the flap over the ending to "Trial of a Time Lord"...
I wonder what connection I had in my head between Douglas Adams and the two Dalek stories? The BBC's online episode guide won't give me any information on the writer or script editor for those stories. I'll have to examine this in closer detail. I'll check the Sixth Doctor Handbook when I get home...
The other Dr. Who that Douglas Adams wrote was *Remembrance* of the Daleks...
"Remembrance of the Daleks" was written by Ben Aaronovitch.
Just to make sure we're thinking of the same stories, "Resurrection of the Daleks" was a Fifth Doctor story, "Revelation of the Daleks" was a Sixth Doctor story, and "Remembrance of the Daleks" was a Seventh Doctor story. I believe the first two were written by Douglas Adams.
Doctor Who spoilers ahead...
As to whether "Remembrance of the Daleks" was good or not, some fans consider it one of the best stories, others consider it one of the worst. I think it's pretty cool, but the Doctor was a total wimp when he said, "You killed it..." after Ace blew a Dalek's head off with a rocket launcher. Damn it, Doctor, those things are better off dead! The show also had perhaps too many self-indulgent references, although I think what the BBC announcer said on the TV in that house Ace was visiting was pretty good. Makes you wonder, too, eh? Finally, why oh why did the BBC have to use videotape to shoot the McCoy stories? It makes the stories look so glossy and superficial, and, well, really fake, too. It really sucked the way they started pulling money out of the show toward its end.
Huh? You can perform byte-sized operations on a 68K address register. It's only when you try to read/write a word or longword with an address which is not word- or longword-aligned (respectively) that you get in trouble.
Yeah, I remember that. "Bus error" is what the 68000 gives you if you try that. My 68000 assembly language teacher was a bit of a joker and said that a "bus error" is what you get when the bus takes a wrong turn and strays from its route!
I was referring to doing something like this:
move.b $2376,a0 add.b #$40,a2
I don't think that's legal on the 68000, or any 680x0 processor if I recall correctly. You can transfer bytes in and out of data registers easily, of course.
It's not like I'd have any practical need for it... It just would be cool to be able to do it!
P.S. Starting with (I believe) the 68020, you could read and write misaligned words and longwords without getting a bus error. Also, I'm not sure, but I think the 68000 could read a longword that was word-aligned but not longword-aligned.
That sounds like "City of Death." It was toward the end of Tom Baker's era. I can't recall if it was in his last or second-last season. A bit of a strange title, without much to do with the story.
That was one of the first Doctor Who episodes I saw as a kid. I was about eight or nine years old at the time and I used to watch the show with my dad. The bit at the end of episode three where the scientist got caught in the aging machine and turned into a skeleton scared the pants off me as a kid. I think my mom even chastised my dad for showing me something that scared me so much!
I believe Mr. Adams wrote a few Doctor Who stories, notably "Shada," "Resurrection of the Daleks," and "Revelation of the Daleks." As yet, "Resurrection of the Daleks" and "Revelation of the Daleks" have not been released on video or in book form due to copyright issues.
With Doctor Who, the story writers retained the copyrights to their own work. Obviously, he doesn't have the copyright on the Daleks themselves (Terry Nation's estate does), but he does on the stories. I remember hearing that he required a lot of convincing to allow "Shada" to be released on video (which ended up being limited-edition, anyway).
What I want to know is, what's the problem with releasing "Resurrection" and "Revelation"? Is it some kind of dispute with Terry Nation's estate due to the use of the Daleks, or is he just being, well...stubborn? (Sorry, I couldn't think of a more polite word.)
One other issue (if this post is actually selected (probably not), please omit the following):
Also, am I the only one who's a little pissed that the NTSC videocassette version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was recorded in EP mode? Excuse me, commercial videos are not supposed to be done in EP!! There was a version on two cassettes in SP mode with a copy of the book, too, but it was (once again) limited-edition.
Also, I've noticed that the book version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that you buy in stores has been split into four parts and called a "triology of four." Ha ha ha, very clever. Those four books are quite thin; couldn't Mr. Adams (or his publisher) have saved us some money by combining them into one, thicker book, like in the limited-edition, SP-mode, NTSC video release? (Sorry if that sounded a little bitter; I just thought splitting up the book into small parts was kind of dumb...)
I don't know too much about China's population-control program, but what I do know is this: many of these families under population control want to have a son as their only child. So, if the mother gives birth to a girl, they kill it.
Naturally, there are feminists everywhere railing against this, and rightfully so. But what gets me is this: I'm a single guy who's having a really hard time meeting women. Imagine what it will be like when all these only-child boys get to their teens and early 20s. There won't be enough girls and women for them! Damn! And I thought I've got it rough...
Anyway, that's just one of the problems of population control. The number of abortions would probably rise, too, although since I don't care for the Church's political views, I'm not all that bothered. However, much worse things could happen...
Population control might even cause something similar to Hitler's Aryan race to start to emerge. People would want to have that perfect baby, so all mentally and physically defective ones would be aborted or killed. It might get to the point where, now with genetic engineering and sex-selection technologies, babies would be born looking like the models and supermodels of the day...
Those who couldn't bear to kill or "engineer" their baby may cause the orphanges to start to fill up. I'm having that classic vision of a baby abandoned on a convent's or church's doorstep...
Don't get me wrong, I'm no right-winger. I can't stand most right-wing people. But I'd take old-fashioned family planning, birth control, and selective chastity any day over this...
No, the Mac wasn't released until 1984, but the 68000 chip, the first of Motorola's 680x0 series, was released in 1979 (or '78; I'm not 100% sure about that, someone correct me if necessary).
The chip was pretty expensive at first, so it was mostly used to run mainframes and the like until it became cheaper. (I think.)
I took a course in 68000 assembler a few years ago and learned a whole lot about its ins and outs. It's a pretty good chip! But why won't it let me perform byte-sized operations on an address register or dereference data registers (to look up values in memory, etc.)? I guess it was Motorola's way of forcing programmers to get a little organized...!
On Windows, what about Ctrl+P? Or, for us Mac folks, Command+P?
Good idea, but (at least in Windows) when I press Ctrl+P, an intermediate "Print" dialogue box appears where you select how many pages you want to print, which printer to use, etc. That, too, would cause the Java applet to lose the focus.
Well, I'm not disturbed, just, well...pissed off. I used to frequent Lyrics.ch a lot when it was "free" (before 1999).
Let me tell you a story...
When I was in grade 8, I discovered that my school had a bunch of old reel-to-reel tape recorders that were going to be thrown out. After some negotiations with a teacher, and some of his negotiations with the principal, I was allowed to take one home. Since I needed some tape to record with, I went to a local stereo shop and bought a reel. It had already been used, so it was a bargain. When I played it, I found that someone had recorded two rock songs at the beginning of the tape. I didn't care much for the second one, but I absolutely loved the first! I listened to it over and over. I was never able to find out the title or who sang it. I played it for a few friends, and they couldn't name the song or artist, either. Eventually, I lost interest in it.
About nine years later, I was heavily into MP3s, and I planned to try to transfer many of my cassette radio tapings and other recordings to MP3 format. I remembered that rock song on the reel-to-reel tape, and decided to have a go at it. It was about this time that I also knew about Lyrics.ch. Since the title and artist of this song still eluded me, I decided to see if Lyrics.ch's full-text search engine could help. After only a few tries, I discovered the title and artist: "Isolation" by Toto. Since Lyrics.ch also lists the name of the album a song is from, I was able order a CD with the song on it, and get a much better quality copy (which was good, because now, 11 years later, that reel-to-reel tape recorder is breaking down). I tried some of Toto's other music, and soon found that I really liked them.
Lyrics.ch also helped me decipher the lyrics of lots of other music I had, as well. It was also instrumental in helping me track down a few songs I heard on the radio but for which the DJ did not announce the title or artist.
Then, in January 1999, as you know, the Harry Fox Agency and some big-money, copyright-owning record companies came knocking. When all the dust settled and the negotiations finished, Lyrics.ch was still in operation, but one could only view about 1/3 of their songs.
I gave the "new" Lyrics.ch a try. In order to view a song, I had to run a large Java applet that took a while to download and presented a "high security risk" according to Internet Explorer (my version of Netscape at the time was 4.05; not good enough to run the Java applet). Then, the lyrics appeared, but I was unable to copy-and-paste them out of the browser window. The lyrics disappeared whenever the applet lost the focus, so clicking File->Print was useless. The Java applet displayed about a page-full of lyrics at a time, but for only about five seconds per page. Not enough time to read them, and useless for singing along with the song! At the end, it just displayed, "This concludes the reading of this lyrics." I would have to reload the page to view them again.
I'm not sure, but I think the lyrics are now encrypted as they are sent down the wire to your computer. I have to wonder how much of this was mandated by the copyright holders, and how much was done by the Lyrics.ch staff simply to please them and avoid further trouble.
About the only to save the lyrics is to use screen capturing and retype the lyrics while viewing the screen capture (they'd be too small and blocky for an OCR program). This is difficult in Windows; you must quickly paste the bitmap into a paint program before capturing again. About the only operating system for which this would work is Mac OS; there when capture the screen, it automatically saves the captures with incremental filenames. I don't know how to capture the screen in X.
Why can I not save or print the lyrics as before? Sure, they're someone else's property, but wouldn't a strict copyright notice at the bottom of the page solve that? What's wrong with just good ol' HTML? And besides, they're just lyrics! What harm can one do with them? It's not like they're directly harming CD sales, like pirated MP3s.
It seems to me that this was just done by the record companies just to show the world who's boss. They could have said, "Listen, those lyrics are our intellectual property, but since they're helping people find music, we'll let your site stay up [unmolested], but you have to put this copyright notice on them and give us a cut of your ad-banner revenue." But instead, they've made the site almost useless. I refuse to run that Java applet on my home computer, too. Who knows what else it's doing, besides showing lyrics?
I realize that Lyrics.ch should not have taken such a liberty with someone else's copyrighted property, but the record companies should not have reacted as they did. Their reaction only hurt them, as far as I'm concerned. Remember how the lyrics were user-contributed before? I haven't seen any new ones added since the crackdown.
So, I applaud these brave Russians with their lyrics site. It wouldn't hurt to set up a mirror in Taiwan (a country which never signed the Berne copyright convention), too.
By the way, I've read The Right to Read, and I love it. Sorry, but my right to fair use comes before some money-grubbing record company's right to lock up harmless information like their lyrics. FIGHT THE COPYRIGHT NATION!!
Somehow the manufacturers of that game -- Quickbeam Sofware -- got wind of my activities and phoned my parents who idiotically admitted to it. They then demanded FULL PAYMENT for all 3 of the "fair use" copies I had made. And my parents coughed up.
Hold on a moment...! Did your brother spread word of this round his school? How in the world did this software company find out? How did they get your phone number?
I guess you can tell this upsets me. That software company took it too far! If I were one of your parents, I would have told them that it's none of their business. I sure hope your parents didn't reprimand you too badly.
It seems to me you live in Britain ("...at a cost of only 50p per game"). I often get the idea that copyright is enforced much more strongly in your country than in North America, and that copyright holders tend to be much more defensive about their copyrights.
I'm sure this will get lost in the noise, but I'll ask it anyway:
Why was there no PKZip for the Macintosh? A friend of mine once told me that there was a disagreement between Apple and PKWare, and as a result, PKWare refused to make any software for the Macintosh.
Does anyone have any further information or know if this is true?
I'm afraid this will be lost in the noise or will be too far down the list for anyone to care, but I remember hearing something a while back about a version of Perl or an add-on library for it that allows one to build GUI applications. Does anyone know anything about this?
Also, I'd like to thank Slashdot for advocating the use of Perl. It's truly a kick-ass language! I love how full-featured it is. When I'm programming an ASP website in VBScript, there's so much I can't do. Simple stuff, like writing a binary file to the server's hard drive. In ASP, you need to buy a damned third-party component to do it. In Perl, the functionality for that, and so many other tasks, like ripping content from other websites, is built right into the language.
I can even write a little auto-downloader for MP3s that will log onto a FTP server and keep trying until it finally gets in and downloads. And, I can extend its functionality easily, like adding support for a list of URLs to download from. In C, that would take forever to write. In Perl, it's a snap. I once wrote a small web server in C. It worked well, but handling and parsing all those strings was tricky. Now, if I port it to Perl... When I get back to work on Tuesday, every computer I use regularly will get Perl installed on it.
Anyway, that's enough gushing over how great Perl is. How about this graphical Perl? I'd love GUI Perl programs!!
Hey, Commander Taco, Hemos, Cowboy Neal...any Slashdot admin reading this! What are the co-ordinates of the Geek Compound? I'd like to have a look at it!
Of course, if you'd rather not divulge that information due to privacy concerns, that's fine, too, I suppose...
Slashdot Mirror
In addition, most people do not even have HDTVs yet.
This first bit is slightly off-topic, so I'll keep it short.
Am I the only one who thinks it's a little silly that so many DVDs are only being made in the "widescreen" format? I mean, I see a DVD box on a shelf in a store, and it has a gold band along the top with the words "widescreen edition."
Now, if you have a normal TV (as most people do), you get a letterboxed picture. Sure, the picture is really sharp, but it's letterboxed! They say DVDs are designed for "TVs of the future." Well, until we get to the future (when HDTV is ubiquitous), DVD sales will be slow because not everyone likes those damn black bars.
If you're a widescreen advocate, reply to this and I'll be happy to discuss it with you. But first I'd like to say that my beef is with letterboxing, not widescreen.
ObOntopic:
By the way, isn't it strange that the DVD manufacturers' contract stipulates that a DVD player may not have a FireWire output? Doesn't FireWire have copy-protection built into it? Or does the movie industry not think FireWire's copy-protection is strong enough?
As far as I know, Macrovision is a strictly analogue copy-protection system. So the video would be processed in this order: MPEG-2 (digital)-> Analogue-> Analogue+Macrovision.
Because this device keeps the video signal digital all the way thru, Macrovision is irrelevant.
I'd love to. But what else can play RealAudio/RealVideo files? Are there any other good players out there for Linux or Windows that can play RealAudio or RealVideo?
RealPlayer keeps bugging me to "register" it. Lately, it's been asking me to download (from within RealPlayer) an "update" for the player, as well. If I do that, it's sure to give away some personal information, like the names of files I've been playing in it, my email address, and other stuff (if it hasn't already...).
Well, I've heard a lot of people say that southern United States is a very different place from the north. There was the Civil War, remember? The South attempted to separate, and was successful, but only for a short time. Then there was reconstruction, and the U.S. was whole again. I'm not totally sure, but I believe there were other separatist ramblings in the South into the 20th century until, finally, in the 1960s, some sort of law was passed explicitly forbidding any kind of secession. I'm not entirely sure on that last point -- someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Sure, Québec has been itching to separate since the late 1960s, but support for separation is waning. It has not gotten to the point of insignificance yet, but it will eventually. Although there is currently a separatist provincial government in power there, opinion polls show that most Quebeckers only elected it to rule, not to separate. This actually has the separatists in a bit of a dilemma.
I'm sure there are still people in the southern U.S. who regularly fly the Confederate flag and dream of the "Conferedate States of America", but these days, there is no significant threat to American unity. Eventually the Québec separatism will fade, too.
I find nothing useful in slaughtering the language to make politically correct fops feel better.
This reminds me of one flaming feminist who wrote on Slashdot:
(Groan...) I could dive into an explanation of the etymology of the word "history" and how it is not meant to have any kind of gender-specific connotation at all, but I don't think it's worth it. The fact that Michael Jackson titled one of his boxed sets "HIStory" is irrelevant.
I also have to laugh at feminists who refer to themselves as "womyn" instead of "women" so as to remove the substring "men". OK, "womyn" is a "modification" to the plural noun "women". What is the "modified" singular form?
I see your point, but this isn't about where you get the information from; it's about making sure people agree to a licence agreement before being allowed to view the document. Yes, the information is free one way or the other, but Microsoft wants people to agree to their licence first.
This is why Microsoft is invoking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in this case. If I recall correctly, the DMCA says that you can't circumvent any mechanism that controls access to copyrighted information or a copyrighted work. I don't agree with that, but that's what the law says. The executable program that you must download and run controls access to the Kerberos document.
Do note, however, that the DMCA does make an exception to that rule for purposes of compatibility. So if Microsoft did not provide Macintosh or Linux versions of the program to view the Kerberos specification, we could argue that those messages on Slashdot that describe how to view the document without going thru the program are there to make the Kerberos specification accessible to Macintosh or Linux users. However, the fact that this also allows people to bypass the licence agreement might create a problem.
Actually, in French, the string "eu" is pronounced a bit like "uhhh." (If you speak German, it's much closer to the German 'ö' sound.) In fact, in come French stories I've read, when a character is confused they go, "Euh...", just like in English they would go "Uh..."
Reporter: What do you think of the new "eu" top-level domain?
French Sysadmin: Euh...
I tried every button on the remote control and...I had to sit through ten minutes of trailers, thinking very evil thoughts about what I would like to do to Michael Eisner and the marketing geniuses at Disney.
Marketing geniuses...yeah, right. I'm hoping that people will start spreading word about these abuses and the sales of Disney DVDs drop. Then, maybe Disney will smarten up.
Meanwhile, I've noticed another DVD problem... Almost all of the movies available are in widescreen format only. So, most people (like myself) who own normal TVs, will get a tiny little letterboxed picture. Sometimes it's tolerable, with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, but other times, it's horrid! The X-Files movie, Fight the Future, was transferred to DVD with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio! That's ridiculous! Even a widescreen TV will show a letterboxed picture with an aspect ratio like that!
Some movie studios include a pan-'n-scan version of the movie (reformatted for normal TV sets) on the disc, as well, but most don't. And those that don't try to justify it by saying things like this, on the back of Eyes Wide Shut, "This film is presented in its original format, as Stanley Kubrick intended." I don't care what Mr. Kubrick wanted; it looks like crap on my TV. I'm not made of money; I don't have a 5000-dollar widescreen projection set (which is what they seem to think most people have...)!
So, maybe DVD isn't for me? Well, why are the electronics companies and movie studios pushing it so much? They want everyone to be renting and buying movies on DVD instead of VHS. If that's the case, they should do something so that we all can enjoy them.
Don't get me wrong... Otherwise, I like DVD. That picture might be really small, but it's way sharper than any videotape, and the fact that the movies are on a disk like a CD instead of a tape makes them seem more "permanent." I'm also glad my player can output an anamorphic picture. That'll come in handy in the future, when widescreen TVs come down in price. But for now...
Like I said, I want DVD. But, I also want to enjoy with it my equipment. And if the movie studios don't stop these abusing the ability to lock out the navigation controls (re: 10-minute trailer to sit through) and start catering to normal-TV users, at least until widescreen TVs become cheaper and more common, the DVD market will either grow really slowly, or just wither and die.
Well, that was quite a long rant. I just regret that you're the only one that'll read it, now that this story has moved off Slashdot's front page and is now only accessible via the "search" page. The next time Slashdot does a DVD- or digital-video-related story, I'll post this again, to see if I can get more responses. I'll be sure to mention the 10-minute unskippable trailers on Disney DVDs, too. Thank you for reading my comment.
A quick question before I begin:
Is there something wrong with my Slashdot homepage configuration or have the last few Geeks In Space episodes not been advertised on Slashdot's front page? I had to go directly to the "radio" section to see them. Hey, Rob, Hemos, et al... What's up with that?
Now, let me start by thanking the Slashdot admins for allowing us to download Geeks in Space in an open format like MP3. We can each create our own personal Geeks in Space library, and if TheSync disappears or removes Geeks in Space from its repertoire of shows, we'll still be able to find and listen to older episodes. Furthermore, due to the use of an open format like MP3, we're sure to be able to play them even ten years from now. Thanks, guys.
With that said, does anyone here watch the JenniShow or any of the other shows at TheSync? Does it bother you a little that the only way to watch or listen to the other shows is by streaming them? I noticed that some of the more recent episodes of the JenniShow are available for download, but the older ones aren't. Even if you aren't a pack rat like me who archives loads of MP3s and videos, there are other reasons to want to download them. For example, you might have bandwidth problems. At home, I have a crappy old 33.6 kilobaud connection. I can stream audio, but not very good audio. Streaming video through my connection is like watching TV through a cloudy sheet of ice -- that's how bad the picture is. Of course, the stream is often prone to breaking up or experiencing "net congestion." I do have access to a fast connection -- at work. I work at an ISP where I have a T1 connection, but I have to share it with all my coworkers and the sites we host, so the connection speed isn't always super-fast. And besides, I go to work to do work, not watch the JenniShow.
There are other reasons for wanting to download these shows -- as I pointed out earlier, TheSync may go under and take all the episodes of these shows with them, or it might simply decide, "There are too many episodes in this show's archive. It's taking up too much of our disk space. We'll have to delete some."
I know there is a utility for Windows 95/NT called "X-FileGet" by 2B System which can download RealVideo/RealAudio streams (through the "pnm://" protocol), but it doesn't work with the RealMedia G2 servers (which are very common these days) and 2B System seems to have disappeared. I don't know of any Linux or Macintosh equivalent. (For anyone interested, you can pick it up at Tucows. It's shareware.)
Now, I know there are plenty of reasons in favour of streaming. Not everyone wants to wait for a giant, multimegabyte file to finish downloading before listening to or watching it. And for the casual listener/viewer, streaming is just perfect. However, as I've pointed out above, if you really like a certain show, it can be annoying to always have to be connected to watch or listen to it. It would be nice if many of the other shows offered downloads in addition to streaming.
Any comment, folks? I know this is a problem for some people. When Slashdot announced that episodes of StarBlazers were being offered for free by Studio NEXT, one reader had the same gripe I did. Thankfully, another reader was able to give us a URL to download them. Good thing, too -- after watching just one episode, my brother and I were hooked. I'm going to download all 12episodes and burn them onto a CD. It would suck if we could only watch a blurry, postage-stamp-size image that paused and jerked a lot, prevented people from calling the house (re: dial-up), and caused extra network traffic for Studio NEXT.
By the way, thanks again, Rob, for allowing open-format downloads!
Oh God... You're kidding right? No?!? Damn... I'm starting to wonder why I bought a DVD player. Well, at least I got the Apex AD-600A so I can stick to the Man (and the Mouse, sometimes). Unfortunately, it can't defeat the locking out of the fast-forward/rewind controls...
I was under the impression that the reason I couldn't fast-forward through the FBI copyright warning at the beginning was because it wasn't a video stream, but just a still image the player had been instructed to display for a certain amount of time.
But that's really stupid of Disney. Kids aren't going to enjoy a Disney DVD if they're forced to watch a ten minute trailer whenever they pop in their favourite movie. By comparison, the FBI warning is nothing. It stays on the screen for only ten seconds on Die Hard With a Vengeance, and I can easily spend those ten seconds walking back to my seat after loading the disc. But ten minutes...?!? Tell me I misunderstood what you, alhaz, or Bowie J. Poag said!
I sure hope no one thinks Beta died just because it didn't have enough dirty movies for its format.
A much better and more accurate rundown of Beta's rise and fall is available here.
The "urban myths" link you pointed has got to be wrong. Why would any movie company have to approach JVC or Sony to get permission to release movies on VHS or Betamax? JVC's and Sony's licensing schemes don't work like that! You need a license to manufacture VCRs or tapes for their format, not to release movies! I could pick up a few spanking new DVHS decks and a truckload of blank tapes and start cranking out my own DVHS porno movies and I certainly don't need Philips's or JVC's permission to do so.
One thing the link may be right about is the picture quality differences between the formats and the different tape lengths. But it conveniently leaves out an important detail...
The standard recording speed on VHS is SP and runs at 3.33cm/s. The standard recording speed on Beta is BII and runs at only 2cm/s. The picture quality is the same, yes, but Beta is able to record the same picture quality with less tape!
And about the tape lengths... A VHS T-120 is two hours long on SP, but while Beta L-750 tapes advertised only 90 minutes recording time on the BI speed, remember that BII is the standard, which doubles the tape length to three hours. Which is the "inferior technology" with the "shorter tape length" now??
The longest tape length for VHS available during the '80s (when the two formats were sparring) was a T-160, which gives 2 hours and 40 minutes. The longest Beta tape was an L-830, which gave 3 hours and 20 minutes.
Of course, this was only good for prerecorded tapes. If you wanted to squeeze as much material on a tape as possible, you could switch a VHS machine to EP and record 6 hours (T-120) or 8 hours (T-160). But a Beta could only drop down to BIII and get 4.5 hours (L-750) or 5 hours (L-830).
This makes me wonder why Beta used the same 1:1, 1:2, 1:3 ratios for tape speeds as VHS did. It would have made more sense to use 1:1, 1:2, and 1:4. With the slowest tape speed four times slower than the fastest, it would be able to fit 6 hours on an L-750 and 6 hours and 40 minutes on an L-830. Although the longest Beta tape length still wouldn't beaten the longest VHS tape length, it would have at least stood a better chance, due to the "standard" tape lengths (T-120 and L-750) being much more prevalent.
It's worth noting, as long as anyone is still reading this long-winded discussion about tape lengths, that in order to fit more tape into a cassette once the reels are full, the tape must be made thinner. The "original" VHS tapes were T-120s like we have today, and the tape was made thinner to make a T-160. The tape thickness of an L-750 is the same as that of a T-160, and considering that thinner tape is more prone to stretching, crinkling, and breaking, one can see that Beta tapes really couldn't get much longer. An L-1000 Beta tape (4 hours on BII, max. 6 hours on BIII to match a T-120) has finally been invented and can be bought from Absolute Beta, but it's only used by hobbyists.
Also, in case anyone cares, here's the deal with why that Beta machine in your closet or attic only does BII and BIII but not BI: Sony doesn't want you to record on BI because that think that will make the tapes look too short. Originally, BI was the standard, but when RCA and JVC rolled out VHS's LP and EP speeds in the late '70s, Sony knew they'd have to do something. Remember that video cassettes were really expensive then. So, in 1979, Sony decided that BII was the new standard and that all commercial Beta videos should be recorded in that speed. BI recording capability was discontinued. It was later reintroduced in a slightly evolved as "BIs" form on the higher-end SuperBeta machines in starting in 1986, and later in a further-evolved form called BI-SHB (Super Hi-Band) so as to appeal to power users. The only real difference was that its pre-emphasis/de-emphasis curve now matched that of BII and BIII.
Anyway, that was pretty long-winded, wasn't it? But this discussion of tape speeds and like always fascinates me.
Anyway, I'm afraid I don't have any hard proof about the picture quality except my word and everyone else's. However, I can say that given the business with the "standard" tape speed for each format (SP (1:1) and BII (1:2)), try seeing if material recorded in LP (1:2) matches BII (1:2). I've tried, and I can say that it definitely isn't as good. As for BI/BIs/BI-SHB (1:1) vs. SP (1:1), I can say that I was able to copy a segment of a DVD to my Beta machine in BIs, and picture quality looked almost as good as that of the original disc! Using BII (which we have established is practically equal to VHS's SP), the picture looked a little grainy and colour reproduction wasn't as faithful. Well, then, I guess I know what the outcome of a BIs vs. SP comparison would be. I'll have to try a real DVD to VHS SP copy sometime, of course...
Well, that's quite a lot I've written. I thank you if you're still reading. And if you were one of ones who bought VHS in the '80s and sneered at your Beta-using friends, don't worry. Even if you disagree with all that I've written, there's no need to defend VHS's honour. It won the format wars! That's all I have to say about that! (I was a VHS user in the '80s who sneered at Beta users, but in 1990 I got a Beta machine at a garage sale, and I got converted. Rather bad timing though, eh?)
I don't know if I want to post all this, but I might as well since I've taken the time to write it...
Oh, yes. Good ol' Eric Saward. That makes a lot of sense now. Did you know that he was a little paranoid? According to the Sixth Doctor Handbook, Mr. Saward used to call Colin Baker (actor who played the Sixth Doctor) on the phone at night and talk for hours about how he thought the producer, John Nathan-Turner, was trying to either diminish his role or kick him off the show. Eventually Mr. Baker would have to say, "Listen, Eric, I don't think John is trying to fire you. It's 2:00 AM. I need my sleep!"
And of course, there was the flap over the ending to "Trial of a Time Lord"...
I wonder what connection I had in my head between Douglas Adams and the two Dalek stories? The BBC's online episode guide won't give me any information on the writer or script editor for those stories. I'll have to examine this in closer detail. I'll check the Sixth Doctor Handbook when I get home...
Thanks for pointing that out!
The other Dr. Who that Douglas Adams wrote was *Remembrance* of the Daleks...
"Remembrance of the Daleks" was written by Ben Aaronovitch.
Just to make sure we're thinking of the same stories, "Resurrection of the Daleks" was a Fifth Doctor story, "Revelation of the Daleks" was a Sixth Doctor story, and "Remembrance of the Daleks" was a Seventh Doctor story. I believe the first two were written by Douglas Adams.
Doctor Who spoilers ahead...
As to whether "Remembrance of the Daleks" was good or not, some fans consider it one of the best stories, others consider it one of the worst. I think it's pretty cool, but the Doctor was a total wimp when he said, "You killed it..." after Ace blew a Dalek's head off with a rocket launcher. Damn it, Doctor, those things are better off dead! The show also had perhaps too many self-indulgent references, although I think what the BBC announcer said on the TV in that house Ace was visiting was pretty good. Makes you wonder, too, eh? Finally, why oh why did the BBC have to use videotape to shoot the McCoy stories? It makes the stories look so glossy and superficial, and, well, really fake, too. It really sucked the way they started pulling money out of the show toward its end.
Huh? You can perform byte-sized operations on a 68K address register. It's only when you try to read/write a word or longword with an address which is not word- or longword-aligned (respectively) that you get in trouble.
Yeah, I remember that. "Bus error" is what the 68000 gives you if you try that. My 68000 assembly language teacher was a bit of a joker and said that a "bus error" is what you get when the bus takes a wrong turn and strays from its route!
I was referring to doing something like this:
move.b $2376,a0
add.b #$40,a2
I don't think that's legal on the 68000, or any 680x0 processor if I recall correctly. You can transfer bytes in and out of data registers easily, of course.
It's not like I'd have any practical need for it... It just would be cool to be able to do it!
P.S. Starting with (I believe) the 68020, you could read and write misaligned words and longwords without getting a bus error. Also, I'm not sure, but I think the 68000 could read a longword that was word-aligned but not longword-aligned.
That sounds like "City of Death." It was toward the end of Tom Baker's era. I can't recall if it was in his last or second-last season. A bit of a strange title, without much to do with the story.
That was one of the first Doctor Who episodes I saw as a kid. I was about eight or nine years old at the time and I used to watch the show with my dad. The bit at the end of episode three where the scientist got caught in the aging machine and turned into a skeleton scared the pants off me as a kid. I think my mom even chastised my dad for showing me something that scared me so much!
I believe Mr. Adams wrote a few Doctor Who stories, notably "Shada," "Resurrection of the Daleks," and "Revelation of the Daleks." As yet, "Resurrection of the Daleks" and "Revelation of the Daleks" have not been released on video or in book form due to copyright issues.
With Doctor Who, the story writers retained the copyrights to their own work. Obviously, he doesn't have the copyright on the Daleks themselves (Terry Nation's estate does), but he does on the stories. I remember hearing that he required a lot of convincing to allow "Shada" to be released on video (which ended up being limited-edition, anyway).
What I want to know is, what's the problem with releasing "Resurrection" and "Revelation"? Is it some kind of dispute with Terry Nation's estate due to the use of the Daleks, or is he just being, well...stubborn? (Sorry, I couldn't think of a more polite word.)
One other issue (if this post is actually selected (probably not), please omit the following):
Also, am I the only one who's a little pissed that the NTSC videocassette version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was recorded in EP mode? Excuse me, commercial videos are not supposed to be done in EP!! There was a version on two cassettes in SP mode with a copy of the book, too, but it was (once again) limited-edition.
Also, I've noticed that the book version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that you buy in stores has been split into four parts and called a "triology of four." Ha ha ha, very clever. Those four books are quite thin; couldn't Mr. Adams (or his publisher) have saved us some money by combining them into one, thicker book, like in the limited-edition, SP-mode, NTSC video release? (Sorry if that sounded a little bitter; I just thought splitting up the book into small parts was kind of dumb...)
I hope no one else beat me to the punch on this...
Apparently 6 times 9 does equal 42... In base 13.
In base 10, it equals 54, but if you convert 54 to base 13, it is written as "42", just as in base 16 (hexadecimal) it is written as "36".
6 * 9 = 54 (base 10)
54 / 13 =~ 4.154
54 Mod 13 = 2 (remainder when evaluating 54/13)
Therefore, 54 (base 10) = 42 (base 13)
4 * 13 + 2 = 54
See?? Deep Thought was right.
I wonder if IBM's "Deep Blue" got its name from "Deep Thought."
I don't know too much about China's population-control program, but what I do know is this: many of these families under population control want to have a son as their only child. So, if the mother gives birth to a girl, they kill it.
Naturally, there are feminists everywhere railing against this, and rightfully so. But what gets me is this: I'm a single guy who's having a really hard time meeting women. Imagine what it will be like when all these only-child boys get to their teens and early 20s. There won't be enough girls and women for them! Damn! And I thought I've got it rough...
Anyway, that's just one of the problems of population control. The number of abortions would probably rise, too, although since I don't care for the Church's political views, I'm not all that bothered. However, much worse things could happen...
Population control might even cause something similar to Hitler's Aryan race to start to emerge. People would want to have that perfect baby, so all mentally and physically defective ones would be aborted or killed. It might get to the point where, now with genetic engineering and sex-selection technologies, babies would be born looking like the models and supermodels of the day...
Those who couldn't bear to kill or "engineer" their baby may cause the orphanges to start to fill up. I'm having that classic vision of a baby abandoned on a convent's or church's doorstep...
Don't get me wrong, I'm no right-winger. I can't stand most right-wing people. But I'd take old-fashioned family planning, birth control, and selective chastity any day over this...
No, the Mac wasn't released until 1984, but the 68000 chip, the first of Motorola's 680x0 series, was released in 1979 (or '78; I'm not 100% sure about that, someone correct me if necessary).
The chip was pretty expensive at first, so it was mostly used to run mainframes and the like until it became cheaper. (I think.)
I took a course in 68000 assembler a few years ago and learned a whole lot about its ins and outs. It's a pretty good chip! But why won't it let me perform byte-sized operations on an address register or dereference data registers (to look up values in memory, etc.)? I guess it was Motorola's way of forcing programmers to get a little organized...!
On Windows, what about Ctrl+P?
Or, for us Mac folks, Command+P?
Good idea, but (at least in Windows) when I press Ctrl+P, an intermediate "Print" dialogue box appears where you select how many pages you want to print, which printer to use, etc. That, too, would cause the Java applet to lose the focus.
Well, I'm not disturbed, just, well...pissed off. I used to frequent Lyrics.ch a lot when it was "free" (before 1999).
Let me tell you a story...
When I was in grade 8, I discovered that my school had a bunch of old reel-to-reel tape recorders that were going to be thrown out. After some negotiations with a teacher, and some of his negotiations with the principal, I was allowed to take one home. Since I needed some tape to record with, I went to a local stereo shop and bought a reel. It had already been used, so it was a bargain. When I played it, I found that someone had recorded two rock songs at the beginning of the tape. I didn't care much for the second one, but I absolutely loved the first! I listened to it over and over. I was never able to find out the title or who sang it. I played it for a few friends, and they couldn't name the song or artist, either. Eventually, I lost interest in it.
About nine years later, I was heavily into MP3s, and I planned to try to transfer many of my cassette radio tapings and other recordings to MP3 format. I remembered that rock song on the reel-to-reel tape, and decided to have a go at it. It was about this time that I also knew about Lyrics.ch. Since the title and artist of this song still eluded me, I decided to see if Lyrics.ch's full-text search engine could help. After only a few tries, I discovered the title and artist: "Isolation" by Toto. Since Lyrics.ch also lists the name of the album a song is from, I was able order a CD with the song on it, and get a much better quality copy (which was good, because now, 11 years later, that reel-to-reel tape recorder is breaking down). I tried some of Toto's other music, and soon found that I really liked them.
Lyrics.ch also helped me decipher the lyrics of lots of other music I had, as well. It was also instrumental in helping me track down a few songs I heard on the radio but for which the DJ did not announce the title or artist.
Then, in January 1999, as you know, the Harry Fox Agency and some big-money, copyright-owning record companies came knocking. When all the dust settled and the negotiations finished, Lyrics.ch was still in operation, but one could only view about 1/3 of their songs.
I gave the "new" Lyrics.ch a try. In order to view a song, I had to run a large Java applet that took a while to download and presented a "high security risk" according to Internet Explorer (my version of Netscape at the time was 4.05; not good enough to run the Java applet). Then, the lyrics appeared, but I was unable to copy-and-paste them out of the browser window. The lyrics disappeared whenever the applet lost the focus, so clicking File->Print was useless. The Java applet displayed about a page-full of lyrics at a time, but for only about five seconds per page. Not enough time to read them, and useless for singing along with the song! At the end, it just displayed, "This concludes the reading of this lyrics." I would have to reload the page to view them again.
I'm not sure, but I think the lyrics are now encrypted as they are sent down the wire to your computer. I have to wonder how much of this was mandated by the copyright holders, and how much was done by the Lyrics.ch staff simply to please them and avoid further trouble.
About the only to save the lyrics is to use screen capturing and retype the lyrics while viewing the screen capture (they'd be too small and blocky for an OCR program). This is difficult in Windows; you must quickly paste the bitmap into a paint program before capturing again. About the only operating system for which this would work is Mac OS; there when capture the screen, it automatically saves the captures with incremental filenames. I don't know how to capture the screen in X.
Why can I not save or print the lyrics as before? Sure, they're someone else's property, but wouldn't a strict copyright notice at the bottom of the page solve that? What's wrong with just good ol' HTML? And besides, they're just lyrics! What harm can one do with them? It's not like they're directly harming CD sales, like pirated MP3s.
It seems to me that this was just done by the record companies just to show the world who's boss. They could have said, "Listen, those lyrics are our intellectual property, but since they're helping people find music, we'll let your site stay up [unmolested], but you have to put this copyright notice on them and give us a cut of your ad-banner revenue." But instead, they've made the site almost useless. I refuse to run that Java applet on my home computer, too. Who knows what else it's doing, besides showing lyrics?
I realize that Lyrics.ch should not have taken such a liberty with someone else's copyrighted property, but the record companies should not have reacted as they did. Their reaction only hurt them, as far as I'm concerned. Remember how the lyrics were user-contributed before? I haven't seen any new ones added since the crackdown.
So, I applaud these brave Russians with their lyrics site. It wouldn't hurt to set up a mirror in Taiwan (a country which never signed the Berne copyright convention), too.
By the way, I've read The Right to Read, and I love it. Sorry, but my right to fair use comes before some money-grubbing record company's right to lock up harmless information like their lyrics. FIGHT THE COPYRIGHT NATION!!
Somehow the manufacturers of that game -- Quickbeam Sofware -- got wind of my activities and phoned my parents who idiotically admitted to it. They then demanded FULL PAYMENT for all 3 of the "fair use" copies I had made. And my parents coughed up.
Hold on a moment...! Did your brother spread word of this round his school? How in the world did this software company find out? How did they get your phone number?
I guess you can tell this upsets me. That software company took it too far! If I were one of your parents, I would have told them that it's none of their business. I sure hope your parents didn't reprimand you too badly.
It seems to me you live in Britain ("...at a cost of only 50p per game"). I often get the idea that copyright is enforced much more strongly in your country than in North America, and that copyright holders tend to be much more defensive about their copyrights.
I'm sure this will get lost in the noise, but I'll ask it anyway:
Why was there no PKZip for the Macintosh? A friend of mine once told me that there was a disagreement between Apple and PKWare, and as a result, PKWare refused to make any software for the Macintosh.
Does anyone have any further information or know if this is true?
I'm afraid this will be lost in the noise or will be too far down the list for anyone to care, but I remember hearing something a while back about a version of Perl or an add-on library for it that allows one to build GUI applications. Does anyone know anything about this?
Also, I'd like to thank Slashdot for advocating the use of Perl. It's truly a kick-ass language! I love how full-featured it is. When I'm programming an ASP website in VBScript, there's so much I can't do. Simple stuff, like writing a binary file to the server's hard drive. In ASP, you need to buy a damned third-party component to do it. In Perl, the functionality for that, and so many other tasks, like ripping content from other websites, is built right into the language.
I can even write a little auto-downloader for MP3s that will log onto a FTP server and keep trying until it finally gets in and downloads. And, I can extend its functionality easily, like adding support for a list of URLs to download from. In C, that would take forever to write. In Perl, it's a snap. I once wrote a small web server in C. It worked well, but handling and parsing all those strings was tricky. Now, if I port it to Perl... When I get back to work on Tuesday, every computer I use regularly will get Perl installed on it.
Anyway, that's enough gushing over how great Perl is. How about this graphical Perl? I'd love GUI Perl programs!!
It looks like the Slashdot Geek Compound to me...
Hang on! That gave me an idea!
Hey, Commander Taco, Hemos, Cowboy Neal...any Slashdot admin reading this! What are the co-ordinates of the Geek Compound? I'd like to have a look at it!
Of course, if you'd rather not divulge that information due to privacy concerns, that's fine, too, I suppose...