>>>Maybe the Japanese should leave their kiddie porn at home when they travel to the West?
Someone who doesn't know his geography probably doesn't know much about Individual Human Rights or Natural Law Philosophy either. No doubt that's why you ignored the rest of my posting - The Australian government has no more legitimate authority to outlaw art, then it does to cutoff the artist's hand, or to enslave the artist.
The marijuana possession law is null-and-void, when you obey the Law. The Supreme Law never gave Congress the power to ban a plant. The Supreme Law reserves such power to the Member States' governments. So the Congressional Prohibition is should be nullified as if never existed. This is why we need a new amendment:
The "Protect the 9th and 10th Amendments" Act. ----- Proposed Amendment XXVIII.
Section 1. After a Bill has become Law, if one-half of the State legislatures declare the Law to be "unconstitutional" it shall be null and void. It shall be as if the Law never existed. Section 2. The Supreme Court will have the authority to review cases, and as part of the ruling declare these cases constitutional or unconstitutional, however the decision by the States (section 1) shall be superior.
>>>There were a lot of jokes about Vista being a beta for Windows 7. It turns out that Vista inadvertently filled that role.
Vista isn't merely a beta of Windows 7. It's the same product. Win7 is identical to Vista, but with optimized code so it can fit inside 512 megabytes* (like vista was supposed to do in the first place). Vista NT6.0 is to Seven NT6.1 as 98 is to 98SE, or 2000 is to XP, or MAC OS 10.6.0 is to 10.6.1.
* * I've even seen Seven running on a 256 megabyte machine - Microsoft did an excellent job with their code rework. Too bad they didn't do it three years earlier BEFORE they released Vista. Or as part of a free service park (SP3).
I imagine this could have serious consequences for Japanese and other Asian travelers were images of child porn (i.e. anime and manga) are perfectly legal. In Australia such drawings are outlawed, even though there's NO victim in this so-called crime. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I don't know why our Aussie cousins put up with such nonsense, and do not demand repeal of these laws that infringe upon the individual rights of both artists and users of the art. Freedom of expression is given to us by our Creator (god or nature) and no government has legitimate authority to take away that right, anymore than it has a right to cut off our hands or gouge-out our eyes.
Commodore did it. Their announcement of bankruptcy came out of nowhere, and surprised all of their users. True the stock wasn't $0.00 but it did become essentially worthless overnight (mere pennies). Some people got word of the announcement early and were able to "bail ship" with only 25-50% losses, while others lost everything they had invested in Commodore.
A day-long limit on trades basically just forces EVERYONE to lose. There's no upside to it. In contrast second-to-second trading lets some people to escape early and limit their losses.
Day long trading is also what caused the energy crisis in California. Electrical prices fluctuate constantly, but because California politicians had imposed a day-long limit on the electricity trading market, companies could not react in a timely manner to changes in consumer demand. That created widespread shortages and rolling blackouts.
>>>Didn't you read? On his account, there's no problem. You will need to wait for 23 hours... but everybody else will have to too!
In 24 hours everybody's Bankrupt Ford stock will be worth $0.00 (or mere pennies). Why should he be forced to wait until that point to make a trade, when he has advanced knowledge of Ford's bankruptcy, and he could sell it *this second* and still recoup 10 maybe 20 dollars per stock, prior to Ford's 5 o'clock shutdown. Let him have the opportunity to minimize his losses.
I agree humans don't operate on a millisecond trading scale, and neither should the markets, but enforcing a daylong trade is just as ridiculous. California tried that with the electricity market, and it created rampant shortages since companies could not react to constantly changing demands.
Make it 1 second trades, on the scale that humans think and can make buy/sell decisions.
No it isn't. It's a Super Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle (SULEV), which means it emits 1/100th few pollutants than the Honda hybrid I drive (LEV). It isn't bullshit. It's effectively as clean as an EV, once you take into account the EV's coal-fired or natural-gas-fired source. .
>>>CO2 _IS_ now to be regarded as a pollutant.
Which is wrong. It doesn't damage living things. It doesn't damage human lungs, and it certainly doesn't damage plants which need CO2 to survive. Rather than redefining words as if this were "1984", labeling things pollutants that are not pollutants, they should simply create a new category - Global warming chemicals (such as CO2, CH4, cow flatulence, and so on).
BTW you're wrong when you say electric cars don't emit CO2. Of course they do - it's just been relocated from the exhaust pipe to the power plant. That's why ACEEE.org ranks electric cars as being no cleaner than a Prius or Civic Hybrid, and the 60MPG automatic Insight as the cleanest car in america.
>>>they are hot if the engine is running rich..... Today's engines with fuel injection and MAF sensors can run very clean without catalytic converters
Not even close to accurate (you should have been modded NON informative). Engines do run rich immediately after starting to heat the catalyst, but after 2-3 minutes move to a lean condition, in order to get high MPG scores during EPA testing. That lean condition creates lots of poisonous, lung-damaging emissions like NOx.
Without the catalyst that NOx would fill the air and create smog. With the converter it is neutralized into harmless nitrogen and oxygen.
In A People's History of the United States, HOWARD ZINN noted that Schenck's statements were more akin to a person standing outside a burning theatre and shouting "Fire!" in order to warn people not to go inside. In other words Europe was the theatre, and World War I was the fire, thus warning the American population to not become involved.
..... in order to silence people who were protesting World War 1. And suffragettes protesting for the right to vote - they ended up in jail for the mere act of saying their opinions. That's a crime against individual rights.
Also it was an illogical argument. Protesting the War Draft on public property, and yelling fire in a private theater, are NOT the same thing. Nobody is harmed if I stand on a street corner holding a sign which reads, "Stop the Draft".
"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy...... Their power all the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."
--Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:277
Yes it is. My mouth, my body, my right to say whatever I want with it. .
>>>Try yelling "fire" in the crowded theater.
I have. It was at a Rocky Horror Picture show along with dozens of other people, and the owner didn't care because it was all part of the fun. Try a better example that doesn't involve private property.
The other reason that's a lousy example is because it was the argument Woodrow Wilson used to imprison Alice Paul, suffragettes, and other people protesting World War 1 (Sound familiar? Almost like George Duh Bush). No leader or government should have that power to silence the people, even in time of war.
Agreed. But governments are far, far worse. Corporations can't throw me in jail. Corporations can't force me into the military to die in Iraq. Corporations can't take my home (eminent domain). Corporations can't send police to bust down my door and kill either me or my children.
Only governments have that power, and it's why government can never be trusted. Read human history. It's example after example of governments abusing citizens, all the way back to Ancient Rome and earlier. I can tell Bill Gates to "go get fucked" but I can't do that to Presidents Bush or Obama - they'd throw me in jail for "threats against the executive".
>>>If you are seriously injured or fall gravely ill,
then I die. (I assume we're talking major illness here, like brain cancer or somesuch.) So what? I'm going to die anyway - it makes no difference to me if it happens at age 60 or 70.
ALSO I have looked into catastrophic insurance (only pays bills over $20,000) in case I get hit with a tragic costly disease, but apparently I'd still be fined under the just-passed reform bill. That type of insurance doesn't count as "insurance" under the just passed law. .
>>>Tax policy is giving you an incentive to behave more intelligently
Which path to choose is a matter of OPINION, not fact. I am of the opinion that insurance is unnecessary for young healthy people (below age 60), since the odds of getting sick are about the same as the odds of winning the lottery. i.e. Near-zero. It's a waste of money until you reach your elder years (when the machine starts failing). I consider MY view to be the more intelligent one and since this is a "free" country, I am entitled to the view.
>>>When they aren't able to collect on your bill, they.....
take it out of the corporation's own pockets, or the pockets of the overpaid CEO, or the managers. POINT: It's not coming out of my pocket or the citizen's pockets, and that pleases me to no end. I shouldn't have to pay for service unless I actually USE that service. After all I don't get socked ~$60/month by Comcast for cable tv that I don't have - neither should XYZ Hospital be collecting money from me. .
>>>You think that Tylonol costs $10 a pill because its really good?
It doesn't. More like $5 a bottle, or around 10 cents per pill.
>>>The tea party movement started as a campaign to mail tea bags to congress.
Provide a citation. I don't remember anything like that, so if you can't provide a citation then it never happened, and you're just inventing fiction. .
>>>there's some ugly stuff percolating in the movement.
Is there? Here's a video of a DEMOCRAT rally where a black man was assaulted. His crime? Carrying a sign that said "I support school vouchers." If there's "ugly stuff" most of it is happening on the other side, not within the Tea Parties - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cz5msnOHP4
I was watching a German TV show the other day, when suddenly a young woman came strolling across the screen topless. Oooops. That's not allowed on U.S. broadcast television (although I wish it was). I'd say we're prudish, or at least the FCC is.
>>>RTFA - "pornography featuring children, violence, bestiality, and incest"
None of which should be outlawed (freedom of expression). However the people that produced that stuff should be arrested for child abuse. Too bad the FTC's not going after those criminals, so they'll just keep making more of it.
>>>it's that the general public doesn't care if the compression ruins the work as long as they can play it for free.
Good point. I'm watching the latest 24 episode, and the video is squeezed to just 70 megabytes. Looks a bit crappy, but it's free so I'm satisfied. You win.
>>>You, sir, obviously dont have a clue what you are talking about
Perhaps not but this guy DOES know what he's talking about, and he agrees with me - VP8 isn't as good quality as MPEG4: http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=377 As for my error, just go back to my previous post and replace "Flash" with "Sorenson Spark" if you're so picky.:-) It doesn't alter my opinion.
"Tall-ar-vorm". Jack Tramiel changed his company's name to Tramel so people would pronounce it probably. Maybe all that's needed is the same name to be spelled phonetically - Taller-vorm
Ogg - "Ogg derives from ogging, jargon from the computer game Netrek, which came to mean doing something forcefully, possibly without consideration of the drain on future resources." Vorbis - "named after the Terry Pratchett character from the book Small Gods." Theora - "named after Theora Jones, Edison Carter's Controller on the Max Headroom television program" - wikipedia Ptalarbvorm - no idea.
I think Ogg is rather lame, but Vorbis and Theora are better than HE-AAC v2 or h.268, as far as marketing goes.
Intra prediction is used to guess the content of a block without referring to other frames.
How the heck does that work? "Well I think Pinocchio's nose is growing in this frame, so I'll add some motion blur." - Pentium CPU. ???
Inter prediction is used to guess the content of a block by referring to past frames
The Commodore Amiga was probably the first home PC to do this. Rather than store all ~40,000 frames of the Dragon's Lair or Space Ace laserdisc games, it stored only a few key frames and then filled-in the gaps in-between. They also used rotoscoping (fixed backgrounds; moving foregrounds). That allowed it to fit these laserdiscs on just 3 floppies (1.7MB each). Not bad for a machine released in 1985.
Overall, VP8 appears to be significantly weaker than H.264 compression-wise.
Agreed..... I can tell just by looking at identical bitrate videos.
Instead of serving the media from a central server, users will provide the necessary bandwidth.
I wonder what happens if there are no users with that video stored on their drive. I certainly don't store the youtube videos I watch - they get erased immediately.
Slashdot Mirror
>>>Maybe the Japanese should leave their kiddie porn at home when they travel to the West?
Someone who doesn't know his geography probably doesn't know much about Individual Human Rights or Natural Law Philosophy either. No doubt that's why you ignored the rest of my posting - The Australian government has no more legitimate authority to outlaw art, then it does to cutoff the artist's hand, or to enslave the artist.
>>>The law tends to disagree with you there.
The marijuana possession law is null-and-void, when you obey the Law. The Supreme Law never gave Congress the power to ban a plant. The Supreme Law reserves such power to the Member States' governments. So the Congressional Prohibition is should be nullified as if never existed. This is why we need a new amendment:
The "Protect the 9th and 10th Amendments" Act.
----- Proposed Amendment XXVIII.
Section 1. After a Bill has become Law, if one-half of the State legislatures declare the Law to be "unconstitutional" it shall be null and void. It shall be as if the Law never existed.
Section 2. The Supreme Court will have the authority to review cases, and as part of the ruling declare these cases constitutional or unconstitutional, however the decision by the States (section 1) shall be superior.
>>>There were a lot of jokes about Vista being a beta for Windows 7. It turns out that Vista inadvertently filled that role.
Vista isn't merely a beta of Windows 7. It's the same product. Win7 is identical to Vista, but with optimized code so it can fit inside 512 megabytes* (like vista was supposed to do in the first place). Vista NT6.0 is to Seven NT6.1 as 98 is to 98SE, or 2000 is to XP, or MAC OS 10.6.0 is to 10.6.1.
*
* I've even seen Seven running on a 256 megabyte machine - Microsoft did an excellent job with their code rework. Too bad they didn't do it three years earlier BEFORE they released Vista. Or as part of a free service park (SP3).
I imagine this could have serious consequences for Japanese and other Asian travelers were images of child porn (i.e. anime and manga) are perfectly legal. In Australia such drawings are outlawed, even though there's NO victim in this so-called crime. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I don't know why our Aussie cousins put up with such nonsense, and do not demand repeal of these laws that infringe upon the individual rights of both artists and users of the art. Freedom of expression is given to us by our Creator (god or nature) and no government has legitimate authority to take away that right, anymore than it has a right to cut off our hands or gouge-out our eyes.
Commodore did it. Their announcement of bankruptcy came out of nowhere, and surprised all of their users. True the stock wasn't $0.00 but it did become essentially worthless overnight (mere pennies). Some people got word of the announcement early and were able to "bail ship" with only 25-50% losses, while others lost everything they had invested in Commodore.
A day-long limit on trades basically just forces EVERYONE to lose. There's no upside to it. In contrast second-to-second trading lets some people to escape early and limit their losses.
Day long trading is also what caused the energy crisis in California. Electrical prices fluctuate constantly, but because California politicians had imposed a day-long limit on the electricity trading market, companies could not react in a timely manner to changes in consumer demand. That created widespread shortages and rolling blackouts.
>>>Didn't you read? On his account, there's no problem. You will need to wait for 23 hours... but everybody else will have to too!
In 24 hours everybody's Bankrupt Ford stock will be worth $0.00 (or mere pennies). Why should he be forced to wait until that point to make a trade, when he has advanced knowledge of Ford's bankruptcy, and he could sell it *this second* and still recoup 10 maybe 20 dollars per stock, prior to Ford's 5 o'clock shutdown. Let him have the opportunity to minimize his losses.
I agree humans don't operate on a millisecond trading scale, and neither should the markets, but enforcing a daylong trade is just as ridiculous. California tried that with the electricity market, and it created rampant shortages since companies could not react to constantly changing demands.
Make it 1 second trades, on the scale that humans think and can make buy/sell decisions.
>>>PZEV is basically horse shit.
No it isn't. It's a Super Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle (SULEV), which means it emits 1/100th few pollutants than the Honda hybrid I drive (LEV). It isn't bullshit. It's effectively as clean as an EV, once you take into account the EV's coal-fired or natural-gas-fired source.
.
>>>CO2 _IS_ now to be regarded as a pollutant.
Which is wrong. It doesn't damage living things. It doesn't damage human lungs, and it certainly doesn't damage plants which need CO2 to survive. Rather than redefining words as if this were "1984", labeling things pollutants that are not pollutants, they should simply create a new category - Global warming chemicals (such as CO2, CH4, cow flatulence, and so on).
BTW you're wrong when you say electric cars don't emit CO2. Of course they do - it's just been relocated from the exhaust pipe to the power plant. That's why ACEEE.org ranks electric cars as being no cleaner than a Prius or Civic Hybrid, and the 60MPG automatic Insight as the cleanest car in america.
>>>they are hot if the engine is running rich..... Today's engines with fuel injection and MAF sensors can run very clean without catalytic converters
Not even close to accurate (you should have been modded NON informative). Engines do run rich immediately after starting to heat the catalyst, but after 2-3 minutes move to a lean condition, in order to get high MPG scores during EPA testing. That lean condition creates lots of poisonous, lung-damaging emissions like NOx.
Without the catalyst that NOx would fill the air and create smog. With the converter it is neutralized into harmless nitrogen and oxygen.
We need converters to clean the exhaust.
P.S.
In A People's History of the United States, HOWARD ZINN noted that Schenck's statements were more akin to a person standing outside a burning theatre and shouting "Fire!" in order to warn people not to go inside. In other words Europe was the theatre, and World War I was the fire, thus warning the American population to not become involved.
..... in order to silence people who were protesting World War 1. And suffragettes protesting for the right to vote - they ended up in jail for the mere act of saying their opinions. That's a crime against individual rights.
Also it was an illogical argument. Protesting the War Draft on public property, and yelling fire in a private theater, are NOT the same thing. Nobody is harmed if I stand on a street corner holding a sign which reads, "Stop the Draft".
"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. ..... Their power all the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."
--Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:277
>>>Freedom of expression is not absolute
Yes it is. My mouth, my body, my right to say whatever I want with it.
.
>>>Try yelling "fire" in the crowded theater.
I have. It was at a Rocky Horror Picture show along with dozens of other people, and the owner didn't care because it was all part of the fun. Try a better example that doesn't involve private property.
The other reason that's a lousy example is because it was the argument Woodrow Wilson used to imprison Alice Paul, suffragettes, and other people protesting World War 1 (Sound familiar? Almost like George Duh Bush). No leader or government should have that power to silence the people, even in time of war.
Anonymous Coward wrote:
That's because there's no actual *news* on fox, fuckface. It's all fear mongering and talking points.
Anonymous Coward wrote:
Well, you're a fucking moron, and generally deserve any downmodding you get, jackass.
I challenge you to repost these comments while logged-in, so people can Mod you -1 Flamebait as you deserve.
>>>Corporations are the oppressor.
Agreed. But governments are far, far worse. Corporations can't throw me in jail. Corporations can't force me into the military to die in Iraq. Corporations can't take my home (eminent domain). Corporations can't send police to bust down my door and kill either me or my children.
Only governments have that power, and it's why government can never be trusted. Read human history. It's example after example of governments abusing citizens, all the way back to Ancient Rome and earlier. I can tell Bill Gates to "go get fucked" but I can't do that to Presidents Bush or Obama - they'd throw me in jail for "threats against the executive".
>>>If you are seriously injured or fall gravely ill,
then I die. (I assume we're talking major illness here, like brain cancer or somesuch.) So what? I'm going to die anyway - it makes no difference to me if it happens at age 60 or 70.
ALSO I have looked into catastrophic insurance (only pays bills over $20,000) in case I get hit with a tragic costly disease, but apparently I'd still be fined under the just-passed reform bill. That type of insurance doesn't count as "insurance" under the just passed law.
.
>>>Tax policy is giving you an incentive to behave more intelligently
Which path to choose is a matter of OPINION, not fact. I am of the opinion that insurance is unnecessary for young healthy people (below age 60), since the odds of getting sick are about the same as the odds of winning the lottery. i.e. Near-zero. It's a waste of money until you reach your elder years (when the machine starts failing). I consider MY view to be the more intelligent one and since this is a "free" country, I am entitled to the view.
>>>When they aren't able to collect on your bill, they .....
take it out of the corporation's own pockets, or the pockets of the overpaid CEO, or the managers. POINT: It's not coming out of my pocket or the citizen's pockets, and that pleases me to no end. I shouldn't have to pay for service unless I actually USE that service. After all I don't get socked ~$60/month by Comcast for cable tv that I don't have - neither should XYZ Hospital be collecting money from me.
.
>>>You think that Tylonol costs $10 a pill because its really good?
It doesn't. More like $5 a bottle, or around 10 cents per pill.
>>>The tea party movement started as a campaign to mail tea bags to congress.
Provide a citation. I don't remember anything like that, so if you can't provide a citation then it never happened, and you're just inventing fiction.
.
>>>there's some ugly stuff percolating in the movement.
Is there? Here's a video of a DEMOCRAT rally where a black man was assaulted. His crime? Carrying a sign that said "I support school vouchers." If there's "ugly stuff" most of it is happening on the other side, not within the Tea Parties - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cz5msnOHP4
I was watching a German TV show the other day, when suddenly a young woman came strolling across the screen topless. Oooops. That's not allowed on U.S. broadcast television (although I wish it was). I'd say we're prudish, or at least the FCC is.
>>>RTFA - "pornography featuring children, violence, bestiality, and incest"
None of which should be outlawed (freedom of expression). However the people that produced that stuff should be arrested for child abuse. Too bad the FTC's not going after those criminals, so they'll just keep making more of it.
>>>it's that the general public doesn't care if the compression ruins the work as long as they can play it for free.
Good point. I'm watching the latest 24 episode, and the video is squeezed to just 70 megabytes. Looks a bit crappy, but it's free so I'm satisfied. You win.
>>>You, sir, obviously dont have a clue what you are talking about
Perhaps not but this guy DOES know what he's talking about, and he agrees with me - VP8 isn't as good quality as MPEG4: http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=377 As for my error, just go back to my previous post and replace "Flash" with "Sorenson Spark" if you're so picky. :-) It doesn't alter my opinion.
"Tall-ar-vorm". Jack Tramiel changed his company's name to Tramel so people would pronounce it probably. Maybe all that's needed is the same name to be spelled phonetically - Taller-vorm
Ogg - "Ogg derives from ogging, jargon from the computer game Netrek, which came to mean doing something forcefully, possibly without consideration of the drain on future resources."
Vorbis - "named after the Terry Pratchett character from the book Small Gods."
Theora - "named after Theora Jones, Edison Carter's Controller on the Max Headroom television program" - wikipedia
Ptalarbvorm - no idea.
I think Ogg is rather lame, but Vorbis and Theora are better than HE-AAC v2 or h.268, as far as marketing goes.
Don't you think On2 is just a bit biased? In every other direct comparison I've seen, the MPEG4 AVC (x.264) was better.
Thanks much for the link.
Intra prediction is used to guess the content of a block without referring to other frames.
How the heck does that work? "Well I think Pinocchio's nose is growing in this frame, so I'll add some motion blur." - Pentium CPU. ???
Inter prediction is used to guess the content of a block by referring to past frames
The Commodore Amiga was probably the first home PC to do this. Rather than store all ~40,000 frames of the Dragon's Lair or Space Ace laserdisc games, it stored only a few key frames and then filled-in the gaps in-between. They also used rotoscoping (fixed backgrounds; moving foregrounds). That allowed it to fit these laserdiscs on just 3 floppies (1.7MB each). Not bad for a machine released in 1985.
Overall, VP8 appears to be significantly weaker than H.264 compression-wise.
Agreed..... I can tell just by looking at identical bitrate videos.
Instead of serving the media from a central server, users will provide the necessary bandwidth.
I wonder what happens if there are no users with that video stored on their drive. I certainly don't store the youtube videos I watch - they get erased immediately.