Yes, I've regularly upgraded VLC, primarily because I prefer its user interface and appearance (and I keep hoping that the codec business will change).
Now, I'm referring to Media Player Classic, not Windows Media Player - I agree that Media Player is no good.
I use a 1.6GHz C2D to play my high def content. VLC, unfortunately, cannot play 1080P without dropping frames, but Media Player Classic with CoreAVC Pro works very well. I'm sure that with a faster processor and a more powerful video card I could get VLC to do the job, but as a card carrying cheapskate, I'll stick with what I've got.
VLC has been a non-starter for me because I can't use better performing codecs for high definition content. The internal codec doesn't approach the performance of several other codecs. I'm sticking with Media Player Classic for my XP system. It's a much better player.
By the way, does anybody else feel like the story's headline looks like it came straight from Digg?
See, back in the day,/. used to come up with one really good original April Fool's joke. It was like they crafted it over the course of a month or two, then popped it on an unsuspecting crowd. It was elegant, it was funny and it suckered lots and lots of people.
That evolved into the new philosophy of the past few years which is "if one really good joke was great, how about a bunch of really lame ones?" It's quantity over quality which, I guess, is what we want now.
History calls him the father of the hydrogen bomb, but it ought to call Stansilaw Ulam the stepfather. Teller was the whiny "my way or the highway" guy who wouldn't believe everybody else when his design was shown to be fatally flawed. Without Ulam, who knows what would have happened. Anyway, after Teller was pushed out for being a chronic a-hole, Ulam got the job done, for better or for worse.
Oh, and don't forget what Teller did to Oppenheimer. Man, talk about some egos at work...
Just a sidenote to history, of course. Richard Rhodes has written two very good books about the fission and fusion bombs.
At first I thought you said millions of "people". A little thrill went up my spine and I fired up uTorrent to do my part to depopulate California. Then I realized that you wrote "puppies". No more pirating for me.
If it shares the Earth's orbit, shouldn't its speed, relative to the Earth, be zero? Objects in the same orbit travel at the same speed, don't they? Am I just being pedantic?
I agree. Anyway, it's been quite a while since market capitalization has been a good comparison of companies, particularly in the tech sector and especially with the current chaotic market. I guess that market cap is good for bragging rights, you know, "Ha, ha, we're bigger than you," otherwise, it's a minor component of many others that we use to compare companies.
Nope, we're running off of cheap hydroelectric power. And there'd be more of it if it weren't for the "stop killing all the fish" hippies, etc.
I suppose the cheap power makes up for having to live in Idaho.
Indeed. And I hope that sentiment spreads because I'm tired of left and right coasters moving here and trying to turn the place into another California or New York. Idaho is a terrible place to life. It's absolutely miserable. Stay away.
In his case, the math says $0.27 per KWh. The national average for September from the Department of Energy was $0.1194. Looks like location is his problem, although the DoE reports that California's average was $0.1459 per KWh. Are there enough taxes to raise that by 66%?
Lucky me, I live in Idaho. 7 cents per KWh. I whine when the power bill hits $100 in the summer.
OK, so wasn't Windows 7 supposed to be usable on netbooks? If it's got the same requirements as Vista, then how the hell is that going to work exactly?
Well, something must be different, because I have it installed on an Acer Aspire One (the hard drive version) and it feels about as fast as XP was. The "Windows Experience Index" is 2.2, limited by the processor. Now, I don't do anything crazy with the netbook, right? Just email, web and movies. So far, it hasn't crashed or locked up. It wouldn't surprise me, though, if there was some more tuning to customize the OS to the smaller performance footprint of netbooks. And, FWIW, it's probably completely inappropriate for an SSD-based netbook.
I installed it on my Aspire One (the XP/hard drive version). It works fine, even with the pretty graphics turned on. The \Windows directory is about 7GB. Performance feels like it's on a par with XP. The "Windows Experience Index" is 2.2, limited by the processor.
The only thing that doesn't work is the little light on the palmrest that shows if the wireless network is enabled.
As long as we're being picky, I'll point out that WoW sells subscriptions to the game. To the tune of about $150 million a month. But, if you wish, I'll meet your apple and raise you an orange.
On the other hand, at a hundred clams, the margin on those cheap-ass plastic guitars has to be nothing less than stellar.
Oh, of course. I completely agree with you. When I say "engineer" and "bean counter", I mean in areas of primary skills. When it comes down to it, we're also technicians, psychologists and, occasionally, comedians, too (my last bonus check was certainly a joke!)
What I was driving at in my comment was to respond to the parent's comment about everybody running his company being an accountant by training.
All I can say in response is that, in my experience, I get paid appropriately for the work that I do. My pay is based on my ability, the risks that I subject my little portion of the company to and the rewards that the company enjoys as a result of my work. Oh, and I wouldn't call what I (or any other engineer in my immediate vicinity "labor").
I'm an engineer. My supervisor is an engineer. Our department head is an engineer. Our vice president is an engineer. Holy smokes, even the president of the company is an engineer. The CEO? He's a bean counter.
My advice (which is free, so it's worth every penny you're paying) is that you ought to quit worrying about how much other people are making since there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Instead, why don't you concentrate on yourself. If increasing your value to the company doesn't increase your compensation, then you have a choice to make. Either accept that your compensation is what it's going to be or start looking for another job. But getting all wound up over some guy making more money than you, justified or not, is like competitive water treading. When you're done, you're all worn out, but you haven't gone anywhere.
Oh, and on a topical note, I use Excel. Not in a bean-counter way, though. It's a great engineering tool, particularly kick-ass at calculating transmission line impedance without any special programming.
Slashdot Mirror
W00t for the company I work for: we make products for BOTH Sun and IBM servers. I guess it's a win-win situation for us!
Yes, I've regularly upgraded VLC, primarily because I prefer its user interface and appearance (and I keep hoping that the codec business will change).
Now, I'm referring to Media Player Classic, not Windows Media Player - I agree that Media Player is no good.
I use a 1.6GHz C2D to play my high def content. VLC, unfortunately, cannot play 1080P without dropping frames, but Media Player Classic with CoreAVC Pro works very well. I'm sure that with a faster processor and a more powerful video card I could get VLC to do the job, but as a card carrying cheapskate, I'll stick with what I've got.
VLC has been a non-starter for me because I can't use better performing codecs for high definition content. The internal codec doesn't approach the performance of several other codecs. I'm sticking with Media Player Classic for my XP system. It's a much better player.
By the way, does anybody else feel like the story's headline looks like it came straight from Digg?
Meh, I'm doing OK. Thanks for asking!
Holy cow, Captain Obvious actually posts on /.! And all this time I thought that it was just a sarcastic expression!
See, back in the day, /. used to come up with one really good original April Fool's joke. It was like they crafted it over the course of a month or two, then popped it on an unsuspecting crowd. It was elegant, it was funny and it suckered lots and lots of people.
That evolved into the new philosophy of the past few years which is "if one really good joke was great, how about a bunch of really lame ones?" It's quantity over quality which, I guess, is what we want now.
I miss the old /.
Oh boy, here we go...
What does all this say about guys who pitch sci-fi shows to Fox?
History calls him the father of the hydrogen bomb, but it ought to call Stansilaw Ulam the stepfather. Teller was the whiny "my way or the highway" guy who wouldn't believe everybody else when his design was shown to be fatally flawed. Without Ulam, who knows what would have happened. Anyway, after Teller was pushed out for being a chronic a-hole, Ulam got the job done, for better or for worse.
Oh, and don't forget what Teller did to Oppenheimer. Man, talk about some egos at work...
Just a sidenote to history, of course. Richard Rhodes has written two very good books about the fission and fusion bombs.
Truly, it is the water of life!
At first I thought you said millions of "people". A little thrill went up my spine and I fired up uTorrent to do my part to depopulate California. Then I realized that you wrote "puppies". No more pirating for me.
If it shares the Earth's orbit, shouldn't its speed, relative to the Earth, be zero? Objects in the same orbit travel at the same speed, don't they? Am I just being pedantic?
And since the information is from one source (the aggrieved party), I'm gonna be a little skeptical that the whole story is on the table.
Besides, it's not like they're trampling on the Constitution! (Yeah, yeah, but this isn't the same.)
Sure as sunrise, this is gonna shoot right over somebody's head.
I agree. Anyway, it's been quite a while since market capitalization has been a good comparison of companies, particularly in the tech sector and especially with the current chaotic market. I guess that market cap is good for bragging rights, you know, "Ha, ha, we're bigger than you," otherwise, it's a minor component of many others that we use to compare companies.
Now that there is a troll.
Well...a cut and paste troll. About George Carlin. Go figure.
Nope, we're running off of cheap hydroelectric power. And there'd be more of it if it weren't for the "stop killing all the fish" hippies, etc.
I suppose the cheap power makes up for having to live in Idaho.
Indeed. And I hope that sentiment spreads because I'm tired of left and right coasters moving here and trying to turn the place into another California or New York. Idaho is a terrible place to life. It's absolutely miserable. Stay away.
In his case, the math says $0.27 per KWh. The national average for September from the Department of Energy was $0.1194. Looks like location is his problem, although the DoE reports that California's average was $0.1459 per KWh. Are there enough taxes to raise that by 66%?
Lucky me, I live in Idaho. 7 cents per KWh. I whine when the power bill hits $100 in the summer.
You READ the article? With your low Slashdot ID and everything? /sign of the apocalypse
Back in the day, that's what people did on /. /. today is just a social site where nerdy kids get together and share their snarky attitudes.
OK, so wasn't Windows 7 supposed to be usable on netbooks? If it's got the same requirements as Vista, then how the hell is that going to work exactly?
Well, something must be different, because I have it installed on an Acer Aspire One (the hard drive version) and it feels about as fast as XP was. The "Windows Experience Index" is 2.2, limited by the processor. Now, I don't do anything crazy with the netbook, right? Just email, web and movies. So far, it hasn't crashed or locked up. It wouldn't surprise me, though, if there was some more tuning to customize the OS to the smaller performance footprint of netbooks. And, FWIW, it's probably completely inappropriate for an SSD-based netbook.
I installed it on my Aspire One (the XP/hard drive version). It works fine, even with the pretty graphics turned on. The \Windows directory is about 7GB. Performance feels like it's on a par with XP. The "Windows Experience Index" is 2.2, limited by the processor.
The only thing that doesn't work is the little light on the palmrest that shows if the wireless network is enabled.
And, obviously, being super picky, Blizzard sells the subscriptions. But let's not get crazy.
As long as we're being picky, I'll point out that WoW sells subscriptions to the game. To the tune of about $150 million a month. But, if you wish, I'll meet your apple and raise you an orange.
On the other hand, at a hundred clams, the margin on those cheap-ass plastic guitars has to be nothing less than stellar.
Oh, of course. I completely agree with you. When I say "engineer" and "bean counter", I mean in areas of primary skills. When it comes down to it, we're also technicians, psychologists and, occasionally, comedians, too (my last bonus check was certainly a joke!)
What I was driving at in my comment was to respond to the parent's comment about everybody running his company being an accountant by training.
Wait...people on /. actually buy music from iTunes? Ick.
All I can say in response is that, in my experience, I get paid appropriately for the work that I do. My pay is based on my ability, the risks that I subject my little portion of the company to and the rewards that the company enjoys as a result of my work. Oh, and I wouldn't call what I (or any other engineer in my immediate vicinity "labor").
I'm an engineer. My supervisor is an engineer. Our department head is an engineer. Our vice president is an engineer. Holy smokes, even the president of the company is an engineer. The CEO? He's a bean counter.
My advice (which is free, so it's worth every penny you're paying) is that you ought to quit worrying about how much other people are making since there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Instead, why don't you concentrate on yourself. If increasing your value to the company doesn't increase your compensation, then you have a choice to make. Either accept that your compensation is what it's going to be or start looking for another job. But getting all wound up over some guy making more money than you, justified or not, is like competitive water treading. When you're done, you're all worn out, but you haven't gone anywhere.
Oh, and on a topical note, I use Excel. Not in a bean-counter way, though. It's a great engineering tool, particularly kick-ass at calculating transmission line impedance without any special programming.