>9 times out of ten, they claim it's not SPAM because "I requested to be on the list".
Same crap from FutureShop. They think its a good idea to shut down sites saying less than praise about them with their lawyers, and they think that people will be happy to get crap in their email about buying TVs.
I sent an email back telling them that I'll never do business with them again.
And I haven't. Yeah, there's been times I wish I could, but my morals are stronger than that.
Anyways, since they ignored my mail for weeks on end this is a permanent boycott. I will never, ever for the rest of my life do Online shopping with FutureShop again, wether they keep wasting their time sending me their "Future Flash" or not. (Here's a flash for you, FS: Three ads in a row trying to hawk TVs to the same people are totally ineffective).
Just angry because the bastards there didn't even take me off their list after I threatened billed proofreading of their SPAM. They won't even delete my account upon request [Is that legal? -- I'd love to have firm legal ground to tell them to screw off!].
>A specialized court could be composed of jurists who have technical knowledge, which IMHO is something that would be welcomed instead of blasted.
So why don't they just ask for locksmiths for jurors next time someone is accused of B&E?
Because they don't portray a fair image of American society. The same way that a surprising number of the "computer elite" are Atheists and "information must be free" types. Maybe that's good, maybe not. But we, as computer people, don't get to decide that. Society at large does.
Too bad society at large doesn't even bother to vote (Something I think should be required before you are eligible to be on a jury -- and if you don't want to vote, that's fine. Send the ballot back with "No Confidence" written in the write in portion.)
Technical details need not confuse the issue. Computer issues aren't that hard to explain if you throw out the jargon and get a lawyer with a clue talking about it.
>There are things that can be done to slow down the rate at which spammers can do these attacks, but nothing will stop them.
Can't you just get the box to reject all packets from their subnet if their IP has more than 100 invalid account attempts in under an hour? No human would screw up that bad. If they do they don't deserve to be on the net anyways.
You could re-enable their subnet when either customers complain, or after a 1 week cooling off period.
Re:No, this is scary, not funny. I mean that.
on
RIAA to DoS Pirates?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The american revolution was about british control of our every day life. The RIAA is about getting total control of their business investments.
No, the RIAA is about controlling what, when and how you can use your computer and your media.
The British were about controlling what, when and how you can use your life.
The RIAA are about taxing your media (they already do this in America, and successfully duped our idiot "heritage" minister Sheila Copps into charging Canadians for media. As if protecting Eminem were important to Canadian Heritage).
The British were about taxing your life (boston tea tax anyone?).
I'm very surprised you don't see the exact parallels between the two. I'm not even American and I understand what the basis of the war was about.
>People swapping music is kind of like the terrorists that bombed the world trade towers they HATE america
You really don't have any clue about what the Revolution was about, do you?
It was about your freedom. This freedom includes the freedom to use your computer in any manner that doesn't harm anyone else. They were so clear about this they made sure even the thickest man on the US could understand how important this fact is to America -- they even made sure that you can own guns, the only purpose of which is to kill.
Canada, however, was a little less extereme. Our guaranteed freedoms pale in comparison to yours, yet strangely we have more digital freedoms! I can even hack your satellite TV services without fear of reprisal! Heck, the Canadian government even allows me to walk over to my neighbours house and burn copies of any of their original CDs I like! Really!
Why does America accept having less freedoms than the country they fought against so long ago? Don't you want to be the freest country in the world again? Or do you let the RIAA destroy what your forefathers gave their lives to protect?
>People swapping music HATE the RIAA, yet continue to "steal" the music. Why? because it's sounds great! If the music wasn't worth something, why steal it?
I fail to see how making a copy of someone elses copy takes money out of the RIAAs pocket. That is, unless you come up with a hypothetical situation, which is quite a faux-pas fallacy as far as debating the issue goes. You'll find using hypothetical situations a no-no in any speech making textbook. They guarantee someone in your audience will attempt to out-think you. [INT(J/P) s will exist in your audience]
Just mentioning that since the usual rhetoric is "But you would have bought it if you would have copied it!". Proof again is in the fact Canadians can hack DirecTV yet again can't pay for it. If they can't pay for it then they obviously would have done without if they couldn't hack it. Same thing with MP3, except in that case you can (not will) pay for it.
Besides that, the RIAA doesn't make the music! Find out who our enemy is before you support them with your vitriol. I want to pay the artists more than they have ever made through the pathetic rotting carcass of a business the RIAA is. They won't let me. Whenever an artist tries to let me pay them more than the RIAA would the RIAA shoves a contract up the musician's ass.
That and most have better things to do than seek out every single artist (however, I suppose I don't -- but I get my music for free legally -- read lower). But that seriously cannot cost the majority of my money put down on the CD.
>if you really think the RIAA is raping you, stop buying/sharing their music.
It isn't their friggin music (except in a weak legal sense)! They didn't make it, they didn't encourage it (unless you count shitty fabricated groups like NSync) and their only business is a mob-like racket to get a product from point A to point A.1
They do virtually nothing (apart from hyping up shitty boybands) yet recieve the largest part of your dollar spent on music.
As a volunteer radio DJ I'll even let you in on a secret: As far as I'm concerned, the RIAA does jack-squat for getting artists on the radio. When I want promo CDs on an artist from a company I simply whip off an email to the label (or the musician themselves, if they are independant) and they send me a copy of whatever it is I asked for. I don't even pay postage!
>I guess people who did a job 2 weeks ago shouldn't get paid either.
If you worked like the RIAA does, I'd sue the hell out of you for doing nothing and then overcharging for your non-product. If you work as hard as a good full time musician does I'd pay you very well.
If you ran a cartel on your service just to ensure that I had to pay you (and you only) to get through to your "suppliers" I'd say you work like a drug dealer (or a diamond dealer) and I'd get the government on your ass [Thanks EU! Now can you do something about DeBeers?].
>Let me just say that I think that all the laws that the RIAA has or has tried to get passed are wrong,
Then why do you appear to defend them so wholeheartedly?
Personally I think I'd be cool with them using reverse hacks and/or DOS techniques to shut down people "pirating" their service. Of course they have no experience at it, and are at the same stage (as far as preventing hacking) GE was with the VideoCipher (actually their anti-CD ripping technology is much more pathetic -- its worse than 80's scrambled cable PPVs!), and just look how far anti-hacking Satellite technology has come (In Canada I can just open the classified ads and have no trouble finding a dealer less than 5 minutes away. I can be setup with a full TV hacking solution and have set up working faster than actually paying the money to Dave himself! [if paying for DSS were legal here, which it is not]).
The RIAA is almost two decades behind on ECM technologies and they will never catch up. I, for one, am not afraid, especially since unlike satellite technology I can actually try to hack them back.
>It's kinda like a "forced" gnu license for music, except you're not getting the owner's permission.
The legal owner or the rightful owner? If it were the rightful owner, well, things between me and them would be very different than the currently wretched situation between myself and the RIAA. As a DJ I very much appreciate the efforts that go into making music (even if all I do is flip CDs at a radio station). Also, as a DJ, I'd be angry as hell if I thought I had to make everyone buy RIAA approved radios to listen to my show, which is what digitally encrypted music and "hackpoof" CDs are all about.
If I were a musician I'd be angry that I can't release music myself and expect to "make it". The RIAA has the market so monopolized artists are pawns to their practices.
How many of the artists at Universal are happy about their CDs being degraded? If I were an artist I'd see it as being forced to take the RIAAs license at the cost of your livelyhood.
Sorry for the long post, but there just seems to be a lot of points on which you are uninformed. I'm planning on cleaning this up and posting it to a website at somepoint so I don't have to keep typing it up all the time.:-)
>They (MusicNet) could just run the servers in the US and accept credit cards.
While this is certainly possible, violating EU law would mean that the moment an RIAA representative stepped on any bit of EU soil they'd be arrested/tried/convicted for their offense. The EU could even attempt to have RIAA officials extradited from the US for trials for their crimes. Considering countries from the EU have willingly helped the US try people in America for DMCA violations, I think an exchange like that is only par for the course.
That is unless their site denied sales to you if your CC# was from an EU country.
>It's lyrics from a song for chrissakes (Cannibal Corpse-Fucked with a Knife on 'The Bleeding' album)... it's a fucking JOKE.
Then SAY IT IS. Preface your sig with "Its funny. Laugh." Don't expect people to share your sense of humor. As I will explain below, be prepared to explain to others why this is "funny".
On that note, I'd like you to explain to me why I should find song lyrics describing psychotic rapists funny. Come up with an explanation that changes my mind and you win back my respect.
I've been more willing to tolerate blue humor than others. You can read my history of posts to see that checks out. Your humour, however, steps over the line (unless you can do the above). Rather than being funny it appears it is intended to degrade others. Not cool.
>I think it is really sad that on slashdot people like to beat their drum about free speech but they aren't very interested in practicing it...
You plagarize lyrics from a song without attribution and think Slashdot supports you?
You have a LONG way to go before you can consider yourself part of the hacker/geek/computer freedom ethic. I've been on slashdot since before there were accounts (if you ask I'll explain why my UID is so high) and I still don't know it "all" but I did pick up on the plagarizing precept very quickly.
You've a chance to change your ways however. Provide the source to the lyrics in your.sig so people don't make the (correct) inference that you mean what they say literally, and that that sig came from your mind. Be prepared to defend what Cannibal Corpse has to say, however, as even with attribution your sig is still highly charged with words considered offensive to the democratic majority. Perhaps a blurb in your BIO explaining what the context of the lyrics is, and why you don't think people should become psycho-rapists would be helpful to reduce the level of queries. Or, if you actually think people should be psycho-rapists, say so. In that case, for the sake of humanity, seek medical attention.
Remember this: Freedom of speech is about education, not about shocking others into arguing with you. Not that I'd take away your freedom of speech because of your abuse of it, however, I'm quite within my rights to ask you to kindly restrain your sig or fix it. You don't have to, but then you'd have slashdot hounding you with -1s and I'd be less than pleased.
>If I saw someone post something with a sig like "fuck all niggers... hang a nigger from a tree for me" I would most likely interpret it as a joke or whatever
>if I believed 100% that the person was being serious I wouldn't mod them down
Opinions based on hatred of blacks have no place on a board for computer discussions. Because slashdot regards freedom of speech so highly they do not delete the post. Rather, they just ensure the viewer that they have a choice in whether they want to view innapropriate material or not.
That's why you see x of y comments on the frontpage. Because they want the choice of reading it all to be as easy as reading what the masses consider as important.
This is no different than a retailer moving a newspaper stand full of hate literature to the back of the shop rather than the front. The distasteful speech is still availiable if you are so inclined. It's just regular people who have no interest in hating don't have it forced in their face.
>Sigs are supposed to be your freedom to express some pithy little message from yourself...
Fine. If your personal expression is the belief that others should listen to psychotic-rapist music then that's your opinion.
You are getting off quite lightly if you ask me. While I would respect your freedom of speech in public by decrying you publicly (without forcibly shutting you up) as I do now, there are others who are _not_ so idealistic. I don't doubt that if you wore that on a T-Shirt you'd quickly be sorry.
Basically, we (slashdot's moderators) are asking you kindly to quit using that sig (or fix it). If you choose not to do it I (and others) will exercise our freedom of speech to ensure everyone knows that words of that nature are words of a sicko.
I just spent 20 minutes finding where they moved the disable sigs option to turn it off again.
Your sig is quite offensive. Not telling you to delete it, just telling you that now I have my sigs turned on I will never take you seriously again (that is unless you apologize for your mistaken view of what is acceptable on slashdot). People I don't take seriously usually get -1 (unless their obvious intent is to be so -- such as in a joke).
That's not fascist at all, since I'm not limiting your freedom of speech. That's called being selective about who you like and dislike. I also don't take anything a Nazi says seriously and would always inform them of their comments unacceptability in a computer forum by -1ing them all the time. Your sig is actually more offensive to me -- what the heck does your sadistic relationship with women have to do with computing?
If you want to use that sig, I think you should post on alt.sadism or somewhere else that your sig is ontopic. The free world has created special areas for people with mental problems such as yours in the interest of both protecting your free speech and ensuring us "normals" aren't forced to hear it all the time.
And unlike a fascist state, your discussion "area" isn't limited in public exposure in any way whatsoever. Anyone can walk into a public library and visit a newsgroup where your sig would be ontopic right now. The difference is they have the right to choose to view your disturbed ideas, just as you have the right to say them.
Feel free to spread your dystopian views -- just don't expect people to support you for them.
I got bored and played about with my lines a little (legal in Ontario) and found out that a minumim load of 3k causes my CO to detect a phone off the hook. 3k is probably enough to make an answering machine give up too.
That and the minimum load you need to present on the line varies between CO and line length.
The regulated range is 600 - 900 Ohms. Your CO doesn't need to detect an offhook state at even 1k, and I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't some very close to that.
To ensure 100% compatibility with all phone lines in the US the telezapper must be within that range, in which case the answering machine is screwed.:-/
It is quite obvious the joke isn't that Anthrax was sent there. The joke is how they titled the story.
This is no different than "Always include children when baking". Yeah, no one thinks kids should be stuck in pots but we still laugh at it. By "we" I mean me and the many others I've said that one to.
You should be ashamed that you are asking people to give up their sense of humor because of this. There's nothing less funny than people giving up basic rights (like the right to enjoy a funny) because of a terrorist/looney (your choice).
No, sending anthrax to the FSF would not be any cooler than sending it to BG himself. That isn't funny at all. "Gnu found eating copy of GPL in RMSs pocket. RMS may need ass surgery." would be (best I could come up with in the time). Not because I would like to see RMS hurt (I wouldn't) but because the sentence is funny. Well, maybe not but you get my point, I hope.
>If it doesn't bother you then any words would be air better used elsewhere than talking to you...
Same thing here. I've talked to humorless individuals like you who can't handle the slightest bit of macabre humor (this wasn't even that -- no one died). It sends chills down my spine to think people so stolid can exist in the free world.
>I wonder if you would mind telling that joke in front of the affected people's familes?
Out of place and totally not cool.
Part of having a sense of humor is tact, which your berating statements lack in droves. Dislike breeds dislike and that's why I'm here. I don't like people who can't have a laugh.
>I dislike MS as much as the next geek but making wise cracks about this is pretty low and tasteless
Low maybe. Tasteless would be to directly involve people who were infected, such as cracking jokes about the effects of the disease on them.
Since you don't seem to have made the distinction, I will have to make it clearly evident [please, anyone who is epilleptic I have the highest respect for you -- the pathetic "joke" is actually taken from an old Cosby Show episode and is only included for educational purposes]:
eg: Tasteless: "Give an epilleptic a milk, get a milkshake".
Tasteful: "Blind man hit by invisible bus."
See the difference? The emphasis is not on the people involved or their disability in the second joke, whereas it is in the first.
>If the thought of that makes you uncomfortable then you know you shouldn't say it in the first place
Very opressive words, if I do say so myself. I find it quite offensive you would want me to curb my speech so strongly just to suit you.
Oh, and if anything ever happens to me and you feel the need to make a joke of it, go ahead. Please don't forget to ferment on the example I formed above when formulating your funny.
The SPL is the sensitivity of the speaker. Because dB are logarithmic, a +3 dB change represents twice as much sound output. The SPL is a measure of how much sound output there is per watt.
My argument about the resistance (Ohms) doesn't hold water though because when you change the power (watts), not the current or voltage, it reflects the change in resistance. The equation is Power = Current^2 * Resistance. As far as the amp is concerned, though, if it it can handle more current putting a 4 Ohm speaker rather than an 8 Ohm on it will effectively double the volume coming out of the speaker at the same level on the dial. Oh well, I guess I shouldn't post when I'm tired!
Anyways, back to the meat of the matter. Because the 93 dB speakers are 4 dB more sensitive than the 89 dB speakers you'd get more sound out of them than the 89 dB speakers (if they were 50 Watts to begin with -- at 25 Watts I'm wrong. Oh well).
Basically SPL is a measure of efficiency of the speaker. Sorta like Gas mileage. Higher is better (but watch that the distortion rating is OK).
I have a screwed up ad from Radio Shack displaying a 50 watt subwoofer @ 116 dB sensitivity for $199. I seriously doubt that anyone would tolerate a subwoofer that loud in their home, nevermind that at that price it isn't possible (yet).
I didn't assume. The retail price of these speakers is still mega bucks if you could buy 'em new (do they still sell your model?). Just because you got some hot deal on them doesn't make me wrong.
Next thing you know someone will tell me "60 Gig 15k RPM SCSI drives are not mega-$$$! I just got one for $5 from Joe on the corner of Lancaster and King! Don't ASS-U-ME!".
>with suspension blown on three woofers
"They reproduce sounds *very* well."
That's some strange speaker that sounds good with a ruined suspension on the drivers.
>So does my newspaper, do you have a point?
Non-sequitur alert!
I admit, paper isn't totally useless for speakers. With a _lot_ of treatment it is a good quality component for many modern mid-range systems. Plain paper, however, is the mark of the speakers I just pulled out of my Toyota Corolla.
I suppose for $100 BOSE speakers wouldn't be a horrible deal, however. That puts them in the market with their real competition -- mid-range computer speakers.
Now, since you decided to get picky, well, I thought I'd join in! A 500 W RMS stereo would take as much power out of your wall socket as a fridge when in use (500 W at class AB efficiencies would take about 800 or 900 W at full blast). Sorry to say it but Sony is very well known for horribly overinflating their numbers.
Not that your stereo sounds bad. The numbers seem to indicate its quite reasonable. I'm just suggesting you don't boast about your stereo's quality by watts. There's only a handful of manufactuers left that actually report the real ratings on the box. Older H/K, Yamaha, and NAD come to mind.
I know, my bubble on audio burst not too long ago too. I had to explain to a salesman that a pair of 25W RMS 4 Ohm speakers @ 93 dB SPL can be driven louder than 100W RMS 8 Ohm speakers @ 89 dB SPL. That pretty much did it in for me and shopping at chain stores for audio.
You just said "Bose" and "reproduce sounds *very* well" in the same paragraph. Sorry if I'm chortling right now...
Read the Bose Faq, and please be more careful with your future purchases.
>Deep bass tends to get crunchy VERY fast,
Sorry guy, that's your speakers talking. MP3 gets 'watery' when its compressed too much. Your drivers are likely made of plain paper. Read reviews of the product before you moderate. Some high, many, many, many rock-bottom low. And really, plain paper? My clock radio uses the same technology.
Really, I'm not trying to be a jerk, but before you spend mega-$$$ on anything again, look it up on the 'net. You just might be doing yourself a favour.
My passport photos were taken at a professional studio with a very professional looking Polaroid camera. The film was obviosly polaroid, but certainly not standard 600 for regular polaroid cameras.
You'd be surprised the amount of people that need Photo ID done in under a few minutes.
So yes, Polaroid has professional products and professional film. Although, I'm sure professionals wouldn't use it for wedding pictures.:-)
Its my strong opinion that in Canada there's only two types of people:
- People with phone lines that already support DSL and already have it.
- People with phone lines that need physical upgrading and therefore will never have DSL.
Canada has an unusual DSL picture because it seems anywhere where DSL was easy to install got it, causing a very fast spike in expansion. Now that's pretty much done you'll see DSL expansion (and therefore quality) level off permanently, IMHO. Bell has no interest in repairing their thousands of km of disastrously inane poor copper runs -- people working at Bell laugh at me when I ask if Bell's been installing a lot of DSLAMS to fix this.
>Vancouver and Toronto and their surrounding regions are where most of my information comes from.
Nice dense cities where people probably have nice tightly packed exchanges. Go outside of that type of area and you are totally screwed. You get strange things like Acton ON getting highspeed, but other more populous areas get dropped on the permanent back-burner.
Its because of this policy that you hear a lot of Canadians saying "Wow Canada has kickass DSL rollouts compared to the US. You must suck to live somewhere where there's no DSL". Give it a couple of years and more businesses will start bitching cause their lines are on the short (well, long actually) end of the stick. I know of businesses in Cambridge ON that can't get DSL. Yet Ye Old Hide House has it. [Yeah, you have to be from 'round here to get that].
My "useless" community is in the center of Ontario's technology triangle. You know, KW Ontario. University of Waterloo, RIM, Raytheon, HP, all that good stuff. The center isn't totally developed, but core city streets are only a few minutes drive away from me.
Bell won't do anything not because they don't think they won't make money on it, but because they'd have to dig up the copper to get it done since the idiots didn't put an exchange on the fiber marked 1 km away (this was before my house was built). No, they drug phone lines as far as 20 and 30 km from another exchange. Real bright. Another effect of this stupidity is having the wierdest calling area. There's people round here that can call someone within walking distance who's by Bell standards "long distance". Yet another number a hours drive away is a local call.
[The town I live in is affluent enough that yes, everyone would buy broadband. They all (yes, all) have satellite dishes out here, and most have computers, so why not? Hell, there's one family here with about 5 acres of land and a 15,000 sq ft. mansion]
If it wasn't for the fact that I don't have any startup capital, I was planning to start a wireless internet initiative here, the money would be lucrative enough. But Bell is so friggin' stupid they can't smell the green when its fanned right in their face. I asked a Bell tech if a large enough amount of signatures on a "We want DSL" petion would get them to install it.
They turned me away, saying they don't have a department to deal with that. WTF??!??!?? You need an entire department to read a petition? What kind of screwed up company are they? The same one that gets rid of their intelligent operators to hire some minimum wage 411 jockeys that give you a number from the wrong area code, even when you give them the right one!
Bell has actually done such a poor job of satisfying DSL, even at business prices, in this area that normally freakishly expensive ideas like this are blooming.
AFAIC, it doesn't get much more pathetic. I'm sharing satellite internet with people in the hills of Montana. Bell's so good at satisfying customers that I had to go to the US to get satellite internet. I get 8 Gigs for $80 CAN. My other choice would be getting it from expressvu at over $400 CAN.
BTW: Yes I am sore. The phone lines are so bad here that 56k centrex (switched 56 for the US) is a pipe dream. I'll remain sore and bitchy till Bell can at least do that for me. I mean, I'm not asking for too much to pay 5x what a city person pays for the same quality of line they get, am I? It sure seems so.
>The Red Book audio CD standard includes error correcting codes
Quite right. I should have said that most CD players will attempt to correct (and ultimately will play) errors that are uncorrectable, producing some very horrible noise; whereas a decent MP3 player should skip damaged MP3 frames completely.
>Imagine if there were say, 10 different OS classes besides Mac and *nix. The Internet would be a much different place.
Yeah, it would be a whole lot better.
I can see it now, 10% IE market share, 10% netscape share, 10% mozilla share, 10% lynx share, 10% links share, 10% arachne share, 10% mosaic share, 10% opera share, 20% other.
In that market do you think people would bother with all that shit that marketoids think makes webpages look cool, but in reality makes them:
- Internet Explorer Documents
- Slow
- Silly
- Impossible to read
- Impossible to browse
Nope. We'd be back in 1996. And you know what? I could live without mouseover, idiotic sound on webpages, pop-up javashit, and all the other horrible crap out there.
Plain text plus a few images is all I need. Well, tables are nice... But that's the end of it.
Oh, that and there'd be no ICQ, MSN, AIM, etc... They would play nicely together and form a homogeneous network that was easy to implement for all 10 OSes.
The shame. Sharing. What horrible will they think of next?;)
>BwaaaHaHaHaHa!!! You'll spend several evenings/weekends debugging, playing with UI, having the UI run dog slow, reprogramming the ir as you look for a good remote. It may be fun, if so go for it, but it will NOT take 3 hours.
That's too bad it took you that long. I know it takes under an hour because, while I didn't do it personally, I did watch someone else use a prebuilt IR unit out of the box in about 5 minutes. Looking at the complexity of the project, I know I could build it in under 30 minutes. I was overestimating, infact.
Build it yourself. Resistors, $1. LDR, $5. DB-9 to RJ-13, $2. Cable, $2. Total for the port: $10.
>soundcard with digital output
Un-necessary, but a SB-Live value is $70. I would use a Yamaha without digital out though, since it isn't necessary. $40.
Total cost: $45 + $5 + $10 + $70 = $130 CAN.
Totalling (drum roll): $83 US.
It took me about 2 hours to set up the P60. Probably would take a little longer to build the IR port (a hour -- there's good advice on the web if you spend 5 minutes searching). Add another 2 hours to get the software working (probably too much).
That's 3 hours of your time. Unless you are being paid $40 an hour, well, guess what, you are saving money. That plus you get to enjoy a home built, ogg supporting, fun, extensible, and ultimately cool system.
>Has anybody seen anything like this for under $500?
Since its a notebook network, why not get a used P100 notebook with 2 PCMCIA slots? Put in a soundcard, and put in an 802.11b card. Load on some MP3 software and you're golden!
>A P90 barely has enough power to decode MP3 anyway.
It has plenty enough power. I had mpg123 playing 256 kbits MP3s on a P60 with only EISA slots, over NFS on an ISA soundcard and 3com Etherlink III card! Not a single skip, unless I started doing anything else on the machine. (The machine was an original Compaq Prosignia or something like that).
>you can hear all those fans and platter spinning around
Rip out the HDDs, boot of the network. Rip the fan off the CPU, and use a bigger heatsink (this is fine for virtually all the original pentium series. You can easily build a power supply without fans. Problems solved:-)
Don't forget to put the server in another room/closet.
>Well, MP3 ruins the listening experience so maybe it's a wash
Check out www.r3mix.net if you are having trouble with MP3 quality. You simply aren't encoding at a good enough bitrate. If you can tell 256 kbps MP3 from the original then you must be a bat.
Re:Keeping up with kernels
on
Torvalds Tells All
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
>If I were a product manager and got told "you're going to have to have a developer spend 2 weeks rewriting some code because some guy decided to break the API for no good reason", I would *not* be a happy camper.
I realise that. I guess its a fine line between making Linux a binary-freindly mess like Windows and making it company unfriendly. Maybe I should have been a little less extreme. But I really prefer open source drivers -- they usually just work more properly (not always higher performance, but in a more standard way).
I've been down the road of products that are half supported in Linux by the manufacturer. I have a telemann skymedia card whose drivers are binary. The company pretends their card is fully Linux compatible, but I have to run an out of date kernel 2.2. This wouldn't be a problem but the skymedia card is a satellite network card! This is the sort of thing that the new IPTABLES and NAT were cut out for. Argh!
I have to question that if Telemann thought their card was only going to work for a month in Linux, would they have decided to open source the drivers? In which case I think they'd have been ported to 2.4 by now. I have heard of some hacks that get the 2.2 binaries working with 2.4, but they just didn't work for me.
Yeah, they could have decided not to bother with Linux support at all. In which case I would have found another card to do the job from a manufacturer that "gets it" and they wouldn't have my money. As it is right now Telemann has left me high and dry and I have no interest in ever doing business with them again. That's not cool.
They have become so M$ified I can't even browse their website in Netscape last time I looked! What kind of idiot sets the webserver to send.asp files as octet-stream/binary when its HTML? Just wading through the broken javascript is enough to give you chills up your spine! (www.telemann.com for the interested)
Bottom line, IMHO, is that binaries give you short term gain for long term customer lossage.
Slashdot Mirror
>9 times out of ten, they claim it's not SPAM because "I requested to be on the list".
Same crap from FutureShop. They think its a good idea to shut down sites saying less than praise about them with their lawyers, and they think that people will be happy to get crap in their email about buying TVs.
I sent an email back telling them that I'll never do business with them again.
And I haven't. Yeah, there's been times I wish I could, but my morals are stronger than that.
Anyways, since they ignored my mail for weeks on end this is a permanent boycott. I will never, ever for the rest of my life do Online shopping with FutureShop again, wether they keep wasting their time sending me their "Future Flash" or not. (Here's a flash for you, FS: Three ads in a row trying to hawk TVs to the same people are totally ineffective).
Just angry because the bastards there didn't even take me off their list after I threatened billed proofreading of their SPAM. They won't even delete my account upon request [Is that legal? -- I'd love to have firm legal ground to tell them to screw off!].
>A specialized court could be composed of jurists who have technical knowledge, which IMHO is something that would be welcomed instead of blasted.
So why don't they just ask for locksmiths for jurors next time someone is accused of B&E?
Because they don't portray a fair image of American society. The same way that a surprising number of the "computer elite" are Atheists and "information must be free" types. Maybe that's good, maybe not. But we, as computer people, don't get to decide that. Society at large does.
Too bad society at large doesn't even bother to vote (Something I think should be required before you are eligible to be on a jury -- and if you don't want to vote, that's fine. Send the ballot back with "No Confidence" written in the write in portion.)
Technical details need not confuse the issue. Computer issues aren't that hard to explain if you throw out the jargon and get a lawyer with a clue talking about it.
>Now excuse me. I have to go sue McDonalds becuase they insist on serving me Coke, and it's my right to want and get Pepsi.
Sure. But does McDonald's add extra ingredients to their food to ensure that when you get take out you puke if you drink Pepsi with it?
If they did (aside from the medical aspects) would the government allow them to? Probably not.
>There are things that can be done to slow down the rate at which spammers can do these attacks, but nothing will stop them.
Can't you just get the box to reject all packets from their subnet if their IP has more than 100 invalid account attempts in under an hour? No human would screw up that bad. If they do they don't deserve to be on the net anyways.
You could re-enable their subnet when either customers complain, or after a 1 week cooling off period.
The american revolution was about british control of our every day life. The RIAA is about getting total control of their business investments.
:-)
No, the RIAA is about controlling what, when and how you can use your computer and your media.
The British were about controlling what, when and how you can use your life.
The RIAA are about taxing your media (they already do this in America, and successfully duped our idiot "heritage" minister Sheila Copps into charging Canadians for media. As if protecting Eminem were important to Canadian Heritage).
The British were about taxing your life (boston tea tax anyone?).
I'm very surprised you don't see the exact parallels between the two. I'm not even American and I understand what the basis of the war was about.
>People swapping music is kind of like the terrorists that bombed the world trade towers they HATE america
You really don't have any clue about what the Revolution was about, do you?
It was about your freedom. This freedom includes the freedom to use your computer in any manner that doesn't harm anyone else. They were so clear about this they made sure even the thickest man on the US could understand how important this fact is to America -- they even made sure that you can own guns, the only purpose of which is to kill.
Canada, however, was a little less extereme. Our guaranteed freedoms pale in comparison to yours, yet strangely we have more digital freedoms! I can even hack your satellite TV services without fear of reprisal! Heck, the Canadian government even allows me to walk over to my neighbours house and burn copies of any of their original CDs I like! Really!
Why does America accept having less freedoms than the country they fought against so long ago? Don't you want to be the freest country in the world again? Or do you let the RIAA destroy what your forefathers gave their lives to protect?
>People swapping music HATE the RIAA, yet continue to "steal" the music. Why? because it's sounds great! If the music wasn't worth something, why steal it?
I fail to see how making a copy of someone elses copy takes money out of the RIAAs pocket. That is, unless you come up with a hypothetical situation, which is quite a faux-pas fallacy as far as debating the issue goes. You'll find using hypothetical situations a no-no in any speech making textbook. They guarantee someone in your audience will attempt to out-think you. [INT(J/P) s will exist in your audience]
Just mentioning that since the usual rhetoric is "But you would have bought it if you would have copied it!". Proof again is in the fact Canadians can hack DirecTV yet again can't pay for it. If they can't pay for it then they obviously would have done without if they couldn't hack it. Same thing with MP3, except in that case you can (not will) pay for it.
Besides that, the RIAA doesn't make the music! Find out who our enemy is before you support them with your vitriol. I want to pay the artists more than they have ever made through the pathetic rotting carcass of a business the RIAA is. They won't let me. Whenever an artist tries to let me pay them more than the RIAA would the RIAA shoves a contract up the musician's ass.
That and most have better things to do than seek out every single artist (however, I suppose I don't -- but I get my music for free legally -- read lower). But that seriously cannot cost the majority of my money put down on the CD.
>if you really think the RIAA is raping you, stop buying/sharing their music.
It isn't their friggin music (except in a weak legal sense)! They didn't make it, they didn't encourage it (unless you count shitty fabricated groups like NSync) and their only business is a mob-like racket to get a product from point A to point A.1
They do virtually nothing (apart from hyping up shitty boybands) yet recieve the largest part of your dollar spent on music.
As a volunteer radio DJ I'll even let you in on a secret: As far as I'm concerned, the RIAA does jack-squat for getting artists on the radio. When I want promo CDs on an artist from a company I simply whip off an email to the label (or the musician themselves, if they are independant) and they send me a copy of whatever it is I asked for. I don't even pay postage!
>I guess people who did a job 2 weeks ago shouldn't get paid either.
If you worked like the RIAA does, I'd sue the hell out of you for doing nothing and then overcharging for your non-product. If you work as hard as a good full time musician does I'd pay you very well.
If you ran a cartel on your service just to ensure that I had to pay you (and you only) to get through to your "suppliers" I'd say you work like a drug dealer (or a diamond dealer) and I'd get the government on your ass [Thanks EU! Now can you do something about DeBeers?].
>Let me just say that I think that all the laws that the RIAA has or has tried to get passed are wrong,
Then why do you appear to defend them so wholeheartedly?
Personally I think I'd be cool with them using reverse hacks and/or DOS techniques to shut down people "pirating" their service. Of course they have no experience at it, and are at the same stage (as far as preventing hacking) GE was with the VideoCipher (actually their anti-CD ripping technology is much more pathetic -- its worse than 80's scrambled cable PPVs!), and just look how far anti-hacking Satellite technology has come (In Canada I can just open the classified ads and have no trouble finding a dealer less than 5 minutes away. I can be setup with a full TV hacking solution and have set up working faster than actually paying the money to Dave himself! [if paying for DSS were legal here, which it is not]).
The RIAA is almost two decades behind on ECM technologies and they will never catch up. I, for one, am not afraid, especially since unlike satellite technology I can actually try to hack them back.
>It's kinda like a "forced" gnu license for music, except you're not getting the owner's permission.
The legal owner or the rightful owner? If it were the rightful owner, well, things between me and them would be very different than the currently wretched situation between myself and the RIAA. As a DJ I very much appreciate the efforts that go into making music (even if all I do is flip CDs at a radio station). Also, as a DJ, I'd be angry as hell if I thought I had to make everyone buy RIAA approved radios to listen to my show, which is what digitally encrypted music and "hackpoof" CDs are all about.
If I were a musician I'd be angry that I can't release music myself and expect to "make it". The RIAA has the market so monopolized artists are pawns to their practices.
How many of the artists at Universal are happy about their CDs being degraded? If I were an artist I'd see it as being forced to take the RIAAs license at the cost of your livelyhood.
Sorry for the long post, but there just seems to be a lot of points on which you are uninformed. I'm planning on cleaning this up and posting it to a website at somepoint so I don't have to keep typing it up all the time.
Please post some news. As in NEWs.
Thank you.
>They (MusicNet) could just run the servers in the US and accept credit cards.
While this is certainly possible, violating EU law would mean that the moment an RIAA representative stepped on any bit of EU soil they'd be arrested/tried/convicted for their offense. The EU could even attempt to have RIAA officials extradited from the US for trials for their crimes. Considering countries from the EU have willingly helped the US try people in America for DMCA violations, I think an exchange like that is only par for the course.
That is unless their site denied sales to you if your CC# was from an EU country.
>It's lyrics from a song for chrissakes (Cannibal Corpse-Fucked with a Knife on 'The Bleeding' album)... it's a fucking JOKE.
.sig so people don't make the (correct) inference that you mean what they say literally, and that that sig came from your mind. Be prepared to defend what Cannibal Corpse has to say, however, as even with attribution your sig is still highly charged with words considered offensive to the democratic majority. Perhaps a blurb in your BIO explaining what the context of the lyrics is, and why you don't think people should become psycho-rapists would be helpful to reduce the level of queries. Or, if you actually think people should be psycho-rapists, say so. In that case, for the sake of humanity, seek medical attention.
Then SAY IT IS. Preface your sig with "Its funny. Laugh." Don't expect people to share your sense of humor. As I will explain below, be prepared to explain to others why this is "funny".
On that note, I'd like you to explain to me why I should find song lyrics describing psychotic rapists funny. Come up with an explanation that changes my mind and you win back my respect.
I've been more willing to tolerate blue humor than others. You can read my history of posts to see that checks out. Your humour, however, steps over the line (unless you can do the above). Rather than being funny it appears it is intended to degrade others. Not cool.
>I think it is really sad that on slashdot people like to beat their drum about free speech but they aren't very interested in practicing it...
You plagarize lyrics from a song without attribution and think Slashdot supports you?
You have a LONG way to go before you can consider yourself part of the hacker/geek/computer freedom ethic. I've been on slashdot since before there were accounts (if you ask I'll explain why my UID is so high) and I still don't know it "all" but I did pick up on the plagarizing precept very quickly.
You've a chance to change your ways however. Provide the source to the lyrics in your
Remember this: Freedom of speech is about education, not about shocking others into arguing with you. Not that I'd take away your freedom of speech because of your abuse of it, however, I'm quite within my rights to ask you to kindly restrain your sig or fix it. You don't have to, but then you'd have slashdot hounding you with -1s and I'd be less than pleased.
>If I saw someone post something with a sig like "fuck all niggers... hang a nigger from a tree for me" I would most likely interpret it as a joke or whatever
>if I believed 100% that the person was being serious I wouldn't mod them down
Opinions based on hatred of blacks have no place on a board for computer discussions. Because slashdot regards freedom of speech so highly they do not delete the post. Rather, they just ensure the viewer that they have a choice in whether they want to view innapropriate material or not.
That's why you see x of y comments on the frontpage. Because they want the choice of reading it all to be as easy as reading what the masses consider as important.
This is no different than a retailer moving a newspaper stand full of hate literature to the back of the shop rather than the front. The distasteful speech is still availiable if you are so inclined. It's just regular people who have no interest in hating don't have it forced in their face.
>Sigs are supposed to be your freedom to express some pithy little message from yourself...
Fine. If your personal expression is the belief that others should listen to psychotic-rapist music then that's your opinion.
You are getting off quite lightly if you ask me. While I would respect your freedom of speech in public by decrying you publicly (without forcibly shutting you up) as I do now, there are others who are _not_ so idealistic. I don't doubt that if you wore that on a T-Shirt you'd quickly be sorry.
Basically, we (slashdot's moderators) are asking you kindly to quit using that sig (or fix it). If you choose not to do it I (and others) will exercise our freedom of speech to ensure everyone knows that words of that nature are words of a sicko.
Just my 2 cents.
I just spent 20 minutes finding where they moved the disable sigs option to turn it off again.
Your sig is quite offensive. Not telling you to delete it, just telling you that now I have my sigs turned on I will never take you seriously again (that is unless you apologize for your mistaken view of what is acceptable on slashdot). People I don't take seriously usually get -1 (unless their obvious intent is to be so -- such as in a joke).
That's not fascist at all, since I'm not limiting your freedom of speech. That's called being selective about who you like and dislike. I also don't take anything a Nazi says seriously and would always inform them of their comments unacceptability in a computer forum by -1ing them all the time. Your sig is actually more offensive to me -- what the heck does your sadistic relationship with women have to do with computing?
If you want to use that sig, I think you should post on alt.sadism or somewhere else that your sig is ontopic. The free world has created special areas for people with mental problems such as yours in the interest of both protecting your free speech and ensuring us "normals" aren't forced to hear it all the time.
And unlike a fascist state, your discussion "area" isn't limited in public exposure in any way whatsoever. Anyone can walk into a public library and visit a newsgroup where your sig would be ontopic right now. The difference is they have the right to choose to view your disturbed ideas, just as you have the right to say them.
Feel free to spread your dystopian views -- just don't expect people to support you for them.
I got bored and played about with my lines a little (legal in Ontario) and found out that a minumim load of 3k causes my CO to detect a phone off the hook. 3k is probably enough to make an answering machine give up too.
:-/
That and the minimum load you need to present on the line varies between CO and line length.
The regulated range is 600 - 900 Ohms. Your CO doesn't need to detect an offhook state at even 1k, and I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't some very close to that.
To ensure 100% compatibility with all phone lines in the US the telezapper must be within that range, in which case the answering machine is screwed.
Get a sense of humor.
It is quite obvious the joke isn't that Anthrax was sent there. The joke is how they titled the story.
This is no different than "Always include children when baking". Yeah, no one thinks kids should be stuck in pots but we still laugh at it. By "we" I mean me and the many others I've said that one to.
You should be ashamed that you are asking people to give up their sense of humor because of this. There's nothing less funny than people giving up basic rights (like the right to enjoy a funny) because of a terrorist/looney (your choice).
No, sending anthrax to the FSF would not be any cooler than sending it to BG himself. That isn't funny at all. "Gnu found eating copy of GPL in RMSs pocket. RMS may need ass surgery." would be (best I could come up with in the time). Not because I would like to see RMS hurt (I wouldn't) but because the sentence is funny. Well, maybe not but you get my point, I hope.
>If it doesn't bother you then any words would be air better used elsewhere than talking to you...
Same thing here. I've talked to humorless individuals like you who can't handle the slightest bit of macabre humor (this wasn't even that -- no one died). It sends chills down my spine to think people so stolid can exist in the free world.
>I wonder if you would mind telling that joke in front of the affected people's familes?
Out of place and totally not cool.
Part of having a sense of humor is tact, which your berating statements lack in droves. Dislike breeds dislike and that's why I'm here. I don't like people who can't have a laugh.
>I dislike MS as much as the next geek but making wise cracks about this is pretty low and tasteless
Low maybe. Tasteless would be to directly involve people who were infected, such as cracking jokes about the effects of the disease on them.
Since you don't seem to have made the distinction, I will have to make it clearly evident [please, anyone who is epilleptic I have the highest respect for you -- the pathetic "joke" is actually taken from an old Cosby Show episode and is only included for educational purposes]:
eg: Tasteless: "Give an epilleptic a milk, get a milkshake".
Tasteful: "Blind man hit by invisible bus."
See the difference? The emphasis is not on the people involved or their disability in the second joke, whereas it is in the first.
>If the thought of that makes you uncomfortable then you know you shouldn't say it in the first place
Very opressive words, if I do say so myself. I find it quite offensive you would want me to curb my speech so strongly just to suit you.
Oh, and if anything ever happens to me and you feel the need to make a joke of it, go ahead. Please don't forget to ferment on the example I formed above when formulating your funny.
My final words: Lighten Up!
The SPL is the sensitivity of the speaker. Because dB are logarithmic, a +3 dB change represents twice as much sound output. The SPL is a measure of how much sound output there is per watt.
My argument about the resistance (Ohms) doesn't hold water though because when you change the power (watts), not the current or voltage, it reflects the change in resistance. The equation is Power = Current^2 * Resistance. As far as the amp is concerned, though, if it it can handle more current putting a 4 Ohm speaker rather than an 8 Ohm on it will effectively double the volume coming out of the speaker at the same level on the dial. Oh well, I guess I shouldn't post when I'm tired!
Anyways, back to the meat of the matter. Because the 93 dB speakers are 4 dB more sensitive than the 89 dB speakers you'd get more sound out of them than the 89 dB speakers (if they were 50 Watts to begin with -- at 25 Watts I'm wrong. Oh well).
Basically SPL is a measure of efficiency of the speaker. Sorta like Gas mileage. Higher is better (but watch that the distortion rating is OK).
There's more info here.
I have a screwed up ad from Radio Shack displaying a 50 watt subwoofer @ 116 dB sensitivity for $199. I seriously doubt that anyone would tolerate a subwoofer that loud in their home, nevermind that at that price it isn't possible (yet).
HTH
>Don't make assumptions.
I didn't assume. The retail price of these speakers is still mega bucks if you could buy 'em new (do they still sell your model?). Just because you got some hot deal on them doesn't make me wrong.
Next thing you know someone will tell me "60 Gig 15k RPM SCSI drives are not mega-$$$! I just got one for $5 from Joe on the corner of Lancaster and King! Don't ASS-U-ME!".
>with suspension blown on three woofers
"They reproduce sounds *very* well."
That's some strange speaker that sounds good with a ruined suspension on the drivers.
>So does my newspaper, do you have a point?
Non-sequitur alert!
I admit, paper isn't totally useless for speakers. With a _lot_ of treatment it is a good quality component for many modern mid-range systems. Plain paper, however, is the mark of the speakers I just pulled out of my Toyota Corolla.
I suppose for $100 BOSE speakers wouldn't be a horrible deal, however. That puts them in the market with their real competition -- mid-range computer speakers.
Now, since you decided to get picky, well, I thought I'd join in! A 500 W RMS stereo would take as much power out of your wall socket as a fridge when in use (500 W at class AB efficiencies would take about 800 or 900 W at full blast). Sorry to say it but Sony is very well known for horribly overinflating their numbers.
Not that your stereo sounds bad. The numbers seem to indicate its quite reasonable. I'm just suggesting you don't boast about your stereo's quality by watts. There's only a handful of manufactuers left that actually report the real ratings on the box. Older H/K, Yamaha, and NAD come to mind.
I know, my bubble on audio burst not too long ago too. I had to explain to a salesman that a pair of 25W RMS 4 Ohm speakers @ 93 dB SPL can be driven louder than 100W RMS 8 Ohm speakers @ 89 dB SPL. That pretty much did it in for me and shopping at chain stores for audio.
You just said "Bose" and "reproduce sounds *very* well" in the same paragraph. Sorry if I'm chortling right now...
Read the Bose Faq, and please be more careful with your future purchases.
>Deep bass tends to get crunchy VERY fast,
Sorry guy, that's your speakers talking. MP3 gets 'watery' when its compressed too much. Your drivers are likely made of plain paper. Read reviews of the product before you moderate. Some high, many, many, many rock-bottom low. And really, plain paper? My clock radio uses the same technology.
Really, I'm not trying to be a jerk, but before you spend mega-$$$ on anything again, look it up on the 'net. You just might be doing yourself a favour.
>what would professionals use polaroids for?
:-)
My passport photos were taken at a professional studio with a very professional looking Polaroid camera. The film was obviosly polaroid, but certainly not standard 600 for regular polaroid cameras.
You'd be surprised the amount of people that need Photo ID done in under a few minutes.
So yes, Polaroid has professional products and professional film. Although, I'm sure professionals wouldn't use it for wedding pictures.
>I would be interested in hearing if any Canadians are having trouble with broadband access in urban settings.
:-)
Read my other post then, if you don't mind.
Its my strong opinion that in Canada there's only two types of people:
- People with phone lines that already support DSL and already have it.
- People with phone lines that need physical upgrading and therefore will never have DSL.
Canada has an unusual DSL picture because it seems anywhere where DSL was easy to install got it, causing a very fast spike in expansion. Now that's pretty much done you'll see DSL expansion (and therefore quality) level off permanently, IMHO. Bell has no interest in repairing their thousands of km of disastrously inane poor copper runs -- people working at Bell laugh at me when I ask if Bell's been installing a lot of DSLAMS to fix this.
>Vancouver and Toronto and their surrounding regions are where most of my information comes from.
Nice dense cities where people probably have nice tightly packed exchanges. Go outside of that type of area and you are totally screwed. You get strange things like Acton ON getting highspeed, but other more populous areas get dropped on the permanent back-burner.
Its because of this policy that you hear a lot of Canadians saying "Wow Canada has kickass DSL rollouts compared to the US. You must suck to live somewhere where there's no DSL". Give it a couple of years and more businesses will start bitching cause their lines are on the short (well, long actually) end of the stick. I know of businesses in Cambridge ON that can't get DSL. Yet Ye Old Hide House has it. [Yeah, you have to be from 'round here to get that].
My "useless" community is in the center of Ontario's technology triangle. You know, KW Ontario. University of Waterloo, RIM, Raytheon, HP, all that good stuff. The center isn't totally developed, but core city streets are only a few minutes drive away from me.
Bell won't do anything not because they don't think they won't make money on it, but because they'd have to dig up the copper to get it done since the idiots didn't put an exchange on the fiber marked 1 km away (this was before my house was built). No, they drug phone lines as far as 20 and 30 km from another exchange. Real bright. Another effect of this stupidity is having the wierdest calling area. There's people round here that can call someone within walking distance who's by Bell standards "long distance". Yet another number a hours drive away is a local call.
[The town I live in is affluent enough that yes, everyone would buy broadband. They all (yes, all) have satellite dishes out here, and most have computers, so why not? Hell, there's one family here with about 5 acres of land and a 15,000 sq ft. mansion]
If it wasn't for the fact that I don't have any startup capital, I was planning to start a wireless internet initiative here, the money would be lucrative enough. But Bell is so friggin' stupid they can't smell the green when its fanned right in their face. I asked a Bell tech if a large enough amount of signatures on a "We want DSL" petion would get them to install it.
They turned me away, saying they don't have a department to deal with that. WTF??!??!?? You need an entire department to read a petition? What kind of screwed up company are they? The same one that gets rid of their intelligent operators to hire some minimum wage 411 jockeys that give you a number from the wrong area code, even when you give them the right one!
Bell has actually done such a poor job of satisfying DSL, even at business prices, in this area that normally freakishly expensive ideas like this are blooming.
AFAIC, it doesn't get much more pathetic. I'm sharing satellite internet with people in the hills of Montana. Bell's so good at satisfying customers that I had to go to the US to get satellite internet. I get 8 Gigs for $80 CAN. My other choice would be getting it from expressvu at over $400 CAN.
BTW: Yes I am sore. The phone lines are so bad here that 56k centrex (switched 56 for the US) is a pipe dream. I'll remain sore and bitchy till Bell can at least do that for me. I mean, I'm not asking for too much to pay 5x what a city person pays for the same quality of line they get, am I? It sure seems so.
>The Red Book audio CD standard includes error correcting codes
Quite right. I should have said that most CD players will attempt to correct (and ultimately will play) errors that are uncorrectable, producing some very horrible noise; whereas a decent MP3 player should skip damaged MP3 frames completely.
>Imagine if there were say, 10 different OS classes besides Mac and *nix. The Internet would be a much different place.
;)
Yeah, it would be a whole lot better.
I can see it now, 10% IE market share, 10% netscape share, 10% mozilla share, 10% lynx share, 10% links share, 10% arachne share, 10% mosaic share, 10% opera share, 20% other.
In that market do you think people would bother with all that shit that marketoids think makes webpages look cool, but in reality makes them:
- Internet Explorer Documents
- Slow
- Silly
- Impossible to read
- Impossible to browse
Nope. We'd be back in 1996. And you know what? I could live without mouseover, idiotic sound on webpages, pop-up javashit, and all the other horrible crap out there.
Plain text plus a few images is all I need. Well, tables are nice... But that's the end of it.
Oh, that and there'd be no ICQ, MSN, AIM, etc... They would play nicely together and form a homogeneous network that was easy to implement for all 10 OSes.
The shame. Sharing. What horrible will they think of next?
>BwaaaHaHaHaHa!!! You'll spend several evenings/weekends debugging, playing with UI, having the UI run dog slow, reprogramming the ir as you look for a good remote. It may be fun, if so go for it, but it will NOT take 3 hours.
That's too bad it took you that long. I know it takes under an hour because, while I didn't do it personally, I did watch someone else use a prebuilt IR unit out of the box in about 5 minutes. Looking at the complexity of the project, I know I could build it in under 30 minutes. I was overestimating, infact.
The prices I quote are $CAN.
:-)
>p90, mainboard, 8MB RAM
$40-$50. I'm sure you can do better.
>network card
Etherlink III costs about $5.
>ir port
Build it yourself. Resistors, $1. LDR, $5. DB-9 to RJ-13, $2. Cable, $2. Total for the port: $10.
>soundcard with digital output
Un-necessary, but a SB-Live value is $70. I would use a Yamaha without digital out though, since it isn't necessary. $40.
Total cost: $45 + $5 + $10 + $70 = $130 CAN.
Totalling (drum roll): $83 US.
It took me about 2 hours to set up the P60. Probably would take a little longer to build the IR port (a hour -- there's good advice on the web if you spend 5 minutes searching). Add another 2 hours to get the software working (probably too much).
That's 3 hours of your time. Unless you are being paid $40 an hour, well, guess what, you are saving money. That plus you get to enjoy a home built, ogg supporting, fun, extensible, and ultimately cool system.
I know which way I'd go.
>If you can't tell the difference between MP3 and CD you must be a stump.
Sure I can tell the difference. One format is smaller and includes error checking. The other does not.
>Has anybody seen anything like this for under $500?
Since its a notebook network, why not get a used P100 notebook with 2 PCMCIA slots? Put in a soundcard, and put in an 802.11b card. Load on some MP3 software and you're golden!
Problem solved for less than buying a bridge...
>A P90 barely has enough power to decode MP3 anyway.
:-)
It has plenty enough power. I had mpg123 playing 256 kbits MP3s on a P60 with only EISA slots, over NFS on an ISA soundcard and 3com Etherlink III card! Not a single skip, unless I started doing anything else on the machine. (The machine was an original Compaq Prosignia or something like that).
>you can hear all those fans and platter spinning around
Rip out the HDDs, boot of the network. Rip the fan off the CPU, and use a bigger heatsink (this is fine for virtually all the original pentium series. You can easily build a power supply without fans. Problems solved
Don't forget to put the server in another room/closet.
>Well, MP3 ruins the listening experience so maybe it's a wash
Check out www.r3mix.net if you are having trouble with MP3 quality. You simply aren't encoding at a good enough bitrate. If you can tell 256 kbps MP3 from the original then you must be a bat.
>If I were a product manager and got told "you're going to have to have a developer spend 2 weeks rewriting some code because some guy decided to break the API for no good reason", I would *not* be a happy camper.
.asp files as octet-stream/binary when its HTML? Just wading through the broken javascript is enough to give you chills up your spine! (www.telemann.com for the interested)
I realise that. I guess its a fine line between making Linux a binary-freindly mess like Windows and making it company unfriendly. Maybe I should have been a little less extreme. But I really prefer open source drivers -- they usually just work more properly (not always higher performance, but in a more standard way).
I've been down the road of products that are half supported in Linux by the manufacturer. I have a telemann skymedia card whose drivers are binary. The company pretends their card is fully Linux compatible, but I have to run an out of date kernel 2.2. This wouldn't be a problem but the skymedia card is a satellite network card! This is the sort of thing that the new IPTABLES and NAT were cut out for. Argh!
I have to question that if Telemann thought their card was only going to work for a month in Linux, would they have decided to open source the drivers? In which case I think they'd have been ported to 2.4 by now. I have heard of some hacks that get the 2.2 binaries working with 2.4, but they just didn't work for me.
Yeah, they could have decided not to bother with Linux support at all. In which case I would have found another card to do the job from a manufacturer that "gets it" and they wouldn't have my money. As it is right now Telemann has left me high and dry and I have no interest in ever doing business with them again. That's not cool.
They have become so M$ified I can't even browse their website in Netscape last time I looked! What kind of idiot sets the webserver to send
Bottom line, IMHO, is that binaries give you short term gain for long term customer lossage.