That much is true. For many audiophiles, much like movie collectors, it's about the prestige and supposed bragging rights of owning something in a specific physical format, often with "Collector's Edition" or "Limited Edition" printed on it.
But this is the Christian Heritage Party's moment to shine!
Note to people somehow unable to use internet search: the CHP is (from memory) anti-abortion, anti-contraception, all the way up to (some degree) antidivorce. Seeing one of their election signs on a front lawn is a good warning to stay away from the property owner.
Would you rather have people who are honestly uncertain or people who are dishonestly certain? Honest certainty is the ideal scenario, but certainty is a hard thing to get in science (and some would argue that you should never be too certain, anyway).
There is one exception and that is the near-psychopathic Edward Teller, who was obsessed with using nuclear weapons to "solve" every problem. He was trotted out for years as a token pro-nuclear scientist by the US government and people have far too much respect for him.
Tell me, honestly. If you saw a news story on the Huffington Post that some right-wing outrage had been perpetrated in Alabama or something (I don't know, maybe paddling a child for not reciting the Pledge of Allegiance or something) would you immediately assume it was all lies because Huffington Post is a biased left-wing site? "Nothing to see here, move along"?
Well, yes. Anyone who has seen some of their anti-vaccinationist articles knows that most of their contributors are simply insane and the site has systemic anti-science and anti-medical biases. Its pure political articles are marginally better because they can get plenty of starving leftist writers to post there (who want to say they were published somewhere, but overall the quality of the site has never been good and anyone can recognize that. It comes straight from the source and the management and stems outward.
One thing many people mistakenly get caught up with is terms like "aristocracy" or "fascism", overusing them. While "fascism" can be useful if used appropriately or for shock value, a more important thing to say is this: in any given situation where one group or person has more power than the rest of the people, that group or person accumulates more power over time unless stopped. Over time, as our civilization has become more technologically advanced (enabling us to organize in ways we could not before), we've gradually accumulated ways of slowing them down. Constitutional protections (such as in the Magna Carta), the concept of decentralized unions of states rather than centralized power, democracy (designed to reduce the ability of a powerful minority to terrorize a peaceful majority), socialism (designed to correct power imbalances) and anarchism (a state without leaders at all). Compared to the great struggle between authoritarianism (which is innate in all people) and the urge to overcome it, almost everything else is window dressing.
I feel privileged to be one of the few people who recognized the (paraphrasing of that) quote. Well done, sir. And if more people saw Network, we might be better-off.
It's similar to the classic "crime" of Wrecking during the Stalinist Purges. Anyone who could remotely be considered to be undermining the Russian economy could be convicted of it and it was considered a form of sabotage. In this case, they didn't care what he said; instead, they cared that he had said it in a way others might have read it or heard it. The idea was that, by taking a liberal stance with Islam, he might encourage others to do the same. The Saudi monarchy uses a conservative version of Islam to reinforce its rule, so undermining (or disagreeing with, which to them is undermining) their interpretation of Islam is undermining their authority. Which it is, in a way, but there shouldn't be anything wrong with undermining a despotic regime.
Consider the Papal theocracy (the papacy) in Europe, or simply in Italy until the mid-19th century. When your head of state, head of government, and head of religion are the same person (or if you head of state and head of government draw their authority from religion), objecting to or disagreeing with the state-enforced religion is undermining the basis for rule ("divine right") for that ruler. Without this excuse, the populace have a tendency to see that the ruler is manifestly unfit and... remove him from rule. Which is what the Saudis are afraid of, especially since this has happened very recently and is happening right now, very close to them. What they are relying on is the understandable coincidence of liberal political beliefs and liberal religious beliefs in the same people, so the latter can be an excuse to haul people away to stop them from implementing the former. Any sort of anti-authoritarian or believer in free speech and thought is an automatic opponent to them, because by expressing themselves freely, they encourage others to do so as well, and if people were to express things freely, they might just do something like express their hatred of the reigme.
Actually, I'm not aware of a single example of honour killings in Iran. If you want a better example of a "pinnacle of Islamic rule" Saudi Arabia (the US puppet/ally) would be much more appropriate. Other candidates would be Indonesia, for complicated reasons. Since Indonesia is primarily ethnically non-Arabic, yet Arabs are given higher social status and considered more "true" to Islam (due to "Arab supremacist" themes embedded in the Koran, not the least a prohibition (often ignored) against translating it), much like Spanish-descended people in Latin America (who have not "bred" with natives and are technically a non-Latino minority). You could probably make a decent argument for why Indonesia's Muslim population is so fervent -- compensation for feelings of inferiority due to not being Arabic is the likeliest.
It's also important to realize the context of why they believe what they do. Essentially, it's a form of semi-primitive tribalism focused on the family unit. Most societies, as they progress, inevitably abandon this model or heavily reduce its importance, but it is a very major underpinning to the Abrahamic religions. Essentially, it is patriarchal and focused on the absolute divine right of the patriarch to do whatever he wants. The fact that the prohibitions in the Old Testament limiting the power of a patriarch are so weak attests to the fact of how much control a man might have over his family. This sort of tribalism, applied on a larger scale, is the root for racism and nationalism, as well as other evils. Its primary focus is simple: defining a group so the members know whom they should include or exclude. Culture is another form of in-group/out-group xenophobia, which is why liberals tend to embrace multiculturalism, while conservatives tend to be far less adventurous.
As far as Sharia goes, it has parallels in Judaism and Christianity (and, indeed, parallel groups attempting to practice similar systems) because it is based on the concept of the supposed authority of the patriarch. This is something which supports not just calcified familial systems, including caste systems, but also feudal monarchies (the concept of divine right having been directly invoked by European kings). In this case, honour and prestige become huge factors -- anyone who has read about the Victorian high society would realize that, while there wasn't a whole lot that was illegal for upper-class people, but that they relied so much on being seen as "gentlemanly" and on being approved of by their peers that they were forced to hide any behaviour not condoned by their society. It's similar to the Inner Party of Nineteen Eighty-Four, with the proles being far more free (albeit while undergoing deprivation) than Party members.
In the cases of feudal societies or societies transitioning out of feudalism, rising egalitarianism could compel the remnants of the feudal nobility/aristocracy or of the general elite class to struggle to maintain their illusion of control and authority -- for instance, through censorship, as in the case of Thailand. In other cases, religion can be used as a proxy in an attempt to bolster authority (which, in the Middle East, has been well-documented with Saddam Hussein's increasing fundamentalism and religious authoritarianism as his rule went on, likely as a cynical attempt to keep Iraqis under his thumb). Many dictators tend to be adaptive opportunists who will adopt a tool (like religion) if they need it to get into (or stay in) power. Another good example is Hitler's embrace of Catholicism (and acknowledgement of Lutheranism) during his rise to power, in an attempt to gain more followers and to turn a largely ethnic conflict into a religious conflict as well, with the simultaneous replacement of pre-existing religion in his inner circle with a home-grown cult, complete with mystic origins. The rub for Hitler was that too much alignment with Catholicism would put him into the classic conflict that had dominated Germany for centuries -- the authority of the Pope versus the
I think more people should realize how the different "worlds" were initially defined:
First world: USA, NATO countries
Second world: USSR, Warsaw Pact
Third world: Undeveloped or underdeveloped puppet or neutral countries in South America, Africa, and Asia
It's transparently nothing but a way the USA used to rank itself and its allies first by definition, for political reasons rather than economic.
If you were a child in, perhaps, the 1970s, that would be understandable. However, the sheer amount of coercion and silent censorship done in the 50s and 60s, by both companies, the US government, or both working together is terrible to consider. Things like erotic art and novels being destroyed by customs agents on importation (government), the Hays Code (which banned depictions of "miscegenation" or inter-racial relationships, as well as negative depictions of priests, industry), the almost total lack of government transparency before the FOIA (government), and the Hollywood Blacklist of any strong leftist screenwriters (industry).
Most of this was chipped away at or pushed aside in the 1960s, but if someone grew up before or during that time, they didn't live in a utopia of free speech by any means. Many of these things still persist -- the modern MPAA was created to update the Hays Code. It threw away some measures, but kept the strong attitude toward nudity that can only be described as a desperate, psychologically-sick fear of sexuality, especially female sexuality. The result has been the actual inability of many filmmakers to portray normal, equal relationships and to instead have a constant stream of stripper and prostitute characters for their nudity (since, while female nudity will merit an R, open female sexuality might bump the film up to an un-marketable NC-17). Such is censorship.
Because that would be too reasonable. One thing I've noticed about modern journalism is that, when dealing with a controversial story, the actual text is almost all paraphrased or written by the journalist, with any involved parties being quotemined for a simple black-white answer: agreement or disagreement. Uncontroversial stories tend to be press releases which are published verbatim. The fundamental idea is that in "important" stories, the journalist needs to "craft" the "narrative" of what happens -- and someone (mis)using literary terminology when dealing with the real-world news should scare you. Essentially, their goal is to "report the news", with the important caveat of it being "as [they] see it." This requires control, which means putting the primary sources, the actual people involved, in a subsidiary position: people merely to be quoted. Allowing people to speak their mind in their own words, free from editing (censorship) and interruption, means journalists become news carriers, the people who help the news spread, not the people who determine what the news will be.
This is why social media is so unimportant, yet undervalued -- it (and the Internet in general) are a powerful tool for uncontrolled self-expression. It is a boon to dissenters and a threat to established regimes (or at least regimes which will compromise enough to allow it at all, or which have the infrastructure to allow it). Despotic regimes are only ever stable in societies which are primitive technologically, limiting their social capacity. Countries which don't want to be too backwards must allow modern technology, but with modern technology comes modern society and dictators become obsolete.
There are few really good cross-platform tools in that regard. I would recommend looking at something like mplayer and finding what library they use to examine containers, then see if you can use that (if you are on a *nix platform, anyway). On Windows it might be substantially more difficult.
I use VLC, MPC-HC and mplayer. What one does poorly, the other will do well. While Blu-Ray support for PCs is patchy at best, this is by design -- they want you to buy the player and be slave to them. As for DLNA, it's really only significant for specialized devices -- if you wanted to split things up between a few computers, all you would need would be a LAN and a bit of scripting.
It's just the wrong approach to immediately run out to a big "media system" program (especially WMC) when most of what you want can be handled much more simply by a basic media player (which is really what these are, only with a clunky interface).
I find it amazing that you are even trying to argue that "fewer supported codecs" is a good thing. MKV isn't MKV isn't MKV -- it's all about the codecs you use, and that's what it should be about. The container is a way of gathering together media streams, but doing something like designing a player and assuming that, for a given container, there will be only a single or a couple of codecs (when that container actually supports many) is ridiculous. If your player can't examine a container it theoretically supports and find out which codecs it uses, then you shouldn't use that player because its manufacturers made far too many underlying assumptions. If you are arguing that MKV allowing unusual or poor codec choices means people will make them, then yes -- some people will, for various reasons. But does that mean people shouldn't be allowed to make a decision just because you don't think it's a good idea, based on your usage case? If there's anything FOSS has taught me, it's that many people will have truly unique circumstances which require very specific things to happen to reach a proper solution and flexibility is everything. What you seem to be arguing is that no one should be allowed to use a hypothetical ideal container in ways you don't want because you consider those improper.
Device support might be important to you, but I've just never understood why people contort themselves into making decision which are, frankly, idiotic simply because they have a crappy DVD player or something which only supports a few things in a handful of configurations. The most sensible and flexible solution is... tada! A PC hooked up to a television with a cable, where the television is just yet another display device, no different from a monitor. Trying to wrestle with a DVD or (ugh) Blu-Ray player is just asking for some manufacturer to screw you over.
What I care about most is media support. What can you fit in? MKV's subtitle handling is simply the best around bar none. You get complete flexibility to store hardcoded or softcoded subtitles in any way you want and you can easily do the same with audio, something which cannot be said for most containers. Unless you are trying to square the circle by wrestling with uncooperative devices you are unwilling to give up, there's really no reason to use anything else, at least in the present.
Actually, Matroska has a number of good advantages:
1: More open than MP4 -- it has none of the ugly MPEG-LA overtones.
2: More codec support than MP4.
3: More consistency -- there aren't PS3-oriented versions or AppleTV versions of Matroska. MP4's device support might be wide, but when every player and device seems to have its own version with its own ridiculous, restrictive standards, it doesn't really qualify as supported at all.
4: Content management: Matroska is the easiest to mux and makes it great to work with alternate audio and video streams, subtitles, etc. You get the widest range of options of any container out there.
While Matroska might be used by some because it is perceived as more "elite", there are many very valid reasons for using it, mainly revolving around flexibility and openness. As someone who has worked with both containers, I can say that Matroska far more easily delivers what I want and the tools for working with it are generally free (in both senses), more usable, and more powerful.
This isn't new and isn't exclusive to technology. It started in earnest, it seems, in the 1950s (the great age of commercialization) when certain companies wanted their trademark to be the name for a generic product. Ever Hoover®ed something? Taken Aspirin®? Blown your nose with a Kleenex®? Put a Band-Aid® on a cut? Written a memo on a Post-It® note? In some cases, it's simply unintentional -- the generic name for a product is the brand name of the most popular version (hence the "Crapper" toilet). In other cases it's more sinister, like with Nintendo -- the company is trying to control the market by identifying its brand with the product alone.
This kind of maneuvring can also be seen a little with Apple and its insistence on using its own terminology. Why? Consider the AirPort and AirPort Base Station. To normal humans, these are known as the wi-fi adapter and wireless access point respectively. But to someone going into a shop, only knowing they "need a new base station", they will (if they are ignorant enough), ignore wireless routers and access points that would obviously be compatible with their Mac system in favour of an Apple product simply because of terminology. It's a way of fostering dependence. The fact that Apple does this all the time should clue you into something.
So, what, you don't think people should require proof before they take action?
Oh yeah, and with our last few lines -- you realize what you are making fun of is literally the best way we have of finding out if things are actually true or not. Not all evidence is the same and your use of "empiricism" would make any modern empiricist cry. While evidence is important, you seem to have no conception of what actually constitutes good evidence and what constitutes poor evidence. Personal experience is generally one of the most poor forms of evidence around (one of the only worse ones being other people's personal experience) and is easily trumped by any kind of properly-conducted study. While some people are just not willing to admit it, they are more fallible than the scientific method.
P.S.: What's with this language stuff? Evidence is evidence and the language it is published in should not matter. If, however, the aforementioned Chinese and Japanese studies are poorly conducted, then they should be disregarded. Acting as if it's racist (or "Western imperialist") to do so is simply dishonest.
You're missing my whole point. The study on its own has few people (which makes it automatically dubious) and charts changes in the brain. The journal it's published in is about... changes in the brain. It's done in a remarkably restrained way, but even if the work is legitimate (which it very well may be) it's being exploited by idiots like the "tai chi master" or whatever he calls himself whom I initially responded to -- who act as if it somehow proves tai chi does everything they say it does.
So... a study with no control group and a population size of 16 co-authored by the head of the token alt-med herd of idiots exploiting a big-name hospital, which finds that a meditation course somewhat changes brain structure (with no real evidence that this produces meaningful changes affecting them, things like reaction time, blood pressure, performance on standardized tests, etc.) somehow proves that tai chi is a magic thing that makes you happy and virile (the oldest witch-doctor claim in the book). Nice.
Slashdot Mirror
That much is true. For many audiophiles, much like movie collectors, it's about the prestige and supposed bragging rights of owning something in a specific physical format, often with "Collector's Edition" or "Limited Edition" printed on it.
Which is kind of irrelevant in an age when a music collection is likely to cost $0.
But this is the Christian Heritage Party's moment to shine!
Note to people somehow unable to use internet search: the CHP is (from memory) anti-abortion, anti-contraception, all the way up to (some degree) antidivorce. Seeing one of their election signs on a front lawn is a good warning to stay away from the property owner.
Would you rather have people who are honestly uncertain or people who are dishonestly certain? Honest certainty is the ideal scenario, but certainty is a hard thing to get in science (and some would argue that you should never be too certain, anyway).
Other people have written long responses to your FUD. I merely have this: apparently, "freedom is slavery" to you. Nice to know.
There is one exception and that is the near-psychopathic Edward Teller, who was obsessed with using nuclear weapons to "solve" every problem. He was trotted out for years as a token pro-nuclear scientist by the US government and people have far too much respect for him.
Tell me, honestly. If you saw a news story on the Huffington Post that some right-wing outrage had been perpetrated in Alabama or something (I don't know, maybe paddling a child for not reciting the Pledge of Allegiance or something) would you immediately assume it was all lies because Huffington Post is a biased left-wing site? "Nothing to see here, move along"?
Well, yes. Anyone who has seen some of their anti-vaccinationist articles knows that most of their contributors are simply insane and the site has systemic anti-science and anti-medical biases. Its pure political articles are marginally better because they can get plenty of starving leftist writers to post there (who want to say they were published somewhere, but overall the quality of the site has never been good and anyone can recognize that. It comes straight from the source and the management and stems outward.
One thing many people mistakenly get caught up with is terms like "aristocracy" or "fascism", overusing them. While "fascism" can be useful if used appropriately or for shock value, a more important thing to say is this: in any given situation where one group or person has more power than the rest of the people, that group or person accumulates more power over time unless stopped. Over time, as our civilization has become more technologically advanced (enabling us to organize in ways we could not before), we've gradually accumulated ways of slowing them down. Constitutional protections (such as in the Magna Carta), the concept of decentralized unions of states rather than centralized power, democracy (designed to reduce the ability of a powerful minority to terrorize a peaceful majority), socialism (designed to correct power imbalances) and anarchism (a state without leaders at all). Compared to the great struggle between authoritarianism (which is innate in all people) and the urge to overcome it, almost everything else is window dressing.
I feel privileged to be one of the few people who recognized the (paraphrasing of that) quote. Well done, sir. And if more people saw Network, we might be better-off.
It's similar to the classic "crime" of Wrecking during the Stalinist Purges. Anyone who could remotely be considered to be undermining the Russian economy could be convicted of it and it was considered a form of sabotage. In this case, they didn't care what he said; instead, they cared that he had said it in a way others might have read it or heard it. The idea was that, by taking a liberal stance with Islam, he might encourage others to do the same. The Saudi monarchy uses a conservative version of Islam to reinforce its rule, so undermining (or disagreeing with, which to them is undermining) their interpretation of Islam is undermining their authority. Which it is, in a way, but there shouldn't be anything wrong with undermining a despotic regime.
... remove him from rule. Which is what the Saudis are afraid of, especially since this has happened very recently and is happening right now, very close to them. What they are relying on is the understandable coincidence of liberal political beliefs and liberal religious beliefs in the same people, so the latter can be an excuse to haul people away to stop them from implementing the former. Any sort of anti-authoritarian or believer in free speech and thought is an automatic opponent to them, because by expressing themselves freely, they encourage others to do so as well, and if people were to express things freely, they might just do something like express their hatred of the reigme.
Consider the Papal theocracy (the papacy) in Europe, or simply in Italy until the mid-19th century. When your head of state, head of government, and head of religion are the same person (or if you head of state and head of government draw their authority from religion), objecting to or disagreeing with the state-enforced religion is undermining the basis for rule ("divine right") for that ruler. Without this excuse, the populace have a tendency to see that the ruler is manifestly unfit and
I hope that clears things up for you.
Actually, I'm not aware of a single example of honour killings in Iran. If you want a better example of a "pinnacle of Islamic rule" Saudi Arabia (the US puppet/ally) would be much more appropriate. Other candidates would be Indonesia, for complicated reasons. Since Indonesia is primarily ethnically non-Arabic, yet Arabs are given higher social status and considered more "true" to Islam (due to "Arab supremacist" themes embedded in the Koran, not the least a prohibition (often ignored) against translating it), much like Spanish-descended people in Latin America (who have not "bred" with natives and are technically a non-Latino minority). You could probably make a decent argument for why Indonesia's Muslim population is so fervent -- compensation for feelings of inferiority due to not being Arabic is the likeliest.
It's also important to realize the context of why they believe what they do. Essentially, it's a form of semi-primitive tribalism focused on the family unit. Most societies, as they progress, inevitably abandon this model or heavily reduce its importance, but it is a very major underpinning to the Abrahamic religions. Essentially, it is patriarchal and focused on the absolute divine right of the patriarch to do whatever he wants. The fact that the prohibitions in the Old Testament limiting the power of a patriarch are so weak attests to the fact of how much control a man might have over his family. This sort of tribalism, applied on a larger scale, is the root for racism and nationalism, as well as other evils. Its primary focus is simple: defining a group so the members know whom they should include or exclude. Culture is another form of in-group/out-group xenophobia, which is why liberals tend to embrace multiculturalism, while conservatives tend to be far less adventurous.
As far as Sharia goes, it has parallels in Judaism and Christianity (and, indeed, parallel groups attempting to practice similar systems) because it is based on the concept of the supposed authority of the patriarch. This is something which supports not just calcified familial systems, including caste systems, but also feudal monarchies (the concept of divine right having been directly invoked by European kings). In this case, honour and prestige become huge factors -- anyone who has read about the Victorian high society would realize that, while there wasn't a whole lot that was illegal for upper-class people, but that they relied so much on being seen as "gentlemanly" and on being approved of by their peers that they were forced to hide any behaviour not condoned by their society. It's similar to the Inner Party of Nineteen Eighty-Four, with the proles being far more free (albeit while undergoing deprivation) than Party members.
In the cases of feudal societies or societies transitioning out of feudalism, rising egalitarianism could compel the remnants of the feudal nobility/aristocracy or of the general elite class to struggle to maintain their illusion of control and authority -- for instance, through censorship, as in the case of Thailand. In other cases, religion can be used as a proxy in an attempt to bolster authority (which, in the Middle East, has been well-documented with Saddam Hussein's increasing fundamentalism and religious authoritarianism as his rule went on, likely as a cynical attempt to keep Iraqis under his thumb). Many dictators tend to be adaptive opportunists who will adopt a tool (like religion) if they need it to get into (or stay in) power. Another good example is Hitler's embrace of Catholicism (and acknowledgement of Lutheranism) during his rise to power, in an attempt to gain more followers and to turn a largely ethnic conflict into a religious conflict as well, with the simultaneous replacement of pre-existing religion in his inner circle with a home-grown cult, complete with mystic origins. The rub for Hitler was that too much alignment with Catholicism would put him into the classic conflict that had dominated Germany for centuries -- the authority of the Pope versus the
I think more people should realize how the different "worlds" were initially defined:
First world: USA, NATO countries
Second world: USSR, Warsaw Pact
Third world: Undeveloped or underdeveloped puppet or neutral countries in South America, Africa, and Asia
It's transparently nothing but a way the USA used to rank itself and its allies first by definition, for political reasons rather than economic.
If you were a child in, perhaps, the 1970s, that would be understandable. However, the sheer amount of coercion and silent censorship done in the 50s and 60s, by both companies, the US government, or both working together is terrible to consider. Things like erotic art and novels being destroyed by customs agents on importation (government), the Hays Code (which banned depictions of "miscegenation" or inter-racial relationships, as well as negative depictions of priests, industry), the almost total lack of government transparency before the FOIA (government), and the Hollywood Blacklist of any strong leftist screenwriters (industry).
Most of this was chipped away at or pushed aside in the 1960s, but if someone grew up before or during that time, they didn't live in a utopia of free speech by any means. Many of these things still persist -- the modern MPAA was created to update the Hays Code. It threw away some measures, but kept the strong attitude toward nudity that can only be described as a desperate, psychologically-sick fear of sexuality, especially female sexuality. The result has been the actual inability of many filmmakers to portray normal, equal relationships and to instead have a constant stream of stripper and prostitute characters for their nudity (since, while female nudity will merit an R, open female sexuality might bump the film up to an un-marketable NC-17). Such is censorship.
Maybe they're opposed to it because it would only involve their own power and supremacy being reduced. Just a thought.
Because that would be too reasonable. One thing I've noticed about modern journalism is that, when dealing with a controversial story, the actual text is almost all paraphrased or written by the journalist, with any involved parties being quotemined for a simple black-white answer: agreement or disagreement. Uncontroversial stories tend to be press releases which are published verbatim. The fundamental idea is that in "important" stories, the journalist needs to "craft" the "narrative" of what happens -- and someone (mis)using literary terminology when dealing with the real-world news should scare you. Essentially, their goal is to "report the news", with the important caveat of it being "as [they] see it." This requires control, which means putting the primary sources, the actual people involved, in a subsidiary position: people merely to be quoted. Allowing people to speak their mind in their own words, free from editing (censorship) and interruption, means journalists become news carriers, the people who help the news spread, not the people who determine what the news will be.
This is why social media is so unimportant, yet undervalued -- it (and the Internet in general) are a powerful tool for uncontrolled self-expression. It is a boon to dissenters and a threat to established regimes (or at least regimes which will compromise enough to allow it at all, or which have the infrastructure to allow it). Despotic regimes are only ever stable in societies which are primitive technologically, limiting their social capacity. Countries which don't want to be too backwards must allow modern technology, but with modern technology comes modern society and dictators become obsolete.
So Big Brother shut down Big Brother?
There are few really good cross-platform tools in that regard. I would recommend looking at something like mplayer and finding what library they use to examine containers, then see if you can use that (if you are on a *nix platform, anyway). On Windows it might be substantially more difficult.
I use VLC, MPC-HC and mplayer. What one does poorly, the other will do well. While Blu-Ray support for PCs is patchy at best, this is by design -- they want you to buy the player and be slave to them. As for DLNA, it's really only significant for specialized devices -- if you wanted to split things up between a few computers, all you would need would be a LAN and a bit of scripting.
It's just the wrong approach to immediately run out to a big "media system" program (especially WMC) when most of what you want can be handled much more simply by a basic media player (which is really what these are, only with a clunky interface).
I find it amazing that you are even trying to argue that "fewer supported codecs" is a good thing. MKV isn't MKV isn't MKV -- it's all about the codecs you use, and that's what it should be about. The container is a way of gathering together media streams, but doing something like designing a player and assuming that, for a given container, there will be only a single or a couple of codecs (when that container actually supports many) is ridiculous. If your player can't examine a container it theoretically supports and find out which codecs it uses, then you shouldn't use that player because its manufacturers made far too many underlying assumptions. If you are arguing that MKV allowing unusual or poor codec choices means people will make them, then yes -- some people will, for various reasons. But does that mean people shouldn't be allowed to make a decision just because you don't think it's a good idea, based on your usage case? If there's anything FOSS has taught me, it's that many people will have truly unique circumstances which require very specific things to happen to reach a proper solution and flexibility is everything. What you seem to be arguing is that no one should be allowed to use a hypothetical ideal container in ways you don't want because you consider those improper.
... tada! A PC hooked up to a television with a cable, where the television is just yet another display device, no different from a monitor. Trying to wrestle with a DVD or (ugh) Blu-Ray player is just asking for some manufacturer to screw you over.
Device support might be important to you, but I've just never understood why people contort themselves into making decision which are, frankly, idiotic simply because they have a crappy DVD player or something which only supports a few things in a handful of configurations. The most sensible and flexible solution is
What I care about most is media support. What can you fit in? MKV's subtitle handling is simply the best around bar none. You get complete flexibility to store hardcoded or softcoded subtitles in any way you want and you can easily do the same with audio, something which cannot be said for most containers. Unless you are trying to square the circle by wrestling with uncooperative devices you are unwilling to give up, there's really no reason to use anything else, at least in the present.
Actually, Matroska has a number of good advantages:
1: More open than MP4 -- it has none of the ugly MPEG-LA overtones.
2: More codec support than MP4.
3: More consistency -- there aren't PS3-oriented versions or AppleTV versions of Matroska. MP4's device support might be wide, but when every player and device seems to have its own version with its own ridiculous, restrictive standards, it doesn't really qualify as supported at all.
4: Content management: Matroska is the easiest to mux and makes it great to work with alternate audio and video streams, subtitles, etc. You get the widest range of options of any container out there.
While Matroska might be used by some because it is perceived as more "elite", there are many very valid reasons for using it, mainly revolving around flexibility and openness. As someone who has worked with both containers, I can say that Matroska far more easily delivers what I want and the tools for working with it are generally free (in both senses), more usable, and more powerful.
This isn't new and isn't exclusive to technology. It started in earnest, it seems, in the 1950s (the great age of commercialization) when certain companies wanted their trademark to be the name for a generic product. Ever Hoover®ed something? Taken Aspirin®? Blown your nose with a Kleenex®? Put a Band-Aid® on a cut? Written a memo on a Post-It® note? In some cases, it's simply unintentional -- the generic name for a product is the brand name of the most popular version (hence the "Crapper" toilet). In other cases it's more sinister, like with Nintendo -- the company is trying to control the market by identifying its brand with the product alone.
This kind of maneuvring can also be seen a little with Apple and its insistence on using its own terminology. Why? Consider the AirPort and AirPort Base Station. To normal humans, these are known as the wi-fi adapter and wireless access point respectively. But to someone going into a shop, only knowing they "need a new base station", they will (if they are ignorant enough), ignore wireless routers and access points that would obviously be compatible with their Mac system in favour of an Apple product simply because of terminology. It's a way of fostering dependence. The fact that Apple does this all the time should clue you into something.
You ignored the rest of what I said.
So, what, you don't think people should require proof before they take action?
Oh yeah, and with our last few lines -- you realize what you are making fun of is literally the best way we have of finding out if things are actually true or not. Not all evidence is the same and your use of "empiricism" would make any modern empiricist cry. While evidence is important, you seem to have no conception of what actually constitutes good evidence and what constitutes poor evidence. Personal experience is generally one of the most poor forms of evidence around (one of the only worse ones being other people's personal experience) and is easily trumped by any kind of properly-conducted study. While some people are just not willing to admit it, they are more fallible than the scientific method.
P.S.: What's with this language stuff? Evidence is evidence and the language it is published in should not matter. If, however, the aforementioned Chinese and Japanese studies are poorly conducted, then they should be disregarded. Acting as if it's racist (or "Western imperialist") to do so is simply dishonest.
You're missing my whole point. The study on its own has few people (which makes it automatically dubious) and charts changes in the brain. The journal it's published in is about ... changes in the brain. It's done in a remarkably restrained way, but even if the work is legitimate (which it very well may be) it's being exploited by idiots like the "tai chi master" or whatever he calls himself whom I initially responded to -- who act as if it somehow proves tai chi does everything they say it does.
So... a study with no control group and a population size of 16 co-authored by the head of the token alt-med herd of idiots exploiting a big-name hospital, which finds that a meditation course somewhat changes brain structure (with no real evidence that this produces meaningful changes affecting them, things like reaction time, blood pressure, performance on standardized tests, etc.) somehow proves that tai chi is a magic thing that makes you happy and virile (the oldest witch-doctor claim in the book). Nice.