Linux audio is nowhere near as bad as those days. ALSA pretty much eliminated the other audio APIs (except JACK, which can output via ALSA, if necessary), and apps that still use those APIs work through PulseAudio (that's what PulseAudio is supposed to do, anyway). It's not hell (anymore) unless your system is misconfigured.
The outputs on my (admittedly fairly old) discrete soundcard are analogue. My motherboard has both optical and electrical SPDIF outputs. (Unfortunately, I don't have a receiver for digital audio.) The sound from the discrete card has noticeably less interference than the analogue outputs on the motherboard.
The issues are going to be things like routers and bridges.
Actually, as far as I'm aware, bridges are also Layer 2 devices. You could say that is that a router is a Layer 3 bridge (yes, I'm aware this is a gross simplification)
What matters is whether the loss in quality, among many other benefits of H.264, is worth the gain "freedom" offered by WebM. For well over 99% of the people out there, it's not.
If you want to build a better web, pushing an inferior codec is a strange way to go about it.
That depends on your definition of "inferior". From a purely technical standpoint, yes, WebM is "inferior" to h.264. However, h.264 is patent-encumbered and WebM is not (as far as we know, so far). If you regard being unencumbered by patents more important that quality per kbps, then WebM is the superior format
At the risk of sounding naive (I actually haven't tried this), I'd say that you could try mono. As far as I'm aware, there's mono for Mac OS X (and Linux/BSD), MonoTouch for iOS but I'm not sure about Android.
I'm no expert, but while the updates they push to the console with this backdoor will have to be signed with the console's root key, the communications channel by which they are sent does not necessarily have to be...
ooh wait, how are they going to push a new private key to the console without a nasty pirate intercepting it? I see where you're coming from, now
C# (usually) compiles to MSIL, which is platform-agnostic. All it takes is for all those platforms to be able to run mono, and your C# app would work and would only need to be compiled once.
However, whether mono is available depends on the OS you're running on your systems, (AS/400 is not an OS, neither is "Big Iron", as I'm sure you're aware)
Whether C# is the "best" choice of language comes down to, like every other language, whether its feature set suits your need and how comfortable/competent you are with it.
Really, nobody should be using Chrome anyway. Firefox has a much, much better spec on nearly every level, is open source, has the adblock extension available....
Last I checked, Chrome has a working adblock extension and has equal or better support for web standards compared to Firefox.
I tell all of my clients to use Firefox exclusively. That way you KNOW the code is truly open, secure, and up to date. There is no way to know this with a closed source browser, and I can't for security purposes ever recommend using one.
Additionally if the new games only care about the version field, but not any new functions or what have you in the latest version of the firmware then all you need to do is hack your version tag to spit back what the game is looking for and problem solved, game runs, because they used to assume that the version number could only be changed by sony. Since that's no longer true, you can tell the game whatever you want and simply ignore updating the firmware until such time as a game actually breaks while looking for functionality that's only in newer firmware.
I believe this is similar to what users of the Homebrew Channel on the Wii do. It's a little more complicated because games don't check the Home Channel version, instead looking for a particular iOS, which is only installed, in normal circumstances, by the Wii System Update. Of course, Homebrew users (and pirates, I assume) just download and install the required iOS images manually (in fact, there's a Homebrew app that automates the process)
So no, you can't replace HAL by a genie in a bottle, because HAL was man-made while a genie is magical, an entity that was not at all manufactured by men.
Why does it have to be made by humans? Surely alien technology could or would seem like magic. Or at least governed by laws unknown to humanity
And regarding Windows: does the most popular version, WinXP, support IPv6 out of the box?
Windows XP with SP1 or later (the vast majority, I'd hope) has IPv6 support out of the box. It's not enabled by default, but it's relatively simple to enable. If IPv6 support becomes necessary before XP goes EOL (very likely), I'd be surprised if MS didn't push out an update that enables it.
They have made a reasonable effort to offer music in every reasonable format known to mankind.
The point is not whether they make a "reasonable effort" the point is that they don't offer it in a format I want to pay for online. Until they do, I will keep buying CDs.
"Oh those fuckers don't offer music in some-random-weird-format, so I have an excuse to steal everything I want to!!!"
I didn't say that I pirated music, I just said that I won't buy music encoded in a lossy format. Also, piracy is not stealing, but that's not an argument I want to get into here.
First off CDs are lossy. All Analog to Digital conversions are lossy. CDs are a digital recording of an analog phenomenon, in the process of digitization some data of lost. Thankfully the data is recorded with such high fidelity that you do not notice that loss.
By that logic, there is no way to get a perfect reproduction of recorded audio, since no matter what format it is recorded in, data will always be lost. I didn't say I wanted a perfect reproduction, CD quality is good enough for me; MP3 is enough of a step down from CD quality that I won't buy it.
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Linux audio is nowhere near as bad as those days. ALSA pretty much eliminated the other audio APIs (except JACK, which can output via ALSA, if necessary), and apps that still use those APIs work through PulseAudio (that's what PulseAudio is supposed to do, anyway). It's not hell (anymore) unless your system is misconfigured.
The outputs on my (admittedly fairly old) discrete soundcard are analogue. My motherboard has both optical and electrical SPDIF outputs. (Unfortunately, I don't have a receiver for digital audio.) The sound from the discrete card has noticeably less interference than the analogue outputs on the motherboard.
The difference is that they can afford the court costs. It will hardly inconvenience them. They will probably will inconvenience you more.
so... I'm old at 21; and the world is run by teenagers? That explains a lot.
The issues are going to be things like routers and bridges.
Actually, as far as I'm aware, bridges are also Layer 2 devices. You could say that is that a router is a Layer 3 bridge (yes, I'm aware this is a gross simplification)
An MP3's bit-rate is generally 128 kbps where a CD's is closer to 150 kbps (1411.2 bps [wikipedia.org]).
I think you need to check your maths (and actually read what you linked to). Last time I checked, 1,411,200bps is ~1.4Mbps
What matters is whether the loss in quality, among many other benefits of H.264, is worth the gain "freedom" offered by WebM. For well over 99% of the people out there, it's not.
citation needed
If you want to build a better web, pushing an inferior codec is a strange way to go about it.
That depends on your definition of "inferior". From a purely technical standpoint, yes, WebM is "inferior" to h.264. However, h.264 is patent-encumbered and WebM is not (as far as we know, so far). If you regard being unencumbered by patents more important that quality per kbps, then WebM is the superior format
At the risk of sounding naive (I actually haven't tried this), I'd say that you could try mono. As far as I'm aware, there's mono for Mac OS X (and Linux/BSD), MonoTouch for iOS but I'm not sure about Android.
I'm no expert, but while the updates they push to the console with this backdoor will have to be signed with the console's root key, the communications channel by which they are sent does not necessarily have to be...
ooh wait, how are they going to push a new private key to the console without a nasty pirate intercepting it? I see where you're coming from, now
(Thinking aloud here)
All security expert have maximum two of the following three qualities: - They are competent - They are honest - They say DRM is possible.
Unfortunately 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive to 3
C# (usually) compiles to MSIL, which is platform-agnostic. All it takes is for all those platforms to be able to run mono, and your C# app would work and would only need to be compiled once.
However, whether mono is available depends on the OS you're running on your systems, (AS/400 is not an OS, neither is "Big Iron", as I'm sure you're aware)
Whether C# is the "best" choice of language comes down to, like every other language, whether its feature set suits your need and how comfortable/competent you are with it.
That's almost the same as the difference between Firefox and Iceweasel (now known as IceCat, apparently), right?
The difference being branding and, in Chrome's case, datamining
Really, nobody should be using Chrome anyway. Firefox has a much, much better spec on nearly every level, is open source, has the adblock extension available....
Last I checked, Chrome has a working adblock extension and has equal or better support for web standards compared to Firefox.
I tell all of my clients to use Firefox exclusively. That way you KNOW the code is truly open, secure, and up to date. There is no way to know this with a closed source browser, and I can't for security purposes ever recommend using one.
ProTip: Chrome is also open-source.
As stated by previous posters, WebM in HTML5 video elements is supported by over 60% of the browser market (Firefox + Chrome + Opera)
The "rest" of the browsers likely either won't support it (Safari) or may or may not depending on whether it's driving adoption of other browsers (IE)
Not to mention that (IIRC) the private key is in the boot ROM, and can't be changed (on existing consoles, anyway)
This may prove enlightening
Oh that's right, it's for Big Media. Whatever they do is perfectly fine.
A classic case of "Screw the rules; I have money!"
Additionally if the new games only care about the version field, but not any new functions or what have you in the latest version of the firmware then all you need to do is hack your version tag to spit back what the game is looking for and problem solved, game runs, because they used to assume that the version number could only be changed by sony. Since that's no longer true, you can tell the game whatever you want and simply ignore updating the firmware until such time as a game actually breaks while looking for functionality that's only in newer firmware.
I believe this is similar to what users of the Homebrew Channel on the Wii do. It's a little more complicated because games don't check the Home Channel version, instead looking for a particular iOS, which is only installed, in normal circumstances, by the Wii System Update. Of course, Homebrew users (and pirates, I assume) just download and install the required iOS images manually (in fact, there's a Homebrew app that automates the process)
So no, you can't replace HAL by a genie in a bottle, because HAL was man-made while a genie is magical, an entity that was not at all manufactured by men.
Why does it have to be made by humans? Surely alien technology could or would seem like magic. Or at least governed by laws unknown to humanity
And regarding Windows: does the most popular version, WinXP, support IPv6 out of the box?
Windows XP with SP1 or later (the vast majority, I'd hope) has IPv6 support out of the box. It's not enabled by default, but it's relatively simple to enable. If IPv6 support becomes necessary before XP goes EOL (very likely), I'd be surprised if MS didn't push out an update that enables it.
This may be enlightening
Not the only one. I immediately thought the same.
Did you have the bing toolbar installed (in IE or firefox)? If not, then this update won't do anything. RTFA.
They have made a reasonable effort to offer music in every reasonable format known to mankind.
The point is not whether they make a "reasonable effort" the point is that they don't offer it in a format I want to pay for online. Until they do, I will keep buying CDs.
"Oh those fuckers don't offer music in some-random-weird-format, so I have an excuse to steal everything I want to!!!"
I didn't say that I pirated music, I just said that I won't buy music encoded in a lossy format. Also, piracy is not stealing, but that's not an argument I want to get into here.
First off CDs are lossy. All Analog to Digital conversions are lossy. CDs are a digital recording of an analog phenomenon, in the process of digitization some data of lost. Thankfully the data is recorded with such high fidelity that you do not notice that loss.
By that logic, there is no way to get a perfect reproduction of recorded audio, since no matter what format it is recorded in, data will always be lost. I didn't say I wanted a perfect reproduction, CD quality is good enough for me; MP3 is enough of a step down from CD quality that I won't buy it.