Several points and concepts I can think of: This definitely points at the fact that a low powered(relatively) setup can *start* the fusion process, while a secondary setup and process would maintain it, whether it be tokamaks or more lasers and such.
Another point about the efficiency; it needn't truly be able to generate more energy than it uses if some way of tapping into non-useable energy(such as heat or solar) can be used. Imagine a system that is 92% efficient, but if 10% of the energy needed to operate the system could by harnessed by solar collectors in orbit, and we only need to provide 90%, the 2% difference would then be useable by us, with the remainder used to power the system.
I feel so incredibly nerdy for understanding 2/3 of what each of you have said =)
I actually don't have my own intuitive idea of the physical model for Slashdot, but the S-shaped growth curve does exist, in a way, because what Rob & Co do is review submissions and then post them, much like friends forwarding links to friends, and in this way, Rob & Co forward links to their friends, us. Similarly, other news sites and such who frequent/. may also post interesting links, so while we can't rely on a statistical model of individuals forwarding interesting links, I think there may be a connection between sites and organizations doing such things.
Are you two both bi-chem majors or something?
Geez. I wonder if this stuff is preventing the majority of/.-ers from replying because they have no clue to what you're talking about =)
Well, for one thing, Sony has a very good track record; the PSX1, no? So expectations are high for the PSX2. What track record does M$ have to rely upon? A DOS subsystem that was picky and quirky as hell, a Win3.1 system that crashed like no place on earth, and a Win9x system that crashed just as badly, and is still quirky.
Thus, no one places any stock on M$ future products, while everyone believes in Sony's.
I'm sure some are blinded by the Linux angle. I'm blinded by the Squaresoft and the SCEA and other games that have proven themselves over and over again on the PSX1. That and DVD, possibly, and PSX1 compatability. What's not to be hopeful about?
Is what you're suggesting possible? Can a x86 notebook, assume P3 450, do realtime mpeg encoding? I thought that only Dec Alphas at 600MHz can do realtime mpeg encoding, with a CPU that is easily 2 to 5 times more powerful than a comparable clockspeed; with a 1.5 clockspeed difference, this jumps up to 3-8 times faster...
I actually don't understand why a significant portion of the internet population would download an 400mb movie like Star Wars; people who just can't wait don't matter, because they will pay again just to see it in full glory in the theatres when/if it gets released, or will buy the VHS/DVD/LD version as well. Without a significant portion demanding this service, it probably won't happen, no matter how technologically capable it becomes. Are you talking about the warez crowd? I don't quite understand that sometimes either. Am I missing something?
Sony is sueing Connectix over the VGS? I know they've tried to stop Connectix from further development and release of their product via injunction, which has been overturned twice(once for Mac, once of PC).
I totally agree that a simulator and emulator does not make. With very good hardware and a graphics accelerator, I can see perhaps 5 fps, if at all, maybe higher if someone tries to HLE route that was done with the N64 and eschew all the low level emulation. But a simulator is useful for debugging and code testing more than game testing...
What Sony could and should do is a combo DVD-drive and graphics accelerator kit to play PSX2 games on a PC, as well as DVD movies. Or make it a integral part of their own line of PCs to differentiate them against other brands. I could see myself purchasing one of these =)
I may be mistaken, but I think a PSX simulator is quite different than a PSX emulator; the emulator would allow you to play the games, and that's about it... the simulator may or may not have the graphical output and rendering features, but instead focus on debug, interactivity, optimization, etc.
The simulator will be a development tool, and may even have graphics, but there's no guarantee for that, and there is also no guarantee that even if graphics are output, that they will be in a playable framerate.
Plus the fact that it doesn't mean the simulator can actually play a PSX2 game; it just simulates the PSX2 hardware enough so that code will act and react properly... May be a good start for crafting a PSX2 emulator, but in no way itself necessarily enough to play a game
I'm wondering if the demand for the specially equipped digital theatres is going to be even higher than the regular showings; how many Star Wars fans who would line up for blocks to see the regular showing would see the digital version? Who would also visit one of the 4 cities just to see it?
I'm curious, with Lucas's support for the digital medium, if he's also going to support a DVD release, and soon, of Episode 1, since it is already going to be in a digital format? As opposed to converting the film to digital and then mastering to DVD. Of course, he may think DVD isn't good enough, but if Episode 1 can be released on VHS, I don't see the objection to DVD...
Yup. Hey, that would be neat. If Lucas is so pushing digital format as to release it digitally on June 18th or something, I would hope that means he supports DVD and releases it accordingly =)
Do they ever *allow* camcorders? Besides sneaking them in, of course. I thought most theatres(not even talking Lucas or other filmmakers) would actively snuff out cam-corders, as being competition or something...
Some things I think: They don't want a really dedicated group(like the students at Caltech, for example =) from buying out a screen, and all the showings, for a few days in a row, and reserve it only for those select few who are involved. Trust me, if we could, we would buy out a screen, all day, for at least a day. There are enough of us who would watch it at least once, and more than enough who would watch it 3 times, to deny the viewing pleasure for everyone else in the area. Lucas does not want this. And this movie has enough hype and word of mouth that this *would* happen if he allowed it.
That's why sales won't be 2 weeks ahead. He want's first come first serve, and not the enterprising buying out every seat and perhaps hawking it for a higher price, or just denying the regular public from enjoying his film.
Arrogance has nothing to do with it. I'm sure he's using some of the experiences on the re-releases of his first 3 movies to base his actions. He knows there is incredible hype and word of mouth; the number of official downloads of his trailers from starwars.com and apple.com tell him how many are interested, and that's only people with PCs.
This is *not* just a movie, if Lucas had any involvment. Much like the original trilogy, this will be another culture defining moment in history. Technologically ground breaking, and extending the myth, it will be a factor and force in US history and culture for another generation, and maybe for all eternity, alongside Elvis, Marilyn, Sinatra, etc. His original trilogy is already entrenched in our culture, and if this movie is even half as good as we expect, so should this new trilogy.
Call us fools, if you want, but there are a lot of us fools =)
There is something to be said about the theatre experience; I'll probably try out both the digital version and the regular version, just to see if there really is a quality difference.
Of course, if you have a 40" projection with a adequate 5.1 surround sound system, and can get Star Wars episode 1 on DVD, you won't be missing all that much from a theatre...
I can easily appreciate the trepidation; with Apple's track record, either the new handheld will crush the market with its innovation, later to be dropped in a series of bad moves and ultimately dominated by WinCE, or it will release a stellar product that no one cares about because everyone is satisfied with good enough and the status quo.
I think the only thing I could fault Apple for was poor marketing and command choices. Their hardware and OS were always exemplary at their target and market level, pushing state of the art, convenience, and usability. Only recently have they dropped the ball at all in not releasing a Mac OSX type OS sooner. With M$ release of Win95, all advantages that MacOS had were pretty much nullified, though the tables may turn once again if Mac OSX turns out to be any good, compared to WinNT and Win9x. No Linux comparisons, please...
There are at least two others; IBM WorkPad branded PalmPilot, and Qualcom's PDQ email/pda/cell phone thingy.
When has Apple ever been irrelevant? They innovated high color displays, 16 bit sound, SCSI sub-systems, GUIs(Yeah yeah, XeroxPark came first.. but they didn't do anything with that!), mice(Similar story as previous), and now with FireWire, consumer PCs, and hopefully soon handhelds.
Just becuase they always shot themselves in the foot after starting the race doesn't make them irrelevant, just stupid. Its only recently that Windows has out-innovated Apple, but if OS X is any good, then Apple will be head of the pack again. Barring Linux, since Linux isn't quite ready for the desktop, though soon.
Well, Cross's Crosspad meets you halfway there. It's a digital tablet; insert a pad of paper, start writing, and 50+ pages of notes are digitized. Unfortunately it requires a PC to hook up to in order to play with or manage the data.
If there were a complementary Palm+ type thing to go with it...
I'm seriously considering buying a Palm: I want to take down notes and important information, etc. If I have an idea, I don't want to write it on a paper and put in my pocket and lose it.
I could just use a pad of paper, but the attraction of a Palm is being able to send the data to a PC, or back to the Palm, or to another user. Paper info is bulkier and harder to use.
Do Palms have a search function for notes and scraps and such? If I jot notes from a class for example, or a conference, or a business meeting, can I do a search for a keyword or a person, and get back the related notes? You can't search a pad of paper very effectively.
If I'm not mistaken, clock for clock, a G3 is faster than a P2, in just about every benchmark.
It doesn't mean Job's claim that an Apple is faster, but clock for clock, an Apple system is faster than a Wintel system, except for the OS bottleneck that is MacOS8x. Of course, it helps that Apple has standard on their high end machines SCSI and high performance video(not 3d video), so if you're willing to pay 1.5 to 2 times as much, you will get a machine that is 1.5 to 2 times as fast, but that was in the 3000 range last I checked. Of course, the Celeron changes all that, but clock for clock, a G3 is still faster than a Celeron. The only problem being Celerons have hit 450MHz, while the G3 is currently set to about 400 MHz or so.
If you do price performance, then the P2 beats the G3, but then again, Intel also has egg on its face, for the Celeron beats out the P2; in terms of absolute price performance, the AMD K6 beats out the Celeron even, barely...
If all you want to express is Anti-Apple sentiment, feel free, but don't knock PowerPC/G3. Some of the fastest computers in the world use that CPU; IBMs Blue computers, if I'm not mistaken, use a high end architected version, 64 bits and everything.
So I've seen posts mentioning he bought QDOS and repackaged it to DOS, and bought WordStar->Word, and Visio->PowerPoint, TrueType was licensed from Apple or something, the Internet he did legitimately add to his OS, even if it was around for ages before, though he did buy SpyGlass's browser-> IE, and bought SoftImage before selling it again, and he did buy the entire program library that is now DirectX(After 6 revisions, he's finally getting it right)..
Don't know how true it is that he bought Word, PowerPoint, or TrueType. He did write Windows atop Dos, I believe, but borrowed much from then cutting edge Macs(And still does, actually)...
Anyone think of something he developed and wrote with his own company? I guess Win2k will be his third, after Win3.1 and Win98; WinNT was based off of OS/2 from IBM. Is Xenix M$ original?
What if they weren't going to create new material from scratch?
A parallel distributed operation like this might be great for transcription of materials found in many disparate places, in pieces, or because of length, in portions, and collecting them. The problem with that model is that this data must somehow find it's way into people's hands, so if you wanted to transcribe every single article of the National Geographic into an electronic form in a day, which I'm sure can be done, it would require that each contributor have a relevant magazine beforehand. So if we held such an event at/., only people who actually have a subscription to NG could participate without a massive headache involved in getting every 10 people a different magazine, as well as making sure at least 1 of the 10 had a scanner to grab the photos in the mag.
The alternative of course is to create the material from scratch, which is what is suggested that this operation is attempting. However, there is a distinct lack of quality control if no one person has the oversight or ability to edit and rewrite the entire thing, since a story, factual or fictional, is a serial thing.
Man but a case redesign should go with a PC redesign as well. PC99, with no EISA, no parallel or serial escept for Firewire and USB.
6 ports on the back: USBx2 Firewirex2 Ethernet Monitor
Am I missing anything important? Of course this sucks for legacy devices; you'd need USB mice, keyboards, and removeable media, maybe Firewire high speed scanners, video, etc. Oh yeah! Ethernet!
Not an ouce. I'm unfamiliar with culture or tragedy or real drama. I've grown up on Star Trek, Star Wars, Inspector Gadget, the Gummi Bears, Knight Rider, ER, and RoboTech. I'm a product of mass/pop culture. I've never eaten any meal that cost more than 18$, I haven't seen a film except because it looked cool, and I wear clothes that I look good in.
Of course I'm young, and I will eventually hit a French restaurant, and try a fabulous wine, buy a jacket for 200$ and lasts for 25 years, and listen to music because the composer was insane and suicidal, but for now I am easily placated and entertained.
I actually find I can hear distortions on my music on my PC system. I'm not sure what a flange type distortion, but bells and whistles, once shimmery and very clear, come out sounding like lots of slightly disharmonic bits of metal clanging around. They still ring, but their tone is not so pure. And I can hear very audible distortion on some extended sythnesizer notes, but I admit I'm also not using Fraunhoffer's 'amazing' compression, instead using some of the faster 'good enough' compression.
I don't actually know that they patented the data itself, which means it's theoretically possible that they could give you terabytes of information if you asked for it, and it would still be useless. Rather they have a process of variable precision and weight as well as discard functions, so while common chemical compounds, such as steel, aren't patented, there very well can be processes that produce said steel that are patented, even though the chemical composition, data, and reaction theories are all public knowledge. In this sense if Fraunhoffer does this, ie use public knowledge in a unique way that is their perceptual encoding, I think it is fair game for them to charge for it.
If all they have is reams of data, they have the right to charge for a processing fee, esp if their funding isn't totally self sufficient.
I made several posts about a previous thread thinking of writing a free open music compression standard... The code, the algorithms, the math behind MP3s are all free and freely available. What isn't available, and that Fraunhoffer charges to liscense for, is the statistical sampling of the populace at large. This is hard to do for the open source movement, unless there is released a self correcting self calibrating quality compensating sampling method that people can download, run a battery of tests, and upload the data back to a central agency to use the data into the new compression format.
If that made no sense to you, some background. MP3 is composed of 2 compression methods, neither of which is proprietary. A data stream is broken into chunks, samples if you will. A sample is composed of several frequencies of different strengths added together. A fourier transform is used to break this sample into the component frequencies and their relative strenghts. Great, we just took raw data and broke it into frequencies and amplitudes. If we got rid of Fraunhoffer's contribution, you could just perform a Huffman encode on the data itself, but don't expect much compression, maybe 4:1 or 3:1 if you're lucky. I am pulling this number out of my butt. However, don't expect the 10:1 compression that MP3 routinely achieves!
The part of MP3 compression that Fraunhoffer spent a lot of money discovering and is charging for is a special set of filters that when applied to the component frequencies and amplitudes that are returned by the Fourier transform actually throw away data that is unheard by 9x% of the populace. Data that can't be heard, that isn't noticed, that is masked by other frequences are all thrown out. Since this is the patented part, I can't actually say how much is thrown out; If we say 0.66% of the data is thrown away and still leaves a 9x% quality to the sound, then we have something workable. Now if we apply the Huffman encoding on it, we can get that 3:1 or 4:1 compression on top of the 'perceptual encoding'. A 10mb wave is now 3mb after perceptual encoding, and then 1mb if the low value of 3:1 is applied. This is pretty close to MP3, since a 1 minute 10mb wave is readily encoded into a 1 minute 1mb MP3.
I actually agree that Fraunhoffer has every right to charge for the labor and services for the data they collected. Perhaps someone could talk to distributed.net into making some sort of data collection utility so an open source alternative to Fraunhoffer's perceptual encoding could be created. Someone has to defray the costs, effort, and initiative Fraunhoffer displayed in collecting this data.
I may hate it if some capitalist discovers a way to collect and process SETI data 10x faster and decides to charge for it, but hey, if this is something that took years an millions to discover, it also seems appropriate that the costs must be defrayed, either through government support(taxes) or through capitalistic economics. I prefer capitalistic econmics over the blundering government most of the time.
I would like to find out where these statistics are, personally.
If you only ask professional listeners, then it is without doubt you would get a lower score than if you asked Joe Blow at home.
Another difference is testing differences. If you play an MP3 and a high quality vinyl on a high end system, even Joe Blow has a chance at discerning the loss of quality in the MP3; but if you play both on the same system that Joe Blow uses at home(cheap mini-stereo, most likely), then I willing to say the ratings would be bumped up from indistinquishable.
Analogy for those who are clueless; even novices can discern wine quality in the ideal setup in Napa Valley, but at home, with poor temperature control, mixed quality of foods, and inappropriate food/wine combinations, those novices wouldn't be able to tell a medium quality wine from a high quality wine, though they can still tell cheap wine is crap.
Slashdot Mirror
Several points and concepts I can think of:
This definitely points at the fact that a low powered(relatively) setup can *start* the fusion process, while a secondary setup and process would maintain it, whether it be tokamaks or more lasers and such.
Another point about the efficiency; it needn't truly be able to generate more energy than it uses if some way of tapping into non-useable energy(such as heat or solar) can be used. Imagine a system that is 92% efficient, but if 10% of the energy needed to operate the system could by harnessed by solar collectors in orbit, and we only need to provide 90%, the 2% difference would then be useable by us, with the remainder used to power the system.
Just a thought
AS
I feel so incredibly nerdy for understanding 2/3 of what each of you have said =)
/. may also post interesting links, so while we can't rely on a statistical model of individuals forwarding interesting links, I think there may be a connection between sites and organizations doing such things.
/.-ers from replying because they have no clue to what you're talking about =)
I actually don't have my own intuitive idea of the physical model for Slashdot, but the S-shaped growth curve does exist, in a way, because what Rob & Co do is review submissions and then post them, much like friends forwarding links to friends, and in this way, Rob & Co forward links to their friends, us. Similarly, other news sites and such who frequent
Are you two both bi-chem majors or something?
Geez. I wonder if this stuff is preventing the majority of
AS
Well, for one thing, Sony has a very good track record; the PSX1, no? So expectations are high for the PSX2. What track record does M$ have to rely upon? A DOS subsystem that was picky and quirky as hell, a Win3.1 system that crashed like no place on earth, and a Win9x system that crashed just as badly, and is still quirky.
Thus, no one places any stock on M$ future products, while everyone believes in Sony's.
I'm sure some are blinded by the Linux angle. I'm blinded by the Squaresoft and the SCEA and other games that have proven themselves over and over again on the PSX1. That and DVD, possibly, and PSX1 compatability. What's not to be hopeful about?
AS
Is what you're suggesting possible?
Can a x86 notebook, assume P3 450, do realtime mpeg encoding? I thought that only Dec Alphas at 600MHz can do realtime mpeg encoding, with a CPU that is easily 2 to 5 times more powerful than a comparable clockspeed; with a 1.5 clockspeed difference, this jumps up to 3-8 times faster...
I actually don't understand why a significant portion of the internet population would download an 400mb movie like Star Wars; people who just can't wait don't matter, because they will pay again just to see it in full glory in the theatres when/if it gets released, or will buy the VHS/DVD/LD version as well. Without a significant portion demanding this service, it probably won't happen, no matter how technologically capable it becomes. Are you talking about the warez crowd? I don't quite understand that sometimes either. Am I missing something?
AS
Sony is sueing Connectix over the VGS?
I know they've tried to stop Connectix from further development and release of their product via injunction, which has been overturned twice(once for Mac, once of PC).
I totally agree that a simulator and emulator does not make. With very good hardware and a graphics accelerator, I can see perhaps 5 fps, if at all, maybe higher if someone tries to HLE route that was done with the N64 and eschew all the low level emulation. But a simulator is useful for debugging and code testing more than game testing...
What Sony could and should do is a combo DVD-drive and graphics accelerator kit to play PSX2 games on a PC, as well as DVD movies. Or make it a integral part of their own line of PCs to differentiate them against other brands. I could see myself purchasing one of these =)
AS
I may be mistaken, but I think a PSX simulator is quite different than a PSX emulator; the emulator would allow you to play the games, and that's about it... the simulator may or may not have the graphical output and rendering features, but instead focus on debug, interactivity, optimization, etc.
The simulator will be a development tool, and may even have graphics, but there's no guarantee for that, and there is also no guarantee that even if graphics are output, that they will be in a playable framerate.
Plus the fact that it doesn't mean the simulator can actually play a PSX2 game; it just simulates the PSX2 hardware enough so that code will act and react properly... May be a good start for crafting a PSX2 emulator, but in no way itself necessarily enough to play a game
AS
I'm wondering if the demand for the specially equipped digital theatres is going to be even higher than the regular showings; how many Star Wars fans who would line up for blocks to see the regular showing would see the digital version? Who would also visit one of the 4 cities just to see it?
I'm curious, with Lucas's support for the digital medium, if he's also going to support a DVD release, and soon, of Episode 1, since it is already going to be in a digital format? As opposed to converting the film to digital and then mastering to DVD. Of course, he may think DVD isn't good enough, but if Episode 1 can be released on VHS, I don't see the objection to DVD...
AS
Yup.
Hey, that would be neat. If Lucas is so pushing digital format as to release it digitally on June 18th or something, I would hope that means he supports DVD and releases it accordingly =)
AS
Do they ever *allow* camcorders? Besides sneaking them in, of course. I thought most theatres(not even talking Lucas or other filmmakers) would actively snuff out cam-corders, as being competition or something...
AS
Some things I think:
They don't want a really dedicated group(like the students at Caltech, for example =) from buying out a screen, and all the showings, for a few days in a row, and reserve it only for those select few who are involved. Trust me, if we could, we would buy out a screen, all day, for at least a day. There are enough of us who would watch it at least once, and more than enough who would watch it 3 times, to deny the viewing pleasure for everyone else in the area. Lucas does not want this. And this movie has enough hype and word of mouth that this *would* happen if he allowed it.
That's why sales won't be 2 weeks ahead. He want's first come first serve, and not the enterprising buying out every seat and perhaps hawking it for a higher price, or just denying the regular public from enjoying his film.
Arrogance has nothing to do with it. I'm sure he's using some of the experiences on the re-releases of his first 3 movies to base his actions. He knows there is incredible hype and word of mouth; the number of official downloads of his trailers from starwars.com and apple.com tell him how many are interested, and that's only people with PCs.
This is *not* just a movie, if Lucas had any involvment. Much like the original trilogy, this will be another culture defining moment in history. Technologically ground breaking, and extending the myth, it will be a factor and force in US history and culture for another generation, and maybe for all eternity, alongside Elvis, Marilyn, Sinatra, etc. His original trilogy is already entrenched in our culture, and if this movie is even half as good as we expect, so should this new trilogy.
Call us fools, if you want, but there are a lot of us fools =)
AS
There is something to be said about the theatre experience; I'll probably try out both the digital version and the regular version, just to see if there really is a quality difference.
Of course, if you have a 40" projection with a adequate 5.1 surround sound system, and can get Star Wars episode 1 on DVD, you won't be missing all that much from a theatre...
AS
I can easily appreciate the trepidation; with Apple's track record, either the new handheld will crush the market with its innovation, later to be dropped in a series of bad moves and ultimately dominated by WinCE, or it will release a stellar product that no one cares about because everyone is satisfied with good enough and the status quo.
AS
I think the only thing I could fault Apple for was poor marketing and command choices. Their hardware and OS were always exemplary at their target and market level, pushing state of the art, convenience, and usability. Only recently have they dropped the ball at all in not releasing a Mac OSX type OS sooner. With M$ release of Win95, all advantages that MacOS had were pretty much nullified, though the tables may turn once again if Mac OSX turns out to be any good, compared to WinNT and Win9x. No Linux comparisons, please...
AS
There are at least two others;
IBM WorkPad branded PalmPilot, and Qualcom's PDQ email/pda/cell phone thingy.
When has Apple ever been irrelevant? They innovated high color displays, 16 bit sound, SCSI sub-systems, GUIs(Yeah yeah, XeroxPark came first.. but they didn't do anything with that!), mice(Similar story as previous), and now with FireWire, consumer PCs, and hopefully soon handhelds.
Just becuase they always shot themselves in the foot after starting the race doesn't make them irrelevant, just stupid. Its only recently that Windows has out-innovated Apple, but if OS X is any good, then Apple will be head of the pack again. Barring Linux, since Linux isn't quite ready for the desktop, though soon.
AS
Well, Cross's Crosspad meets you halfway there. It's a digital tablet; insert a pad of paper, start writing, and 50+ pages of notes are digitized. Unfortunately it requires a PC to hook up to in order to play with or manage the data.
If there were a complementary Palm+ type thing to go with it...
That would rock.
Click here for more info!
AS
I'm seriously considering buying a Palm:
I want to take down notes and important information, etc. If I have an idea, I don't want to write it on a paper and put in my pocket and lose it.
I could just use a pad of paper, but the attraction of a Palm is being able to send the data to a PC, or back to the Palm, or to another user. Paper info is bulkier and harder to use.
Do Palms have a search function for notes and scraps and such? If I jot notes from a class for example, or a conference, or a business meeting, can I do a search for a keyword or a person, and get back the related notes? You can't search a pad of paper very effectively.
Anyone?
Is it useful to get a Palm for these purposes?
AS
If I'm not mistaken, clock for clock, a G3 is faster than a P2, in just about every benchmark.
It doesn't mean Job's claim that an Apple is faster, but clock for clock, an Apple system is faster than a Wintel system, except for the OS bottleneck that is MacOS8x. Of course, it helps that Apple has standard on their high end machines SCSI and high performance video(not 3d video), so if you're willing to pay 1.5 to 2 times as much, you will get a machine that is 1.5 to 2 times as fast, but that was in the 3000 range last I checked. Of course, the Celeron changes all that, but clock for clock, a G3 is still faster than a Celeron. The only problem being Celerons have hit 450MHz, while the G3 is currently set to about 400 MHz or so.
If you do price performance, then the P2 beats the G3, but then again, Intel also has egg on its face, for the Celeron beats out the P2; in terms of absolute price performance, the AMD K6 beats out the Celeron even, barely...
If all you want to express is Anti-Apple sentiment, feel free, but don't knock PowerPC/G3. Some of the fastest computers in the world use that CPU; IBMs Blue computers, if I'm not mistaken, use a high end architected version, 64 bits and everything.
AS
So I've seen posts mentioning he bought QDOS and repackaged it to DOS, and bought WordStar->Word, and Visio->PowerPoint, TrueType was licensed from Apple or something, the Internet he did legitimately add to his OS, even if it was around for ages before, though he did buy SpyGlass's browser-> IE, and bought SoftImage before selling it again, and he did buy the entire program library that is now DirectX(After 6 revisions, he's finally getting it right)..
Don't know how true it is that he bought Word, PowerPoint, or TrueType. He did write Windows atop Dos, I believe, but borrowed much from then cutting edge Macs(And still does, actually)...
Anyone think of something he developed and wrote with his own company? I guess Win2k will be his third, after Win3.1 and Win98; WinNT was based off of OS/2 from IBM. Is Xenix M$ original?
AS
What if they weren't going to create new material from scratch?
/., only people who actually have a subscription to NG could participate without a massive headache involved in getting every 10 people a different magazine, as well as making sure at least 1 of the 10 had a scanner to grab the photos in the mag.
A parallel distributed operation like this might be great for transcription of materials found in many disparate places, in pieces, or because of length, in portions, and collecting them. The problem with that model is that this data must somehow find it's way into people's hands, so if you wanted to transcribe every single article of the National Geographic into an electronic form in a day, which I'm sure can be done, it would require that each contributor have a relevant magazine beforehand. So if we held such an event at
The alternative of course is to create the material from scratch, which is what is suggested that this operation is attempting. However, there is a distinct lack of quality control if no one person has the oversight or ability to edit and rewrite the entire thing, since a story, factual or fictional, is a serial thing.
AS
Man but a case redesign should go with a PC redesign as well. PC99, with no EISA, no parallel or serial escept for Firewire and USB.
6 ports on the back:
USBx2
Firewirex2
Ethernet
Monitor
Am I missing anything important?
Of course this sucks for legacy devices; you'd need USB mice, keyboards, and removeable media, maybe Firewire high speed scanners, video, etc. Oh yeah! Ethernet!
AS
Not an ouce. I'm unfamiliar with culture or tragedy or real drama. I've grown up on Star Trek, Star Wars, Inspector Gadget, the Gummi Bears, Knight Rider, ER, and RoboTech. I'm a product of mass/pop culture. I've never eaten any meal that cost more than 18$, I haven't seen a film except because it looked cool, and I wear clothes that I look good in.
Of course I'm young, and I will eventually hit a French restaurant, and try a fabulous wine, buy a jacket for 200$ and lasts for 25 years, and listen to music because the composer was insane and suicidal, but for now I am easily placated and entertained.
AS
I actually find I can hear distortions on my music on my PC system. I'm not sure what a flange type distortion, but bells and whistles, once shimmery and very clear, come out sounding like lots of slightly disharmonic bits of metal clanging around. They still ring, but their tone is not so pure. And I can hear very audible distortion on some extended sythnesizer notes, but I admit I'm also not using Fraunhoffer's 'amazing' compression, instead using some of the faster 'good enough' compression.
AS
I don't actually know that they patented the data itself, which means it's theoretically possible that they could give you terabytes of information if you asked for it, and it would still be useless. Rather they have a process of variable precision and weight as well as discard functions, so while common chemical compounds, such as steel, aren't patented, there very well can be processes that produce said steel that are patented, even though the chemical composition, data, and reaction theories are all public knowledge. In this sense if Fraunhoffer does this, ie use public knowledge in a unique way that is their perceptual encoding, I think it is fair game for them to charge for it.
If all they have is reams of data, they have the right to charge for a processing fee, esp if their funding isn't totally self sufficient.
AS
I made several posts about a previous thread thinking of writing a free open music compression standard... The code, the algorithms, the math behind MP3s are all free and freely available. What isn't available, and that Fraunhoffer charges to liscense for, is the statistical sampling of the populace at large. This is hard to do for the open source movement, unless there is released a self correcting self calibrating quality compensating sampling method that people can download, run a battery of tests, and upload the data back to a central agency to use the data into the new compression format.
If that made no sense to you, some background. MP3 is composed of 2 compression methods, neither of which is proprietary. A data stream is broken into chunks, samples if you will. A sample is composed of several frequencies of different strengths added together. A fourier transform is used to break this sample into the component frequencies and their relative strenghts. Great, we just took raw data and broke it into frequencies and amplitudes. If we got rid of Fraunhoffer's contribution, you could just perform a Huffman encode on the data itself, but don't expect much compression, maybe 4:1 or 3:1 if you're lucky. I am pulling this number out of my butt. However, don't expect the 10:1 compression that MP3 routinely achieves!
The part of MP3 compression that Fraunhoffer spent a lot of money discovering and is charging for is a special set of filters that when applied to the component frequencies and amplitudes that are returned by the Fourier transform actually throw away data that is unheard by 9x% of the populace. Data that can't be heard, that isn't noticed, that is masked by other frequences are all thrown out. Since this is the patented part, I can't actually say how much is thrown out; If we say 0.66% of the data is thrown away and still leaves a 9x% quality to the sound, then we have something workable. Now if we apply the Huffman encoding on it, we can get that 3:1 or 4:1 compression on top of the 'perceptual encoding'. A 10mb wave is now 3mb after perceptual encoding, and then 1mb if the low value of 3:1 is applied. This is pretty close to MP3, since a 1 minute 10mb wave is readily encoded into a 1 minute 1mb MP3.
I actually agree that Fraunhoffer has every right to charge for the labor and services for the data they collected. Perhaps someone could talk to distributed.net into making some sort of data collection utility so an open source alternative to Fraunhoffer's perceptual encoding could be created. Someone has to defray the costs, effort, and initiative Fraunhoffer displayed in collecting this data.
I may hate it if some capitalist discovers a way to collect and process SETI data 10x faster and decides to charge for it, but hey, if this is something that took years an millions to discover, it also seems appropriate that the costs must be defrayed, either through government support(taxes) or through capitalistic economics. I prefer capitalistic econmics over the blundering government most of the time.
Counterpoint?
AS
I would like to find out where these statistics are, personally.
If you only ask professional listeners, then it is without doubt you would get a lower score than if you asked Joe Blow at home.
Another difference is testing differences. If you play an MP3 and a high quality vinyl on a high end system, even Joe Blow has a chance at discerning the loss of quality in the MP3; but if you play both on the same system that Joe Blow uses at home(cheap mini-stereo, most likely), then I willing to say the ratings would be bumped up from indistinquishable.
Analogy for those who are clueless; even novices can discern wine quality in the ideal setup in Napa Valley, but at home, with poor temperature control, mixed quality of foods, and inappropriate food/wine combinations, those novices wouldn't be able to tell a medium quality wine from a high quality wine, though they can still tell cheap wine is crap.
So give us those stats, AC!
AS