Rollover highlighting? Foldout menus? Those are *cleaner navigation*? They're annoying, and make pages far more difficult to use. Even on a system that supports flash well, it's a real chore.
I HATE it when this happens! Just use the browser window! That's what it's there for!
Any kind of popup/forced new window is crap..
I do make allowances for sites such as brokensaints.com - the difference is that the whole point of the site is in the presentation - they're one and the same. The vast majority of web pages aren't like that though.
Is a web page software though? I don't think so. This is my main complaint about most web pages - they try to be software, with all their javascript, and complex stuff...
It ends up looking bad, not working, and generally being annoying.
So my ideal web design: no javascript. No java. No proprietary extensions.
Provide the text you want, and arrange it on the page in a nice readable way (with CSS, preferably), and don't bother with anything else. It just gets in the way, makes things unreadable, and makes it very difficult for the data be used in any other way.
It's really a rather pointless question, unless you can decide what art IS. If you ask three people, you'll get three different definitions of the word.
It's all so confusing now that I just avoid speaking about it much... Better to talk about how something fulfills its function than what it IS.
And of course, a "function" could be just about anything.
This is a very important point! Even deja never had the REALLY old posts - those are the ones that I'd really like to see.. back to the very beginnings of usenet. But those are lost, unless anyone has any posts they've saved up in some archive somewhere. In any case, how could any other company get started? Would deja be willing to sell its old archive?
What I think would be ideal right now is if deja split into two - they could have a dedicated usenet searching facility and archive, and another company for all the crap they've been doing now. They could work together very nicely, but DON'T let their web hosting or whatever get in the way the most important thing - Usenet archives.
And why oh why oh why did they change their name to deja!?!?!? Dejanews was a cute pun... I liked it! Perhaps if they DO split up a bit, the news division can inherit the name. Then we could have dejamail, dejaweb, dejashop, and dejanews.
Does anyone even USE the non-usenet services they provide?
However, I expect there will be a HUGE amount of trouble involved in switching over, especially as I don't foresee support in windows media player popping up any time soon.
Are PNGs used much more than GIFs on most websites these days? Only on rather geeky ones, it seems... the unisys hassles went mostly unnoticed.
But it's good to know that alternatives exist. I hope it is developed and implemented quickly.
So, does this mean that mp3.com is, by legal definition, broadcasting? I personally don't think that makes much sense at all... What is the legal definition of broadcasting in the states?
As far as I can tell from a quick skim through Canadian law (which probably doesn't amount to much, given how impenetrable the language is), a broadcast can be just about anything. It could certainly be interpreted to include this, which I very much disagree with.
To me, a broadcast is necessarily something that is broad - i.e. receivable and "viewable" by anyone with the proper equipment. It does NOT include something like this, where you must register with the service to be elligible for it, and then have the information sent DIRECTLY to you.
You give your CDs to a company that has a network of bike couriers. Anytime you want to play a CD, your CD is carried to wherever you call from, so you can put it in a cdplayer and listen to it. Of course, you pay a slight fee for this service.
Is that illegal?
What about cd CASES - are they illegal? What about CDplayers themselves?
It's not illegal to sell a product or service which allows people to use the IP they are entitled to use.
All of these definitions are hopelessly mixed up though. I've read interpretations of internet sites with music that treat the hosted files as selling, broadcasting, preforming, or other things, each of which is subject to slightly different laws. Of course, the reality isn't really any of those. However, all of those are moving closer to that integrated "general digital signal" that could come from anywhere and carry anything. Having different laws is becoming rather redundant.
The interesting thing about mp3s are that the format IS patented. Many, if not most mp3s ARE illegal, because the owner of that patent doesn't allow other code to be based on its algorithms. I think.
I know gogo is not stored on US servers (or as part of debian) for that reason. Same with any other mp3 encoders.
Kinda makes you think, that this wonderful FREE format called mp3 isn't so free as we all make it out to be... what's to stop them from pulling a unisys and start charging fees for every use of mp3s? Nothing, AFAIK...
Depends where you live - from talking to some friends in American cities, it seems like cars are a much bigger thing than in a lot of other cities. In most urban centers, (where the schools are generally rich enough to afford plans like these) there's little point to having a car - it just becomes a hassle, dealing with expensive parking, devilish traffic, etc etc... when public transit is quicker, easier, and much, much cheaper. I'm very glad I don't have a car here in Montreal, and even in Fredericton, with it's complete lack of public transit, a walk across town only takes an hour or two... Maybe investing in bicycles would be a better idea.
Of course, you're right... I must say, creative's web site is misleading in a typical corporate way - "professional 128 voice synthesizer" to my ears doesn't mean "software synth".
Personally, I've rather given up on Creative every doing things honestly and nicely - there are features on my card (the original AWE32) that have yet to be supported even in the windows drivers, and this thing's NOT new... Customizable reverb and chorus settings for example...
I haven't used that particular card, but I'm pretty sure it does have hardware wavetable functions. I know my AWE32 (the original creative wavetable card, not counting the waveblaster) does.
The AWE64 began the software mixing thing - it still has support for 32 tracks of hardware mixed, but under windows, you can add another 32 voices of software mixing if you want (and have the CPU).
My card came with 512K of ram, with two 30 simm slots for upgrades up to 28M (if you put 32 megs in, it ignored the top 4 megs, since it also had 4 megs of ROM, IIRC).
I know other versions didn't have all these features - the AWE32 value had no ram slots, and the sb32 had no ram initially on board, but had the slots for upgrades. I'm not too sure about the newer PCI versions, but I expect they have similar capabilities, with the 3d sound added in.
I assume the MIDI out on my soundblaster isn't, but what about a real MPU-401 from Roland? Or (the one that I have coming in the mail...) a Music Quest MPU-401 compatible? I was under the impression that most midi cards were pretty generic, except that the ones on popular cards like the soundblaster series were a bit crippled...
Unfortunate, but not really surprising - debian packages tend to do a lot more than redhat packages, which are litle more than an archive packaged with a few dependencies... The install scripts for debian tend to be a lot more complicated, from what I've looked at...
In any case, you can try using alien, or just wait a few days for it to be debianized.
Actually, looking at themes.org, an awful lot of screenshots DO have scantily clad models draped over them... Kinda silly, in a slightly offensive way...
Of course, that's just the screenshot, not the software itself.
Re:LEGO Machine gun vs. LEGO Grenades.
on
Lego Machine Gun
·
· Score: 1
Even better:
You take a bunch of legos, assemble them into a square on a large platform piece (all on the same level). Wrap an elastic around them so that the elastic is on the flat sides, not the bumps. Then you carefully take the bricks off the platform, so that they're just held together by the elastic. Watch out though! If one of these goes off in your hand, you can REALLY get hurt!
A friend of mine made time bombs and vibration-sensitive bombs out of these that would send bricks flying all over the house... He's studying philosohy now. <G>
They do have the right to say "we'll only sell licenses to people, etc..".
However, if someone finds a way to read it WITHOUT a licensed decoder, no copyright laws are being broken, AFAIK.
The situation has changed with the DMCA because now, in America (dunno about anywhere else - and I'd love to know Canada's stance on this sort of thing) it's essentially illegal to make/use a non-licensed decoder.
The only ways I see of this getting through that very silly law are either through the "fair use" provision, included in both the old copyright law, and the DMCA (which I believe is now part of the copyright law); or else by showing that CSS isn't copy-protection, so the DMCA holds no sway over it. That last will be tricky, as it DOES have something to do with copy-protection, albeit in a rather pathetic way, that doesn't really do a lot of good for anyone.
Of course, won't converting it to mpeg result inloss of quality? Maybe not - though I would hope it would, if you're trading it over IRC! Large files, anyone?
The whole point to copying DVDs as they are is that you get a very good picture that doesn't degrade with copying - if you have to shrink it down to a VCD or halve the framerate (I have no clue how much degrading we'd be talking about here) you may as well try to control people using camcorders to tape off their computer screens.
3. You don't want to break the encryption, you NEED the encryption IN PLACE, as DVD players will NOT play unencrypted DVD movies, they expect CSS and will not play if it is not there.
Are you serious about this?!?! If so, DVD technology WITHOUT cracked decryptors is extremely flawed. The way computers grow, long before DVDs are old and forgotten, computers will be able to EASILY handle the data for home movie-making. Even simply copying home videos from VHS to DVD to make them last longer and be more durable (not to mention less bulky) would be impossible, since you couldn't PLAY them anywhere (except by illegal means). Now, I don't think that ALL that many people need that kind of use - not many people need a whole lot of blank VHS tapes either - but enough COULD use it that it seems very foolish to me to not allow it.
Doesn't it have to go through a normal court first? This was only a preliminary thing since the plaintiff's case kind of depends on stopping the distribution right away..
But is the key area necessary for unencrypted DVDs? Maybe I'm missing the point... but if you have the unencrypted data, can't you just stick it on a writeable DVD, and not bother with excryption anymore?
Or do some players ONLY play movies that are encrypted?
Can normal dvd writers write to the special disks?
It seems to me that this is the only real legal point to this whole situation - everything else seems redunant when you consider this. So, was the information obtained illegally? If not, it's legal to distribute it, I gather, and legal to use it (as long as, in doing so, you don't break other laws - just like any other action at all).
Why are all these other issues being brought up in the courts? I can see the need for debate elsewhere, but it seems like this is the only law being (potentially) violated.
Of course, the issues of jurisdiction, etc... are still pretty crazy, but that all came about AFTER this initial breach of the law, it seems...
Slashdot Mirror
Ugh!
Rollover highlighting? Foldout menus? Those are *cleaner navigation*? They're annoying, and make pages far more difficult to use. Even on a system that supports flash well, it's a real chore.
I HATE it when this happens! Just use the browser window! That's what it's there for!
Any kind of popup/forced new window is crap..
I do make allowances for sites such as brokensaints.com - the difference is that the whole point of the site is in the presentation - they're one and the same. The vast majority of web pages aren't like that though.
Is a web page software though? I don't think so. This is my main complaint about most web pages - they try to be software, with all their javascript, and complex stuff...
It ends up looking bad, not working, and generally being annoying.
So my ideal web design: no javascript. No java. No proprietary extensions.
Provide the text you want, and arrange it on the page in a nice readable way (with CSS, preferably), and don't bother with anything else. It just gets in the way, makes things unreadable, and makes it very difficult for the data be used in any other way.
It's really a rather pointless question, unless you can decide what art IS. If you ask three people, you'll get three different definitions of the word.
It's all so confusing now that I just avoid speaking about it much... Better to talk about how something fulfills its function than what it IS.
And of course, a "function" could be just about anything.
This is a very important point! Even deja never had the REALLY old posts - those are the ones that I'd really like to see.. back to the very beginnings of usenet. But those are lost, unless anyone has any posts they've saved up in some archive somewhere. In any case, how could any other company get started? Would deja be willing to sell its old archive?
What I think would be ideal right now is if deja split into two - they could have a dedicated usenet searching facility and archive, and another company for all the crap they've been doing now. They could work together very nicely, but DON'T let their web hosting or whatever get in the way the most important thing - Usenet archives.
And why oh why oh why did they change their name to deja!?!?!? Dejanews was a cute pun... I liked it! Perhaps if they DO split up a bit, the news division can inherit the name. Then we could have dejamail, dejaweb, dejashop, and dejanews.
Does anyone even USE the non-usenet services they provide?
Which is even STUPIDER. Why isn't tax just included? I know a few stores that do that - it's not hard! - and I find it much nicer. But it's rare.
Ooo.. I didn't know about that one. Thanks!
However, I expect there will be a HUGE amount of trouble involved in switching over, especially as I don't foresee support in windows media player popping up any time soon.
Are PNGs used much more than GIFs on most websites these days? Only on rather geeky ones, it seems... the unisys hassles went mostly unnoticed.
But it's good to know that alternatives exist. I hope it is developed and implemented quickly.
So, does this mean that mp3.com is, by legal definition, broadcasting? I personally don't think that makes much sense at all... What is the legal definition of broadcasting in the states?
As far as I can tell from a quick skim through Canadian law (which probably doesn't amount to much, given how impenetrable the language is), a broadcast can be just about anything. It could certainly be interpreted to include this, which I very much disagree with.
To me, a broadcast is necessarily something that is broad - i.e. receivable and "viewable" by anyone with the proper equipment. It does NOT include something like this, where you must register with the service to be elligible for it, and then have the information sent DIRECTLY to you.
How about this rather silly analogy:
You give your CDs to a company that has a network of bike couriers. Anytime you want to play a CD, your CD is carried to wherever you call from, so you can put it in a cdplayer and listen to it. Of course, you pay a slight fee for this service.
Is that illegal?
What about cd CASES - are they illegal? What about CDplayers themselves?
It's not illegal to sell a product or service which allows people to use the IP they are entitled to use.
All of these definitions are hopelessly mixed up though. I've read interpretations of internet sites with music that treat the hosted files as selling, broadcasting, preforming, or other things, each of which is subject to slightly different laws. Of course, the reality isn't really any of those. However, all of those are moving closer to that integrated "general digital signal" that could come from anywhere and carry anything. Having different laws is becoming rather redundant.
The interesting thing about mp3s are that the format IS patented. Many, if not most mp3s ARE illegal, because the owner of that patent doesn't allow other code to be based on its algorithms. I think.
I know gogo is not stored on US servers (or as part of debian) for that reason. Same with any other mp3 encoders.
Kinda makes you think, that this wonderful FREE format called mp3 isn't so free as we all make it out to be... what's to stop them from pulling a unisys and start charging fees for every use of mp3s? Nothing, AFAIK...
Is this really what the law says???
Why would a CD-R in a computer be different from a standalone CD-R? This is ridiculous.
Depends where you live - from talking to some friends in American cities, it seems like cars are a much bigger thing than in a lot of other cities. In most urban centers, (where the schools are generally rich enough to afford plans like these) there's little point to having a car - it just becomes a hassle, dealing with expensive parking, devilish traffic, etc etc... when public transit is quicker, easier, and much, much cheaper. I'm very glad I don't have a car here in Montreal, and even in Fredericton, with it's complete lack of public transit, a walk across town only takes an hour or two... Maybe investing in bicycles would be a better idea.
Of course, you're right... I must say, creative's web site is misleading in a typical corporate way - "professional 128 voice synthesizer" to my ears doesn't mean "software synth".
Personally, I've rather given up on Creative every doing things honestly and nicely - there are features on my card (the original AWE32) that have yet to be supported even in the windows drivers, and this thing's NOT new... Customizable reverb and chorus settings for example...
I haven't used that particular card, but I'm pretty sure it does have hardware wavetable functions. I know my AWE32 (the original creative wavetable card, not counting the waveblaster) does.
The AWE64 began the software mixing thing - it still has support for 32 tracks of hardware mixed, but under windows, you can add another 32 voices of software mixing if you want (and have the CPU).
My card came with 512K of ram, with two 30 simm slots for upgrades up to 28M (if you put 32 megs in, it ignored the top 4 megs, since it also had 4 megs of ROM, IIRC).
I know other versions didn't have all these features - the AWE32 value had no ram slots, and the sb32 had no ram initially on board, but had the slots for upgrades. I'm not too sure about the newer PCI versions, but I expect they have similar capabilities, with the 3d sound added in.
What is a "serious midi card"?
I assume the MIDI out on my soundblaster isn't, but what about a real MPU-401 from Roland? Or (the one that I have coming in the mail...) a Music Quest MPU-401 compatible? I was under the impression that most midi cards were pretty generic, except that the ones on popular cards like the soundblaster series were a bit crippled...
Unfortunate, but not really surprising - debian packages tend to do a lot more than redhat packages, which are litle more than an archive packaged with a few dependencies... The install scripts for debian tend to be a lot more complicated, from what I've looked at...
:)
In any case, you can try using alien, or just wait a few days for it to be debianized.
And there's always the good ole' tarball...
Actually, looking at themes.org, an awful lot of screenshots DO have scantily clad models draped over them... Kinda silly, in a slightly offensive way...
Of course, that's just the screenshot, not the software itself.
Even better:
You take a bunch of legos, assemble them into a square on a large platform piece (all on the same level). Wrap an elastic around them so that the elastic is on the flat sides, not the bumps. Then you carefully take the bricks off the platform, so that they're just held together by the elastic. Watch out though! If one of these goes off in your hand, you can REALLY get hurt!
A friend of mine made time bombs and vibration-sensitive bombs out of these that would send bricks flying all over the house... He's studying philosohy now. <G>
They do have the right to say "we'll only sell licenses to people, etc..".
However, if someone finds a way to read it WITHOUT a licensed decoder, no copyright laws are being broken, AFAIK.
The situation has changed with the DMCA because now, in America (dunno about anywhere else - and I'd love to know Canada's stance on this sort of thing) it's essentially illegal to make/use a non-licensed decoder.
The only ways I see of this getting through that very silly law are either through the "fair use" provision, included in both the old copyright law, and the DMCA (which I believe is now part of the copyright law); or else by showing that CSS isn't copy-protection, so the DMCA holds no sway over it. That last will be tricky, as it DOES have something to do with copy-protection, albeit in a rather pathetic way, that doesn't really do a lot of good for anyone.
Of course, won't converting it to mpeg result inloss of quality? Maybe not - though I would hope it would, if you're trading it over IRC! Large files, anyone?
The whole point to copying DVDs as they are is that you get a very good picture that doesn't degrade with copying - if you have to shrink it down to a VCD or halve the framerate (I have no clue how much degrading we'd be talking about here) you may as well try to control people using camcorders to tape off their computer screens.
3. You don't want to break the encryption, you NEED the encryption IN PLACE, as DVD players will NOT play unencrypted DVD movies, they expect CSS and will not play if it is not there.
Are you serious about this?!?! If so, DVD technology WITHOUT cracked decryptors is extremely flawed. The way computers grow, long before DVDs are old and forgotten, computers will be able to EASILY handle the data for home movie-making. Even simply copying home videos from VHS to DVD to make them last longer and be more durable (not to mention less bulky) would be impossible, since you couldn't PLAY them anywhere (except by illegal means). Now, I don't think that ALL that many people need that kind of use - not many people need a whole lot of blank VHS tapes either - but enough COULD use it that it seems very foolish to me to not allow it.
Boy I'm glad I never bought a DVD player...
Doesn't it have to go through a normal court first? This was only a preliminary thing since the plaintiff's case kind of depends on stopping the distribution right away..
I think, Anyway. <G>
But is the key area necessary for unencrypted DVDs? Maybe I'm missing the point... but if you have the unencrypted data, can't you just stick it on a writeable DVD, and not bother with excryption anymore?
Or do some players ONLY play movies that are encrypted?
Can normal dvd writers write to the special disks?
that makes perfect sense to me.. IN A WAY.
It means that a copyrighted work (the encrypted movie) is protected from being played on unlicensed players.
Of course, this says NOTHING about whether playing the movie on an unlicensed player breaks any laws whatsoever - just that CSS prevents it.
It seems to me that this is the only real legal point to this whole situation - everything else seems redunant when you consider this. So, was the information obtained illegally? If not, it's legal to distribute it, I gather, and legal to use it (as long as, in doing so, you don't break other laws - just like any other action at all).
Why are all these other issues being brought up in the courts? I can see the need for debate elsewhere, but it seems like this is the only law being (potentially) violated.
Of course, the issues of jurisdiction, etc... are still pretty crazy, but that all came about AFTER this initial breach of the law, it seems...