I know tits have already been mentioned, but here goes anyway:
If a Binary digIT is a BIT, it stands to reason that a Ternary digIT would have to be a tit. This is important as an advantage to Ternary based computers, as it will be a first opportunity for many in the computer programming and design industries, not to mention software authors, to actually get to play with tits! Not just a pair, but many many thousands!!!:)
The only reason I can think of why they didn't take off in the states is how high the prices were when they were released, and how long it took the prices to come down. Same for blank media. I started out with a portable player/recorder, and I think it's probably the coolest most useful player/recorder of audio I've ever seen. It's also the neatest toy!:-)
I have a 'component' MD Player/Recorder, a Car MD-P/R, a portable 'MiniDiscMan' P/R, and two portable MD players, one of which is scarcely larger than an MD itself.
Advantages of MD: They're a lot harder to scratch than CD/vinyl, since they have those protective and durable cases like 3.5" FDs have. My experience with the players is that they are affordable (now), reliable, hardy, and very portable, (in the case of portables). The MD format is superior to MP3 in terms of ease of use, recording and playback. -- You don't have to concern yourself with a computer to burn them, or bitrates, or processing level, etc. They don't have that DRM B.S., and even if you want to copy a DVD's audio, (which mine won't let me using the fiber-optical connection) you can always go analog and do it that way!
I also use MP3, and have a portable, which, compared with MD was more expensive, and more difficult to use... though admittedly not much. The one real annoyance I find with MP3 which has caused me to hang on to MD and continue to use it is the annoying pause between songs, when one track ends and another begins, and how long it takes the player to go between tracks/songs, even right at the end of one and the beginning of another. Listening to "The Wall" on MP3 is frustrating and annoying, since most of it is recorded as one continuous song broken over many tracks. On MD, it's continuous.
It's no surprise, (reading the reply earlier about the MD supplanting audio casettes in Europe/Asia) that others, like me, chose to give up analog tape in favor of MD. They're almost as easy to record with, their easier to use, featureing Random Access to songs.
They have more features- you can input text for each song, each disc, you can record (on some units) in digital via f/o cable, in analog, with adjustable rec. level, you can do synchro-start recording (though I've never tried it), and can switch to mono-recording, which extends an 80-minute MD to 160 minutes, long enough for those snooze-inducing college lectures.
Disadvantages: Used to be, price, but that's fixed now. Really, MD's have little to disrecommend them. Sony even offers an adapter for USB to MD recording, so you can export all those MP3's you've been collecting!
E-Books are not quite the same as E-Music. The simple fact of the matter is, that if anyone wanted to spend the few hours it would take per book, it would be much much easier to simply scan a "real" book using a computer image scanner, and save the pages as jpeg's or gif's, and then tar/gzip them and distribute.
The process would be made even faster with an auto-sheet feeder.
The reason E-Book technology will stay unhacked for as long as it does is lack of incentive for anyone to spend the effort of hacking it.
It's not like DeCSS, where some organization tells people they can read books, but only using their reader. The same book is available in other forms. Also, online books are popular with a slightly different demographic than online music... there's some overlap but reading a book is usually a slightly more cerebrally demanding task than listening to music.
But this no-doubt will be hacked eventually, because some hackers out there will take it as a challenge when the backers of the technology say "this is hack-proof" to hack it. They may even do it just for fun, or because, as they say "it's there".
The incentive to hack will also be reduced by the fact that most people still seem to prefer to have a real-live book in front of them when they read, than be staring at a computer screen, even if it's a TFT screen on an electronic book.
But if anyone knows where I can get a copy of the sub-ethernet driven Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I'd love to know! (I don't mean the book by Douglas Adams, I mean the Guide refered to in the book by Adams, of the same name.:)
Yes, Windows works well on the desktop after billions upon billions of dollars were squandered and M$ beat hardware makers and vendors over the head to make stuff that will work with M$ Windows.
Notice all the computers around that have the little "Designed for Microsoft (R) Windows (R) 95" sticker on them?
Not to encourage flaming, but lets keep our facts straight: it took M$ a decade or so to do for Billions what a collective of volunteers did in the same time or less, for free.
And it STILL doesn't work right. It still is unsecure... wouldn't it have been nice if rather than trying to kill (-9) all it's competition, so that everyone would have to use their DOS version, they had concentrated on Windows and allowed people to run it on whatever version of DOS they wanted? Or Lin/*NIX for that matter?
Windows would not be nearly as insecure as it is if there were a solid foundation under it, like vmlinuz instead of command.com.
And for all the improvements made to Win/DOS, if I had a nickel for every time I saw the infamous Blue Screen of Death... I'd have near-to as much money as Bill Gates himself.
-Cesium
Strictly speaking, space (under an international treaty) belongs to everyone, so there shouldn't be a region of space where it is legal to play one kind of DVD but not others. This sort of thing applies only on the surface of the Earth.
Note "air-space" and "space" are not the same things. The region coding on DVDs is supposed to protect against piracy (yeah, right) and to allow the MPAA and/or studios to control better (ostensibly) what version of the content gets released where, and when.
Until a lot of people get up into space, and stay up there on a regular basis (i.e., in a space, moon, or Mars 'base',) I seriously doubt anyone at the MPAA would really give a rat's ass if a half-dozen or so people out in orbit are watching a region-1 encoded DVD as they fly over, for example, Europe.
And if it does upset them, screw 'em. Maybe this will somehow provide ammo against the MPAA in favor of DeCSS and related technologies!:)
Just my 1/50 dollar.
I browse at +2... am I being too selective? -Cesium.
I have always been into 'puters but I only really emereged into hackerdom once I joined karate about 6.5 years ago now.. it's pretty funny, my instructor turned into my best friend and happened to be a true guru..;-)
Slashdot Mirror
I know tits have already been mentioned, but here goes anyway:
:)
If a Binary digIT is a BIT, it stands to reason that a Ternary digIT would have to be a tit. This is important as an advantage to Ternary based computers, as it will be a first opportunity for many in the computer programming and design industries, not to mention software authors, to actually get to play with tits! Not just a pair, but many many thousands!!!
The only reason I can think of why they didn't take off in the states is how high the prices were when they were released, and how long it took the prices to come down. Same for blank media. I started out with a portable player/recorder, and I think it's probably the coolest most useful player/recorder of audio I've ever seen. It's also the neatest toy! :-)
I have a 'component' MD Player/Recorder, a Car MD-P/R, a portable 'MiniDiscMan' P/R, and two portable MD players, one of which is scarcely larger than an MD itself.
Advantages of MD: They're a lot harder to scratch than CD/vinyl, since they have those protective and durable cases like 3.5" FDs have. My experience with the players is that they are affordable (now), reliable, hardy, and very portable, (in the case of portables). The MD format is superior to MP3 in terms of ease of use, recording and playback. -- You don't have to concern yourself with a computer to burn them, or bitrates, or processing level, etc. They don't have that DRM B.S., and even if you want to copy a DVD's audio, (which mine won't let me using the fiber-optical connection) you can always go analog and do it that way!
I also use MP3, and have a portable, which, compared with MD was more expensive, and more difficult to use... though admittedly not much. The one real annoyance I find with MP3 which has caused me to hang on to MD and continue to use it is the annoying pause between songs, when one track ends and another begins, and how long it takes the player to go between tracks/songs, even right at the end of one and the beginning of another. Listening to "The Wall" on MP3 is frustrating and annoying, since most of it is recorded as one continuous song broken over many tracks. On MD, it's continuous.
It's no surprise, (reading the reply earlier about the MD supplanting audio casettes in Europe/Asia) that others, like me, chose to give up analog tape in favor of MD. They're almost as easy to record with, their easier to use, featureing Random Access to songs.
They have more features- you can input text for each song, each disc, you can record (on some units) in digital via f/o cable, in analog, with adjustable rec. level, you can do synchro-start recording (though I've never tried it), and can switch to mono-recording, which extends an 80-minute MD to 160 minutes, long enough for those snooze-inducing college lectures.
Disadvantages: Used to be, price, but that's fixed now. Really, MD's have little to disrecommend them. Sony even offers an adapter for USB to MD recording, so you can export all those MP3's you've been collecting!
Cesium- Half Life: 25 days and counting!!!
The process would be made even faster with an auto-sheet feeder.
The reason E-Book technology will stay unhacked for as long as it does is lack of incentive for anyone to spend the effort of hacking it.
It's not like DeCSS, where some organization tells people they can read books, but only using their reader. The same book is available in other forms. Also, online books are popular with a slightly different demographic than online music... there's some overlap but reading a book is usually a slightly more cerebrally demanding task than listening to music.
But this no-doubt will be hacked eventually, because some hackers out there will take it as a challenge when the backers of the technology say "this is hack-proof" to hack it. They may even do it just for fun, or because, as they say "it's there".
The incentive to hack will also be reduced by the fact that most people still seem to prefer to have a real-live book in front of them when they read, than be staring at a computer screen, even if it's a TFT screen on an electronic book.
But if anyone knows where I can get a copy of the sub-ethernet driven Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I'd love to know! (I don't mean the book by Douglas Adams, I mean the Guide refered to in the book by Adams, of the same name. :)
-Cesium
Notice all the computers around that have the little "Designed for Microsoft (R) Windows (R) 95" sticker on them?
Not to encourage flaming, but lets keep our facts straight: it took M$ a decade or so to do for Billions what a collective of volunteers did in the same time or less, for free.
And it STILL doesn't work right. It still is unsecure... wouldn't it have been nice if rather than trying to kill (-9) all it's competition, so that everyone would have to use their DOS version, they had concentrated on Windows and allowed people to run it on whatever version of DOS they wanted? Or Lin/*NIX for that matter?
Windows would not be nearly as insecure as it is if there were a solid foundation under it, like vmlinuz instead of command.com.
And for all the improvements made to Win/DOS, if I had a nickel for every time I saw the infamous Blue Screen of Death... I'd have near-to as much money as Bill Gates himself. -Cesium
Note "air-space" and "space" are not the same things. The region coding on DVDs is supposed to protect against piracy (yeah, right) and to allow the MPAA and/or studios to control better (ostensibly) what version of the content gets released where, and when.
Until a lot of people get up into space, and stay up there on a regular basis (i.e., in a space, moon, or Mars 'base',) I seriously doubt anyone at the MPAA would really give a rat's ass if a half-dozen or so people out in orbit are watching a region-1 encoded DVD as they fly over, for example, Europe.
And if it does upset them, screw 'em. Maybe this will somehow provide ammo against the MPAA in favor of DeCSS and related technologies! :)
Just my 1/50 dollar.
I browse at +2... am I being too selective?
-Cesium.
--------
Hehe,
;-)
I have always been into 'puters but I only really
emereged into hackerdom once I joined karate about 6.5 years ago now.. it's pretty funny, my instructor turned into my best friend and happened to be a true guru..
Caesium