I requested mine from Rat Shack. They rang it up like a sale, for $0, and explicitly said that they were free. I never agreed to an EULA of any kind (damn, I hate that 4-letter word). I plugged it into my Linux box, downloaded the Linux software, and scanned a few barcodes for fun. I think I'll even put my root login on a keycard (with the CODE128 barcode format) so I can just scan it in rather than typing it each time. I never in any way consented to a contract of any sort with DC, and I was never informed that I was leasing the unit rather than buying it. It appears that this CueCat is now MINE.
I suspect that sometime in the not-so-distant future everything, even things of trivial value, will be "leased" and not "sold". I also suspect nobody except the aware few won't care. It's a sad fact of the IP climate in the world, with everyone trying to stomp out everyone else and prevent them from profitting from their ideas. But until the courts actually allow that to happen, DC can fuck off. Thanks for the nifty barcode reader, btw.
That said, DC has a really good idea, and I hope they succeed. I actually think the idea of embedding product links in a catalog with barcodes is a GREAT idea, and I might actually use them (with Linux software, of course). I do buy a lot of stuff from Rat Shack.
If they make even a cursory attempt at such a contest, they can later claim that they gave crackers a chance to test the security of the protocol already (since crackers often use "security testing" as an excuse for their activities). I think it's a smart move. However, I do hope the RIAA rots in hell.
The problem with SDMI is not that it tries to enforce copy protection - we all know that this "feature" will become a moot point in a matter of days after its initial release. The problem is that it is owned by the RIAA, and therefore they can control the medium ("you can't build a player unless you omit this feature and add this security..."). They can't do that with MP3, and it seems that it's really pissing them off.
I'm a student at Georgia Tech, supposedly one of the recipients of this letter, and I think I'll be sending in a letter of my own. Universities supposedly stand for unbarred access to information, and GaTech has done a good job of running an open residential network (www.resnet.gatech.edu) so far. Blocking Napster would set a very bad precedent, and this must be stopped.
I don't even use Napster (or Scour, Gnutella, etc). A good chunk of my MP3s are from my own CDs, and the rest came from my friends' computers. I don't like Metallica (on the basis of their music), so I don't think I have more than one or two of their songs, and I think I even have a tape with those songs somewhere. They're never going to stop peer to peer trading unless they a) block all incoming ports to each IP, or b) hire packet nannies to inspect every transfer for copyrighted material. But even though a ban on Napster would be easy to work around, I would be deeply saddened if they were to cave in to legal pressure and enact it. If freedom of information(*) doesn't stand at universities, where will it stand?
-John
(* - I don't consider piracy to be a form of freedom of information - but restricting the right to run certain types of software that does have even a slim chance of being used with legal motives is a VERY bad thing)
It's much better than piracy.
They're actually creating their own code and graphics. They're actually improving (albeit in small ways) on the original. They're bringing a dead game back to life on modern computers. That's not piracy.
I'm sorry, I believe you are incorrect on several accounts. I realize that you're not trying to trash Linux, but I'll argue these points:
a) Almost all PCI video and sound devices can be probed. This is automatic in most cases. I'll contend that having to manually tweak a configuration file (the very concept of which seems to throw some people for a loop, but then again many people are also afraid of that big round power button on their computers) is better than not having a configuration file to tweak WHEN Windows messes something up. Sure, you can manually edit the registry, but it's not designed for that. Windows hardware installation screws up with a great frequency. Another point that many people forget is that Windows often comes pre-installed on computers, and so people rarely have to configure their hardware for it.
As for a driver interface for IHV's, look at Creative's EMU10k module, and nVidia's excellent OpenGL drivers. Many manufacturers have already released binary-only drivers as kernel modules.
b) Interface isn't up to par? Well, Linux's interface is DIFFERENT, yes. I find it much easier to use than the Windows interface. But then again, Linux allows me to configure my interface exactly how I like it, whereas Windows does not, so there's no way to compare. A Windows user was very impressed when she saw my Linux (Window Maker) desktop yesterday.
c) Not the cutting edge? Depends on what you're doing. For my purposes, Linux is exactly what I need - a light, fast, and stable operating system that runs perfectly on my laptop and supports all of the applications I need (including Maple). The X Window System is old, but there's a reason it has survived as long as it has: it is GOOD. With the advent of DRI, it now has a very solid framework for accelerated vendor-provided 3D graphics drivers. That was also the case with the old-style GLX module system.
d) Funny that, I couldn't get Quake3 running on my box under Windows, but it worked immediately under Linux, and performed very well.
There's no reason it couldn't have autoplay (a small addition to an automounter), but from what I gather nobody wants it. I for one turn it off when I use Windows, because I find it extremely annoying.
Linux does have 3D sound support. Take a look at www.openal.org. It's been used in the Linux ports of Alpha Centauri, Heavy Gear II, and Descent 3. OpenAL is NICE. It's still in development, but it's usable, RIGHT NOW.
Linux doesn't have force feedback, granted. Feel free to add it to the joystick API.
e) Linux does have SDL, ClanLib, and GGI. These three packages have different goals and scopes, but between them you can get just about anything DirectX has to offer. I am mainly an SDL coder, so I'll concentrate on that.
In response to your mention of DirectInput, I'll point out that SDL's new event code makes easy work of any input device, regardless of its configuration. A lot of effort has been put into it. I'm not a DirectX coder, so I can't compare specifics, but I know that some pretty heinous controllers have been plugged into SDL apps.
SDL also provides a very simple and powerful surface interface. 2D graphics programming more or less boils down to being able to quickly combine bitmapped images and perform fast pixel-level manipulation, and SDL is very good for this. Sure, you CAN write slow SDL apps if you don't know what you're doing, but with a bit of care you can squeeze a lot of performance out of it. I assume GGI and ClanLib offer similar capabilities.
SDL has a portable audio interface with backends for Linux (OSS, DMA, and ESD), Windows, BeOS, MacOS, and probably others (haven't checked). In addition to the ability to convert and play audio clips, there is a powerful SDL_mixer add-on library with MIDI playback capabilities and flexible multichannel mixing.
How is this theft of services? That's like saying that the Samba project steals from Microsoft by implementing a compatible protocol. The Everquest emulator people are writing their own code designed to interoperate with a commercial product.
Connectix was not successfully stopped from creating a Playstation emulator (not exactly a "server emulator", but I'm sure it involved a bit of reverse engineering of both hardware and software). There is a GPL'ed StarCraft Battle.net server (bnetd). There is also a free Ultima Online server. There are many other examples of protocols that have been reverse engineered in whole or in part. I don't see how Everquest is any different. Of COURSE Verant is scared of this. When companies get scared they seem to instinctively send out cease and desist notices.
IANAL, but according to a conversation with a lawyer, companies can avoid liability for sexual harassment if they provide all employees with clear information as to how complaints should be reported. Employees can't just up and sue a company over a trivial incident, unless the company fails to resolve the situation in an expedient manner, or fails to provide a way to file complaints. This lawyer also told me that it's much harder than most people think to successfully sue a company over this. I guess we just hear about the few cases that do go through.
Again, I am not a lawyer, and I may have my facts wrong.
I don't know, I had a look at that DMA patent, and it looked fairly obvious. Maybe some of the patents they cited aren't flimsy, but that one looks really dumb (considering that nearly everything is memory mapped these days).
Books are physical objects printed on paper. We all know that there's a certain value to books that can't be replaced by something on the screen - they're more inviting, easier to handle, extremely convenient, not subject to power failures, and so on. I often buy books even when I could get the same thing online for free, and even though I have access to a really fast laser printer. I'm also writing a book at the moment, and I'm in favor of publishing it online for free as well as on paper (though that's up to the publisher). I don't think I'd lose money by doing that, and it would make the material more accessible and useful.
This company is providing a system for securing access to online resources. I don't like the sound of their motivations, but this isn't new. My high school's library (several years ago) had a CD-ROM collection that wouldn't allow printing. I was annoyed, but I didn't see any Slashdot alarmists bitching about it. I would classify anything published with this medium as "material", but not as "books". Books are something I can lend to friends, take anywhere, and photocopy as I see fit.
If you don't like a new trend in publishing, spend your money elsewhere. If you are involved with an organization that requires it, complain to the administration.
Georgia Tech's official environment is a big central server called Acme (actually it's a pool of 3 big Sun servers). Most classes require all projects to work on Acme, and there's a system for submitting assignments directly from there. In a recent class, it became apparent that a large number of people were using Linux at home, simply because it's faster, not resource metered, and easier to customize locally. With this realization, the administration of the class has switched to Red Hat 6.2 as the official environment.
As much as a Windows environment would suck, it's pretty much necessary to pick one supported configuration and enforce it to the letter. If you don't, students will blame everything on incompatibilities, and the bitching factor will be much higher. Even the Solaris versus Linux difference broke a few of my assignments (I coded on Linux and tested on Acme). However, if I were a TA I wouldn't want to have to deal with this stuff while grading, as it would take at least twice as long.
Matrox has released fairly complete documentation for the G400, in fact sufficient documentation to make a very decent GLX driver and an accelerated server. I've downloaded and had a look at the PDF file. They've told their customers how their cards work. Why are they under any further obligation to give out their code?
I prefer open source software, since it generally results in higher quality. I also believe that companies have an obligation to support their customers; for instance, NeoMagic has been very unhelpful with their specifications, and I think that sucks because their customers are the only reason they're in business. But Matrox has been helpful, and open source drivers have been written for most of their hardware. What's the problem, then, if they want to release their own binary-only driver?
Way to go, Matrox. I own a G400 Max, and I'm very happy with it. Keep up the good work.
Linux "emulation" really just causes the dynamic linker to use a different set of shared libraries when loading Linux binaries. FreeBSD and Linux system calls are more or less the same. There is no performance loss due to emulation in most cases.
The real problem is that some programs make Linux-specific assumptions; for instance, the (open source) Loki Setup program used to use Linux-specific CD-ROM detection code, meaning that FreeBSD users had to hack the setup configuration file.
I'm not speaking for Loki here; this is just based on my own experience.
I recently encoded "Dream Theater - Pull Me Under" as both 128kbps MP3 and Ogg Vorbis.
The Vorbis file was a bit larger, but not absurdly so. It's a variable bitrate format, apparently. I couldn't figure out how to disable VBR. I asked for an average bitrate of 128. As it stands, I doubt many people will for i in *.mp3; do ogglame --mp3input $i; done, but it's a workable option. The codec is improving.
The Vorbis file also took much longer to encode, but perhaps that was because I was using the highly-optimized Gogo encoder (ie, almost pure assembly) versus the in-development Ogglame encoder. I also seem to recall that variable bitrate encoding is generally slower.
The quality of the Vorbis file was excellent, as far as I could tell. I used the vorbis XMMS plugin to play it. My laptop's speakers leave something to be desired, but it even sounded a bit richer than the MP3 file.
I intend to use Vorbis in one of my upcoming projects. It's totally free, and it's basically painless to support (the API is very clean).
I'm under 21, so I can't buy the Ogg people a beer, but someone please do!
The problem there was that people were buying the iOpener units for the sole purpose of hacking them, thereby causing Netpliance to lose money on the deal (I got the impression that they were not making a profit on the actual units, but rather on the service). If you add a bigger hard drive to the TiVo, you still need to pay for their service, and they still make money.
It would be a very bad PR move for TiVo to forbid hacking in their contracts. I'm glad they don't seem to mind - I'm interested in getting one for myself at some point.
From the Vancouver Sun article: "Right now parents are flying blind..."
SoF's box has a picture of a soldier with a sniper rifle, a large red stop sign that says "Warning! Violent Subject Matter.", as well as an ESRB rating that says "Mature: Animated Blood and Gore, Animated Violence".
Don't these give SOME indication that this game might possibly not be suitable for a young child? Yes, SoF is a rather violent game. It makes no secret of that, and any customer at a computer store would immediately realize that it is violent.
Personally, I don't think SoF is tasteless; it's just very graphic. It deals with war, and war is a messy thing. If you shoot someone, they DO writhe in pain, and SoF shows that. I think that's better than games where people just disappear when they're shot, but it's certainly a lot less comfortable.
-John
BTW, this is NOT a statement from my employer, these are my personal opinions.
...is that it varies depending on the data. I like to know exactly how much memory I have. Try gzipping a megabyte of text files, and then a megabyte of executables. Sure, the executables will probably compress somewhat, because there is repetitive data there. Text generally achieves a much better compression ratio than machine code. But what about data from/dev/urandom, which is HIGHLY non-repetitive?
I don't claim to know a damn thing about this memory technology, but what do they intend to do about the unpredictability of compression ratios? You'd end up with a different amount of RAM depending on the application... No thanks.
Slashdot Mirror
I requested mine from Rat Shack. They rang it up like a sale, for $0, and explicitly said that they were free. I never agreed to an EULA of any kind (damn, I hate that 4-letter word). I plugged it into my Linux box, downloaded the Linux software, and scanned a few barcodes for fun. I think I'll even put my root login on a keycard (with the CODE128 barcode format) so I can just scan it in rather than typing it each time. I never in any way consented to a contract of any sort with DC, and I was never informed that I was leasing the unit rather than buying it. It appears that this CueCat is now MINE.
I suspect that sometime in the not-so-distant future everything, even things of trivial value, will be "leased" and not "sold". I also suspect nobody except the aware few won't care. It's a sad fact of the IP climate in the world, with everyone trying to stomp out everyone else and prevent them from profitting from their ideas. But until the courts actually allow that to happen, DC can fuck off. Thanks for the nifty barcode reader, btw.
That said, DC has a really good idea, and I hope they succeed. I actually think the idea of embedding product links in a catalog with barcodes is a GREAT idea, and I might actually use them (with Linux software, of course). I do buy a lot of stuff from Rat Shack.
-John
If they make even a cursory attempt at such a contest, they can later claim that they gave crackers a chance to test the security of the protocol already (since crackers often use "security testing" as an excuse for their activities). I think it's a smart move. However, I do hope the RIAA rots in hell.
The problem with SDMI is not that it tries to enforce copy protection - we all know that this "feature" will become a moot point in a matter of days after its initial release. The problem is that it is owned by the RIAA, and therefore they can control the medium ("you can't build a player unless you omit this feature and add this security..."). They can't do that with MP3, and it seems that it's really pissing them off.
-John
I've considered setting up a Coda distributed filesystem to accompish the same thing. It would take a bit of work, but it would rule!
-John
I'm a student at Georgia Tech, supposedly one of the recipients of this letter, and I think I'll be sending in a letter of my own. Universities supposedly stand for unbarred access to information, and GaTech has done a good job of running an open residential network (www.resnet.gatech.edu) so far. Blocking Napster would set a very bad precedent, and this must be stopped.
I don't even use Napster (or Scour, Gnutella, etc). A good chunk of my MP3s are from my own CDs, and the rest came from my friends' computers. I don't like Metallica (on the basis of their music), so I don't think I have more than one or two of their songs, and I think I even have a tape with those songs somewhere. They're never going to stop peer to peer trading unless they a) block all incoming ports to each IP, or b) hire packet nannies to inspect every transfer for copyrighted material. But even though a ban on Napster would be easy to work around, I would be deeply saddened if they were to cave in to legal pressure and enact it. If freedom of information(*) doesn't stand at universities, where will it stand?
-John
(* - I don't consider piracy to be a form of freedom of information - but restricting the right to run certain types of software that does have even a slim chance of being used with legal motives is a VERY bad thing)
It's much better than piracy.
They're actually creating their own code and graphics. They're actually improving (albeit in small ways) on the original. They're bringing a dead game back to life on modern computers. That's not piracy.
-John
I'm sorry, I believe you are incorrect on several accounts. I realize that you're not trying to trash Linux, but I'll argue these points:
a) Almost all PCI video and sound devices can be probed. This is automatic in most cases. I'll contend that having to manually tweak a configuration file (the very concept of which seems to throw some people for a loop, but then again many people are also afraid of that big round power button on their computers) is better than not having a configuration file to tweak WHEN Windows messes something up. Sure, you can manually edit the registry, but it's not designed for that. Windows hardware installation screws up with a great frequency. Another point that many people forget is that Windows often comes pre-installed on computers, and so people rarely have to configure their hardware for it.
As for a driver interface for IHV's, look at Creative's EMU10k module, and nVidia's excellent OpenGL drivers. Many manufacturers have already released binary-only drivers as kernel modules.
b) Interface isn't up to par? Well, Linux's interface is DIFFERENT, yes. I find it much easier to use than the Windows interface. But then again, Linux allows me to configure my interface exactly how I like it, whereas Windows does not, so there's no way to compare. A Windows user was very impressed when she saw my Linux (Window Maker) desktop yesterday.
c) Not the cutting edge? Depends on what you're doing. For my purposes, Linux is exactly what I need - a light, fast, and stable operating system that runs perfectly on my laptop and supports all of the applications I need (including Maple). The X Window System is old, but there's a reason it has survived as long as it has: it is GOOD. With the advent of DRI, it now has a very solid framework for accelerated vendor-provided 3D graphics drivers. That was also the case with the old-style GLX module system.
d) Funny that, I couldn't get Quake3 running on my box under Windows, but it worked immediately under Linux, and performed very well.
There's no reason it couldn't have autoplay (a small addition to an automounter), but from what I gather nobody wants it. I for one turn it off when I use Windows, because I find it extremely annoying.
Linux does have 3D sound support. Take a look at www.openal.org. It's been used in the Linux ports of Alpha Centauri, Heavy Gear II, and Descent 3. OpenAL is NICE. It's still in development, but it's usable, RIGHT NOW.
Linux doesn't have force feedback, granted. Feel free to add it to the joystick API.
e) Linux does have SDL, ClanLib, and GGI. These three packages have different goals and scopes, but between them you can get just about anything DirectX has to offer. I am mainly an SDL coder, so I'll concentrate on that.
In response to your mention of DirectInput, I'll point out that SDL's new event code makes easy work of any input device, regardless of its configuration. A lot of effort has been put into it. I'm not a DirectX coder, so I can't compare specifics, but I know that some pretty heinous controllers have been plugged into SDL apps.
SDL also provides a very simple and powerful surface interface. 2D graphics programming more or less boils down to being able to quickly combine bitmapped images and perform fast pixel-level manipulation, and SDL is very good for this. Sure, you CAN write slow SDL apps if you don't know what you're doing, but with a bit of care you can squeeze a lot of performance out of it. I assume GGI and ClanLib offer similar capabilities.
SDL has a portable audio interface with backends for Linux (OSS, DMA, and ESD), Windows, BeOS, MacOS, and probably others (haven't checked). In addition to the ability to convert and play audio clips, there is a powerful SDL_mixer add-on library with MIDI playback capabilities and flexible multichannel mixing.
-John
I'm posting for myself, not Loki.
How is this theft of services? That's like saying that the Samba project steals from Microsoft by implementing a compatible protocol. The Everquest emulator people are writing their own code designed to interoperate with a commercial product.
-John
Connectix was not successfully stopped from creating a Playstation emulator (not exactly a "server emulator", but I'm sure it involved a bit of reverse engineering of both hardware and software). There is a GPL'ed StarCraft Battle.net server (bnetd). There is also a free Ultima Online server. There are many other examples of protocols that have been reverse engineered in whole or in part. I don't see how Everquest is any different. Of COURSE Verant is scared of this. When companies get scared they seem to instinctively send out cease and desist notices.
-John
IANAL, but according to a conversation with a lawyer, companies can avoid liability for sexual harassment if they provide all employees with clear information as to how complaints should be reported. Employees can't just up and sue a company over a trivial incident, unless the company fails to resolve the situation in an expedient manner, or fails to provide a way to file complaints. This lawyer also told me that it's much harder than most people think to successfully sue a company over this. I guess we just hear about the few cases that do go through.
Again, I am not a lawyer, and I may have my facts wrong.
-John
I don't know, I had a look at that DMA patent, and it looked fairly obvious. Maybe some of the patents they cited aren't flimsy, but that one looks really dumb (considering that nearly everything is memory mapped these days).
-John
Books are physical objects printed on paper. We all know that there's a certain value to books that can't be replaced by something on the screen - they're more inviting, easier to handle, extremely convenient, not subject to power failures, and so on. I often buy books even when I could get the same thing online for free, and even though I have access to a really fast laser printer. I'm also writing a book at the moment, and I'm in favor of publishing it online for free as well as on paper (though that's up to the publisher). I don't think I'd lose money by doing that, and it would make the material more accessible and useful.
This company is providing a system for securing access to online resources. I don't like the sound of their motivations, but this isn't new. My high school's library (several years ago) had a CD-ROM collection that wouldn't allow printing. I was annoyed, but I didn't see any Slashdot alarmists bitching about it. I would classify anything published with this medium as "material", but not as "books". Books are something I can lend to friends, take anywhere, and photocopy as I see fit.
If you don't like a new trend in publishing, spend your money elsewhere. If you are involved with an organization that requires it, complain to the administration.
-John
That's not a practical solution when you are overloaded with classwork and are struggling to get projects turned in on time.
-John
Georgia Tech's official environment is a big central server called Acme (actually it's a pool of 3 big Sun servers). Most classes require all projects to work on Acme, and there's a system for submitting assignments directly from there. In a recent class, it became apparent that a large number of people were using Linux at home, simply because it's faster, not resource metered, and easier to customize locally. With this realization, the administration of the class has switched to Red Hat 6.2 as the official environment.
As much as a Windows environment would suck, it's pretty much necessary to pick one supported configuration and enforce it to the letter. If you don't, students will blame everything on incompatibilities, and the bitching factor will be much higher. Even the Solaris versus Linux difference broke a few of my assignments (I coded on Linux and tested on Acme). However, if I were a TA I wouldn't want to have to deal with this stuff while grading, as it would take at least twice as long.
-John
Matrox has released fairly complete documentation for the G400, in fact sufficient documentation to make a very decent GLX driver and an accelerated server. I've downloaded and had a look at the PDF file. They've told their customers how their cards work. Why are they under any further obligation to give out their code?
I prefer open source software, since it generally results in higher quality. I also believe that companies have an obligation to support their customers; for instance, NeoMagic has been very unhelpful with their specifications, and I think that sucks because their customers are the only reason they're in business. But Matrox has been helpful, and open source drivers have been written for most of their hardware. What's the problem, then, if they want to release their own binary-only driver?
Way to go, Matrox. I own a G400 Max, and I'm very happy with it. Keep up the good work.
-John
Linux "emulation" really just causes the dynamic linker to use a different set of shared libraries when loading Linux binaries. FreeBSD and Linux system calls are more or less the same. There is no performance loss due to emulation in most cases.
The real problem is that some programs make Linux-specific assumptions; for instance, the (open source) Loki Setup program used to use Linux-specific CD-ROM detection code, meaning that FreeBSD users had to hack the setup configuration file.
I'm not speaking for Loki here; this is just based on my own experience.
-John
I recently encoded "Dream Theater - Pull Me Under" as both 128kbps MP3 and Ogg Vorbis.
The Vorbis file was a bit larger, but not absurdly so. It's a variable bitrate format, apparently. I couldn't figure out how to disable VBR. I asked for an average bitrate of 128. As it stands, I doubt many people will for i in *.mp3; do ogglame --mp3input $i; done, but it's a workable option. The codec is improving.
The Vorbis file also took much longer to encode, but perhaps that was because I was using the highly-optimized Gogo encoder (ie, almost pure assembly) versus the in-development Ogglame encoder. I also seem to recall that variable bitrate encoding is generally slower.
The quality of the Vorbis file was excellent, as far as I could tell. I used the vorbis XMMS plugin to play it. My laptop's speakers leave something to be desired, but it even sounded a bit richer than the MP3 file.
I intend to use Vorbis in one of my upcoming projects. It's totally free, and it's basically painless to support (the API is very clean).
I'm under 21, so I can't buy the Ogg people a beer, but someone please do!
-John
It would be a very bad PR move for TiVo to forbid hacking in their contracts. I'm glad they don't seem to mind - I'm interested in getting one for myself at some point.
-John
-John
-John
-John
-John
-John
SoF's box has a picture of a soldier with a sniper rifle, a large red stop sign that says "Warning! Violent Subject Matter.", as well as an ESRB rating that says "Mature: Animated Blood and Gore, Animated Violence".
Don't these give SOME indication that this game might possibly not be suitable for a young child? Yes, SoF is a rather violent game. It makes no secret of that, and any customer at a computer store would immediately realize that it is violent.
Personally, I don't think SoF is tasteless; it's just very graphic. It deals with war, and war is a messy thing. If you shoot someone, they DO writhe in pain, and SoF shows that. I think that's better than games where people just disappear when they're shot, but it's certainly a lot less comfortable.
-John
BTW, this is NOT a statement from my employer, these are my personal opinions.
I don't claim to know a damn thing about this memory technology, but what do they intend to do about the unpredictability of compression ratios? You'd end up with a different amount of RAM depending on the application... No thanks.
-John
The weapons were pretty cool also. And I couldn't help but appreciate the twist of irony at the end.
-John