they must be lying. It's impossible to compress arbitrary data, and if it's already compressed, it's especially unlikely. If you re-zip a.zip file, it gets larger. If the algorithm is sufficiently different, maybe not, but most data is compressed using a variant of LZW (even JPEG).
I overreact as much as the next guy...
on
Netscape 6 is Spyware?
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· Score: 5, Insightful
but the article is pretty clear that the data are anonymized and for billing purposes only. Microsoft might not need to collect data on how often their users use affiliated search engines, but Netscape isn't in a position where they are free to lose money.
Netscape needs to collect information about the frequency of searches in order to bill the search engines correctly. The very fact that it only occurs in the "Search bar" shows that they are very likely to be telling the truth. It wouldn't be hard to log much much more data than they apparently do.
The commment about the ip address was misleading as well. Any time that information is sent to my computer, I can log the IP address. It doesn't mean that I am going to be doing anything with it.
There is nothing snake oilish about these compression claims. Only a few ISPs are supporting it, but the v.42 compression standard has been out for a while. Check out this comparison to see how it differs from older compression standards. The key is that these claimed ratios are in ideal situations -- ie, when you're downloading a great deal of text, not the high-bandwidth consuming images or video streams. Those are already highly compressed, and so are unlikely to benefit from further compression. In fact, it is a fairly trivial consequence that any compression method will make some kinds of files larger, not smaller. A fatter pipe is the only solution sometimes, and that just isn't going to happen with POTS.
Re:More information on BlueOS
on
BeOS For Linux
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· Score: 1
I read the link. What I don't understand is if in the second screenshot the BeOS windows are also faked. If so, what exactly is the point of the screenshot?
"Animosity" has the root "animus," which has to do roughly with a living spirit. In modern usage, it means a strong antipathetic feeling -- with the emphasis on the feeling, and the passion of that feeling. Enmity is a good word choice too, if what you really meant was the personal relationship between yourself and PayPal. I assumed that your emphasis was on the feeling. Sorry if I was wrong.
I'm not trying to bash your spelling, but do you purposefully misspell enmity? It comes from eNeMy, with the n before the m, so enmity has the same letter order.
Don't worry, your grammar is much better than most slashdotarians, and probably better than mine when I'm not in an overly pedantic mood. Just one more reason that this grammar service would be a boon to the overly anal yet lazy like myself.
ENMITY is surely what you meant. Actually, animosity would have been a better choice. I see that m-w lists the two as synonyms, but using enmity (with the root word enemy) implies that there is a possibility of mutual, personal hatred. I doubt that you really meant to personify PayPal to that extent. Animosity is just as strong a feeling, but doesn't imply the possibility of reciprocity.
It would be nice if Slashdot had an integrated spelling and grammar checker. Maybe that's a feature people would find worth paying a subscription for? Especially if editors were forced to use it:)
I think you mean enmity (or animosity?), not amnity (which is not a word) or amity (which means friendship).
However, I haven't had any of the problems you describe with Pay Pal. Half of the anti-PayPal webpages I see are paid for by their competitors. They offer a useful service, and have a large customer base. The few people who do have problems are just a vocal percentage made larger by their number.
I didn't mean to imply that only IBM was part of the PPC group. I realize that several parties were involved, which makes sense with something proposed as a new standard:)
The information about roms is new to me, however. As far as I knew all version of Mac OS had a special rom file, without which the OS would not run. I guess that has changed. What are the issues with open firmware? I hadn't heard about any particular issues. I thought the great thing about "open firmware" was that it ran on so many different hardware platforms. Sun uses it in their Sparcs, for instance, IIRC.
Wrong. Most film is shot on 35 mm negatives, and then printed to a positive 35mm film that is then run through the projector.
my point was that it is easier to make many prints from a negative image than a positive, as if you first make a positive, you will need to make a negative anyhow before the final printing.
have you ever done any chemical photography? it doesn't sound like it. i've shot 16 mm film myself, and done far more with video. 16 mm is the cheapest film, but naturally, as you increase the size of the film, the quality also increases. That is why IMAX is a such a huge format. I don't recall the exact size, but it it a couple of inches across if you ever see it outside a projector booth.
I don't think that Ralph Nader really formed the FCC.
Also, I find Slashdot to be a good place to talk about things.
Sometimes there is great discussion, and there is always a chance to hear every side of the story.
"Just because things have been practically dead for us for over a year doesn't mean Mac emulation's days are over..."
Your scope. So limited. Over a year? Heh.
We've had 040 since 1994 or so.
What's really happened since the first releases of Fusion, Executor and BasiliskII?
I'll tell you what. Color graphics. That's it. That's the big thing. Thats the only 'milestone' that's happened since this whole 68k mac emulation thing began. Oh okay and the ability to run a shitty 040 at the equivalent of a 68040-9000mhz. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.
Up to now, what we've had has been a few useless toys that let us run Claris Works, Photoshop 3.0 and Escape Velocity. (Note to all of you guys out there who have a sincere need to keep running your 68k apps: you don't count. At all. I don't care what your excuse is. MOVE ON.)
Do you guys REALLY think that it's all going to come together one month from now?
Again, my point is, people who just discovered this scene a year or so ago don't realize how long it's REALLY been.
I mean. If you get on the train right before the last stop, you wonder what all the passengers who have been on there for 3000 miles are complaining about!
I'm not believing a goddamn thing until I see it running on my system.
Has any other respectable site besides Emaculation uttered a word about this? If this was really going to happen, Apple would be on Drew faster than Sony on Bleem.
Until I see it running - I'll have to conur with Duckie... "yawn".
From what Jim Drew has said, this isn't just about Macintosh emulation on a PC. His PPC product, whatever it may be, seems to have a much broader scope than that.
Y'all can start a countdown if you want, but I wouldn't be wetting my pants just yet.
Why haven't we seen any PPC emulation before this? I know that Apple uses the ROM so that it wouldn't be a threat to them. I particularly wonder why there has been no open source implementation of PPC, particularly as IBM is both a supporter of OS and creater of the PPC architecture. Unless the speed just hasn't been there, but it seem like it should be easier to emulate a RISC architecture with a CISC instruction set than the reverse. And Softwindows and the like for Mac OS have been around for ages.
35 mm film is a negative. That's why you hear people talking about the early "prints" and why there are only a limited number of prints made -- you don't want to damage the negative. How do you think that you would get multiple copies of a film for distribution if it was photographed onto a postive emulsion? With slide film, you have no original to make copies off of. Copies of slide film lose quality. With a negative, you make a print, and then another print, and each print has the same potential quality.
Who want's to be that Ted Turner takes the first ride...and claims a red giant for AOL?
Seriously though, the idea is great, but I'm interested in a timeline. All that I can guess right now is "not in our lifetime." Despite the benefits of privatization in some cases, the public sector really seems much better suited to future-oriented programmes like the space programme. How can they guarantee funding?
Amen to that. Philosophically, there is no better standard available than the Turing Test. It may have problems, but that doesn't make the schoolbook criticism devastating.
That's just my point. You should have read my statement more carefully. THERE IS NO NEUTRAL CONTENT. Scientists rationalize this all of the time about research contracts. Perfectly sane people convince themselves that a) the media is relatively unbiased and b) "neutrality" is a good goal.
Sorry to break it to you, kid, but these are issues too important to be neutral about. And if you think that the mainstream press only prints opinions on the opinion page, you are mistaken. Ever been in the news? I have, frequently, and it is disenchanting to see how blatant misrepresentation of your statements can be, when it fits the editor's direction for a story.
Finally, to say that only opinion pieces are posted on Indymedia is false. You must not read it frequently. There are some editorial type pieces that are clearly marked, and there are reports of events along with analysis. Instead of the usual corporate focus, they have a people focus. That's it. It's still the facts. Which facts you report is critical.
How is this flamebait?? I have stopped using Windows, but for ideological reasons, not stability. I found Windows 2000 to be a) the most stable MS OS i've used, yet, and b) a fair comparison to Linux in terms of stability. Windows ME, on the other hand...
The quartering act, yes, and i think perhaps article 14, which extends to states the first 10 amendments. My constitutional law class is all a hazy fog:)
Slashdot Mirror
they must be lying. It's impossible to compress arbitrary data, and if it's already compressed, it's especially unlikely. If you re-zip a .zip file, it gets larger. If the algorithm is sufficiently different, maybe not, but most data is compressed using a variant of LZW (even JPEG).
Netscape needs to collect information about the frequency of searches in order to bill the search engines correctly. The very fact that it only occurs in the "Search bar" shows that they are very likely to be telling the truth. It wouldn't be hard to log much much more data than they apparently do.
The commment about the ip address was misleading as well. Any time that information is sent to my computer, I can log the IP address. It doesn't mean that I am going to be doing anything with it.
I've never heard of PINE-CERT either. I smell something fishy.
There is nothing snake oilish about these compression claims. Only a few ISPs are supporting it, but the v.42 compression standard has been out for a while. Check out this comparison to see how it differs from older compression standards. The key is that these claimed ratios are in ideal situations -- ie, when you're downloading a great deal of text, not the high-bandwidth consuming images or video streams. Those are already highly compressed, and so are unlikely to benefit from further compression. In fact, it is a fairly trivial consequence that any compression method will make some kinds of files larger, not smaller. A fatter pipe is the only solution sometimes, and that just isn't going to happen with POTS.
I read the link. What I don't understand is if in the second screenshot the BeOS windows are also faked. If so, what exactly is the point of the screenshot?
I'm not trying to bash your spelling, but do you purposefully misspell enmity? It comes from eNeMy, with the n before the m, so enmity has the same letter order.
Don't worry, your grammar is much better than most slashdotarians, and probably better than mine when I'm not in an overly pedantic mood. Just one more reason that this grammar service would be a boon to the overly anal yet lazy like myself.
It would be nice if Slashdot had an integrated spelling and grammar checker. Maybe that's a feature people would find worth paying a subscription for? Especially if editors were forced to use it :)
However, I haven't had any of the problems you describe with Pay Pal. Half of the anti-PayPal webpages I see are paid for by their competitors. They offer a useful service, and have a large customer base. The few people who do have problems are just a vocal percentage made larger by their number.
and it is mentioned heavily in the article. Why don't you people read?
umm...it is. If you actually read the article, you would realize that. The Slashdot editor is the one who didn't mention it.
i was just watching 2001 this afternoon :)
Lycos is a registered trademark of Carnegie Mellon University.
The information about roms is new to me, however. As far as I knew all version of Mac OS had a special rom file, without which the OS would not run. I guess that has changed. What are the issues with open firmware? I hadn't heard about any particular issues. I thought the great thing about "open firmware" was that it ran on so many different hardware platforms. Sun uses it in their Sparcs, for instance, IIRC.
my point was that it is easier to make many prints from a negative image than a positive, as if you first make a positive, you will need to make a negative anyhow before the final printing.
have you ever done any chemical photography? it doesn't sound like it. i've shot 16 mm film myself, and done far more with video. 16 mm is the cheapest film, but naturally, as you increase the size of the film, the quality also increases. That is why IMAX is a such a huge format. I don't recall the exact size, but it it a couple of inches across if you ever see it outside a projector booth.
Also, I find Slashdot to be a good place to talk about things. Sometimes there is great discussion, and there is always a chance to hear every side of the story.
"Just because things have been practically dead for us for over a year doesn't mean Mac emulation's days are over ..."
Your scope. So limited. Over a year? Heh.
We've had 040 since 1994 or so.
What's really happened since the first releases of Fusion, Executor and BasiliskII?
I'll tell you what. Color graphics. That's it. That's the big thing. Thats the only 'milestone' that's happened since this whole 68k mac emulation thing began. Oh okay and the ability to run a shitty 040 at the equivalent of a 68040-9000mhz. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.
Up to now, what we've had has been a few useless toys that let us run Claris Works, Photoshop 3.0 and Escape Velocity. (Note to all of you guys out there who have a sincere need to keep running your 68k apps: you don't count. At all. I don't care what your excuse is. MOVE ON.)
Do you guys REALLY think that it's all going to come together one month from now?
Again, my point is, people who just discovered this scene a year or so ago don't realize how long it's REALLY been.
I mean. If you get on the train right before the last stop, you wonder what all the passengers who have been on there for 3000 miles are complaining about!
I'm not believing a goddamn thing until I see it running on my system.
Has any other respectable site besides Emaculation uttered a word about this? If this was really going to happen, Apple would be on Drew faster than Sony on Bleem.
Until I see it running - I'll have to conur with Duckie... "yawn".
From what Jim Drew has said, this isn't just about Macintosh emulation on a PC. His PPC product, whatever it may be, seems to have a much broader scope than that.
Y'all can start a countdown if you want, but I wouldn't be wetting my pants just yet.
Why haven't we seen any PPC emulation before this? I know that Apple uses the ROM so that it wouldn't be a threat to them. I particularly wonder why there has been no open source implementation of PPC, particularly as IBM is both a supporter of OS and creater of the PPC architecture. Unless the speed just hasn't been there, but it seem like it should be easier to emulate a RISC architecture with a CISC instruction set than the reverse. And Softwindows and the like for Mac OS have been around for ages.
35 mm film is a negative. That's why you hear people talking about the early "prints" and why there are only a limited number of prints made -- you don't want to damage the negative. How do you think that you would get multiple copies of a film for distribution if it was photographed onto a postive emulsion? With slide film, you have no original to make copies off of. Copies of slide film lose quality. With a negative, you make a print, and then another print, and each print has the same potential quality.
For DADA.
Seriously though, the idea is great, but I'm interested in a timeline. All that I can guess right now is "not in our lifetime." Despite the benefits of privatization in some cases, the public sector really seems much better suited to future-oriented programmes like the space programme. How can they guarantee funding?
Amen to that. Philosophically, there is no better standard available than the Turing Test. It may have problems, but that doesn't make the schoolbook criticism devastating.
This is why I still visit Slashdot. Way to go, Taco!
Sorry to break it to you, kid, but these are issues too important to be neutral about. And if you think that the mainstream press only prints opinions on the opinion page, you are mistaken. Ever been in the news? I have, frequently, and it is disenchanting to see how blatant misrepresentation of your statements can be, when it fits the editor's direction for a story.
Finally, to say that only opinion pieces are posted on Indymedia is false. You must not read it frequently. There are some editorial type pieces that are clearly marked, and there are reports of events along with analysis. Instead of the usual corporate focus, they have a people focus. That's it. It's still the facts. Which facts you report is critical.
How is this flamebait?? I have stopped using Windows, but for ideological reasons, not stability. I found Windows 2000 to be a) the most stable MS OS i've used, yet, and b) a fair comparison to Linux in terms of stability. Windows ME, on the other hand...
The quartering act, yes, and i think perhaps article 14, which extends to states the first 10 amendments. My constitutional law class is all a hazy fog :)