DigitalConsumer.org is doing something about it. We are advocating a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights that will positively assert a consumer's rights to fair use. The Bill of Rights will guarantee your ability to use your own digital media in the way that you choose. With the support of consumers, we are working to have the Bill of Rights passed into law. Our proposed Bill has already gained support from numerous consumers as well as prominent executives and venture capitalists, but there's a lot more that we need to do in order to let Washington know that this is important.
Good point. But people are pretty dumb sometimes. For example, there are certain people I know, who when they see the "High-definition 16:9 aspect ultra sweet widescreen version available" at the bottom of the TV screen when they're watching Boston Public or PBS are like, "I totally can't wait for that! I hope the FCC gets craking so we all have HDTV sets next year! Even if it costs 1,000 for a set! And I can't record the shows!"
Personally I couldn't care less about higher quality TV; there is a handful of shows I watch (Family Guy, O'Reilly Factor, Daily Show), and the quality of the picture and sound is good enough for me. I don't need Dolby Digital in commercials so they can make them 10x louder than the shows, either. I can't stand watching most shows because of the commercials.
Time and time again the same exact off-by-one bug is made again and again in C and C++ programs. This is a design specific to C and C++ and Java, in which the first item in an array is accessed with an index of 0 (as opposed to 1 which is more intuitive). So the fifth element in an array is accessed with array[4]. The first element array[0] is accessed with the index 0. The second element is accessed with the index 1! No wonder this bug happens again and again.
I enjoyed reading your post. But I think that webmasters will readily switch to a somewhat obscure format just because everyone hates real player, nobody likes windows media player (especially since it phones home), and real player is spyware and really crappy software in general.
I apologize for being unclear. What I meant was, usually the files would become 75% of their original size after compression, and at best get around 60% of their original size. Nothing really gets around 50%.
Tarkin files would have the audio compressed with vorbis so when you play them you will still hear the audio but not the video so you will know then if you have a video file or just an audio file and thus you can figure out what it is. Or they'll have a different extension.
The lossless encoders I have used get a maximum of 60% and an average of 75% compression. They are FLAC, shorten, and monkey's audio. However, they are a hell of a lot faster than lame and oggenc. (20 seconds per song with Monkey's audio.)
If you encode with oggenc at 100% quality, it makes files about 1/3 of the original size and you probably can't tell the difference. But you might possibly have some artifacts that are a caused by a flaw in the algorithm which you won't have in a lossless encoder that works correctly.
The DMCA harms every American. It allows organisations and corporations to terrorize citizens of the United States with threats of jail time and fines for citizens, scientists and academians (a Princeton professor was threatened to not publish a paper) who perform math and science. The DMCA makes is a crime to "circumvent" copyright protection systems, on materials you bought and that you have a right to fair use of. Essentially the DMCA is a war on education.
The DMCA, or Digital Millenium Copyright Act (United States Code, title 17, chapter 12, section 1201 http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1201.html), can put you in jail for creating, using, or distributing software to playback the DVD's you legitimately purchased on a computer you paid for. It can put you in jail for reading electronic books you pay for without authorisation from the publisher! In fact, Dmitri Sklyarov was arrested and imprisoned for writing such a software program. It can put you in jail for making copies of music you purchased so that you can listen to it in your car.
The DVD consortium locks each DVD disc with a key, and then gives the key to manufacturers of DVD players. The key itself is a number. With this key, one can rightfully play the DVD's one owns on his equipment. However, the DMCA makes it illegal to speak about or distribute said number! It makes it illegal to do math and science. This is a flagrant violation of your first amendment rights, which reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The DMCA harms every American. It was bought by organisations that want to be able to completely control what, when, where, and how often you use media--television, books, music, and movies. The DMCA is not a valid exercise of Congress's enumerated powers. It is unconstitutional. Please show your support to strike down the DMCA. Please forward this notice along to your friends, family and co-workers.
Based on that logic, it seems every device is a violation of the DMCA. You are a violation cause I can store information in your brain. A pencil is too, because you can draw some words that express how to get around a "mechanism."
Extended futher, it seems every object is a violation of the DMCA. You could use hydrocholoric acid to modify the form of the plastic casing which would then allow you to COPY THE SIGNALS FROM THE GAMEBOY'S A & B BUTTONS, which would allow you to reverse-engineer some crappy software copy protection scheme!! But no, that would be a violation of Title 17, chapter 1, section 1201.
Secondly, the first amendement provides freedom of speech and the press. A disc burner is an instrument of the press. Therefore congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise thereof of a CD burner.
Thirdly, the ninth amendment states that even though the Constitution enumerates certain rights, those rights are not the only rights you have, and that the constitution is not meant to destroy any other rights you have.
Lets say I want to write a program for KDE, to configure my system, so that people who don't want to learn all the different styles of a comment in a configuration file can still configure their computers. Do I want to write a new module for every program that has a configuration file, and then test each module with each configuraiton file and all of its permutations? No. Do I want to release a new version of my tool every time a new software package comes out? No. This is what the current crop of configurators do. They have code for each type of file. That is also why they are broken. What we are wanting is two have a standard configuration format, and a standard DTD for that file, so that we can write a standard configure program that works with past and future programs.
You are exactly right. Have one or two files for the actual configuration (/etc/app.conf and $home/.app.conf), and one file that describes the configuration: its options, parameters, and help strings (perhaps in/lib/etc?). XML would probably be the buzzword to use here.
Think about it--with this method, you only need to write ONE gui configuration tool, for everything!
Good idea! They could even go so far as to divide the screen up into four pieces, and play four simultaneous ads. The top two frames would get left and right audio, while the bottom two would get closed caption and rear surround.
Slashdot Mirror
DigitalConsumer.org is doing something about it. We are advocating a Consumer Technology Bill of Rights that will positively assert a consumer's rights to fair use. The Bill of Rights will guarantee your ability to use your own digital media in the way that you choose. With the support of consumers, we are working to have the Bill of Rights passed into law. Our proposed Bill has already gained support from numerous consumers as well as prominent executives and venture capitalists, but there's a lot more that we need to do in order to let Washington know that this is important.
Good point. But people are pretty dumb sometimes. For example, there are certain people I know, who when they see the "High-definition 16:9 aspect ultra sweet widescreen version available" at the bottom of the TV screen when they're watching Boston Public or PBS are like, "I totally can't wait for that! I hope the FCC gets craking so we all have HDTV sets next year! Even if it costs 1,000 for a set! And I can't record the shows!"
Personally I couldn't care less about higher quality TV; there is a handful of shows I watch (Family Guy, O'Reilly Factor, Daily Show), and the quality of the picture and sound is good enough for me. I don't need Dolby Digital in commercials so they can make them 10x louder than the shows, either. I can't stand watching most shows because of the commercials.
Isn't every device electronic, because of, uh, electrons?
If you UUENCODE and then mirror (post on slashdot) the iso images, I'll mod you up even more!
Time and time again the same exact off-by-one bug is made again and again in C and C++ programs. This is a design specific to C and C++ and Java, in which the first item in an array is accessed with an index of 0 (as opposed to 1 which is more intuitive). So the fifth element in an array is accessed with array[4]. The first element array[0] is accessed with the index 0. The second element is accessed with the index 1! No wonder this bug happens again and again.
I think Linux wants to replace OSS with ALSA, so to answer your question, no.
Good point :)
C# throws Java's security model out the door by having backwards compatibility to C++ and C where you do manual memory allocation also.
Why doesn't anyone use LISP or Scheme when they are clearly the better than Java and C++?
That's because China only needs on IP for its firewall.
err... the latest nightly builds of mozilla now have the option to not open pages in new windows.
The latest nightly builds of mozilla now have the option to now open pages in new windows.
I enjoyed reading your post. But I think that webmasters will readily switch to a somewhat obscure format just because everyone hates real player, nobody likes windows media player (especially since it phones home), and real player is spyware and really crappy software in general.
I apologize for being unclear. What I meant was, usually the files would become 75% of their original size after compression, and at best get around 60% of their original size. Nothing really gets around 50%.
Tarkin files would have the audio compressed with vorbis so when you play them you will still hear the audio but not the video so you will know then if you have a video file or just an audio file and thus you can figure out what it is. Or they'll have a different extension.
The lossless encoders I have used get a maximum of 60% and an average of 75% compression. They are FLAC, shorten, and monkey's audio. However, they are a hell of a lot faster than lame and oggenc. (20 seconds per song with Monkey's audio.)
If you encode with oggenc at 100% quality, it makes files about 1/3 of the original size and you probably can't tell the difference. But you might possibly have some artifacts that are a caused by a flaw in the algorithm which you won't have in a lossless encoder that works correctly.
It's time for peer-to-peer HOSTS swapping!!
But free software on a mainframe isn't bad. Remeber, we also have such things as "FreeBSD", "OpenBSD"; also "NetBSD." Yes, they're new to me too.
Please, Help Abolish The DMCA
m l
Please, write to your US senators and representatives and tell them you want abolishment of the DMCA. You can find out their mailing and e-mail addresses at http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov
The DMCA harms every American. It allows organisations and corporations to terrorize citizens of the United States with threats of jail time and fines for citizens, scientists and academians (a Princeton professor was threatened to not publish a paper) who perform math and science. The DMCA makes is a crime to "circumvent" copyright protection systems, on materials you bought and that you have a right to fair use of. Essentially the DMCA is a war on education. The DMCA, or Digital Millenium Copyright Act (United States Code, title 17, chapter 12, section 1201 http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/1201.html), can put you in jail for creating, using, or distributing software to playback the DVD's you legitimately purchased on a computer you paid for. It can put you in jail for reading electronic books you pay for without authorisation from the publisher! In fact, Dmitri Sklyarov was arrested and imprisoned for writing such a software program. It can put you in jail for making copies of music you purchased so that you can listen to it in your car.
The DVD consortium locks each DVD disc with a key, and then gives the key to manufacturers of DVD players. The key itself is a number. With this key, one can rightfully play the DVD's one owns on his equipment. However, the DMCA makes it illegal to speak about or distribute said number! It makes it illegal to do math and science. This is a flagrant violation of your first amendment rights, which reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Please, sign the Abolish the Digital Millenium Copyright Act: http://www.petitiononline.com/nixdmca/petition.ht
The DMCA harms every American. It was bought by organisations that want to be able to completely control what, when, where, and how often you use media--television, books, music, and movies. The DMCA is not a valid exercise of Congress's enumerated powers. It is unconstitutional. Please show your support to strike down the DMCA. Please forward this notice along to your friends, family and co-workers.
For futher information please see http://anti-dmca.org
Based on that logic, it seems every device is a violation of the DMCA. You are a violation cause I can store information in your brain. A pencil is too, because you can draw some words that express how to get around a "mechanism."
Extended futher, it seems every object is a violation of the DMCA. You could use hydrocholoric acid to modify the form of the plastic casing which would then allow you to COPY THE SIGNALS FROM THE GAMEBOY'S A & B BUTTONS, which would allow you to reverse-engineer some crappy software copy protection scheme!! But no, that would be a violation of Title 17, chapter 1, section 1201.
Secondly, the first amendement provides freedom of speech and the press. A disc burner is an instrument of the press. Therefore congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise thereof of a CD burner.
Thirdly, the ninth amendment states that even though the Constitution enumerates certain rights, those rights are not the only rights you have, and that the constitution is not meant to destroy any other rights you have.
Lets say I want to write a program for KDE, to configure my system, so that people who don't want to learn all the different styles of a comment in a configuration file can still configure their computers. Do I want to write a new module for every program that has a configuration file, and then test each module with each configuraiton file and all of its permutations? No. Do I want to release a new version of my tool every time a new software package comes out? No. This is what the current crop of configurators do. They have code for each type of file. That is also why they are broken. What we are wanting is two have a standard configuration format, and a standard DTD for that file, so that we can write a standard configure program that works with past and future programs.
You are exactly right. Have one or two files for the actual configuration (/etc/app.conf and $home/.app.conf), and one file that describes the configuration: its options, parameters, and help strings (perhaps in /lib/etc?). XML would probably be the buzzword to use here.
Think about it--with this method, you only need to write ONE gui configuration tool, for everything!
Ignore the problem and it goes away!
I'd rather have:
(/ (+ (exp a b) e) (* c (+ d (+ b (+ a b)))))
:)
Good idea! They could even go so far as to divide the screen up into four pieces, and play four simultaneous ads. The top two frames would get left and right audio, while the bottom two would get closed caption and rear surround.