Sorry, but my interpretation of a blog is a self-absorbed self-referential monologue about one or more subjects that's been transcribed and marked up with html. Sort of like public masturbation, but with css styling.
Your interpretation is inaccurate. Although there are many blogs that do contain nothing but trash, therearelotsofothers that cover news stories and provide perspectives otherwise unavailable through the mass media.
Blogs are a way for people to easily communicate their thoughts to a wide audience, nothing more, nothing less. Some of them are bad, some are good, but to write off all blogs just because you've never seen a good one is ignorant.
I actually wrote a research paper on this as an undergraduate at UC Irvine.
I built a bank of LED lights, connected to a Phidgets kit board, and wrote a Java interface to monitor web pages and my POP3 inbox. When something changed, the interface software would strobe the light grid instead of popping up a dialog or something. That way, you could be barely conscious of a new event, but it wasn't distracting enough to actually grab your attention unless you were looking for it.
I wish I hadn't had to give the Phidget kit back at the end of the project. =(
Thank you, thank you so much. Nobody believes me when I complain about how horrible Ben Affleck is.
And I'd like to nominate the worst movie I've ever seen: Bounce. I figured out the entire movie about 5 minutes into it, and I wanted to yell at Ben Affleck to stay on the plane. =P
...if you want to blame someone blame the hardware industry and the game developers themselves for not working with the hardware industry to create DVD/CD roms that can read special (non-standard) media that is NOT SOLD TO THE PUBLIC (see: Game cube discs)
This has already been tried. The Dreamcast used a proprietary "GD-ROM" format, in an attempt to staunch piracy. I have a spindle of backed-up Dreamcast games. The GameCube has a proprietary mini-DVD disc that spins backwards and is not available to the public. GameCube pirates can stream disc images over a network to a software-modified GameCube, and play them that way without ever having to touch a mini-DVD.
In my opinion, game copy protection is pointless. It has never stopped me from downloading a game I've wanted to play, but it has stopped me from playing games I've already purchased. I use a virtual CD application with backed up images of the few games I play, to avoid having to keep the original CDs nearby, having to swap discs when I want to play a different game, and to essentially cache the entire game on the hard disk to speed up loading times. I had a hell of a time making a disc image of Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark to use in this system. Since I knew I'd never be able to return the game, I soldiered on and figured out how to make it work, but if I thought for a minute that I would have been able to get a refund for a defective product, I would have returned the game to the store the same day I bought it.
And that is the reason that ineffectual copy protection isn't laughed out of publishing companies' board rooms each and every time it's suggested. As another poster mentioned, people will attempt to return crippled music CDs (and often succeed). However, I can't remember the last time I heard of somebody being able to successfully return a console or PC game, at least without involving upper management. This sort of policy keeps gamers from speaking with their wallets in the same way that music CD customers can, and denies game companies the feedback they need about the copy protection technologies they employ.
I firmly believe that if game publishers and retailers allowed people to return games, that the amount of casual pirating would be greatly reduced. Of course, so would sales of poor games that mysteriously got great reviews, so there goes that idea. =P
I'd suggest using dispatch-conf instead of etc-update. It can be configured to use RCS to backup old configuration files, so if you bork one with the tool, it's easy to restore. And it will automatically merge/replace/ignore (as appropriate) trivial changes, like whitespace and version numbers. There isn't a whole lot of documentation floating around for it, but it's fairly self-explanatory and easy enough to get started with.
Oh, come now. "Captain Gordon, DEFENDER OF EARRRRRRTH" was some of the funniest voice acting I've heard in a long time.
I think the key is that Japanese games/movies/etc. with poor voice acting don't garner as much critical recognition here as do those with good voice acting. For every awesomely awesome Japanese voice actor, there's probably a dozen mediocre ones, same as in the rest of the world.
I'm one of the "suckers" that Spider-Man 2 has parted from his money, and I have to argue with your conclusion as I feel that my money was well-spent. I've only had the game for two days, and I've completed probably 2/3 of the story; however, the game informs me that I've finished only 35% or so of the entire thing. There are lots of things to do in the game that are not at all related to the story missions, and the game offers many challenges (races, time attacks, high scores, etc.) to keep players engaged after the story is complete. Also, it's really ridiculously fun to take a swan dive off of the top of the Empire State Building and catch yourself mere feet from the ground (and the game keeps track of your longest fall, to boot).
I think the reviewers who have been panning it have not played enough of the game to explore the depth of the controls and challenges. Sure, foiling a carjacking gets boring after a while, but thinking up new and entertaining ways to foil carjackings never gets old. To the game's credit, the combat system offers many different special moves and combinations to keep fights interesting.
Anyway, I love the game, and I'd advise at least renting it before dismissing it as a value-buy-at-best. Check it out.
Your quote about broccoli and your Africa implication suggests you have an agenda; you've forgotten of course that we went into Liberia recently. But I'll turn your fallacy on its head: if we went to war for economic power, we should invade Africa for the diamond market.
I'd love to see it. I think the Squeezeboxes are too expensive to put one in every room just yet, but if they can bring the price down (by introducing a headless version perhaps), they'd have a winning setup.
It sounds like the Sonos setup is what you're looking for, then. I like the Squeezebox very much, but I don't want to persuade you to buy something you don't need.
Out of the box, you get the Squeezebox player and a remote. Once you've installed the server software, you can listen to any music files you've made available on the Squeezebox. This is all made very simple by the instructions and interfaces. For a more extensive system like Sonos sells, you would need either multiple Squeezeboxes (at $200-250 a pop), or computers with the emulated software on them; either would work, and then you could control everything from any of the Squeezeboxes or any web browser, including one on a handheld device. This is not out-of-the-box functionality, and although it is not really complicated, it sounds like a more complex setup than you'd like to have.
I do wish you good luck with whatever setup you decide on; you should submit a review if it ends up meeting your needs well. =)
The key is really not the Squeezebox, but the SlimServer software that it connects to. It keeps track of all the players connected to it, and allows you to manage playlists individually or for a synchronized group from a central location.
To answer your question, I'd like to describe how I use my setup. The Squeezebox has an LED display (2x40, I believe) that is easily readable from across the room. I can sit down and pick up the remote, turn on the Squeezebox, and then either load a saved playlist, browse through my music, search for a specific song, or load up an Internet radio stream. All of these activities are intuitive and simple (the search functionality uses the number buttons on the remote to input letters in the same way as cell phones without predictive spelling), and anybody should be able to handle loading up a playlist with a quick introduction.
This is all possible with one Squeezebox and the included remote. For more complex configurations, you can use the web-based frontend that the SlimServer software provides, which allows you to manage playlists and control all connected devices, either synchronized or independently. For example, I can do a search based on artist name (which is easier with actual keys), and browse through the results to form a particular playlist, which I can then save to my Saved Playlists folder and load into any Squeezebox. If I have linked players, they will share a playlist and controls; if I do not have them linked, they will have individual playlists and be able to be controlled independently. Also, the web-based interface includes all of the functionality of the remote, such as play, pause, next track, on/off, etc.
But you don't have to take my word for any of this. The SlimServer software is written in Perl and available under the GPL from SlimDevices for download here. There is also a Java Squeezebox emulator called SoftSqueeze available here, which completely emulates the interface of an actual Squeezebox and is indistinguishable to the server. Download the server software, play around with having a SoftSqueeze player running on a couple of computers, and see how you like it. There's also an active community of third-party developers writing plugins and fixing bugs, so if there's a particular feature you want, a helpful suggestion on the mailing list might work wonders.
Let me know if there's anything else you have questions about. I love my little toy, and am more than happy to extol its virtues at every opportunity. =)
What exactly do you mean by controlling your music easily from anywhere in the house? The Squeezebox player can be completely controlled with only a remote control (no TV necessary), and it even has a mini-stereo (i.e. headphone) jack if you don't want to deal with a big stereo system. Perfect for sitting outside by the pool or something.
If you mean having multiple players working together, the Squeezebox does that too. You can have two or more players linked in any configuration, and the SlimServer software will treat all of the linked players as one unit; they share playlists and play controls, so pausing one will pause all of the others. In fact, you can use the Java Squeezebox emulator running on a computer as a member in a group, or even have groups of exclusively emulated players. I use this functionality on occasion to have the same music playing on my stereo, my computer, and the cheapie media computer in my garage, and I can control all of them from any location.
Or, if you want even more control, the SlimServer software serves a web-based playlist and configuration interface, which you can access from anywhere on the Internet, of course. They even have a handheld template, which is plenty functional on my Axim's web browser and allows me to control all of those linked players without being near any of them.
In fact, from checking on that Sonos product you linked to, I think I've already got the same functionality with my synchronized players and PocketPC to control them. Of course, I do have to have a wireless network, but I had one of those already anyway. =)
The other reason is that next to my main desktop at home, I have a nice little text-based LCD terminal (actually a partially disassembled 486 laptop) that I IM on -- saves screen real estate and I don't have to get offline when I'm doing stuff like kernel driver debugging that requires me to shut down X...
I have a laptop sitting on my desk next to my computer, where I run AIM and Winamp and other such things while I'm working on my desktop. I also use Synergy to share one mouse and keyboard between them when my desktop is working. It's like having a separate monitor when I need one, and a separate computer when I need that too. Best of both worlds. =)
As I've mentioned before, I purchased one of these recently and I can't recommend it more highly. It plays every music format I can think of, using the server computer to resample obscure ones into a format it understands, on the fly. It can read and save Winamp playlist files, for convenience, and it can play streamed content off of the Internet. There are even plugins written that allow you to browse the Shoutcast.com streams and Internet Music Archive, and play those streams, all from the player's interface. And yes, the server software can interface with iTunes, and I imagine can play iTunes-purchased songs.
My only gripe is that the software seems less stable than it could be under all circumstances, but I run the nightly builds, so I can't really complain. =)
I think the thing that sets the Squeezebox apart from many of the other devices out there is its interface. Although a computer is required for the backend, you need never actually deal with the SlimServer program if you don't want to; almost every bit of configuration and management can be done from the player, with the remote. This is a big selling point for me, as it completely eliminates the need for me to have any electronics around aside from the Squeezebox itself and the stereo.
I should also mention that the software supports synchronization between different players, and that there's a GUI Java player (SoftSqueeze) that can run on any computer so that you can synchronize that computer with any number of hardware players. I know this is functional because I did it myself, just this week while I was doing chores around the house.
Anyway, that's my reasoning. I love the thing, and would gladly buy it again in a heartbeat. There are going to be many networked media players, but for me, the interface and the server software definitely tip the scales in favor of the Squeezebox.
Yup, but it still works, and it's my favorite of the choices available to me.
I'm anxiously awaiting both the resurrected Waimea and Aegis; Waimea is the WM that Kahakai forked from, and Aegis is where the Kahakai devs have gone now, in an attempt to divest themselves of Waimea's snarled codebase.
A window manager manages windows. That's all. It is the program which creates boxes for other programs to draw into, and puts borders and widgets on them.
Some window managers offer more functionality built-in, such as Fluxbox's taskbar, but these are not definining characteristics of a window manager.
KDE and Gnome are called "Desktop Environments" because they integrate many different programs and features into one consistent whole. This is completely separate from the window manager; Gnome uses a window manager named Metacity, if memory serves, and you can probably run the Metacity window manager all by itself without any of the fancy Gnome features like taskbars or panels. You would then have just a plain window manager, without the added Gnome stuff.
As for your other question, I've heard good things about XFce as a full desktop with low reqs. I use Kahakai, myself, which is merely a window manager, but I like it. =)
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, but my interpretation of a blog is a self-absorbed self-referential monologue about one or more subjects that's been transcribed and marked up with html. Sort of like public masturbation, but with css styling.
Your interpretation is inaccurate. Although there are many blogs that do contain nothing but trash, there are lots of others that cover news stories and provide perspectives otherwise unavailable through the mass media.
Blogs are a way for people to easily communicate their thoughts to a wide audience, nothing more, nothing less. Some of them are bad, some are good, but to write off all blogs just because you've never seen a good one is ignorant.
Hey man, it's OK; I got it. It's still rock and roll to me. :-)
I'll have to ask my advisor if I own the rights to it, since I was working on a project for her. If that's the case, then sure.
;-)
The POP3 stuff never did work right, though, so I think I just wound up deleting it.
I actually wrote a research paper on this as an undergraduate at UC Irvine.
I built a bank of LED lights, connected to a Phidgets kit board, and wrote a Java interface to monitor web pages and my POP3 inbox. When something changed, the interface software would strobe the light grid instead of popping up a dialog or something. That way, you could be barely conscious of a new event, but it wasn't distracting enough to actually grab your attention unless you were looking for it.
I wish I hadn't had to give the Phidget kit back at the end of the project. =(
Or they'd die happy.
Thank you, thank you so much. Nobody believes me when I complain about how horrible Ben Affleck is.
And I'd like to nominate the worst movie I've ever seen: Bounce. I figured out the entire movie about 5 minutes into it, and I wanted to yell at Ben Affleck to stay on the plane. =P
...if you want to blame someone blame the hardware industry and the game developers themselves for not working with the hardware industry to create DVD/CD roms that can read special (non-standard) media that is NOT SOLD TO THE PUBLIC (see: Game cube discs)
This has already been tried. The Dreamcast used a proprietary "GD-ROM" format, in an attempt to staunch piracy. I have a spindle of backed-up Dreamcast games. The GameCube has a proprietary mini-DVD disc that spins backwards and is not available to the public. GameCube pirates can stream disc images over a network to a software-modified GameCube, and play them that way without ever having to touch a mini-DVD.
In my opinion, game copy protection is pointless. It has never stopped me from downloading a game I've wanted to play, but it has stopped me from playing games I've already purchased. I use a virtual CD application with backed up images of the few games I play, to avoid having to keep the original CDs nearby, having to swap discs when I want to play a different game, and to essentially cache the entire game on the hard disk to speed up loading times. I had a hell of a time making a disc image of Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark to use in this system. Since I knew I'd never be able to return the game, I soldiered on and figured out how to make it work, but if I thought for a minute that I would have been able to get a refund for a defective product, I would have returned the game to the store the same day I bought it.
And that is the reason that ineffectual copy protection isn't laughed out of publishing companies' board rooms each and every time it's suggested. As another poster mentioned, people will attempt to return crippled music CDs (and often succeed). However, I can't remember the last time I heard of somebody being able to successfully return a console or PC game, at least without involving upper management. This sort of policy keeps gamers from speaking with their wallets in the same way that music CD customers can, and denies game companies the feedback they need about the copy protection technologies they employ.
I firmly believe that if game publishers and retailers allowed people to return games, that the amount of casual pirating would be greatly reduced. Of course, so would sales of poor games that mysteriously got great reviews, so there goes that idea. =P
Hordes runs just fine with Daemon-Tools.
;-)
I'd suggest using dispatch-conf instead of etc-update. It can be configured to use RCS to backup old configuration files, so if you bork one with the tool, it's easy to restore. And it will automatically merge/replace/ignore (as appropriate) trivial changes, like whitespace and version numbers. There isn't a whole lot of documentation floating around for it, but it's fairly self-explanatory and easy enough to get started with.
I haven't looked back, myself. =)
Oh, come now. "Captain Gordon, DEFENDER OF EARRRRRRTH" was some of the funniest voice acting I've heard in a long time.
I think the key is that Japanese games/movies/etc. with poor voice acting don't garner as much critical recognition here as do those with good voice acting. For every awesomely awesome Japanese voice actor, there's probably a dozen mediocre ones, same as in the rest of the world.
I'm one of the "suckers" that Spider-Man 2 has parted from his money, and I have to argue with your conclusion as I feel that my money was well-spent. I've only had the game for two days, and I've completed probably 2/3 of the story; however, the game informs me that I've finished only 35% or so of the entire thing. There are lots of things to do in the game that are not at all related to the story missions, and the game offers many challenges (races, time attacks, high scores, etc.) to keep players engaged after the story is complete. Also, it's really ridiculously fun to take a swan dive off of the top of the Empire State Building and catch yourself mere feet from the ground (and the game keeps track of your longest fall, to boot).
I think the reviewers who have been panning it have not played enough of the game to explore the depth of the controls and challenges. Sure, foiling a carjacking gets boring after a while, but thinking up new and entertaining ways to foil carjackings never gets old. To the game's credit, the combat system offers many different special moves and combinations to keep fights interesting.
Anyway, I love the game, and I'd advise at least renting it before dismissing it as a value-buy-at-best. Check it out.
I have nothing to contribute to this post but hysterical laughter. I can only hope it will be enough. =D
Your quote about broccoli and your Africa implication suggests you have an agenda; you've forgotten of course that we went into Liberia recently. But I'll turn your fallacy on its head: if we went to war for economic power, we should invade Africa for the diamond market.
But that would be silly, since diamonds are worthless.
No, but it might nuke people.
I'd love to see it. I think the Squeezeboxes are too expensive to put one in every room just yet, but if they can bring the price down (by introducing a headless version perhaps), they'd have a winning setup.
It sounds like the Sonos setup is what you're looking for, then. I like the Squeezebox very much, but I don't want to persuade you to buy something you don't need.
Out of the box, you get the Squeezebox player and a remote. Once you've installed the server software, you can listen to any music files you've made available on the Squeezebox. This is all made very simple by the instructions and interfaces. For a more extensive system like Sonos sells, you would need either multiple Squeezeboxes (at $200-250 a pop), or computers with the emulated software on them; either would work, and then you could control everything from any of the Squeezeboxes or any web browser, including one on a handheld device. This is not out-of-the-box functionality, and although it is not really complicated, it sounds like a more complex setup than you'd like to have.
I do wish you good luck with whatever setup you decide on; you should submit a review if it ends up meeting your needs well. =)
Fair enough.
Thank you for the information. =)
The key is really not the Squeezebox, but the SlimServer software that it connects to. It keeps track of all the players connected to it, and allows you to manage playlists individually or for a synchronized group from a central location.
To answer your question, I'd like to describe how I use my setup. The Squeezebox has an LED display (2x40, I believe) that is easily readable from across the room. I can sit down and pick up the remote, turn on the Squeezebox, and then either load a saved playlist, browse through my music, search for a specific song, or load up an Internet radio stream. All of these activities are intuitive and simple (the search functionality uses the number buttons on the remote to input letters in the same way as cell phones without predictive spelling), and anybody should be able to handle loading up a playlist with a quick introduction.
This is all possible with one Squeezebox and the included remote. For more complex configurations, you can use the web-based frontend that the SlimServer software provides, which allows you to manage playlists and control all connected devices, either synchronized or independently. For example, I can do a search based on artist name (which is easier with actual keys), and browse through the results to form a particular playlist, which I can then save to my Saved Playlists folder and load into any Squeezebox. If I have linked players, they will share a playlist and controls; if I do not have them linked, they will have individual playlists and be able to be controlled independently. Also, the web-based interface includes all of the functionality of the remote, such as play, pause, next track, on/off, etc.
But you don't have to take my word for any of this. The SlimServer software is written in Perl and available under the GPL from SlimDevices for download here. There is also a Java Squeezebox emulator called SoftSqueeze available here, which completely emulates the interface of an actual Squeezebox and is indistinguishable to the server. Download the server software, play around with having a SoftSqueeze player running on a couple of computers, and see how you like it. There's also an active community of third-party developers writing plugins and fixing bugs, so if there's a particular feature you want, a helpful suggestion on the mailing list might work wonders.
Let me know if there's anything else you have questions about. I love my little toy, and am more than happy to extol its virtues at every opportunity. =)
I'll pitch the Squeezebox some more..
What exactly do you mean by controlling your music easily from anywhere in the house? The Squeezebox player can be completely controlled with only a remote control (no TV necessary), and it even has a mini-stereo (i.e. headphone) jack if you don't want to deal with a big stereo system. Perfect for sitting outside by the pool or something.
If you mean having multiple players working together, the Squeezebox does that too. You can have two or more players linked in any configuration, and the SlimServer software will treat all of the linked players as one unit; they share playlists and play controls, so pausing one will pause all of the others. In fact, you can use the Java Squeezebox emulator running on a computer as a member in a group, or even have groups of exclusively emulated players. I use this functionality on occasion to have the same music playing on my stereo, my computer, and the cheapie media computer in my garage, and I can control all of them from any location.
Or, if you want even more control, the SlimServer software serves a web-based playlist and configuration interface, which you can access from anywhere on the Internet, of course. They even have a handheld template, which is plenty functional on my Axim's web browser and allows me to control all of those linked players without being near any of them.
In fact, from checking on that Sonos product you linked to, I think I've already got the same functionality with my synchronized players and PocketPC to control them. Of course, I do have to have a wireless network, but I had one of those already anyway. =)
The other reason is that next to my main desktop at home, I have a nice little text-based LCD terminal (actually a partially disassembled 486 laptop) that I IM on -- saves screen real estate and I don't have to get offline when I'm doing stuff like kernel driver debugging that requires me to shut down X...
I have a laptop sitting on my desk next to my computer, where I run AIM and Winamp and other such things while I'm working on my desktop. I also use Synergy to share one mouse and keyboard between them when my desktop is working. It's like having a separate monitor when I need one, and a separate computer when I need that too. Best of both worlds. =)
Some of the quotes are very funny, although in a "Ha-ha, we elected that blistering idiot" sort of way. :-/
The "fortune-mod-all" meta is your friend. =)
As I've mentioned before, I purchased one of these recently and I can't recommend it more highly. It plays every music format I can think of, using the server computer to resample obscure ones into a format it understands, on the fly. It can read and save Winamp playlist files, for convenience, and it can play streamed content off of the Internet. There are even plugins written that allow you to browse the Shoutcast.com streams and Internet Music Archive, and play those streams, all from the player's interface. And yes, the server software can interface with iTunes, and I imagine can play iTunes-purchased songs.
My only gripe is that the software seems less stable than it could be under all circumstances, but I run the nightly builds, so I can't really complain. =)
I think the thing that sets the Squeezebox apart from many of the other devices out there is its interface. Although a computer is required for the backend, you need never actually deal with the SlimServer program if you don't want to; almost every bit of configuration and management can be done from the player, with the remote. This is a big selling point for me, as it completely eliminates the need for me to have any electronics around aside from the Squeezebox itself and the stereo.
I should also mention that the software supports synchronization between different players, and that there's a GUI Java player (SoftSqueeze) that can run on any computer so that you can synchronize that computer with any number of hardware players. I know this is functional because I did it myself, just this week while I was doing chores around the house.
Anyway, that's my reasoning. I love the thing, and would gladly buy it again in a heartbeat. There are going to be many networked media players, but for me, the interface and the server software definitely tip the scales in favor of the Squeezebox.
(Thank you, RMS, for that genious naming scheme.)
It's not RMS's fault that the English language fails to distinguish between libre and gratis as meanings of the word "free."
Yup, but it still works, and it's my favorite of the choices available to me.
I'm anxiously awaiting both the resurrected Waimea and Aegis; Waimea is the WM that Kahakai forked from, and Aegis is where the Kahakai devs have gone now, in an attempt to divest themselves of Waimea's snarled codebase.
A window manager manages windows. That's all. It is the program which creates boxes for other programs to draw into, and puts borders and widgets on them.
Some window managers offer more functionality built-in, such as Fluxbox's taskbar, but these are not definining characteristics of a window manager.
KDE and Gnome are called "Desktop Environments" because they integrate many different programs and features into one consistent whole. This is completely separate from the window manager; Gnome uses a window manager named Metacity, if memory serves, and you can probably run the Metacity window manager all by itself without any of the fancy Gnome features like taskbars or panels. You would then have just a plain window manager, without the added Gnome stuff.
As for your other question, I've heard good things about XFce as a full desktop with low reqs. I use Kahakai, myself, which is merely a window manager, but I like it. =)