SVG is the closest thing. Unfortunately, your customers will need a plugin. Sadly, Flash is the "de-facto" standard in this case. If you really don't want to use flash, just use animated GIFs.
Whitespace if your friend. If your code is too dense it actually becomes harder for the next guy to figure out. If you find yourself with massive code files that require you to make the code denser so that you don't get lost, then you need to check your design. Java encourages the use of large numbers of classes and packages for a reason.
increasing readability
When the braces line up, readability increases as the eye will naturally follow the brace down to its partner. Moving the brace on the same line produces asymmetric code that is rather unnatural for humans to read.
In addition, having the braces on separate lines helps if your formatting ever gets screwed up. It becomes much easier to slam the whole chunk of text to the left, then indent section by section. Just line highlight the inner-most braces and tab. Chose the next inner-most and repeat. Within a few seconds the entire chunk of text will be properly formatted.
avoids this horrible bug
That is a rather annoying bug. However, I have to say that I've lost far more time trying to read the same-line brace code (especially when idiots mix tab and space indents) than I have ever lost to the semicolon typo. I did the semi-colon two or three times, then I learned.
I mean, we had damn near purged the world of programmers who put their opening brace for a new code block on the same line as the conditional statement, and then that Gosling dude from Java went and set us back 20 years.
I feel your pain on this one. Most of the *good* Java programmers use the newline syntax, but unfortunately too many companies follow the "Java Standard Coding Conventions" that say you should put the stupid brace on the same line. ARRGGHHH!
In my experience, things become an informal standard because either someone with a lot of influence says it should be (e.g. Microsoft) or the technology just makes a lot of sense and hits the market at the right time (e.g. Java).
Just remember: Microsoft Office is an informal standard, as is Microsoft Windows. Of course, if you ask Microsoft, it's all "the industry standard".
(Which reminds me of an amusing story. My company had a third party do a web video for us at one point. The third party then asked us what format we wanted it in. I replied "MPEG2" because it's the most portable and is a cross-platform standard. We then got back a WMV file with a note about Windows Media being "the industry standard". Apparently the only reason they asked was that they wanted to know if we wanted the file coded as VBR or not.)
Or more precisely, Sony is famous for constantly churning out new inventions and occasionally having a few stick. It's hard to argue that they produce cool looking stuff that works great, holds together well, and is more technologically advanced than everything else on the market. However, they always want to be the market leader, and thus end up with quite a few failed products because of it.
In this case, I think Sony is probably toast. Apple is the market leader, and it is doubtful they'll give that up. Sony has produced too little too late. And their idea of making the PSP a portable movie player is probably not going to pan out either. I would like to see them do an iTunes-like movie purchase app, though. I don't know about anyone else, but I use my computer as my television. Being able to purchase movies online would mean I could finally stop visiting that *E$#$#$ Blockbuster.
Now, I suppose it is possible that the drivers from other companies were even worse, but Hauppauge was skirting consumer-protection laws as it was.
You obviously never tried the Pinnacle StudioTV drivers. Up until the most recent versions, it would blue screen my computer just by minimizing the TV application. Not to mention that DVR software (I used to use SlipStream) was completely unable to *change the channel*. Do you know how annoying it is to record the wrong show just because you forgot to switch the channel back before closing the TV app?
Trust me, Hauppauge's drivers may have been bad, but they weren't the worst.
More importantly, does anyone have experience with usb tv tuners like the Hauppage WinTV-PVR-USB2 with MythTV ?
My guess is that you're going to be waiting a very long time. Until someone produces *robust* USB drivers for Linux that don't choke on the slightest change or weird piece of hardware, it's going to be somewhat doubtful that useable TV card drivers are going to exist.
Your best bet is to go to the store and find the cheapest BT878-based PCI tuner you can find. Plug it in, compile all the BT878 stuff (or install SUSE or MythTV) and enjoy. You'll save yourself a lot of pain and anguish.
An interesting article, to say the least. I'm somewhat surprised that MPEG4 encoders haven't started popping up, though. MPEG2 hardware has been around since the days of the original Pentiums, but Hauppauge has had things pretty much sewn up. Not because Hauppauge's hardware is that much better mind you, but more because the market hasn't been that big. Video files (especially MPEG2) have always been very large. Computers have only had enough capacity to deal with these on a regular basis in the last few years.
Now for just a generic TV Tuner, there are other options besides Hauppauge. *However*, almost all of the successful TV Cards use the same Brooktree (now Conexant) chipset. This has meant that the quality of the card drivers has been something of deciding factor, which Hauppauge always seemed to do a better job of until recently. Now with "digital convergence" on the horizon, suddenly everyone and their dog is producing usable drivers for just about every OS and settop box in addition. Which, of course, was made easier by the fact that they all use the same chipsets.
On another note, a purple PCI card?! These guys are just going nuts with their solder masks, aren't they? As if there's something wrong with the color green. (Must be too 1980's.) If they *really* wanted to do something different, they should produce a transparent card with the interconnects lined with a cool color like red. i.e. Make it look like something out of Star Trek or something.:-)
In my experience, the registar under which you allowed the domain to elaspe holds onto its ownership. My guess is that the reasons for this are two-fold:
1. If they made a mistake, they can correct it without trying to get the domain back from someone else.
2. They can ransom the domain to the next guy in line for a heafty profit. (They seem to already do this with the.COM domains that are somehow more expensive than all other domains.)
P.S.: As the AC responding to your comment (who was modded down to 0)
I'm surprised that you don't understand the modding system better than that. ALL AC posts start at -2. According to the modding history, no one has modded the AC down.
As the AC responding to your comment (who was modded down to 0) stated: That was the user's opinion, not mine. User opinions are constantly included in stories posted to Slashdot.
And as the AC who responded to him pointed out, I was making light of the fact that there seem to be a lot of anti-google posts lately with you as the editor. Remember, you are the filter for any and all opinions that come through. The results of your filtering *appear* to have a specific bend to them. i.e. An anti-google stance.
Maybe you're doing it unintentionally, or maybe the general Slashdot concensus is tipping that direction. (Nothing new that Slashdotters need to grow up.) In either case, it's reflecting on you as the editor.
It's really nothing personal, and not intended as an insult. It merely makes light of how you appear as an editor. (Sorry about the Columbine crack, though. We can't resist poking at JonKatz around here.:-))
It's a pity that most 3G phones that are offered these days (at least in the UK) are restricting surfing to the service provider's homepage.
Are you sure about that? Last time I had internet on my phone, the home page did take me to my provider's homepage. *However*, there was also an obscure menu item (called "Location", I think) that allowed me to type in a web address. It was a pain in the ass to type in, but it did work.
In any case, this is an SMS service, not a WAP service. Unless your provider only allows you to send them text messages (yuck), you can query Google by texting them.
The day of receiving unsolicited coupons for your next latte as you walk by a Starbucks is one step closer.
Zonk really likes posting those anti-google stories, doesn't he? Does he see Google as "the man" now that they're rich and famous? I understand it's a natural inclination to be envious of others who appear to have more, but as grown ups we should suppress those reactions. Personally, I think it's cool that Google is coming to mobile phones. As a company, they have earned my trust and I will happily give them the benefit of the doubt.
Let's just hope that Zonk doesn't refer to a "post-Columbine world"...
However, I have to agree with the original poster that the article's reasons are pretty weak. I couldn't get my neighbors to spend $10 with that type of reasoning, much less get someone to invest a few hundred billion.
Imagine if every human that ever died of simple old age was still around today. I don't think the Earth could support that many humans. Because we at the top of the food chain, there are few if any predators that keep our population in check. We could easily deplete all the food, space, water, etc.
Nah. They would just be more war, and the number of accidental deaths would increase. If things got too bad, we'd all start carrying around swords and chopping each other's heads off. And in the end, there would be only one. No worries.:-P
11. The ability to create unparalleled controversy by publishing a story that is intended to incite heated argument between two equally strong factions.
Where would we be without journalists? (Probably without the Spanish-American war for one..)
Re:Weren't they aware of this during implementatio
on
VLC & European Patents
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Actually, isn't Europe implementing *some* sort of grandfathering system? If they aren't, then do they realize that they may be causing massive liabilities for their constituants? Forget VideoLAN, this may be a much larger problem.
It's true that off the shelf is the ultimate experience. But sometimes people don't have the money or want different features than what is offered. (e.g. Having MAME built in is a nice feature found in MythTV but not TIVO.) In those cases, a home grown solution can offer the penultimate solution to your problem.:-)
People have been hacking Paint Shop Pro for ages! Why is this suddenly a big news item? (j/k)
Re:The only thing worse than a spammer is an RBL s
on
Should You Trust MAPS?
·
· Score: 1
What do you do when you find out that a domain that gets used is blacklisted by someone for no reason, and they won't take you off the list unless you give them $250?
180,000 addresses is roughly equivalent to only three Class B blocks. It looks like a big number, but it's a fairly narrow target. It's all of 0.004% of the theoretical IP address space.
It depends on how populated that block is. If it's 120,000 used addresses with only about 50 of them being problematic, then it IS a big number. If it's only got a few hundred used IPs, then it's not quite as bad as it sounds.
Your best defense against this sort of thing is a general outage contingency plan; whether by thunderstorm, fire, hardware failure, power outage, vengeful backhoe, blacklisting, or stupid admin trick, an extended service outage is an eventuality, not a possibility.
They can't just block small sections of netblocks (because a spam-happy ISP will just allocate new IP's to their paying spammer customer) - the only way they can police the offence is to ban the block.
Doesn't this suggest that the MAPS approach might be the wrong one to take? i.e. Have you ever tried swatting a fly with a shotgun? You could chase it around all day, and all you're likely to do is destroy your own house.
Slashdot Mirror
"From Ash to Z Shell"?
Technically, that should be either "From ash to zsh" or "From A to Z Shell".
Is there an "animated-postscript" format?
SVG is the closest thing. Unfortunately, your customers will need a plugin. Sadly, Flash is the "de-facto" standard in this case. If you really don't want to use flash, just use animated GIFs.
It saves space
Whitespace if your friend. If your code is too dense it actually becomes harder for the next guy to figure out. If you find yourself with massive code files that require you to make the code denser so that you don't get lost, then you need to check your design. Java encourages the use of large numbers of classes and packages for a reason.
increasing readability
When the braces line up, readability increases as the eye will naturally follow the brace down to its partner. Moving the brace on the same line produces asymmetric code that is rather unnatural for humans to read.
In addition, having the braces on separate lines helps if your formatting ever gets screwed up. It becomes much easier to slam the whole chunk of text to the left, then indent section by section. Just line highlight the inner-most braces and tab. Chose the next inner-most and repeat. Within a few seconds the entire chunk of text will be properly formatted.
avoids this horrible bug
That is a rather annoying bug. However, I have to say that I've lost far more time trying to read the same-line brace code (especially when idiots mix tab and space indents) than I have ever lost to the semicolon typo. I did the semi-colon two or three times, then I learned.
I mean, we had damn near purged the world of programmers who put their opening brace for a new code block on the same line as the conditional statement, and then that Gosling dude from Java went and set us back 20 years.
I feel your pain on this one. Most of the *good* Java programmers use the newline syntax, but unfortunately too many companies follow the "Java Standard Coding Conventions" that say you should put the stupid brace on the same line. ARRGGHHH!
You forgot Cue::Cat. I miss those guys.
In my experience, things become an informal standard because either someone with a lot of influence says it should be (e.g. Microsoft) or the technology just makes a lot of sense and hits the market at the right time (e.g. Java).
Just remember: Microsoft Office is an informal standard, as is Microsoft Windows. Of course, if you ask Microsoft, it's all "the industry standard".
(Which reminds me of an amusing story. My company had a third party do a web video for us at one point. The third party then asked us what format we wanted it in. I replied "MPEG2" because it's the most portable and is a cross-platform standard. We then got back a WMV file with a note about Windows Media being "the industry standard". Apparently the only reason they asked was that they wanted to know if we wanted the file coded as VBR or not.)
Or more precisely, Sony is famous for constantly churning out new inventions and occasionally having a few stick. It's hard to argue that they produce cool looking stuff that works great, holds together well, and is more technologically advanced than everything else on the market. However, they always want to be the market leader, and thus end up with quite a few failed products because of it.
In this case, I think Sony is probably toast. Apple is the market leader, and it is doubtful they'll give that up. Sony has produced too little too late. And their idea of making the PSP a portable movie player is probably not going to pan out either. I would like to see them do an iTunes-like movie purchase app, though. I don't know about anyone else, but I use my computer as my television. Being able to purchase movies online would mean I could finally stop visiting that *E$#$#$ Blockbuster.
Now, I suppose it is possible that the drivers from other companies were even worse, but Hauppauge was skirting consumer-protection laws as it was.
You obviously never tried the Pinnacle StudioTV drivers. Up until the most recent versions, it would blue screen my computer just by minimizing the TV application. Not to mention that DVR software (I used to use SlipStream) was completely unable to *change the channel*. Do you know how annoying it is to record the wrong show just because you forgot to switch the channel back before closing the TV app?
Trust me, Hauppauge's drivers may have been bad, but they weren't the worst.
More importantly, does anyone have experience with usb tv tuners like the Hauppage WinTV-PVR-USB2 with MythTV ?
My guess is that you're going to be waiting a very long time. Until someone produces *robust* USB drivers for Linux that don't choke on the slightest change or weird piece of hardware, it's going to be somewhat doubtful that useable TV card drivers are going to exist.
Your best bet is to go to the store and find the cheapest BT878-based PCI tuner you can find. Plug it in, compile all the BT878 stuff (or install SUSE or MythTV) and enjoy. You'll save yourself a lot of pain and anguish.
An interesting article, to say the least. I'm somewhat surprised that MPEG4 encoders haven't started popping up, though. MPEG2 hardware has been around since the days of the original Pentiums, but Hauppauge has had things pretty much sewn up. Not because Hauppauge's hardware is that much better mind you, but more because the market hasn't been that big. Video files (especially MPEG2) have always been very large. Computers have only had enough capacity to deal with these on a regular basis in the last few years.
:-)
Now for just a generic TV Tuner, there are other options besides Hauppauge. *However*, almost all of the successful TV Cards use the same Brooktree (now Conexant) chipset. This has meant that the quality of the card drivers has been something of deciding factor, which Hauppauge always seemed to do a better job of until recently. Now with "digital convergence" on the horizon, suddenly everyone and their dog is producing usable drivers for just about every OS and settop box in addition. Which, of course, was made easier by the fact that they all use the same chipsets.
On another note, a purple PCI card?! These guys are just going nuts with their solder masks, aren't they? As if there's something wrong with the color green. (Must be too 1980's.) If they *really* wanted to do something different, they should produce a transparent card with the interconnects lined with a cool color like red. i.e. Make it look like something out of Star Trek or something.
In my experience, the registar under which you allowed the domain to elaspe holds onto its ownership. My guess is that the reasons for this are two-fold:
.COM domains that are somehow more expensive than all other domains.)
1. If they made a mistake, they can correct it without trying to get the domain back from someone else.
2. They can ransom the domain to the next guy in line for a heafty profit. (They seem to already do this with the
P.S.: As the AC responding to your comment (who was modded down to 0)
I'm surprised that you don't understand the modding system better than that. ALL AC posts start at -2. According to the modding history, no one has modded the AC down.
As the AC responding to your comment (who was modded down to 0) stated: That was the user's opinion, not mine. User opinions are constantly included in stories posted to Slashdot.
:-))
And as the AC who responded to him pointed out, I was making light of the fact that there seem to be a lot of anti-google posts lately with you as the editor. Remember, you are the filter for any and all opinions that come through. The results of your filtering *appear* to have a specific bend to them. i.e. An anti-google stance.
Maybe you're doing it unintentionally, or maybe the general Slashdot concensus is tipping that direction. (Nothing new that Slashdotters need to grow up.) In either case, it's reflecting on you as the editor.
It's really nothing personal, and not intended as an insult. It merely makes light of how you appear as an editor. (Sorry about the Columbine crack, though. We can't resist poking at JonKatz around here.
It's a pity that most 3G phones that are offered these days (at least in the UK) are restricting surfing to the service provider's homepage.
Are you sure about that? Last time I had internet on my phone, the home page did take me to my provider's homepage. *However*, there was also an obscure menu item (called "Location", I think) that allowed me to type in a web address. It was a pain in the ass to type in, but it did work.
In any case, this is an SMS service, not a WAP service. Unless your provider only allows you to send them text messages (yuck), you can query Google by texting them.
The day of receiving unsolicited coupons for your next latte as you walk by a Starbucks is one step closer.
Zonk really likes posting those anti-google stories, doesn't he? Does he see Google as "the man" now that they're rich and famous? I understand it's a natural inclination to be envious of others who appear to have more, but as grown ups we should suppress those reactions. Personally, I think it's cool that Google is coming to mobile phones. As a company, they have earned my trust and I will happily give them the benefit of the doubt.
Let's just hope that Zonk doesn't refer to a "post-Columbine world"...
Because it would be really fucking cool!
;-)
I like the way you think.
However, I have to agree with the original poster that the article's reasons are pretty weak. I couldn't get my neighbors to spend $10 with that type of reasoning, much less get someone to invest a few hundred billion.
Imagine if every human that ever died of simple old age was still around today. I don't think the Earth could support that many humans. Because we at the top of the food chain, there are few if any predators that keep our population in check. We could easily deplete all the food, space, water, etc.
:-P
Nah. They would just be more war, and the number of accidental deaths would increase. If things got too bad, we'd all start carrying around swords and chopping each other's heads off. And in the end, there would be only one. No worries.
And the 11th most amazing thing to "evolve"?
11. The ability to create unparalleled controversy by publishing a story that is intended to incite heated argument between two equally strong factions.
Where would we be without journalists? (Probably without the Spanish-American war for one..)
Actually, isn't Europe implementing *some* sort of grandfathering system? If they aren't, then do they realize that they may be causing massive liabilities for their constituants? Forget VideoLAN, this may be a much larger problem.
It's true that off the shelf is the ultimate experience. But sometimes people don't have the money or want different features than what is offered. (e.g. Having MAME built in is a nice feature found in MythTV but not TIVO.) In those cases, a home grown solution can offer the penultimate solution to your problem. :-)
PSP Hacks and the Mainstream
People have been hacking Paint Shop Pro for ages! Why is this suddenly a big news item? (j/k)
What do you do when you find out that a domain that gets used is blacklisted by someone for no reason, and they won't take you off the list unless you give them $250?
Inform the DA of blackmail?
180,000 addresses is roughly equivalent to only three Class B blocks. It looks like a big number, but it's a fairly narrow target. It's all of 0.004% of the theoretical IP address space.
;-)
It depends on how populated that block is. If it's 120,000 used addresses with only about 50 of them being problematic, then it IS a big number. If it's only got a few hundred used IPs, then it's not quite as bad as it sounds.
Your best defense against this sort of thing is a general outage contingency plan; whether by thunderstorm, fire, hardware failure, power outage, vengeful backhoe, blacklisting, or stupid admin trick, an extended service outage is an eventuality, not a possibility.
Another satisfied AT&T customer, I see?
They can't just block small sections of netblocks (because a spam-happy ISP will just allocate new IP's to their paying spammer customer) - the only way they can police the offence is to ban the block.
Doesn't this suggest that the MAPS approach might be the wrong one to take? i.e. Have you ever tried swatting a fly with a shotgun? You could chase it around all day, and all you're likely to do is destroy your own house.
"We can keep Moore's Law alive just by stuffing the cache!"
If it actually works, then there's little to complain about. Unfortunately, I don't think that things are quite so easy...