There was also a hack by which you could place a normal audio casette into the Commodore C2n Datasette drive, and read the varying audio pitches as rudimentary digital data- and output it via the SID chip to play audio tapes. Boy did the quality suck! But you could recognize the tune being played, barely.
Well, the lack of quality is due to the limitations of the tape drive, it wasn't meant to sample sounds...
SID is well capable of playing sampled sounds at 8000 hz, 4 bits, mono. This is done by sending the stuff to the volume register - volume change makes a snap, and volume of the snap depends on the value.
Theoretically, it'd be possible to sample something using a quality sampler (like PC or Amiga sound hardware), convert to SID-playable quality, and play it. When using normal C64, sample rate is limited to around 8000 hz, but when using "modern" hardware like PC with HardSID card or C64 with SuperCPU you might be able to get higher sample rate.
I'll take WindowMaker any day. It's small and fast, but it actually looks good too. In fact I don't know of a window manager that looks better (except for maybe enlightenment, which is bloated).
Yep, Window Maker rocks. =) Just that it doesn't cooperate well with GNOME's desktop and session manager in Debian - but I don'te care, because a) gmc stinks even when it works and Dock and Clip work better than the panel, and b) I use only GNOME utilities, applications and facilities, not the desktop infrastructure.
[...] lyrics.ch didn't exist to defy copyright. It was there so you could look up the half-mumbled lyrics to that new song you heard yesterday -- so you could sing along, and possibly enjoy the song more.
This was precisely why I think the music copyright holders should not raise fuss about sites that distribute lyrics. If they would allow such sites to exist freely - or at very least give all lyrics with the CDs, we would have much less stuff like "excuse me while I kiss this guy." =)
And I like to sing along. I'm a wolf, after all. =)
(Disclaimer: I'm not a 3D stuff developer, just an user...)
I'm not slightly more interested in seeing DX/D3D on Linux - OpenGL is out there and works. I certainly wish game companies would use OpenGL more.
Why? Well, I have had most of my problems with DX anyway. OpenGL has never caused me any problems. (I have used only two graphics cards though - Voodoo 1 and Ati Rage128...)
Sure, OpenGL may be slow on accepting all new extensions, but at least they look at those extensions and try not to break things. I have had severe problems trying to make old DX games to run under recent DirectX versions. (I hope I didn't mess up Windows settings totally with my most recent misadventure with DX5 game...)
DX is nice when it works - but when it doesn't work, it's a nightmare. (Well, same can be said about all other MS software as well =)
Regrettably XMMS plugin API isn't documented too well. However, if I had had a proper API documentation when participating in the XMMS plugin competition, I would have saved maybe 2 hours when making the plugin. (I wrote the whole plugin within 24 hour period, just before the deadline - it was a SID plugin, and this whole mess was pretty strange because I made the plugin without knowing anything about XMMS, GLib or Sidplay - and in case of each library, the documentation just plain sucked. Your Mileage Might Vary.)
It's fairly straightforward... just take a look at the existing plugins. First, define a *Plugin struct (see plugin.h), and then make functions to which you pointed to from the structure.
Mathematics is a tool. There is nothing that says that the inventor of a revolutionary mathematical equation must then make her knowledge available to the world.
Also, the "applications" of the mathematics can be "closed source". A simple example: Given a + b = c, if you have only the sum c it's hard to figure out exactly what a and b are (requires "reverse engineering").
A sillier example: Given 0 which was the result of a * b, it's hard to figure out what a was (it was easy to figure out b = 0, though). =)
Okay, I'm not a math genius, but at least it seems to me that mathematics is not always "open" to both directions. =)
What a stupid name to use for their new motherboard chipset.
As if any other names for chipsets would be any better. None of the modern chipset names tell anything to me...
Okay, I'm a *NIX programmer. I've been using Linux since 1996. But if there's *one* thing that makes me cry mama, it's the kernel compiling.
"Uh, so, does my machine have i39842309843 and i49284? I don't know, do you?"
I'm not a hardware geek. "I just bought my new machine from the store." =) I know what Mostech 6510, VIC2, CIA and SID are, but all this modern hardware babble makes me puzzled. Really puzzled.
(FWIW, it wasn't that bad. I got my kernel to compile back when I got this machine and it works pretty well.)
Does anyone have "An Idiot's Guide to Latest Achievements in PC Hardware"? =)
Why does this software create a fake TLD (.free) instead of creating a freenet:// protocol?
I see that it'd be a better solution. However, the existing FProxy software uses URLs in form http://localhost:8081/freenetkey, so I don't see much of a problem here... I think the FProxy approach is more elegant, though.
(No, I don't know how well FProxy actually works. I just installed Freenet software last night and I couldn't get it to work. Moderators - please don't hit me for posting an "I'm downloading it right now" message =)
As for installing Debian, why should someone use Debian versus any other version of Linux out there?
Randomly Related...
Someone in local newsgroups asked why people use MySQL so much when PostgreSQL has had, for long time, MANY features that were missing from MySQL, and in version 7.x PostgreSQL is already almost as fast as MySQL.
I guess it's the same reason why "everybody else" is using Windows: "Everybody else" is using it. People who know better what to choose will choose better.
Or like why people are using MS Word when LaTeX2e beats the living datasegment out of Word any time.
Don't get me wrong. Redhat is a decent dist, but I've personally noticed Debian is much better, so I use it. It's just that the "ignorant masses" (I really stretch the "ignorant" here) tend to use what everyone else is using. (After all, if so many people are using it and are not complaining, it's got to be good, right?)
Sharing movies is illegal. If someone shares a movie, they aren't going to buy it. That's money lost for the makers. What's wrong with crime prevention.
I'll make sure never invite friends over to watch a movie I rented - since I'm sharing the movie with them and all... wouldn't want the multi-billionaires to be harmed by me not forcing my friends to cough up $4 each at Blockbluster...
The analogy is sort of misleading here.
If I carry my DVDs across the country and watch them with my sister, it's OK. She doesn't get a copy (physical or digital) of the movie.
If I'd give her a copy of the movie, instead, it'd not be honest because she should buy a copy of her own.
Now, "sharing" in RL is using a single copy of the movie and presenting it to many people. One copy sold, one copy distributed.
"Sharing" in digital sense is giving many people a copy of the movie, a privilegde that should belong to the copyright holder - one copy sold, n copies distributed => n-1 copies not paid for.
Number of people who saw the movie is irrelevant. Number of copies, then, is.
In Gabber: Services -> New blank message... and give your own address as recipient. Works fine. I don't know how it works in other Jabber clients, but the point is, yes, you can IM yourself! =)
What an atrocity! Now we see the violence inherent in the system!
You know... I recently played Ultima 7 (using Exult), and a guy in the prison of LB's castle said that "people of Britannia are being crushed by the vicious tyranny of the class system". I couldn't help but to think of the Grail movie. =)
Not as embarassing as the screenshot of one Microsoft website that had given a Roxen error message... Too bad I can't find that one right now, does anyone still have it? =)
"PROVE you did not ever transmit this code over a Passport property!"
You know, they'd need to get me into mental examination or something to prove that.
No one in their right mind tries to send GPLed material over Hotmail (hundreds of k's of uuencoded binaries by hand?) If they'd try to wrestle with the slow, buggy and whatever servers, they' probably be rendered insane.
Of course, this isn't a waterproof argument (there's surprising amount of stupidity out there, even smart people do stupid moves like that every now and then - if not unwillingly, then just to maintain balance of things =)
(No, I don't use Hotmail, but my friend does, and every time I ask him about it he whines about the "quality" of the service. =)
You mean Perl and Python coming together to become Parrot was just a joke??
I mean, come on. I knew it was a joke as soon as I read the stuff on the front page.
"The power of Perl and the sanity of Python."
WHAT sanity? If I ever need to obey the line breaks and whitespace rules of Python when writing Perl code, you'll soon find me at the nearest asylum... =)
(Not intended as a flame bait. Both are good languages. =)
The cool thing about this is that until "Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik..." it actually makes sense, after this it goes a bit too far IMHO.
In many languages words are pronounced more or less as written, and English is so far just about the only language I've had pronouncation problems with. Dammit, even Russian is easier...
If I'd spell that part in Finnish, it'd be "Bai jiör 15 oor sou, it wud fainalli bi possibl tu..." not too far away from the Twain's example, right? =)
You know, back where I lived before (Muonio, Finland), Northern Lights were not at all an unusual sight. Last time I saw Northern Lights in Rovajärvi back in late 1999. (Should go to Lapland more often...) So, personally this is not a big deal to me. Ooo, more pretty colors.
But in case you saw this interesting phenomena first time, congrats, now you have got a glimpse of what you've been missing all this time. =)
This is a strange coincidence. I've seen a couple of researches and reports recently that were not made by exactly competent people...
Recently some people from University of Helsinki E-mail-interviewed the readers of sfnet.atk.linux newsgroup (the report is in Finnish). I answered the questions, even when the questions were sort of silly. Well, results were not exactly great either - it just showed that the survey makers had not used Linux before. For example, "Debian" and "Debian 'potato'" were mentioned separately in distribution preference summary, and when talking of StarOffice, many people had said they "use the other word processing program, LaTex" (emphasis mine).
(Okay, that was academic thing and this Evans thing is a commercial report, but interesting coincidence nevertheless)
As a web designer, I'd love to have this information. I only wish more browsers immediately told me what speed the person was at. Then you could do the high/low quality links for them.
Personally, even if stuff like this would be given in HTTP headers, I would still let them choose.
Even at high speeds, it's often much cooler to use the light version - what if I don't want to use the gigabit ethernet capacity all at once? =)
It's just the same problem as with processor speed vs. optimization - "Don't care about the size, the user will upgrade the hardware." At least in web, it's possible to optimize...
(Okay, this is more of Uninteresting Whining About Matters of Taste rather than serious OS debate, but...)
Irix is a powerful, beautiful, and slick OS that most of you have never even used before! Get with it! Dont reply to this unless you HAVE used Irix, and know what you are talking about.
I haven't used IRIX much (save ocassional Blender work, ocassional scan - Blender on SGI O2 blows same thing on my PIII-600 way away =), and I have only one thing to whine of.
Motif.
::sigh:: No problems with 4dwm and Magic Desktop, but... MOTIF!
(If anyone has any ideas where I could find clone of Magic Desktop's icon box thing, I'd be grateful... 5dwm.org didn't have one ready yet =)
Well, not the same technology, but I think it'd be easier to make Tux costumes with more conventional means, and I'd bet it would look more realistic too...
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the lack of quality is due to the limitations of the tape drive, it wasn't meant to sample sounds...
SID is well capable of playing sampled sounds at 8000 hz, 4 bits, mono. This is done by sending the stuff to the volume register - volume change makes a snap, and volume of the snap depends on the value.
Theoretically, it'd be possible to sample something using a quality sampler (like PC or Amiga sound hardware), convert to SID-playable quality, and play it. When using normal C64, sample rate is limited to around 8000 hz, but when using "modern" hardware like PC with HardSID card or C64 with SuperCPU you might be able to get higher sample rate.
Yep, Window Maker rocks. =) Just that it doesn't cooperate well with GNOME's desktop and session manager in Debian - but I don'te care, because a) gmc stinks even when it works and Dock and Clip work better than the panel, and b) I use only GNOME utilities, applications and facilities, not the desktop infrastructure.
This was precisely why I think the music copyright holders should not raise fuss about sites that distribute lyrics. If they would allow such sites to exist freely - or at very least give all lyrics with the CDs, we would have much less stuff like "excuse me while I kiss this guy." =)
And I like to sing along. I'm a wolf, after all. =)
(Disclaimer: I'm not a 3D stuff developer, just an user...)
I'm not slightly more interested in seeing DX/D3D on Linux - OpenGL is out there and works. I certainly wish game companies would use OpenGL more.
Why? Well, I have had most of my problems with DX anyway. OpenGL has never caused me any problems. (I have used only two graphics cards though - Voodoo 1 and Ati Rage128...)
Sure, OpenGL may be slow on accepting all new extensions, but at least they look at those extensions and try not to break things. I have had severe problems trying to make old DX games to run under recent DirectX versions. (I hope I didn't mess up Windows settings totally with my most recent misadventure with DX5 game...)
DX is nice when it works - but when it doesn't work, it's a nightmare. (Well, same can be said about all other MS software as well =)
It's fairly straightforward... just take a look at the existing plugins. First, define a *Plugin struct (see plugin.h), and then make functions to which you pointed to from the structure.
Also, the "applications" of the mathematics can be "closed source". A simple example: Given a + b = c, if you have only the sum c it's hard to figure out exactly what a and b are (requires "reverse engineering").
A sillier example: Given 0 which was the result of a * b, it's hard to figure out what a was (it was easy to figure out b = 0, though). =)
Okay, I'm not a math genius, but at least it seems to me that mathematics is not always "open" to both directions. =)
As if any other names for chipsets would be any better. None of the modern chipset names tell anything to me...
Okay, I'm a *NIX programmer. I've been using Linux since 1996. But if there's *one* thing that makes me cry mama, it's the kernel compiling.
"Uh, so, does my machine have i39842309843 and i49284? I don't know, do you?"
I'm not a hardware geek. "I just bought my new machine from the store." =) I know what Mostech 6510, VIC2, CIA and SID are, but all this modern hardware babble makes me puzzled. Really puzzled.
(FWIW, it wasn't that bad. I got my kernel to compile back when I got this machine and it works pretty well.)
Does anyone have "An Idiot's Guide to Latest Achievements in PC Hardware"? =)
I see that it'd be a better solution. However, the existing FProxy software uses URLs in form http://localhost:8081/freenetkey, so I don't see much of a problem here... I think the FProxy approach is more elegant, though.
(No, I don't know how well FProxy actually works. I just installed Freenet software last night and I couldn't get it to work. Moderators - please don't hit me for posting an "I'm downloading it right now" message =)
Randomly Related...
Someone in local newsgroups asked why people use MySQL so much when PostgreSQL has had, for long time, MANY features that were missing from MySQL, and in version 7.x PostgreSQL is already almost as fast as MySQL.
I guess it's the same reason why "everybody else" is using Windows: "Everybody else" is using it. People who know better what to choose will choose better.
Or like why people are using MS Word when LaTeX2e beats the living datasegment out of Word any time.
Don't get me wrong. Redhat is a decent dist, but I've personally noticed Debian is much better, so I use it. It's just that the "ignorant masses" (I really stretch the "ignorant" here) tend to use what everyone else is using. (After all, if so many people are using it and are not complaining, it's got to be good, right?)
(Then again, I haven't been using those Java chats for some time. Do they talk about something other than netsexxxxxx now there?)
=)
The analogy is sort of misleading here.
If I carry my DVDs across the country and watch them with my sister, it's OK. She doesn't get a copy (physical or digital) of the movie.
If I'd give her a copy of the movie, instead, it'd not be honest because she should buy a copy of her own.
Now, "sharing" in RL is using a single copy of the movie and presenting it to many people. One copy sold, one copy distributed.
"Sharing" in digital sense is giving many people a copy of the movie, a privilegde that should belong to the copyright holder - one copy sold, n copies distributed => n-1 copies not paid for.
Number of people who saw the movie is irrelevant. Number of copies, then, is.
In Gabber: Services -> New blank message... and give your own address as recipient. Works fine. I don't know how it works in other Jabber clients, but the point is, yes, you can IM yourself! =)
You know... I recently played Ultima 7 (using Exult), and a guy in the prison of LB's castle said that "people of Britannia are being crushed by the vicious tyranny of the class system". I couldn't help but to think of the Grail movie. =)
Not as embarassing as the screenshot of one Microsoft website that had given a Roxen error message... Too bad I can't find that one right now, does anyone still have it? =)
You know, they'd need to get me into mental examination or something to prove that.
No one in their right mind tries to send GPLed material over Hotmail (hundreds of k's of uuencoded binaries by hand?) If they'd try to wrestle with the slow, buggy and whatever servers, they' probably be rendered insane.
Of course, this isn't a waterproof argument (there's surprising amount of stupidity out there, even smart people do stupid moves like that every now and then - if not unwillingly, then just to maintain balance of things =)
(No, I don't use Hotmail, but my friend does, and every time I ask him about it he whines about the "quality" of the service. =)
I mean, come on. I knew it was a joke as soon as I read the stuff on the front page.
"The power of Perl and the sanity of Python."
WHAT sanity? If I ever need to obey the line breaks and whitespace rules of Python when writing Perl code, you'll soon find me at the nearest asylum... =)
(Not intended as a flame bait. Both are good languages. =)
Aaah, too bad Mutopia doesn't have Strauss... You could have posted it as a Lilypond file or something =)
The cool thing about this is that until "Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik..." it actually makes sense, after this it goes a bit too far IMHO.
In many languages words are pronounced more or less as written, and English is so far just about the only language I've had pronouncation problems with. Dammit, even Russian is easier...
If I'd spell that part in Finnish, it'd be "Bai jiör 15 oor sou, it wud fainalli bi possibl tu..." not too far away from the Twain's example, right? =)
You know, back where I lived before (Muonio, Finland), Northern Lights were not at all an unusual sight. Last time I saw Northern Lights in Rovajärvi back in late 1999. (Should go to Lapland more often...) So, personally this is not a big deal to me. Ooo, more pretty colors.
But in case you saw this interesting phenomena first time, congrats, now you have got a glimpse of what you've been missing all this time. =)
CD vendor? InfoMagic sells Debian CDs, and I think I've heard that LokiGames does/did, as well (though I'm not sure).
This is a strange coincidence. I've seen a couple of researches and reports recently that were not made by exactly competent people...
Recently some people from University of Helsinki E-mail-interviewed the readers of sfnet.atk.linux newsgroup (the report is in Finnish). I answered the questions, even when the questions were sort of silly. Well, results were not exactly great either - it just showed that the survey makers had not used Linux before. For example, "Debian" and "Debian 'potato'" were mentioned separately in distribution preference summary, and when talking of StarOffice, many people had said they "use the other word processing program, LaTex" (emphasis mine).
(Okay, that was academic thing and this Evans thing is a commercial report, but interesting coincidence nevertheless)
Personally, even if stuff like this would be given in HTTP headers, I would still let them choose.
Even at high speeds, it's often much cooler to use the light version - what if I don't want to use the gigabit ethernet capacity all at once? =)
It's just the same problem as with processor speed vs. optimization - "Don't care about the size, the user will upgrade the hardware." At least in web, it's possible to optimize...
(Okay, this is more of Uninteresting Whining About Matters of Taste rather than serious OS debate, but...)
I haven't used IRIX much (save ocassional Blender work, ocassional scan - Blender on SGI O2 blows same thing on my PIII-600 way away =), and I have only one thing to whine of.
Motif.
::sigh:: No problems with 4dwm and Magic Desktop, but... MOTIF!
(If anyone has any ideas where I could find clone of Magic Desktop's icon box thing, I'd be grateful... 5dwm.org didn't have one ready yet =)
Well, not the same technology, but I think it'd be easier to make Tux costumes with more conventional means, and I'd bet it would look more realistic too...
Hey, at least the screenshots had WindowMaker, which has NextStep look, which in turn was Steve's idea. =)