Perhaps not closed, but there's not much benefit to its not being proprietary at this point -- proprietary's largest downside is when there is already a standard, and some player decides not to go along with it.
In the absence of any prevailing standard, the only useful meaning of the phrase "non-proprietary" (vs open source, which I'm not discussing), is "no licensing fee". By that definition, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the others are "non-proprietary" at this early stage in their development.
Because they're all trying to *become* the prevailing standard!;-)
p.s. Since I'm the first to mention a politician, the conversation will now inevitably devolve towards comparisons w/ Hitler (c.f. Godwin's Law).
Unfortunately -- due to Quirk's exception -- there's not a damn thing I can do to stop you... "WE DIDN'T LISTEN!"
This guy is complaining about ideological agendas?
on
Indirect Documents At Last
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
A few choice quotes from the leader:
"I propose a different document agenda" There's that word agenda, in the first two sentences of his solution)
"I believe we need new electronic documents which are transparent, public, principled, and freed from the traditions of hierarchy and paper" Every humanist I know who's objecting to the ways of tekkies (love that spelling) starts off by proposing, "I believe we need new electronic documents". "freed from the traditions" also kinda sounds like someone with, umm, an agenda.
"Most urgently: if we have different document structures we can build a new copyright realm" This one was priceless. He's going to build a realm. So he can finally call himself a *real* DM...
Basically: 1. Lots of things would be better expressed in DSL (domain-specific languages), but... 2. DSLs are hard enough to create, but DAMN it's a pain to maintain any product developed in one!
So LOP's goal is to make it easy to develop tools (refactoring IDEs and debugging facilities) for DSLs. Then you create the solution in the DSL.
JetBrains is getting into this area with a new product called Meta Programming System, a beta of which is available through their Early Access Program. Find out more about it here: http://www.jetbrains.com/mps/
You seem to imply that the provision of cable-based broadband access somehow hinges on Verizon getting involved. I'm pretty sure Time-Warner Cable in NYC would disagree with you on that point.
Or are you saying that TWCNYC's access still pre-supposes the existence of a fiber network for which Verizon is the only provider?
Getting fired in Northern Virginia isn't so bad
on
Massive Layoffs At AOL
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Take it from someone who lived there up until 5 years ago, and whose parents still live there -- the average price of a new home in Northern Virginia has stayed rock steady at about $600,000 (totally unscientific hand-waving based on neighborhood drive-bys). My parents' houses have both almost doubled in value in the last 5 years *and* stayed there.
No.Va. has benefitted tremendously from the steady upswing in government spending post-9/11. Last time I went back and drove around a bit the number of new and under-construction office buildings was stunning. Getting fired sucks, but if you want a liquid job market -- NoVa's a great place to look.
The simple past tense is the "definitely true" tense.
The "unchecked" tense, which is generally referred to as the narrative tense, is very commonly used by the news media.
The simplest way to tranlate that idea conveyed by that tense is by prefixing the word "reportedly" or "apparently" to the verb in a normal English sentence.
Example --
Factual: Merkeziye gitti. (He went to the store.)
Narrative: Merkeziye gitmis. (He [apparently] went to the store.)
In the first case, I either saw him enter the store, or at least subconsciously assumed he did in fact go because he left the house with a shopping list, or he always goes to the store on Saturday afternoons.
In the second case, I'm either relating something someone told me, or I saw him leave with no obvious indication that he's going to the store, but that's what I think he did.
1. While I haven't seen it myself, a professor of mine in college got a chance at some research lab who did display/rendering work to read a document rendered on-screen at 600 DPI (yes, six HUNDRED)! That's the exact same density as the pages your printer typically spits out. Consumer systems at the moment do what, somewhere between 72 and 96DPI on-screen? He said that all of his objections about eye-strain completely vanished in a moment.
2. Even for those of us who won't have access to on-screen densities in the 600 DPI range for another 20 years -- if you haven't looked at font-rendering on a Mac in the last 5 years -- do yourself the favor! I hadn't done so in several years and the quality of fonts on the Mac is stunning, even (especially?) on their laptops. When I turned back to my own computer (someone had brought in a new Powerbook at work), my eyes instantly started tearing up. It really bothered me to look at my own screen for the next 5 minutes.
At least, "Buyuk" (with umlautted u's) means "big" in Turkish, and Orkut is consistent with Turkish first names (but I haven't actually met an Orkut myself before).
But I'd bet there's an umlaut over the "o" in the last name too, to match Turkish vowel harmony rules.
But you know, I'd LOVE to see a bootable pendrive option...it would be so sweet and easy to help someone fix their computer by just plugging your handy-dandy USB memstick right into a USB port and have everything right there at your fingertips, rather than carry around bulky CD-R media
My Memorex USB Thumbdrive *is* recognized by the BIOS. It *is* bootable. And you *can* put Linux on it.
There is an alternative worse than product placement -- the dreaded overlay banner! This is where they actually put what exactly amounts to a banner graphic over the bottom quarter of the screen, actually blocking out completely whatever's on screen at the moment.
I've seen this done (in other countries) where they completely ignore what's on screen at the moment, and you can actually miss critical (visual) parts of the show.
The concept is very similar to when USA or TNT/TBS put one of this little dancing icons promo'ing one of their own shows in the corner, but imagine it being then entire lower quarter of the screen!
Wait a minute, to what corporate interest is the state of Washington pandering here? If you say eBay I'll kill you (in the non-threatening sense of the word) on general principle!
Actually, the only reason it picks up any of this is due to noise added at the D/A stage -- but the distortion would be rather higher than I think *you* are implying.:)
While *most* humans can't hear more than *about* 44.1 kHz, the interference induced by waves *above* that frequency can and *do* have AUDIBLE effect on sounds below that frequency.
For example, if you were to play a simply sine wave with a given amplitude (A), at 18,000 Hz (F), out of a speaker -- you'd be able to hear that, correct?
Now, if you generated another sine wave 180 degrees out of phase, with the same amplitude (A) at double the frequency, 2F (=36,000 Hz), you would *definitely* hear the influence of the extra sine wave on the sound.
If either of your speakers (or audio format) cannot reproduce that 36kHz signal (whether or not you saw the tree fall in the woods, it still fell), then you will not hear that oscillation in the volume of the 18kHz sine wave.
Frequencies above 20,000Hz, even on crappy speakers, can and do produce audible foldback effects on things like drum transients, fret noise, air, etc. at the top of the audible spectrum.
I'll join another class-action proceeding when it involves the executives of the offending company going to prison. Other than that, I see no point in lining yet another up-and-coming lawyer's pockets with *my* suffering.
"Class-action" and "prison" are mutually exclusive. Prison requires a criminal trial, and there are no class-action criminal "suits".
But I get your point -- it's definitely not worth the time.
Let me just say that if we recorded performances digitally using 127-bit samples -- it'd probably sound *better* than live.
Consumer sound cards (and your CD player) work on 16-bit audio. The state of the art pro-grade stuff works at 24-bit after a few transitional years (largely due to ADAT's popularity) at 20-bit.
Now, if you are instead referring to the velocity level of a MIDI note event, yes there are 127 non-zero *levels*, but not 127 BITS.
And that's 127 data points on any velocity curve you like -- whatever instruments you are playing back on (and heck, even the controller instruments the performer is playing on) can have those 127 data points mapped to/from any given velocity curve.
Remember folks, MIDI was designed in the *very* early 80's (i.e., a *long* time before my mom bought a 4.77MHz 8086 Compaq for $3,000) both as a physical interface standard, *and* a data exchange standard. It's long in the tooth, particularly in the velocity levels area, but people have come up with brilliant mappings on top of this old standard.
And don't forget that you can transmit about 100 MIDI streams in the same bandwidth required for *one* (and mono at that) audio stream. No, it's not the same thing -- but this "performance" could be transmitted over a 2400 baud modem.
I've seen my wife both in leather pants, and in PVC pants, and I can definitely say that my, erm..., uh, we'll call it "reaction", to Trinity in the Matrix indicates *conclusively* that she was wearing PVC pants, not leather.
First, I applaud your basic message. This reply is not meant in any way to detract from the meat and bones of what you said.
I only wanted to clarify the difference between "has a right to" and "is legal".
First, whether Amazon has a *right* to sell used copies or not is a debatable assertion. You may very well have implied *legal* right, in which case I'm just being a PITA.
But in so separating "right" from "legal", while they are IMHO the "bunch of whiny brats" you describe them to be -- I fully support their innate right to protest Amazon's actions.
People forget the cornerstone of the free market is being able to debate, argue and cajole people where it hits hardest -- in their wallets. The Author's Guild feels it is being hit in the wallet by Amazon, and it is striking them back in the wallet -- with the time-honored boycott!
Freedom is great -- please don't condemn someone for exercising what I feel is an innate right to disagree with others. Argue *why* you disagree, not that the opposing party has no *right* to speak!
Are you sure used books have hurt sales? --
I was just writing in regards to your recent call for authors to de-link amazon.com in regards to its practice of selling used books, particularly
right alongside new books.
I am definitely of two minds on this issue. Certainly I don't think Amazon
is doing anything inappropriate, unless they have signed specific contracts
stating not to offer used books in the given fashion.
And I certainly believe the Guild has the right to organize a boycott if it
believes that doing so will further enrich its membership -- that's what any
collective labor unit (be it guild or union -- I think there's a difference)
should do.
I suppose I am wondering whether the proposed boycott will do that.
Certainly amazon.com makes far more money on new book sales than on used
book sales. So why would they continue to offer an option which reduces their profits?
I would argue that the upper-bound of any damage Amazon might be doing to
new book sales is matched (or nearly so) by the amount of commissions
generated by the partner links from author sites to their book listings on
Amazon.com. Why else would an author link specifically to Amazon.com if not
to generate the commission? They could link elsewhere if they got a higher
commission there.
Perhaps that's the point you are trying to make. If so, I applaud you for
so educating the Guild membership. If not, I would ask you to reconsider
where the money is going in a total systemic sense.
I wouldn't be surprised if a small minority of Guild membership who is
disproportionately harmed by Amazon's practices is the one generating most
of the pressure for this campaign. If so, some may think the high-minded
Guild is acting more like a mindless union whose leadership is dominated by
the political machinations of a few noisy children who are not grown up
enough to realize that life does not always dole out fortune in precisely
regulated, homogenized chunks.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps not closed, but there's not much benefit to its not being proprietary at this point -- proprietary's largest downside is when there is already a standard, and some player decides not to go along with it.
;-)
In the absence of any prevailing standard, the only useful meaning of the phrase "non-proprietary" (vs open source, which I'm not discussing), is "no licensing fee". By that definition, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the others are "non-proprietary" at this early stage in their development.
Because they're all trying to *become* the prevailing standard!
George Bush's is an agenda of freedom, too. ;-)
p.s. Since I'm the first to mention a politician, the conversation will now inevitably devolve towards comparisons w/ Hitler (c.f. Godwin's Law).
Unfortunately -- due to Quirk's exception -- there's not a damn thing I can do to stop you... "WE DIDN'T LISTEN!"
A few choice quotes from the leader:
"I propose a different document agenda"
There's that word agenda, in the first two sentences of his solution)
"I believe we need new electronic documents which are transparent, public, principled, and freed from the traditions of hierarchy and paper"
Every humanist I know who's objecting to the ways of tekkies (love that spelling) starts off by proposing, "I believe we need new electronic documents". "freed from the traditions" also kinda sounds like someone with, umm, an agenda.
"Most urgently: if we have different document structures we can build a new copyright realm"
This one was priceless. He's going to build a realm. So he can finally call himself a *real* DM...
Yes, but I don't think you understand -- our Apples go to 11...
Basically:
1 0/lop/
1. Lots of things would be better expressed in DSL (domain-specific languages), but...
2. DSLs are hard enough to create, but DAMN it's a pain to maintain any product developed in one!
So LOP's goal is to make it easy to develop tools (refactoring IDEs and debugging facilities) for DSLs. Then you create the solution in the DSL.
For a great discussion of its possibilities, I recommend the article describing it by the founder of JetBrains:
http://www.onboard.jetbrains.com/is1/articles/04/
JetBrains is getting into this area with a new product called Meta Programming System, a beta of which is available through their Early Access Program. Find out more about it here:
http://www.jetbrains.com/mps/
You seem to imply that the provision of cable-based broadband access somehow hinges on Verizon getting involved. I'm pretty sure Time-Warner Cable in NYC would disagree with you on that point.
Or are you saying that TWCNYC's access still pre-supposes the existence of a fiber network for which Verizon is the only provider?
Take it from someone who lived there up until 5 years ago, and whose parents still live there -- the average price of a new home in Northern Virginia has stayed rock steady at about $600,000 (totally unscientific hand-waving based on neighborhood drive-bys). My parents' houses have both almost doubled in value in the last 5 years *and* stayed there.
No.Va. has benefitted tremendously from the steady upswing in government spending post-9/11. Last time I went back and drove around a bit the number of new and under-construction office buildings was stunning. Getting fired sucks, but if you want a liquid job market -- NoVa's a great place to look.
Point being -- don't sob too hard.
The simple past tense is the "definitely true" tense.
The "unchecked" tense, which is generally referred to as the narrative tense, is very commonly used by the news media.
The simplest way to tranlate that idea conveyed by that tense is by prefixing the word "reportedly" or "apparently" to the verb in a normal English sentence.
Example
--
Factual: Merkeziye gitti.
(He went to the store.)
Narrative: Merkeziye gitmis.
(He [apparently] went to the store.)
In the first case, I either saw him enter the store, or at least subconsciously assumed he did in fact go because he left the house with a shopping list, or he always goes to the store on Saturday afternoons.
In the second case, I'm either relating something someone told me, or I saw him leave with no obvious indication that he's going to the store, but that's what I think he did.
Wait, Comic Book Store Guy here got rated +4 Informative? Fuck Slashdot.
I see only two grammar mistakes:
* a missing apostrophe in the first "its"
* a period after Indiana that should be a comma
What else am I missing?
1. While I haven't seen it myself, a professor of mine in college got a chance at some research lab who did display/rendering work to read a document rendered on-screen at 600 DPI (yes, six HUNDRED)! That's the exact same density as the pages your printer typically spits out. Consumer systems at the moment do what, somewhere between 72 and 96DPI on-screen? He said that all of his objections about eye-strain completely vanished in a moment.
2. Even for those of us who won't have access to on-screen densities in the 600 DPI range for another 20 years -- if you haven't looked at font-rendering on a Mac in the last 5 years -- do yourself the favor! I hadn't done so in several years and the quality of fonts on the Mac is stunning, even (especially?) on their laptops. When I turned back to my own computer (someone had brought in a new Powerbook at work), my eyes instantly started tearing up. It really bothered me to look at my own screen for the next 5 minutes.
At least, "Buyuk" (with umlautted u's) means "big" in Turkish, and Orkut is consistent with Turkish first names (but I haven't actually met an Orkut myself before).
But I'd bet there's an umlaut over the "o" in the last name too, to match Turkish vowel harmony rules.
Orkut -- lutfen bize anlatiniz!
But you know, I'd LOVE to see a bootable pendrive option...it would be so sweet and easy to help someone fix their computer by just plugging your handy-dandy USB memstick right into a USB port and have everything right there at your fingertips, rather than carry around bulky CD-R media
My Memorex USB Thumbdrive *is* recognized by the BIOS. It *is* bootable. And you *can* put Linux on it.
There is an alternative worse than product placement -- the dreaded overlay banner! This is where they actually put what exactly amounts to a banner graphic over the bottom quarter of the screen, actually blocking out completely whatever's on screen at the moment.
I've seen this done (in other countries) where they completely ignore what's on screen at the moment, and you can actually miss critical (visual) parts of the show.
The concept is very similar to when USA or TNT/TBS put one of this little dancing icons promo'ing one of their own shows in the corner, but imagine it being then entire lower quarter of the screen!
Well I have problems with the "breaking of the balls" too!
Wait a minute, to what corporate interest is the state of Washington pandering here? If you say eBay I'll kill you (in the non-threatening sense of the word) on general principle!
All I can say is... SAUSAGE!
Actually, the only reason it picks up any of this is due to noise added at the D/A stage -- but the distortion would be rather higher than I think *you* are implying. :)
While *most* humans can't hear more than *about* 44.1 kHz, the interference induced by waves *above* that frequency can and *do* have AUDIBLE effect on sounds below that frequency.
For example, if you were to play a simply sine wave with a given amplitude (A), at 18,000 Hz (F), out of a speaker -- you'd be able to hear that, correct?
Now, if you generated another sine wave 180 degrees out of phase, with the same amplitude (A) at double the frequency, 2F (=36,000 Hz), you would *definitely* hear the influence of the extra sine wave on the sound.
If either of your speakers (or audio format) cannot reproduce that 36kHz signal (whether or not you saw the tree fall in the woods, it still fell), then you will not hear that oscillation in the volume of the 18kHz sine wave.
Frequencies above 20,000Hz, even on crappy speakers, can and do produce audible foldback effects on things like drum transients, fret noise, air, etc. at the top of the audible spectrum.
"Class-action" and "prison" are mutually exclusive. Prison requires a criminal trial, and there are no class-action criminal "suits".
But I get your point -- it's definitely not worth the time.
Let me just say that if we recorded performances digitally using 127-bit samples -- it'd probably sound *better* than live.
Consumer sound cards (and your CD player) work on 16-bit audio. The state of the art pro-grade stuff works at 24-bit after a few transitional years (largely due to ADAT's popularity) at 20-bit.
Now, if you are instead referring to the velocity level of a MIDI note event, yes there are 127 non-zero *levels*, but not 127 BITS.
And that's 127 data points on any velocity curve you like -- whatever instruments you are playing back on (and heck, even the controller instruments the performer is playing on) can have those 127 data points mapped to/from any given velocity curve.
Remember folks, MIDI was designed in the *very* early 80's (i.e., a *long* time before my mom bought a 4.77MHz 8086 Compaq for $3,000) both as a physical interface standard, *and* a data exchange standard. It's long in the tooth, particularly in the velocity levels area, but people have come up with brilliant mappings on top of this old standard.
And don't forget that you can transmit about 100 MIDI streams in the same bandwidth required for *one* (and mono at that) audio stream. No, it's not the same thing -- but this "performance" could be transmitted over a 2400 baud modem.
I've seen my wife both in leather pants, and in PVC pants, and I can definitely say that my, erm..., uh, we'll call it "reaction", to Trinity in the Matrix indicates *conclusively* that she was wearing PVC pants, not leather.
;-)
Trust me on this one,
First, I applaud your basic message. This reply is not meant in any way to detract from the meat and bones of what you said.
I only wanted to clarify the difference between "has a right to" and "is legal".
First, whether Amazon has a *right* to sell used copies or not is a debatable assertion. You may very well have implied *legal* right, in which case I'm just being a PITA.
But in so separating "right" from "legal", while they are IMHO the "bunch of whiny brats" you describe them to be -- I fully support their innate right to protest Amazon's actions.
People forget the cornerstone of the free market is being able to debate, argue and cajole people where it hits hardest -- in their wallets. The Author's Guild feels it is being hit in the wallet by Amazon, and it is striking them back in the wallet -- with the time-honored boycott!
Freedom is great -- please don't condemn someone for exercising what I feel is an innate right to disagree with others. Argue *why* you disagree, not that the opposing party has no *right* to speak!
Are you sure used books have hurt sales?
--
I was just writing in regards to your recent call for authors to de-link amazon.com in regards to its practice of selling used books, particularly right alongside new books.
I am definitely of two minds on this issue. Certainly I don't think Amazon is doing anything inappropriate, unless they have signed specific contracts stating not to offer used books in the given fashion.
And I certainly believe the Guild has the right to organize a boycott if it believes that doing so will further enrich its membership -- that's what any collective labor unit (be it guild or union -- I think there's a difference) should do.
I suppose I am wondering whether the proposed boycott will do that. Certainly amazon.com makes far more money on new book sales than on used book sales. So why would they continue to offer an option which reduces their profits?
I would argue that the upper-bound of any damage Amazon might be doing to new book sales is matched (or nearly so) by the amount of commissions generated by the partner links from author sites to their book listings on Amazon.com. Why else would an author link specifically to Amazon.com if not to generate the commission? They could link elsewhere if they got a higher commission there.
Perhaps that's the point you are trying to make. If so, I applaud you for so educating the Guild membership. If not, I would ask you to reconsider where the money is going in a total systemic sense.
I wouldn't be surprised if a small minority of Guild membership who is disproportionately harmed by Amazon's practices is the one generating most of the pressure for this campaign. If so, some may think the high-minded Guild is acting more like a mindless union whose leadership is dominated by the political machinations of a few noisy children who are not grown up enough to realize that life does not always dole out fortune in precisely regulated, homogenized chunks.
Where can I get one? I've told those guys I have absolutely *no* use for a camera no matter how tiny!