The old Napster had a tremendous amount of material. The music selection of the current Napster is pathetic.
At least for me, it has nothing to do with the fact that it costs money. Every time I take a look at Napster, I'm frustrated that I can almost never find even mainstream stuff I'm looking for. Give me eMusic anyday... 10 times the value and more interesting content. It's a great trade off for not having the major labels.
Actually, it's worse than that. Encryption and decryption tends to stress the bits, so that rather than representing 0's and 1's, the bits can be off by up to 0.01, leading to degradation of the sound quality of the resulting audio data.
Sony has patented a superior bit, which should be hitting the market in late 2007, but in typical Sony style, these new bits, which represent 2 or 3, instead of 0 or 1, will not be compatible with existing bits. So while audio files that utilize the new Sony bits will lose far less fidelity per bit from being encrypted and unencrypted (less than 0.001% according to laboratory testing), they will not be compatible with the iPod without an expensive bit adapter.
./ Temporally Shifted Message: Origin Time: Versace 6, 7NR (March 3, 2020 Old Reckoning), 22:10:39 Originator: ConceptJunkie6 [/.id: 57300981]
You know Remix 92 wasn't so bad overall, but it ticks me off that JarJar no longer shoots first.
Rick
p.s. Oh yeah, please don't vote for Paris Hilton in 2012... her first term was OK, but then she got carried away: Baghdad is now New Los Angeles, Los Angeles is New Teotihuacan, New York is New Paris and Paris is New Mecca.
Youtube is often held up as an example of Web 2.0 (whatever the hell that means), but the strategy -- get an audience and bail -- is much more of a Web 1.0 (or 0.90) strategy.
But holding off on the lawsuit until the defendant has something valuable you can win is definitely a Business 1.0 strategy.
YouTube has been around how long? And they're just now noticing the copyright infringements? Sure....
The problem is that I was thinking "gyro" in terms of a gyroscope that helps the thing keep balance, not a gyroscope to detect when it's tilting. A solid-state gyroscope is just an angular accelerometer. That's still a cool application of technology, but if they can make the "other" kind of gyroscope with laser, i.e., a device that creates angular inertia, then I'll think it's magic.;-)
That's because "gyro" means the thing that detects when the Segway is tilting, not the thing that actually keeps it from tilting, which is what I normally think of when I think of a gyroscope. I would assume balanced is maintained by mechanical gyroscopes coupled with computer control of the wheels.
In other words, as I understand it, a solid-state gyro is an angular accelerometer.
Well, first off I don't think we actually "legislate murders", although I'm sure Howard Dean has some incoherent rant to the contrary. However, I think I know what you meant.
If you use your logic you end up with tens of thousands of useless laws that no one can enforce because while they are well-intentioned, if they can't be enforced they are meaningless. Only an idiot would do something like that, oh wait, that's exactly what we have now. Never mind.
The solution, of course, to unenforceable laws, is more unenforceable laws. At least if you are in Congress, because it doesn't matter what you do when your success is measured solely by the volume of your output and the severity of perversions, crimes and evil you can attribute to the members across the aisle.
Ultimately, you couldn't outlaw being an asshole because only about 3 people in the government wouldn't be guilty.
The problem is that you can't legislate manners because someone will always find a way to get around it. Besides, like it or not, one of the greatest freedoms in America is the freedom to be an asshole.
Yes. Assuming for a minute that you can get a much better idea of what needs to be done and how by plowing with an ox, you will be better able to use the tractor because you will know how to do a good job with it, not just a faster job.
Coming up through the Windows ranks, I saw there was a huge difference between people who had to code straight SDK first and people who only ever used MFC, VB or (shudder!) PowerBuilder. The latter tools make doing basic things pretty straightforward but don't help you much once you step outside their rather small functionality domains.
Yeah, assembly language won't teach you good programming, but you need to do it at some point. You should also be doing some Pascal, Fortran, and especially C, and at least one and preferably more of the following: Lisp, Smalltalk, Tcl, Prolog, C++ (and yes, Java)... the list goes on. Someone with a CS degree who's only, or mostly, used Java probably isn't much of a "scientist" or even an engineer, but is probably really just a technician and is probably also doomed to mediocrity at best, and deceptive, but dangerous incompetence at worst (i.e., knows just enough to be dangerous).
And that's why Word takes as long to load now as it did 10 years ago, and yet it doesn't have 10 times the functionality. Well, perhaps it does, but it shouldn't take 100 times the resources to just start up.
I'm not trying to pick on Microsoft here, they are far from alone and far from the worst.
Seriously though, can't we all just use our slashdot ID's? I'd much prefer to be a member of an organisation that looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which i joined.
I wonder how many low ID's are inactive. I figure we should be hitting user 1000000 soon. That makes me feel elite since I will be in the first 3% of./ users. If that mattered, it would be cool. All it really means is I've wasted an awful lot of time.
But how many people out there were claiming we wouldn't be having any new low-level programmers because kids these days grow up with Windows and Macs rather than Apple IIe and C64's?
Who says we do?
I think the generation that missed out on programming in severely constrained environments (I came in the tail end of it myself) are never forced to code with any discipline. If there's a problem, just throw more giga[bytes/hertz/whatever] at it.
Why do you think each successive version of Windows requires twice as much memory as the version before?
Unless you have worked in a very constrained environment and/or developed a set of tools from the ground up (say, the basics of a run-time library or class library), then it is not very likely you will have the discipline you need to write good code. To me, this is why throwing CS Freshman at Java is a Bad Idea. Throw 'em at an 8080 assembler with 16k or RAM. Things like Java can come along, but later.
However, you're implying a crash caused by hardware failures. My extensive experience with 2000 and XP is that about the only way to get the OS to crash is to have bad hardware or faulty drivers. It's really the only stability problem I've ever seen. I can't recall the last time I saw a Microsoft OS crash where I was convinced it was the OS and not a hardware problem... and hardware problems are not common for me.
The MS bashers hate to admit it, but MS really got it right with Windows 2000. I was hugely skeptical beforehand, but I changed my mind quickly. I never had a reason to buy XP, except for the family computer where compatibility with old games was very important and Windows 98 was an unending source of pain. However, I've bought laptops with XP installed and I don't have a problem with it either.
Having said that though, I think Explorer is horrible. It's the buggiest piece of software MS has ever released and it never gets better. IE6 used to lock up on me on a daily basis, but I haven't used it regularly in 3 years or more, so I couldn't say if it's improved. Outlook 2000 was awful to use. I always liked Outlook Express, but Outlook 2003 was orders of magnitude slower with a large database (and let's not forget the hidden "feature" that mail stores over about 1.5GB get corrupted).
These days, I still use Windows, but I use very little MS software on top of Windows, and I have a system that is very usable, stable and reliable. However, Vista has yet to offer me one compelling reason to upgrade. The new network stack sounds intriguing, but not for $200 plus the huge performance hit because I don't have 2GB of RAM. If I upgrade anything, I'll move to Linux and run Windows 2000 in a VM for those apps I can't live without.
That's nothing, at my high school in North Carolina in the early 80's our periodic table contained only Earth, Water, Air and Fire. They didn't even have the update for Ether.
Serious note, in 6th grade we were all supposed to bring in an example of an element. I don't recall what I brought in (probably coal for carbon), but it amazed and shocked me how many people brought in wood. I guess nowadays that wouldn't surprise me.
By the way, my high school was actually pretty good and my chemistry teacher, Mr. Merritt, was an especially good teacher. I learned a lot in 11th grade chemistry.
There's a rumor that Lotus Freaking Notes was actually developed by the Soviet Government in the chaotic, budget-starved 1980's using East German war-surplus vacuum-tube computers and unemployed Czech and Romanian construction workers. Sources suspect the real reason Reagan walked away from Reykjavik was that CIA intelligence obtained beta copies of the software, and he realized that a government using this system would surely collapse within a decade and ultimately posed no security threat to the United States.
In 1991, desperate for additional steel footlockers to store all the leftover materials from the dismantled government's nuclear stockpiles, ex-foreign minister Shevardnadze approached Lotus corporation through secret U.S. diplomatic channels and arranged to sell the software suite for 10 billion rubles (approximately US$270). Lotus engineers meanwhile spent all the development money throwing clothing-optional champagne parties with the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, and conducting thorough scientific investigations on the effectiveness of canola oil vs. baby oil on the Slip 'n' Slide.
Two years later, they delivered Notes on time, and amazingly, under budget. Lotus accountants were later unable to determine the mistake leading to the pre-paid delivery of 30 pallets of Marshmallow Peeps, 40 cases of Strawberry Yoo-hoo and several hundred Super Nintendo consoles to their software engineering offices.
Slashdot Mirror
The old Napster had a tremendous amount of material. The music selection of the current Napster is pathetic.
At least for me, it has nothing to do with the fact that it costs money. Every time I take a look at Napster, I'm frustrated that I can almost never find even mainstream stuff I'm looking for. Give me eMusic anyday... 10 times the value and more interesting content. It's a great trade off for not having the major labels.
The market seems to agree with me, too.
It's _marketing_. If they had the ability to make contact with reality, they'd be in engineering.
To quote the prophet Jerematic:
One, zero, zero, one...
Actually, it's worse than that. Encryption and decryption tends to stress the bits, so that rather than representing 0's and 1's, the bits can be off by up to 0.01, leading to degradation of the sound quality of the resulting audio data.
Sony has patented a superior bit, which should be hitting the market in late 2007, but in typical Sony style, these new bits, which represent 2 or 3, instead of 0 or 1, will not be compatible with existing bits. So while audio files that utilize the new Sony bits will lose far less fidelity per bit from being encrypted and unencrypted (less than 0.001% according to laboratory testing), they will not be compatible with the iPod without an expensive bit adapter.
"Edgy shapes" are still topologically equivalent to a sphere.
There's no why to put a hole all the way through an object, so you couldn't make a doughnut or the Utah teapot.
Nevertheless, it's an amazing little tool.
./ Temporally Shifted Message:
Origin Time: Versace 6, 7NR (March 3, 2020 Old Reckoning), 22:10:39
Originator: ConceptJunkie6 [/.id: 57300981]
You know Remix 92 wasn't so bad overall, but it ticks me off that JarJar no longer shoots first.
Rick
p.s. Oh yeah, please don't vote for Paris Hilton in 2012... her first term was OK, but then she got carried away: Baghdad is now New Los Angeles, Los Angeles is New Teotihuacan, New York is New Paris and Paris is New Mecca.
Youtube is often held up as an example of Web 2.0 (whatever the hell that means), but the strategy -- get an audience and bail -- is much more of a Web 1.0 (or 0.90) strategy.
But holding off on the lawsuit until the defendant has something valuable you can win is definitely a Business 1.0 strategy.
YouTube has been around how long? And they're just now noticing the copyright infringements? Sure....
The problem is that I was thinking "gyro" in terms of a gyroscope that helps the thing keep balance, not a gyroscope to detect when it's tilting. A solid-state gyroscope is just an angular accelerometer. That's still a cool application of technology, but if they can make the "other" kind of gyroscope with laser, i.e., a device that creates angular inertia, then I'll think it's magic. ;-)
That's because "gyro" means the thing that detects when the Segway is tilting, not the thing that actually keeps it from tilting, which is what I normally think of when I think of a gyroscope. I would assume balanced is maintained by mechanical gyroscopes coupled with computer control of the wheels.
In other words, as I understand it, a solid-state gyro is an angular accelerometer.
So how does a non-spinning solid-state gyro work?
The only thing I can think of is magic.
Well, first off I don't think we actually "legislate murders", although I'm sure Howard Dean has some incoherent rant to the contrary. However, I think I know what you meant.
If you use your logic you end up with tens of thousands of useless laws that no one can enforce because while they are well-intentioned, if they can't be enforced they are meaningless. Only an idiot would do something like that, oh wait, that's exactly what we have now. Never mind.
The solution, of course, to unenforceable laws, is more unenforceable laws. At least if you are in Congress, because it doesn't matter what you do when your success is measured solely by the volume of your output and the severity of perversions, crimes and evil you can attribute to the members across the aisle.
Ultimately, you couldn't outlaw being an asshole because only about 3 people in the government wouldn't be guilty.
The problem is that you can't legislate manners because someone will always find a way to get around it. Besides, like it or not, one of the greatest freedoms in America is the freedom to be an asshole.
I searched. I couldn't find any.
Good point.
Let's just agree that we both need lives.
Yeah, but you've only posted 72 times. I'm closing on 3000 comments, so I have wasted so much time than you. Nyah! ;-)
Yes. Assuming for a minute that you can get a much better idea of what needs to be done and how by plowing with an ox, you will be better able to use the tractor because you will know how to do a good job with it, not just a faster job.
Coming up through the Windows ranks, I saw there was a huge difference between people who had to code straight SDK first and people who only ever used MFC, VB or (shudder!) PowerBuilder. The latter tools make doing basic things pretty straightforward but don't help you much once you step outside their rather small functionality domains.
Yeah, assembly language won't teach you good programming, but you need to do it at some point. You should also be doing some Pascal, Fortran, and especially C, and at least one and preferably more of the following: Lisp, Smalltalk, Tcl, Prolog, C++ (and yes, Java)... the list goes on. Someone with a CS degree who's only, or mostly, used Java probably isn't much of a "scientist" or even an engineer, but is probably really just a technician and is probably also doomed to mediocrity at best, and deceptive, but dangerous incompetence at worst (i.e., knows just enough to be dangerous).
And that's why Word takes as long to load now as it did 10 years ago, and yet it doesn't have 10 times the functionality. Well, perhaps it does, but it shouldn't take 100 times the resources to just start up.
I'm not trying to pick on Microsoft here, they are far from alone and far from the worst.
Seriously though, can't we all just use our slashdot ID's? I'd much prefer to be a member of an organisation that looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which i joined.
./ users. If that mattered, it would be cool. All it really means is I've wasted an awful lot of time.
I wonder how many low ID's are inactive. I figure we should be hitting user 1000000 soon. That makes me feel elite since I will be in the first 3% of
That happened to me once with my Vorpal Blade.
But how many people out there were claiming we wouldn't be having any new low-level programmers because kids these days grow up with Windows and Macs rather than Apple IIe and C64's?
Who says we do?
I think the generation that missed out on programming in severely constrained environments (I came in the tail end of it myself) are never forced to code with any discipline. If there's a problem, just throw more giga[bytes/hertz/whatever] at it.
Why do you think each successive version of Windows requires twice as much memory as the version before?
Unless you have worked in a very constrained environment and/or developed a set of tools from the ground up (say, the basics of a run-time library or class library), then it is not very likely you will have the discipline you need to write good code. To me, this is why throwing CS Freshman at Java is a Bad Idea. Throw 'em at an 8080 assembler with 16k or RAM. Things like Java can come along, but later.
However, you're implying a crash caused by hardware failures. My extensive experience with 2000 and XP is that about the only way to get the OS to crash is to have bad hardware or faulty drivers. It's really the only stability problem I've ever seen. I can't recall the last time I saw a Microsoft OS crash where I was convinced it was the OS and not a hardware problem... and hardware problems are not common for me.
The MS bashers hate to admit it, but MS really got it right with Windows 2000. I was hugely skeptical beforehand, but I changed my mind quickly. I never had a reason to buy XP, except for the family computer where compatibility with old games was very important and Windows 98 was an unending source of pain. However, I've bought laptops with XP installed and I don't have a problem with it either.
Having said that though, I think Explorer is horrible. It's the buggiest piece of software MS has ever released and it never gets better. IE6 used to lock up on me on a daily basis, but I haven't used it regularly in 3 years or more, so I couldn't say if it's improved. Outlook 2000 was awful to use. I always liked Outlook Express, but Outlook 2003 was orders of magnitude slower with a large database (and let's not forget the hidden "feature" that mail stores over about 1.5GB get corrupted).
These days, I still use Windows, but I use very little MS software on top of Windows, and I have a system that is very usable, stable and reliable. However, Vista has yet to offer me one compelling reason to upgrade. The new network stack sounds intriguing, but not for $200 plus the huge performance hit because I don't have 2GB of RAM. If I upgrade anything, I'll move to Linux and run Windows 2000 in a VM for those apps I can't live without.
Or maybe I'll buy a Mac.
That's nothing, at my high school in North Carolina in the early 80's our periodic table contained only Earth, Water, Air and Fire. They didn't even have the update for Ether.
Serious note, in 6th grade we were all supposed to bring in an example of an element. I don't recall what I brought in (probably coal for carbon), but it amazed and shocked me how many people brought in wood. I guess nowadays that wouldn't surprise me.
By the way, my high school was actually pretty good and my chemistry teacher, Mr. Merritt, was an especially good teacher. I learned a lot in 11th grade chemistry.
I thought the Amiga died a decade ago.
We know you are harboring violent pornography. If you don't confess we shall be forced to apply the fluffy pillows.
There's a rumor that Lotus Freaking Notes was actually developed by the Soviet Government in the chaotic, budget-starved 1980's using East German war-surplus vacuum-tube computers and unemployed Czech and Romanian construction workers. Sources suspect the real reason Reagan walked away from Reykjavik was that CIA intelligence obtained beta copies of the software, and he realized that a government using this system would surely collapse within a decade and ultimately posed no security threat to the United States.
In 1991, desperate for additional steel footlockers to store all the leftover materials from the dismantled government's nuclear stockpiles, ex-foreign minister Shevardnadze approached Lotus corporation through secret U.S. diplomatic channels and arranged to sell the software suite for 10 billion rubles (approximately US$270). Lotus engineers meanwhile spent all the development money throwing clothing-optional champagne parties with the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, and conducting thorough scientific investigations on the effectiveness of canola oil vs. baby oil on the Slip 'n' Slide.
Two years later, they delivered Notes on time, and amazingly, under budget. Lotus accountants were later unable to determine the mistake leading to the pre-paid delivery of 30 pallets of Marshmallow Peeps, 40 cases of Strawberry Yoo-hoo and several hundred Super Nintendo consoles to their software engineering offices.