Not two hours ago I finally made a decision that was very painful to make: I switched from Firefox (after many years) across to IE7, because I just couldn't take the bloat any more. On a good day Firefox would be sucking 400MB of RAM, and my system would start slowing to a crawl.
If the leaks have been addressed, I'll very much be looking forward to re-migrating to Firefox. May the gold ship soon!
ISP hosted e-mail is nothing but an electronic noose. Myself, I'm most in favour of everyone having a domain they have control of, but a service provider offering flexibility of the likes of Google is pretty decent next best IMHO.
I've an idea that Powderfinger, Kasey Chambers, Savage Garden, Silverchair and The Living End may have had some impact over there.
They're just a couple off the top of my head though (and by mentioning some of these artists I am not saying that I like their stuff). Anyone else care to complete the list?
I'm quite impressed. Although we get the odd skip and pop, it sounds quite lifelike. And even if it is a little on the dreary side, I could even say that I'm half enjoying it as background music...
Now/that/ would be a sight to see. If any of you haven't seen it yet then get it out now, and prepare to pick your jaw up off the floor at least a dozen times. The visuals are legendary, but when coupled with some brilliant music (Gilmour's playing is phenomenal) it's a must-see.
As far as I can see, there are a number of factors that contribute to the difficulties we're having with worms at the moment.
1. The authors. Namely what they do with their time and / or their self esteem. It needs to be said that creative hackers that come up with some of this stuff could be applying their skills towards much more productive uses. When possible we should encourage those who appear to be inclined to waste time in this way to use their time and skills wisely.
There is no reason why even designing a destructive system is benificial, no matter how clever it is. Any creativity that is shown through development of something such as this has a place elsewhere.
2. The users. It is true that we must educate end-users to be discerning towards what they execute. Most importantly, this must not be a 'if you get a message that looks something like this, do this', we need to ensure that they understand how these things are distributed and the forms they can come in. It's not hard to do. In my family's case without any real protection we've had an almost entirely hit free bill of health over the last few years.
3. The software. Obviously Microsoft products are a popular target, and I don't have a lot of respect towards the way they've treated security in their applications. Unfortunately it is true that the one thing they have been very successful at doing is creating a slick, clean working enviroment, something that isn't easily found elsewhere. This is crucially important to this issue. My relatives immediately notice the difference if I put them in front of, say, Mozilla or StarOffice, despite their impressive efforts (I must say they are beginning to come together nicely of late). As well as that, I have *not* seen anything that handles schedule management or other PHB-friendly features as well as something like Outlook. Until competitors do some serious work towards user friendliness, things will stay this way.
Please note that I'm not saying that Microsoft software is exclusively ahead of the pack, but it is an acknowledged leader.
Given that the server is being given a good hammering at the moment (and not handling it very well), here's the contents of the article (after trying to retrieve it about 10 times)
Lord of the special effects
03 December 2001
By AMANDA WELLS
Weta Digital chief technical officer Jon Labrie was looking forward to a lull after delivering the special effects for The Fellowship of the Ring, the first in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
The facility, based in the Wellington suburb of Miramar, delivered the effects shots in early October, with the film's Australasian premiere scheduled for December 19.
But, Mr Labrie says, things are not proving quite as quiet as expected, and Weta's biggest workload is yet to come.
Work has started on key shots for the second film, The Two Towers, and a detailed plan is being drawn up for tackling the sophisticated effects needed in this film and its successor.
Weta will deliver The Two Towers effects by October 1, 2002.
Mr Labrie says the facility has yet to get a clear picture of the workload for the film, which involves animating several key characters.
Gollum, an evil creature bent on retrieving the One ring he once possessed, emerges in the second film, and Weta's graphic artists have begun bringing him to life. Gollum is shown close-up and must appear believable.
Treebeard, an ent or talking tree, also appears in the second film, along with other creatures for which Weta has developed digital fur.
Mr Labrie says Weta will probably have to grow by another 10 per cent to complete The Two Towers, up to about 250 staff.
The trilogy's second and third instalments contain some impressive special effects set pieces, he says.
The third film features "an extraordinary number of battle sequences".
Weta crowd supervisor Stephen Regelous has created software, dubbed Massive, that creates realistic crowds. Every individual in the crowd moves in response to stimulus such as terrain, and to the actions of others.
The battles in The Return of the King will see hundreds of thousands of these intelligent agents in frame at the same time, Mr Labrie says, stretching the software to its limits.
Massive was developed on SGI operating system Irix and has since been ported to open source operating system Linux.
The deadline for delivering the third film's effects has not yet finalised, but could be October 2003.
In terms of the facility's workload, creating effects for The Return of the King will be equivalent to the first two films combined, he says.
Mr Jackson has kept tabs on filming and effects while offshore through extensive use of videoconferencing. He could view the output of a camera remotely, and artists could transfer frames via an FTP connection.
Mr Labrie says that at the start of the project in 1998, it was hard to conceive how much work it would be to complete simultaneously all three films based on the 1200-page epic.
JRR Tolkien's world is hugely detailed, with a vast variety of landscapes and diverse array of creatures.
Elves, dwarfs, hobbits, trolls, orcs, ents, wraiths and balrogs populate Middle Earth, and purists will be watching keenly for a literal rendition.
Mr Labrie says Weta's naivety was probably a good thing.
"Nobody would want to tackle three films again, not at the same time."
Weta grows seven-fold
Mr Labrie joined Weta Digital in 1995, when the company was set up to provide effects for Mr Jackson's films.
Weta is privately owned, with Mr Jackson's 34 per cent the largest individual stake.
Mr Labrie came to Weta from the US, where he had mostly recently worked on effects for science fiction blockbuster Independence Day.
He has overseen the facility's expansion from 30 to 230 staff.
Weta has created effects for previous Jackson films Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners, but the Lord of the Rings trilogy far outstrips these in complexity and volume of effects.
About 1500 effects shots will be created in total.
Mr Labrie says if he was doing it again, he would spend more time up-front on planning for growth and "less time reacting".
Planning of this kind is underway for films two and three at the moment.
In terms of technology, "there's not a lot I'd do differently," though getting digital asset management up and running was problematic.
"There are still issues to be addressed, but for the most part we have done it right."
The growth of the facility has been "far greater than we anticipated". Originally, Mr Labrie thought Weta would need between 80 and 90 graphic artists to complete the trilogy's special effects.
But artist numbers hit 167 in August, at the peak of The Fellowship of the Ring production, with 225 staff in total.
At the moment, the facility has about 205 staff, with some people leaving to work on other projects or heading home to other countries after the first film was completed.
Numbers will ramp up again in the New Year to hit between 230 and 235 in April or May.
Finding graphic artists for the project is not a problem, Mr Labrie says.
"Everybody wants to work on Lord of the Rings."
Just under 40 per cent of the artists are Kiwis, 31 per cent from the US, 11 per cent from Australia, 5 per cent from Britain and the rest from countries as diverse as Japan, Egypt, China, Germany, Korea, Russia and France.
Weta has amassed substantial world-class talent, he says.
"In terms of pure technical infrastructure, we are one of the three largest facilities in the world.
"We consider ourselves, at the moment, to be one of the top five visual-effects facilities on the planet."
He says Weta staff are focused on the work remaining during the next two years, with the future of the facility after that yet to be decided.
Weta will not be able to support existing staff numbers when Lord of the Rings work is completed without securing another project of the same magnitude, which seems a tall order.
Effects artists tend to be nomadic, Mr Labrie says, and will head off to the next project in which they are interested.
Mr Labrie says the business could become more broad-based, tackling interactive gaming or commercials. "It's hard to make a profit out of visual effects."
This time next year, serious consideration of Weta's future will start.
The Hardware
of the Rings
The facility's technological infrastructure has mostly coped well with its exponential growth, Mr Labrie says.
Adjustments are being made at the moment to network switches and data distribution systems to ensure Weta's technology will scale up again when facility growth peaks for The Two Towers work.
The machine room, housing the processing power at the heart of the facility, will probably be enlarged, and work will be done to increase electricity flow and the Uninterruptible Power Supply service into the premises.
Mr Labrie says Weta will probably look at buying more hardware in February or March to meet The Two Towers' requirements.
Between $20 million and $30 million has been spent on Weta's IT infrastructure so far.
The total is "a little more than we expected", because of some unanticipated costs near the end of the first film's work.
A "rendering crunch" of last-minute work meant more processors were needed to complete the final six weeks of visual effects production, partly because of some late additions to the cut.
Mr Labrie says he has probably exceeded budget estimates made three years ago by about $1 million.
Weta does not have formal hardware agreements in place, but has developed strong relationships with vendors SGI, Auckland-based DVT, and Infinity Solutions, and Mr Labrie says he would go to them first to see if they could supply the hardware he needs.
About 90 per cent of the company's systems are from SGI.
The machine room has about 12 terabytes of storage, with about 20 terabytes in total at the facility.
Mr Labrie says working storage needs will probably hit 30 terabytes for the second and third films.
But adding storage is not as difficult as it used to be, and prices have come down.
By the time the effects for the third film are finished, between 70 and 80 per cent of the hardware will be out of date. These systems will be written down.
Some PCs will be able to be used for the company's next project, along with a StorageTek tape robot which has a long lifespan.
Mr Labrie says Linux is gradually replacing Irix as the operating system of choice in the effects world.
Weta has a "major" research and development effort under way at the moment into running more Linux-based workstations.
Mr Labrie says the facility is running a substantial amount of Linux at the moment, on processors in the machine room that are "the core of the rendering wall".
Between 40 and 50 workstations run Alias/Wavefront's Maya character animation software or Nothing Real's Shake compositing system on Linux.
He says he is looking at "making a more determined move" into Linux for the second film and will probably at least double the facility's number of installed Linux systems.
Linux delivers about two times the price performance compared to systems running proprietary operating systems, he says. Unlike several years ago, sophisticated animation applications are increasingly able to run on the free operating system.
The project has brought with it huge public and media interest.
Mr Labrie says he is receiving a couple of interview requests a day at the moment, from New Zealand and offshore media.
"I thought maybe we'd be able to keep a low profile for a bit longer."
Fans will be keen to check that technology has brought Middle Earth to life correctly.
Mr Labrie says visual effects in The Fellowship of the Ring are "all over the film", with audiences not going for long without seeing footage that has been manipulated in some way.
"There's always some kind of trick going on."
But these are seamlessly integrated into the film's background.
Weta is gathering material from its archives for use in The Fellowship of the Ring DVD release at the moment.
The DVD, which is being produced by New Line, will contain information about the making of the film.
American software company Electronic Arts is creating a Lord of the Rings game, for which Weta is supplying images and models.
The facility has a fulltime staff member dedicated to finding material for the game, though has no involvement in its production.
Mr Labrie is setting up a games company at the moment, with details under wraps for another couple of months.
He has written film scripts in the past, and says he will write storylines for the interactive games the company will produce.
The company will probably launch early next year, and Mr Labrie will continue in his Weta role.
As the facility's infrastructure becomes complete, being chief technical officer is more administrative and takes up less time, he says.
But his focus will remain on the enormous project till it is completed, sometime towards the end of 2003.
I can't believe no-one has noted that the development project can be found at the following URL. Not sure why there are two sites, but this has screenshots, binaries, source, project info etc etc etc.
Re:Bleeding edge compatibility
on
MP3Pro Released
·
· Score: 1
Exact Audio Copy (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/) is the best ripper for Windows I've seen yet. Fast, accurate (lots of features for error detection and removal) and free (though not GNU unfortunately). CDDB support as well (though it would be nice if FreeDB support was implemented).
Slashdot Mirror
Not two hours ago I finally made a decision that was very painful to make: I switched from Firefox (after many years) across to IE7, because I just couldn't take the bloat any more. On a good day Firefox would be sucking 400MB of RAM, and my system would start slowing to a crawl.
If the leaks have been addressed, I'll very much be looking forward to re-migrating to Firefox. May the gold ship soon!
Yes
Errr... Google offer POP3 access to their mailboxes?
= 1555
See here: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic
ISP hosted e-mail is nothing but an electronic noose. Myself, I'm most in favour of everyone having a domain they have control of, but a service provider offering flexibility of the likes of Google is pretty decent next best IMHO.
I've an idea that Powderfinger, Kasey Chambers, Savage Garden, Silverchair and The Living End may have had some impact over there.
They're just a couple off the top of my head though (and by mentioning some of these artists I am not saying that I like their stuff). Anyone else care to complete the list?
Except the ads are hosted on images.slashdot.org. The result of doing something that would lead to undesired results for most people.
+1 Not Quite.
Dude, you just gave me one more reason to not buy the Vines' CD. Not that I was going to anyway ...
How about ... 'moniversary'?
:-)
It certainly has connotations which strike me as being appropriate
I'm quite impressed. Although we get the odd skip and pop, it sounds quite lifelike. And even if it is a little on the dreary side, I could even say that I'm half enjoying it as background music ...
"Are the best years of our lives truly behind us?"
If they hinged on economic prosperity and material possesions, possibly. Thankfully there's much more to life than that.
How about Pink Floyd's P.U.L.S.E. video?
/that/ would be a sight to see. If any of you haven't seen it yet then get it out now, and prepare to pick your jaw up off the floor at least a dozen times. The visuals are legendary, but when coupled with some brilliant music (Gilmour's playing is phenomenal) it's a must-see.
*drools*
Now
what on *earth* is cool about christmas songs? :-)
Ahoy there mods! I do believe some points would be in order for this post.
As far as I can see, there are a number of factors that contribute to the difficulties we're having with worms at the moment.
...
1. The authors. Namely what they do with their time and / or their self esteem. It needs to be said that creative hackers that come up with some of this stuff could be applying their skills towards much more productive uses. When possible we should encourage those who appear to be inclined to waste time in this way to use their time and skills wisely.
There is no reason why even designing a destructive system is benificial, no matter how clever it is. Any creativity that is shown through development of something such as this has a place elsewhere.
2. The users. It is true that we must educate end-users to be discerning towards what they execute. Most importantly, this must not be a 'if you get a message that looks something like this, do this', we need to ensure that they understand how these things are distributed and the forms they can come in. It's not hard to do. In my family's case without any real protection we've had an almost entirely hit free bill of health over the last few years.
3. The software. Obviously Microsoft products are a popular target, and I don't have a lot of respect towards the way they've treated security in their applications. Unfortunately it is true that the one thing they have been very successful at doing is creating a slick, clean working enviroment, something that isn't easily found elsewhere. This is crucially important to this issue. My relatives immediately notice the difference if I put them in front of, say, Mozilla or StarOffice, despite their impressive efforts (I must say they are beginning to come together nicely of late). As well as that, I have *not* seen anything that handles schedule management or other PHB-friendly features as well as something like Outlook. Until competitors do some serious work towards user friendliness, things will stay this way.
Please note that I'm not saying that Microsoft software is exclusively ahead of the pack, but it is an acknowledged leader.
Just my 2c
Given that the server is being given a good hammering at the moment (and not handling it very well), here's the contents of the article (after trying to retrieve it about 10 times)
Lord of the special effects
03 December 2001
By AMANDA WELLS
Weta Digital chief technical officer Jon Labrie was looking forward to a lull after delivering the special effects for The Fellowship of the Ring, the first in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
The facility, based in the Wellington suburb of Miramar, delivered the effects shots in early October, with the film's Australasian premiere scheduled for December 19.
But, Mr Labrie says, things are not proving quite as quiet as expected, and Weta's biggest workload is yet to come.
Work has started on key shots for the second film, The Two Towers, and a detailed plan is being drawn up for tackling the sophisticated effects needed in this film and its successor.
Weta will deliver The Two Towers effects by October 1, 2002.
Mr Labrie says the facility has yet to get a clear picture of the workload for the film, which involves animating several key characters.
Gollum, an evil creature bent on retrieving the One ring he once possessed, emerges in the second film, and Weta's graphic artists have begun bringing him to life. Gollum is shown close-up and must appear believable.
Treebeard, an ent or talking tree, also appears in the second film, along with other creatures for which Weta has developed digital fur.
Mr Labrie says Weta will probably have to grow by another 10 per cent to complete The Two Towers, up to about 250 staff.
The trilogy's second and third instalments contain some impressive special effects set pieces, he says.
The third film features "an extraordinary number of battle sequences".
Weta crowd supervisor Stephen Regelous has created software, dubbed Massive, that creates realistic crowds. Every individual in the crowd moves in response to stimulus such as terrain, and to the actions of others.
The battles in The Return of the King will see hundreds of thousands of these intelligent agents in frame at the same time, Mr Labrie says, stretching the software to its limits.
Massive was developed on SGI operating system Irix and has since been ported to open source operating system Linux.
The deadline for delivering the third film's effects has not yet finalised, but could be October 2003.
In terms of the facility's workload, creating effects for The Return of the King will be equivalent to the first two films combined, he says.
Mr Jackson has kept tabs on filming and effects while offshore through extensive use of videoconferencing. He could view the output of a camera remotely, and artists could transfer frames via an FTP connection.
Mr Labrie says that at the start of the project in 1998, it was hard to conceive how much work it would be to complete simultaneously all three films based on the 1200-page epic.
JRR Tolkien's world is hugely detailed, with a vast variety of landscapes and diverse array of creatures.
Elves, dwarfs, hobbits, trolls, orcs, ents, wraiths and balrogs populate Middle Earth, and purists will be watching keenly for a literal rendition.
Mr Labrie says Weta's naivety was probably a good thing.
"Nobody would want to tackle three films again, not at the same time."
Weta grows seven-fold
Mr Labrie joined Weta Digital in 1995, when the company was set up to provide effects for Mr Jackson's films.
Weta is privately owned, with Mr Jackson's 34 per cent the largest individual stake.
Mr Labrie came to Weta from the US, where he had mostly recently worked on effects for science fiction blockbuster Independence Day.
He has overseen the facility's expansion from 30 to 230 staff.
Weta has created effects for previous Jackson films Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners, but the Lord of the Rings trilogy far outstrips these in complexity and volume of effects.
About 1500 effects shots will be created in total.
Mr Labrie says if he was doing it again, he would spend more time up-front on planning for growth and "less time reacting".
Planning of this kind is underway for films two and three at the moment.
In terms of technology, "there's not a lot I'd do differently," though getting digital asset management up and running was problematic.
"There are still issues to be addressed, but for the most part we have done it right."
The growth of the facility has been "far greater than we anticipated". Originally, Mr Labrie thought Weta would need between 80 and 90 graphic artists to complete the trilogy's special effects.
But artist numbers hit 167 in August, at the peak of The Fellowship of the Ring production, with 225 staff in total.
At the moment, the facility has about 205 staff, with some people leaving to work on other projects or heading home to other countries after the first film was completed.
Numbers will ramp up again in the New Year to hit between 230 and 235 in April or May.
Finding graphic artists for the project is not a problem, Mr Labrie says.
"Everybody wants to work on Lord of the Rings."
Just under 40 per cent of the artists are Kiwis, 31 per cent from the US, 11 per cent from Australia, 5 per cent from Britain and the rest from countries as diverse as Japan, Egypt, China, Germany, Korea, Russia and France.
Weta has amassed substantial world-class talent, he says.
"In terms of pure technical infrastructure, we are one of the three largest facilities in the world.
"We consider ourselves, at the moment, to be one of the top five visual-effects facilities on the planet."
He says Weta staff are focused on the work remaining during the next two years, with the future of the facility after that yet to be decided.
Weta will not be able to support existing staff numbers when Lord of the Rings work is completed without securing another project of the same magnitude, which seems a tall order.
Effects artists tend to be nomadic, Mr Labrie says, and will head off to the next project in which they are interested.
Mr Labrie says the business could become more broad-based, tackling interactive gaming or commercials. "It's hard to make a profit out of visual effects."
This time next year, serious consideration of Weta's future will start.
The Hardware
of the Rings
The facility's technological infrastructure has mostly coped well with its exponential growth, Mr Labrie says.
Adjustments are being made at the moment to network switches and data distribution systems to ensure Weta's technology will scale up again when facility growth peaks for The Two Towers work.
The machine room, housing the processing power at the heart of the facility, will probably be enlarged, and work will be done to increase electricity flow and the Uninterruptible Power Supply service into the premises.
Mr Labrie says Weta will probably look at buying more hardware in February or March to meet The Two Towers' requirements.
Between $20 million and $30 million has been spent on Weta's IT infrastructure so far.
The total is "a little more than we expected", because of some unanticipated costs near the end of the first film's work.
A "rendering crunch" of last-minute work meant more processors were needed to complete the final six weeks of visual effects production, partly because of some late additions to the cut.
Mr Labrie says he has probably exceeded budget estimates made three years ago by about $1 million.
Weta does not have formal hardware agreements in place, but has developed strong relationships with vendors SGI, Auckland-based DVT, and Infinity Solutions, and Mr Labrie says he would go to them first to see if they could supply the hardware he needs.
About 90 per cent of the company's systems are from SGI.
The machine room has about 12 terabytes of storage, with about 20 terabytes in total at the facility.
Mr Labrie says working storage needs will probably hit 30 terabytes for the second and third films.
But adding storage is not as difficult as it used to be, and prices have come down.
By the time the effects for the third film are finished, between 70 and 80 per cent of the hardware will be out of date. These systems will be written down.
Some PCs will be able to be used for the company's next project, along with a StorageTek tape robot which has a long lifespan.
Mr Labrie says Linux is gradually replacing Irix as the operating system of choice in the effects world.
Weta has a "major" research and development effort under way at the moment into running more Linux-based workstations.
Mr Labrie says the facility is running a substantial amount of Linux at the moment, on processors in the machine room that are "the core of the rendering wall".
Between 40 and 50 workstations run Alias/Wavefront's Maya character animation software or Nothing Real's Shake compositing system on Linux.
He says he is looking at "making a more determined move" into Linux for the second film and will probably at least double the facility's number of installed Linux systems.
Linux delivers about two times the price performance compared to systems running proprietary operating systems, he says. Unlike several years ago, sophisticated animation applications are increasingly able to run on the free operating system.
The project has brought with it huge public and media interest.
Mr Labrie says he is receiving a couple of interview requests a day at the moment, from New Zealand and offshore media.
"I thought maybe we'd be able to keep a low profile for a bit longer."
Fans will be keen to check that technology has brought Middle Earth to life correctly.
Mr Labrie says visual effects in The Fellowship of the Ring are "all over the film", with audiences not going for long without seeing footage that has been manipulated in some way.
"There's always some kind of trick going on."
But these are seamlessly integrated into the film's background.
Weta is gathering material from its archives for use in The Fellowship of the Ring DVD release at the moment.
The DVD, which is being produced by New Line, will contain information about the making of the film.
American software company Electronic Arts is creating a Lord of the Rings game, for which Weta is supplying images and models.
The facility has a fulltime staff member dedicated to finding material for the game, though has no involvement in its production.
Mr Labrie is setting up a games company at the moment, with details under wraps for another couple of months.
He has written film scripts in the past, and says he will write storylines for the interactive games the company will produce.
The company will probably launch early next year, and Mr Labrie will continue in his Weta role.
As the facility's infrastructure becomes complete, being chief technical officer is more administrative and takes up less time, he says.
But his focus will remain on the enormous project till it is completed, sometime towards the end of 2003.
I can't believe no-one has noted that the development project can be found at the following URL. Not sure why there are two sites, but this has screenshots, binaries, source, project info etc etc etc.
http://xosl.sourceforge.net/
Exact Audio Copy (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/) is the best ripper for Windows I've seen yet. Fast, accurate (lots of features for error detection and removal) and free (though not GNU unfortunately). CDDB support as well (though it would be nice if FreeDB support was implemented).
One of my favourite features in Mozilla is the startup sound it comes with of some kind of beast roaring ferociously ...
(otherwise known as my hard drive going berko)
If you want to have a look at the same pic at *much* higher resolutions than the linked site offers, check out NOAO's great image gallery here.
The rest of the gallery is worth looking at as well.
I think the color scheme for the programming section is blue, where as the Apache section is purple and funny yellow/green.
What's a 'Comparasion'?
For the technical scoop: http://msdn.microsoft.com/net/ For the PHB-directed marketing hype: http://www.microsoft.com/net/
Hey, why don't we Aussie's ever get this much attention when our election is on? :-)