How about FLAC (or at least WMA lossless)? If I'm going to buy some music, I want the same quality I could get from the store. I don't think I'll invest in any kind of online music scheme if I'm paying for lossy-compressed files.
I too have tried the basic MMPORGs and found the mundanity in killing 'Rabid Rats' and 'Angry Bats' for hours on end, only to realize that I need to get to level 50 to make any real difference in the world.
Why the high standards? Why make the highest levels to unachievable that only the most dedicated and time-wasting can get to them? Why not start you out at level 1, and make the maximum level, oh, 10. Players would turn into 'mature characters' able to do things that effect the plot and the game world without devoting months of gameplay. Or focus on the actual skill of the player more than the percieved skill of his level, attained by the most mouse-clicks against hordes of killer mice.
The reward needs to be in the shaping of the world by the players, not in the attainment of the astronomically high levels that would allow it. If every character that spent a reasonable amount of time in the game turned into 'full citizens' of equal level, quests would be completed by the number and mental dexterity of the players themselves, not by the amount of time they have dedicated to the game up to that point. Want to rid the world of the Big Red Dragon? You could either gather 3 level-95 uber-players who have spent their entire lives the last three months getting to that point, or you could assemble 50 regular joes, led by an experienced player with some leadership qualities, to get the job done. The average players would hear about the dragon quest in the first scenario. They'd participate in the second.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I love the new Firebird icons. If Thunderbird gets a set that compliments them, the icons situation will be wonderfully complete.
I've considered starting up an errata directory, where readers, authors, et c. could submit their errata to be compiled into one easy-to-search database. A useful idea?
I use jEdit (4.0.3) for my coding also, but it really is quite slow. The menus, the response times, the dialogs, the loading, everything seems to be stuck in a slower dimension. I have the J2SE 1.4.1_01, too. Any advice?
Given that you consider the free sharing of music a good thing, why do it so shadily through the P2P networks? Do you distribute your music freely through your website, or through other, more official, means? If not, why not?
Ok, so how do commercial DVD decoders decrypt DVDs? Do they have to pay for the decryption key? Why did Jon need to reverse engineer the encryption? Why couldn't he have done what commercial DVD players do?
This problem of piracy and copyright infringement is going to need a publicity solution, not a technological one. We don't stop murders by trying to make it technically impossible to kill somebody. We promote values that lead people to believe that it's a wrong thing to do, and we punish severely those that do it.
It won't be until the majority of the public feels that copyright infringement is wrong that it will be reduced. Either that, or actual enforcement of laws regarding it.
Trying to technically prevent it is just not going to work. There will always be a way around it, and those who support such measures will become terribly unpopular.
Slashdot Mirror
Any word on whether this thing works with Wine or WineX?
How about FLAC (or at least WMA lossless)? If I'm going to buy some music, I want the same quality I could get from the store. I don't think I'll invest in any kind of online music scheme if I'm paying for lossy-compressed files.
Is this some sort of replacement for XFree86? Or a proposed patch or module add-on?
Wow, this is cool. According to the Committee's site, we could have watched a live webcast of the hearings. Too late now, though.
Anyone know where to get the transcript?
I too have tried the basic MMPORGs and found the mundanity in killing 'Rabid Rats' and 'Angry Bats' for hours on end, only to realize that I need to get to level 50 to make any real difference in the world.
Why the high standards? Why make the highest levels to unachievable that only the most dedicated and time-wasting can get to them? Why not start you out at level 1, and make the maximum level, oh, 10. Players would turn into 'mature characters' able to do things that effect the plot and the game world without devoting months of gameplay. Or focus on the actual skill of the player more than the percieved skill of his level, attained by the most mouse-clicks against hordes of killer mice.
The reward needs to be in the shaping of the world by the players, not in the attainment of the astronomically high levels that would allow it. If every character that spent a reasonable amount of time in the game turned into 'full citizens' of equal level, quests would be completed by the number and mental dexterity of the players themselves, not by the amount of time they have dedicated to the game up to that point. Want to rid the world of the Big Red Dragon? You could either gather 3 level-95 uber-players who have spent their entire lives the last three months getting to that point, or you could assemble 50 regular joes, led by an experienced player with some leadership qualities, to get the job done. The average players would hear about the dragon quest in the first scenario. They'd participate in the second.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I love the new Firebird icons. If Thunderbird gets a set that compliments them, the icons situation will be wonderfully complete.
I've thought about doing this with EULAs, but haven't gotten very far yet. Either a "Gallery of Dumb EULAs" or an "English Explanation of EULAs".
Of course this isn't enforceable, but the license agreement clearly states:
"Once you have burned a Purchased Track to a CD, you agree not to copy, distribute, or transfer the track from that CD to any other media or device."
If you want to be standards-compliant, and don't need the extras that XHTML provides, check out ISO/IEC 15445:2000 and the associated User's Guide.
It's extremely useful if you have an unreliable or slow internet connection.
I've considered starting up an errata directory, where readers, authors, et c. could submit their errata to be compiled into one easy-to-search database. A useful idea?
Is P2P music downloading a crime that carries a penalty of jail time? Then I say jail the criminals!
The shuttle can land on autopilot, it's just that none of the astronauts want to be the first not to land the thing. (NASA official)
I had a question similar to this, so I started up the Open Software Job Bank. Check it out.
Concurrent GC? What's that?
I use jEdit (4.0.3) for my coding also, but it really is quite slow. The menus, the response times, the dialogs, the loading, everything seems to be stuck in a slower dimension. I have the J2SE 1.4.1_01, too. Any advice?
By the way, my computer's faster than yours.
Given that you consider the free sharing of music a good thing, why do it so shadily through the P2P networks? Do you distribute your music freely through your website, or through other, more official, means? If not, why not?
"WMA is inferior quality"
Says who? Where would I find out something like this? Link?
This happened to my college radio station also. Mississippi State University. Closed down this Spring.
Although C/C++ is truly slower when it comes to heavy number-crunching. FORTRAN is a better option for number-crunching applications.
If they're shitty, don't watch them. Then, they wont' make any money, and they'll stop making shitty movies. Problem solved.
Ok, so how do commercial DVD decoders decrypt DVDs? Do they have to pay for the decryption key? Why did Jon need to reverse engineer the encryption? Why couldn't he have done what commercial DVD players do?
ZipSlack perhaps? http://www.slackware.com
This problem of piracy and copyright infringement is going to need a publicity solution, not a technological one. We don't stop murders by trying to make it technically impossible to kill somebody. We promote values that lead people to believe that it's a wrong thing to do, and we punish severely those that do it.
It won't be until the majority of the public feels that copyright infringement is wrong that it will be reduced. Either that, or actual enforcement of laws regarding it.
Trying to technically prevent it is just not going to work. There will always be a way around it, and those who support such measures will become terribly unpopular.
How about jEdit? It's java-based, open-source, with syntax highlighting for some insane number of languages, has a plugin community base, etc.
http://www.jedit.org