go to any Mac forum and read up on
hardware/software bugs, you'll find that
70% of them have been due to poorly
designed third party software.
First, I do not mean this as an anti-Mac
troll, so please don't take it as such.
The fact that the OS loses stability when
running 3rd party software does NOT say
much for the quality of its own engineering.
*Anyone* can write a standalone app suite
that, under ideal conditions (ie, a vanilla
W2K install and just the app suite running)
will seem rock-solid.
In the real world, however, hundreds or even
thousands of different software packages,
most from different developers, must occupy
the same physical machine. A decent OS *MUST*
acknowledge that and not only deal with, but
*expect*, poor behavior on the part of its
apps. Not every app returns a meaningful
value, not every app completely frees its
memory, not every app releases all the hardware
it asked to use. None of those "should" happen,
but especially when a program crashes, they *do*
happen. The OS has to figure out a way to
clean up no matter what a user-space program
does.
No, I don't intend to say that any one OS does
a whole lot better (cough, cough, Linux, cough),
but I would not consider "stability under ideal
conditions" a big selling point.
First, my apologies for the slam. Uncalled for,
and although I stated that I understand that
people can't always work to the best of their
ability for various political/business reasons,
That does not excuse me.
The dynamic range is generally compressed into
a much smaller area. in my experience, this is usually around -50db to 0db, or about 50% of the available range on a CD
Feel free to correct me if I have taken this idea
one step further than I should, but the decibel scale measures sound *logarithmically*. Thus, -50db to 0db corresponds to only 1/32nd of the *perceptual* range of the CD, MUCH worse than
the 25% I suggested. Have I mixed terms in this?
If so, I would feel thankful for an explanation
of my mistake.
Regardless of the *absolute* range, however, I find the *relative* range compression much more disturbing. I do not know the specific terminology to describe this (if such exists), but my comment about drums vs vocals illustrates it... A good strong drum should peak 25-35db above a normal human singing voice, yet on CD, they sound roughly the same, or at *most* 10db higher. That alone,
IMO, makes one of the biggest differences between live and CD.
What do you intend to do with that nice 2-4Gb
rip you now have? Keep it in its current form,
wasting quite a lot of space? Convert it to
MP3/Ogg, in which case you gained nothing by
getting a DVD-A?
Basically, you have an ultra-high-quality sound
source that you can only use in the *lowest*
quality sound system in your house - your TV.
Sure, some people have $15k home theater setups,
with a 60" HDTV screen and true 5.1 sound, all
in a carefully arranged room designed to give
maximum viewing and listening pleasure. The
other 99.9% of us have a normal 20-30" TV,
*might* have an actual external *stereo*
(rather than 5.1, and almost certainly not
digital) amp, and stick the speakers in
the most convenient corner of the room (or
worse, on either side of the TV itself, giving
essentially no spatial separation, so it may
as well use a mono signal).
Explain to me the benefit of this, regardless
of the ability to rip it? IMO, ripping it and
playing it through something *other* than
your TV audio setup really presents the *ONLY*
way to actually experience the improved audio
quality (though as I mentioned in the beginning
of this demi-rant, what the hell do you do with
a 3Gb rip?). So who exactly benefits from this
so-called "improvement"?
Which does *NOT* mean that it *cannot* make most
music sound better.
Even with standard audio CDs, they (meaning the
braindead sound engineers who optimize for radio
play rather than home audio) only use roughly
25% of the dynamic range of a CD.
Threshold-minus-16db to jet engine, yet vocals
and drums have roughly the same level. So what
will we get with DVD audio? A wider range, with
better granularity, and drums will *STILL* share
the mix with vocals.
No real incentive exists to use this format,
unless the RIAA manages to force the public,
via legislation or simply eliminating all other
choices. None. Or, if sound engineers start
doing their "real" job rather than pandering
to the PR pimps (which I can't blame them for,
really - I too, and I suppose most people, have
had to make choices between "do it wrong or
look for a new job").
Note that I do not mean to say that DVD-A
doesn't *crush* standard 16-bit 44.1khz PCM
audio, as POTENTIAL quality goes. But it will
get used just as poorly as its predecessor.
I think people need to keep in mind how
much publicity their mods generate, and
whether they benefit or detract from the
original product FROM THE POINT OF VIEW
of the manufacturer.
With the Aibo, clearly Sony screwed up
big-time. Making the thing dance didn't
harm them in any way, earned them *tons*
of free, POSITIVE publicity (until they
tried to squash it), and actually made
their product in some way "better".
At the opposite end of the spectrum,
Microsoft has put themselves in a very
awkward position. By not making money
on the console itself, anyone who buys
it *only* to run Linux on costs them
money. At the same time, having a vested
interest in a particular OS (ie, Windows),
seeing it used specifically to run what
arguably counts as their biggest competition
*really* galls them. OTOH, I see no valid
reason why consumers should lack the right
to do whatever they want with an XBox.
While they can license the *media*, can
they actually say the purchaser doesn't
own the hardware itself? Tricky.
Hmm, okay, I guess I didn't have as much
to say on this as I thought. Basically,
I fully support modders, and just suggest
that, if it will obviously piss off the
company involved (ie, the XBox Linux
effort), try to keep it quiet.
Wow, apparently I pissed off some overly
touchy people with my post... Two "troll"
votes? Humor, people, learn to recognize
it.
That said...
I call such systems "dead" because, at their
most basic level (OS support), they have
ceased to exist. It doesn't matter *how*
many 3rd party developers support it if,
in five years, it doesn't have any support
for the latest and greatest hardware.
Take my specific mention of the Amiga - Yeah,
I would agree 100% that, even compared to
"modern" GUI-based OSs (Except possibly
Darwin), it rocked. Good luck finding
replacement parts if the break, though, and
don't even *think* about using the latest-and-greatest parts. And hey,
it can play Quake - at 10fps.
Yeah... Suuuuuuuure. Next you'll tell us
that legendary beast called the "Mac" still
lives.;-)
And, of course, we can't ignore that ultra
hard core group of Amiga users. Any day now,
one of the many compnies that have shuffled
*that* hot potato around will release the
new-and-improved Amiga, with something better
than the 68060. Uh-huh. Sure. And my Atari
800 runs Windows XP.
I love articles like this one. No one actually
used BeOS when it *did* really exist, thus its
demise. Why should it matter that some poor
deluded bastards still have a dusty, unused
partition running it? I still have a DEC
Rainbow in my basement, that I occasionally
turn on and run NetHack with. That doesn't
somehow make Digital any more "real".
H.264 exists as MPEG-4 part 10, basically
using the AVC rather than the ASP profile
for encoding.
Supposedly, it offers up to 2-4x size
reduction over the MPEG-4 ASP.
However...
For anyone who has extensively played with
the existing ASP codecs available (basically
XVID, DIVX, RV9, and WM-whatever), the quality
matters a *lot* based on the implementation.
And not in any consistent way, letting you
pick "codec X does the best job". Nope, more
like "on low-motion sequences, codec X does
best. For detail, codec Y. For minimal
artifacts but some bluring, codec Z", and so
on.
I see no reason to expect H.264 will follow
any substantially different path. In another
5 years, it might well let us get a DVD quality
movie onto 1 CD. For now, don't hold your
breath about this changing the scene
overnight. By the time this really does
make good on its potential, we'll have the
bandwidth and storage to make it unnecessary.
Of course, he might actually have a spine
(or independant wealth), and wanted the
domain more than the money.
This strikes me as no different than the
McDonalds (the junk-food chain) vs McDonalds
(the family owned restaurant that predates
the fast food chain) a while back.
The bigger business considers itself more
important, and has the money to throw at
lawyers to make that delusion a reality.
If *you* had a family domain, and some company offered you what you consider a pittance for
it, how would you feel? Would you consider
yourself an informed "hardball" player? Would
you "cackle with glee" at your great luck in
having a valuable name?
It really disgusts me that companies consider
themselves more important than individuals.
It disgusts me even more that the legal system
mostly agrees with them. Neither of those comes
*close*, however, to the disgust I feel about
actual individual *humans* who agree that
companies have more rights than everyone else,
and actually criticize other humans for
standing up for what few rights we have left.
In Maine, we have an amusing (low budget?)
variant of this idea. On the highways, we
have flashing signs that say "You are speeding,
slow down!!!" (and other slight variations
on that theme). They don't actually have
any sensory ability, they just *always*
say that.
I think you just defeated your own point,
there. I agree fully that it costs a
*lot* more to produce (the content on) a
DVD than a CD. Hundreds of millions,
compared to a few tens of thousands (if
that). And yes, a movie has most likely
at least broken even by the time it comes
out on DVD. However, an audio CD *starts*
closer to "breaking even" than just about
any DVD ever made - the latter either have
made a huge profit already, or failed
miserably, by the time they hit stores.
Naturally, exceptions to this exist...
For example, how about some of Disney's
"direct to DVD" releases, which
presumeably still cost money to make
(if not as much as a typical for-theater
production), yet sell for less than a
"real" movie on DVD?
Basically, no matter how you look at it,
you have to agree that the comparison
*doesn't* count as fair - the pure audio
CD should sell for *far* less.
you can legally and easily store the
MP3s you make from a CD you own on your
file server
Really? I have a handfull of CDs that I
have yet to find a way around the copy
protection on, and even if I do find a
way, doing so violates the DMCA. Please,
tell me how I can satisfy both "easy"
and "legal" in making MP3s of these. And,
believe it or not, I do actually only
make MP3s (VQFs, actually, but same idea)
for personal use. I don't know
if most people fall into that category,
but I simply find it much more convenient
to load up a 200 hour WinAmp playlist than
to change CDs every 40-70 minutes.
More IP BS, this time entirely between those
that abuse such laws regularly.
Money gets shifted around, and we, the
consumers, get screwed like usual. The
*only* outcome I see from this involves
the album coming out late, and the lawsuit
justifying yet more "cost-added" excuses
on the part of the recording industry.
I'll care more when 72 minutes of pure
audio doesn't cost 50% more than 2 hours
of high quality movie footage with
soundtracks in three language plus bonus
material, AND I can legally (and easily)
store what I buy on my file server.
Until then, the MPAA and RIAA can
collectively "bite me".
While they've rehashed the same genre over
and over, they did put thier hearts into making
Final Fantasy the Movie [imdb.com]. It didn't
do too well in the box office, so now they're
back to making games.
Damn, do I count as the only person
on Earth who actually liked "Spirits Within?"
I mean, it had a decent plot (even if
large portions of it did drew heavily
from the games IV/II, VI/III, and VII),
the graphics made for amazing eye-candy
(good enough CGI to "forget" it counted
as an animated movie after the first
fifteen minutes), and a reasonably
consistent game (er, movie) world.
I really suspect it flopped only due to
the same anti-animation prejudice American
audiences have against anime in general.
I don't know a single person who said
they hated it - But at the same time, I
don't know more than two or three people
who actually saw it.
What can its opponants say about it? As
long as they use something like methanol
rather than hydrogen gas, it has less risk
of fire/explosion than either gasoline or
a typical rechargeable battery (those things
have some *NASTY* chemistry in them). *FAR*
fewer pollutants. Greater efficiency.
Really, I cannot understand why we even still
*have* internal combustion engines or "legacy"
rechargeables, when fuel cells can give more
power, cheaper, and cleaner.
The only problem I see with market penetration
comes from the ubiquity of "gas" stations
(batteries I see as less of a problem - it
seems like almost every high-end product takes
its own obscure battery type, and that hasn't
stopped anyone from running out to by the
new digital-camera-of-the-week). But really,
I've seen lines wrapped around the block
when a gas station has prices a mere nickle
per gallon cheaper than the competition.
Selling methanol for $0.40/gallon would
crush the competition hands-down.
I don't tend to believe in conspiracies,
but *someone* must have gone to a lot of
trouble to keep fuel cells out of popular
use, and it seems to me like a supply-side
problem rather than a lack of demand or
available technology.
In most cases, I would agree with you. In
this specific case, however, consider the
cause of such a brain region *existing*
in the first place...
1) Contrary to the popular "we only use 10%
of our brain" myth, our wetware counts as
the single most expensive tissue in our
bodies. Any neurons not used for *something*
vanish very quickly, both evolutionarily
(selection) *and* over the course of our
lives (atrophy).
2) Direct electrical stimulation of the brain
can also make the subject experience visual
effects, vivid recollection of old memories,
even orgasm. That does not mean the evoked
experience cannot occur in the first place,
just that we can artificially makes someone
*feel* that experience at will.
Thus, it seems more likely that the existance
of this brain region must have some use,
either critical to our long-term well-being,
or used reasonably often. I wouldn't say we
can claim what purpose it serves yet, but now
that we've located it, futher studies of what
conditions activate it aught to *greatly*
increase our knowledge about the entire "out
of body experience" phenomena in general.
Robots aren't as snazzy as portrayed
in the movies.
I really have a hard time believing that
thing cost $250k (or rather, that anyone
would have *paid* $250k for it).
First of all, I have, quite seriously,
built smaller robots out of *Legos* that
could have managed that climb. And they
wouldn't have needed a ramp to get over
a 2" curb. Hell, I suspect most remote
control cars could probably have managed
it, with some slight mods.
Second, why did it carry its "brain", as
they called it, directly behind it? It
had to drag a video and power cable behind
it anyway! Even assuming it needed any
internal intelligence (for traction,
perhaps?), since they basically piloted
it by remote control, all the CPU power
could have stayed at the *other* end of
the wire.
And third, can someone explain to me why
drilling a hole in a stone could have *any*
chance of compromising the "safety" of the
pyramid? At worst they would have cracked
a very small stone block. Considering that
earlier "archaeologists" used *DYNAMITE* in
their work, one small cracked stone would
certainly not have brought the entire
pyramid crashing down.
Zahi thinks the rest of the world with
theories opposed to his "kind and loving
egyptians built the pyramids" are idiots
because of a thumbprint on the sarcophogas
lid
No kidding, eh? Did anyone else get the
impression that Hawass only hates those
with "alternative" theories on the pyramids
in favor of his own *equally* out-there
ideas? Built with love? Gimme a break!
Even if the workers didn't count as slaves
(which didn't mean the same thing back then
as it does to us now), they certainly saw
such construction as nothing more than a
sweet government job, something to do during
the flood season when they couldn't grow
anything.
I also loved the obvious bias against
Gantenbrink. The show actually claimed
that only their "new" robot managed to
get past the "step" in the tunnel! And,
while using a ramp might have made an
*excellent* solution from the point of
view of simplicity, Gantenbrink solved
it with a better robot. Hell, they even
claimed that *Hawass* "found" the outlet
of the upper tunnels, of which the Northern
outlet had never gone missing, and
*Gantenbrink* discovered the outlet to
the Southern tunnel in his 1992 survey.
Biased, "overcooked", Factually incorrect,
"bad" archaology little better than what
they accuse their forerunners of, and a
somewhat dissapointing "climax".
Overall, the show sucked. They could have
condensed the entire "interesting" part of
the show into 15 minutes (and in fact, they
did... the *last* 15 minutes).
Hasn't Puff Daddy... proven your
assertion already?
Except... (Skip the obvious troll to get to my
point)
Puffy took *good* music and turned
it into complete crap.
However, you raise a good point.
Why can *he* steal 90% of a song,
unmodified, and sell it as "his" work,
while these other "illegal" artists
take small clips and heavily modify them,
yet the result counts as a copyright
violation?
The answer?
Puffy sells.
These other groups do not.
At the "Negativland" link, it mentions that
the fee, $70k, exceeds their *total* sales
in 14 years. That does not make the labels
money.
I think that about sums up anything we
can discuss on this topic. Copyright
violations only matter if no one makes
money off it (interestingly, the exact
*opposite* of what the law says, where
penalties come in direct proportion to
how much someone profits from the use of
stolen material). Make the RIAA money,
regardless of how, or prepare to face
legal battles the likes of which even
Puffy couldn't weather. Fortunately
for Puffy, and Wierd Al, and every other
SUCCESSFUL artist that makes "derivative"
works, the RIAA can make enough off the
music to keep them at bay.
As a sufferer of CTS (fortunately, early stages,
meaning I can still recover fully if I don't
keep pissing my median nerve off too badly),
I looked into quite a lot of the various
"ergonomic" crap on the market.
First of all, realize that, while "experts" say
these will help, unlike any real FDA approved
medical device, these have NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER
that they will help. Not one whit. A few
manufacturers include some "studies" that
carry no more weight than anecdote. Do not
mistake that for actual clinical trials.
Mind you, I looked into this issue about three
years ago and have not repeated it, for the
reason I will now give:
You don't need "special" equipment to reduce
strain on your wrists/back/neck/whatever. Just
rearrange your environment to better accomodate
you.
For example, I have personally found that
the single most effective (and cheapest,
and easiest) way of making my hands hurt
less at night requires nothing more than
lowering my chair's arm wrests and placing
the keyboard in my lap. Yup, nothing more,
and it means the difference between waking
up in pain, and sleeping well with nary a
tingle (or none strong enough to bother
me).
I prefer typing to using a mouse, so for
the opposite sort of person you might find
it works better to putthe mouse in your lap
and leave the keyboard on the desk.
Another simple change - place your monitor so
if you look straight ahead, your eyes fall
approximately 3/4ths of the way up the screen
(I've seen suggestions to line your eyes up
with the very top of the screen, but that
made me *more* uncomfortable in terms of neck
and eye strain).
As the only other "important" point, try to
arrange yourself so your knees and elbows
form an obtuse angle. Sharp bends decrease
blood flow to the ends of your limbs, and
increased blood flow correllates HIGHLY with
increased rate of tissue repair.
Finally, a note on drugs... Believe it or
not, most doctors use naproxen (Aleve) as
the first-line drug of choice for early
CTS. This helps some people, and does nothing
for others. Personally, I use it when I
*know* I've done too much during the day
(or will have to for a big project or the
like) and my wrists *will* hurt, and it
seems to help somewhat. Some people seem to
believe that it will let you damage yourself
more by "hiding" the pain. In the case of
CTS, that does not hold true... The cause of
the pain, the pain itself, and the resulting
long-term damage all result from the same
thing - inflammation. Reducing that (which
naproxen does) reduces the pain *and* long-term
damage. Only if you use an opiate
painkiller, like Vicodan, do you need to
worry about the drug letting you cause more
damage to yourself by ignoring the pain (in
the case of CTS only... I don't mean that to
apply to *all* sources of pain, obviously).
Disclaimer: I do not have a license to practice
medicine. I only offer this as an example of
what worked for me. It might screw you up
even more, for all I know.
The idea of making a machine to go in their
to kill other machines sounds really cool.
Hell, for the first two seasons, I watched
it religiously, making it one of only two
shows I watch regularly (the other, South
Park, only having like 4 new episodes every
six months anyway, so not all that time
consuming).
However, by the third season, I (and I think
*most* people) started realizing the choices
of possible machine types, as limited by the
extensive rules, made every "new" combat
nothing more than a replay of something I'd
already seen, with a new paint job.
Even now, I would start watching it again, if
they ditch 90% of the rules. As long as a
bot won't explode (and even "small" explosions,
such as their 3" thick plexi cages would
contain, seem alright), no holds barred.
Flying bots? If someone can make them, good
luck. Projectiles? Yup. Fire? Yup.
Electricity? Yup. Entanglement? Again,
Yup.
Make it a *real* contest of who can build the
better bot, rather than who can build the
better table-saw-or-jackhammer-on-wheels, and
it would become interesting again.
I want to see REAL robot destruction. I don't
want every match to end with one bot immobilized,
mildly injured from a battery wire breaking,
or its antenna clipped, or havings its wheels
chopped off. I want sparking circuit boards,
small explosions, the smell of ozone (well,
okay, the home viewer couldn't enjoy that
part), chunks of metal everywhere, etc.
Until then, I don't even care if Carmen
starts hosting it nude. It has completely
lost its "newness" appeal.
So far, in my life, I have joined three
class action suits, all basically
after-the-fact since I had no intention
of suing on my own behalf and the letter
said basically "join or give up your
share".
In one, I don't actually know why someone
filed suit, only that I got a free movie
rental. In another, I got a whopping
$4.00 (four *dollars*, not hundred) in
exchange for well over a hundred dollars
in abusively-applied late charges from my
CC company (who I have only "fairly" paid
late twice in over 10 years). In the other,
I got less than the cost of the stamp to
mail the response (don't even remember
what company I got *that* cash-cow from).
After the CC deal, I resolved never to
join another class-action suit.
The actual people who got screwed... get
screwed again, by the lawyers, who make
hundreds of millions. And, these settlements
don't even "punish" the companies
involved as a result, since it "costs"
them less to pay off the occasional suit
than by changing their offensive business
practices.
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.
It does 10ppm iirc and just never
seems to need toner.
Ah, forgot to mention the toner.
Amazingly enough, both mine and my parents'
HL-12xx printers still have their original
toner cartridges. They also both
have the light flashing to let the user know
they need toner, but a year after it started
saying so (6 months for mine), it still
prints nice dark pages (I print a lot of
images off teraserver and similar sites,
full page coverage of >50% mean density).
So, while their toner detection method may
need work, the actual toner use seems very
efficient indeed.
Oh, and since someone else mentioned
it, I will as well - I don't work for
Brother in any way whatsoever, just
a happy customer.
The best printer on Earth (that we can afford)
on
Printer Makers' Ploys
·
· Score: 5, Informative
About two years ago, I bought a
Brother HL-1270N. Around $450, but
probably cheaper today (and still
competitive as a reasonably high-end
home and small-office printer).
It does 12ppm, connects directly to
100bt ethernet (so I don't need a slave
PC as a print server), and of course
it works just fine with Linux (supports
PCL6 and PS2).
Black-and-white laser, but *very* good
quality (1200x600... At 25-up, I can
still read a 10pt font, though I need
a magnifying glass to do so) and a high
throughput make it thge single best printer
I have ever used (not just owned, used...
at my previous job, we had a variety of
serious high-end HP lasers, y'know, the
$15k type) and they all SUCKED in
comparison).
Not as cheap as a chinsy little $80 color
inkjet, but, 99.9% of the time I care more
about printing speed and quality than having
color on my printouts. And when I do, I
visit Kinkos (If I actually need a color
document, you can bet I won't accept the
crappy quality of those $80 inkjets).
Incidentally, for quite a lot less (around
$150) you can get the HL-1240. It has very
similar stats (my parents have one of these,
and it impressed me enough to get the 1270N
for myself), except no ethernet and half
the memory. If you don't mind needing a PC
to act as a print server for it, this makes
a GREAT deal on an amazing printer.
Perhaps I've missed something, but didn't
Bell's theorem, with the help of Clauser
and Freedman's experimental work, demonstrate
that the entire concept of "locality" fails?
In which case, the idea of a cosmic speed limit
fails as well, since we measure velocities in
terms of displacement per unit of time. Without
the idea of locality, the first of those units
ceases to exist, and the second comes under
some serious suspicion...
First of all, making "archival backups"
(i.e., copies) is not covered by fair use
Correct. Forgive my lumping together of
legally separate, though conceptually
similar, ideas.
From UCC 2-207 s.117 (bolds mine):
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106,
it is not an infringement for the owner
of a copy of a computer program to make
or authorize the making of another copy or
adaptation of that computer program
provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is
created as an essential step in the
utilization of the computer program in
conjunction with a machine and that it is
used in no other manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for
archival purposes only and that all archival
copies are destroyed in the event that continued
possession of the computer program should cease
to be rightful.
First, this establishes that, as long as we
can consider CDs and DVDs software rather than
data (an admittedly fuzzy distinction, but
since a human cannot use either in any meaningful
way without running it through a computer, calling
such media software does not seem unreasonable),
people can make archival backups. Additionally,
the phrase "owner of a copy" avoids the problem
of trying to deprive the user of that right by
claiming they "license" rather than "buy" the
actual content.
More significantly, they can make *adaptations*
of the software if use of it requires such.
This one gets even more vague, but could
conceivably support my right to make MP3s of
CDs I actually own, since I never listen to
them as actual audio CDs (I don't even *have*
an audio-only CD player, even my car's player
supports data CDs).
The fact that you would make such a
statement demonstrates that you fundamentally
misunderstand the first amendment and, by
extension, the law.
Try reading the entire passage, not just
looking for easily attackable clips. I
specifically said that such a defense would
NOT work, and would in fact fail miserably.
I'm not interested in pursuing this
discussion with anybody who doesn't have
at least a working understanding of the
law, because it's just such a huge waste
of time.
Translation: I just wanted to take a quick
pot-shot at all you losers, actually taking
the time to defend or, god forbid, explain
my point, would require me to lower myself
too much.
Nice try. You can ignore this if you want,
but you either hoped to make a hit-and-run
slam on all us "pirates", or hoped to perhaps
enlighten us a bit. If the latter, by all
means, post some facts rather than increasing
the angle of your nose. If the former, just
go back to your sad, sad life, and realize
that your laws do not equal physical reality,
and while you and your kind go about creating
what amounts to little more than a set of rules
for a role-playing game called "US law", we
geeks have, and continue to, create the ACTUAL
world you live in.
Slashdot Mirror
go to any Mac forum and read up on hardware/software bugs, you'll find that 70% of them have been due to poorly designed third party software.
First, I do not mean this as an anti-Mac troll, so please don't take it as such.
The fact that the OS loses stability when running 3rd party software does NOT say much for the quality of its own engineering. *Anyone* can write a standalone app suite that, under ideal conditions (ie, a vanilla W2K install and just the app suite running) will seem rock-solid.
In the real world, however, hundreds or even thousands of different software packages, most from different developers, must occupy the same physical machine. A decent OS *MUST* acknowledge that and not only deal with, but *expect*, poor behavior on the part of its apps. Not every app returns a meaningful value, not every app completely frees its memory, not every app releases all the hardware it asked to use. None of those "should" happen, but especially when a program crashes, they *do* happen. The OS has to figure out a way to clean up no matter what a user-space program does.
No, I don't intend to say that any one OS does a whole lot better (cough, cough, Linux, cough), but I would not consider "stability under ideal conditions" a big selling point.
i am a "braindead" sound engineer
First, my apologies for the slam. Uncalled for, and although I stated that I understand that people can't always work to the best of their ability for various political/business reasons, That does not excuse me.
The dynamic range is generally compressed into a much smaller area. in my experience, this is usually around -50db to 0db, or about 50% of the available range on a CD
Feel free to correct me if I have taken this idea one step further than I should, but the decibel scale measures sound *logarithmically*. Thus, -50db to 0db corresponds to only 1/32nd of the *perceptual* range of the CD, MUCH worse than the 25% I suggested. Have I mixed terms in this? If so, I would feel thankful for an explanation of my mistake.
Regardless of the *absolute* range, however, I find the *relative* range compression much more disturbing. I do not know the specific terminology to describe this (if such exists), but my comment about drums vs vocals illustrates it... A good strong drum should peak 25-35db above a normal human singing voice, yet on CD, they sound roughly the same, or at *most* 10db higher. That alone, IMO, makes one of the biggest differences between live and CD.
Ripping them doesn't cause the problem.
Storing them in a meaningful way *does*.
What do you intend to do with that nice 2-4Gb rip you now have? Keep it in its current form, wasting quite a lot of space? Convert it to MP3/Ogg, in which case you gained nothing by getting a DVD-A?
Basically, you have an ultra-high-quality sound source that you can only use in the *lowest* quality sound system in your house - your TV. Sure, some people have $15k home theater setups, with a 60" HDTV screen and true 5.1 sound, all in a carefully arranged room designed to give maximum viewing and listening pleasure. The other 99.9% of us have a normal 20-30" TV, *might* have an actual external *stereo* (rather than 5.1, and almost certainly not digital) amp, and stick the speakers in the most convenient corner of the room (or worse, on either side of the TV itself, giving essentially no spatial separation, so it may as well use a mono signal).
Explain to me the benefit of this, regardless of the ability to rip it? IMO, ripping it and playing it through something *other* than your TV audio setup really presents the *ONLY* way to actually experience the improved audio quality (though as I mentioned in the beginning of this demi-rant, what the hell do you do with a 3Gb rip?). So who exactly benefits from this so-called "improvement"?
DVD-A will not make most music sound better.
Which does *NOT* mean that it *cannot* make most music sound better.
Even with standard audio CDs, they (meaning the braindead sound engineers who optimize for radio play rather than home audio) only use roughly 25% of the dynamic range of a CD. Threshold-minus-16db to jet engine, yet vocals and drums have roughly the same level. So what will we get with DVD audio? A wider range, with better granularity, and drums will *STILL* share the mix with vocals.
No real incentive exists to use this format, unless the RIAA manages to force the public, via legislation or simply eliminating all other choices. None. Or, if sound engineers start doing their "real" job rather than pandering to the PR pimps (which I can't blame them for, really - I too, and I suppose most people, have had to make choices between "do it wrong or look for a new job").
Note that I do not mean to say that DVD-A doesn't *crush* standard 16-bit 44.1khz PCM audio, as POTENTIAL quality goes. But it will get used just as poorly as its predecessor.
I think people need to keep in mind how much publicity their mods generate, and whether they benefit or detract from the original product FROM THE POINT OF VIEW of the manufacturer.
With the Aibo, clearly Sony screwed up big-time. Making the thing dance didn't harm them in any way, earned them *tons* of free, POSITIVE publicity (until they tried to squash it), and actually made their product in some way "better".
At the opposite end of the spectrum, Microsoft has put themselves in a very awkward position. By not making money on the console itself, anyone who buys it *only* to run Linux on costs them money. At the same time, having a vested interest in a particular OS (ie, Windows), seeing it used specifically to run what arguably counts as their biggest competition *really* galls them. OTOH, I see no valid reason why consumers should lack the right to do whatever they want with an XBox. While they can license the *media*, can they actually say the purchaser doesn't own the hardware itself? Tricky.
Hmm, okay, I guess I didn't have as much to say on this as I thought. Basically, I fully support modders, and just suggest that, if it will obviously piss off the company involved (ie, the XBox Linux effort), try to keep it quiet.
Wow, apparently I pissed off some overly touchy people with my post... Two "troll" votes? Humor, people, learn to recognize it.
That said...
I call such systems "dead" because, at their most basic level (OS support), they have ceased to exist. It doesn't matter *how* many 3rd party developers support it if, in five years, it doesn't have any support for the latest and greatest hardware.
Take my specific mention of the Amiga - Yeah, I would agree 100% that, even compared to "modern" GUI-based OSs (Except possibly Darwin), it rocked. Good luck finding replacement parts if the break, though, and don't even *think* about using the latest-and-greatest parts. And hey, it can play Quake - at 10fps.
Yeah... Suuuuuuuure. Next you'll tell us that legendary beast called the "Mac" still lives. ;-)
And, of course, we can't ignore that ultra hard core group of Amiga users. Any day now, one of the many compnies that have shuffled *that* hot potato around will release the new-and-improved Amiga, with something better than the 68060. Uh-huh. Sure. And my Atari 800 runs Windows XP.
I love articles like this one. No one actually used BeOS when it *did* really exist, thus its demise. Why should it matter that some poor deluded bastards still have a dusty, unused partition running it? I still have a DEC Rainbow in my basement, that I occasionally turn on and run NetHack with. That doesn't somehow make Digital any more "real".
H.264 exists as MPEG-4 part 10, basically using the AVC rather than the ASP profile for encoding.
Supposedly, it offers up to 2-4x size reduction over the MPEG-4 ASP.
However...
For anyone who has extensively played with the existing ASP codecs available (basically XVID, DIVX, RV9, and WM-whatever), the quality matters a *lot* based on the implementation. And not in any consistent way, letting you pick "codec X does the best job". Nope, more like "on low-motion sequences, codec X does best. For detail, codec Y. For minimal artifacts but some bluring, codec Z", and so on.
I see no reason to expect H.264 will follow any substantially different path. In another 5 years, it might well let us get a DVD quality movie onto 1 CD. For now, don't hold your breath about this changing the scene overnight. By the time this really does make good on its potential, we'll have the bandwidth and storage to make it unnecessary.
Of course, he might actually have a spine (or independant wealth), and wanted the domain more than the money.
This strikes me as no different than the McDonalds (the junk-food chain) vs McDonalds (the family owned restaurant that predates the fast food chain) a while back. The bigger business considers itself more important, and has the money to throw at lawyers to make that delusion a reality.
If *you* had a family domain, and some company offered you what you consider a pittance for it, how would you feel? Would you consider yourself an informed "hardball" player? Would you "cackle with glee" at your great luck in having a valuable name?
It really disgusts me that companies consider themselves more important than individuals. It disgusts me even more that the legal system mostly agrees with them. Neither of those comes *close*, however, to the disgust I feel about actual individual *humans* who agree that companies have more rights than everyone else, and actually criticize other humans for standing up for what few rights we have left.
In Maine, we have an amusing (low budget?) variant of this idea. On the highways, we have flashing signs that say "You are speeding, slow down!!!" (and other slight variations on that theme). They don't actually have any sensory ability, they just *always* say that.
;-)
Oddly, though, they always seem right.
The money is spent making a movie, not the DVD
I think you just defeated your own point, there. I agree fully that it costs a *lot* more to produce (the content on) a DVD than a CD. Hundreds of millions, compared to a few tens of thousands (if that). And yes, a movie has most likely at least broken even by the time it comes out on DVD. However, an audio CD *starts* closer to "breaking even" than just about any DVD ever made - the latter either have made a huge profit already, or failed miserably, by the time they hit stores. Naturally, exceptions to this exist... For example, how about some of Disney's "direct to DVD" releases, which presumeably still cost money to make (if not as much as a typical for-theater production), yet sell for less than a "real" movie on DVD?
Basically, no matter how you look at it, you have to agree that the comparison *doesn't* count as fair - the pure audio CD should sell for *far* less.
you can legally and easily store the MP3s you make from a CD you own on your file server
Really? I have a handfull of CDs that I have yet to find a way around the copy protection on, and even if I do find a way, doing so violates the DMCA. Please, tell me how I can satisfy both "easy" and "legal" in making MP3s of these. And, believe it or not, I do actually only make MP3s (VQFs, actually, but same idea) for personal use. I don't know if most people fall into that category, but I simply find it much more convenient to load up a 200 hour WinAmp playlist than to change CDs every 40-70 minutes.
More IP BS, this time entirely between those that abuse such laws regularly.
Money gets shifted around, and we, the consumers, get screwed like usual. The *only* outcome I see from this involves the album coming out late, and the lawsuit justifying yet more "cost-added" excuses on the part of the recording industry.
I'll care more when 72 minutes of pure audio doesn't cost 50% more than 2 hours of high quality movie footage with soundtracks in three language plus bonus material, AND I can legally (and easily) store what I buy on my file server. Until then, the MPAA and RIAA can collectively "bite me".
While they've rehashed the same genre over and over, they did put thier hearts into making Final Fantasy the Movie [imdb.com]. It didn't do too well in the box office, so now they're back to making games.
Damn, do I count as the only person on Earth who actually liked "Spirits Within?"
I mean, it had a decent plot (even if large portions of it did drew heavily from the games IV/II, VI/III, and VII), the graphics made for amazing eye-candy (good enough CGI to "forget" it counted as an animated movie after the first fifteen minutes), and a reasonably consistent game (er, movie) world.
I really suspect it flopped only due to the same anti-animation prejudice American audiences have against anime in general. I don't know a single person who said they hated it - But at the same time, I don't know more than two or three people who actually saw it.
Anyone seen any good FUD
What can its opponants say about it? As long as they use something like methanol rather than hydrogen gas, it has less risk of fire/explosion than either gasoline or a typical rechargeable battery (those things have some *NASTY* chemistry in them). *FAR* fewer pollutants. Greater efficiency.
Really, I cannot understand why we even still *have* internal combustion engines or "legacy" rechargeables, when fuel cells can give more power, cheaper, and cleaner.
The only problem I see with market penetration comes from the ubiquity of "gas" stations (batteries I see as less of a problem - it seems like almost every high-end product takes its own obscure battery type, and that hasn't stopped anyone from running out to by the new digital-camera-of-the-week). But really, I've seen lines wrapped around the block when a gas station has prices a mere nickle per gallon cheaper than the competition. Selling methanol for $0.40/gallon would crush the competition hands-down.
I don't tend to believe in conspiracies, but *someone* must have gone to a lot of trouble to keep fuel cells out of popular use, and it seems to me like a supply-side problem rather than a lack of demand or available technology.
In most cases, I would agree with you. In this specific case, however, consider the cause of such a brain region *existing* in the first place...
1) Contrary to the popular "we only use 10% of our brain" myth, our wetware counts as the single most expensive tissue in our bodies. Any neurons not used for *something* vanish very quickly, both evolutionarily (selection) *and* over the course of our lives (atrophy).
2) Direct electrical stimulation of the brain can also make the subject experience visual effects, vivid recollection of old memories, even orgasm. That does not mean the evoked experience cannot occur in the first place, just that we can artificially makes someone *feel* that experience at will.
Thus, it seems more likely that the existance of this brain region must have some use, either critical to our long-term well-being, or used reasonably often. I wouldn't say we can claim what purpose it serves yet, but now that we've located it, futher studies of what conditions activate it aught to *greatly* increase our knowledge about the entire "out of body experience" phenomena in general.
Robots aren't as snazzy as portrayed in the movies.
I really have a hard time believing that thing cost $250k (or rather, that anyone would have *paid* $250k for it).
First of all, I have, quite seriously, built smaller robots out of *Legos* that could have managed that climb. And they wouldn't have needed a ramp to get over a 2" curb. Hell, I suspect most remote control cars could probably have managed it, with some slight mods.
Second, why did it carry its "brain", as they called it, directly behind it? It had to drag a video and power cable behind it anyway! Even assuming it needed any internal intelligence (for traction, perhaps?), since they basically piloted it by remote control, all the CPU power could have stayed at the *other* end of the wire.
And third, can someone explain to me why drilling a hole in a stone could have *any* chance of compromising the "safety" of the pyramid? At worst they would have cracked a very small stone block. Considering that earlier "archaeologists" used *DYNAMITE* in their work, one small cracked stone would certainly not have brought the entire pyramid crashing down.
Zahi thinks the rest of the world with theories opposed to his "kind and loving egyptians built the pyramids" are idiots because of a thumbprint on the sarcophogas lid
No kidding, eh? Did anyone else get the impression that Hawass only hates those with "alternative" theories on the pyramids in favor of his own *equally* out-there ideas? Built with love? Gimme a break! Even if the workers didn't count as slaves (which didn't mean the same thing back then as it does to us now), they certainly saw such construction as nothing more than a sweet government job, something to do during the flood season when they couldn't grow anything.
I also loved the obvious bias against Gantenbrink. The show actually claimed that only their "new" robot managed to get past the "step" in the tunnel! And, while using a ramp might have made an *excellent* solution from the point of view of simplicity, Gantenbrink solved it with a better robot. Hell, they even claimed that *Hawass* "found" the outlet of the upper tunnels, of which the Northern outlet had never gone missing, and *Gantenbrink* discovered the outlet to the Southern tunnel in his 1992 survey.
Biased, "overcooked", Factually incorrect, "bad" archaology little better than what they accuse their forerunners of, and a somewhat dissapointing "climax". Overall, the show sucked. They could have condensed the entire "interesting" part of the show into 15 minutes (and in fact, they did... the *last* 15 minutes).
Hasn't Puff Daddy ... proven your
assertion already?
Except... (Skip the obvious troll to get to my point)
Puffy took *good* music and turned it into complete crap.
However, you raise a good point.
Why can *he* steal 90% of a song, unmodified, and sell it as "his" work, while these other "illegal" artists take small clips and heavily modify them, yet the result counts as a copyright violation?
The answer?
Puffy sells.
These other groups do not.
At the "Negativland" link, it mentions that the fee, $70k, exceeds their *total* sales in 14 years. That does not make the labels money.
I think that about sums up anything we can discuss on this topic. Copyright violations only matter if no one makes money off it (interestingly, the exact *opposite* of what the law says, where penalties come in direct proportion to how much someone profits from the use of stolen material). Make the RIAA money, regardless of how, or prepare to face legal battles the likes of which even Puffy couldn't weather. Fortunately for Puffy, and Wierd Al, and every other SUCCESSFUL artist that makes "derivative" works, the RIAA can make enough off the music to keep them at bay.
As a sufferer of CTS (fortunately, early stages, meaning I can still recover fully if I don't keep pissing my median nerve off too badly), I looked into quite a lot of the various "ergonomic" crap on the market.
First of all, realize that, while "experts" say these will help, unlike any real FDA approved medical device, these have NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that they will help. Not one whit. A few manufacturers include some "studies" that carry no more weight than anecdote. Do not mistake that for actual clinical trials.
Mind you, I looked into this issue about three years ago and have not repeated it, for the reason I will now give:
You don't need "special" equipment to reduce strain on your wrists/back/neck/whatever. Just rearrange your environment to better accomodate you.
For example, I have personally found that the single most effective (and cheapest, and easiest) way of making my hands hurt less at night requires nothing more than lowering my chair's arm wrests and placing the keyboard in my lap. Yup, nothing more, and it means the difference between waking up in pain, and sleeping well with nary a tingle (or none strong enough to bother me).
I prefer typing to using a mouse, so for the opposite sort of person you might find it works better to putthe mouse in your lap and leave the keyboard on the desk.
Another simple change - place your monitor so if you look straight ahead, your eyes fall approximately 3/4ths of the way up the screen (I've seen suggestions to line your eyes up with the very top of the screen, but that made me *more* uncomfortable in terms of neck and eye strain).
As the only other "important" point, try to arrange yourself so your knees and elbows form an obtuse angle. Sharp bends decrease blood flow to the ends of your limbs, and increased blood flow correllates HIGHLY with increased rate of tissue repair.
Finally, a note on drugs... Believe it or not, most doctors use naproxen (Aleve) as the first-line drug of choice for early CTS. This helps some people, and does nothing for others. Personally, I use it when I *know* I've done too much during the day (or will have to for a big project or the like) and my wrists *will* hurt, and it seems to help somewhat. Some people seem to believe that it will let you damage yourself more by "hiding" the pain. In the case of CTS, that does not hold true... The cause of the pain, the pain itself, and the resulting long-term damage all result from the same thing - inflammation. Reducing that (which naproxen does) reduces the pain *and* long-term damage. Only if you use an opiate painkiller, like Vicodan, do you need to worry about the drug letting you cause more damage to yourself by ignoring the pain (in the case of CTS only... I don't mean that to apply to *all* sources of pain, obviously).
Disclaimer: I do not have a license to practice medicine. I only offer this as an example of what worked for me. It might screw you up even more, for all I know.
Ah, should I address you as Mr. Rosen, or Mr. Valenti?
The idea of making a machine to go in their to kill other machines sounds really cool. Hell, for the first two seasons, I watched it religiously, making it one of only two shows I watch regularly (the other, South Park, only having like 4 new episodes every six months anyway, so not all that time consuming).
However, by the third season, I (and I think *most* people) started realizing the choices of possible machine types, as limited by the extensive rules, made every "new" combat nothing more than a replay of something I'd already seen, with a new paint job.
Even now, I would start watching it again, if they ditch 90% of the rules. As long as a bot won't explode (and even "small" explosions, such as their 3" thick plexi cages would contain, seem alright), no holds barred. Flying bots? If someone can make them, good luck. Projectiles? Yup. Fire? Yup. Electricity? Yup. Entanglement? Again, Yup.
Make it a *real* contest of who can build the better bot, rather than who can build the better table-saw-or-jackhammer-on-wheels, and it would become interesting again.
I want to see REAL robot destruction. I don't want every match to end with one bot immobilized, mildly injured from a battery wire breaking, or its antenna clipped, or havings its wheels chopped off. I want sparking circuit boards, small explosions, the smell of ozone (well, okay, the home viewer couldn't enjoy that part), chunks of metal everywhere, etc.
Until then, I don't even care if Carmen starts hosting it nude. It has completely lost its "newness" appeal.
So far, in my life, I have joined three class action suits, all basically after-the-fact since I had no intention of suing on my own behalf and the letter said basically "join or give up your share".
In one, I don't actually know why someone filed suit, only that I got a free movie rental. In another, I got a whopping $4.00 (four *dollars*, not hundred) in exchange for well over a hundred dollars in abusively-applied late charges from my CC company (who I have only "fairly" paid late twice in over 10 years). In the other, I got less than the cost of the stamp to mail the response (don't even remember what company I got *that* cash-cow from).
After the CC deal, I resolved never to join another class-action suit.
The actual people who got screwed... get screwed again, by the lawyers, who make hundreds of millions. And, these settlements don't even "punish" the companies involved as a result, since it "costs" them less to pay off the occasional suit than by changing their offensive business practices.
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.
It does 10ppm iirc and just never seems to need toner.
Ah, forgot to mention the toner.
Amazingly enough, both mine and my parents' HL-12xx printers still have their original toner cartridges. They also both have the light flashing to let the user know they need toner, but a year after it started saying so (6 months for mine), it still prints nice dark pages (I print a lot of images off teraserver and similar sites, full page coverage of >50% mean density).
So, while their toner detection method may need work, the actual toner use seems very efficient indeed.
Oh, and since someone else mentioned it, I will as well - I don't work for Brother in any way whatsoever, just a happy customer.
About two years ago, I bought a Brother HL-1270N. Around $450, but probably cheaper today (and still competitive as a reasonably high-end home and small-office printer).
It does 12ppm, connects directly to 100bt ethernet (so I don't need a slave PC as a print server), and of course it works just fine with Linux (supports PCL6 and PS2).
Black-and-white laser, but *very* good quality (1200x600... At 25-up, I can still read a 10pt font, though I need a magnifying glass to do so) and a high throughput make it thge single best printer I have ever used (not just owned, used... at my previous job, we had a variety of serious high-end HP lasers, y'know, the $15k type) and they all SUCKED in comparison).
Not as cheap as a chinsy little $80 color inkjet, but, 99.9% of the time I care more about printing speed and quality than having color on my printouts. And when I do, I visit Kinkos (If I actually need a color document, you can bet I won't accept the crappy quality of those $80 inkjets).
Incidentally, for quite a lot less (around $150) you can get the HL-1240. It has very similar stats (my parents have one of these, and it impressed me enough to get the 1270N for myself), except no ethernet and half the memory. If you don't mind needing a PC to act as a print server for it, this makes a GREAT deal on an amazing printer.
Perhaps I've missed something, but didn't Bell's theorem, with the help of Clauser and Freedman's experimental work, demonstrate that the entire concept of "locality" fails?
In which case, the idea of a cosmic speed limit fails as well, since we measure velocities in terms of displacement per unit of time. Without the idea of locality, the first of those units ceases to exist, and the second comes under some serious suspicion...
Correct. Forgive my lumping together of legally separate, though conceptually similar, ideas.
From UCC 2-207 s.117 (bolds mine): First, this establishes that, as long as we can consider CDs and DVDs software rather than data (an admittedly fuzzy distinction, but since a human cannot use either in any meaningful way without running it through a computer, calling such media software does not seem unreasonable), people can make archival backups. Additionally, the phrase "owner of a copy" avoids the problem of trying to deprive the user of that right by claiming they "license" rather than "buy" the actual content.
More significantly, they can make *adaptations* of the software if use of it requires such. This one gets even more vague, but could conceivably support my right to make MP3s of CDs I actually own, since I never listen to them as actual audio CDs (I don't even *have* an audio-only CD player, even my car's player supports data CDs).
The fact that you would make such a statement demonstrates that you fundamentally misunderstand the first amendment and, by extension, the law.
Try reading the entire passage, not just looking for easily attackable clips. I specifically said that such a defense would NOT work, and would in fact fail miserably.
I'm not interested in pursuing this discussion with anybody who doesn't have at least a working understanding of the law, because it's just such a huge waste of time.
Translation: I just wanted to take a quick pot-shot at all you losers, actually taking the time to defend or, god forbid, explain my point, would require me to lower myself too much.
Nice try. You can ignore this if you want, but you either hoped to make a hit-and-run slam on all us "pirates", or hoped to perhaps enlighten us a bit. If the latter, by all means, post some facts rather than increasing the angle of your nose. If the former, just go back to your sad, sad life, and realize that your laws do not equal physical reality, and while you and your kind go about creating what amounts to little more than a set of rules for a role-playing game called "US law", we geeks have, and continue to, create the ACTUAL world you live in.
Have a nice day.