Yes, paytrust/paymybills rules. I been using it since the Anthrax attacks. I put my tinfoil hat on and didn't answer the mail at all for 3 months. Got me removed from all the junkmail lists because they thought I was dead. I encourage everyone to try it, it's only $9 a month.
All I have to do is scratch a disc, and its checksum will fail because of that scratched area. But what if the disk is full of 1000 images, and my scratch only affected 10 of them? Do we simply throw it away now, becase the CRC is no longer valid? That is not really in the name of conserving, which is sort of what the library is about. So I don't think it would fly, regardless of other reasons.
Libraries already rent out audio cds (Audiobooks especially) around here. Was that not relevant to a conversation about loaning cds to/from the library? Do you really think I was the one who brought up audio cds and that it was never implied?
Good idea for data cds, STUPID idea for audio cds.
Audio cds don't have the indexing/crc-ish sector verification info that data-cds do. That's why data cds hold 650M (or 700M for an 80-minute cds), but audio cds actually hold about 10% more. (Semi-proof-of-concept: you can drag >700M of WAV files into Nero and put them on a 700M cd.)
Thus, since there is no sector verification information, accurate reads cannot be guaranteed, and CRCs become pretty useless. An acoustic fingerprint would be better.
(Sector verification information missing in audio cds is exactly why Exact Audio Copy was created, and why so many mp3s you download from kazaa have annoying pops in them.)
Thus, I actually consider audio cds to be somewhat "analog" in nature. They certainly aren't secure, as you don't even know when your data has been lost. (You can't "hear" a missing byte...) To truly "store" your music, you must make an ISO/disk-image of your disc right when you take it out of the jewel box and burn THAT on a data disc (DVD-R...). If you really want to be thorough.
Well, I agree with you about discussion being good. I just think your conclusions make things sound slightly more sinister than they are. Until we have gun control, things can never get too bad because we can revolt if necessary. The powers that be know this, and have to inch their power up very very slowly. A lot of people aren't noticing, but others are.
Also, I firmly believe that when all the baby boomers die, policy in this country is going to take a rapid change, and many of the old ideals that screw everyone over will die. The drug war will end, etc etc......
And I don't think this will be in sidewalks in 2 years. But maybe it SHOULD be in, say, the WhiteHouse sidewalk.
And I also disagree that "we will not be the ones who benefit from technology being used to alter human perception". Arguably, I have already slightly benefited from such technology just by having played virtual reality games at the mall. It can only get better from here. When they have a direct neural jack, I will be first in line -- once it is approved and has been tested on OTHER humans.
Hey, Torpor, you're a good sport at least. Made me laugh with your "very true" response.
At least you've finally explained yourself, and now I can assign an iota of credibility to what you said, whereas before I could not. Thank you for clarifying.
However, you still have a very neo-luddite attitude. You can't stop knowledge, or the quest for truth. If the video game industry doesn't do it first, would you rather the military do it first? Or the terrorists? Or the military of an "enemy" country?
It's going to happen. Everything we can imagine will eventually happen (to an excent). We may as well get used to it, rather than fall behind.
Yea, it sucks to be leaned against my will, but I would rather our govt know about the technology and how to use it, than, say, suppress it. You can't suppress anything. Eventually a terrorist will come in and, say, make everyone lean left during rush hour, killing thousands in car accidents.
It is key that we develop ALL new technologies faster than everyone else, if we are to have a greater understanding to defend ourselves in such weird situations. (It is unfortunate that we are a target, but that is a foreign policy debate, not a technology debate.)
Finally, I think mastering human perception via technologies is one of the final "evolutionary" (using that word loosely) steps of us as a species. 1) Printing Press, 2) Industrial Revolution, 3) Information Revolution, 4) Genetic & Technilogical Revolution. We are on the cusp of 3 and working towards 4.
Eventually I fully believe we will completely re-engineer our genetic code ANYWAY. After all, the more we depend on medicine (and antibiotics) and society, the less we actually evolve in the Darwinian sense. Natural selection barely occurs anymore. We are actually becoming much weaker as a species. Technology is going to have to take over and pick up the slack. Eventually there will be an uncurable flu that will kill millions, and eventually we will be genetically modified to not be able to catch the flue.
You can't run from it and be scared of it. A gun or sword or drug can all be used two ways -- good or bad. The same is true for most anything.
This guy is clearly more concerned with travelling around the world than reading a slashdot post and actually understanding what it says.
He must be imagining what, an electrode gun that shoots electrodes into your ears? I am trying to imagine just what the hell he is thinking and how this could possibly be used for crowd control.
Besides, the next great crowd control device is microwave-based, and makes everyone feel hot/burning to the skin. How would affecting our balance help? Making a crowd fall over is not crowd control. Making them leave is.
Honestly... Are they going to cause you phsyical harm? They can't call you if you are on the do not call list. Junk mail doesn't force you to open it. Phones don't force you to answer. Banner ads don't force you to click them. And all of the above can be stopped. Even junk mail. (Hint: Don't take mail out of your mailbox for 3 months. This removes you from most lists. Paytrust.com can receive your bills for you. Mail driver's licenses and such to friends/family.)
Seriously... I would love to be a Nielsen family and have my viewing habits collected by somebody, anybody. It's like being part of a democracy. Why do you think there is so much crap on tv? Partially because they don't know everyone's viewing habits. I think most of the Neilsen families must be white trash, personally.
The marketing industry can go fuck themselves. But I'm not going to deny any functionality to me, ever, just because of them. If I did, they would have already won.
The reality is I do not listen to marketing. I mute tv commercials. I don't listen to the radio. I don't read banner ads. I don't answer the phone (screen/caller id). I don't buy CDs or movies. I don't buy electronics from Best Buy (fuckers). Marketing barely affects me. Do I care if my banner ads are custom tailored to my interest due to someone "tracking" me? Nope. I'm not going to read the banner anyway, and even if I do, now it's more likely to interest me. NOT that I would ever buy anything via a banner clickthrough.
To put things in perspective, my friends generally consider me the most paranoid person they know (for other reasons), but I could give a fuck what tivo does with my viewing habits. Hopefully submits them to the networks so they can stop airing all this reality tv bullshit..... Tho.. Paris Hilton is fucking hot (gee I hope that doesn't discredit my entire post...).
I am already using my Win2K computer to record tv shows, and have been for several years (since Win98).
I would be interested in a comparable package for Windows. I already have most of the functionality, but it is PAINFULLY MANUAL. I would love to improve it somehow. My existing setup is a patchwork of systems and I would love to have it integrated into something a bit more friendly.
My "monitor" is my 36' TV.
My "computer speakers" is my 120Wx5 stereo system.
My "software" is VirtualdubVCR (has a timer).
My "programming guide" is the Guide+ built into my TV, along with my own harvesting scripts. (And my wife.)
My capture codec is HuffYUV.
My encode codec is Xvid, 1-pass quality 93.
I use my own set of filters to clean up the image, and change my mind about the setup approximately every 3 months.
My offline storage is cdrs (1600) and dvdrs (up to 200 so far).
Is there any way that I can somehow get a MythTV type package comparable to this, for win32, without having to build everything from the ground up?
My current system can record a show while encoding another show while playing mp3s while surfing the web without dropping frames. It is an Athlon 900mHz with 768M ram and 360G HD.
Unix is way behind in almost every practical respect other than stability. It is basically only superb for text-based processing (mail/web/ftp/file/database server). Nothing there for the real end-user who wants total convergence.
All programs take longer to configure than for windows. Although once working, *nix stuff usually requires less coddling.
For any type of software, there is a much smaller selection of alternatives for unix, and much fewer people using said software to form support communities, than compared to windows.
Having 30+ programs to choose from for task X usually means only 1 is good. Having only 3-5 programs to choose from for task X usually means it's not worth doing. That is the classic problem with unix.
and the whole fork thing requires compilation. I can download Nethack onto my Windows machine and be paying in a few minutes. But when I tried it on my unix machine, I had to compile it. Hours later I gave up due to obscure compiler errors that i shoudlnt' have to deal with.
How about instant messenging? Windows has ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, IRC, Trillian, etc etc etc. What does unix have? Gaim... There was something else that "did everything" but when I tried it it only worked for a few days. And couldn't be reinstalled. Package manager wouldn't let you uninstall the package because it was "not installed". Package manager wouldn't let you install the package because it was "already installed". And finally, erasing the package database failed to fix any problem.
How about video capture? I use virtualdub on windows. I capture my own video, encode it with xvid codec. There are at least 20 various capture programs out there and I have tried almost every one. WTF is there for unix?
StarOffice and SAMBA are great, as are symbolic links. But if I wanted to narrow my software choices down to a 10th of what I already have, I'd get a MAC.
I been using computers hours every day since I was 5 yrs old (I am 30 now), and I wouldn't wish unix on my worst enemy. I have tried it several times and it's just not worth re-learning everything I've learned in my entire life just to reduce my options and spend 10 times the amount of time doing so.
That being said, in the workplace I prefer to be on a unix box. Best set up was Solaris workstation + Win32 laptop. BUT THAT SOLARIS BOX BETTER BE ADMINISTERED BY SOMEONE ELSE.
Other things that bother me:
Having to make a partition for a swapfile? Lame as hell. As if the OS can't allocate disk space on its own?! Now I have to fdisk my harddrive into chunks?
Having to recompile my kernel? Very lame. Can't it just load DLLs at bootup time for anything extra I need? I have better things to do with my time. I have 1-2 hours computer chores a day, usually video editing, burning, file management, and researching how to do new things.
XF386.conf... What a pain! Why would anyone want to mess with video card timing numbres? Why would it take several hours just to get 800x600x16 colros? Because I'm not knowledgeable in the area. But should I have to to configure a text file just to get a desktop in my preferred fucking resolution?
I do wish Windows was more scriptable. I use the 4NT command-line interpreter which gives me basically the power of zsh or a good unix shell. I run my mp3s and everything else from the command-line using tab-filename-completion and aliases, just like a good unix boy. I type 'ls' to see my directories (or 'd'). I use alises. I have environment variables defined by environment variables defined by environment variables. I have scripts that work with one file that work correctly on every one of my computers even though that file is in a different place to each computer.
I have a clear-cut idea on what I want.
And unix just doesn't cut it.
Yet.
I'm patiently waiting for the day you are all actually right.
One final note:
If Windows is capitalism,
Unix is communism,
and Mac is fascism.
All have their flaws, but unfortunately capitalism is the best place to be even though it is disgustingly bloated, helps big corporations, and screws most of us most of the time.
all you people saying "Just get an IDE hard drive" aren't listening to the poster. He doesn't want that.
I have 780G of space and it's not enough. Not nearly enough. I would need closer to 4 terabytes, and I have better things to spend my money on. Not to mention I would need about 20 hard drives. How many computers do I need for that?
If I could get a dvd-rom changer for $400, I'd do it.
There are 50,000 flavors of unix, but only one a few current flavors of windows in use. And there is only ever one "official, latest" version of windows. No, i don't count Advanced Server vs Server vs Prof as being differnet. They just have different packages installed.
The fact of the matter is, unix is ALWAYS behind windows. Until everyone UNITES, Microsoft will never be rightfully usurped.
This isn't just a problem in open source development either. Happens with multiplayer online game servers (Everyone decides to make their own mod, and we end up with 5000 different variation servers, each with 2 people on it. Hooray. Continuum and Quake3 both suffer from this.)
You just proved my point by effectively saying that if people can control their pollution of a shared resource, and they are asked to stop, they should do so.
Slashdot Mirror
I make sure to shake my fist in their general direction now and then.
What a waste of time that was....
I use PayTrust and it only costs $9/month.
Yes, paytrust/paymybills rules. I been using it since the Anthrax attacks. I put my tinfoil hat on and didn't answer the mail at all for 3 months. Got me removed from all the junkmail lists because they thought I was dead. I encourage everyone to try it, it's only $9 a month.
All I have to do is scratch a disc, and its checksum will fail because of that scratched area. But what if the disk is full of 1000 images, and my scratch only affected 10 of them? Do we simply throw it away now, becase the CRC is no longer valid? That is not really in the name of conserving, which is sort of what the library is about. So I don't think it would fly, regardless of other reasons.
Libraries already rent out audio cds (Audiobooks especially) around here. Was that not relevant to a conversation about loaning cds to/from the library? Do you really think I was the one who brought up audio cds and that it was never implied?
Audio cds don't have the indexing/crc-ish sector verification info that data-cds do. That's why data cds hold 650M (or 700M for an 80-minute cds), but audio cds actually hold about 10% more. (Semi-proof-of-concept: you can drag >700M of WAV files into Nero and put them on a 700M cd.)
Thus, since there is no sector verification information, accurate reads cannot be guaranteed, and CRCs become pretty useless. An acoustic fingerprint would be better.
(Sector verification information missing in audio cds is exactly why Exact Audio Copy was created, and why so many mp3s you download from kazaa have annoying pops in them.)
Thus, I actually consider audio cds to be somewhat "analog" in nature. They certainly aren't secure, as you don't even know when your data has been lost. (You can't "hear" a missing byte...) To truly "store" your music, you must make an ISO/disk-image of your disc right when you take it out of the jewel box and burn THAT on a data disc (DVD-R...). If you really want to be thorough.
So I don't get it.. Did she get money or not? You said she won, but then you said they concluded she should have drawn from herself. Whic is it?
Sept 11th cost our economy orders of magnitude more than McVeigh could ever hope to "achieve".
Also, I firmly believe that when all the baby boomers die, policy in this country is going to take a rapid change, and many of the old ideals that screw everyone over will die. The drug war will end, etc etc......
And I don't think this will be in sidewalks in 2 years. But maybe it SHOULD be in, say, the WhiteHouse sidewalk.
And I also disagree that "we will not be the ones who benefit from technology being used to alter human perception". Arguably, I have already slightly benefited from such technology just by having played virtual reality games at the mall. It can only get better from here. When they have a direct neural jack, I will be first in line -- once it is approved and has been tested on OTHER humans.
You a libertarian by any chance?
I mostly just want the video because Paris doesn't want me to have it. P.S. agree with ya about the tranceivers, but not the tin foil hats.
But I do!
Then I can imagine how much of spanking she needs . . .
At least you've finally explained yourself, and now I can assign an iota of credibility to what you said, whereas before I could not. Thank you for clarifying.
However, you still have a very neo-luddite attitude. You can't stop knowledge, or the quest for truth. If the video game industry doesn't do it first, would you rather the military do it first? Or the terrorists? Or the military of an "enemy" country?
It's going to happen. Everything we can imagine will eventually happen (to an excent). We may as well get used to it, rather than fall behind.
Yea, it sucks to be leaned against my will, but I would rather our govt know about the technology and how to use it, than, say, suppress it. You can't suppress anything. Eventually a terrorist will come in and, say, make everyone lean left during rush hour, killing thousands in car accidents.
It is key that we develop ALL new technologies faster than everyone else, if we are to have a greater understanding to defend ourselves in such weird situations. (It is unfortunate that we are a target, but that is a foreign policy debate, not a technology debate.)
Finally, I think mastering human perception via technologies is one of the final "evolutionary" (using that word loosely) steps of us as a species. 1) Printing Press, 2) Industrial Revolution, 3) Information Revolution, 4) Genetic & Technilogical Revolution. We are on the cusp of 3 and working towards 4.
Eventually I fully believe we will completely re-engineer our genetic code ANYWAY. After all, the more we depend on medicine (and antibiotics) and society, the less we actually evolve in the Darwinian sense. Natural selection barely occurs anymore. We are actually becoming much weaker as a species. Technology is going to have to take over and pick up the slack. Eventually there will be an uncurable flu that will kill millions, and eventually we will be genetically modified to not be able to catch the flue.
You can't run from it and be scared of it. A gun or sword or drug can all be used two ways -- good or bad. The same is true for most anything.
He must be imagining what, an electrode gun that shoots electrodes into your ears? I am trying to imagine just what the hell he is thinking and how this could possibly be used for crowd control.
Besides, the next great crowd control device is microwave-based, and makes everyone feel hot/burning to the skin. How would affecting our balance help? Making a crowd fall over is not crowd control. Making them leave is.
Summary: torpor: full of shit.
We have people like Zacharias Moussaoi, overstaying their visas, then crashing planes into buildings.
This costs us billions of dollars.
This one example outshines all other points regarding this. Everyone else can stop talking now.
I consider CDs floppies. I don't even burn CDs anymore, just DVD-Rs. People still wanting floppies should return to the abacus.
Yea. You wasted my time.
Don't let the marketing industry get me!
(puts on tin foil hat)
Honestly... Are they going to cause you phsyical harm? They can't call you if you are on the do not call list. Junk mail doesn't force you to open it. Phones don't force you to answer. Banner ads don't force you to click them. And all of the above can be stopped. Even junk mail. (Hint: Don't take mail out of your mailbox for 3 months. This removes you from most lists. Paytrust.com can receive your bills for you. Mail driver's licenses and such to friends/family.)
Seriously... I would love to be a Nielsen family and have my viewing habits collected by somebody, anybody. It's like being part of a democracy. Why do you think there is so much crap on tv? Partially because they don't know everyone's viewing habits. I think most of the Neilsen families must be white trash, personally.
The marketing industry can go fuck themselves. But I'm not going to deny any functionality to me, ever, just because of them. If I did, they would have already won.
The reality is I do not listen to marketing. I mute tv commercials. I don't listen to the radio. I don't read banner ads. I don't answer the phone (screen/caller id). I don't buy CDs or movies. I don't buy electronics from Best Buy (fuckers). Marketing barely affects me. Do I care if my banner ads are custom tailored to my interest due to someone "tracking" me? Nope. I'm not going to read the banner anyway, and even if I do, now it's more likely to interest me. NOT that I would ever buy anything via a banner clickthrough.
To put things in perspective, my friends generally consider me the most paranoid person they know (for other reasons), but I could give a fuck what tivo does with my viewing habits. Hopefully submits them to the networks so they can stop airing all this reality tv bullshit..... Tho.. Paris Hilton is fucking hot (gee I hope that doesn't discredit my entire post...).
I am already using my Win2K computer to record tv shows, and have been for several years (since Win98).
I would be interested in a comparable package for Windows. I already have most of the functionality, but it is PAINFULLY MANUAL. I would love to improve it somehow. My existing setup is a patchwork of systems and I would love to have it integrated into something a bit more friendly.
My "monitor" is my 36' TV.
My "computer speakers" is my 120Wx5 stereo system.
My "software" is VirtualdubVCR (has a timer).
My "programming guide" is the Guide+ built into my TV, along with my own harvesting scripts. (And my wife.)
My capture codec is HuffYUV.
My encode codec is Xvid, 1-pass quality 93.
I use my own set of filters to clean up the image, and change my mind about the setup approximately every 3 months.
My offline storage is cdrs (1600) and dvdrs (up to 200 so far).
Is there any way that I can somehow get a MythTV type package comparable to this, for win32, without having to build everything from the ground up?
My current system can record a show while encoding another show while playing mp3s while surfing the web without dropping frames. It is an Athlon 900mHz with 768M ram and 360G HD.
(puts on tin foil hat)
Lightspeed
The Big Idea
i want that video
All programs take longer to configure than for windows. Although once working, *nix stuff usually requires less coddling.
For any type of software, there is a much smaller selection of alternatives for unix, and much fewer people using said software to form support communities, than compared to windows.
Having 30+ programs to choose from for task X usually means only 1 is good. Having only 3-5 programs to choose from for task X usually means it's not worth doing. That is the classic problem with unix.
and the whole fork thing requires compilation. I can download Nethack onto my Windows machine and be paying in a few minutes. But when I tried it on my unix machine, I had to compile it. Hours later I gave up due to obscure compiler errors that i shoudlnt' have to deal with.
How about instant messenging? Windows has ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, IRC, Trillian, etc etc etc. What does unix have? Gaim... There was something else that "did everything" but when I tried it it only worked for a few days. And couldn't be reinstalled. Package manager wouldn't let you uninstall the package because it was "not installed". Package manager wouldn't let you install the package because it was "already installed". And finally, erasing the package database failed to fix any problem.
How about video capture? I use virtualdub on windows. I capture my own video, encode it with xvid codec. There are at least 20 various capture programs out there and I have tried almost every one. WTF is there for unix?
StarOffice and SAMBA are great, as are symbolic links. But if I wanted to narrow my software choices down to a 10th of what I already have, I'd get a MAC.
I been using computers hours every day since I was 5 yrs old (I am 30 now), and I wouldn't wish unix on my worst enemy. I have tried it several times and it's just not worth re-learning everything I've learned in my entire life just to reduce my options and spend 10 times the amount of time doing so.
That being said, in the workplace I prefer to be on a unix box. Best set up was Solaris workstation + Win32 laptop. BUT THAT SOLARIS BOX BETTER BE ADMINISTERED BY SOMEONE ELSE.
Other things that bother me:
Having to make a partition for a swapfile? Lame as hell. As if the OS can't allocate disk space on its own?! Now I have to fdisk my harddrive into chunks?
Having to recompile my kernel? Very lame. Can't it just load DLLs at bootup time for anything extra I need? I have better things to do with my time. I have 1-2 hours computer chores a day, usually video editing, burning, file management, and researching how to do new things.
XF386.conf ... What a pain! Why would anyone want to mess with video card timing numbres? Why would it take several hours just to get 800x600x16 colros? Because I'm not knowledgeable in the area. But should I have to to configure a text file just to get a desktop in my preferred fucking resolution?
I do wish Windows was more scriptable. I use the 4NT command-line interpreter which gives me basically the power of zsh or a good unix shell. I run my mp3s and everything else from the command-line using tab-filename-completion and aliases, just like a good unix boy. I type 'ls' to see my directories (or 'd'). I use alises. I have environment variables defined by environment variables defined by environment variables. I have scripts that work with one file that work correctly on every one of my computers even though that file is in a different place to each computer.
I have a clear-cut idea on what I want.
And unix just doesn't cut it.
Yet.
I'm patiently waiting for the day you are all actually right.
One final note:
If Windows is capitalism,
Unix is communism,
and Mac is fascism.
All have their flaws, but unfortunately capitalism is the best place to be even though it is disgustingly bloated, helps big corporations, and screws most of us most of the time.
I have 780G of space and it's not enough. Not nearly enough. I would need closer to 4 terabytes, and I have better things to spend my money on. Not to mention I would need about 20 hard drives. How many computers do I need for that?
If I could get a dvd-rom changer for $400, I'd do it.
The fact of the matter is, unix is ALWAYS behind windows. Until everyone UNITES, Microsoft will never be rightfully usurped.
This isn't just a problem in open source development either. Happens with multiplayer online game servers (Everyone decides to make their own mod, and we end up with 5000 different variation servers, each with 2 people on it. Hooray. Continuum and Quake3 both suffer from this.)
I did?
I think you misunderstood me.