Uh, what the fuck are you talking about? In uniquitous devices, there is ALWAYS a wide variation in performance. That's why you and I can drive the same car, and have vastly different gas mileage. We can play games on the same hardware, and get different frame rates. We can wear the same brand of shoes, and REGARDLESS of quality control, they'll die out at different times.
This is because the amount and type of use dictate performance in ubiquitous devices. No two uses are the same. So no two variations are the same.
As for the iPod...one of the tricks with battery life is to keep the hard disc from spinning, and keep the backlight off. Do these things and you can get 8+ hours. If you listen to a song, then scan for the next one, and repeat rather than selecting a playlist all at once, your battery life will be much lower. Because the machine has to spin up the drive each time, wheras with a playlist it loads all the songs it can up to the limits of memory. If you do these things and DON'T get 8+ hours, tell apple and they will fix it within the first year of purchase (within 90 days you don't even pay shipping). Because even with the tightest controls, there are still lemons. It's not like you're stuck with your citrus, though.
I don't see how the mechanics of a platter hard disc running off a battery "speak directly to quality," but I'm guessing your point was to disrespect Apple. Good job.
Anyhow, the iPod will probably remain the best end-to-end solution for digital music as long as Apple is making awesome upgrades to the details that are lacking. Which is what they do best. Many other innovative hardware companies like to pretend that their biggest failings don't exist...for example, they'll release a really great piece of hardware, and then package the most cutrate software package they can find.
Plus, Apple DOES listen to its sheep- er, customers. If there is a big enough outcry about the battery, they'll usually do something about it...unless they can claim that NOT doing it is more beneficial *cough* floppy drives *cough*.
You're right. It's completely their responsibility...for the one year period of their warranty. Then you have to fix it your damn self, pay them to do it, or shell out the $150 for ipod 3 year warranty.
This is not that strange. People shouldn't get free repairs forever on any device, and 1 year is much longer than the other hard drive based players offer.
On the other hand, Lithium Ion batteries last a long time in a small footprint, but they do die. And to replace them for ANYTHING is expensive, for whatever reason, it's why i made sure my latest digital camera ran off AAs. The $99 (you know, i heard $79 when I looked into it...it s inevitable with these things) upgrade includes some guy taking apart your ipod and replacing the battery, hopefully not messing up the delicate electronics while he's in there. $99 is not bad for invasive service on ANY device...I got charged $119 for Canon to CLEAN my printer a while back. Clean it!
I'd love to see Apple lower the price on these things, but it probably isn't going to happen. Best we can hope for is a third party to offer battery service for less money. There are battery sales for the 1 and 2G ipods...all it will take is one entrepeneur to offer these, with install, for a fair price. Maybe even auction off "battery repair" on ebay. Heckuva way to work yourself through an electronics trade school...
The DMCA is not in and of itself a bad idea...we should promote the rights of companies to publish in a digital medium, otherwise there's no reason for them to explore it.
It's the abuse of the seemingly harmless provisions of the DMCA intended to prevent hackers from spreading exploits that is a problem. It has yet to be used to prosecute a real hacker, but instead has bit the hand of security analysts like Skylarov.
A law that hurts the helpers without affecting the hackers is useless. But that's but a small part of the entire DMCA...the section removing liability for attacks from ISPs is REALLY useful law. I'll bet Clinton signed it because he realized how important this would be to the burgeoning internet.
I was adopted. I am very glad for that fact and sickened that it is so difficult to adopt kids nowadays. It's a greuling process. You are grilled and tested and your whole history is laid flat. And it's expensive -- every time the government raises the tax credit for adoption, adoption costs mysteriously rise as well. Right now, it takes about $25,000 to adopt a kid, all told. People mortgage their homes to get kids. That takes a lot of love -- to potentially destroy your financial security for the sake of welcoming an unguarded child into your life. More love than some natural parents have.
If a gay couple earnestly wants to adopt a child, then there should be no laws against them doing so. There are enough checks and balances in place (including surprise visits from social workers who can come at any time...they used to visit my moms at night to be sure I was in bed) that the possibility of abuse is nearly nil, less than with a natural kid anyway. And as for the issue of role models...there are still aunts, grandmothers, female friends, and tons of other options for children of a male gay couple. Not that it matters...white parents adopt asian children all the time, and these kids don't want for ASIAN role models. Nor is there any evidence (and plenty to the contrary) that children of a gay couple are more likely to be day themselves.
Come on, guys. Kids need good homes. Gay couples can't have their own. It's win-win...and the end result is that adoption looks like a more attractive choice for unplanned pregnancies...
Likewise, why should we as taxpayers spend millions of dollars to import the labor and material into Iraq when there exists local talent to do the same job? If they're not as skilled, fine. TRAIN them to do the job, don't do it for them. Teach a man to fish and all that...
I agree. But: remember that we put Halliburton Oil in charge of fueling our vehicles over there. Haliburton imported their own men, licensed their own contractors, and it ended up costing us $2.65 per gallon, while the locals (from Kuwait) were willing to deliver it for $1.06.
I guarantee the "computing infrastructure" will be the same type of deal. Remember that article from a few months ago? About how American companies were planning to redo Iraqi cell service in CDMA, when the rest of the world including the surrounding area is all GSM? See, American companies bought in to CDMA, now they want a new market for it. Whispers in a few ears get this added as a nondescript rider to some otherwise benign bill...
Hell of a way to break out of a recession. Whatever happened to ingenuity? Oh that's right, takes too long and makes the millionaires nervous. Guess we'll have to rely on good old American GRAFT.
Vote democrat in 2004. It doesn't even matter who.
I don't believe that by using Microsoft software, Iraq forfeits their chance at a stable government...
Especially since OUR government uses software written for Microsoft Windows, and it (the government, not windows) is perfectly stable. And they are dead locked into the OS. I should know, it's my job to write software for government, and I would LOVE to be able to reduce our quotes by 10-20% and have the added security of Linux. But there are too many legacy apps, custom apps that are non-trivial to convert, we're talking BILLIONS of dollars here, to ever migrate to a different operating system. Not that it matters...most of the offices we work with are on a 5-10 year update cycle. When a grant comes for new hardware, they take it, and usually buy WAY too much PC. No money would be saved by switching to Linux...they'd just get another $50 towards more expensive graphics cards. We have an even mix of customers using $5000 dual processor machines, and customers using 486s with evergreen Pentium upgrade chips.
Anyhow...fact is, the current administration is trying to spend as much money as possible since they've got permission from congress to mortgage our future (to the tune of 2.8 trillian). They're going to look for the biggest name they can find to rebuild Iraq's computer infrastructure, and there will be no bidding involved. So I think we can all expect a nice short war between IBM, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft and HP. If Sun or IBM wins, Iraq will be Linux based. If MS or HP win, it'll be Windows based.
So...you're saying that the revolutionaries fighting American oppression of their nation in Iraq don't have the ability to debate or hold land? What are you basing this on -- first hand experience, or wild guesses?
I'd have to say that thoughtful people with a stake in independence would be the first to fight against an enemy only interested in filling its own pockets and proving its supremacy to a world that doesn't care. Cowards who didn't care about their nation would have given up when their power structure was disassembled and their leader drugged and captured. And the power hungry wouldn't be wasting their resources on a fool's battle...they'd be fleecing a position in the New Regime.
No...I'm fairly sure the "insurgents" are fighting for the same reason we are: they think they are right, and that this is the only way to protect their way of life. Such a shame we're both wrong...a shame that 2 American soldiers and 30+ Iraqis have to die because neither group can lighten up and accept that there's always going to be some worrisome uncertainty in life -- something most of us learned in middle school.
I'm insulted. The C++ program was not poorly coded. It just takes so long to write, test and debug the type of management needed to do what Java does naturally that anybody regardless of skill is better off just using Java.
AAC may be new (which is what you're talking about) but it is certainly standardized.
"Standard" in that phrase refers to files that meet the Mpeg-2/4 standard for AAC audio in an LC profile, which Apple Music Store Downloads don't (they encrypt the data, which decrypts to standard AAC during playback if a license file is available). They are quite "standardized," which means a standard has been published describing how to write a decoder for each of the 9 profiles, and most PC uses of AAC use the Low Complexity profile. They are most certainly as much a "standard" as MP3. As for programs and devices not playing them...that'll clear up quickly. At present, there are a dozen media player options for Mac, Windows and Linux, and since Apple's built AAC support into iTunes and the iPod, more portables will be jumping on board soon enough.
AAC files (why do people have trouble with those letters? It's double As, then a C, stands for Advanced Audio Coding, doesn't look like the start of te word ACCessory) are the new MP3 in just about every way except one: they don't have MP3's expensive licensing costs.
Java generally BEATS code written in a non garbage collected language when there is enough memory on the machine and many objects are quickly created and dropped. For example, i wrote a mail merge program in Java. For the average size merge we ran (2000-3000 addresses), it was usually 40-50% faster than C++, because the "garbage" of unused, unreferenced variables could be left behind when an address record would go out of scope. This would fill up memory, but since we had enough memory to fit the garbage of 2000 records while we did the important i/o work, it wasn't an issue.
And newer (since 2001) versions of the Java VM further improved this code, as garbage collection is handled on a separate thread. So while in C++ you're spending 200 cycles doing nothing, waiting for the disc to be accessed, then deleting the record, I can spend those 200 cycles cleaning the heap.
C# under.NET is approaching this level of speed as well. In another 10 years, people are going to talk about the old days when code was written for just one type of operating system, and one type of hardware, and when it was written without automatic garbage collection or memory management, or array bounds checking (the thing that PREVENTS buffer overflows?) And they're going to laugh at all the people clinging to C like the cavemen they are.
The boys of Freenet have written a very efficient system in Pure Java (that is, no native code allowed...except the tray icon). I've written very efficient code in Pure Java. In fact, I wrote a merge mailer in Java that was faster than the same code in C++ (reason? java garbage collection is more efficient).
The days of Java being a second fiddle language ended some time in 2001. I can't believe that people are still clinging to their native code for any reason other than access to a specific toolkit.
Well, you're missing the fucking point, man. By writing an app in Java, you write the app once. The effort involved in porting it, or at least the bulk of it, is done by whoever writes the virtual machine. They're writing the optimizers and JIT compilers that do what you'd have to do to make the app more "efficient." Nowadays, the Just In Time compiler on most VMs makes code as efficiently as a runtime compiler...and for an app that runs forever, it'll never get recompiled.
Could it be done "better" in a different language? No. Because you'd end up having to maintain a different version of the binary code for each end device. The ubiquity of Linux has improved this a bit, but it's still drudgery. Java is easier on programmers and testers with no real decrease in efficiency. And it's often got a smaller release footprint, too.
Nope. The only open format supported by this thing is AAC, which is a part of the Mpeg-4 standard and has about a dozen types of compression, many of which are comparable to OGG in size/quality, and some of which easily beat it for specific uses.
The whole POINT to Ogg was that it was going to be high quality for the audiophiles, have small file sizes for the network users, and have none of the licensing issues of MP3, WMA, etc. Well, AAC fulfills all of those points.
Ogg is good and all, but it's a format with NO FUTURE. Not while AAC is out there, doing the same thing, with the same freedom, and supported by the industry that invented it in the first place.
I've used some of the devices that don't copy the iPod scroller -- such as the Napster player and Dell's music player, the Archos, the Zen -- and they're all much harder to use. Most of them use a similar idea besides...scroll arrows that act exactly like the pod's wheel does, only without the precision. As for the buttons in a four corner position, technically this isn't iPod design. The older iPods had four buttons but they were arranged in a sort of a prong-of-an-iron-cross fashion around the wheel, hugged tight to it, but iPods with this control signature haven't bee made since May of this year. The current signature is four buttons (Left, Menu, Play/pause, Right) arranged like standard stereo controls.
Oh, and iPod buttons are heat sensitive capacitors, not momentary switches. Meaning that they don't have any tactile at all...you press them, and have no idea you pressed them. There's no mechanical parts to break (or have moisture seep through when you drop it in a snow bank like a retard).
So in short: they didn't copy the ipod design. It might be better if they had, but they didn't. They approximated it, and reused one of the best features, the dial, which Apple hardly invented.
I do have a problem with the center mounted button -- it is much easier to have the action button off to the side, where you could use your thumb to press it while scrolling with your fingers. This design works well on the ipod, where you do everything with the thumb of one hand. But you won't be grasping this device...you'll be reaching forward to it.
The problem with your system is that it requires a unifying standard for "classes," sources, and types of email. This can either be a) set by the sender, in which case it is utterly useless or b) set by a third party, who is going to read your email. Otherwise, nothing stops the spammers from sending "correspondence" class email from a regular source of type "urgent notice to friend."
Here's a definition of legitimate email for you. Legitimate email is anything you are not angry to have received. It is a bullshit concept, because NOBODY can properly classify these emails except for you. There's no digital process able to discern between valid, interesting emails of an opted in "class" and the same old boring shit. Check that you're interested in "job offers" in "consulting" and mostly you'll get offers to WORK AT HOME ASK ME HOW SELL PILLS TO YOUR FRIENDS.
And this is what makes it retarded. You are basing your system on classifications that cannot be made, and relying on the sender (or some third party) to set these classifications in goodwill. Is it not obvious to you that goodwill does not work, and third parties can not be trusted?
The only thing that will ever slow spam is making it economicly unviable. And the only way that will happen is through government intervention. Until then, delete it, and don't waste your time coming up with foolish solutions that don't address the core of the issue.
Actually, don't bother, I can tell that your definition would almost certainly suck.
I don't know about his definition of it, but mine is pretty good. I've gotten my last three jobs because of email from people I didn't know. Former co-workers had referred me...co-workers whose current addresses I don't know. If email were opt-in, I'd probably still be fixing printers for $8 an hour.
And let's not forget this one: you email help@somecompany.com and get a personal response from JoeTheThirdLevelTech@somecompany.com. Guess what? Your email server bounces it. No help for you, opt-in boy!
Webslum, and hundreds of other businesses, rely on email as its sole infallible point of contact between customers, potential customers, and the supply chain. There's no way we'd survive opt-in only. We'd have to use a new method of contact that was wide open, like IM...and then the spammers would just use that!
And lastly: your girlfriend visits her uncle's house, and can't get her email working. She misses you, and sends a message from his account. You don't respond, so she sends another. Now she's pissed. Your smug opt-in ass has no way to reach her.
Opt-in only is the most retarded idea I've ever heard for the problem of spam aside from the email tax (buhahahahaha). It's throwing out the baby, the bathwater, and a whole bunch of other shit to solve a comparably minor problem.
Actually, nowadays it's quite simple to rack up massive bandwidth charges doing very benign things.
My digital camera has two 1 gb cards for photos. Each photo can exceed 12 mb. To upload 100 thumbs, 800x600s and originals of a roll of wedding shots takes 1.2 gig.
Listening to a 128 kbit radio station for 8 hours is 450 meg.
I often make connections to my work VPN, or to customers via PCAnywhere, for encrypted desktop sessions. The transfer rate to update the 1024x768 screen is usually 10 KB/s+...over 8 hours, that's 288 meg per session.
The latest OSX patches usually weighs in over 20 gig. Windows service packs are pushing 150 meg. Game demos can be 200 meg+. A Homestar Runner short cartoon is > 3 meg and I'll do 10 or 20 in a sitting. Downloading all the skins and maps and mods for your favorite game at 1 meg, 2 meg, 100 meg a pop adds up pretty fast, in addition to the gamedata (a steady 8 kB/s).
And spam email averages 60 KB. 300 messages is 18 meg. Hope my ISP isn't still selling my email address the way RR did in '97...
For home use, I'd much rather be one of 100 users getting all they can out of that T1 than I would getting a reliable 10k/s all the time. And that's what cable is...or so I thought...FAST as in throughput, not as in latency. If I wanted fast (as in latency) I'd have gona DSL...or I'd have gotten that T1. I did for my web server...and I understand that in exchange for the low latency, I have to pay for bandwidth. This option was never offered me by the cable folks, so I assume it's the other way around.
Content is nearly unlimited and bandwidth is limited...and therefore, bandwidth should always be pegged. It's the most efficient way. Didn't these engineers taking queueing theory???
Which is the whole reason they want to keep it secret. If people are breaking the law NOW, they can be sued even if they don't know it (ignoantia legis non excusat). If they open the proceedings, we'll all switch...and they'll lose evidence in future suits. What the court is doing is quite fair.
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Uh, what the fuck are you talking about? In uniquitous devices, there is ALWAYS a wide variation in performance. That's why you and I can drive the same car, and have vastly different gas mileage. We can play games on the same hardware, and get different frame rates. We can wear the same brand of shoes, and REGARDLESS of quality control, they'll die out at different times.
This is because the amount and type of use dictate performance in ubiquitous devices. No two uses are the same. So no two variations are the same.
As for the iPod...one of the tricks with battery life is to keep the hard disc from spinning, and keep the backlight off. Do these things and you can get 8+ hours. If you listen to a song, then scan for the next one, and repeat rather than selecting a playlist all at once, your battery life will be much lower. Because the machine has to spin up the drive each time, wheras with a playlist it loads all the songs it can up to the limits of memory. If you do these things and DON'T get 8+ hours, tell apple and they will fix it within the first year of purchase (within 90 days you don't even pay shipping). Because even with the tightest controls, there are still lemons. It's not like you're stuck with your citrus, though.
I don't see how the mechanics of a platter hard disc running off a battery "speak directly to quality," but I'm guessing your point was to disrespect Apple. Good job.
Who writes this stuff, anyway
Idiots. Who make more money than us.
Anyhow, the iPod will probably remain the best end-to-end solution for digital music as long as Apple is making awesome upgrades to the details that are lacking. Which is what they do best. Many other innovative hardware companies like to pretend that their biggest failings don't exist...for example, they'll release a really great piece of hardware, and then package the most cutrate software package they can find.
Plus, Apple DOES listen to its sheep- er, customers. If there is a big enough outcry about the battery, they'll usually do something about it...unless they can claim that NOT doing it is more beneficial *cough* floppy drives *cough*.
You're right. It's completely their responsibility...for the one year period of their warranty. Then you have to fix it your damn self, pay them to do it, or shell out the $150 for ipod 3 year warranty.
This is not that strange. People shouldn't get free repairs forever on any device, and 1 year is much longer than the other hard drive based players offer.
On the other hand, Lithium Ion batteries last a long time in a small footprint, but they do die. And to replace them for ANYTHING is expensive, for whatever reason, it's why i made sure my latest digital camera ran off AAs. The $99 (you know, i heard $79 when I looked into it...it s inevitable with these things) upgrade includes some guy taking apart your ipod and replacing the battery, hopefully not messing up the delicate electronics while he's in there. $99 is not bad for invasive service on ANY device...I got charged $119 for Canon to CLEAN my printer a while back. Clean it!
I'd love to see Apple lower the price on these things, but it probably isn't going to happen. Best we can hope for is a third party to offer battery service for less money. There are battery sales for the 1 and 2G ipods...all it will take is one entrepeneur to offer these, with install, for a fair price. Maybe even auction off "battery repair" on ebay. Heckuva way to work yourself through an electronics trade school...
The DMCA is not in and of itself a bad idea...we should promote the rights of companies to publish in a digital medium, otherwise there's no reason for them to explore it.
It's the abuse of the seemingly harmless provisions of the DMCA intended to prevent hackers from spreading exploits that is a problem. It has yet to be used to prosecute a real hacker, but instead has bit the hand of security analysts like Skylarov.
A law that hurts the helpers without affecting the hackers is useless. But that's but a small part of the entire DMCA...the section removing liability for attacks from ISPs is REALLY useful law. I'll bet Clinton signed it because he realized how important this would be to the burgeoning internet.
No law is ever perfect the first time 'round.
George Clinton IS the man.
I was adopted. I am very glad for that fact and sickened that it is so difficult to adopt kids nowadays. It's a greuling process. You are grilled and tested and your whole history is laid flat. And it's expensive -- every time the government raises the tax credit for adoption, adoption costs mysteriously rise as well. Right now, it takes about $25,000 to adopt a kid, all told. People mortgage their homes to get kids. That takes a lot of love -- to potentially destroy your financial security for the sake of welcoming an unguarded child into your life. More love than some natural parents have.
If a gay couple earnestly wants to adopt a child, then there should be no laws against them doing so. There are enough checks and balances in place (including surprise visits from social workers who can come at any time...they used to visit my moms at night to be sure I was in bed) that the possibility of abuse is nearly nil, less than with a natural kid anyway. And as for the issue of role models...there are still aunts, grandmothers, female friends, and tons of other options for children of a male gay couple. Not that it matters...white parents adopt asian children all the time, and these kids don't want for ASIAN role models. Nor is there any evidence (and plenty to the contrary) that children of a gay couple are more likely to be day themselves.
Come on, guys. Kids need good homes. Gay couples can't have their own. It's win-win...and the end result is that adoption looks like a more attractive choice for unplanned pregnancies...
I dunno, but you'd have to eat a hundred bowls to equal the amount of caffeine in new Total Espresso Flakes.
Likewise, why should we as taxpayers spend millions of dollars to import the labor and material into Iraq when there exists local talent to do the same job? If they're not as skilled, fine. TRAIN them to do the job, don't do it for them. Teach a man to fish and all that...
I agree. But: remember that we put Halliburton Oil in charge of fueling our vehicles over there. Haliburton imported their own men, licensed their own contractors, and it ended up costing us $2.65 per gallon, while the locals (from Kuwait) were willing to deliver it for $1.06.
I guarantee the "computing infrastructure" will be the same type of deal. Remember that article from a few months ago? About how American companies were planning to redo Iraqi cell service in CDMA, when the rest of the world including the surrounding area is all GSM? See, American companies bought in to CDMA, now they want a new market for it. Whispers in a few ears get this added as a nondescript rider to some otherwise benign bill...
Hell of a way to break out of a recession. Whatever happened to ingenuity? Oh that's right, takes too long and makes the millionaires nervous. Guess we'll have to rely on good old American GRAFT.
Vote democrat in 2004. It doesn't even matter who.
I don't believe that by using Microsoft software, Iraq forfeits their chance at a stable government...
Especially since OUR government uses software written for Microsoft Windows, and it (the government, not windows) is perfectly stable. And they are dead locked into the OS. I should know, it's my job to write software for government, and I would LOVE to be able to reduce our quotes by 10-20% and have the added security of Linux. But there are too many legacy apps, custom apps that are non-trivial to convert, we're talking BILLIONS of dollars here, to ever migrate to a different operating system. Not that it matters...most of the offices we work with are on a 5-10 year update cycle. When a grant comes for new hardware, they take it, and usually buy WAY too much PC. No money would be saved by switching to Linux...they'd just get another $50 towards more expensive graphics cards. We have an even mix of customers using $5000 dual processor machines, and customers using 486s with evergreen Pentium upgrade chips.
Anyhow...fact is, the current administration is trying to spend as much money as possible since they've got permission from congress to mortgage our future (to the tune of 2.8 trillian). They're going to look for the biggest name they can find to rebuild Iraq's computer infrastructure, and there will be no bidding involved. So I think we can all expect a nice short war between IBM, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft and HP. If Sun or IBM wins, Iraq will be Linux based. If MS or HP win, it'll be Windows based.
So...you're saying that the revolutionaries fighting American oppression of their nation in Iraq don't have the ability to debate or hold land? What are you basing this on -- first hand experience, or wild guesses?
I'd have to say that thoughtful people with a stake in independence would be the first to fight against an enemy only interested in filling its own pockets and proving its supremacy to a world that doesn't care. Cowards who didn't care about their nation would have given up when their power structure was disassembled and their leader drugged and captured. And the power hungry wouldn't be wasting their resources on a fool's battle...they'd be fleecing a position in the New Regime.
No...I'm fairly sure the "insurgents" are fighting for the same reason we are: they think they are right, and that this is the only way to protect their way of life. Such a shame we're both wrong...a shame that 2 American soldiers and 30+ Iraqis have to die because neither group can lighten up and accept that there's always going to be some worrisome uncertainty in life -- something most of us learned in middle school.
I'm insulted. The C++ program was not poorly coded. It just takes so long to write, test and debug the type of management needed to do what Java does naturally that anybody regardless of skill is better off just using Java.
AAC may be new (which is what you're talking about) but it is certainly standardized.
"Standard" in that phrase refers to files that meet the Mpeg-2/4 standard for AAC audio in an LC profile, which Apple Music Store Downloads don't (they encrypt the data, which decrypts to standard AAC during playback if a license file is available). They are quite "standardized," which means a standard has been published describing how to write a decoder for each of the 9 profiles, and most PC uses of AAC use the Low Complexity profile. They are most certainly as much a "standard" as MP3. As for programs and devices not playing them...that'll clear up quickly. At present, there are a dozen media player options for Mac, Windows and Linux, and since Apple's built AAC support into iTunes and the iPod, more portables will be jumping on board soon enough.
AAC files (why do people have trouble with those letters? It's double As, then a C, stands for Advanced Audio Coding, doesn't look like the start of te word ACCessory) are the new MP3 in just about every way except one: they don't have MP3's expensive licensing costs.
Gloo is used when Perl breaks.
Java generally BEATS code written in a non garbage collected language when there is enough memory on the machine and many objects are quickly created and dropped. For example, i wrote a mail merge program in Java. For the average size merge we ran (2000-3000 addresses), it was usually 40-50% faster than C++, because the "garbage" of unused, unreferenced variables could be left behind when an address record would go out of scope. This would fill up memory, but since we had enough memory to fit the garbage of 2000 records while we did the important i/o work, it wasn't an issue.
.NET is approaching this level of speed as well. In another 10 years, people are going to talk about the old days when code was written for just one type of operating system, and one type of hardware, and when it was written without automatic garbage collection or memory management, or array bounds checking (the thing that PREVENTS buffer overflows?) And they're going to laugh at all the people clinging to C like the cavemen they are.
And newer (since 2001) versions of the Java VM further improved this code, as garbage collection is handled on a separate thread. So while in C++ you're spending 200 cycles doing nothing, waiting for the disc to be accessed, then deleting the record, I can spend those 200 cycles cleaning the heap.
C# under
pasty chinese spammer with goverment welfare support
Who knows kung fu.
I mean, if we're gonna pull out racist stereotypes, let's pull them all out, huh?
The boys of Freenet have written a very efficient system in Pure Java (that is, no native code allowed...except the tray icon). I've written very efficient code in Pure Java. In fact, I wrote a merge mailer in Java that was faster than the same code in C++ (reason? java garbage collection is more efficient).
The days of Java being a second fiddle language ended some time in 2001. I can't believe that people are still clinging to their native code for any reason other than access to a specific toolkit.
Well, you're missing the fucking point, man. By writing an app in Java, you write the app once. The effort involved in porting it, or at least the bulk of it, is done by whoever writes the virtual machine. They're writing the optimizers and JIT compilers that do what you'd have to do to make the app more "efficient." Nowadays, the Just In Time compiler on most VMs makes code as efficiently as a runtime compiler...and for an app that runs forever, it'll never get recompiled.
Could it be done "better" in a different language? No. Because you'd end up having to maintain a different version of the binary code for each end device. The ubiquity of Linux has improved this a bit, but it's still drudgery. Java is easier on programmers and testers with no real decrease in efficiency. And it's often got a smaller release footprint, too.
Nope. The only open format supported by this thing is AAC, which is a part of the Mpeg-4 standard and has about a dozen types of compression, many of which are comparable to OGG in size/quality, and some of which easily beat it for specific uses.
The whole POINT to Ogg was that it was going to be high quality for the audiophiles, have small file sizes for the network users, and have none of the licensing issues of MP3, WMA, etc. Well, AAC fulfills all of those points.
Ogg is good and all, but it's a format with NO FUTURE. Not while AAC is out there, doing the same thing, with the same freedom, and supported by the industry that invented it in the first place.
I've used some of the devices that don't copy the iPod scroller -- such as the Napster player and Dell's music player, the Archos, the Zen -- and they're all much harder to use. Most of them use a similar idea besides...scroll arrows that act exactly like the pod's wheel does, only without the precision. As for the buttons in a four corner position, technically this isn't iPod design. The older iPods had four buttons but they were arranged in a sort of a prong-of-an-iron-cross fashion around the wheel, hugged tight to it, but iPods with this control signature haven't bee made since May of this year. The current signature is four buttons (Left, Menu, Play/pause, Right) arranged like standard stereo controls.
Oh, and iPod buttons are heat sensitive capacitors, not momentary switches. Meaning that they don't have any tactile at all...you press them, and have no idea you pressed them. There's no mechanical parts to break (or have moisture seep through when you drop it in a snow bank like a retard).
So in short: they didn't copy the ipod design. It might be better if they had, but they didn't. They approximated it, and reused one of the best features, the dial, which Apple hardly invented.
I do have a problem with the center mounted button -- it is much easier to have the action button off to the side, where you could use your thumb to press it while scrolling with your fingers. This design works well on the ipod, where you do everything with the thumb of one hand. But you won't be grasping this device...you'll be reaching forward to it.
The problem with your system is that it requires a unifying standard for "classes," sources, and types of email. This can either be a) set by the sender, in which case it is utterly useless or b) set by a third party, who is going to read your email. Otherwise, nothing stops the spammers from sending "correspondence" class email from a regular source of type "urgent notice to friend."
Here's a definition of legitimate email for you. Legitimate email is anything you are not angry to have received. It is a bullshit concept, because NOBODY can properly classify these emails except for you. There's no digital process able to discern between valid, interesting emails of an opted in "class" and the same old boring shit. Check that you're interested in "job offers" in "consulting" and mostly you'll get offers to WORK AT HOME ASK ME HOW SELL PILLS TO YOUR FRIENDS.
And this is what makes it retarded. You are basing your system on classifications that cannot be made, and relying on the sender (or some third party) to set these classifications in goodwill. Is it not obvious to you that goodwill does not work, and third parties can not be trusted?
The only thing that will ever slow spam is making it economicly unviable. And the only way that will happen is through government intervention. Until then, delete it, and don't waste your time coming up with foolish solutions that don't address the core of the issue.
Actually, don't bother, I can tell that your definition would almost certainly suck.
I don't know about his definition of it, but mine is pretty good. I've gotten my last three jobs because of email from people I didn't know. Former co-workers had referred me...co-workers whose current addresses I don't know. If email were opt-in, I'd probably still be fixing printers for $8 an hour.
And let's not forget this one: you email help@somecompany.com and get a personal response from JoeTheThirdLevelTech@somecompany.com. Guess what? Your email server bounces it. No help for you, opt-in boy!
Webslum, and hundreds of other businesses, rely on email as its sole infallible point of contact between customers, potential customers, and the supply chain. There's no way we'd survive opt-in only. We'd have to use a new method of contact that was wide open, like IM...and then the spammers would just use that!
And lastly: your girlfriend visits her uncle's house, and can't get her email working. She misses you, and sends a message from his account. You don't respond, so she sends another. Now she's pissed. Your smug opt-in ass has no way to reach her.
Opt-in only is the most retarded idea I've ever heard for the problem of spam aside from the email tax (buhahahahaha). It's throwing out the baby, the bathwater, and a whole bunch of other shit to solve a comparably minor problem.
Actually, nowadays it's quite simple to rack up massive bandwidth charges doing very benign things.
My digital camera has two 1 gb cards for photos. Each photo can exceed 12 mb. To upload 100 thumbs, 800x600s and originals of a roll of wedding shots takes 1.2 gig.
Listening to a 128 kbit radio station for 8 hours is 450 meg.
I often make connections to my work VPN, or to customers via PCAnywhere, for encrypted desktop sessions. The transfer rate to update the 1024x768 screen is usually 10 KB/s+...over 8 hours, that's 288 meg per session.
The latest OSX patches usually weighs in over 20 gig. Windows service packs are pushing 150 meg. Game demos can be 200 meg+. A Homestar Runner short cartoon is > 3 meg and I'll do 10 or 20 in a sitting. Downloading all the skins and maps and mods for your favorite game at 1 meg, 2 meg, 100 meg a pop adds up pretty fast, in addition to the gamedata (a steady 8 kB/s).
And spam email averages 60 KB. 300 messages is 18 meg. Hope my ISP isn't still selling my email address the way RR did in '97...
For home use, I'd much rather be one of 100 users getting all they can out of that T1 than I would getting a reliable 10k/s all the time. And that's what cable is...or so I thought...FAST as in throughput, not as in latency. If I wanted fast (as in latency) I'd have gona DSL...or I'd have gotten that T1. I did for my web server...and I understand that in exchange for the low latency, I have to pay for bandwidth. This option was never offered me by the cable folks, so I assume it's the other way around.
Content is nearly unlimited and bandwidth is limited...and therefore, bandwidth should always be pegged. It's the most efficient way. Didn't these engineers taking queueing theory???
You can't do it in a locked PDF. Not without going to prison like a certain D. Skylarov...
Which is the whole reason they want to keep it secret. If people are breaking the law NOW, they can be sued even if they don't know it (ignoantia legis non excusat). If they open the proceedings, we'll all switch...and they'll lose evidence in future suits. What the court is doing is quite fair.
Doesn't mean I'm not hoping for a leak...