This seems to be a list of all record labels. Some are very obvious non-indie labels (Universal's A&M, for example, and BMG); some still are independent (to some extent) though distributed by the majors in the US (Mute and 4AD, for example, are both Warner labels in the US (aside: Warner even owns the depechemode.com domain name because it owns the rights for the US, where InterNIC was based), though distributed by others in different territories).
I think that's a Utah Mormon thing. They have a long-standing tradition of giving their children really unique names, which perhaps arose as a reaction to the limited range of family names in the original Mormon colony.
Because Nyetscape 4.x on Linux crashes within a few pages. (Not that 3.01 is perfectly stable, but it's more stable than 4.x.)
It's obvious that Nyetscape's engineers have neglected stability on UNIX. (This is not just a Linux problem; the IRIX and Digital UNIX versions are just as crash-prone and bug-ridden, only with their own entertaining twists; anyone see the spawn-dozens-of-tiny-windows bug on IRIX?) Then again, they're not alone. Macromedia's Shockwave plug-in for Linux is also extraordinarily sloppy (a plug-in which seizes the audio device when it loads, and locks up your browser if it can't get it, is just not good enough; I don't want to shut down my MP3 player whenever a Flash ad loads on a web site). Which is not to mention the utter lack of a Shockwave plug-in. All in all, browser companies have a beggars-can't-be-choosers attitude to UNIX users.
Had I a faster computer, I'd buy VMWare and run Netscape or IE on Windows under Linux. This would paradoxically be more stable than Nyetscape on Linux, and would also give me access to Shockwave pages like Sissyfight.
It's a sad state of affairs when one has to go to such lengths to get a decent web browsing experience.
Freedows' experience in organising committees for hashing out the future design and adding lots of kick-ass features before the first line of code is ever written will come in very handy indeed, and should take OpenWindows into the realm of first-class vapourware.
The FBI are about to nail a kingpin from some large, well-organised operation. He could be coordinating a drug smuggling operation or terrorist cell or child porn ring or something, or he could be running a religious sect or militia that TPTB don't like. Though if the quarry notices something amiss (i.e., contacts in the field reporting trouble), he could go into hiding. So, as soon as they start to move, they reprogram the Carnivore box at his ISP to filter messages to him, blacking him out. If it's only for a few hours, he won't notice that something's amiss and flee.
CPUs designed in the US (Intel, AMD, &c) have, by agreement with the NSA, undocumented operation sequences (long ones, which would be very hard to stumble across without knowing what one is looking for), which allow unprivileged code to do privileged things (such as read protected memory, perform I/O operations, &c.) This is to allow the NSA/CIA to root machines without relying on security holes in software, and is also why they suddenly did an about-face on crypto restrictions.
But could you trust it? A black box with access to your PCI bus could do anything. It could, for example, listen for a triggering sequence on serial/Ethernet ports and then download and execute arbitrary code, access protected memory/disk space, and send anything from your computer to its true master (which could be anyone from the Russian secret service to the Russian Mafiya).
When it comes to inventively devious covert operations, the Russians are in a class of their own. Suppose that comes from everyone playing chess.
Long answer: no, unless there are tools for converting TeX/METAFONT fonts to Adobe Type 1 (not merely PostScript; Type 1 is a specially structured subset of PS) or TrueType. I haven't heard of any. It's more likely that there exist tools to make a set of bitmap (BDF/PCF) fonts from a METAFONT font, but that's not quite the same.
If you want to make fonts and have a Mac (or Windows machine) around, Macromedia's Fontographer is the canonical tool, though it's proprietary (and its file format is as well; not only that but the two platforms' formats aren't compatible; probably due to byte order lossage of some sort). If you don't have this, and are masochistically inclined, you could download the free (GPLed, I think) t1utils and the Adobe Type 1 font spec (it's in PDF somewhere on their site) and hand-code the charstring code.
There are open-source vector font editor projects (such as Raph Levien's gfonted), but they seem to all be at a very early stage.
(Incidentally, if anyone's interested, I am working on a Python module for encoding/decoding Type 1 fonts, which may ultimately become part of a font editing package. The (rather early) code is here.
Not exactly instant gratification; though if it was instant grafitication, the owners of new, expensive games would be motivated to sue it out of existence to avoid losing sales to it.
This way consumers looking for a quick arcade fix without much hassle will go to the game shop and buy the latest first-person shooter for their PlayStation, while the arcade trainspotters whose interest lies in the historical value of these old games will jump through the requisite hoops. The games' corporate owners are more likely to sue ROM traders if they're running a mass consumer-oriented operation than if they're just geeky hobbyists catering to the anorak brigade.
Wait until they have genome-based licensing enforcement. Then we might see cheaper Mexican-market drugs which only work for people whose genetic makeup is unlikely to be American, or dependent on markers in Mexican food/water, or neutralised by markers in American food/water, all in the name of profits...
Precisely because of the weight of such a ruling. If it happened, it would torpedo the business model of a multi-billion-dollar industry. Even if a judge did hand down such a revolutionary ruling, the industry would just buy a law that nullified it before it got through the appeals process.
The recording industry pimps are fighting for their lives and livelihood in a very real way; their very racket is based on this. Such a ruling would hit them as hard as the invention of nanoassemblers would hit De Beers' diamond prices.
Does the EXE file contain a click-through nondisclosure agreement of the sort the Kerberos spec included? Perhaps it's to keep C# proprietary and prevent those pesky penguinheads from hacking up a cross-platform implementation.
Microsoft have used patents offensively. They patented the ASF media file format, and used said patent to remove support from an open-source video editing utility a while ago. The details escape me, but it was mentioned on the Net.
And then there's the Halloween document, advocating the use of patents as a defense against open source. And their tricks with non-disclosure agreements in self-extracting documents (i.e. the Kerberos spec) to lock out open-source developers are right in the spirit of such things.
Microsoft's business model depends on controlling crucial parts of the platform; that's why they dominate not only the OS market but the word processor/spreadsheet market, the Windows C compiler market and the web browser market. If control of C# is important to them, they will do everything in their power to maintain it.
Re:Nice, but limited polyphony (24)
on
Pilot Synthesis
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· Score: 2
True, though you probably wouldn't use it for heavy-duty sequencing... For jotting down a harmony, a riff, or a rhythm, that may be enough. If you're serious about music, you'll have something better at home to transfer it to.
Yamaha have the QY-70, with MIDI interface, dedicated LCD screen and rubber chiclet keys. Roland have the PMA-5, a boxy looking device like an oversized Pilot/Newton, only it just does music. Given that entering music is limited to using a stylus on the screen, and that it probably wouldn't fit in most pockets, it seems a bit gimmicky. Not sure about Casio; a friend of mine has a pocket Casiotone synth, but it has no memory/sequencing functions.
Traditionally, musicians have had to know sheet music, though in the age of computer sequencing, there are many composers who don't know it, and who don't have perfect pitch.
For jotting down musical ideas
on
Pilot Synthesis
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· Score: 2
If you're a musician/composer and are on a train, at your day job, or in some other place inconveniently far from your studio, and you suddenly get an idea for a melody/beat/riff, having something like that to write it down on is a godsend. That's why devices like the Yamaha QY70 and the Roland PMA-5 exist.
The x86 architecture's design is hindered by backward compatibility requirements, making it significantly less efficient than chips designed from scratch. A powerful Pentium-class CPU burns significantly more power than, say, an equivalent Alpha or PowerPC, and dissipates more heat. The maximum speed, and maximum performance, of such a CPU are inferior to newer designs. And in order to perform reasonably under modern conditions and retain compatibility, such a chip is necessarily much more complex.
The only reason that the x86 has stayed around is market inertia and economies of scale. Because of the large scale of manufacturing, x86 machines are a lot cheaper than newer architectures, and most binaries are for the x86. Rather sad, really, but that's the way it is.
Slashdot Mirror
This seems to be a list of all record labels. Some are very obvious non-indie labels (Universal's A&M, for example, and BMG); some still are independent (to some extent) though distributed by the majors in the US (Mute and 4AD, for example, are both Warner labels in the US (aside: Warner even owns the depechemode.com domain name because it owns the rights for the US, where InterNIC was based), though distributed by others in different territories).
Doesn't Disney own a large chunk of McDonalds?
I think that's a Utah Mormon thing. They have a long-standing tradition of giving their children really unique names, which perhaps arose as a reaction to the limited range of family names in the original Mormon colony.
Because Nyetscape 4.x on Linux crashes within a few pages. (Not that 3.01 is perfectly stable, but it's more stable than 4.x.)
It's obvious that Nyetscape's engineers have neglected stability on UNIX. (This is not just a Linux problem; the IRIX and Digital UNIX versions are just as crash-prone and bug-ridden, only with their own entertaining twists; anyone see the spawn-dozens-of-tiny-windows bug on IRIX?) Then again, they're not alone. Macromedia's Shockwave plug-in for Linux is also extraordinarily sloppy (a plug-in which seizes the audio device when it loads, and locks up your browser if it can't get it, is just not good enough; I don't want to shut down my MP3 player whenever a Flash ad loads on a web site). Which is not to mention the utter lack of a Shockwave plug-in. All in all, browser companies have a beggars-can't-be-choosers attitude to UNIX users.
Had I a faster computer, I'd buy VMWare and run Netscape or IE on Windows under Linux. This would paradoxically be more stable than Nyetscape on Linux, and would also give me access to Shockwave pages like Sissyfight.
It's a sad state of affairs when one has to go to such lengths to get a decent web browsing experience.
Freedows' experience in organising committees for hashing out the future design and adding lots of kick-ass features before the first line of code is ever written will come in very handy indeed, and should take OpenWindows into the realm of first-class vapourware.
The FBI are about to nail a kingpin from some large, well-organised operation. He could be coordinating a drug smuggling operation or terrorist cell or child porn ring or something, or he could be running a religious sect or militia that TPTB don't like. Though if the quarry notices something amiss (i.e., contacts in the field reporting trouble), he could go into hiding. So, as soon as they start to move, they reprogram the Carnivore box at his ISP to filter messages to him, blacking him out. If it's only for a few hours, he won't notice that something's amiss and flee.
CPUs designed in the US (Intel, AMD, &c) have, by agreement with the NSA, undocumented operation sequences (long ones, which would be very hard to stumble across without knowing what one is looking for), which allow unprivileged code to do privileged things (such as read protected memory, perform I/O operations, &c.) This is to allow the NSA/CIA to root machines without relying on security holes in software, and is also why they suddenly did an about-face on crypto restrictions.
But could you trust it? A black box with access to your PCI bus could do anything. It could, for example, listen for a triggering sequence on serial/Ethernet ports and then download and execute arbitrary code, access protected memory/disk space, and send anything from your computer to its true master (which could be anyone from the Russian secret service to the Russian Mafiya).
When it comes to inventively devious covert operations, the Russians are in a class of their own. Suppose that comes from everyone playing chess.
Long answer: no, unless there are tools for converting TeX/METAFONT fonts to Adobe Type 1 (not merely PostScript; Type 1 is a specially structured subset of PS) or TrueType. I haven't heard of any. It's more likely that there exist tools to make a set of bitmap (BDF/PCF) fonts from a METAFONT font, but that's not quite the same.
If you want to make fonts and have a Mac (or Windows machine) around, Macromedia's Fontographer is the canonical tool, though it's proprietary (and its file format is as well; not only that but the two platforms' formats aren't compatible; probably due to byte order lossage of some sort). If you don't have this, and are masochistically inclined, you could download the free (GPLed, I think) t1utils and the Adobe Type 1 font spec (it's in PDF somewhere on their site) and hand-code the charstring code.
There are open-source vector font editor projects (such as Raph Levien's gfonted), but they seem to all be at a very early stage.
(Incidentally, if anyone's interested, I am working on a Python module for encoding/decoding Type 1 fonts, which may ultimately become part of a font editing package. The (rather early) code is here.
Not exactly instant gratification; though if it was instant grafitication, the owners of new, expensive games would be motivated to sue it out of existence to avoid losing sales to it.
This way consumers looking for a quick arcade fix without much hassle will go to the game shop and buy the latest first-person shooter for their PlayStation, while the arcade trainspotters whose interest lies in the historical value of these old games will jump through the requisite hoops. The games' corporate owners are more likely to sue ROM traders if they're running a mass consumer-oriented operation than if they're just geeky hobbyists catering to the anorak brigade.
Wait until they have genome-based licensing enforcement. Then we might see cheaper Mexican-market drugs which only work for people whose genetic makeup is unlikely to be American, or dependent on markers in Mexican food/water, or neutralised by markers in American food/water, all in the name of profits...
Precisely because of the weight of such a ruling.
If it happened, it would torpedo the business model of a multi-billion-dollar industry. Even if a judge did hand down such a revolutionary ruling, the industry would just buy a law that nullified it before it got through the appeals process.
The recording industry pimps are fighting for their lives and livelihood in a very real way; their very racket is based on this. Such a ruling would hit them as hard as the invention of nanoassemblers would hit De Beers' diamond prices.
Aren't the new Rios modified to close this loophole? Supposedly that's part of the "SDMI compliant" tag they wear.
Does the EXE file contain a click-through nondisclosure agreement of the sort the Kerberos spec included? Perhaps it's to keep C# proprietary and prevent those pesky penguinheads from hacking up a cross-platform implementation.
Microsoft have used patents offensively. They patented the ASF media file format, and used said patent to remove support from an open-source video editing utility a while ago. The details escape me, but it was mentioned on the Net.
And then there's the Halloween document, advocating the use of patents as a defense against open source. And their tricks with non-disclosure agreements in self-extracting documents (i.e. the Kerberos spec) to lock out open-source developers are right in the spirit of such things.
Microsoft's business model depends on controlling crucial parts of the platform; that's why they dominate not only the OS market but the word processor/spreadsheet market, the Windows C compiler market and the web browser market. If control of C# is important to them, they will do everything in their power to maintain it.
Didn't Apple abandon ObjC in favour of C++?
...and then slowly began going down the toilet.
True, though you probably wouldn't use it for heavy-duty sequencing... For jotting down a harmony, a riff, or a rhythm, that may be enough.
If you're serious about music, you'll have something better at home to transfer it to.
Yamaha have the QY-70, with MIDI interface, dedicated LCD screen and rubber chiclet keys. Roland have the PMA-5, a boxy looking device like an oversized Pilot/Newton, only it just does music. Given that entering music is limited to using a stylus on the screen, and that it probably wouldn't fit in most pockets, it seems a bit gimmicky. Not sure about Casio; a friend of mine has a pocket Casiotone synth, but it has no memory/sequencing functions.
Traditionally, musicians have had to know sheet music, though in the age of computer sequencing, there are many composers who don't know it, and who don't have perfect pitch.
If you're a musician/composer and are on a train, at your day job, or in some other place inconveniently far from your studio, and you suddenly get an idea for a melody/beat/riff, having something like that to write it down on is a godsend. That's why devices like the Yamaha QY70 and the Roland PMA-5 exist.
Surely it can't be as broken as Netscape 4 for UNIX/X.
The x86 architecture's design is hindered by backward compatibility requirements, making it significantly less efficient than chips designed from scratch. A powerful Pentium-class CPU burns significantly more power than, say, an equivalent Alpha or PowerPC, and dissipates more heat. The maximum speed, and maximum performance, of such a CPU are inferior to newer designs. And in order to perform reasonably under modern conditions and retain compatibility, such a chip is necessarily much more complex.
The only reason that the x86 has stayed around is market inertia and economies of scale. Because of the large scale of manufacturing, x86 machines are a lot cheaper than newer architectures, and most binaries are for the x86. Rather sad, really, but that's the way it is.
Mattel sues Slashdot for incitement to copyright violation under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The RIAA's memos will not be released, as it is not the RIAA that is on trial. There are no grounds to subpoena memos from the RIAA.