This is all good to know, because all devices are designed for YOUR consumption.
Did you ever think that there are other potential consumers out there?
Not everyone will be using their PDA camera to replace a 2.1mp camera. It will be some time before the optics on a PDA cam can compete with a Canon.
As for keyboards, lots of people want 'em. What's wrong with having them on some of the PDA's out there. No one says you have to buy EVERY pda out there.
I've seen it over and over again, especially in CS -- people who do the best in CS do the worst in the real world and are forced to stay within the towers of academia
No offense, davidu, but this is the type of drivel that people who do bad in school say to make themselves feel better about themselves (I'm not calling you one of those people, but the remark you made did increase the chances that you are). I'd be willing to listen if you had said that there is very little corollation between success in university CS and the "Real World" but to draw the inverse conclusion is offensive.
People who do well in school often do so because they are smart and work hard. Those types of things pay off in the "Real World." Those "ivory tower" arguments just don't fly.
I, of course, do not offer myself as proof of someone who succeeded in university CS and the real world.
Non-editable or non-readable? We can convert to PDF with the push of a button, but usually don't, not that a PDF isn't editable. It generally doesn't matter whether it's editable. For most communication Word works. Clients can send us back mark-ups with track-changes turned on. It makes our lives easier. Same thing goes for other law firms with (against) whom we are working.
Once again I call bullshit on this. It might have been a while since you've been to a law office. Or if so, not one that I've ever seen. It is the rare law office that does not use WP, and the secretaries in the occasional law office that uses MSWord instead are extremely unhappy about it, bitch continuously, and quit constantly.
I work for a large law firm. I have lots of friends who work at similar large firms. I have dealt with (and exchanged documents with) most of the top 30 firms in the US. I haven't seen anyone who uses WP today. We switched from WP to Word a few years ago. I'm not saying that everyone is happy about it. But that's the current state of affairs. I have no doubt that people bitched about WP when that was in use. The truth is probably that lawyers need to be able to send documents to clients, and guess what word processor they are using?
I should also mention that most lawyers who are under 50 do their own typing. It's a rare secretary that I've seen who will crank out 90 page documents from the dictaphone. Execept possibly for interview transcripts.
Read the article closely and you'll see this quote:
"I've worked with Opera since version 3, and I've liked it a lot," said Monte Hurd, a systems architect with Starphire Technologies in Clearwater, Fla. "
I have a Plex 16x, and I burn all my audio CD's at that speed. I have yet to see a single problem playing one of my CD's anywhere. I try to use good media, but even el cheapo stuff seems to work OK. I think this is an issue that is highly dependent on your burner.
This comment is yet another example of a slashdot poster speaking out of his nether regions and making things up.
The reason they say that the damages will be less than $75k per plaintiff is to keep this in state court. The minimum amount-in-controversy sufficient to allow a suit in federal court is $75k.
I'm not one to favor proprietary software, but I think one of the big misconceptions is that if a company goes bust, all of its customers are necessarily screwed. This may be the case with users of shrinkwrap licensed software, which is almost always immediately replaceable. Think, for example, what would happen if Opera went under. You'd get another browser.
However, for companies and governments using real software that is licensed for megabucks, they almost always (or should always) use Source Escrows. This means that they get the right to use the source code to keep using the software in the event that the company providing the software goes under. This is quite common, and vitiates all (most) of the "what about if your vendor goes bankrupt" cries you always hear on Slashdot.
I love how the article states that Neff says that the HP Compaq deal was a bad idea:
HP, meanwhile, has problems in the PC realm. Rather than try to become a low-cost leader, the company instead tried to bulk up by buying Compaq Computer. History in the computer market, though, shows that "the key is not scale, the key is low cost," he said in an interview.
And then later in the article they talk about his positive track record, including his recommendation for HP to buy Compaq:
While Wall Street analysts have created a cottage industry out of making grandiose (and often ultimately incorrect) predictions and recommendations, Neff can boast of a fairly strong track record of the industry adopting at least some of his ideas.
In January 2001, he said that it would behoove HP to purchase Compaq. At the time, most analysts--and even some HP and Compaq execs--warned against buying PC companies, saying it was better to let them fade away.
So, if he's such a brainiac, why did he think it would be a good idea for HP to buy Compaq, and then call it a blunder after it actually happens.
It's not a great track record if you recommend something that you end up calling a mistake once it comes true. Bottom line, maybe the world would be a better place if the industry doesn't adopt his ideas.
I've done some tests too. I've encoded a variety of music that I listen to using Lame with r3mix and --alt-preset standard. This results in bitrates of around 175k (+- 25). I've compared them to stuff encoded with Vorbis 1.0 an q4.5 and 4.95. Everything sounds great, and I have a pretty decent stereo. The difference in bitrates is significant, but more to the tune of 10% than 35-50%. It's possible that my experience is unique, and that there are other ways to tweak performance to achieve these huge gains. I haven't seen 'em, hence my previous comments.
Comparing 128k MP3's encoded on a crappy CBR encoder to well done vorbis VBR is not accurate. You gotta compare apples to apples. I believe that LAME VBR is such an apple.
It's you who seems to misunderstand. When you make a claim, you should back it up. It's as if I had said "run your car on shampoo, and you'll get 200 miles per gallon. now go try it." Get a clue, or move along.
Now you're just being silly. Someone made the statement that it will cut down that guys MP3 collection from 15 to 8 or 10 GB. I call bullshit, because I don't believe that to be the case. If he really thinks it can make that big a difference (which he must because he bothered to include it in a response) than he should stand behind the statement and provide some backup support. Until I hear otherwise, I'll assume he was just pulling numbers out of the air for advocacy's sake.
Right, better. But does better = 1/3 lower bitrate? I don't think so. People generally say that q4 or a5 on vorbis is the equivalent of r3mix on Lame, and that the Ogg bitrates are between 160 and 192 at those quality settings. That's not too different from where Lame comes out.
> Quality & File Size > You can probably squeeze your 15 GB music >collection down to 10 or 8 GB, while preserving the >same quality.
I call bullshit on this. I use lame with the r3mix setting which tends to encode stuff between 150 and 200k, I just don't believe that Ogg will sound just as good at a third less space.
Maybe if your point of reference is CBR from a bad MP3 encoder then Ogg will do better, but there are decent MP3 encoder's out there. Any link that shows Ogg trouncing well encoded MP3's would be appropriate and would force me to crawl back from where I done come from.
I think we're on the same page here. I still think that with regards to your earlier post, there were two issues 1) Interpretation of the codes 2) Display of the document
It sounds like you believe that MSOffice messed up on the second thing because the length of the document is different. If the margins were all the same (or embedded in the document) then I'd agree with you here.
I think that OOo messed up the first and the second. This is a problem. It's nice to have footers, headers and other similar items show up properly. My biggest problem is taking some nicely organized and formatted document from MSOffice and then trying to open it in Linux (any linux office app applies here) and having it show up completely different with wierd fonts, spacing issues and footer codes.
Fixing this is not easy because the spec isn't available. I understand this. But it's still a major obstacle.
Just looking at the documents you posted, it definitely looks the worst in OOo. It looks like the other Office programs have differen't margin settings, but render the document correctly.
Each MSOffice program gets the footer with page number right, where OOo fscks it up completely. You're metric of where the footnotes show up isn't the most important thing. I'd wager a guess that if you changed your margin in all the MSOffices you tried this on, it would show up identically. This was a poor choice to demonstrate intra MSOffice incompatibilities.
Call me crazy, but the simplest explanation, and the one I've always assumed, is that this lets you play your shiny new SACD in your SACD player at home, in your car (or any other regular cd player). They can sell a lot more SACD's if they are backward compatible. I sure as hell wouldn't buy one unless I could play it in my ghetto blaster.
Take another look. He said Lindows could still lose the case, not Microsoft. I don't really know which way your argument cuts, though. Trademarks are funky, so anything could happen.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who enjoys earthquakes. They are by far the coolest natural disaster. You never know if it's gonna go big, or just peter off. Very, very exciting stuff. Also, you have no advanced warning. It's not like all those weather ones, where you can feel it coming. More like volcano's in that regard.
Sure it sucks when a really big one hits. But I've been here 25 years and in that time, there's been one damage causing quake in norcal and one in socal. Not too bad. Hardly not enough to live in fear. Shit, lots of things can kill you, and happen more often that once every twenty years.
Plus they remind me of that scene from 12 Monkeys, where Brad Pitt says "when my father gets angry, the ground shakes!"
I am a lawyer, and as such I know what a contract is. Last time I checked, it requires mutual consideration. If you allow people to download your software for fee, it's a gift, not a contract.
Maybe you should check your facts before calling someone a moron.
Pity the fool who moderated this up. The sig, while not funny, is clearly meant to be a joke. There are thousands of pathetic sigs like it throughout slashtopia. I think it all is based on the Far Side Comic with the caption "Midvale School of Gifted" where the door says push and the mentle giant is pulling for the life of him and can't get in.
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/audigy/page 5.asp here's a synopsis: audigy only provides 2 watts, you could damage your audigy by trying to power devices off of it.
Slashdot Mirror
This is all good to know, because all devices are designed for YOUR consumption.
Did you ever think that there are other potential consumers out there?
Not everyone will be using their PDA camera to replace a 2.1mp camera. It will be some time before the optics on a PDA cam can compete with a Canon.
As for keyboards, lots of people want 'em. What's wrong with having them on some of the PDA's out there. No one says you have to buy EVERY pda out there.
I've seen it over and over again, especially in CS -- people who do the best in CS do the worst in the real world and are forced to stay within the towers of academia
No offense, davidu, but this is the type of drivel that people who do bad in school say to make themselves feel better about themselves (I'm not calling you one of those people, but the remark you made did increase the chances that you are). I'd be willing to listen if you had said that there is very little corollation between success in university CS and the "Real World" but to draw the inverse conclusion is offensive.
People who do well in school often do so because they are smart and work hard. Those types of things pay off in the "Real World." Those "ivory tower" arguments just don't fly.
I, of course, do not offer myself as proof of someone who succeeded in university CS and the real world.
Non-editable or non-readable? We can convert to PDF with the push of a button, but usually don't, not that a PDF isn't editable. It generally doesn't matter whether it's editable. For most communication Word works. Clients can send us back mark-ups with track-changes turned on. It makes our lives easier. Same thing goes for other law firms with (against) whom we are working.
Once again I call bullshit on this. It might have been a while since you've been to a law office. Or if so, not one that I've ever seen.
It is the rare law office that does not use WP, and the secretaries in the occasional law office that uses MSWord instead are extremely unhappy about it, bitch continuously, and quit constantly.
I work for a large law firm. I have lots of friends who work at similar large firms. I have dealt with (and exchanged documents with) most of the top 30 firms in the US. I haven't seen anyone who uses WP today. We switched from WP to Word a few years ago. I'm not saying that everyone is happy about it. But that's the current state of affairs. I have no doubt that people bitched about WP when that was in use. The truth is probably that lawyers need to be able to send documents to clients, and guess what word processor they are using?
I should also mention that most lawyers who are under 50 do their own typing. It's a rare secretary that I've seen who will crank out 90 page documents from the dictaphone. Execept possibly for interview transcripts.
Read the article closely and you'll see this quote:
"I've worked with Opera since version 3, and I've liked it a lot," said Monte Hurd, a systems architect with Starphire Technologies in Clearwater, Fla. "
Hurd isn't with Opera. Thank you and good night.
I have a Plex 16x, and I burn all my audio CD's at that speed. I have yet to see a single problem playing one of my CD's anywhere. I try to use good media, but even el cheapo stuff seems to work OK. I think this is an issue that is highly dependent on your burner.
This comment is yet another example of a slashdot poster speaking out of his nether regions and making things up.
The reason they say that the damages will be less than $75k per plaintiff is to keep this in state court. The minimum amount-in-controversy sufficient to allow a suit in federal court is $75k.
I won't comment on any of your other statements.
I'm not one to favor proprietary software, but I think one of the big misconceptions is that if a company goes bust, all of its customers are necessarily screwed. This may be the case with users of shrinkwrap licensed software, which is almost always immediately replaceable. Think, for example, what would happen if Opera went under. You'd get another browser.
However, for companies and governments using real software that is licensed for megabucks, they almost always (or should always) use Source Escrows. This means that they get the right to use the source code to keep using the software in the event that the company providing the software goes under. This is quite common, and vitiates all (most) of the "what about if your vendor goes bankrupt" cries you always hear on Slashdot.
HP, meanwhile, has problems in the PC realm. Rather than try to become a low-cost leader, the company instead tried to bulk up by buying Compaq Computer. History in the computer market, though, shows that "the key is not scale, the key is low cost," he said in an interview.
And then later in the article they talk about his positive track record, including his recommendation for HP to buy Compaq:
While Wall Street analysts have created a cottage industry out of making grandiose (and often ultimately incorrect) predictions and recommendations, Neff can boast of a fairly strong track record of the industry adopting at least some of his ideas. In January 2001, he said that it would behoove HP to purchase Compaq. At the time, most analysts--and even some HP and Compaq execs--warned against buying PC companies, saying it was better to let them fade away.
So, if he's such a brainiac, why did he think it would be a good idea for HP to buy Compaq, and then call it a blunder after it actually happens.
It's not a great track record if you recommend something that you end up calling a mistake once it comes true. Bottom line, maybe the world would be a better place if the industry doesn't adopt his ideas.
I take it all back. Mine fscks up if all three agree. Oops.
First number = A, Second = B, Third = C.
D = A XOR B.
E = D XOR C.
Answer = Complement of E.
I've done some tests too. I've encoded a variety of music that I listen to using Lame with r3mix and --alt-preset standard. This results in bitrates of around 175k (+- 25). I've compared them to stuff encoded with Vorbis 1.0 an q4.5 and 4.95. Everything sounds great, and I have a pretty decent stereo. The difference in bitrates is significant, but more to the tune of 10% than 35-50%.
It's possible that my experience is unique, and that there are other ways to tweak performance to achieve these huge gains. I haven't seen 'em, hence my previous comments.
Comparing 128k MP3's encoded on a crappy CBR encoder to well done vorbis VBR is not accurate. You gotta compare apples to apples. I believe that LAME VBR is such an apple.
It's you who seems to misunderstand. When you make a claim, you should back it up. It's as if I had said "run your car on shampoo, and you'll get 200 miles per gallon. now go try it." Get a clue, or move along.
Now you're just being silly. Someone made the statement that it will cut down that guys MP3 collection from 15 to 8 or 10 GB. I call bullshit, because I don't believe that to be the case. If he really thinks it can make that big a difference (which he must because he bothered to include it in a response) than he should stand behind the statement and provide some backup support. Until I hear otherwise, I'll assume he was just pulling numbers out of the air for advocacy's sake.
Right, better. But does better = 1/3 lower bitrate?
I don't think so. People generally say that q4 or a5 on vorbis is the equivalent of r3mix on Lame, and that the Ogg bitrates are between 160 and 192 at those quality settings. That's not too different from where Lame comes out.
> Quality & File Size
> You can probably squeeze your 15 GB music >collection down to 10 or 8 GB, while preserving the >same quality.
I call bullshit on this. I use lame with the r3mix setting which tends to encode stuff between 150 and 200k, I just don't believe that Ogg will sound just as good at a third less space.
Maybe if your point of reference is CBR from a bad MP3 encoder then Ogg will do better, but there are decent MP3 encoder's out there. Any link that shows Ogg trouncing well encoded MP3's would be appropriate and would force me to crawl back from where I done come from.
I think we're on the same page here. I still think that with regards to your earlier post, there were two issues
1) Interpretation of the codes
2) Display of the document
It sounds like you believe that MSOffice messed up on the second thing because the length of the document is different. If the margins were all the same (or embedded in the document) then I'd agree with you here.
I think that OOo messed up the first and the second. This is a problem. It's nice to have footers, headers and other similar items show up properly. My biggest problem is taking some nicely organized and formatted document from MSOffice and then trying to open it in Linux (any linux office app applies here) and having it show up completely different with wierd fonts, spacing issues and footer codes.
Fixing this is not easy because the spec isn't available. I understand this. But it's still a major obstacle.
Just looking at the documents you posted, it definitely looks the worst in OOo. It looks like the other Office programs have differen't margin settings, but render the document correctly.
Each MSOffice program gets the footer with page number right, where OOo fscks it up completely. You're metric of where the footnotes show up isn't the most important thing. I'd wager a guess that if you changed your margin in all the MSOffices you tried this on, it would show up identically. This was a poor choice to demonstrate intra MSOffice incompatibilities.
preemptive strike: intelligence and typing have no correllatoin. (that one was on purpose!)
Call me crazy, but the simplest explanation, and the one I've always assumed, is that this lets you play your shiny new SACD in your SACD player at home, in your car (or any other regular cd player). They can sell a lot more SACD's if they are backward compatible. I sure as hell wouldn't buy one unless I could play it in my ghetto blaster.
Take another look. He said Lindows could still lose the case, not Microsoft. I don't really know which way your argument cuts, though. Trademarks are funky, so anything could happen.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who enjoys
earthquakes. They are by far the coolest natural disaster. You never know if it's gonna go big, or just peter off. Very, very exciting stuff. Also, you have no advanced warning. It's not like all those weather ones, where you can feel it coming. More like volcano's in that regard.
Sure it sucks when a really big one hits. But I've been here 25 years and in that time, there's been one damage causing quake in norcal and one in socal. Not too bad. Hardly not enough to live in fear. Shit, lots of things can kill you, and happen more often that once every twenty years.
Plus they remind me of that scene from 12 Monkeys, where Brad Pitt says "when my father gets angry, the ground shakes!"
And you sir are an imbecil! :)
I am a lawyer, and as such I know what a contract is. Last time I checked, it requires mutual consideration. If you allow people to download your software for fee, it's a gift, not a contract.
Maybe you should check your facts before calling someone a moron.
Pity the fool who moderated this up. The sig, while not funny, is clearly meant to be a joke. There are thousands of pathetic sigs like it throughout slashtopia. I think it all is based on the Far Side Comic with the caption "Midvale School of Gifted" where the door says push and the mentle giant is pulling for the life of him and can't get in.
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/audigy/page 5.asp
here's a synopsis: audigy only provides 2 watts, you could damage your audigy by trying to power devices off of it.