It's not offtopic, it's IN the topic. Look up there at the article, "from the small-in-japan dept." As in "Is that a reference to alphaville's first big hit 'Big in Japan', or something else?" I was asking a question.
... of why unions shouldn't be allowed anywhere near facilities which have the capacity for posing a serious hazard. Politics are OK in some places. A BSL-4 facility (or a nuclear reactor) is not one of them.
#AnimeJunkies, for those of you not familiar with them, is a fansubbing group that specializes in being very quick to release, very poor in quality, and very unscrupulous. They clearly don't do much in the way of editing their translations.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head with the "no competition, no options, no incentive" problem. There's little competition on broadband, and the barriers for competition are high, and the existing monopolies have little reason to improve their systems or make their prices fair.
Can someone is can make subtitles near to or exceeding professional quality ones for free? Translating, editing, timing, and typesetting? They can and they do. That is why fansubs exist. Do they bother with sound? No, because dubs are very difficult to get even close to comparable with the original language, if at all, but subs are easy and require only a little quality control. In fact, the original producers would be wise to cultivate and sponsor these international volunteers to do the the translations and editing for them (because timing and typesetting are the most technical parts but can be applied to all the translations). Plus, unlike sound subtitles require a negligible amount of bytes compared to the video.
Can someone distribute content for essentially no cost to the producer? Perhaps you ought to read the article again. Obviously the answer is yes. This is why digital fansubs are far more widespread and popular than the old VHS variety ever was. This is why the parent of this thread was referring to articles that describe how indy bands and movies can make themselves known and spread their work.
Are international menus hard/expensive to make? No, unless you make it difficult for yourself in the first place. Frankly, I'm really only interested in watching the show, and a lot of the overly flashy and slow menus out there only make things annoying. Do you even need menus for online distribution? No, since generally it's just a single movie/song/album/file. How about packaging? No.
What about when electronic distribution is not available, i.e. poor countries? Well, those guys on the blankets on the sidewalks seem to be able to manage. Certainly I've seen a few bootlegs from Hong Kong in my time with laugably bad english but probably decent chinese, and they manage. In both cases they seem to be catering to people who are priced completely out of the legitimate market rather than simply unable to access it due to a lack of translation. Which is where black markets have always taken over.
The way I figure it, with this bittorrent-RSS combination and a slight modification of torrent watching sites like animesuki we will essentially have a fansubbed anime online tivo at our disposal. Actually, you could have probably done that even without RSS, though it does simplify matters. The only limitations are our bandwidth and hard drives. Which actually are pretty limiting these days, especially with p2p being frequently capped.
Hell, you could modify an actual TiVo with broadband for exactly this sort of thing, and it needn't be limited solely to anime either. I'm sure it'll be popular with overseas watchers of American TV as well.
The international media and internet companies need to face facts and realize that Video On Demand is a reality and is already extremely popular - but that the shows people are demanding are not the ones the companies have been providing through their own limited, misfocused, and (most importantly) redundant services. Until we see simultaneous worldwide release of all media (including DVDs released simultaneously with the theatrical release) they will find themselves losing what should have been their easiest sales - those to impatiently eager fans.
Since data sent equals data recieved within a BT swarm, and some people will act as seeders and continue to send more data than they recieved, you will always have people who will simply not have the opportunity to contribute to the swarm, mostly at the tail end. And of course many folks have their uploads limited or even completely cut off.
The real problem with bittorrent is that by enabling efficient transfer of large files, people are transferring larger files. And the service providers simply do not have the capacity for everyone to be sending those large files. They may advertise unlimited access but kids they really aren't set up for it. To say nothing of the fact that the way the internet is structured now is no longer geared towards everyone being as able to send as well as they are to recieve.
Really, the internet and its billing structure should be geared towards billing by amount received, and not amount served, and widespread implementation of load-sharing protocols like bittorrent. It would be far more efficient and fair, and would encourage people to limit their consumption rather than penalizing inadvertently popular unsupported sites.
You're probably correct, but Dihydrogen Monoxide carries the all important "two hydrogens, one oxygen", which should be decodable to anyone with high school language skills. Hydrogen hydroxide could fool people who don't know what hydroxide means, and therefore isn't quite as damning.
But if they wanted to actually pay them a competitive wage they'd have to raise taxes, and that just wouldn't sit well with the ric... I mean vot... I mean middle class.
Better to piss off a few people who weren't going to support you anyway than to piss off a lot of people who might.
As usual, the Japanese are way ahead of us, but I reckon Russian Sex Roulette is bound to catch on soon. People are already worrying less about AIDS thanks to the new treatments. It'll be like the 70s all over again.
Also, what happens if you have a heating outage and your supply lines (that are built into the wall) break from freeze expansion? God, what a repair nightmare.
Oh, good point. That shouldn't be an issue with sewage though.
From what you're saying though, these are problems with all concrete structures. Also in my personal experience, the rapid pace of technology is requiring houses to be rewired, which is an expensive pain. IMHO modern homes should make utility lines accessible and leave room for expansion, perhaps by putting them under the floor or in the wall in a manner which can be easily accessed. Say, by having a channel at the base of every wall behind a baseboard where the lines and pipes can run. Then all you have to do is remove the baseboard to make changes. Although you might want to keep water and electricity separate.
Well that would be the advantage of using adobe - clay and straw (and sometimes sand) are pretty easy to come by and extremely cheap. And the cookie-cutter issue can be easily avoided since this is free-form CAM; if you really wanted to get into it you could actually make semi-random housing and neighborhoods determined by the local topology, the client's requirements, and a general pattern language.
The sewer lines, at least, could be directly built into the walls and slab. No pipes required!
Uh, I'm not so sure that's a good idea. Certainly not for concrete and adobe, which are both porous to a degree. And aside from that, I'd really feel better if my sewage was passing through a completely separate system.
Anyway, a house printer would only have to leave the relevant gaps or channels in the wall for running utilities through. Or you could just drill in. Mind you, this is just for the overall shape of the house; the interior and exterior surfaces would probably be handled separately.
I would predict that Xgrid will be finalized, and certain key programs will be utilizing it in the future. So besides the existing render farm, they'll be utilizing all the other computing power as well.
I think it'd make life pretty interesting if humans had some competition once again. Maybe give species other than humans a fighting chance for controlling their own survival. I think certain corporations might think twice about razing that forest for development if they knew they'd be running into a pack of intelligent wolves. Of course, knowing humans they won't react well.
Well, I'm off to go campaign for a constitutional amendment giving all sentient beings the vote.
I believe the most important aspect of turbo codes is that it uses signal strength in it's error-correction algorithm. It's a rather important chunk of data which allows them to refine their signal bits through parity checking to correct errors by determining which bits went wrong.
Since most smoke detectors are out in the open, they are exposed to light and therefore you could use a cheap photovoltaic panel that charges a good capacitor for nightime. Seeing as how they run for months on one battery, it'd probably be enough.
Personally I prefer this hand-powered flashlight. Squeezing is a much more natural motion than shaking or winding, though it requires an extra gear or two.
While I'm on the subject, pretty much any device that you use infreqently and for short periods is a good candidate for cranking. IMHO, those noisy, em-field producing, plug stealing or battery eating electric toothbrushes they have these days are really good candidates for this - twist the handle until it stops, and it brushes your teeth for one minute. The kids'll love it. Also shavers, cameras, and yes, vibrators.
In addition, micropower devices don't even need cranks, and could get their power just from piezo electric button-pushing or shaking, or photovoltaics. Remote controls, smart cards, calculators, watches, smoke detectors, etc.
To say nothing of mechanical devices that don't need to be electric.
Really, there's way too many wasteful items requiring expensive, toxic batteries that would require replacing. Hell, how about an exercise bike that plugs into the wall to put power back in the grid?
If I had been here sooner I would have mentioned it. It even looks kind of similar. Probably where the inventers got the idea. Oh well. I guess when the robots finally do go on a rampage, they'll be doing it in Japan *sigh*. They're so far ahead of us in gadgetry.
That's $200 you're whipping out in front of everyone. So easy to lose, and so tempting to steal (even if they can't get the data in it).
Here's what would make more sense: All credit/debit cards require the reader to verify and register the purchase. Instead you open up a meta-account with a debit card that you register ALL your cards and bank accounts with, and then use just that card, allowing the meta-account to distribute your money for maximum savings or returns. Since interest is compounded daily, paying/investing daily could save/make you a fair chunk of change. Hell, just make it a free government service and make it your driver's license or id, so you don't have to carry anything extra.
Saw one of these at an Apple Store. By then I had already determined that it WAS in fact quite competitive with the 256mb players price wise, was about the same size, and of course had much more space to boot. And therefore, the price was appropriate and I thought it would sell well.
Anyway, after seeing it in person I realized something important - it's better designed than the regular iPod too! Firstly it's lighter and smaller - in fact I'd say the mini's size is probably optimal and they won't go smaller in the future. The rounded aluminum case feels and looks a lot nicer and more durable. The colors are a nice touch. And most importantly, the new scroll wheel and button layout is much better than the current white pods. You no longer have to move your thumb out of the wheel area to hit any of the buttons, as the scroll wheel itself now operates kind of like a d-pad for button operation in addition to the touch-sensitive scrolling, producing some nice tactile feedback. Try it for yourself to see what I mean. The (patented) iPod scroll wheel is the critical feature that makes the iPod's design worlds better than the alternatives, and they've improved it.
So to sum up, the mini is wonderful from the design area, especially in the tactile sense. They really hit the sweet spot this time.
I must admit, after handling it I was tempted to buy, but I've been waiting for an iPod to go under $200 and I'll wait longer if I have to. I don't listen to music enough to justify more than that.
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Was that an alphaville reference?
It's not offtopic, it's IN the topic. Look up there at the article, "from the small-in-japan dept." As in "Is that a reference to alphaville's first big hit 'Big in Japan', or something else?" I was asking a question.
Was that an alphaville reference?
... of why unions shouldn't be allowed anywhere near facilities which have the capacity for posing a serious hazard. Politics are OK in some places. A BSL-4 facility (or a nuclear reactor) is not one of them.
Proofread. Always proofread. Sigh.
#AnimeJunkies, for those of you not familiar with them, is a fansubbing group that specializes in being very quick to release, very poor in quality, and very unscrupulous. They clearly don't do much in the way of editing their translations.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head with the "no competition, no options, no incentive" problem. There's little competition on broadband, and the barriers for competition are high, and the existing monopolies have little reason to improve their systems or make their prices fair.
Large amounts?
Can someone is can make subtitles near to or exceeding professional quality ones for free? Translating, editing, timing, and typesetting? They can and they do. That is why fansubs exist. Do they bother with sound? No, because dubs are very difficult to get even close to comparable with the original language, if at all, but subs are easy and require only a little quality control. In fact, the original producers would be wise to cultivate and sponsor these international volunteers to do the the translations and editing for them (because timing and typesetting are the most technical parts but can be applied to all the translations). Plus, unlike sound subtitles require a negligible amount of bytes compared to the video.
Can someone distribute content for essentially no cost to the producer? Perhaps you ought to read the article again. Obviously the answer is yes. This is why digital fansubs are far more widespread and popular than the old VHS variety ever was. This is why the parent of this thread was referring to articles that describe how indy bands and movies can make themselves known and spread their work.
Are international menus hard/expensive to make? No, unless you make it difficult for yourself in the first place. Frankly, I'm really only interested in watching the show, and a lot of the overly flashy and slow menus out there only make things annoying. Do you even need menus for online distribution? No, since generally it's just a single movie/song/album/file. How about packaging? No.
What about when electronic distribution is not available, i.e. poor countries? Well, those guys on the blankets on the sidewalks seem to be able to manage. Certainly I've seen a few bootlegs from Hong Kong in my time with laugably bad english but probably decent chinese, and they manage. In both cases they seem to be catering to people who are priced completely out of the legitimate market rather than simply unable to access it due to a lack of translation. Which is where black markets have always taken over.
The way I figure it, with this bittorrent-RSS combination and a slight modification of torrent watching sites like animesuki we will essentially have a fansubbed anime online tivo at our disposal. Actually, you could have probably done that even without RSS, though it does simplify matters. The only limitations are our bandwidth and hard drives. Which actually are pretty limiting these days, especially with p2p being frequently capped.
Hell, you could modify an actual TiVo with broadband for exactly this sort of thing, and it needn't be limited solely to anime either. I'm sure it'll be popular with overseas watchers of American TV as well.
The international media and internet companies need to face facts and realize that Video On Demand is a reality and is already extremely popular - but that the shows people are demanding are not the ones the companies have been providing through their own limited, misfocused, and (most importantly) redundant services. Until we see simultaneous worldwide release of all media (including DVDs released simultaneously with the theatrical release) they will find themselves losing what should have been their easiest sales - those to impatiently eager fans.
Since data sent equals data recieved within a BT swarm, and some people will act as seeders and continue to send more data than they recieved, you will always have people who will simply not have the opportunity to contribute to the swarm, mostly at the tail end. And of course many folks have their uploads limited or even completely cut off.
The real problem with bittorrent is that by enabling efficient transfer of large files, people are transferring larger files. And the service providers simply do not have the capacity for everyone to be sending those large files. They may advertise unlimited access but kids they really aren't set up for it. To say nothing of the fact that the way the internet is structured now is no longer geared towards everyone being as able to send as well as they are to recieve.
Really, the internet and its billing structure should be geared towards billing by amount received, and not amount served, and widespread implementation of load-sharing protocols like bittorrent. It would be far more efficient and fair, and would encourage people to limit their consumption rather than penalizing inadvertently popular unsupported sites.
You're probably correct, but Dihydrogen Monoxide carries the all important "two hydrogens, one oxygen", which should be decodable to anyone with high school language skills. Hydrogen hydroxide could fool people who don't know what hydroxide means, and therefore isn't quite as damning.
But if they wanted to actually pay them a competitive wage they'd have to raise taxes, and that just wouldn't sit well with the ric... I mean vot... I mean middle class.
Better to piss off a few people who weren't going to support you anyway than to piss off a lot of people who might.
As usual, the Japanese are way ahead of us, but I reckon Russian Sex Roulette is bound to catch on soon. People are already worrying less about AIDS thanks to the new treatments. It'll be like the 70s all over again.
Also, what happens if you have a heating outage and your supply lines (that are built into the wall) break from freeze expansion? God, what a repair nightmare.
Oh, good point. That shouldn't be an issue with sewage though.
From what you're saying though, these are problems with all concrete structures. Also in my personal experience, the rapid pace of technology is requiring houses to be rewired, which is an expensive pain. IMHO modern homes should make utility lines accessible and leave room for expansion, perhaps by putting them under the floor or in the wall in a manner which can be easily accessed. Say, by having a channel at the base of every wall behind a baseboard where the lines and pipes can run. Then all you have to do is remove the baseboard to make changes. Although you might want to keep water and electricity separate.
Well that would be the advantage of using adobe - clay and straw (and sometimes sand) are pretty easy to come by and extremely cheap. And the cookie-cutter issue can be easily avoided since this is free-form CAM; if you really wanted to get into it you could actually make semi-random housing and neighborhoods determined by the local topology, the client's requirements, and a general pattern language.
The sewer lines, at least, could be directly built into the walls and slab. No pipes required!
Uh, I'm not so sure that's a good idea. Certainly not for concrete and adobe, which are both porous to a degree. And aside from that, I'd really feel better if my sewage was passing through a completely separate system.
Anyway, a house printer would only have to leave the relevant gaps or channels in the wall for running utilities through. Or you could just drill in. Mind you, this is just for the overall shape of the house; the interior and exterior surfaces would probably be handled separately.
Reconstruct? I'd be more interested in modifying it. Just a brief glimpse of Jar-Jar Binks being savaged by the Toy Story cast would be worth it.
I would predict that Xgrid will be finalized, and certain key programs will be utilizing it in the future. So besides the existing render farm, they'll be utilizing all the other computing power as well.
I think it'd make life pretty interesting if humans had some competition once again. Maybe give species other than humans a fighting chance for controlling their own survival. I think certain corporations might think twice about razing that forest for development if they knew they'd be running into a pack of intelligent wolves. Of course, knowing humans they won't react well.
Well, I'm off to go campaign for a constitutional amendment giving all sentient beings the vote.
I believe the most important aspect of turbo codes is that it uses signal strength in it's error-correction algorithm. It's a rather important chunk of data which allows them to refine their signal bits through parity checking to correct errors by determining which bits went wrong.
Since most smoke detectors are out in the open, they are exposed to light and therefore you could use a cheap photovoltaic panel that charges a good capacitor for nightime. Seeing as how they run for months on one battery, it'd probably be enough.
Personally I prefer this hand-powered flashlight. Squeezing is a much more natural motion than shaking or winding, though it requires an extra gear or two.
While I'm on the subject, pretty much any device that you use infreqently and for short periods is a good candidate for cranking. IMHO, those noisy, em-field producing, plug stealing or battery eating electric toothbrushes they have these days are really good candidates for this - twist the handle until it stops, and it brushes your teeth for one minute. The kids'll love it. Also shavers, cameras, and yes, vibrators.
In addition, micropower devices don't even need cranks, and could get their power just from piezo electric button-pushing or shaking, or photovoltaics. Remote controls, smart cards, calculators, watches, smoke detectors, etc.
To say nothing of mechanical devices that don't need to be electric.
Really, there's way too many wasteful items requiring expensive, toxic batteries that would require replacing. Hell, how about an exercise bike that plugs into the wall to put power back in the grid?
If I had been here sooner I would have mentioned it. It even looks kind of similar. Probably where the inventers got the idea. Oh well. I guess when the robots finally do go on a rampage, they'll be doing it in Japan *sigh*. They're so far ahead of us in gadgetry.
That's $200 you're whipping out in front of everyone. So easy to lose, and so tempting to steal (even if they can't get the data in it).
Here's what would make more sense: All credit/debit cards require the reader to verify and register the purchase. Instead you open up a meta-account with a debit card that you register ALL your cards and bank accounts with, and then use just that card, allowing the meta-account to distribute your money for maximum savings or returns. Since interest is compounded daily, paying/investing daily could save/make you a fair chunk of change. Hell, just make it a free government service and make it your driver's license or id, so you don't have to carry anything extra.
Oh, and if you lose it you're not out $200.
If one card served both functions, I would lose food and shelter when I lost it.
This is what's known as natural selection.
Saw one of these at an Apple Store. By then I had already determined that it WAS in fact quite competitive with the 256mb players price wise, was about the same size, and of course had much more space to boot. And therefore, the price was appropriate and I thought it would sell well.
Anyway, after seeing it in person I realized something important - it's better designed than the regular iPod too! Firstly it's lighter and smaller - in fact I'd say the mini's size is probably optimal and they won't go smaller in the future. The rounded aluminum case feels and looks a lot nicer and more durable. The colors are a nice touch. And most importantly, the new scroll wheel and button layout is much better than the current white pods. You no longer have to move your thumb out of the wheel area to hit any of the buttons, as the scroll wheel itself now operates kind of like a d-pad for button operation in addition to the touch-sensitive scrolling, producing some nice tactile feedback. Try it for yourself to see what I mean. The (patented) iPod scroll wheel is the critical feature that makes the iPod's design worlds better than the alternatives, and they've improved it.
So to sum up, the mini is wonderful from the design area, especially in the tactile sense. They really hit the sweet spot this time.
I must admit, after handling it I was tempted to buy, but I've been waiting for an iPod to go under $200 and I'll wait longer if I have to. I don't listen to music enough to justify more than that.
Totally.