The interface looks nice and iPod-y, it has the neat FM radio stuff, but::gasp:: it is still stuck in USB 1.1 land!! WTF? And I note on their site that a recent letter from the CEO says that the USB 2 version is delayed again.
Screw that, it's either FireWire or USB2 IMHO. USB1 in a modern digital media player is a huge achilles' heel these days. Yuck!!!!!
I don't know if this is where it started at Fark, but reading through the following thread by searching for all instances of "cocoa" will surely give you a laugh (and explain the reference adequately)
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLi nk =763896
Can we please stop it with the "OS X *just works*" posts? And the "beauty of OS X" posts too? I think we all get the point already. geez! I'd rather stick to an OS that I don't want to f**k.
-exasperated rationalizing Linux geek stuck on an x86 box
It's still pretty new. I did some tests in QuickTime on this OS X box here, and it seems pretty neat. I haven't tried loading the image in a browser, though. You'd have to Google it. It's still coming around.
It's great because it 1) uses wavelet compression and 2) has two modes, lossy and lossless and 3) the lossy compression is an order of magnitude better than regular JPEG.
I know about lossless codecs. People bittorrent lossless-encoded concerts and stuff all the time. Perhaps in 20 years when we all have 50 terabyte drives, lossless codecs will be the norm. Until then, I'll stick to much more manageable lossy formats, just like all my pictures are in JPEG and I don't seem to mind. (incidentally, JPEG2000 is awesome.)
re: 128kbit MP3 and CD- Duh. I was talking about 128kbit AAC. 128kbit MP3 is crap.
re: 192kbps: DVD audio, as I understand it, is 192kbit. So much for an audiophile DVD system. So I never encode above 192 since I think the extra fruitiness it provides is not provably worth it (a matter of preference I guess)
If you want to talk about lossy, the digital encoding process itself is lossy, when going from analog. You chop up a theoretically smooth signal into sampled bits. 44KHz will sound better than 22KHz, but I suppose 88KHz would be even better, you know?
There's almost no certifiable reason to rip at any higher kbps than 128k since almost no one can distinguish between that and the original CD source material.
I suppose, though, that if, down the line, you want to be able to convert from this to some OTHER heretofore unknown and as-yet-undiscovered better codec, preserving the extra tiny tidbit of audio information might be OK.
Me, I use 112kbps, since it lets me pack tons of music in (i have 10,000+ songs) and I still can't notice a loss in quality.
I just downloaded and installed it on an old HP Pavilion here. Looks and operates EXACTLY like on my big-screen Mac. Rendezvous sharing works as advertised, and is awesome. Seamless with my Macs. Imports exactly the same and works fine. Playback seems static-y but that seems OS-related (?) (will troubleshoot; it's not in the data since they stream fine to the Mac) (Update: Oh, now I actually hear some static in the data now; will have to look at that more in a bit.)
I think this thing will still be huge.
Possible upcoming issues: 1) Exposure to a plethora of Windoze hackers who will now come after the authorization tech that Apple uses for.m4p files (although the incentive for that might be low due to being able to burn and re-rip the audio to.m4a) 2) Can you say "windows corporate LAN"? 400 people sharing their local tunes? d'oh! WAN people will start cursing very soon... either that or the mass email chatter of people's criticism of their coworkers' musical tastes will flood Lotus Notes... 3).m4a files flooding the P2P networks, starting now 4) AAC plugins for winamp 2 and foobar2000 are already out there
Ahhh, 1997. The Mac hardware was opened up, Mac clone production was in full swing, and PowerComputing was a scrappy Mac maker. But the clones made such good business that they cannibalized Apple sales significantly... but the Mac market as a whole (when you looked at sales figures) was growing! However, the f***ing stupid media continuted to report on Apple sales alone, time after time, and the PERCEPTION that Mac sales were declining was starting to hurt ALL mac and mac-compatible sales, so Jobs got out the axe.
As a side note, PowerComputing had the best advertising I have ever seen. They even had a sense of humor- when Jobs axed the clones, PowerComputing ran a full-page ad with a pic of a teenager giving his license to a cop, with the caption "Our license got revoked!"
I'm pretty sure that was supposed to be marked "Score: 3, Funny" and not "Score 3:, Interesting"... or?
HyperCard technology lives on in these products...
on
Interview with John Scully
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Runtime Revolution
Compile on any platform, to any platform- including a ton of *nix variants. A very nice cross-platform rapid application development tool with a very complete set of functionality (interface, database, tcp/ip ports, etc.), all coded in a HyperTalk-descended language.
X-Builder
Mostly designed for multimedia, I don't know as much about this one...
There is a program called Little Snitch if you are using Mac OS X which is a fantastic anti-spyware tool, alerting you to all outgoing connections before they occur. You can create complex rulesets to determine what to allow or block, on-the-fly.
Being paid more to work less is something the first and second worlds are enjoying more than the third world.
If we allow free markets, IN THE SHORT TERM we in the "first world" would experience a decline in pay for the same work while the other economies play a sort of "catch up" to us. However IN THE LONG TERM, everyone would be up to speed (or nearly) and EVERYONE would gain MORE from everyone being up to speed, than in the current situation!
It's the "lamprey brain" one. (whoops, confused "lamprey" with "nematode"). Unfortunately, the destination of the link is no longer there. maybe google has a cache?
And I can't believe it's been 5 years already since I saw that! Frickin' time flies when you're in a cubicle...
I went to a "BOOM" conference at Cornell...
on
AI Going Nowhere?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
(Bits On Our Mind, an exhibition of some undergrad and graduate computer science work)...and I headed STRAIGHT for the nematode booth. You see, I had heard that some clever Cornellian had created a simulation of the entire neural network of a nematode. The way I saw it, there was nothing else there that could possibly be more interesting than that.
So I found myself standing in front of a computer screen. It was a worm swimming through water! In 3D! In real time! After I pushed my jaw shut, I began to ask the genius student some questions...
"Is that real-time?" "Well, actually, no, that is a 10 second looping clip that took a week to calculate."
"Well, I see a neural map there. Is that complete?" "Well, actually, no, that is a simplified version of the real nematode nervous system, on the order of about 1 simulated neuron to 10 actual neurons."
"So you simulate neurons! That's awesome. Let's see the code." (He proceeds to flip through 4-5 pages of very sophisticated-looking mathematical equations to describe the behavior of ONE neuron.)
What a let-down! No wonder Minsky is pissed, real AI is HARD!:P
...we can put in our dating preferences in some GPS dating service and find the nearest single young brunette who likes to, say, be smitten on the buttocks?;)
Just wanted to say hello to a complete dolt who needs to get out more and is making Apple fans look bad. Thank you, you have done a great disservice to the community with your fanatic ravings. Perhaps someone should develop the iVag attachment so you can have an outlet for your objectum sexuality.
You know what pisses me off? Every single person on this forum who is knee-jerk replying with "awww, I guess we shouldn't violate ANYONE'S privacy who commits THEFT" manages to have done 2 things:
Not actually read the article (there was NO COURT ORDER OR JUDGE INVOLVED yet, people!)
Never seems to reply to any of the intelligent retorts from privacy advocates here (not that all of them are).
I would hereby like to see an intelligent response from someone who thinks this issue is only about a bunch of whiny KazaaLite-users who don't want the bottomless cookie jar taken away!
(Hey, incidentally... those BitTorrent thingies ROCK.;) http://www.torrentse.cx/)
Something about this game is really cute. I bought it when it came out on Macintosh last year. The game itself is not that hard to beat, tho- but definitely a lot of fun. The idea of indirect control over your heroes is interesting. Spells are fun to watch, animations and sound are high-quality.
Slashdot Mirror
The interface looks nice and iPod-y, it has the neat FM radio stuff, but ::gasp:: it is still stuck in USB 1.1 land!! WTF? And I note on their site that a recent letter from the CEO says that the USB 2 version is delayed again.
Screw that, it's either FireWire or USB2 IMHO. USB1 in a modern digital media player is a huge achilles' heel these days. Yuck!!!!!
I don't know if this is where it started at Fark, but reading through the following thread by searching for all instances of "cocoa" will surely give you a laugh (and explain the reference adequately)
i nk =763896
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDL
Can we please stop it with the "OS X *just works*" posts? And the "beauty of OS X" posts too? I think we all get the point already. geez! I'd rather stick to an OS that I don't want to f**k.
-exasperated rationalizing Linux geek stuck on an x86 box
LOL at Farkism used on Slashdot. LOL at only one person getting it.
Hey, I have an excuse for all of my websurfing, I'm currently unemployed...
I chose to surf this one at -1. Masochism?
Holy crap, are there a bunch of freakin weirdos out there! Is it always like this?
Some of these people need a beat-down...
It's still pretty new. I did some tests in QuickTime on this OS X box here, and it seems pretty neat. I haven't tried loading the image in a browser, though. You'd have to Google it. It's still coming around.
It's great because it 1) uses wavelet compression and 2) has two modes, lossy and lossless and 3) the lossy compression is an order of magnitude better than regular JPEG.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I know about lossless codecs. People bittorrent lossless-encoded concerts and stuff all the time. Perhaps in 20 years when we all have 50 terabyte drives, lossless codecs will be the norm. Until then, I'll stick to much more manageable lossy formats, just like all my pictures are in JPEG and I don't seem to mind. (incidentally, JPEG2000 is awesome.)
re: 128kbit MP3 and CD- Duh. I was talking about 128kbit AAC. 128kbit MP3 is crap.
re: 192kbps: DVD audio, as I understand it, is 192kbit. So much for an audiophile DVD system. So I never encode above 192 since I think the extra fruitiness it provides is not provably worth it (a matter of preference I guess)
If you want to talk about lossy, the digital encoding process itself is lossy, when going from analog. You chop up a theoretically smooth signal into sampled bits. 44KHz will sound better than 22KHz, but I suppose 88KHz would be even better, you know?
There's almost no certifiable reason to rip at any higher kbps than 128k since almost no one can distinguish between that and the original CD source material.
I suppose, though, that if, down the line, you want to be able to convert from this to some OTHER heretofore unknown and as-yet-undiscovered better codec, preserving the extra tiny tidbit of audio information might be OK.
Me, I use 112kbps, since it lets me pack tons of music in (i have 10,000+ songs) and I still can't notice a loss in quality.
I just downloaded and installed it on an old HP Pavilion here. Looks and operates EXACTLY like on my big-screen Mac. Rendezvous sharing works as advertised, and is awesome. Seamless with my Macs. Imports exactly the same and works fine. Playback seems static-y but that seems OS-related (?) (will troubleshoot; it's not in the data since they stream fine to the Mac) (Update: Oh, now I actually hear some static in the data now; will have to look at that more in a bit.)
.m4p files (although the incentive for that might be low due to being able to burn and re-rip the audio to .m4a) .m4a files flooding the P2P networks, starting now
I think this thing will still be huge.
Possible upcoming issues:
1) Exposure to a plethora of Windoze hackers who will now come after the authorization tech that Apple uses for
2) Can you say "windows corporate LAN"? 400 people sharing their local tunes? d'oh! WAN people will start cursing very soon... either that or the mass email chatter of people's criticism of their coworkers' musical tastes will flood Lotus Notes...
3)
4) AAC plugins for winamp 2 and foobar2000 are already out there
Ahhh, 1997. The Mac hardware was opened up, Mac clone production was in full swing, and PowerComputing was a scrappy Mac maker.
But the clones made such good business that they cannibalized Apple sales significantly... but the Mac market as a whole (when you looked at sales figures) was growing! However, the f***ing stupid media continuted to report on Apple sales alone, time after time, and the PERCEPTION that Mac sales were declining was starting to hurt ALL mac and mac-compatible sales, so Jobs got out the axe.
As a side note, PowerComputing had the best advertising I have ever seen. They even had a sense of humor- when Jobs axed the clones, PowerComputing ran a full-page ad with a pic of a teenager giving his license to a cop, with the caption "Our license got revoked!"
fuck you asshole, it was NOT modded funny when I first looked at it, you fucking flamebait not-gettin-laid angry turd
I'm pretty sure that was supposed to be marked "Score: 3, Funny" and not "Score 3:, Interesting"... or?
Runtime Revolution
Compile on any platform, to any platform- including a ton of *nix variants. A very nice cross-platform rapid application development tool with a very complete set of functionality (interface, database, tcp/ip ports, etc.), all coded in a HyperTalk-descended language.
X-Builder
Mostly designed for multimedia, I don't know as much about this one...
There is a program called Little Snitch if you are using Mac OS X which is a fantastic anti-spyware tool, alerting you to all outgoing connections before they occur. You can create complex rulesets to determine what to allow or block, on-the-fly.
What exactly will this mean for open-source video player vlc? Looking for Mac or PC support, or a web/database developer, in the NYC area?
(SOL = Standard of Living)
It goes like this.
Being paid more to work less is something the first and second worlds are enjoying more than the third world.
If we allow free markets, IN THE SHORT TERM we in the "first world" would experience a decline in pay for the same work while the other economies play a sort of "catch up" to us. However IN THE LONG TERM, everyone would be up to speed (or nearly) and EVERYONE would gain MORE from everyone being up to speed, than in the current situation!
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/boom/1998sp/projects.htm
It's the "lamprey brain" one. (whoops, confused "lamprey" with "nematode"). Unfortunately, the destination of the link is no longer there. maybe google has a cache?
And I can't believe it's been 5 years already since I saw that! Frickin' time flies when you're in a cubicle...
(Bits On Our Mind, an exhibition of some undergrad and graduate computer science work) ...and I headed STRAIGHT for the nematode booth. You see, I had heard that some clever Cornellian had created a simulation of the entire neural network of a nematode. The way I saw it, there was nothing else there that could possibly be more interesting than that.
:P
So I found myself standing in front of a computer screen. It was a worm swimming through water! In 3D! In real time! After I pushed my jaw shut, I began to ask the genius student some questions...
"Is that real-time?" "Well, actually, no, that is a 10 second looping clip that took a week to calculate."
"Well, I see a neural map there. Is that complete?" "Well, actually, no, that is a simplified version of the real nematode nervous system, on the order of about 1 simulated neuron to 10 actual neurons."
"So you simulate neurons! That's awesome. Let's see the code." (He proceeds to flip through 4-5 pages of very sophisticated-looking mathematical equations to describe the behavior of ONE neuron.)
What a let-down! No wonder Minsky is pissed, real AI is HARD!
The way to get more games to come to Macs is to buy every one that you can, like I do.
I'm also Lectrick, the guy who originally put up the torrent file, so I like to contribute in general =)
...we can put in our dating preferences in some GPS dating service and find the nearest single young brunette who likes to, say, be smitten on the buttocks? ;)
Just wanted to say hello to a complete dolt who needs to get out more and is making Apple fans look bad. Thank you, you have done a great disservice to the community with your fanatic ravings. Perhaps someone should develop the iVag attachment so you can have an outlet for your objectum sexuality.
;)
And this coming from a Mac lover.
- Not actually read the article (there was NO COURT ORDER OR JUDGE INVOLVED yet, people!)
- Never seems to reply to any of the intelligent retorts from privacy advocates here (not that all of them are).
I would hereby like to see an intelligent response from someone who thinks this issue is only about a bunch of whiny KazaaLite-users who don't want the bottomless cookie jar taken away!(Hey, incidentally... those BitTorrent thingies ROCK.
Something about this game is really cute. I bought it when it came out on Macintosh last year. The game itself is not that hard to beat, tho- but definitely a lot of fun. The idea of indirect control over your heroes is interesting. Spells are fun to watch, animations and sound are high-quality.
My time has been wasted with being shown this link for the 3rd time now. Please read the last sentence!!
"Weekly World News will continue to follow this story as it unfolds. Keep watching for further developments."
uh... yeah...