Hmmmm... but I thought things such as books-on-CD could actually use a lower sample rate (and usually did) because speech didn't need the same quality? For example, if my voice sounds a little off-key, it is no big deal if I am just trying to hear words -- ie: high fidelity is not required for voice.
Ok, let's ignore the question of whether they work or not and actually answer the question that was asked.
Subliminal messages are in the range above conscious hearing. This is generally agreed to be 20KHz. Therefore, you would take the spoken portion, and boost it by 20KHz, then add in the music at the normal frequencies.
Now, the real trick here isn't how you record it, but how you play it back. If your audio goes up to say, 25KHz -- you better make sure your speakers/headphones go that high, or it will be a completely useless excersize.
Now, depending on what you are trying to achieve, you might try something else instead. Look into doing binaural audio beats. They are very simple to produce (20 lines of Java, for example). To work correctly, they would require headphones and for best results you do NOT mix it with any other sounds.
The goal behind the binaural audio beats is to cause your brain to resonate at the same frequency as the sounds, thus putting you in a different mental state (alpha, beta, theta, etc) which could result in a hypnogogic state (between sleep and awake) which might help achieve whatever results you are looking for.
I also started on the TRS-80, and moved to C. Other than as required for work, I never use it -- ie: never for personal stuff.
If you are open to Java, I would recommend checking out the Java Tutorial, as it will get you started with step-by-step... using it, I *never* have to deal with OS-specific APIs anymore, and regularly develop my BSD apps on my Windows box.
When whiteboarding, we sometimes flowchart -- usually just the simple (and thus VERY QUICK to draw) boxes and arrows. Rarely have we used other types, as they take more time.
However, without the whiteboard, I would have to say that I rarely do so.
Realistically, a few drives have come out that were better than DVD (the multi-layer ones, for example), but they are not currently cost effective.
If you really want a good review of products or technologies before making any decisions, I recommend checking out the posts on vcdhelp. Should be very impartial.
So, here's my 2 cents on the analysis and decision...
Back in October, the FCC ruled that the use of the word "fucking" as an adjective was not indecent
Anyone know what the ratings where for South Park episode 502: It hits the fan which has about 270+ instances of the word "shit"? Obviously, a more profane word if we are going to look at the vulgarity aspect, but they let that through as well.
The Seventh Circuit, in its most recent decision defining "profane" under section 1464, stated that the term is "construable as denoting certain of those personally reviling epithets naturally tending to provoke violent resentment or denoting language so grossly offensive to members of the public who actually hear it as to amount to a nuisance."35
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there are thousands (or more) people in the US that feel that any mention of God in a political speech is a offensive and a nuisance (as well as illegal if we consider the separation of church and state). Therefore, shouldn't any mention of God in a political campaign be considered profane?
In addition, if they want to sue someone for broadcasting profane language, don't they have to file a suit, and put the words used in the case notes? And don't those notes become public? And doesn't the media usually repeat what they are being charged with -- thus putting those same words back into broadcast?
36 Nuisance has been defined as including "a condition of things which is prejudicial to the . . . sense of decency or morals of the citizens at large . . .." Ballentine's Law Dictionary (3d ed. 1969).
I reiterate my God and South Park statements above.
We will analyze other potentially profane words or phrases on a case-by-case basis.
IE: They reserve the right to make what you said illegal AFTER THE FACT.
Personally, I can't wait until our own government (whether it be the FCC or local riot police) actually read these words and think for a moment on what they ACTUALLY say: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
I understand the concern... I used the Panasonic PowerDrive(?)... it had a caddy-based CDRW and was actually faster than my hard drive at the time. Unfortunately, I was not able to find discs for it or anything -- and after a couple years it died. When I tried to RMA it (and another Panasonic 5-disc changer), Panasonic was going to charge me $160/each to tell me if they would charge me more. As such, I don't buy their products anymore.
However, we were looking at those home-entertainment dvd-writers (tivo-like), and haven't been able to decide which one to get. And every one of them had different formats that it used. We got this drive primarily to ensure that we would be able to write discs in whatever format the new setup will have 6-months from now.
Realistically, there isn't any reason these discs should not be useable on another drive -- at least, not any more likely than using some other drive. If you have a drive that supports DVD-R, I can write it. If yours supports DVD+R, I can write it. If yours supports DVD-RAM, I can still write it.
So far, it appears that my Phillips DVD-711 (home dvd player) reads everything I have tried burning, but I have noticed that most stores no longer even carry DVD-R... I agree we need a single standard, but personally I feel it is us who should develop this standard so we aren't tied to stupid mpeg-licensing problems.
Not sure how accurate it is, but the FedEx Tracking Site shows a copyright of 1995. Perhaps ask them directly when they started doing the email notification?
You made me really curious, so while typing this up, I pulled up one of my old archives. My page was last updated on Aug 28 1995. The first link on it was to the GNA (Globalwide Network Academy) Project at MIT. I remember this project, because at the time I was responsible for going through schools request and accepting/denying them. You might consider contacting them about this issue, as I was receiving emails telling me to go on and check the status of this or that -- I am sure the schools did as well.
I seem to remember that it was quite common for an email to include a link to track the status of online submissions (adding yourself to a group, posting something, or creating a webring).
Also, shouldn't any old Bug Tracking system that would email you a link to watch the status count?
Then again, what about all those URL-watchers that would email you whenever a link changed? Those, I know, I was using back in 94 or 95.
About 6 months ago, I bought the IOMega SuperDVD USB that is supposed to be able to read/write any format.
After many platters and repeated calls to tech support, they concluded that the problem was that I was using 4x media instead of the 2.4x media they required (and BestBuy didn't sell anything slower than 4x).
Interesting thing happened though. I downloaded and tested many different programs (and demos). The only software that failed was HotBurn pro. Using Nero (demo), DVD-Lab, CD-Copy, etc -- all worked. There was something wrong with HotBurn -- and the errors it reported were HARDWARE errors...
4x and 2.4x media might very well be made from the same batch. I seem to remember that minor defects (etc) would cause them to lower the rating of the blank, but that it was actually the same discs.... don't know if it is true or not, but it makes sense.
In the same vein, I think it makes more sense that higher speed discs (thus rated as better quality) should be usuable in older/slower drives. Just because it is rated at 4x doesn't mean it can't be written at 2x.
So, overall, I think the problem is shotty software....
I agree. I spent quite a bit of time posting my comments the last time this came up. Obviously, all of our comments were completely ignored, or there is no way it would have passed.
Well, if we are talking about UTF-8, the number of bytes is determined by the code point you are trying to represent -- and the specific bytes specify if there is another byte following or not. I have done an implementation converting to/from UTF-8, and it is really very simplistic. However, whether there is 2-3 bytes, 4 bytes, or even 6 bytes is determined by which codepoint is being represented.
it's less portable (because JVMs are less widely ported than Python)
What platforms is Java NOT ported to?
I know it is available for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, AS/400, Handhelds (Palm, Handspring, SaveJe, etc), and direct hardware (PTCU and TINI)... What's missing?
All ISPs should be capable of supporting Unicode email. For example, a quick google shows that SquirrelMail, WebMail, et cetera all support it.
Likelyhood is that it just needs configured... For example, look under "Text Encoding" here.
Re:Yes but what about bluetooth?
on
The Universal Card
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Another response from some questions I asked.
***** License and Other Photro IDs If we have an agreement in place with the AAMVA (American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators) or the individual state MVD, it will be the official license image. Otherwise, it will be your photo associated with a Driver's License number. In about 15 states, the license is simply a tool to use in a police cruiser to check the state license database to see if the license is current and in good standing. In those states, a Chameleon Card may be accepted sooner than it is elsewhere.
Fees There are no fees for use of the card and we do not take any percentage of a transaction (in fact while our Chameleon Card may be used in a transaction, we would be unaware that such a transaction ever took place). Depending on what services a consumer opts in for, there could be monthly charges for the use of the Pocket Vault (updating, backup, promotions and discounts, etc.). If the consumer does not opt in, there will be no further charges.
Loading Non-financial Cards You will be able to load any card with a magnetic stripe, bar code, smart card chip or typed information card, most photo ID cards, and many (though not all) RFID cards (e.g., contactless cards for parking garages and building access). In some states, you will be able to load your driver's license, in others, we will need to establish a relationship with the Dept. of Motor Vehicles to enable this feature.
Todd O. Burger President & CEO
Chameleon Network Inc. 30 Monument Square, Suite 300 Concord, MA 01742-1858
> Two of us have been having a very lengthy discussion about GPL, > what it does or does not allow, the Spirit vs. Law of the GPL, etc. > > A couple quick questions, if you don't mind. > > 1) If I am writing a Grep utility, and look at GPLd source to design my > non-GPL (say, BSD or Apache) version, > is that breaking the Spirit or the Law of the GPL?
Look: no. Copy: yes.
> 2) I create a GUI. In that GUI, I have a Find button. That find button > launches a GPL'd version of Grep to do the work. > Is that breaking the GPL if I do not make my GUI GPL? If the Grep was > LGPL, same question.
We believe that if you invoke grep via fork/exec, that's probably not a violation of the GPL. But if you are linking statically or dynamically to grep, that would be a violation of the GPL.
The LGPL would allow any of these, but with certain conditions on the latter two (see section 6 of the LGPL for details)
> 3) If I were to create a Grep utility that was 10 times faster than > anything out there -- wouldn't it be better for the community/world > as a whole to release it under a BSD-like license instead of a GPL-like > license so that all software (OSs, Search Engines, etc) > would be faster? Wouldn't it actually benefit more people using a BSD > license than a GPL license?
No. However, it's not always easy to see why. Your question focusses on a specific case. If we were going to live in a world where proprietary software dominated, and the purpose of Free Software were to improve proprietary software generally, then a non-copyleft license would be appropriate. But the GPL offers another option: creating a commons of sharing which allows everyone to benefit, but allows nobody to exclude others. The GPL is the engine of this commons.
From an iterated prisoners dilemma perspective, Proprietary software is All-D, BSD is All-C, and the GPL is TFT. (I just noticed this analogy, and am not sure how strong it is).
Once again, the point is that many companies prefer to contribute to GPL licensed projects.
That may be true. Obviously, neither of us have worked for every company. However, I can tell you that every company I have worked for forbade GPL, but have encouraged me to contribute to multiple projects using Apache, BSD and SCSL licensing. Actually, even a few LGPL.
Exactly how does it skew the results? This wasn't an election. He was collecting arguments and attempting to understand why corporate sponsors seemed to prefer GPL licensed projects.
If I go and collect the opinions of all the people on the JCP (whom all use different licenses) or just Java-using companies in general, the results would be just the opposite. The statistics don't mean much if they are not truly representative.
For one thing, you have failed to distinguish between running code and integrating it into proprietary applications.
For something like the Grep utility, there is no difference if it is run from a GUI find-button; as I understand it. We will know for sure when licensing@gnu.org replies to me.
I can understand you not wanting Microsoft to steal your code. When I first signed onto the IBM Developer site back in... 1994? There was a part of the license agreement that said you could not release any of the information to Microsoft (because of the OS2/Windows scandal). Everyone is afraid of Microsoft stealing their code and claiming it to be their own. I just don't honestly think any license will stop them, since they seem to break them all the time. Sure, they end up in never-ending lawsuits, but they still do it.
, NetBSD and OpenBSD all ship GPL licensed applications in their distribution. I am sure you are using plenty of GPL applications on your FreeBSD machine without even knowing it.
Yes, I know there is some GPL software on my box. My statement was just that the GPL-community is mostly made up of Linux-users. There are others, Windows users for example; but GPL and Linux go hand-in-hand. I think the percentage of GPL software on ANY Linux distro is going to be MUCH higher than it is on my FreeBSD or Windows box.
The quasi-religious schizm you imagine is mostly fictional among the people who do the heavy lifting.
When contributing to the Apache Ant project, they insisted I not event look at GPL code. Every software project I have worked on has insisted I not read GPL source. How is this imaginary?
A copyleft license is in some sense an attempt to bring about exactly the result you claim to want. A world where all code was released under the GPL would not be much different from a world where all code was in the public domain. What a shame that you are incapable of putting two and two together on this point.
That is an interesting point. At first glance, one would say that the difference is that Public Domain does not limit what you can do with the code -- but if any derivative was forced to be public domain, then you are right, it would be similar to GPL.
I think where the difference comes in is that, until such a point where ALL code is such, there is a huge difference. I can use public domain for any project I am hired onto, but I can not use GPL code for those same projects. That doesn't mean Proprietary, even free software like Apache Ant as I mentioned earlier.
So, while we agree with the end-result, there is a difference until then.
Why is over half (and that's a conservative estimate) of all free software covered by the GPL if that license harms the community?
While that may be true on the Linux platform, I do not believe that to be accurate on either my Windows or BSD box. MOST of the software on my BSD box is free and NOT GPL.
Companies that "can't" use GPL licensed software in general are simply those who have been misled by ignorant statements of the sort you are making.
I don't see how it is ignorant of Intel to tell me that I can not browse, say GPLd networking code, when working on their proprietary networked application.
At the same time, if a company wants to release a product under the Apache license or BSD license, I do not think it ignorant of them to prevent me from looking at GPL source when writing those programs.
Do you disagree? Are you saying it is OK for me to scavenge code from GPL software to make other non-GPL free software? You make it seem like GPL is the only 'free' solution. Even IBM has their own open source license.
You violate neither the letter nor the spirit of the GPL by downloading code, studying it and using ideas to inspire your own independent and original work. Go to the FSF philosophy pages and do some reading before making comments on the spirit of the license.
Hmmm.. I looked at that page, and I see nothing wrong with it or the linked Categories of Free Software (which GPL is just one of). However, nothing on either of those pages show anything about the "Spirit of the GPL". However, a quick search of Google OR Slashdot will show that people quite regularly complain about projectX or licenseY breaking the Spirit of the GPL.
It is my understanding, and I would assume that of everyone I have worked for due to their constraints, AND most people who have complained about GPL-violations; that you are not supposed to use GPL source for ANYTHING unless you make the resulting work GPL. Perhaps this is an issue that would be better resolved directly with licensing@gnu.org, with whom I will email directly to get clarification.
First, if you make your application free software using a GPL compatible license (such as the BSD license without advertising clause) you can link with that vast body of GPL licensed code I mentioned.
And can that resulting application be BSD-licensed? NO! It has to be GPL'd.
That means fewer wheels reinvented and more time to focus on other aspects of the application.
However, if the code was Public Domain, then NO ONE would question that everyone could use it without reinventing the wheel. GPL does not add this capability -- since Public Domain (BSD, etc) all have been around with that same incentive long before GPL.
Second, if you actually use the GPL you need not fear that your competitors will take your application, improve upon it and use your own work against you in the marketplace without making their changes available in turn.
I don't agree. First of all, there is the whole argument that MicroSoft breaks their license agreements all the time anyways -- that doesn't change.
Even outside of that, if I have some project, say, NetBeansX as GPL -- someone can fork that code, and take all the developers to create EclipseX and thus my project is ground to a halt. Just because they are non-proprietary doesn't make them non-competitors.
I accept that this sort of thing is beyond your understanding and I don't expect to penetrate your closed mind on the matter.
No need to resort to name calling. Keep in mind that most BSD-advocates would say the same thing about you.
Still, if this incentive is so inscrutable, how do you explain the preponderance of GPL licensed code out there?
How do you explain the amount of code released under NON-GPL, ie: BSD, MIT, Apache, Artistic, Public Domain, Simtelnet, etc etc. You make it sound like GPL is the #1 license out there -- but that is only true for the linux
Re:Yes but what about bluetooth?
on
The Universal Card
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I contacted them with some questions. Here is their replies:
*****
Dear Malachi,
Three-digit credit card security codes will appear on the Pocket Vault screen when you press the "card details" icon. For any card that is currently "issued" or active on the Chameleon Card, the Pocket Vault will then display the security pin and available credit and card balance at the last time the device was updated.
Todd O. Burger President & CEO Chameleon Network Inc. 30 Monument Square, Suite 300 Concord, MA 01742 TBurger@ChameleonNetwork.com
W (978) 287-0703 F (978) 369-4661 H (781) 863-1196 M (781) 820-2521
*****
Dear Malachi,
Credit and debit cards can only be loaded to a person's Pocket Vault while the Pocket Vault is docked to a PC or Mac and the legitimate owner of the Pocket Vault has established a secure Internet session. (The computer and the Pocket Vault actually establish dual secure sessions in parallel on a standard dial-up or better Internet connection with the Pocket Vault website or the website of an authorized Pocket Vault dealer (for example, a major credit card issuing bank). The security and simplicity of our loading process are two of the elements that impressed card industry executives. The complexity is not visible to the consumer and the number of steps the consumer actually takes are few.
The Chameleon Card does have a conventional signature block on its back. Most security experts would acknowledge that the usefulness of the signature is no better than the skill of the average retail clerk who must perform on the spot handwriting analysis by "confirming" that the signature on the card matches the signature on the receipt or the signature entered on the pad at the cash register. Despite the limited value of such verification, we do not alter this verification element. Of course, we think the other security elements that essentially verify that you are the legitimate owner and user of the Pocket Vault represent the real substantive security, and that retailers will eventually come to a similar conclusion, tending to ignore the signature block on Chameleon Cards.
There are two types of places that take imprints: Those that do it as another security tool on top of magnetic-swipe capture of the account number, and those that are completely off-line (e.g., a taxi or flea market merchant.) Those that do it for additional security will no longer need to do this with chameleon Cards. For truly off-line merchants, (about 2% of total credit card transactions or less), the merchant will record the card number by looking at the screen of the Pocket Vault and writing this by hand on the slip. Since worn cards often leave illegible imprints that require the retailer to re-write the number anyway, there is not a great deal of difference here.
The Pocket Vault can store a license type photo (and family and pet photos as well) and associate that photo with any photo ID. The photo displays on the Pocket Vault screen while a photo ID type card is issued.
Please feel free to post this information. You are one of many that has asked such questions, and we are unable to answer all of them. We hope the flood of orders we are seeing (and hope to continue to see) convince card industry executives that we have something here of broad interest to consumers, which could accelerate our efforts.
Thank you for your interest in our product and services.
Todd O. Burger President & CEO Chameleon Network Inc. 30 Monument Square, Suite 300 Concord, MA 01742 TBurger@ChameleonNetwork.com
W (978) 287-0703 F (978) 369-4661 H (781) 863-1196
Well, since I live in Oregon and we have no Sales Tax, I do not have to pay any tax on purchases made out of state.
However, if I sell something online, there is no change to that policy. Realistically, if you barter (ie: no cash involved at all) you are legally required to fill out the form 1099-B Miscellaneous Income.
That income is on the Federal form, but the state form uses the Gross income from the Federal form -- thus it gets counted on your state form whether they have any lines for it or not.
That isn't what I got from reading that article. They explained that there were two camps: BSD (maximum usage of the code) and GPL (only non-proprietary use of the code). He also said that most of the developers he talked to were GPL-fans, which obviously skews the overall results.
He did say that the BSD license is more likely to lead to widespread usage, and that GPL is not good if that is the goal.
I think that is where you and I differ. If I had to choose between everyone (even MS) using my code or only the Linux users using my code (because that is where most of the GPL development is), I would choose widespread usage. Realistically, I wish *all* code was Public Domain -- I don't believe information should be copyrighted or copylefted -- it should be free. Everyone should have access to all information (with slight exception for personal privacy).
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmmm... but I thought things such as books-on-CD could actually use a lower sample rate (and usually did) because speech didn't need the same quality? For example, if my voice sounds a little off-key, it is no big deal if I am just trying to hear words -- ie: high fidelity is not required for voice.
Would you disagree?
Hmmm. well you are still talking about a single stereo source to go through the headphones. Why would you need to change the sample rate?
Ok, let's ignore the question of whether they work or not and actually answer the question that was asked.
Subliminal messages are in the range above conscious hearing. This is generally agreed to be 20KHz. Therefore, you would take the spoken portion, and boost it by 20KHz, then add in the music at the normal frequencies.
Now, the real trick here isn't how you record it, but how you play it back. If your audio goes up to say, 25KHz -- you better make sure your speakers/headphones go that high, or it will be a completely useless excersize.
Now, depending on what you are trying to achieve, you might try something else instead. Look into doing binaural audio beats. They are very simple to produce (20 lines of Java, for example). To work correctly, they would require headphones and for best results you do NOT mix it with any other sounds.
The goal behind the binaural audio beats is to cause your brain to resonate at the same frequency as the sounds, thus putting you in a different mental state (alpha, beta, theta, etc) which could result in a hypnogogic state (between sleep and awake) which might help achieve whatever results you are looking for.
If you are open to Java, I would recommend checking out the Java Tutorial, as it will get you started with step-by-step... using it, I *never* have to deal with OS-specific APIs anymore, and regularly develop my BSD apps on my Windows box.
Just my 2 cents.
When whiteboarding, we sometimes flowchart -- usually just the simple (and thus VERY QUICK to draw) boxes and arrows. Rarely have we used other types, as they take more time.
However, without the whiteboard, I would have to say that I rarely do so.
Oh, how I miss SmashTV!
For any of those also reminiscing in the Portland, OR area -- there was one in the train station downtown last I checked.
If you really want a good review of products or technologies before making any decisions, I recommend checking out the posts on vcdhelp. Should be very impartial.
Back in October, the FCC ruled that the use of the word "fucking" as an adjective was not indecent
Anyone know what the ratings where for South Park episode 502: It hits the fan which has about 270+ instances of the word "shit"? Obviously, a more profane word if we are going to look at the vulgarity aspect, but they let that through as well.
The Seventh Circuit, in its most recent decision defining "profane" under section 1464, stated that the term is "construable as denoting certain of those personally reviling epithets naturally tending to provoke violent resentment or denoting language so grossly offensive to members of the public who actually hear it as to amount to a nuisance."35
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there are thousands (or more) people in the US that feel that any mention of God in a political speech is a offensive and a nuisance (as well as illegal if we consider the separation of church and state). Therefore, shouldn't any mention of God in a political campaign be considered profane?
In addition, if they want to sue someone for broadcasting profane language, don't they have to file a suit, and put the words used in the case notes? And don't those notes become public? And doesn't the media usually repeat what they are being charged with -- thus putting those same words back into broadcast?
36 Nuisance has been defined as including "a condition of things which is prejudicial to the . . . sense of decency or morals of the citizens at large . . . ." Ballentine's Law Dictionary (3d ed. 1969).
I reiterate my God and South Park statements above.
We will analyze other potentially profane words or phrases on a case-by-case basis.
IE: They reserve the right to make what you said illegal AFTER THE FACT.
Personally, I can't wait until our own government (whether it be the FCC or local riot police) actually read these words and think for a moment on what they ACTUALLY say: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
I understand the concern... I used the Panasonic PowerDrive(?)... it had a caddy-based CDRW and was actually faster than my hard drive at the time. Unfortunately, I was not able to find discs for it or anything -- and after a couple years it died. When I tried to RMA it (and another Panasonic 5-disc changer), Panasonic was going to charge me $160/each to tell me if they would charge me more. As such, I don't buy their products anymore.
However, we were looking at those home-entertainment dvd-writers (tivo-like), and haven't been able to decide which one to get. And every one of them had different formats that it used. We got this drive primarily to ensure that we would be able to write discs in whatever format the new setup will have 6-months from now.
Realistically, there isn't any reason these discs should not be useable on another drive -- at least, not any more likely than using some other drive. If you have a drive that supports DVD-R, I can write it. If yours supports DVD+R, I can write it. If yours supports DVD-RAM, I can still write it.
So far, it appears that my Phillips DVD-711 (home dvd player) reads everything I have tried burning, but I have noticed that most stores no longer even carry DVD-R... I agree we need a single standard, but personally I feel it is us who should develop this standard so we aren't tied to stupid mpeg-licensing problems.
My 2cents
Malachi
You made me really curious, so while typing this up, I pulled up one of my old archives. My page was last updated on Aug 28 1995. The first link on it was to the GNA (Globalwide Network Academy) Project at MIT. I remember this project, because at the time I was responsible for going through schools request and accepting/denying them. You might consider contacting them about this issue, as I was receiving emails telling me to go on and check the status of this or that -- I am sure the schools did as well.
Hope that helps.
I seem to remember that it was quite common for an email to include a link to track the status of online submissions (adding yourself to a group, posting something, or creating a webring).
Also, shouldn't any old Bug Tracking system that would email you a link to watch the status count?
Then again, what about all those URL-watchers that would email you whenever a link changed? Those, I know, I was using back in 94 or 95.
About 6 months ago, I bought the IOMega SuperDVD USB that is supposed to be able to read/write any format.
After many platters and repeated calls to tech support, they concluded that the problem was that I was using 4x media instead of the 2.4x media they required (and BestBuy didn't sell anything slower than 4x).
Interesting thing happened though. I downloaded and tested many different programs (and demos). The only software that failed was HotBurn pro. Using Nero (demo), DVD-Lab, CD-Copy, etc -- all worked. There was something wrong with HotBurn -- and the errors it reported were HARDWARE errors...
4x and 2.4x media might very well be made from the same batch. I seem to remember that minor defects (etc) would cause them to lower the rating of the blank, but that it was actually the same discs.... don't know if it is true or not, but it makes sense.
In the same vein, I think it makes more sense that higher speed discs (thus rated as better quality) should be usuable in older/slower drives. Just because it is rated at 4x doesn't mean it can't be written at 2x.
So, overall, I think the problem is shotty software....
I agree. I spent quite a bit of time posting my comments the last time this came up. Obviously, all of our comments were completely ignored, or there is no way it would have passed.
Malachi
It is available for the Atari-ST (though not full implementation).
There is also an Atari800 emulator written in Java, and another one for Zaurus...
But maybe I am searching wrong, because the only Python-related atari800 links I found were for the same emulator type of things?
Well, if we are talking about UTF-8, the number of bytes is determined by the code point you are trying to represent -- and the specific bytes specify if there is another byte following or not. I have done an implementation converting to/from UTF-8, and it is really very simplistic. However, whether there is 2-3 bytes, 4 bytes, or even 6 bytes is determined by which codepoint is being represented.
Malachi
What platforms is Java NOT ported to?
I know it is available for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, AS/400, Handhelds (Palm, Handspring, SaveJe, etc), and direct hardware (PTCU and TINI)... What's missing?
Is that just a bug in SquirrelMail or in the mbstring support of php?
Likelyhood is that it just needs configured... For example, look under "Text Encoding" here.
Another response from some questions I asked.
k .com
*****
License and Other Photro IDs
If we have an agreement in place with the AAMVA (American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators) or the individual state MVD, it will be the official license image. Otherwise, it will be your photo associated with a Driver's License number. In about 15 states, the license is simply a tool to use in a police cruiser to check the state license database to see if the license is current and in good standing. In those states, a Chameleon Card may be accepted sooner than it is elsewhere.
Fees
There are no fees for use of the card and we do not take any percentage of a transaction (in fact while our Chameleon Card may be used in a transaction, we would be unaware that such a transaction ever took place). Depending on what services a consumer opts in for, there could be monthly charges for the use of the Pocket Vault (updating, backup, promotions and discounts, etc.). If the consumer does not opt in, there will be no further charges.
Loading Non-financial Cards
You will be able to load any card with a magnetic stripe, bar code, smart card chip or typed information card, most photo ID cards, and many (though not all) RFID cards (e.g., contactless cards for parking garages and building access). In some states, you will be able to load your driver's license, in others, we will need to establish a relationship with the Dept. of Motor Vehicles to enable this feature.
Todd O. Burger
President & CEO
Chameleon Network Inc.
30 Monument Square, Suite 300
Concord, MA 01742-1858
Main 978-287-0800
Fax: 978-369-4661
Email: TBurger@ChameleonNetwork.com
www.ChameleonNetwor
> Two of us have been having a very lengthy discussion about GPL,
> what it does or does not allow, the Spirit vs. Law of the GPL, etc.
>
> A couple quick questions, if you don't mind.
>
> 1) If I am writing a Grep utility, and look at GPLd source to design my
> non-GPL (say, BSD or Apache) version,
> is that breaking the Spirit or the Law of the GPL?
Look: no.
Copy: yes.
> 2) I create a GUI. In that GUI, I have a Find button. That find button
> launches a GPL'd version of Grep to do the work.
> Is that breaking the GPL if I do not make my GUI GPL? If the Grep was
> LGPL, same question.
We believe that if you invoke grep via fork/exec, that's probably not a
violation of the GPL. But if you are linking statically or dynamically
to grep, that would be a violation of the GPL.
The LGPL would allow any of these, but with certain conditions on the
latter two (see section 6 of the LGPL for details)
> 3) If I were to create a Grep utility that was 10 times faster than
> anything out there -- wouldn't it be better for the community/world
> as a whole to release it under a BSD-like license instead of a GPL-like
> license so that all software (OSs, Search Engines, etc)
> would be faster? Wouldn't it actually benefit more people using a BSD
> license than a GPL license?
No. However, it's not always easy to see why. Your question focusses
on a specific case. If we were going to live in a world where
proprietary software dominated, and the purpose of Free Software were to
improve proprietary software generally, then a non-copyleft license
would be appropriate. But the GPL offers another option: creating a
commons of sharing which allows everyone to benefit, but allows nobody
to exclude others. The GPL is the engine of this commons.
From an iterated prisoners dilemma perspective, Proprietary software is
All-D, BSD is All-C, and the GPL is TFT. (I just noticed this analogy,
and am not sure how strong it is).
--
-Dave Turner
GPL Compliance Engineer
That may be true. Obviously, neither of us have worked for every company. However, I can tell you that every company I have worked for forbade GPL, but have encouraged me to contribute to multiple projects using Apache, BSD and SCSL licensing. Actually, even a few LGPL.
Exactly how does it skew the results? This wasn't an election. He was collecting arguments and attempting to understand why corporate sponsors seemed to prefer GPL licensed projects.
If I go and collect the opinions of all the people on the JCP (whom all use different licenses) or just Java-using companies in general, the results would be just the opposite. The statistics don't mean much if they are not truly representative.
For one thing, you have failed to distinguish between running code and integrating it into proprietary applications.
For something like the Grep utility, there is no difference if it is run from a GUI find-button; as I understand it. We will know for sure when licensing@gnu.org replies to me.
I can understand you not wanting Microsoft to steal your code. When I first signed onto the IBM Developer site back in... 1994? There was a part of the license agreement that said you could not release any of the information to Microsoft (because of the OS2/Windows scandal). Everyone is afraid of Microsoft stealing their code and claiming it to be their own. I just don't honestly think any license will stop them, since they seem to break them all the time. Sure, they end up in never-ending lawsuits, but they still do it.
, NetBSD and OpenBSD all ship GPL licensed applications in their distribution. I am sure you are using plenty of GPL applications on your FreeBSD machine without even knowing it.
Yes, I know there is some GPL software on my box. My statement was just that the GPL-community is mostly made up of Linux-users. There are others, Windows users for example; but GPL and Linux go hand-in-hand. I think the percentage of GPL software on ANY Linux distro is going to be MUCH higher than it is on my FreeBSD or Windows box.
The quasi-religious schizm you imagine is mostly fictional among the people who do the heavy lifting.
When contributing to the Apache Ant project, they insisted I not event look at GPL code. Every software project I have worked on has insisted I not read GPL source. How is this imaginary?
A copyleft license is in some sense an attempt to bring about exactly the result you claim to want. A world where all code was released under the GPL would not be much different from a world where all code was in the public domain. What a shame that you are incapable of putting two and two together on this point.
That is an interesting point. At first glance, one would say that the difference is that Public Domain does not limit what you can do with the code -- but if any derivative was forced to be public domain, then you are right, it would be similar to GPL.
I think where the difference comes in is that, until such a point where ALL code is such, there is a huge difference. I can use public domain for any project I am hired onto, but I can not use GPL code for those same projects. That doesn't mean Proprietary, even free software like Apache Ant as I mentioned earlier.
So, while we agree with the end-result, there is a difference until then.
While that may be true on the Linux platform, I do not believe that to be accurate on either my Windows or BSD box. MOST of the software on my BSD box is free and NOT GPL.
Companies that "can't" use GPL licensed software in general are simply those who have been misled by ignorant statements of the sort you are making.
I don't see how it is ignorant of Intel to tell me that I can not browse, say GPLd networking code, when working on their proprietary networked application.
At the same time, if a company wants to release a product under the Apache license or BSD license, I do not think it ignorant of them to prevent me from looking at GPL source when writing those programs.
Do you disagree? Are you saying it is OK for me to scavenge code from GPL software to make other non-GPL free software? You make it seem like GPL is the only 'free' solution. Even IBM has their own open source license.
You violate neither the letter nor the spirit of the GPL by downloading code, studying it and using ideas to inspire your own independent and original work. Go to the FSF philosophy pages and do some reading before making comments on the spirit of the license.
Hmmm.. I looked at that page, and I see nothing wrong with it or the linked Categories of Free Software (which GPL is just one of). However, nothing on either of those pages show anything about the "Spirit of the GPL". However, a quick search of Google OR Slashdot will show that people quite regularly complain about projectX or licenseY breaking the Spirit of the GPL.
It is my understanding, and I would assume that of everyone I have worked for due to their constraints, AND most people who have complained about GPL-violations; that you are not supposed to use GPL source for ANYTHING unless you make the resulting work GPL. Perhaps this is an issue that would be better resolved directly with licensing@gnu.org, with whom I will email directly to get clarification.
First, if you make your application free software using a GPL compatible license (such as the BSD license without advertising clause) you can link with that vast body of GPL licensed code I mentioned.
And can that resulting application be BSD-licensed? NO! It has to be GPL'd.
That means fewer wheels reinvented and more time to focus on other aspects of the application.
However, if the code was Public Domain, then NO ONE would question that everyone could use it without reinventing the wheel. GPL does not add this capability -- since Public Domain (BSD, etc) all have been around with that same incentive long before GPL.
Second, if you actually use the GPL you need not fear that your competitors will take your application, improve upon it and use your own work against you in the marketplace without making their changes available in turn.
I don't agree. First of all, there is the whole argument that MicroSoft breaks their license agreements all the time anyways -- that doesn't change.
Even outside of that, if I have some project, say, NetBeansX as GPL -- someone can fork that code, and take all the developers to create EclipseX and thus my project is ground to a halt. Just because they are non-proprietary doesn't make them non-competitors.
I accept that this sort of thing is beyond your understanding and I don't expect to penetrate your closed mind on the matter.
No need to resort to name calling. Keep in mind that most BSD-advocates would say the same thing about you.
Still, if this incentive is so inscrutable, how do you explain the preponderance of GPL licensed code out there?
How do you explain the amount of code released under NON-GPL, ie: BSD, MIT, Apache, Artistic, Public Domain, Simtelnet, etc etc. You make it sound like GPL is the #1 license out there -- but that is only true for the linux
I contacted them with some questions. Here is their replies:
*****
Dear Malachi,
Three-digit credit card security codes will appear on the Pocket Vault screen when you press the "card details" icon. For any card that is currently "issued" or active on the Chameleon Card, the Pocket Vault will then display the security pin and available credit and card balance at the last time the device was updated.
Todd O. Burger
President & CEO
Chameleon Network Inc.
30 Monument Square, Suite 300
Concord, MA 01742
TBurger@ChameleonNetwork.com
W (978) 287-0703
F (978) 369-4661
H (781) 863-1196
M (781) 820-2521
*****
Dear Malachi,
Credit and debit cards can only be loaded to a person's Pocket Vault while the Pocket Vault is docked to a PC or Mac and the legitimate owner of the Pocket Vault has established a secure Internet session.
(The computer and the Pocket Vault actually establish dual secure sessions in parallel on a standard dial-up or better Internet connection with the Pocket Vault website or the website of an authorized Pocket Vault dealer (for example, a major credit card issuing bank). The security and simplicity of our loading process are two of the elements that impressed card industry executives. The complexity is not visible to the consumer and the number of steps the consumer actually takes are few.
The Chameleon Card does have a conventional signature block on its back. Most security experts would acknowledge that the usefulness of the signature is no better than the skill of the average retail clerk who must perform on the spot handwriting analysis by "confirming" that the signature on the card matches the signature on the receipt or the signature entered on the pad at the cash register. Despite the limited value of such verification, we do not alter this verification element. Of course, we think the other security elements that essentially verify that you are the legitimate owner and user of the Pocket Vault represent the real substantive security, and that retailers will eventually come to a similar conclusion, tending to ignore the signature block on Chameleon Cards.
There are two types of places that take imprints: Those that do it as another security tool on top of magnetic-swipe capture of the account number, and those that are completely off-line (e.g., a taxi or flea market merchant.) Those that do it for additional security will no longer need to do this with chameleon Cards. For truly off-line merchants, (about 2% of total credit card transactions or less), the merchant will record the card number by looking at the screen of the Pocket Vault and writing this by hand on the slip. Since worn cards often leave illegible imprints that require the retailer to re-write the number anyway, there is not a great deal of difference here.
The Pocket Vault can store a license type photo (and family and pet photos as well) and associate that photo with any photo ID. The photo displays on the Pocket Vault screen while a photo ID type card is issued.
Please feel free to post this information. You are one of many that has asked such questions, and we are unable to answer all of them. We hope the flood of orders we are seeing (and hope to continue to see) convince card industry executives that we have something here of broad interest to consumers, which could accelerate our efforts.
Thank you for your interest in our product and services.
Todd O. Burger
President & CEO
Chameleon Network Inc.
30 Monument Square, Suite 300
Concord, MA 01742
TBurger@ChameleonNetwork.com
W (978) 287-0703
F (978) 369-4661
H (781) 863-1196
Well, since I live in Oregon and we have no Sales Tax, I do not have to pay any tax on purchases made out of state.
However, if I sell something online, there is no change to that policy. Realistically, if you barter (ie: no cash involved at all) you are legally required to fill out the form 1099-B Miscellaneous Income.
That income is on the Federal form, but the state form uses the Gross income from the Federal form -- thus it gets counted on your state form whether they have any lines for it or not.
That isn't what I got from reading that article. They explained that there were two camps: BSD (maximum usage of the code) and GPL (only non-proprietary use of the code). He also said that most of the developers he talked to were GPL-fans, which obviously skews the overall results.
He did say that the BSD license is more likely to lead to widespread usage, and that GPL is not good if that is the goal.
I think that is where you and I differ. If I had to choose between everyone (even MS) using my code or only the Linux users using my code (because that is where most of the GPL development is), I would choose widespread usage. Realistically, I wish *all* code was Public Domain -- I don't believe information should be copyrighted or copylefted -- it should be free. Everyone should have access to all information (with slight exception for personal privacy).