Another annoying, proprietary bullshit extension I'm going to need to watch video in my browser that people are going to end up building entire websites in.
h.264 video, AAC/AC3 audio tracks, in an MPEG4 container. It'll play on almost anything modern.
h264 isn't 'open'. It's a proprietary, patented system that requires licensing fees. This is why it's not supported out of the box in Ubuntu (or at least, why it wasn't - I assume it's still not supported in 8.10,but haven't checked).
The BBC has Dirac though; I wish they'd start using it!@#
Actually, it doesn't usually reduce costs at all. The latest WoW patch (as in your example) is actually distributed via Akamai (yes, the torrent and HTTP seed). Akamai actually co-locate with my ISP, so it costs them only for the local loop to send me this patch - they don't even need to pay for any international bandwidth at all! But you know what? It costs the same to download this patch as it does to download a 2GB movie from Pirate Bay.
Well, that's assuming a few things:
1) all your p2p traffic from the Blizzard downloader comes from Akamai peers. My experiences with it, this is not the case - there's a lot of regular peers that it comes from. This is also contrary to Blizzard's on FAQ about them paying for the bandwidth.
Typically I seem to get less than 5-15% of a Blizzard download from their dedicated seeds anyway.
2) not all ISPs have akamai caches, and I suspect not all of them would considered it 'unmetered' traffic anyway (at least one Australian ISP doesn't, or at least didn't, so it's of limited value to users when counting bytes)
Just me or is it hard to get a sense of scale in those photos when there's barely any other objects in there? There's a pen, half a hand, and another laptop that I don't know how big it is.
I always struggle with photos like this because it's obviously difficult to find a reference object/everyone/ is familiar with, but even a few little things might've been helpful in some of the photos.
If an ISP has you capped at 20 gigs a month, switch.
Unfortunately, that may not be an option, depending on where you live...
So - switch, unless you can't?
This would force ISPs to stop focusing on bandwidth leeches (and specifically targeting BitTorrent), and actually start increasing their bandwidth to match the very real demand.
A much, much better alternative is for content creators to make sure their software is explicitly licensed as redistributable so ISPs can easily mirror it (my argument is anything distributed by BitTorrent has such a license as you're implicitly granting redistribution rights to everyone anyway, but I don't know if a court would agree with me).
This is what we do in Australia - where the average monthly download limit for many people is between 12 and 20 gigabytes - with ridiculously good effects. Most ISPs have some sort of mirror service so we're not wasting international bandwidth with 50,000 WoW users sucking down the latest 2 gigabyte patch via BitTorrent. Instead, patches are mirrored on the ISP, meaning traffic stays local - reducing international load, network traffic across the entire world, and thus also cost.
It is a massive value-add for customers that care about gaming. Some ISPs also offer big open source repositories, etc, so if that floats your boat and you want to sync nightly with an Ubuntu mirror without eating into your monthly cap, you can do that too.
With the possible exception of Vista, I think that is not really true. Windows 2000 was a massive, massive step up over Windows 95/98/ME. XP wasn't such a huge step up but again, I think it was an improvement overall. I have (tech-savvy, clued-in) friends that think Vista is another step up (I am anti-Vista for various reasons that I won't go into, but there's arguments either way and poor sales seems to indicate many agree with me).
Similarly I think a lot of their other products have shown a lot of improvement. IIS was a piece of shit when it first came out, and the more recent versions are really nice. I got Office 2007 a few months ago after not having used MS Office for years (tried to make the switch to OpenOffice), and really think it's a great piece of software (aside from obvious vendor lock-in evil).
So I don't know about your statement. I didn't want to mod you down because I'm sure the anti-MS hobags would have just undone it, but I think it should be noted that there's been a lot of improvement in MS products in many areas over the years.
(I dual boot XP and Ubuntu and am a big Linux advocate, but I'm not going to say MS stuff is universally terrible)
How do you know your lawful activities will always be lawful? Every time I see someone react with "I'm not a criminal" fallacy, all I can think of is the question "Are you now, or have you ever been associated with a member of the Muslim faith?" We're not far away from a witch hunt of that flavor.
If that is the case then Facebook is the least of your worries, and your time should be spent getting out there and making sure the citizens of your country are aware of this issue (maybe in a couple weeks when that little voting thing you guys apparently are having is taking place:)
I actually RTFA because I clicked on it before there were comments, got to the end and went looking for the next page link - but there isn't one. It's pretty light on any interesting technical details - mentions some stuff about the IDE, the frameworks ("one is Java and the other is Objective-C") and ends with the same question everyone else is asking, at the moment - which will be better.
If you've payed any attention at all to both Android and iPhone development already there's probably not much in there you won't have picked up from casually reading bits and pieces. Unfortunately. Let me know when there's a nice in-depth article available!
Is it different than pirating a game? Perhaps. "Pirating" a game to play it for a half-hour to see if it's any good: probably not. Pirating a game and playing it forever: quite different.
I was doing some work transcoding videos a few years ago for getting movie trailers online.
I had to contact movie distributors and get their permission to use their trailers for this purpose. Some were clued in, some were completely useless.
Fox I remember because they had an application form which allowed you to formally license stills from movies. (I assume this was for companies that wanted to formally use them in commercial environments.) Stills ranged from $250-$500US to license them.
So while Fair Use certainly exists (in the US anyway), the movie industry still (at least Fox) expects to get paid for still frames from movies!
It's certainly a good advertisement for digitally signed email.
I realise digital signatures are still beyond the reach of most people that use email, but for those of us that actually know what they are and how to use them, it's a pretty decent solution to this problem - at least for people that want to receive email from CNN.
1) Sign up to CNN for emails 2) Enter your public key in your CNN alerts profile 3) Configure your mail client in such a way as to only accept email purporting to be from CNN that is digitally signed 4) Any email from CNN that is digitally signed, verify the signature - if it matches, accept it, if it doesn't, throw it in the spam pile.
I don't know anything about COBOL, but couldn't you just copy the current instance, create a new one, fix one so it is paying the new rate and leave the old one going along at the ACTUAL rate they should be getting - then compare the two at the end?
Was one of the best concerts I've been to. I am too young to have seen Queen in concert, much to my huge disappointment. They're easily my favourite band, so when I found out he was playing (at some divey bar miles out in the boondocks), I jumped at the chance along with a couple mates.
He was an awesome performer and I am really hoping he comes back again.
If there's a band you love, don't pass up on the chance to see them live - before it's too late!
Most definitely! I think the iPhone is one of the best things to happen to the telecoms industry for a while. Not because I think it's massively awesome - its cool, but I hate the software lock-down and the stupid SDK stuff referred to in this article - but because it has spurned so much competition as everyone else scurries to try and emulate their success.
A lot of the stuff just seems like shitty clones, but there's going to be some awesome things that come out of it as well.
Interestingly I think you can say the same about Apple vs Microsoft in the OS market. It's not just my computer noob friends and family buying Macs any more - a lot of the tech-savvy people I know are starting to buy them, and probably more importantly - recommend them.
Actually, I'm in Sweden, and yeah they have about a gazillion models running at least two different operating systems. I'm about as annoyed as you are about the multitude of models, I was just pointing out that Nokia unquestionably already has something good going on.
Oh, right.. apologies for the assumption then!
Well, most definitely. I just think they could have something better if they focused on a few specific high-end models.
That said, I hate not having variety. I don't want a phone with a camera - I'd rather have a smaller phone, or a different feature. So I have to give them kudos for providing the most choice.
Also, considering that a developer today would probably target Symbian OS (or a variation of it), their application would run on over half of the world's smartphones. Even if said developer would only target Nokia's N95, it would run on over 7 million phones.
Yep, they're a big deal, and that's why them going open I think is as worthy of note as Apple/Google/Microsoft saying stuff. From the (admittedly very little) stuff I've read though, developing for Symbian is currently a pain in the ass and one of the reasons is the huge variety of hardware types (although thinking about it I think I've read more complaints about the software side, so maybe the hardware thing isn't even that big a deal).
I love Nokia; as mentioned I've only ever owned their phones and them going open is a big deal for me because I was looking at Android as the next big thing. I think Nokia are awesomely positioned to suddenly sweep in with the killer product - at least in Europe and Australia (where I am), if not the US.
It was rejected, IIRC, because the figure they were going to pay was something they plucked out of their air, rather than the officially sanctioned royalties that they should have been playing. ie, they were going to pay what they felt was fair, rather than what the music industry felt was due.
I can't remember for sure but I think that's the way it went down.
Not only is Symbian closed-source, bug-ridden and otherwise horribly hard to write for.
Well, this is why I assumed Nokia were buying up all of Symbian and open sourcing the platform, right? At least that's what I remember reading most recently.
Well, my point was more that at the moment, at least as far as I'm aware, Nokia don't have a standard handset type/operating system, and they have a billion phones each with different features and functionality, which I suspect makes development more complex.
Contrast that with the iPhone, which has like, 2 real models.
I should point out that every mobile I've ever owned has been Nokia - they're pretty big in Australia; I'm guessing you're in the US where they're not so huge - but there's like 1023910490 different models of Nokia phones, and its a real PITA trying to pick one. Unless you can write an application that's safely going to run on every Nokia phone - well, I don't want to say it'll be a complete waste of time, but it'll certainly be annoying.
But you've offered no constructive argument to support your assertion.
Oh, right. I didn't think I needed to because of it's install base, which I figure is an indicator that there's enough people out there that think it's good enough for their purposes:)
I beg to differ, in the last 10 years, MySQL's failings has led to developers, probably like yourself, thinking that SQL databases "get in the way" more than they help. I pin that on MySQL. Had MySQL been a better SQL database, developers would be more encouraged to exploit the capabilities of a "real" database. Instead, they've learned that MySQL sucks at doing things and end up doing it in the application, and figure all the other systems suck just as much.
I suppose abusing me personally is an easier thing than admitting MySQL might not suck, but don't worry - I don't take offense!
I think blaming MySQL for lazy developers not bothering to learn the ins and outs of databases is a bit rich. I don't think most people that write database-type stuff in code do it because MySQL sucks - they just do it because for them its easier than learning a whole new system to do things. I can't blame MySQL for that, even if all they're using it for is a simple system to stuff things in/pull stuff out.
Further, having massively awesome database systems is just no guarantee people will use them. I'm pretty sure I remember some hilarious stories from DailyWTF about people doing similar things to what you're describing in Oracle or DB/2.
Good development can still take place with MySQL, and MySQL (the core product), is getting better, not worse. This Drizzle thing is just going to help fill the niche market of people that want a simple data in/data out system without requiring a fully blown database. And there are lots and lots of them.
At a glance it looks like they've identified Apple's closed stance is a big gripe for developers and hardcore tech-types, and they're going after that market.
Obviously they've also got Google on the other side, but I hope they do well out of this. If they stop spamming out a billion different mobile models a year and focus on getting some nice, neat hardware backed by some good open source, get enough developer support, and they could have something going on.
I'm not saying its not factually accurate. I'm just saying that this new product isn't addressing those points because they're assholes, or they're stupid, or they're completely ignorant of those things.
I'm saying they're creating a product to satisfy a market that (for better or worse) thinks it doesn't need any of those things.
Saying everyone is going to now run out and create "poorly designed websites" I think is a bold assumption. I hope we'll see more websites that are designed better as a result of having this product in the market as it provides another option for people to choose from.
My response, if you read it objectively, is "MySQL is good for some things, and this will be good for other things, and for people that want a database that has all those years of development and scientific research that you so respectfully refer to, well, that's an option for them as well, but when you need to bang in a couple of nails, you don't need a pneumatic jackhammer - you can just use a regular hammer."
It sort of sounds like you're mostly just raging against useless developers that don't want to learn SQL and are building their logic in code instead of the database, where possible. That's fair enough. But that's not really MySQL's fault. It works well for a lot of applications, and the price point sure beats Oracle or DB/2 (...but probably not postgres!)
Or, people could just use the right tool for the job.
As fun as it is watching the battle between MySQL haters and lovers every time the "m" word is mentioned on Slashdot, I can't help but feel everyone that hates it should really save their energy.
I get the sneaking suspicion that, having created one of the most popular open source databases online and looking carefully at the market and what people are using it for, the MySQL guys might have some faint idea about what they're doing with this project.
I personally think it sounds awesome, not because I'm planning on switching all our sites over to it immediately, but because I know that if I need a smaller, lightweight data storage engine with limited features and a focus on speed, THIS will be there and I'll have the CHOICE to use it if I feel it meets my requirements.
Not everyone that likes MySQL has their head completely up their ass; we know there's alternatives and that lots of them are better in various ways. But it does the job, and I have no doubt Drizzle will find its niche as well. Not everyone needs the power of a full RDBMS for every project.
I realise posting to blogs is all the rage, but the source for the interesting part of the content here is on gametrailers; you can just go right here to see it directly.
I'll be sticking with the mouse until they make a superior controller for FPS games and general windows pointing. As others have pointed out none of the current technologies are even remotely appropriate.
The only thing I can think of that'd be more useful for me than a mouse for general windowsy-type stuff is some sort of eye-tracking thing that could control the cursor. That'd get the response time down for simple motion operations to the point where it'd be hugely useful - I could keep both hands on the keyboard and simply do everything else with my eyes.
Throw in some better voice control (more accurate and more responsive than what we have now) and then we're talking, but I still can't think of any way to make FPS games better!
Slashdot Mirror
Another annoying, proprietary bullshit extension I'm going to need to watch video in my browser that people are going to end up building entire websites in.
h.264 video, AAC/AC3 audio tracks, in an MPEG4 container. It'll play on almost anything modern.
h264 isn't 'open'. It's a proprietary, patented system that requires licensing fees. This is why it's not supported out of the box in Ubuntu (or at least, why it wasn't - I assume it's still not supported in 8.10 ,but haven't checked).
The BBC has Dirac though; I wish they'd start using it!@#
Actually, it doesn't usually reduce costs at all. The latest WoW patch (as in your example) is actually distributed via Akamai (yes, the torrent and HTTP seed). Akamai actually co-locate with my ISP, so it costs them only for the local loop to send me this patch - they don't even need to pay for any international bandwidth at all! But you know what? It costs the same to download this patch as it does to download a 2GB movie from Pirate Bay.
Well, that's assuming a few things:
1) all your p2p traffic from the Blizzard downloader comes from Akamai peers. My experiences with it, this is not the case - there's a lot of regular peers that it comes from. This is also contrary to Blizzard's on FAQ about them paying for the bandwidth.
Typically I seem to get less than 5-15% of a Blizzard download from their dedicated seeds anyway.
2) not all ISPs have akamai caches, and I suspect not all of them would considered it 'unmetered' traffic anyway (at least one Australian ISP doesn't, or at least didn't, so it's of limited value to users when counting bytes)
Just me or is it hard to get a sense of scale in those photos when there's barely any other objects in there? There's a pen, half a hand, and another laptop that I don't know how big it is.
I always struggle with photos like this because it's obviously difficult to find a reference object /everyone/ is familiar with, but even a few little things might've been helpful in some of the photos.
If an ISP has you capped at 20 gigs a month, switch.
Unfortunately, that may not be an option, depending on where you live...
So - switch, unless you can't?
This would force ISPs to stop focusing on bandwidth leeches (and specifically targeting BitTorrent), and actually start increasing their bandwidth to match the very real demand.
A much, much better alternative is for content creators to make sure their software is explicitly licensed as redistributable so ISPs can easily mirror it (my argument is anything distributed by BitTorrent has such a license as you're implicitly granting redistribution rights to everyone anyway, but I don't know if a court would agree with me).
This is what we do in Australia - where the average monthly download limit for many people is between 12 and 20 gigabytes - with ridiculously good effects. Most ISPs have some sort of mirror service so we're not wasting international bandwidth with 50,000 WoW users sucking down the latest 2 gigabyte patch via BitTorrent. Instead, patches are mirrored on the ISP, meaning traffic stays local - reducing international load, network traffic across the entire world, and thus also cost.
It is a massive value-add for customers that care about gaming. Some ISPs also offer big open source repositories, etc, so if that floats your boat and you want to sync nightly with an Ubuntu mirror without eating into your monthly cap, you can do that too.
With the possible exception of Vista, I think that is not really true. Windows 2000 was a massive, massive step up over Windows 95/98/ME. XP wasn't such a huge step up but again, I think it was an improvement overall. I have (tech-savvy, clued-in) friends that think Vista is another step up (I am anti-Vista for various reasons that I won't go into, but there's arguments either way and poor sales seems to indicate many agree with me).
Similarly I think a lot of their other products have shown a lot of improvement. IIS was a piece of shit when it first came out, and the more recent versions are really nice. I got Office 2007 a few months ago after not having used MS Office for years (tried to make the switch to OpenOffice), and really think it's a great piece of software (aside from obvious vendor lock-in evil).
So I don't know about your statement. I didn't want to mod you down because I'm sure the anti-MS hobags would have just undone it, but I think it should be noted that there's been a lot of improvement in MS products in many areas over the years.
(I dual boot XP and Ubuntu and am a big Linux advocate, but I'm not going to say MS stuff is universally terrible)
How do you know your lawful activities will always be lawful? Every time I see someone react with "I'm not a criminal" fallacy, all I can think of is the question "Are you now, or have you ever been associated with a member of the Muslim faith?" We're not far away from a witch hunt of that flavor.
If that is the case then Facebook is the least of your worries, and your time should be spent getting out there and making sure the citizens of your country are aware of this issue (maybe in a couple weeks when that little voting thing you guys apparently are having is taking place :)
I actually RTFA because I clicked on it before there were comments, got to the end and went looking for the next page link - but there isn't one. It's pretty light on any interesting technical details - mentions some stuff about the IDE, the frameworks ("one is Java and the other is Objective-C") and ends with the same question everyone else is asking, at the moment - which will be better.
If you've payed any attention at all to both Android and iPhone development already there's probably not much in there you won't have picked up from casually reading bits and pieces. Unfortunately. Let me know when there's a nice in-depth article available!
See: Fair use.
Is it different than pirating a game? Perhaps. "Pirating" a game to play it for a half-hour to see if it's any good: probably not. Pirating a game and playing it forever: quite different.
I was doing some work transcoding videos a few years ago for getting movie trailers online.
I had to contact movie distributors and get their permission to use their trailers for this purpose. Some were clued in, some were completely useless.
Fox I remember because they had an application form which allowed you to formally license stills from movies. (I assume this was for companies that wanted to formally use them in commercial environments.) Stills ranged from $250-$500US to license them.
So while Fair Use certainly exists (in the US anyway), the movie industry still (at least Fox) expects to get paid for still frames from movies!
It's certainly a good advertisement for digitally signed email.
I realise digital signatures are still beyond the reach of most people that use email, but for those of us that actually know what they are and how to use them, it's a pretty decent solution to this problem - at least for people that want to receive email from CNN.
1) Sign up to CNN for emails
2) Enter your public key in your CNN alerts profile
3) Configure your mail client in such a way as to only accept email purporting to be from CNN that is digitally signed
4) Any email from CNN that is digitally signed, verify the signature - if it matches, accept it, if it doesn't, throw it in the spam pile.
I don't know anything about COBOL, but couldn't you just copy the current instance, create a new one, fix one so it is paying the new rate and leave the old one going along at the ACTUAL rate they should be getting - then compare the two at the end?
Rather than give illiterate people more reason to not learn how to read, why not make a Text-free UI to teach them how to read first?
Dumbing everything down just seems like the wrong way to go about anything.
Was one of the best concerts I've been to. I am too young to have seen Queen in concert, much to my huge disappointment. They're easily my favourite band, so when I found out he was playing (at some divey bar miles out in the boondocks), I jumped at the chance along with a couple mates.
He was an awesome performer and I am really hoping he comes back again.
If there's a band you love, don't pass up on the chance to see them live - before it's too late!
Most definitely! I think the iPhone is one of the best things to happen to the telecoms industry for a while. Not because I think it's massively awesome - its cool, but I hate the software lock-down and the stupid SDK stuff referred to in this article - but because it has spurned so much competition as everyone else scurries to try and emulate their success.
A lot of the stuff just seems like shitty clones, but there's going to be some awesome things that come out of it as well.
Interestingly I think you can say the same about Apple vs Microsoft in the OS market. It's not just my computer noob friends and family buying Macs any more - a lot of the tech-savvy people I know are starting to buy them, and probably more importantly - recommend them.
Actually, I'm in Sweden, and yeah they have about a gazillion models running at least two different operating systems. I'm about as annoyed as you are about the multitude of models, I was just pointing out that Nokia unquestionably already has something good going on.
Oh, right.. apologies for the assumption then!
Well, most definitely. I just think they could have something better if they focused on a few specific high-end models.
That said, I hate not having variety. I don't want a phone with a camera - I'd rather have a smaller phone, or a different feature. So I have to give them kudos for providing the most choice.
Also, considering that a developer today would probably target Symbian OS (or a variation of it), their application would run on over half of the world's smartphones. Even if said developer would only target Nokia's N95, it would run on over 7 million phones.
Yep, they're a big deal, and that's why them going open I think is as worthy of note as Apple/Google/Microsoft saying stuff. From the (admittedly very little) stuff I've read though, developing for Symbian is currently a pain in the ass and one of the reasons is the huge variety of hardware types (although thinking about it I think I've read more complaints about the software side, so maybe the hardware thing isn't even that big a deal).
I love Nokia; as mentioned I've only ever owned their phones and them going open is a big deal for me because I was looking at Android as the next big thing. I think Nokia are awesomely positioned to suddenly sweep in with the killer product - at least in Europe and Australia (where I am), if not the US.
It was rejected, IIRC, because the figure they were going to pay was something they plucked out of their air, rather than the officially sanctioned royalties that they should have been playing. ie, they were going to pay what they felt was fair, rather than what the music industry felt was due.
I can't remember for sure but I think that's the way it went down.
Not only is Symbian closed-source, bug-ridden and otherwise horribly hard to write for.
Well, this is why I assumed Nokia were buying up all of Symbian and open sourcing the platform, right? At least that's what I remember reading most recently.
Well, my point was more that at the moment, at least as far as I'm aware, Nokia don't have a standard handset type/operating system, and they have a billion phones each with different features and functionality, which I suspect makes development more complex.
Contrast that with the iPhone, which has like, 2 real models.
I should point out that every mobile I've ever owned has been Nokia - they're pretty big in Australia; I'm guessing you're in the US where they're not so huge - but there's like 1023910490 different models of Nokia phones, and its a real PITA trying to pick one. Unless you can write an application that's safely going to run on every Nokia phone - well, I don't want to say it'll be a complete waste of time, but it'll certainly be annoying.
But you've offered no constructive argument to support your assertion.
Oh, right. I didn't think I needed to because of it's install base, which I figure is an indicator that there's enough people out there that think it's good enough for their purposes :)
I beg to differ, in the last 10 years, MySQL's failings has led to developers, probably like yourself, thinking that SQL databases "get in the way" more than they help. I pin that on MySQL. Had MySQL been a better SQL database, developers would be more encouraged to exploit the capabilities of a "real" database. Instead, they've learned that MySQL sucks at doing things and end up doing it in the application, and figure all the other systems suck just as much.
I suppose abusing me personally is an easier thing than admitting MySQL might not suck, but don't worry - I don't take offense!
I think blaming MySQL for lazy developers not bothering to learn the ins and outs of databases is a bit rich. I don't think most people that write database-type stuff in code do it because MySQL sucks - they just do it because for them its easier than learning a whole new system to do things. I can't blame MySQL for that, even if all they're using it for is a simple system to stuff things in/pull stuff out.
Further, having massively awesome database systems is just no guarantee people will use them. I'm pretty sure I remember some hilarious stories from DailyWTF about people doing similar things to what you're describing in Oracle or DB/2.
Good development can still take place with MySQL, and MySQL (the core product), is getting better, not worse. This Drizzle thing is just going to help fill the niche market of people that want a simple data in/data out system without requiring a fully blown database. And there are lots and lots of them.
I like Nokia's new advertising platform:
http://www.opentoanything.com/
At a glance it looks like they've identified Apple's closed stance is a big gripe for developers and hardcore tech-types, and they're going after that market.
Obviously they've also got Google on the other side, but I hope they do well out of this. If they stop spamming out a billion different mobile models a year and focus on getting some nice, neat hardware backed by some good open source, get enough developer support, and they could have something going on.
I'm not saying its not factually accurate. I'm just saying that this new product isn't addressing those points because they're assholes, or they're stupid, or they're completely ignorant of those things.
I'm saying they're creating a product to satisfy a market that (for better or worse) thinks it doesn't need any of those things.
Saying everyone is going to now run out and create "poorly designed websites" I think is a bold assumption. I hope we'll see more websites that are designed better as a result of having this product in the market as it provides another option for people to choose from.
My response, if you read it objectively, is "MySQL is good for some things, and this will be good for other things, and for people that want a database that has all those years of development and scientific research that you so respectfully refer to, well, that's an option for them as well, but when you need to bang in a couple of nails, you don't need a pneumatic jackhammer - you can just use a regular hammer."
It sort of sounds like you're mostly just raging against useless developers that don't want to learn SQL and are building their logic in code instead of the database, where possible. That's fair enough. But that's not really MySQL's fault. It works well for a lot of applications, and the price point sure beats Oracle or DB/2 (...but probably not postgres!)
Or, people could just use the right tool for the job.
As fun as it is watching the battle between MySQL haters and lovers every time the "m" word is mentioned on Slashdot, I can't help but feel everyone that hates it should really save their energy.
I get the sneaking suspicion that, having created one of the most popular open source databases online and looking carefully at the market and what people are using it for, the MySQL guys might have some faint idea about what they're doing with this project.
I personally think it sounds awesome, not because I'm planning on switching all our sites over to it immediately, but because I know that if I need a smaller, lightweight data storage engine with limited features and a focus on speed, THIS will be there and I'll have the CHOICE to use it if I feel it meets my requirements.
Not everyone that likes MySQL has their head completely up their ass; we know there's alternatives and that lots of them are better in various ways. But it does the job, and I have no doubt Drizzle will find its niche as well. Not everyone needs the power of a full RDBMS for every project.
Holy shit! Somehow I missed all these VDub releases. Thanks for the notice.
Out of interest, what sort of stuff are you encoding from/to? Are you aware of any mpeg4/h264 codecs that will work happily in Virtualdub?
I realise posting to blogs is all the rage, but the source for the interesting part of the content here is on gametrailers; you can just go right here to see it directly.
I'll be sticking with the mouse until they make a superior controller for FPS games and general windows pointing. As others have pointed out none of the current technologies are even remotely appropriate.
The only thing I can think of that'd be more useful for me than a mouse for general windowsy-type stuff is some sort of eye-tracking thing that could control the cursor. That'd get the response time down for simple motion operations to the point where it'd be hugely useful - I could keep both hands on the keyboard and simply do everything else with my eyes.
Throw in some better voice control (more accurate and more responsive than what we have now) and then we're talking, but I still can't think of any way to make FPS games better!