If you have girlfriends, why the hell are you on this site? This site is for sad assholes like me who have nothing better to do than troll to get some attention in our pathetic little lives (I'm not joking, and I'm not going to post this on Anonymous Coward for once).
Since SlashBack is mostly just disparate posts, I thought I'd post a primer for those unfamiliar with the OGG format.
OGG is a music format created by Jan Vorbis in 1974. (Trivia: It was originally going to be called EGG, but Jan found out 'EGG' was already trademarked by Egg Corp.)
Jan initially developed the format to be a free source (and licence free) version of MP3. Using comp.lang.basic.misc, Jan rallied a large group of QBasic programmers into finalizing the protocol and releasing the first OGG encoder and player as QBasic source code (Trivia: This is why OGG encoding is so slow today as a simple BASIC -> C convertor was used to transvert the code for ports.)
The OGG format has since come on in leaps and bounds and is enjoying a reputation that only Pascal and the original Apple Mac once had.
In conclusion, most OGG users are quiche eating ponytailed geniuses who believe in free speech.
Chance of Slashdotter having a girlfriend: 1 in 10. Chance of that girlfriend being HOT: 1 in 214 Chance of a HOT girlfriend studying Computer Science: 1 in 4,735,286
Oh no, all your combined probabilities have lead to the world's lowest probability and have caused the inprobability drive from 2217 to go into a spasm and cause a quantum paradox! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!
I pointed out gpg to my bank [umbrellabank.com] for account-related communications (but they don't seem to get it yet...they're a bank). Everybody else ask your bank about it too. It's evangelism. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
That might be possible in the US since you have regional banks and actually get to talk to people there.
In the UK, all of our banks are national, and very very faceless. Not many people have 'bank managers' anymore, and even people with big money have 'account handlers' instead. You can talk to stupid 'business advisors' at the bank, but only at certain branches. Good luck trying to give a bank advice in this country!
And most importantly, I encrypt love letters to my girlfriend. Don't want anyone reading that stuff.;)
I wouldn't want a girlfriend who's geeky enough to decrypt encrypted e-mails though!
GnuPG is definitely, certainly, and really the way to go with secure encryption and security systems, here's why..
The simple and undisputed -- and often argued -- fact is that we've come a long way, and the majority of large businesses are now using Linux as both a desktop and server OS which means these things are efficient to do.
GnuPG's (shouldn't that be GNUPG since GNU is an acronym?) ease of use and its (almost) seamless connectivity with most Linux communications applications allows the average workplace user to encrypt documents and files, preventing PR-disasteresque leaks -- such as the recent leak of the salary details of Lycos' staff to InternalMemos.com..
The seamless and very good encryption and decryption system allows staff of lots of big and small companies to simultaneously access and also work on their valuable and secure data as usual, but means that even if sites like F**kedCompany get hold of it, it's no use to them. Copying and pasting will just result in goobledygook being produced.
GnuPG's automated hyperencryption routines also mean that it could have some extremely useful and oblique military functionality, allowing our brave patriots to fight terrorism around the world.
One such example is in the encryption of numeric data such as numbers like digits between 0 and digits under 9. These encyrption routines can improve the efficiency of this by 24%.
I know new systems and apps create a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation.. but what about this:
Today, I use GnuPG for a variety of tasks. Whether it's to sign and encrypt documents and contracts submitted to businesses, encrypt local files, or merely sign email and files to ensure others that no modifications have occurred to its content, I have found GnuPG to be a 'must have' utility kept close at hand when using my PCs.
Documents submitted to businesses? Signing e-mail and files?
Signing these sorts of things is a good idea, but just how many businesses are going to have GnuPG at this time. And, since you can get the files out of the e-mail without HAVING to use GnuPG (GnuPG just checks the authenticity), it doesn't really encourage people to go get it either.
Considering most people are Joe Schmoes using Windows, I can't see how using GnuPG (or even PGP, for that matter) to sign things is going to help anyone at this stage.
Outlook Express is the most common e-mail client out there today and from all the e-mail I get.. I'd say that far less than 1% of its users actually use the signing and encryption features that are BUILT IN! GnuPG is an add-on, at best.. so can we really see millions of people using this?
Until the public learn more about security, how it works, and why it should be used, I think not.
You are quite right. Slashdot editor. An editor's job (okay, it's the sub-editors job on most publications, but this isn't quite like that) is to standardize conventions. Clearly they're letting GNU/Linux through.
Slashdot covered clockless chips briefly a few months ago. Why do they make sense? To learn why, let's compare computers to real life industry.
In the 1800s, industry was limited to a few very large factories and workplaces. Over time, these factories became bigger and bigger and faster and faster, until eventually it became impractical to make everything in one place. So.. things were decentralized. Now when your car is built, the raw materials come from Brazil, the parts are made in Taiwan, then the cars are built in America.
Processors are headed the same way. Things are becoming decentralized, and the load on the processor should, therefore, go down. The giant leaps and bounds with video cards have actually caused CPUs to have less work to do. No longer do CPUs have to do nasty 3D calculations.. the video cards do it!
Even -car- engines are becoming decentralized now with specialist automatic gearboxes, electric backup motors, and psuedo-petrol engines in the Prius and Insight. With processors it makes even more sense.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can see Alan Cox's fuzzy head over on the 'Projects' icon.. and prolific Linux hero or not, I can't see Mandrake coming with an Alan Cox icon.;-)
Re:I personally only care about sub $100 market
on
New MP3 Portables
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· Score: 2
Your logic is flawed.
If you deliberate limit yourself to things that are two years behind current technology, then advancements will come along for you just as fast as for everyone else.. but just two years behind.
Not everyone is on the 'front line'. A lot of us haven't even played Gran Turismo 3 or Halo, and probably won't bother for a year or two. I'd love to get Gran Turismo 3, but I can't be assed to shell out for a Playstation 2 when I have a PC.
The criteria for a good game, not surpising, kids say is an interesting storyline and unique characters.
What BS.. one of the most popular games at the moment is Dance Dance Revolution which has no storyline, and the characters are overdone anime types who are there for no reason at all.
Okay, it's not educational, but it's in a school, and the kids love it.
Games do not necessarily need storylines (see almost any multiplayer game) to keep interest. They just need to be addictive. For example, Tetris, DDR, Tetrinet, SimCity.
Talking of which.. anyone remember Sierra's 'Castle of Doctor Brain'? Great educational game, and I even played it a few months ago to bring back the memories!
It is interesting to hear about LPG use in the States.
You seem to have lower fuel costs locally, but I have to wonder if it's really worth the conversion price in the US. In Europe, things are different.
Gasoline is about 75p ($1.12) per *litre* (about 3.9 litres to the US gallon).. so about $4.39 per gallon to you.
LPG, on the other hand, is about 35p (51 cents) pet litre, about $1.98 per gallon to you. However, if you do a lot of travelling around Europe, you can get LPG as low as 19p per litre ($1.11 per US gal) in Belgium, for example.
Compare $1.11 with $4.39, and you can see why LPG should be popular here. In the US, it sounds as if there is little reason to switch, other than for environmental ideals.
Picture rugby with guns and you've got the basic idea.
Rugby is a good comparison. If it was to be like American Football, whenever a player dropped the ball, you'd have to stop the game and cut for an ad break for 5 minutes.
Correct. I have a Mercedes C200 that was converted to LPG. Got no grant, but hey.
It works out about 6.9p (about 10.5 cents) per mile in the Merc now on LPG.. whereas my Corsa 1.2l works out at about 9.6p (about 15 cents) per mile.. so I can drive a 2 litre Merc for cheaper than a 1.2l Corsa;-)
Of course, the fact that fuel is three to four times more expensive in Europe means that even a 100mpg car is only/just/ going to be approaching the economy of a regular American car.:-(
Yeah, I actually randomly found his site a few months ago while scouring Slashdot sigs.. probably yours! I dropped him an e-mail and found it hard to believe that was just one guy.
Looking forward to the new MP3s for sure. I'll have to see if he's doing any gigs when I go the US next.
It's totally retarded to compare Logo with Delphi or VB. Delphi is not Pascal, and VB is not Basic. If the original poster meant "Delphi" when he said "Pascal" then I give up.
No it's not. It's not all about the root languages, but about what those languages can be taken on to achieve. BASIC 'became' powerful with VB, Pascal 'became' powerful with Delphi. Could LOGO become powerful in some way? My suggestion is no.
Could you write an operating system in LOGO? A compiler? Again, my suggested answer is no.
I have to disagree with most of your comments. Yes, it depends on how it's taught, but you can't hold up LOGO and say it's better (even in 'some' respects) than PASCAL or BASIC.
Can you code large-scale functional applications in LOGO? No. Not really. LOGO is solely for educational purposes, whereas while PASCAL and BASIC are also used in educational scenarios, they can do much more. Delphi (using Pascal) can produce anything that Visual C++ can. BASIC is used in numerous areas.. like VBA, and Visual Basic itself.
I also disagree with your last comment and I think you misunderstood the parent poster. The problem is that the educational system is not designed for students to have individual experiences, but so that children are all taught as a whole, regardless of skill level.
I learned BASIC at age 6, 6052 assembler at age 8, and C at age 9. Does this mean I was taught C++ in 7th Grade? No. We had to do LOGO. It wasn't a case of being 'too good' to learn another language.. it was just a case that LOGO was a ridiculously pointless language to learn if you already knew C, BASIC and some assembler!
Well clearly you don't respect that different people like different things.
And comparing live music created with real instruments to electronic synthesized music is a whole different ballgame to comparing rap and classical music.
How the hell does one compare The Chemical Brothers to Beethoven anyway?
You were a sysadmin at MIT, so were probably pulling in a pretty good wage.. at least, probably better than 50% of the Slashdot readership anyway.
So if it wasn't about the money, what was it about? Prestige is one option, but people in these groups need to keep hidden, so that doesn't fit. Was it for the ideals? If so, what ideals are there in ripping off software?
I can understand why people who can't afford software rip it off.. they have stuff to do, and can't afford $500 for Photoshop or whatever.. but tell me why someone with a decent salary will work in secret to beat the software companies.. what is the motivation?
Lots of great (and ironically original) groups and DJs do lots of sampling, but rearrange the samples or cut them up into weird new unexpected beats.. and really redefine the sound.
Examples? DJ Shadow, Fat Boy Slim, Moby, Daft Punk.. there are a hundred examples.
Slashdot Mirror
Question..
If you have girlfriends, why the hell are you on this site? This site is for sad assholes like me who have nothing better to do than troll to get some attention in our pathetic little lives (I'm not joking, and I'm not going to post this on Anonymous Coward for once).
Since SlashBack is mostly just disparate posts, I thought I'd post a primer for those unfamiliar with the OGG format.
OGG is a music format created by Jan Vorbis in 1974. (Trivia: It was originally going to be called EGG, but Jan found out 'EGG' was already trademarked by Egg Corp.)
Jan initially developed the format to be a free source (and licence free) version of MP3. Using comp.lang.basic.misc, Jan rallied a large group of QBasic programmers into finalizing the protocol and releasing the first OGG encoder and player as QBasic source code (Trivia: This is why OGG encoding is so slow today as a simple BASIC -> C convertor was used to transvert the code for ports.)
The OGG format has since come on in leaps and bounds and is enjoying a reputation that only Pascal and the original Apple Mac once had.
In conclusion, most OGG users are quiche eating ponytailed geniuses who believe in free speech.
Chance of Slashdotter having a girlfriend: 1 in 10.
Chance of that girlfriend being HOT: 1 in 214
Chance of a HOT girlfriend studying Computer Science: 1 in 4,735,286
Oh no, all your combined probabilities have lead to the world's lowest probability and have caused the inprobability drive from 2217 to go into a spasm and cause a quantum paradox! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!
I pointed out gpg to my bank [umbrellabank.com] for account-related communications (but they don't seem to get it yet...they're a bank). Everybody else ask your bank about it too. It's evangelism. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
;)
That might be possible in the US since you have regional banks and actually get to talk to people there.
In the UK, all of our banks are national, and very very faceless. Not many people have 'bank managers' anymore, and even people with big money have 'account handlers' instead. You can talk to stupid 'business advisors' at the bank, but only at certain branches. Good luck trying to give a bank advice in this country!
And most importantly, I encrypt love letters to my girlfriend. Don't want anyone reading that stuff.
I wouldn't want a girlfriend who's geeky enough to decrypt encrypted e-mails though!
GnuPG is definitely, certainly, and really the way to go with secure encryption and security systems, here's why..
The simple and undisputed -- and often argued -- fact is that we've come a long way, and the majority of large businesses are now using Linux as both a desktop and server OS which means these things are efficient to do.
GnuPG's (shouldn't that be GNUPG since GNU is an acronym?) ease of use and its (almost) seamless connectivity with most Linux communications applications allows the average workplace user to encrypt documents and files, preventing PR-disasteresque leaks -- such as the recent leak of the salary details of Lycos' staff to InternalMemos.com..
The seamless and very good encryption and decryption system allows staff of lots of big and small companies to simultaneously access and also work on their valuable and secure data as usual, but means that even if sites like F**kedCompany get hold of it, it's no use to them. Copying and pasting will just result in goobledygook being produced.
GnuPG's automated hyperencryption routines also mean that it could have some extremely useful and oblique military functionality, allowing our brave patriots to fight terrorism around the world.
One such example is in the encryption of numeric data such as numbers like digits between 0 and digits under 9. These encyrption routines can improve the efficiency of this by 24%.
I know new systems and apps create a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation.. but what about this:
Today, I use GnuPG for a variety of tasks. Whether it's to sign and encrypt documents and contracts submitted to businesses, encrypt local files, or merely sign email and files to ensure others that no modifications have occurred to its content, I have found GnuPG to be a 'must have' utility kept close at hand when using my PCs.
Documents submitted to businesses? Signing e-mail and files?
Signing these sorts of things is a good idea, but just how many businesses are going to have GnuPG at this time. And, since you can get the files out of the e-mail without HAVING to use GnuPG (GnuPG just checks the authenticity), it doesn't really encourage people to go get it either.
Considering most people are Joe Schmoes using Windows, I can't see how using GnuPG (or even PGP, for that matter) to sign things is going to help anyone at this stage.
Outlook Express is the most common e-mail client out there today and from all the e-mail I get.. I'd say that far less than 1% of its users actually use the signing and encryption features that are BUILT IN! GnuPG is an add-on, at best.. so can we really see millions of people using this?
Until the public learn more about security, how it works, and why it should be used, I think not.
You are quite right. Slashdot editor. An editor's job (okay, it's the sub-editors job on most publications, but this isn't quite like that) is to standardize conventions. Clearly they're letting GNU/Linux through.
Interesting to see that Slashdot has adopted GNU/Linux as the name for the "operating system previously known as Linux" as proposed by the FSF!
Slashdot covered clockless chips briefly a few months ago. Why do they make sense? To learn why, let's compare computers to real life industry.
In the 1800s, industry was limited to a few very large factories and workplaces. Over time, these factories became bigger and bigger and faster and faster, until eventually it became impractical to make everything in one place. So.. things were decentralized. Now when your car is built, the raw materials come from Brazil, the parts are made in Taiwan, then the cars are built in America.
Processors are headed the same way. Things are becoming decentralized, and the load on the processor should, therefore, go down. The giant leaps and bounds with video cards have actually caused CPUs to have less work to do. No longer do CPUs have to do nasty 3D calculations.. the video cards do it!
Clockless chips work very well in decentralized situations, since they operate based on incoming data, rather than to a clock. This means thousands of non-standard components can work together to produce the same result as one CPU.
Even -car- engines are becoming decentralized now with specialist automatic gearboxes, electric backup motors, and psuedo-petrol engines in the Prius and Insight. With processors it makes even more sense.
References:
Business 2.0 article on Clockless Computing
Economist article on Asynchronous/Clockless chips.
Some smartass always posts a correction like this when Lego is brought up as a topic.
It's called 'Lego', as the bricks are called 'Lego bricks'.
Wil linked this screenshot of GNOME, as an example of what the desktop in Mandrake looks like.
;-)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can see Alan Cox's fuzzy head over on the 'Projects' icon.. and prolific Linux hero or not, I can't see Mandrake coming with an Alan Cox icon.
Your logic is flawed.
If you deliberate limit yourself to things that are two years behind current technology, then advancements will come along for you just as fast as for everyone else.. but just two years behind.
Not everyone is on the 'front line'. A lot of us haven't even played Gran Turismo 3 or Halo, and probably won't bother for a year or two. I'd love to get Gran Turismo 3, but I can't be assed to shell out for a Playstation 2 when I have a PC.
The criteria for a good game, not surpising, kids say is an interesting storyline and unique characters.
What BS.. one of the most popular games at the moment is Dance Dance Revolution which has no storyline, and the characters are overdone anime types who are there for no reason at all.
A lot of kids are getting fit from playing Dance Dance Revolution, and even a school in Los Angeles bought a DDR machine for Phys Ed class.
Okay, it's not educational, but it's in a school, and the kids love it.
Games do not necessarily need storylines (see almost any multiplayer game) to keep interest. They just need to be addictive. For example, Tetris, DDR, Tetrinet, SimCity.
Talking of which.. anyone remember Sierra's 'Castle of Doctor Brain'? Great educational game, and I even played it a few months ago to bring back the memories!
It is interesting to hear about LPG use in the States.
You seem to have lower fuel costs locally, but I have to wonder if it's really worth the conversion price in the US. In Europe, things are different.
Gasoline is about 75p ($1.12) per *litre* (about 3.9 litres to the US gallon).. so about $4.39 per gallon to you.
LPG, on the other hand, is about 35p (51 cents) pet litre, about $1.98 per gallon to you. However, if you do a lot of travelling around Europe, you can get LPG as low as 19p per litre ($1.11 per US gal) in Belgium, for example.
Compare $1.11 with $4.39, and you can see why LPG should be popular here. In the US, it sounds as if there is little reason to switch, other than for environmental ideals.
Picture rugby with guns and you've got the basic idea.
Rugby is a good comparison. If it was to be like American Football, whenever a player dropped the ball, you'd have to stop the game and cut for an ad break for 5 minutes.
Correct. I have a Mercedes C200 that was converted to LPG. Got no grant, but hey.
;-)
/just/ going to be approaching the economy of a regular American car. :-(
It works out about 6.9p (about 10.5 cents) per mile in the Merc now on LPG.. whereas my Corsa 1.2l works out at about 9.6p (about 15 cents) per mile.. so I can drive a 2 litre Merc for cheaper than a 1.2l Corsa
Of course, the fact that fuel is three to four times more expensive in Europe means that even a 100mpg car is only
He has strong views on free software, software patentability and the freedom of the Internet.
So do Bill Gates and the RIAA. Point? Opinions are just like assholes. Everyone's got one, and they're all full of shit.
Yeah, I actually randomly found his site a few months ago while scouring Slashdot sigs.. probably yours! I dropped him an e-mail and found it hard to believe that was just one guy.
Looking forward to the new MP3s for sure. I'll have to see if he's doing any gigs when I go the US next.
Good to see this posted here. Dwayne's music totally kicks ass.
It's totally retarded to compare Logo with Delphi or VB. Delphi is not Pascal, and VB is not Basic. If the original poster meant "Delphi" when he said "Pascal" then I give up.
No it's not. It's not all about the root languages, but about what those languages can be taken on to achieve. BASIC 'became' powerful with VB, Pascal 'became' powerful with Delphi. Could LOGO become powerful in some way? My suggestion is no.
Could you write an operating system in LOGO? A compiler? Again, my suggested answer is no.
I have to disagree with most of your comments. Yes, it depends on how it's taught, but you can't hold up LOGO and say it's better (even in 'some' respects) than PASCAL or BASIC.
Can you code large-scale functional applications in LOGO? No. Not really. LOGO is solely for educational purposes, whereas while PASCAL and BASIC are also used in educational scenarios, they can do much more. Delphi (using Pascal) can produce anything that Visual C++ can. BASIC is used in numerous areas.. like VBA, and Visual Basic itself.
I also disagree with your last comment and I think you misunderstood the parent poster. The problem is that the educational system is not designed for students to have individual experiences, but so that children are all taught as a whole, regardless of skill level.
I learned BASIC at age 6, 6052 assembler at age 8, and C at age 9. Does this mean I was taught C++ in 7th Grade? No. We had to do LOGO. It wasn't a case of being 'too good' to learn another language.. it was just a case that LOGO was a ridiculously pointless language to learn if you already knew C, BASIC and some assembler!
rap sucks donkey balls, Classical music does not.
Well clearly you don't respect that different people like different things.
And comparing live music created with real instruments to electronic synthesized music is a whole different ballgame to comparing rap and classical music.
How the hell does one compare The Chemical Brothers to Beethoven anyway?
Uh, you can't compare different genres and types of media like that.
If so.. let's compare Seinfeld to Nirvana.. which is better? Or, gee, Beethoven versus Piccasso.
Sure a live orchestra is great, but DJ-made recordings are just as good in their own way.
You were a sysadmin at MIT, so were probably pulling in a pretty good wage.. at least, probably better than 50% of the Slashdot readership anyway.
So if it wasn't about the money, what was it about? Prestige is one option, but people in these groups need to keep hidden, so that doesn't fit. Was it for the ideals? If so, what ideals are there in ripping off software?
I can understand why people who can't afford software rip it off.. they have stuff to do, and can't afford $500 for Photoshop or whatever.. but tell me why someone with a decent salary will work in secret to beat the software companies.. what is the motivation?
Lots of great (and ironically original) groups and DJs do lots of sampling, but rearrange the samples or cut them up into weird new unexpected beats.. and really redefine the sound.
Examples? DJ Shadow, Fat Boy Slim, Moby, Daft Punk.. there are a hundred examples.