Of course some comments are dupes. This goes with my pet theory that the reason why story dupes exist is so people with no karma can easily get some by nabbing and duping that comment in the dup story. Soon said person has plenty of karma and can perpetuate the process by rounding up his friends to do the same. Within months, 5-10 people have excellent karma and can affect how moderation works. All from duplicates of stories on the front page of Slashdot.
I'd love to donate to her case. This RIAA business is getting way out of hand. They are using the law system as extortion. This needs to go through the system to show the judge that a simple IP address is not enough to charge somebody with 'theft' of their IP.
The reviewer ends up daring the movie watcher to enjoy the movie. I thought the movie was great. Mostly because it has a very strong and believable science fiction plot. The trailer I saw on TV had me thinking second thoughts about it. It cast this IMO negative light on it about it being another action thriller. True the movie did have it's action sequences and a couple were integral to moving the plot forward, but the rest of the 'action' was thrown in to presumably make the movie appeal to the larger movie going crowd. But it certainly wasn't needed. It is true that if you missed a critical 10 minutes of the movie spread out into small segments, a watcher could be left very confused about what the heck is going on. I plan on seeing it again. The movie has that quality of being one of those that can survive multiple watchings. I never did watch the MTV series. I had heard about it and always wanted to, but never made the time. No matter, the movie was very entertaining to me and well worth the 8.50 I spent on it.
I read the article last time and it indicates that the dye chemist the inventor hired spent years developing an agent that can reflect color when the soap bubble is formed and break apart so it effectively turns invisible when the bubble pops. It all had to be made of organic molecules like soap bubbles, water washable, and free of any toxins. Otherwise the big toy companies would not accept the product. The inventor's 11 year quest finally paid off when all of those conditions were satisfied.
Yet, your question is valid and will be asked by who knows how many parents and comsumer advocate groups. The inventor will need to submit his product for all types of testing to expose any lurking danger. As for long-term effects, most of the processed food products today have things in them that will be harmful in the long term. Assuming this soap bubble coloring agent breaks up after 10 minutes and can be safely disposed of (like the article indicates), that is better than most other invented items.
"Looking for any information on how to get my Creative Audigy to not pop my speakers when I shutdown or restart my PC"
Presumably you want Creative to fix the problem at the hardware level. Since the pop indicates poor design or poor components in certain areas around the op amps.
The easiest fix for Creative (somwewhat cheesy tho) is to have them modify their drivers to introduce a band pass filter during the power on/off sequence of the computer. I suppose this part assumes Windows OS.
The best solution is to turn off the speakers until you need them. Very rarely do you actually need speakers turned on during the power up/down cycle.
A DIY approach would be to make your own interruption circuit somewhere in the speaker power chain that is broken by an opto iso relay control powered by a USB port or some other port that is activated after the inital power on sequence occurs. Little perl program could turn off that port during the power down cycle.
That last one sounds kinda fun and useful for other home projects as well.:)
Guess my head is the wrong place again. I just finished up some DVD authoring. I was kind of looking forward to an audio recording. Interesting interview regardless.:)
Your priorities are different than mine. Simple as that. NVidia knows there is a market that will find value in these cards despite the high price.
As another poster said, the newer cards afford the older games to run more smoothly. A definite plus since I still manage to game quite a bit. I am also an amature 3D visualization artist. The OpenGL aspect of cards like these agree with my 3D software of choice. Most 3D animation and modeling software in the market has some kind of hardware GPU accelerated preview. Faster graphics card with the neccesary APIs speed up the creative process. Time = money. While not directly applicable to me yet, I am sure there are a couple out there that it does apply to.
Owner of an Epson Styles Photo R-800 ink jet here. I've had it for nearly a year now and I've been very pleased with it. With the right paper, http://www.inkjetart.com/photo_papers/ceramic/glos s.html, these are almost undistinguishable from lab prints. A couple of 4x6 ink-jet prints that I gave to my nephews were left on the dashboard of the family vehicle during the summer. Said pictures are still quite vivid. There is a tiny bit of sun fade when you compare it to another fresh print, but you really have to look close and with a critical eye. The Epson Ultrachrome inks are substantially better than ink tech even 3 years ago. With a bit of shopping, you can get the price per print down to around 40 cents. Compairable to lab prices, plus you get the convenience of doing home prints.
I like the part where you call consumers dumb bastards. Bit of a double standard me thinks. However, I agree completely with your point, people will pay real money for convenience. Dang near everything in the consumer market now is all about making something easier to enjoy that something. The Internet is just the next step.
The media conglomerate suits just need some time to figure out how to make money off that. I don't think they are blind to that fact. They desperately cling onto the old antiquated idea of their product needing to be locked down so tight with DRM. To try and control distribution. Something they have done ever since they figured out how easily the consumer was fleeced.
Tests have already been conducted and they are promising. Just provide the media electronically and people will pay for it. In ANY distribution endeavor there will be people who copy and distribute without the blessing of the media conglomerates.
or a calculated risk. That's what this movie was. Personally, I thought the movie was great and have since watched the Firefly DVD series (equally great, sometimes beter).
But this movie didn't really have any marketing, it was depending mostly on word of mouth from fans for people to see it. The movie was a gift to the diehard fans from Joss, made possible by the movie studio on the hope that open a new type of moviemaking (AKA a new revenue stream). Having is do great in movie theaters would be an acknowledgement that it is accepted by a mainstream audience. Not likely, as much as is saddens me to say that. Too many people just don't like the trailer, or something in it shocks their Sci Fi expectations, or aren't willing to go just because of all the other economic pressures that people face when deciding on where their entertainment dollars will go.
Direct to DVD movies have historically been badly done. This story has a chance to change all that. Perhaps the story can be told in that medium? I'm faily positive the fan base will purchase said DVDs in droves on the release date and it will attract the curious to rent and eventually purchase.
Ok. Let me put it in words that'll be understood here.
"Unfortunately. Nobody can be told what the matrix is. You have to experience it for yourself".
Faith is like that. Everybody at some point in their life wants to believe in something that is higher than themselves. To extract some kind of meaning out of existance. We are all born hard-wired that way. It will happen regardless of how atheistic the individual's views are.
When that moment happens, we have a choice. We can either believe in something or choose not to believe in a higher power. To swallow the 'red pill ' or the 'blue pill' as it were. The truth is out there. It only matters if you'll have faith.
I have seen and heard of all types of religions. The ones that focus on teaching and not preaching are the ones to be part of - in my humble opinion. Put simply, the choice is our's. We merely have to swallow it.
To think that something manmade is at the outer limits or our solar system boggles the mind! Instellar distances are almost unfathomable, but now we have a small inkling of what they are. It would be great to get empirical data from that region.
I am saddened to the extreme that useful, scientifically important research is going to be cancelled because of lack of funds. What makes this even worse is is takes so long to get out there, and these are the only 2 satellites that are close. Another opportunity won't come for decades!
I am sure each research project has their own concerns and ideals, but COME ON! Can't this at least count for something?!? Just a little bit more to count in it's favor?
Why should they? These problems have existed for over 5 years that I can recall (at least noticeable to me). Other people have higher tolerances for duplicates and other effects. The simple fact seems to be that people come here regardless of the stuff deemed crap. The main draw of/. is the comments. That's the part of the habit that is hard to break.
If this isn't a karma whoring subject, then I don't know what is. *smile*
A rock up there is named Spongebob Squarepants, with a feature on the rock named Patrick (Squarepants' friend & sidekick). I am sure the name is unofficial, well I hope it is anyway. With names taken from popular culture, somebody somewhere is going to get their panties in a bunch over it. What happens if a region starts getting names from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series? I mean, it was last year I think that the word 'moogle' was entered Dictionaries. That's pretty mainstream. Personally, I think that is a travesty.
Point being, if J. Rowlings takes offense at her names of characters and world in her books are starting to be used for features on Mars, then she might want some kind of compensation for them, maybe only a paraphysical presence in a future mars mission. But what if it comes later? Like all this IP submarining crap that is all the rage is legal and corporate circles these days.
Some dead tired scientist names a obvious shaped rock 'Big Mac'. McDonald's finds out about it 3 years later and wants a clause written in some contract somewhere that everytime a name is used from their menu, NASA has to pay royalties or some such. Or worse yet, could NASA be cohersed into commercial or corporate interests in a different way than they already are?
It's 5 o'clock in the AM where I am typing this message at and my brain is starting to hurt. I hate the fact that any resonably intelligent person now automatically starts thinking of how IP can be used in a negative light. However you want to characterise that.
I commend you on the post. You write and communicate your ideas and thoughts very well. That will help greatly in your programming career. I do however, take exception as to the content of your post. You simply need more experience in dealing with different areas of computers.
Kill the command line? What about all the people who have to administrate these machines and automate that process? Command line tools and scripting is still the best way to do that. Until somebody makes a fully comprehensive set of GUI tools that duplicate the power and flexibility of command line tools, the command line will be of utmost importance to the productivity of computer professionals everywhere. Maybe you can start on that conversion process. Not a completely bad endeavour.
Red Hat should not allow their source code to be seen? I hope you meant something else and I misunderstood your intent. Please read up on the tenents of Free Software and Open Source and take those words to heart. This is your career and livelyhood in computers.
Too many flavors of Red Hat? Red Had is not my favorit distro out there, so any words I say will be biased in that regard. But in a sense, that is the core point. With so many different variants and distributions of Linux out there, people are free to pick and choose which one suits their needs the best. And when their needs change, they can change distros as well. It is a double edged sword. There is great power and flexibility in multiple versions, but that power is overwhelming to those who are just getting into the world of Linux.
What made the iPod so successful? 1) Integration, 2) Ease of use, 3) Design purity.
So let's apply that to the mythical video iPod. 1) Integration - Nearly there. A couple more generations of storage mediums and digital transfer interfaces will get us the required storage and speed. 2) Ease of use. Quite a bit is needed here. There isn't even a clear idea on how people want to enjoy movies. One at a time? Snipits? (unknown). What about enjoying them while doing something else, like background music? Is that possible? One thing I would hope for is special goggles that go with it that present a large videoscape in front of you and have the audio cues necessary for multichannel sound. Both of those are possible today. Not in enough resolution yet. 3 Design Purity. I am pretty confident that Apple could come up with a good hardware design that would appeal to large numbers of people.
See? Not that hard. Just need to wait a few years.
To that other poster that was brave enough to post that he had both the ability to code and UI design, I say bravo! You are a rare person indeed with a rare skillset. Make sure your employer knows that you can do both. Remind them at nearly every opportunity. Once you get the chance to show you can do both, then it can be a fight to keep the work from piling up. Because that is what they will do, pile it on you.
At my last job, every programmer besides me hated doing website and graphic design. I welcomed it. What little bit there was (CSS programming and web page element design) was a welcome change from writing code day in and day out. Finally my boss threw a small design job at me. They must of liked the results. After that, nearly every design job was mine and I was brought along on business trips to steer the conversation in ways that fit with good design.
But the seperation between coder and designer is there. Most of my programmer friends are literally amazing at what they can churn out for functional code in an afternoon. Not many of them know anything about the basics tenents of UI design. Another set of my friends are amazing artists and/or web site designers. Throw a bit of scripting or programming at them and they just freeze up.
There are people out there that can do both. I believe these skill sets can be cultivated. My older nephew is showing tendencies of having both. In that regard, I am trying to give him plenty of opportunity to excel at both abilities. I showed him how to do web programming. He got pretty excited about that. Then I showed him scripting actions in NWN builder, he never really liked that much, at least from what I have seen so far. Unfortunately he is diagnosed and is taking medicine for having ADD. I fear that if he isn't given the right opportunities at the right times, he will just give up and not be very happy with himself.
Maybe that's the overriding goal of Microsoft here. Give people the tools that allow them to stretch their wings and see if they can enjoy both. That's the beauty of computers. Why not use it?
IMO,/. has turned into the electronic equivalent of those trash tabloids as I call them; World News, The National Enquirer, etc. I don't remember/. being this way in the early years. Now it is fine if they want to make money and they have figured out this is how best to make it, but it doesn't agree with my style of news reading. Lately the central point for news gathering has been Google, Ars-Technica, and other select sites that cater to my hobbies.
3 years ago I was ready to kick the/. habit because of the posts with idiotic humor that got modded to +4 and above. Since funny posts are now have a slant of -4,/. comment reading became more enoyable.
I wonder if there is an option to turn off the comments? There probably is, I just need to look.
Windows only, but your example inferred windows only programs. Also I know it supports amiga IFF format all bit depths, cause I pointed out that that 1 and 2 bit depth clut was wonky and the author fixed it in the very next release. OF course the program (when purchased) will export to PNG format.
Tracker Module music is not dead, not is it in any danger of being dead. Heck there are professional musicians that still use tracker style composing. http://www.skale.org/ is a free tracker that supports almost all the old formats. It is real cool to tinker around with, and incredibly powerful. Plus it works in Windows and (though I've never tried it) Linux.
It's great to have that amount of space, but the filesystem determines how well that space is used. I have a Lacie external 500 gig HD and I formatted it with NTFS - Windows XP preferred filesystem. Beyond the formatted space available only being about 460 gig (drive specs versus computer specs) the cluster size is big enough that is doesn't make sense to store small (128K) files on it. I know it is the fault of the filesystem on the OS, but a lot of people have XP and 2K. Earlier versions of Windows won't work on the entire 500 gig HD. It'll have to be split up into multiple partitions.
My point is until there is a filesystem that has a smaller cluster size (or is database like) these HUGE drives are best used for very large files. The more smaller files that are put on there, the drive fills up much quicker than you'd imagine.
Better yet, imagine/. contributors as pimply faced pubescent hormonally challenged ADD strung out teenagers that have nothing better to do than to offer their viewpoint of how much things suck. Furthermore, imagine the moderators as 1 step up from that, barely able to look above the/. party line or groupthink.
Heck, I know that is a gross over simplification and stereotype. I look at it this way, imagine bottom of the barrel and when something better comes along, you'll be pleasantly surprised.:)
On topic, this tech is incredibly cool and the fact that it is in a prototype product makes it even cooler. I'm anxious to see how fast this tech advances now that some core problem have been figured out.
Just trace the outline of the alien type people. You can sort of see their sillouette. They all have big heads and no arms yet. But I assume that's because of the telekinesis and the fishbowls on the head. Oh! And there are 4 of them so far, but there could be more as time progresses.
"... a way to record Windows Media streams to my HD to watch again later."
1) Get Firefox & use it. 2) Goto menu item Tools 3) Select Options... 4) Select Downloads 5) Click on "Ask me where to save every file" in the Download Folder section. 5) Click on the Plug-Ins button (in the File Types section) 6) Find the extension of the movie and click on the checkmark to disable browser support for that extension. 7) Click ok a few times to get out of Options. 8) View source on the page where the video is that you want to save (or do this before step 2). 9) Search for SRC and repeat the search till you find the URL of the movie. (ditto) 10) Highlight and copy the URL from the source. (ditto again) 11) Open a new tab and paste the copied URL. Press ENTER or click on Go. 12) Firefox will bring up a dialog of what you can do with the file. One of the options is to save.
There are easier ways to save the file. Having a program intercept a URL click if it has a certain extension (http://www.xi-soft.com/default.htm) and other ways. If you savvy (or want to learn) about web source code, then this way works perfectly fine.
Personally, I haven't purchased a CD in nearly 10 years. I rarely listen to the radio either. Most music I have is from before the era of RIAA wrath and before I realized the implications of the GPL and Free Software.
Partly, I don't buy because I haven't heard anything new that is to my liking. I did buy a couple songs in iTunes. Those were songs from 1970's music CDs I have, which are so horribly scratched they are unplayable on the songs that I wanted to save. I didn't want to purchase the CDs again and support the music cartel, so I picked the least expensive legal option. If I do purchase more music at some point it will certainly be under duress. I don't share music other than loaning CDs to friends occasionally, and I don't download music from the Internet either.
I feel the GPL and the Free Software movement is slowly changing the ideals of the world when it comes to Intellectual Property. It will take a few decades for these ideals to seep into the collective consciousness of non-internet people, but it will happen.
In the end, my previous post is about the slow but unyielding process of big business trying to repress and control their customers. It is happening now, but not to wide scale yet. When it does start to step up, or they sue the wrong person (that'll also happen) then a bit of progress into changing the system will happen. More people will become aware of the draconian measures big business will go to to protect their revenue. Slowly the wheel turns, but the system will change.
If it was only about copyright infringment I would agree with your post. As we both know, it is not only about copyright infringment.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course some comments are dupes. This goes with my pet theory that the reason why story dupes exist is so people with no karma can easily get some by nabbing and duping that comment in the dup story. Soon said person has plenty of karma and can perpetuate the process by rounding up his friends to do the same. Within months, 5-10 people have excellent karma and can affect how moderation works. All from duplicates of stories on the front page of Slashdot.
And don't get me started on meta-moderation.
-FlynnMP3
I'd love to donate to her case. This RIAA business is getting way out of hand. They are using the law system as extortion. This needs to go through the system to show the judge that a simple IP address is not enough to charge somebody with 'theft' of their IP.
-FlynnMP3
The reviewer ends up daring the movie watcher to enjoy the movie. I thought the movie was great. Mostly because it has a very strong and believable science fiction plot. The trailer I saw on TV had me thinking second thoughts about it. It cast this IMO negative light on it about it being another action thriller. True the movie did have it's action sequences and a couple were integral to moving the plot forward, but the rest of the 'action' was thrown in to presumably make the movie appeal to the larger movie going crowd. But it certainly wasn't needed. It is true that if you missed a critical 10 minutes of the movie spread out into small segments, a watcher could be left very confused about what the heck is going on. I plan on seeing it again. The movie has that quality of being one of those that can survive multiple watchings. I never did watch the MTV series. I had heard about it and always wanted to, but never made the time. No matter, the movie was very entertaining to me and well worth the 8.50 I spent on it.
-FlynnMP3
I read the article last time and it indicates that the dye chemist the inventor hired spent years developing an agent that can reflect color when the soap bubble is formed and break apart so it effectively turns invisible when the bubble pops. It all had to be made of organic molecules like soap bubbles, water washable, and free of any toxins. Otherwise the big toy companies would not accept the product. The inventor's 11 year quest finally paid off when all of those conditions were satisfied.
Yet, your question is valid and will be asked by who knows how many parents and comsumer advocate groups. The inventor will need to submit his product for all types of testing to expose any lurking danger. As for long-term effects, most of the processed food products today have things in them that will be harmful in the long term. Assuming this soap bubble coloring agent breaks up after 10 minutes and can be safely disposed of (like the article indicates), that is better than most other invented items.
-FlynnMP3
"Looking for any information on how to get my Creative Audigy to not pop my speakers when I shutdown or restart my PC"
:)
Presumably you want Creative to fix the problem at the hardware level. Since the pop indicates poor design or poor components in certain areas around the op amps.
The easiest fix for Creative (somwewhat cheesy tho) is to have them modify their drivers to introduce a band pass filter during the power on/off sequence of the computer. I suppose this part assumes Windows OS.
The best solution is to turn off the speakers until you need them. Very rarely do you actually need speakers turned on during the power up/down cycle.
A DIY approach would be to make your own interruption circuit somewhere in the speaker power chain that is broken by an opto iso relay control powered by a USB port or some other port that is activated after the inital power on sequence occurs. Little perl program could turn off that port during the power down cycle.
That last one sounds kinda fun and useful for other home projects as well.
-FlynnMP3
Guess my head is the wrong place again. I just finished up some DVD authoring. I was kind of looking forward to an audio recording. Interesting interview regardless. :)
Your priorities are different than mine. Simple as that. NVidia knows there is a market that will find value in these cards despite the high price.
As another poster said, the newer cards afford the older games to run more smoothly. A definite plus since I still manage to game quite a bit. I am also an amature 3D visualization artist. The OpenGL aspect of cards like these agree with my 3D software of choice. Most 3D animation and modeling software in the market has some kind of hardware GPU accelerated preview. Faster graphics card with the neccesary APIs speed up the creative process. Time = money. While not directly applicable to me yet, I am sure there are a couple out there that it does apply to.
-FlynnMP3
Owner of an Epson Styles Photo R-800 ink jet here. I've had it for nearly a year now and I've been very pleased with it. With the right paper, http://www.inkjetart.com/photo_papers/ceramic/glos s.html, these are almost undistinguishable from lab prints. A couple of 4x6 ink-jet prints that I gave to my nephews were left on the dashboard of the family vehicle during the summer. Said pictures are still quite vivid. There is a tiny bit of sun fade when you compare it to another fresh print, but you really have to look close and with a critical eye. The Epson Ultrachrome inks are substantially better than ink tech even 3 years ago. With a bit of shopping, you can get the price per print down to around 40 cents. Compairable to lab prices, plus you get the convenience of doing home prints.
Not too terribly bad IMO.
So they started talking again. woo. *balloons* *confetti* bleh.
My prediction. If anything comes out of this, it will be Microsoft supporting both formats.
I like the part where you call consumers dumb bastards. Bit of a double standard me thinks. However, I agree completely with your point, people will pay real money for convenience. Dang near everything in the consumer market now is all about making something easier to enjoy that something. The Internet is just the next step.
The media conglomerate suits just need some time to figure out how to make money off that. I don't think they are blind to that fact. They desperately cling onto the old antiquated idea of their product needing to be locked down so tight with DRM. To try and control distribution. Something they have done ever since they figured out how easily the consumer was fleeced.
Tests have already been conducted and they are promising. Just provide the media electronically and people will pay for it. In ANY distribution endeavor there will be people who copy and distribute without the blessing of the media conglomerates.
Just give us the damn movies already!
-FlynnMP3
or a calculated risk. That's what this movie was. Personally, I thought the movie was great and have since watched the Firefly DVD series (equally great, sometimes beter).
But this movie didn't really have any marketing, it was depending mostly on word of mouth from fans for people to see it. The movie was a gift to the diehard fans from Joss, made possible by the movie studio on the hope that open a new type of moviemaking (AKA a new revenue stream). Having is do great in movie theaters would be an acknowledgement that it is accepted by a mainstream audience. Not likely, as much as is saddens me to say that. Too many people just don't like the trailer, or something in it shocks their Sci Fi expectations, or aren't willing to go just because of all the other economic pressures that people face when deciding on where their entertainment dollars will go.
Direct to DVD movies have historically been badly done. This story has a chance to change all that. Perhaps the story can be told in that medium? I'm faily positive the fan base will purchase said DVDs in droves on the release date and it will attract the curious to rent and eventually purchase.
Ok. Let me put it in words that'll be understood here.
"Unfortunately. Nobody can be told what the matrix is. You have to experience it for yourself".
Faith is like that. Everybody at some point in their life wants to believe in something that is higher than themselves. To extract some kind of meaning out of existance. We are all born hard-wired that way. It will happen regardless of how atheistic the individual's views are.
When that moment happens, we have a choice. We can either believe in something or choose not to believe in a higher power. To swallow the 'red pill ' or the 'blue pill' as it were. The truth is out there. It only matters if you'll have faith.
I have seen and heard of all types of religions. The ones that focus on teaching and not preaching are the ones to be part of - in my humble opinion. Put simply, the choice is our's. We merely have to swallow it.
-FlynnMP3
To think that something manmade is at the outer limits or our solar system boggles the mind! Instellar distances are almost unfathomable, but now we have a small inkling of what they are. It would be great to get empirical data from that region.
I am saddened to the extreme that useful, scientifically important research is going to be cancelled because of lack of funds. What makes this even worse is is takes so long to get out there, and these are the only 2 satellites that are close. Another opportunity won't come for decades!
I am sure each research project has their own concerns and ideals, but COME ON! Can't this at least count for something?!? Just a little bit more to count in it's favor?
*sigh*
Now I am depressed.
Why should they? These problems have existed for over 5 years that I can recall (at least noticeable to me). Other people have higher tolerances for duplicates and other effects. The simple fact seems to be that people come here regardless of the stuff deemed crap. The main draw of /. is the comments. That's the part of the habit that is hard to break.
-FlynnMP3
If this isn't a karma whoring subject, then I don't know what is. *smile*
A rock up there is named Spongebob Squarepants, with a feature on the rock named Patrick (Squarepants' friend & sidekick). I am sure the name is unofficial, well I hope it is anyway. With names taken from popular culture, somebody somewhere is going to get their panties in a bunch over it. What happens if a region starts getting names from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series? I mean, it was last year I think that the word 'moogle' was entered Dictionaries. That's pretty mainstream. Personally, I think that is a travesty.
Point being, if J. Rowlings takes offense at her names of characters and world in her books are starting to be used for features on Mars, then she might want some kind of compensation for them, maybe only a paraphysical presence in a future mars mission. But what if it comes later? Like all this IP submarining crap that is all the rage is legal and corporate circles these days.
Some dead tired scientist names a obvious shaped rock 'Big Mac'. McDonald's finds out about it 3 years later and wants a clause written in some contract somewhere that everytime a name is used from their menu, NASA has to pay royalties or some such. Or worse yet, could NASA be cohersed into commercial or corporate interests in a different way than they already are?
It's 5 o'clock in the AM where I am typing this message at and my brain is starting to hurt. I hate the fact that any resonably intelligent person now automatically starts thinking of how IP can be used in a negative light. However you want to characterise that.
-FlynnMP3
To the AC in the corner. You know who you are.
I commend you on the post. You write and communicate your ideas and thoughts very well. That will help greatly in your programming career. I do however, take exception as to the content of your post. You simply need more experience in dealing with different areas of computers.
Kill the command line? What about all the people who have to administrate these machines and automate that process? Command line tools and scripting is still the best way to do that. Until somebody makes a fully comprehensive set of GUI tools that duplicate the power and flexibility of command line tools, the command line will be of utmost importance to the productivity of computer professionals everywhere. Maybe you can start on that conversion process. Not a completely bad endeavour.
Red Hat should not allow their source code to be seen? I hope you meant something else and I misunderstood your intent. Please read up on the tenents of Free Software and Open Source and take those words to heart. This is your career and livelyhood in computers.
Too many flavors of Red Hat? Red Had is not my favorit distro out there, so any words I say will be biased in that regard. But in a sense, that is the core point. With so many different variants and distributions of Linux out there, people are free to pick and choose which one suits their needs the best. And when their needs change, they can change distros as well. It is a double edged sword. There is great power and flexibility in multiple versions, but that power is overwhelming to those who are just getting into the world of Linux.
-waves
What made the iPod so successful? 1) Integration, 2) Ease of use, 3) Design purity.
So let's apply that to the mythical video iPod.
1) Integration - Nearly there. A couple more generations of storage mediums and digital transfer interfaces will get us the required storage and speed.
2) Ease of use. Quite a bit is needed here. There isn't even a clear idea on how people want to enjoy movies. One at a time? Snipits? (unknown). What about enjoying them while doing something else, like background music? Is that possible? One thing I would hope for is special goggles that go with it that present a large videoscape in front of you and have the audio cues necessary for multichannel sound. Both of those are possible today. Not in enough resolution yet.
3 Design Purity. I am pretty confident that Apple could come up with a good hardware design that would appeal to large numbers of people.
See? Not that hard. Just need to wait a few years.
-FlynnMP3
To that other poster that was brave enough to post that he had both the ability to code and UI design, I say bravo! You are a rare person indeed with a rare skillset. Make sure your employer knows that you can do both. Remind them at nearly every opportunity. Once you get the chance to show you can do both, then it can be a fight to keep the work from piling up. Because that is what they will do, pile it on you.
At my last job, every programmer besides me hated doing website and graphic design. I welcomed it. What little bit there was (CSS programming and web page element design) was a welcome change from writing code day in and day out. Finally my boss threw a small design job at me. They must of liked the results. After that, nearly every design job was mine and I was brought along on business trips to steer the conversation in ways that fit with good design.
But the seperation between coder and designer is there. Most of my programmer friends are literally amazing at what they can churn out for functional code in an afternoon. Not many of them know anything about the basics tenents of UI design. Another set of my friends are amazing artists and/or web site designers. Throw a bit of scripting or programming at them and they just freeze up.
There are people out there that can do both. I believe these skill sets can be cultivated. My older nephew is showing tendencies of having both. In that regard, I am trying to give him plenty of opportunity to excel at both abilities. I showed him how to do web programming. He got pretty excited about that. Then I showed him scripting actions in NWN builder, he never really liked that much, at least from what I have seen so far. Unfortunately he is diagnosed and is taking medicine for having ADD. I fear that if he isn't given the right opportunities at the right times, he will just give up and not be very happy with himself.
Maybe that's the overriding goal of Microsoft here. Give people the tools that allow them to stretch their wings and see if they can enjoy both. That's the beauty of computers. Why not use it?
IMO, /. has turned into the electronic equivalent of those trash tabloids as I call them; World News, The National Enquirer, etc. I don't remember /. being this way in the early years. Now it is fine if they want to make money and they have figured out this is how best to make it, but it doesn't agree with my style of news reading. Lately the central point for news gathering has been Google, Ars-Technica, and other select sites that cater to my hobbies.
/. habit because of the posts with idiotic humor that got modded to +4 and above. Since funny posts are now have a slant of -4, /. comment reading became more enoyable.
3 years ago I was ready to kick the
I wonder if there is an option to turn off the comments? There probably is, I just need to look.
-FlynnMP3
http://www.polyview.com/
Windows only, but your example inferred windows only programs. Also I know it supports amiga IFF format all bit depths, cause I pointed out that that 1 and 2 bit depth clut was wonky and the author fixed it in the very next release. OF course the program (when purchased) will export to PNG format.
Tracker Module music is not dead, not is it in any danger of being dead. Heck there are professional musicians that still use tracker style composing. http://www.skale.org/ is a free tracker that supports almost all the old formats. It is real cool to tinker around with, and incredibly powerful. Plus it works in Windows and (though I've never tried it) Linux.
Cheers!
It's great to have that amount of space, but the filesystem determines how well that space is used. I have a Lacie external 500 gig HD and I formatted it with NTFS - Windows XP preferred filesystem. Beyond the formatted space available only being about 460 gig (drive specs versus computer specs) the cluster size is big enough that is doesn't make sense to store small (128K) files on it. I know it is the fault of the filesystem on the OS, but a lot of people have XP and 2K. Earlier versions of Windows won't work on the entire 500 gig HD. It'll have to be split up into multiple partitions.
My point is until there is a filesystem that has a smaller cluster size (or is database like) these HUGE drives are best used for very large files. The more smaller files that are put on there, the drive fills up much quicker than you'd imagine.
-FlynnMP3
"You're all technically competent..."
/. contributors as pimply faced pubescent hormonally challenged ADD strung out teenagers that have nothing better to do than to offer their viewpoint of how much things suck. Furthermore, imagine the moderators as 1 step up from that, barely able to look above the /. party line or groupthink.
:)
Better yet, imagine
Heck, I know that is a gross over simplification and stereotype. I look at it this way, imagine bottom of the barrel and when something better comes along, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
On topic, this tech is incredibly cool and the fact that it is in a prototype product makes it even cooler. I'm anxious to see how fast this tech advances now that some core problem have been figured out.
-FlynnMP3
Just trace the outline of the alien type people. You can sort of see their sillouette. They all have big heads and no arms yet. But I assume that's because of the telekinesis and the fishbowls on the head. Oh! And there are 4 of them so far, but there could be more as time progresses.
From the Non-Random-Guessing Department.
-FlynnMP3
"... a way to record Windows Media streams to my HD to watch again later."
1) Get Firefox & use it.
2) Goto menu item Tools
3) Select Options...
4) Select Downloads
5) Click on "Ask me where to save every file" in the Download Folder section.
5) Click on the Plug-Ins button (in the File Types section)
6) Find the extension of the movie and click on the checkmark to disable browser support for that extension.
7) Click ok a few times to get out of Options.
8) View source on the page where the video is that you want to save (or do this before step 2).
9) Search for SRC and repeat the search till you find the URL of the movie. (ditto)
10) Highlight and copy the URL from the source. (ditto again)
11) Open a new tab and paste the copied URL. Press ENTER or click on Go.
12) Firefox will bring up a dialog of what you can do with the file. One of the options is to save.
There are easier ways to save the file. Having a program intercept a URL click if it has a certain extension (http://www.xi-soft.com/default.htm) and other ways. If you savvy (or want to learn) about web source code, then this way works perfectly fine.
-FlynnMP3
Personally, I haven't purchased a CD in nearly 10 years. I rarely listen to the radio either. Most music I have is from before the era of RIAA wrath and before I realized the implications of the GPL and Free Software.
Partly, I don't buy because I haven't heard anything new that is to my liking. I did buy a couple songs in iTunes. Those were songs from 1970's music CDs I have, which are so horribly scratched they are unplayable on the songs that I wanted to save. I didn't want to purchase the CDs again and support the music cartel, so I picked the least expensive legal option. If I do purchase more music at some point it will certainly be under duress. I don't share music other than loaning CDs to friends occasionally, and I don't download music from the Internet either.
I feel the GPL and the Free Software movement is slowly changing the ideals of the world when it comes to Intellectual Property. It will take a few decades for these ideals to seep into the collective consciousness of non-internet people, but it will happen.
In the end, my previous post is about the slow but unyielding process of big business trying to repress and control their customers. It is happening now, but not to wide scale yet. When it does start to step up, or they sue the wrong person (that'll also happen) then a bit of progress into changing the system will happen. More people will become aware of the draconian measures big business will go to to protect their revenue. Slowly the wheel turns, but the system will change.
If it was only about copyright infringment I would agree with your post. As we both know, it is not only about copyright infringment.
-FlynnMP3