I wouldn't be so sure about that... For example the only 2.4 VMs that work are in distributor kernels (e.g. 2.4.9-RedHat), and RedHat's "2.96" gcc also contained a whole slew of important fixes.
Patches? I don't need no stinkin' patches!
on
Missing Kernel Patches
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· Score: 1, Troll
You've never used Solaris have you?
The only thing I've seen that was more patched than Solaris were some of Novell's products.
Global trade is the CAUSE of wealth imbalances, not the solution for them. Creating a wealthy elite in third world countries will just raise local prices even further out of the reach of the poor, adding to the problems caused by local goods being sold at global (i.e. western) prices. Using cheap overseas labor will just exacerbate the problem by increasing ocrporate profits at home thereby increasing wealth here and leading to even higher global prices.
Also purely from a selfish POV, I don't want to see my salary capped because some shortsighted manager is trying to increase his bonus by reducing costs by exporting jobs overseas. American companies sure seemed to be patriotic when it was an issue of "buy american", but apparently it's a different story when it comes to "support american workers".
A start to a real solution at eliminating global wealth disparities would be for us to start importing grain and to encourage cooperatives in third world countries which would help the little people sell into the global market. Instead we currently prefer to subsidize domestic production thus keeping prices artificially high.
OK, and so assuming that they are succcessful in impacting Tsetse populations by handicapping them... do you want to guess what other animal or insect populations (humans included) are related (in size, health, movement, or by way of being competitors or symbiants or whatever) to Tsetse?
I'll bet that the scientists planning this have rather less than a clue about what the side effects are going to be...
I wasn't aware there was a Quicktime player that could play AVI content as well as Quicktime, but obviously this is specific to a particular player... anyone implementing a player is going to write to the Quicktimemspec, and would seperately have to add AVI suport if they wanted a multi-function player.
I assume you meant that AVI can't support variable bit rate audio, not non-compressed audio! You're right (people do it, but it's non standard and causes compatability problems), although it would be possible to do it cleanly by defining another stream type with it's own header type and semantics (AVI isn't limited to just the standard "VIDS" and "AUDS" video and audio streams - you can have as many streams as you want, and define them however you want).
Actually they do - there are docs available as well as the Video for Windows header files.. I've implemented my own AVI read/write library for Linux using them.
Yes, but that really doesn't make it any more standard!;-)
I'll bet there's more MP3 and MPEG-4 usage in AVI files than in MPEG streams, so "in widespread use" is really a more useful notion than "ISO standard".
That's where it becomes important to distinguish between the containter format and the CODEC..
Apple are referring to MPEG-4 compressed video in an MPEG-4 (i.e. Quicktime) container format, whereas DivX is MPEG-4 compressed video in an AVI container format and as you point out is therefore not playable by a Quicktime or MPEG-4 (container/codec) player.
But note that this doen't mean that DivX CODEC isn't MPEG-4 - it just means that it uses a different container (and hence can be manipulated/played with a different set of tools - e.g. VirtualDub vs Quicktime tools).
It's no different to putting MPEG-1 video or MP3 audio into an AVI file - the relevant compression standards apply even if a "non-native" container format is being used.
In terms of cross platform portability, arguably AVI is better than Quicktime (although massively inferior technically) because it's so simple that many tools have been written for it. Good luck finding a Quicktime player or editor for Linux that works with anything other than a few hardcoded formats. If you're using Windows or Mac then Quicktime is definitely the way to go, but in terms of availability it's not really a cross platform standard in the way that MPEG-1/2 are.
Better just use something that actaully exists like VP3. Tarkin is little more than a research project right now, and the direction is just using wavelets rather than the DCT.. the compression they'll achieve will at best be of the same ballpack as MPEG-4.
Tarkin's goal of an open source licence free CODEC is fine, but something like VP3 (source available, competetive compression, no licencing requirements - just a restriction that derived works still be able to decode VP3) is really good enough. If you look at the audio/video components of high quality A/V files then you'll notice that quality audio takes up at least as much - if not more - space as the video. Using conventional transform (DCT/wavelet) techniques to make video smaller is really a waste of time - the only break through will come from another approach (most likely overcomplete specification methods), and the overall savings in A/V file size are limited by the audio anyway.
MPEG-4 is covered by literally dozens of patents owned by a bunch of different companies. To avoid the nightmare of having to individually negotiate licencing terms with all the companies involved, the MPEG-4 licencing company was set up so that you have a simple company to work with.
1) MPEG-4 is a compression standard just like MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, not a specific CODEC (implementation), so the DivX implementation is just as much MPEG-4 as are Microsoft's, Phillip's or Apple's. It's meaningless to say "it's similar to MPEG-4 but is a completely new CODEC".
2) The MPEG-4 patents cover the algorithms not the implementation (in fact the source of a reference implementation is available for free, and was the basis for the rewritten DivX implementation). There's no way around the MPEG-4 licencing - MPEG LA could one day choose to shut down the open source MPEG-4 implementations (or DivX for that matter, if they don't abide by the licencing requirements).
3) The original poster referred to "Quicktime, MPEG, AVI and DivX" as if they are comparable, but these are all different things:
- Quicktime is a file/stream container format that can use any CODEC. The most common CODEC used with Quicktime is Sorenson, but it can also use others such as MPEG-4 being discussed here, or the open source VP3.
- MPEG is a collection of standards which define two different container formats (MPEG-1/2 and MPEG-4 = Quicktime), plus the associated video and audio compresion standards (MPEG-1/2/4 video, MPEG-1/2 layer 3 audio - aka MP3, MPEG-2 AAC audio, etc).
- AVI is a non-streamable container format that like Quicktime can use any CODEC. Common CODECs used with AVI include the original ones like Cinepak, Intel Indeo, Motion JPEG, and the newer ones like Microsoft's MPEG-4 v3 (aka DivX 3) and DivX's MPEG-4 (aka DivX 4).
- DivX is nothing more than an MPEG-4 CODEC for the AVI container format, despite the marketing wizards at DivX Networks success in getting people to think of it as something else.
c. doesn't change priorities every freakin day
d. leaves me the hell alone to get my work done and doesn't come by every three freakin minutes asking for a status update
These are the mistakes usually made by inexperienced managers who don't have the skills or experience to create a more stable work environment.
Effective management requires having sufficient experience to be able to set priorities properly and be willing to defend them against change, and to establish schedules and assignments that are realistic and don't need CONSTANT fretting over.
I asume they're talkign about volume of data downloaded... SOMENE has to pay for it, and why should it be anyone other than the person doing it???? Sheesh.
Broadband is about speed, not quatity of data dowloaded. It makes sense to keep the price of entry low and charge more to those that cost ypou more by downloading huge volumes of data.
I don't want to pay even more for broadband just because some weenies are using the service to download ripped off movies or whatever... Let THEM pay for their own usage.
If you want streaming "DivX" then just use real MPEG-4 (Quicktime)... DivX is just a name for MPEG-4 compressed video stored in the crappy (2GB limit, no timestamps, no VBR audio suport) unstreamable AVI format.
There's no such thing as devolving - evolution just means changing (for better or worse).
There's also no "we", since there are many largely isolated groups (e.g. racial groups that tend to marry from within) of humans whose genetic paths are therefore going to differ.
It maybe that some of the current human evolutionary branches are local maxima according to whatever goodness metrics you want to apply, but the genetic algorithm of life will surely eventually take us out of it (even if only by killing us!).
Slashdot Mirror
BASIC cable costs me $45/mo from Comcast.
I'm seriously considering cancelling it. I don't watch enough TV to justify $500/yr.
Too bad there's no real "basic" option (other than broadcast) at a more reasonable price.
Extra computer power will always find a way to get used up in frivolous ways by the sex trade, trust me.
Interesting!
I never knew Microsoft was in the sex trade.
I wouldn't be so sure about that... For example the only 2.4 VMs that work are in distributor kernels (e.g. 2.4.9-RedHat), and RedHat's "2.96" gcc also contained a whole slew of important fixes.
You've never used Solaris have you?
The only thing I've seen that was more patched than Solaris were some of Novell's products.
I'll stick with Linux, thanks.
Am i the only one wondering y sun isnt using KDE to replace cde?
There's two obvious reasons:
- They don't want to pay royalties to Trolltech for Qt (commercial use)
- They don't want a C++ only GUI toolkit (yeah I know there's PyQt, but there's no CQt that I'm aware of)
Too bad, since KDE/Qt is much nicer to develop for.
I disagee.
Global trade is the CAUSE of wealth imbalances, not the solution for them. Creating a wealthy elite in third world countries will just raise local prices even further out of the reach of the poor, adding to the problems caused by local goods being sold at global (i.e. western) prices. Using cheap overseas labor will just exacerbate the problem by increasing ocrporate profits at home thereby increasing wealth here and leading to even higher global prices.
Also purely from a selfish POV, I don't want to see my salary capped because some shortsighted manager is trying to increase his bonus by reducing costs by exporting jobs overseas. American companies sure seemed to be patriotic when it was an issue of "buy american", but apparently it's a different story when it comes to "support american workers".
A start to a real solution at eliminating global wealth disparities would be for us to start importing grain and to encourage cooperatives in third world countries which would help the little people sell into the global market. Instead we currently prefer to subsidize domestic production thus keeping prices artificially high.
OK, and so assuming that they are succcessful in impacting Tsetse populations by handicapping them... do you want to guess what other animal or insect populations (humans included) are related (in size, health, movement, or by way of being competitors or symbiants or whatever) to Tsetse?
I'll bet that the scientists planning this have rather less than a clue about what the side effects are going to be...
Seeing as these parent flies are dosed high enough to render them STERILE, there won't be any mutant offspring. Duh.
Sure.... except for the new radiation tolerant superflies that emerge from the few that ARE able to breed... MUHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA
Well, Taco has a good point though!
I hate Microsoft with a passion. I run Linux.
However, I have a Microsoft mouse, and I have to admit it's a fine mouse! It's well designed, comfrotable, reliable, never sticks or anything.
Windows is of course pure shit.
I'd print it out, and take a crap on it.
Then mail it back to Bill Gates as a suggested enhancement.
Slashdot your girlfriends web site!
;-)
BTW, Taco, could you imagine a beowulf cluster of Katherine Fents?
I hope she says yes.
I wasn't aware there was a Quicktime player that could play AVI content as well as Quicktime, but obviously this is specific to a particular player... anyone implementing a player is going to write to the Quicktimemspec, and would seperately have to add AVI suport if they wanted a multi-function player.
I assume you meant that AVI can't support variable bit rate audio, not non-compressed audio! You're right (people do it, but it's non standard and causes compatability problems), although it would be possible to do it cleanly by defining another stream type with it's own header type and semantics (AVI isn't limited to just the standard "VIDS" and "AUDS" video and audio streams - you can have as many streams as you want, and define them however you want).
Actually they do - there are docs available as well as the Video for Windows header files.. I've implemented my own AVI read/write library for Linux using them.
Yes, but that really doesn't make it any more standard! ;-)
I'll bet there's more MP3 and MPEG-4 usage in AVI files than in MPEG streams, so "in widespread use" is really a more useful notion than "ISO standard".
That's where it becomes important to distinguish between the containter format and the CODEC..
Apple are referring to MPEG-4 compressed video in an MPEG-4 (i.e. Quicktime) container format, whereas DivX is MPEG-4 compressed video in an AVI container format and as you point out is therefore not playable by a Quicktime or MPEG-4 (container/codec) player.
But note that this doen't mean that DivX CODEC isn't MPEG-4 - it just means that it uses a different container (and hence can be manipulated/played with a different set of tools - e.g. VirtualDub vs Quicktime tools).
It's no different to putting MPEG-1 video or MP3 audio into an AVI file - the relevant compression standards apply even if a "non-native" container format is being used.
In terms of cross platform portability, arguably AVI is better than Quicktime (although massively inferior technically) because it's so simple that many tools have been written for it. Good luck finding a Quicktime player or editor for Linux that works with anything other than a few hardcoded formats. If you're using Windows or Mac then Quicktime is definitely the way to go, but in terms of availability it's not really a cross platform standard in the way that MPEG-1/2 are.
Better just use something that actaully exists like VP3. Tarkin is little more than a research project right now, and the direction is just using wavelets rather than the DCT.. the compression they'll achieve will at best be of the same ballpack as MPEG-4.
Tarkin's goal of an open source licence free CODEC is fine, but something like VP3 (source available, competetive compression, no licencing requirements - just a restriction that derived works still be able to decode VP3) is really good enough. If you look at the audio/video components of high quality A/V files then you'll notice that quality audio takes up at least as much - if not more - space as the video. Using conventional transform (DCT/wavelet) techniques to make video smaller is really a waste of time - the only break through will come from another approach (most likely overcomplete specification methods), and the overall savings in A/V file size are limited by the audio anyway.
MPEG-4 is covered by literally dozens of patents owned by a bunch of different companies. To avoid the nightmare of having to individually negotiate licencing terms with all the companies involved, the MPEG-4 licencing company was set up so that you have a simple company to work with.
Just a few points:
1) MPEG-4 is a compression standard just like MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, not a specific CODEC (implementation), so the DivX implementation is just as much MPEG-4 as are Microsoft's, Phillip's or Apple's. It's meaningless to say "it's similar to MPEG-4 but is a completely new CODEC".
2) The MPEG-4 patents cover the algorithms not the implementation (in fact the source of a reference implementation is available for free, and was the basis for the rewritten DivX implementation). There's no way around the MPEG-4 licencing - MPEG LA could one day choose to shut down the open source MPEG-4 implementations (or DivX for that matter, if they don't abide by the licencing requirements).
3) The original poster referred to "Quicktime, MPEG, AVI and DivX" as if they are comparable, but these are all different things:
- Quicktime is a file/stream container format that can use any CODEC. The most common CODEC used with Quicktime is Sorenson, but it can also use others such as MPEG-4 being discussed here, or the open source VP3.
- MPEG is a collection of standards which define two different container formats (MPEG-1/2 and MPEG-4 = Quicktime), plus the associated video and audio compresion standards (MPEG-1/2/4 video, MPEG-1/2 layer 3 audio - aka MP3, MPEG-2 AAC audio, etc).
- AVI is a non-streamable container format that like Quicktime can use any CODEC. Common CODECs used with AVI include the original ones like Cinepak, Intel Indeo, Motion JPEG, and the newer ones like Microsoft's MPEG-4 v3 (aka DivX 3) and DivX's MPEG-4 (aka DivX 4).
- DivX is nothing more than an MPEG-4 CODEC for the AVI container format, despite the marketing wizards at DivX Networks success in getting people to think of it as something else.
c. doesn't change priorities every freakin day
d. leaves me the hell alone to get my work done and doesn't come by every three freakin minutes asking for a status update
These are the mistakes usually made by inexperienced managers who don't have the skills or experience to create a more stable work environment.
Effective management requires having sufficient experience to be able to set priorities properly and be willing to defend them against change, and to establish schedules and assignments that are realistic and don't need CONSTANT fretting over.
That's funny! Wish I had mod points today! :-(
No - that's the way I submitted it!
:-)
I almost fell off my chair when I saw they took it without changing my commentary!
Who said anything about bandwidth limits?
I asume they're talkign about volume of data downloaded... SOMENE has to pay for it, and why should it be anyone other than the person doing it???? Sheesh.
Broadband is about speed, not quatity of data dowloaded. It makes sense to keep the price of entry low and charge more to those that cost ypou more by downloading huge volumes of data.
I don't want to pay even more for broadband just because some weenies are using the service to download ripped off movies or whatever... Let THEM pay for their own usage.
If you want streaming "DivX" then just use real MPEG-4 (Quicktime) ... DivX is just a name for MPEG-4 compressed video stored in the crappy (2GB limit, no timestamps, no VBR audio suport) unstreamable AVI format.
There's no such thing as devolving - evolution just means changing (for better or worse).
There's also no "we", since there are many largely isolated groups (e.g. racial groups that tend to marry from within) of humans whose genetic paths are therefore going to differ.
It maybe that some of the current human evolutionary branches are local maxima according to whatever goodness metrics you want to apply, but the genetic algorithm of life will surely eventually take us out of it (even if only by killing us!).