Had I any moderation points, they would all go to this post.
My observation has been that as the net gets bigger, the more chaff that must be sorted through to get to the wheat. It happened to Usenet, it'll happen here - if left unchecked.
What sort of ideas do you have to stop this? (I think the moderation is a good idea, but, as already shown, at some critical mass, it too is overwhelmed.)
Have you considered having a fee-for-service area on the site? As much as I hate this solution, increasing the cost of entry to forums like this tends to be a good filter - in that not many people want to pay to write about Natalie Portman's petrified first-posting beowulf ASCII cluster. And I would be willing to enter such an area, provided the costs of entry aren't phenomenal.
From the article, I gathered that the Athlon has a better core but is limited by the x86 frontend. My question is - to what end is this frontend changeable? Could AMD theoretically place a different frontend on the Athlon to make it a PPC chip?
And, is this the type of idea that the Crusoe processor is going to have - i.e. modulating the frontend on a chip so it can run many architectures?
The versioning system I have seen on some Linux programs, especially when browsing freshmeat, seems to be the most sensical. Want to know what version of WINE you're running? It's WINE 121299. This method of versioning lets you know how old the program is, and when it was released, instead of the old increasing digit numbering system. I.E., if I have Foo version 4.6, how old is that?
As this thread has definitely stirred some controversy, perhaps we need to back up and look at it from another angle.
When you release the source to the software, there are things that you expect people to do with it - improve its function, improve its speed, add/remove features that they want. However, there is also the other side - the side which we love and hate - and that is that people will do things to it that were never intended or never imagined. This can be a good thing, or a bad thing, but it is perhaps the most amazing thing about Open Source, because we can be so creative at times.
Now, when Quake was opensourced, all sorts of people stated how this was a good way for novice programmers to investigate an learn about complex programs using neato utilities like OpenGL. And this was all considered good.
Of course, others have taken the code and done things that weren't particularly liked - but not because of what was done code wise - but rather on the effect it had on games. But, who is to say that programming better AI isn't as noble or inventive as figuring out how to improve 3D effects?
And lets face it, people want to encode bots - for whatever reasons - and they want to run them. This is both good and bad. If bots are allowed into games to play humans, who EXPECT to play other humans, well, the result is predictable. The game is ruined.
But, what if there was a way to set up valid bot servers, and valid human servers - such that a human would never play a bot unless he wanted to? This can only be a good thing - for the game would still be just that - a game - and the AI programmers would have a chance to test their AI out against other AI programs, or even other humans.
That all being said, I have no idea how to improve security, but I think it can be done because Open Source allows for such an improvement to happen.
I personally don't like the Opera Browser, but I was able to try it under Linux.
Why? Well, thanks to the folks at WINE (thank you thank you thank you) who have been hacking away at the Win API for quite some time now, I was able to install and run the 16 bit Opera browser under linux. It ran fine, but I didn't like the design.
I couldn't get the 32 bit version to install under older versions of WINE, but the december release allowed me to actually install, but it crashed X when I ran it. Your results may vary, but if you're itching to run Opera to see if you like it, try WINE and the 16 bit version.
Doc: What's the story? EMT: He was found down at Computer Expo unresponsive. We've been unable to get a pulse, respirations, or a TCP/IP stack out of him.
(Doc surveys the scene. Several EMTs are performing CPR, and a couple are attemting to find the proper Cntrl-Alt-Del on his person. Doc notices a few electronic devices on the patient's belt.)
Doc: We've got to get a line now! This guy needs Pentium - IV!
When I first saw the article on/. that Amazon was suing B&N, I decided I would not purchase anything from them, and since then, I have visited B&N several times. I had never visited B&N prior to the lawsuit.
Now, I agree that this is patent abuse wholeheartedly. However, it does bring up a problem that we are likely to see more of - corporations grabbing commonly used techniques and "patenting" them. Would a way to prevent this be to defeat them at their own game?
What if something like the FSF existed that patented all software innovations and then released them under some sort of Public Patent License (PPL)? Could we beat the corporations at their own game?
Think about it. John Q. Programmer, Extrordanaire, makes a program called "ComputerWidgets" which, for purposes of this discussion, is GPLed. He then sends off to the PPL and informs them that he would like to patent this idea and release it to the public.
The same could be done with web-site setups and whatnot. After all, what is to stop another company from patenting dynamically served pages created in Perl? As ludicrous as this sounds, it's basically what Amazon has done with cookies.
Didn't the Diamond Rio lawsuit basically state that the law says record companies lose all copyright ownership once the data on the CD hits a hard drive?
I was under the impression that it did, and if it did, then they're screwed. Even though I have the capability to rip and encode simultaneously, I put the data on the HD first. Gogo is so fast, it doesn't really matter, and this would slide me through the nice little loophole in the law.
What would happen if you took the names of the top 10 songs each week for the past...say,...10 years, renamed a legal mp3 with those names, and sent it out. Would that be illegal?
Some could argue that it was diluting the recognizability of song titles, and the RIAA might try to sue because of watering out the market, but, I can think of about 10 songs of the top of my head that are titled "One".
If you were to receive a mp3 titled "One.mp3" - what band made it? They would have no choice but to listen to all mp3s traded and determine the license. On a massive scale, especially with freely tradable mp3s, you would effectively nuke their campaign. No matter how big their coffers are, it would take an unbelievable amount of manpower to listen to all mp3s traded to determine if one was illegal.
But the Chinese can't sneak hacks into Linux either, since they have to provide source code and it has to pass review by Linus and the other kernel hackers.
Er, how do you enforce a country to release source code? Go to the UN?
I wouldn't be surprised if China makes their own closed source kernels - which in reality, we could do nothing about.
Since it took me several tries to get through -/. effect and all, I took the liberty of copying the howto from the aforementioned page.
linuxdvd.webjump.com/"
************************************************ ** This comes from the URL listed above and is not my own personal work. ************************************************ ** To watch a DVD film in Linux you should follow the following steps (to complete the hack, as in challenge, not crack!).
1) Get the DVD encryption kernel patch from http://atv.ne.mediaone.net/linux-dvd/ It is the file "linux-dvd-2.2.12.1.diff.gz" LOCAL MIRROR Insert it into the 2.2.13 kernel with the command "patch output.vob
10) Play the Movie. mpeg2player -vob -f output.vob (use the option -na for no sound) (use the option -nv for no video)
11) You can use ac3dec to just play the sound if you want.
You will not be able to play both video and sound in the current configuration unless you have some sort of a high end system. Min requirements would have to be a 350Mhz for just sound or Video. (At least 128MB mem) Min Req for both sound and video would have to be somewhere around a 600Mhz. The highest I have tested it on is a 450. The reasoning behind this is that the code is very very new and hasn't yet been optimized at all. I have no clue as to dual system.
There is only one button, so to say. That is PLAY. Once you start a film you have to quit the program to end it! Even then, you have to have the vob files lined up. You could stream them from the cd-rom to the decoder to the player, but that would require a insane system. And mpeg2player doesn't do streaming yet ( | ), but we would all appreciate it if someone would simply submit a patch to the author that would allow it.
There is no Menu functionality whatsoever. You can only view it in DVD size 769*239 (something like that). That is how big it is on the screen. You can't get Subtitles or any of the other fun stuff. You can't grab any or the sub picture or handle the navigation at all.
At some point shortly (MAYBE) a lot of this will be merged together to form a software backend for the Linux DVD API. [link]. Thus you will be able to use a player (any player) to play the movie without having to do all of this. But that is a long way down the road to have this software work in full. The Linux-DVD API is being developed by the DVD hardware group who will be releasing hardware decoders around Christmas that support that API. And then you will not need this software at all. Other groups will also be coming out with a fully functional (and much faster compared to todays hack) software decoder within the turn of the millenium , that will support everything that a DVD does.
Full screen does not work, nor can you resize the window.
Please do not post silly comments to the mailing list. When this gets on slashdot please use the feedback on slashdot to handle any minor issues that you will have. Please do not badger the authors to make bug fixes or to do something. These people have been working at it for a long time and will do it when they see fit. PLEASE debate the ethical side of this on slashdot and NOT on the newsgroup. Thanks.
For all those out there that thinks that this is a wonderful chance to copy the DVD, think again. Yes, you do have full access to the drive and you would be able just copy the files somewhere else. The only thing is that you need somewhere to copy it too. The only place to put it is on a DVD-RAM. And that is around $25 for a disk. The real DVD is $15 to $20. So it is quite silly to copy it to DVD-RAM. Also you simply copy the decrypted files you won't be able to run it as a DVD at ALL. You get funny video, or really weird shit, but none of the DVD features at all. This hack was NOT meant as a DVD-RIPPER. And it is almost the exact opposite of that. There are windows programs that are designed for that and those are the people that you should be yelling at about this.
Recently, I sent an e-mail out to several major video card vendors. ATI, DiamondMM, Creative Labs, 3dFx, Matrox, and one or two more (not Number Nine, because their web page shows support)
All the companies either gave me the run around (email soandso - he's the linux guy) or didn't respond at all. ATI sent me a detailed response to my email and actually answered the questions I asked. The sales rep, whose name I don't have handy, was even nice enough to put me on his Linux users list and now I get an occasional update on Linux progress with ATI cards.
I have been impressed with the companies stand and openness regarding their products under non-MS OSes.
I've thought about this quite a bit, and I almost want it to be an "Ask Slashdot" question, but here is as good a forum as anywhere else.
Could the rapid proliferation of shitty software be related to Moore's Law?
Are software developers developing new software/features without optimizing current code just so they can state that it works on the latest processor?
I think some are. Take Windows. It gets bigger and bigger with no real significant improvements. 3.1 on my 486-66 (back in the day) seems to have run as quick as 95 did on a Pentium 100, which seems to have run as quick as 98 did on a Pentium 200. But try running 98 on that 486-66, and the desire to pump bullets into the machine is damn near irresistable.
Next, Take Linux. It gets bigger and bigger with significant improvements. It runs on my 486-66, my Pentiums, and My First SMP Machine [TM]. And the differences in X are appreciable, but I can run X on the 486-66 and not want to shoot the machine.
I compare my experiences, and I can't help but wonder if Moore's law has contributed to crappy software. Linux is used by many, and optimized by many - to run on my SMP machine and my 486-66. 98 isn't, and, as a result, its flaws are many and become glaringly obvious as the hardware you use becomes older and older.
I've read many comments about how the software industry isn't like other industries, and I think it is all full of crap. Why aren't they?
They make a product. They sell it to the masses. The masses buy it.
Software is indeed a complex entity, but we're accustomed to dealing with complex products. How many of you own an automobile? How many of you know more than curosy knowledge of how the car works? How many of you know your car so well that you can break it down into bits and pieces and put it all back together again?
I imagine that the answers are Most, Few, Hardly Any.
And in fact, we've seen shitty cars being made. We've seen them sold to the masses. And we've seen the masses buy it.
But someone decided that enough was enough - for whatever reasons - and Ralph Nader published his infamous book, _Unsafe at any Speed_ , and the public woke up to the reality that they didn't want shitty products, and the companies changed the product to reflect what the consumers wanted, not just what the bottom line was. And it worked.
Albiet, most software crashes don't kill people, and it will be harder to convince the masses that they don't need to stand for shitty software.
It probably won't be because someone writes a book, or someone goes on a big TV or political campain.
What probably will cause the masses to wake up is when, bit by bit, they are exposed to software that doesn't crash. Why use Windows to surf the web and read email when I was able to use Linux to do the same thing, and I didn't have to reboot, and the GUI e-mail client, though it crashed, didn't take down the system, thus I could continue quicker? And slowly, as people see that there is another way, they will begin to accept products that work and are stable, and then they will begin to demand them.
An companies will produce products that fit the bill, because if they don't, the buck stops somewhere else.
It sounds like the government has taken up Microsoft's view of the computer world. Don't ask questions. Nothing is wrong. If something is wrong, it's not the software, it's you.
Top 10 Tech Support Calls from the Future
on
The Ottoman PC
·
· Score: 5
10) "Uh, I just had a rather large movement and I can't flush the Ottoman."
9) "Where do I put my feet when I'm using my footrest?"
8) "You mean I have to plug my footstool IN?"
7) "I put my Pop-Tarts in there 5 minutes ago and they're still not ready.
6) "What do you mean I can't kick my footstool?"
5) "I can only fit one beer into my 5X Drink Vender Drive"
4) "I'm sitting on the stool and typing with the keyboard, but I can't see what I'm typing."
3) "There's something loose in my stool."
2) "The sofa-bed crashed while grandma was sleeping, and now we can't get her out."
1) "Will tough actin' Tinactin clean all my viruses?"
The problem with this idea is that people's brains differ. To get a vision mod, you would need to map all the myriad connections for your own brain and tailor a device specially to it. It's so much easier to mass-produce "prosthetics" like night-vision goggles that there would be no point in messing around with your brain (even if we had the faintest clue about how to do it, which we don't).
I don't like to rain on people's parades, but as a student of cognitive science I consider it my job in this case. Don't believe the hype.
Well, I hate to rain on your parade, but as a medical student, I believe that your opinion has almost no basis in fact.
There are large areas of the brain that are identical in shape, position, and function in the human. In fact, all pathways in the brain are the same from person to person, disregarding pathological changes [1] For example, the optic nerve/chiasm/ and tract have a very predictable pathway, and lesions can be determined based upon the visual deficits. This would not be possible if we were all wired differently. But, that's not the case. If you have bilateral temporal hemianopsia, I know right where the lesion is. In fact, give me 100 patients with the same presenting visual disturbance, and the lesion will be in the same spot.
We know where the visual cortex is. We know how it receives data. We even know quite a bit on how the brain processes images, and what stages and levels of neurons do what processing. And it's the same in you, me, and Linus.
And, in fact, there are working retinal prototypes for people who have certain types of blindness. They're extremely crude at this stage, but they exist, and they work.
We know quite a bit about pathways - and these would the easiest areas to implement data supplementation. [2]
What we know little about is why you hate tuna fish, and I love it. Or how people develop thought processes.
Basically, once information gets to the level of the cortex, we don't know what happens. But, we do know how the data gets there, and we have a pretty good idea what data is stored where. I don't know what all is involved with the term "cognitive science", but it appears from your lack of anatomical knowledge that you don't study neuroanatomy.
I will agree with the concept that interfacing directly with the cortex is probably technologically impossible for the reasons you state. However, getting data to the visual cortex, or any other part of the brain, for that matter, isn't that difficult. How the brain processes that information, on the other hand, is still a major mystery.
[1] Which, BTW, is why the head transplant stuff isn't good for prolonging life in and of itself.
[2] There is a simple experiment that you can do to place data into your visual cortex. Push on your eyeball (not hard...) and you'll see a circular light in your field of vision on the opposite side of your point of pressure. Congratulations, you've just mechanically put data into your visual cortex.
It is easy to see both legitamate sides of the domain name argument.
There are those who have trademarks who have put their hard earned money and valuable time into a project which they depend on for their livelyhood. It is understandable that they are pissed off when someone steals a domain that is their trademark.
There are those who registered a domain name with the intent to use it for a valid purpose - without knowledge of trademark infringement - like people who register their last name. It is easy to see how they get pissed when some company registers "Jones" as a trademark and then comes after and rips their domain up from under them.
I can empathize with both ends, and I think that the naming scheme needs to be revised, and rules set up. Initially,.org meant non-profit organizations,.com meant companies, and.net meant networks. But, as things got all muddled by money-hungry domain sellers,.com,.net, and.org can all be owned by the same company, organization, or network.
I propose that they add a.tmk (or something similar) that denotes it is a registered trademark. That way, those owning legitamate trademarks could set up shop there, and all would know it was a legitamate site. Likewise, there could be a.fam (or something similar) to denote a family page - so someone with the last name "ford" could have a domain on a first-come, first serve basis.
I don't know the underlying mechanisms of routing or domain-name lookups, but this solution would seem to be a lot better for everyone than releasing hordes of lawyers on the poor fella who registered a domain name several years to several minutes prior to a trademark registration.
I indeed said I have a 20GB drive on my server, and it is smack full. Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/hda10 17434405 16395783 130416 99%/home
In reality, I only have about 16GB on the machine, but I have around 12-16 cds not on the drive due to space issues. I use that box as a firewall to the in-apt network. It also is used as a desktop system for guests. Basically, the drive is full because of the OS overhead, other proggies, and then many many mp3s.
My next HD won't need to have the OS overhead on it, and besides a small swap partition, the entire drive will be dedicated to mp3 storage.
I've been debating on how I should set it up so that one dir has all mp3s on it. I checked into RAID, and I don't think I want to do RAID0. It takes an awfully long time to load 20+ GB onto a HD, especially using a 12X CDROM, and if one of the drives crashes under RAID0, all is lost. I was thinking about making another partition that would consist solely of symbolic links. This should make all mp3s available from one directory, without the worries of one 30+GB partition crashing.
This is a valid question anyone who encodes should consider. I currently have over 40 mp3 CDs worth of my collection that I've encoded. I've maxed out a 20 GB HD and will be purchasing another to put the rest of my mp3s on my server.
I encoded a large portion of my collection using Windows, specifically Audiocatalyst. It works really good most of the time. However, it did not work great with all my drives. My HP 8100i CD-R is the best drive I have to rip with. My DVD Drive and older CD-Rs would have too many skips. In going back and listening to my collection, I still run across songs that have blips in them, though this is rare. Audiocatalyst rips and encodes so fast, you don't have time to listen to all the songs prior to burning a CD, so I expected a bit of this. Of course, when you rip under windows, don't expect to be able to use it for anything else, unless you love reading hex on a blue background.
I am currently using Linux to rip and encode, and I have much better results. My CD-R is still the fastest drive to rip with, but I can rip with a 2nd gen DVD, and a 12x CD-R. My 4x4x NEC CdChanger is the only drive I can't rip with. I use CD Paranoia. It is currently for linux only, and has ripped flawlessly for me, even when using BOTH drives (CDR,DVD) to rip on a P200MMX 128 MB RAM. That's a pretty modest machine. I use it to rip, encode, WHILE using netscape, irc, several terminal sessions, and distributed.net. Sure, my load hovers between 3 and 4, but the machine is usable and doesn't crash.
I currently am encoding with bladeenc, which is much slower than the Xing encoder. It is better at higher bitrates - 160 and above - than the Frauenhauffer(sp) encoder. However, I've been using it at 128 because I find that I still get great sound. I haven't tried the Xing encoder under linux, but perhaps I will today.
You will run across many sites that analyze the quality of mp3s encoded at different bitrates by different encoders. The gist of those sites is this: The higher the bitrate, the better the sound. Nothing beats the Fruenhauffer encoder at 128, but most other encoders aren't noticebly different.
My personal experience is this - if you are encoding so your machine can serve up thousands of mp3s to listen in the background as you work, 128 is fine, and choose the encoder you like.
A great X frontend is gRip - which uses cdparanoia and bladeenc and has cddb capabilities built in. It has debs and rpms if you are looking for ease of installation.
email me with any other questions. miracle@procyon.com
Slashdot Mirror
Had I any moderation points, they would all go to this post.
My observation has been that as the net gets bigger, the more chaff that must be sorted through to get to the wheat. It happened to Usenet, it'll happen here - if left unchecked.
What sort of ideas do you have to stop this? (I think the moderation is a good idea, but, as already shown, at some critical mass, it too is overwhelmed.)
Have you considered having a fee-for-service area on the site? As much as I hate this solution, increasing the cost of entry to forums like this tends to be a good filter - in that not many people want to pay to write about Natalie Portman's petrified first-posting beowulf ASCII cluster. And I would be willing to enter such an area, provided the costs of entry aren't phenomenal.
From the article, I gathered that the Athlon has a better core but is limited by the x86 frontend. My question is - to what end is this frontend changeable? Could AMD theoretically place a different frontend on the Athlon to make it a PPC chip?
And, is this the type of idea that the Crusoe processor is going to have - i.e. modulating the frontend on a chip so it can run many architectures?
The mind ponders.
The versioning system I have seen on some Linux programs, especially when browsing freshmeat, seems to be the most sensical. Want to know what version of WINE you're running? It's WINE 121299. This method of versioning lets you know how old the program is, and when it was released, instead of the old increasing digit numbering system. I.E., if I have Foo version 4.6, how old is that?
And if they made SUSE beer, you'd pretty much have to buy 6 cases.
As this thread has definitely stirred some controversy, perhaps we need to back up and look at it from another angle.
When you release the source to the software, there are things that you expect people to do with it - improve its function, improve its speed, add/remove features that they want. However, there is also the other side - the side which we love and hate - and that is that people will do things to it that were never intended or never imagined. This can be a good thing, or a bad thing, but it is perhaps the most amazing thing about Open Source, because we can be so creative at times.
Now, when Quake was opensourced, all sorts of people stated how this was a good way for novice programmers to investigate an learn about complex programs using neato utilities like OpenGL. And this was all considered good.
Of course, others have taken the code and done things that weren't particularly liked - but not because of what was done code wise - but rather on the effect it had on games. But, who is to say that programming better AI isn't as noble or inventive as figuring out how to improve 3D effects?
And lets face it, people want to encode bots - for whatever reasons - and they want to run them. This is both good and bad. If bots are allowed into games to play humans, who EXPECT to play other humans, well, the result is predictable. The game is ruined.
But, what if there was a way to set up valid bot servers, and valid human servers - such that a human would never play a bot unless he wanted to? This can only be a good thing - for the game would still be just that - a game - and the AI programmers would have a chance to test their AI out against other AI programs, or even other humans.
That all being said, I have no idea how to improve security, but I think it can be done because Open Source allows for such an improvement to happen.
I personally don't like the Opera Browser, but I was able to try it under Linux.
Why? Well, thanks to the folks at WINE (thank you thank you thank you) who have been hacking away at the Win API for quite some time now, I was able to install and run the 16 bit Opera browser under linux. It ran fine, but I didn't like the design.
I couldn't get the 32 bit version to install under older versions of WINE, but the december release allowed me to actually install, but it crashed X when I ran it. Your results may vary, but if you're itching to run Opera to see if you like it, try WINE and the 16 bit version.
(Scene: Two EMTs roll a Computer Expo member in)
Doc: What's the story?
EMT: He was found down at Computer Expo unresponsive. We've been unable to get a pulse, respirations, or a TCP/IP stack out of him.
(Doc surveys the scene. Several EMTs are performing CPR, and a couple are attemting to find the proper Cntrl-Alt-Del on his person. Doc notices a few electronic devices on the patient's belt.)
Doc: We've got to get a line now! This guy needs Pentium - IV!
Badum dum.
When I first saw the article on /. that Amazon was suing B&N, I decided I would not purchase anything from them, and since then, I have visited B&N several times. I had never visited B&N prior to the lawsuit.
Now, I agree that this is patent abuse wholeheartedly. However, it does bring up a problem that we are likely to see more of - corporations grabbing commonly used techniques and "patenting" them. Would a way to prevent this be to defeat them at their own game?
What if something like the FSF existed that patented all software innovations and then released them under some sort of Public Patent License (PPL)? Could we beat the corporations at their own game?
Think about it. John Q. Programmer, Extrordanaire, makes a program called "ComputerWidgets" which, for purposes of this discussion, is GPLed. He then sends off to the PPL and informs them that he would like to patent this idea and release it to the public.
The same could be done with web-site setups and whatnot. After all, what is to stop another company from patenting dynamically served pages created in Perl? As ludicrous as this sounds, it's basically what Amazon has done with cookies.
Didn't the Diamond Rio lawsuit basically state that the law says record companies lose all copyright ownership once the data on the CD hits a hard drive?
I was under the impression that it did, and if it did, then they're screwed. Even though I have the capability to rip and encode simultaneously, I put the data on the HD first. Gogo is so fast, it doesn't really matter, and this would slide me through the nice little loophole in the law.
That's probably not a bad idea.
What would happen if you took the names of the top 10 songs each week for the past...say,...10 years, renamed a legal mp3 with those names, and sent it out. Would that be illegal?
Some could argue that it was diluting the recognizability of song titles, and the RIAA might try to sue because of watering out the market, but, I can think of about 10 songs of the top of my head that are titled "One".
If you were to receive a mp3 titled "One.mp3" - what band made it? They would have no choice but to listen to all mp3s traded and determine the license. On a massive scale, especially with freely tradable mp3s, you would effectively nuke their campaign. No matter how big their coffers are, it would take an unbelievable amount of manpower to listen to all mp3s traded to determine if one was illegal.
But the Chinese can't sneak hacks into Linux either, since they have to provide source code and it has to pass review by Linus and the other kernel hackers.
Er, how do you enforce a country to release source code? Go to the UN?
I wouldn't be surprised if China makes their own closed source kernels - which in reality, we could do nothing about.
Since it took me several tries to get through - /. effect and all, I took the liberty of copying the howto from the aforementioned page.
* ** * **
* ****************/
linuxdvd.webjump.com/"
***********************************************
This comes from the URL listed above and is not my
own personal work.
***********************************************
To watch a DVD film in Linux you should follow the following steps (to complete the hack, as in challenge, not crack!).
1) Get the DVD encryption kernel patch from http://atv.ne.mediaone.net/linux-dvd/ It is the file "linux-dvd-2.2.12.1.diff.gz"
LOCAL MIRROR
Insert it into the 2.2.13 kernel with the command "patch output.vob
10) Play the Movie.
mpeg2player -vob -f output.vob
(use the option -na for no sound)
(use the option -nv for no video)
11) You can use ac3dec to just play the sound if you want.
/**********************************************
Comments:
You will not be able to play both video and sound in the current configuration unless you have some sort of a high end system. Min
requirements would have to be a 350Mhz for just sound or Video. (At least 128MB mem) Min Req for both sound and video would have to
be somewhere around a 600Mhz. The highest I have tested it on is a 450. The reasoning behind this is that the code is very very new and
hasn't yet been optimized at all. I have no clue as to dual system.
There is only one button, so to say. That is PLAY. Once you start a film you have to quit the program to end it! Even then, you have to
have the vob files lined up. You could stream them from the cd-rom to the decoder to the player, but that would require a insane system.
And mpeg2player doesn't do streaming yet ( | ), but we would all appreciate it if someone would simply submit a patch to the author that
would allow it.
There is no Menu functionality whatsoever. You can only view it in DVD size 769*239 (something like that). That is how big it is on the
screen. You can't get Subtitles or any of the other fun stuff. You can't grab any or the sub picture or handle the navigation at all.
At some point shortly (MAYBE) a lot of this will be merged together to form a software backend for the Linux DVD API. [link]. Thus
you will be able to use a player (any player) to play the movie without having to do all of this. But that is a long way down the road to have
this software work in full. The Linux-DVD API is being developed by the DVD hardware group who will be releasing hardware decoders
around Christmas that support that API. And then you will not need this software at all. Other groups will also be coming out with a fully
functional (and much faster compared to todays hack) software decoder within the turn of the millenium , that will support everything that a
DVD does.
Full screen does not work, nor can you resize the window.
Please do not post silly comments to the mailing list. When this gets on slashdot please use the feedback on slashdot to handle any
minor issues that you will have. Please do not badger the authors to make bug fixes or to do something. These people have been working
at it for a long time and will do it when they see fit. PLEASE debate the ethical side of this on slashdot and NOT on the newsgroup.
Thanks.
For all those out there that thinks that this is a wonderful chance to copy the DVD, think again. Yes, you do have full access to the drive
and you would be able just copy the files somewhere else. The only thing is that you need somewhere to copy it too. The only place to put
it is on a DVD-RAM. And that is around $25 for a disk. The real DVD is $15 to $20. So it is quite silly to copy it to DVD-RAM. Also
you simply copy the decrypted files you won't be able to run it as a DVD at ALL. You get funny video, or really weird shit, but none of the
DVD features at all. This hack was NOT meant as a DVD-RIPPER. And it is almost the exact opposite of that. There are windows
programs that are designed for that and those are the people that you should be yelling at about this.
Er, magnetic shielding isn't a problem for most humans, especially humans fit enough for space flight.
All it will do is line up all your atoms in a neat little plane. I see it every day at work. It's called MRI.
Recently, I sent an e-mail out to several major video card vendors. ATI, DiamondMM, Creative Labs, 3dFx, Matrox, and one or two more (not Number Nine, because their web page shows support)
All the companies either gave me the run around (email soandso - he's the linux guy) or didn't respond at all. ATI sent me a detailed response to my email and actually answered the questions I asked. The sales rep, whose name I don't have handy, was even nice enough to put me on his Linux users list and now I get an occasional update on Linux progress with ATI cards.
I have been impressed with the companies stand and openness regarding their products under non-MS OSes.
I've thought about this quite a bit, and I almost want it to be an "Ask Slashdot" question, but here is as good a forum as anywhere else.
Could the rapid proliferation of shitty software be related to Moore's Law?
Are software developers developing new software/features without optimizing current code just so they can state that it works on the latest processor?
I think some are. Take Windows. It gets bigger and bigger with no real significant improvements. 3.1 on my 486-66 (back in the day) seems to have run as quick as 95 did on a Pentium 100, which seems to have run as quick as 98 did on a Pentium 200. But try running 98 on that 486-66, and the desire to pump bullets into the machine is damn near irresistable.
Next, Take Linux. It gets bigger and bigger with significant improvements. It runs on my 486-66, my Pentiums, and My First SMP Machine [TM]. And the differences in X are appreciable, but I can run X on the 486-66 and not want to shoot the machine.
I compare my experiences, and I can't help but wonder if Moore's law has contributed to crappy software. Linux is used by many, and optimized by many - to run on my SMP machine and my 486-66. 98 isn't, and, as a result, its flaws are many and become glaringly obvious as the hardware you use becomes older and older.
I've read many comments about how the software industry isn't like other industries, and I think it is all full of crap. Why aren't they?
They make a product. They sell it to the masses. The masses buy it.
Software is indeed a complex entity, but we're accustomed to dealing with complex products. How many of you own an automobile? How many of you know more than curosy knowledge of how the car works? How many of you know your car so well that you can break it down into bits and pieces and put it all back together again?
I imagine that the answers are Most, Few, Hardly Any.
And in fact, we've seen shitty cars being made. We've seen them sold to the masses. And we've seen the masses buy it.
But someone decided that enough was enough - for whatever reasons - and Ralph Nader published his infamous book, _Unsafe at any Speed_ , and the public woke up to the reality that they didn't want shitty products, and the companies changed the product to reflect what the consumers wanted, not just what the bottom line was. And it worked.
Albiet, most software crashes don't kill people, and it will be harder to convince the masses that they don't need to stand for shitty software.
It probably won't be because someone writes a book, or someone goes on a big TV or political campain.
What probably will cause the masses to wake up is when, bit by bit, they are exposed to software that doesn't crash. Why use Windows to surf the web and read email when I was able to use Linux to do the same thing, and I didn't have to reboot, and the GUI e-mail client, though it crashed, didn't take down the system, thus I could continue quicker? And slowly, as people see that there is another way, they will begin to accept products that work and are stable, and then they will begin to demand them.
An companies will produce products that fit the bill, because if they don't, the buck stops somewhere else.
Now this is ironic.
It sounds like the government has taken up Microsoft's view of the computer world. Don't ask questions. Nothing is wrong. If something is wrong, it's not the software, it's you.
10) "Uh, I just had a rather large movement and I can't flush the Ottoman."
9) "Where do I put my feet when I'm using my footrest?"
8) "You mean I have to plug my footstool IN?"
7) "I put my Pop-Tarts in there 5 minutes ago and they're still not ready.
6) "What do you mean I can't kick my footstool?"
5) "I can only fit one beer into my 5X Drink Vender Drive"
4) "I'm sitting on the stool and typing with the keyboard, but I can't see what I'm typing."
3) "There's something loose in my stool."
2) "The sofa-bed crashed while grandma was sleeping, and now we can't get her out."
1) "Will tough actin' Tinactin clean all my viruses?"
The problem with this idea is that people's brains differ. To get a vision mod, you would need to map all the myriad connections for your own brain and tailor a device specially to it. It's so much easier to mass-produce "prosthetics" like night-vision goggles that there would be no point in messing around with your brain (even if we had the faintest clue about how to do it, which we don't).
I don't like to rain on people's parades, but as a student of cognitive science I consider it my job in this case. Don't believe the hype.
Well, I hate to rain on your parade, but as a medical student, I believe that your opinion has almost no basis in fact.
There are large areas of the brain that are identical in shape, position, and function in the human. In fact, all pathways in the brain are the same from person to person, disregarding pathological changes [1] For example, the optic nerve/chiasm/ and tract have a very predictable pathway, and lesions can be determined based upon the visual deficits. This would not be possible if we were all wired differently. But, that's not the case. If you have bilateral temporal hemianopsia, I know right where the lesion is. In fact, give me 100 patients with the same presenting visual disturbance, and the lesion will be in the same spot.
We know where the visual cortex is. We know how it receives data. We even know quite a bit on how the brain processes images, and what stages and levels of neurons do what processing. And it's the same in you, me, and Linus.
And, in fact, there are working retinal prototypes for people who have certain types of blindness. They're extremely crude at this stage, but they exist, and they work.
We know quite a bit about pathways - and these would the easiest areas to implement data supplementation. [2]
What we know little about is why you hate tuna fish, and I love it. Or how people develop thought processes.
Basically, once information gets to the level of the cortex, we don't know what happens. But, we do know how the data gets there, and we have a pretty good idea what data is stored where. I don't know what all is involved with the term "cognitive science", but it appears from your lack of anatomical knowledge that you don't study neuroanatomy.
I will agree with the concept that interfacing directly with the cortex is probably technologically impossible for the reasons you state. However, getting data to the visual cortex, or any other part of the brain, for that matter, isn't that difficult. How the brain processes that information, on the other hand, is still a major mystery.
[1] Which, BTW, is why the head transplant stuff isn't good for prolonging life in and of itself.
[2] There is a simple experiment that you can do to place data into your visual cortex. Push on your eyeball (not hard...) and you'll see a circular light in your field of vision on the opposite side of your point of pressure. Congratulations, you've just mechanically put data into your visual cortex.
Au contraire, mon frere.
/. doesn't use MS IIS. I guess your education path didn't teach you the finer points of sarcasm.
I'm fully aware that
Once again, I shall have to excuse myself as I wipe away my tears of laughter.
And just in time, Slashdot was kicking out like a thousand pages (pages, not hits) a minute earlier today and stuff was really bogging down
/. is using Microsoft's IIS. We all know linux can't handle a load like that. I guess the Mindcraft study was valid after all.
Good thing
Now excuse me whilst I wipe my tears of laughter.
It is easy to see both legitamate sides of the domain name argument.
.org meant non-profit organizations, .com meant companies, and .net meant networks. But, as things got all muddled by money-hungry domain sellers, .com, .net, and .org can all be owned by the same company, organization, or network.
.tmk (or something similar) that denotes it is a registered trademark. That way, those owning legitamate trademarks could set up shop there, and all would know it was a legitamate site. Likewise, there could be a .fam (or something similar) to denote a family page - so someone with the last name "ford" could have a domain on a first-come, first serve basis.
There are those who have trademarks who have put their hard earned money and valuable time into a project which they depend on for their livelyhood. It is understandable that they are pissed off when someone steals a domain that is their trademark.
There are those who registered a domain name with the intent to use it for a valid purpose - without knowledge of trademark infringement - like people who register their last name. It is easy to see how they get pissed when some company registers "Jones" as a trademark and then comes after and rips their domain up from under them.
I can empathize with both ends, and I think that the naming scheme needs to be revised, and rules set up. Initially,
I propose that they add a
I don't know the underlying mechanisms of routing or domain-name lookups, but this solution would seem to be a lot better for everyone than releasing hordes of lawyers on the poor fella who registered a domain name several years to several minutes prior to a trademark registration.
I indeed said I have a 20GB drive on my server, and it is smack full. /home
Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda10 17434405 16395783 130416 99%
In reality, I only have about 16GB on the machine, but I have around 12-16 cds not on the drive due to space issues. I use that box as a firewall to the in-apt network. It also is used as a desktop system for guests. Basically, the drive is full because of the OS overhead, other proggies, and then many many mp3s.
My next HD won't need to have the OS overhead on it, and besides a small swap partition, the entire drive will be dedicated to mp3 storage.
I've been debating on how I should set it up so that one dir has all mp3s on it. I checked into RAID, and I don't think I want to do RAID0. It takes an awfully long time to load 20+ GB onto a HD, especially using a 12X CDROM, and if one of the drives crashes under RAID0, all is lost. I was thinking about making another partition that would consist solely of symbolic links. This should make all mp3s available from one directory, without the worries of one 30+GB partition crashing.
This is a valid question anyone who encodes should consider. I currently have over 40 mp3 CDs worth of my collection that I've encoded. I've maxed out a 20 GB HD and will be purchasing another to put the rest of my mp3s on my server.
I encoded a large portion of my collection using Windows, specifically Audiocatalyst. It works really good most of the time. However, it did not work great with all my drives. My HP 8100i CD-R is the best drive I have to rip with. My DVD Drive and older CD-Rs would have too many skips. In going back and listening to my collection, I still run across songs that have blips in them, though this is rare. Audiocatalyst rips and encodes so fast, you don't have time to listen to all the songs prior to burning a CD, so I expected a bit of this. Of course, when you rip under windows, don't expect to be able to use it for anything else, unless you love reading hex on a blue background.
I am currently using Linux to rip and encode, and I have much better results. My CD-R is still the fastest drive to rip with, but I can rip with a 2nd gen DVD, and a 12x CD-R. My 4x4x NEC CdChanger is the only drive I can't rip with. I use CD Paranoia. It is currently for linux only, and has ripped flawlessly for me, even when using BOTH drives (CDR,DVD) to rip on a P200MMX 128 MB RAM. That's a pretty modest machine. I use it to rip, encode, WHILE using netscape, irc, several terminal sessions, and distributed.net. Sure, my load hovers between 3 and 4, but the machine is usable and doesn't crash.
I currently am encoding with bladeenc, which is much slower than the Xing encoder. It is better at higher bitrates - 160 and above - than the Frauenhauffer(sp) encoder. However, I've been using it at 128 because I find that I still get great sound. I haven't tried the Xing encoder under linux, but perhaps I will today.
You will run across many sites that analyze the quality of mp3s encoded at different bitrates by different encoders. The gist of those sites is this: The higher the bitrate, the better the sound. Nothing beats the Fruenhauffer encoder at 128, but most other encoders aren't noticebly different.
My personal experience is this - if you are encoding so your machine can serve up thousands of mp3s to listen in the background as you work, 128 is fine, and choose the encoder you like.
A great X frontend is gRip - which uses cdparanoia and bladeenc and has cddb capabilities built in. It has debs and rpms if you are looking for ease of installation.
email me with any other questions. miracle@procyon.com
Screw Fisher-Price, make my next HD a TONKA!