Maybe I'm not l33t then, since I can't figure out where the "word" comes from.
Is it short for "elite", and if so, why is everyone using it? You can't all be l33t, you know... sounds like another case of style versus substance!
- friv010u5 / F|21\/010u5
Approaching the problem from the other side, I'm becoming increasingly swayed by the benefits of Variable Bit Rate as a way to improve the quality at the recording side. It only goes so far, of course, but I am hearing an audible difference.
I use (and heartily recommend) CDex as my CD-Ripper, and it is now supplied with the Lame encoder. The latest CDex supports VBR, where you can set a) the lowest bit rate you will accept, and b) a general quality tradeoff parameter, where "VBR0" is the least, and "VBR9" the most compromised in quality. I'm hearing better results with this setup than I did with Steinberg WaveLab 3's VBR system, and it's also allowing WinAMP to show the correct songlength, rather than fluctuating as the bitrate changes.
In effect, the VBR system analyses each audio block and makes a guess as to how much information it can drop. If you convert the resulting file back to WAV and examine in CoolEdit Spectral View, you can actually see the high-end cutoff stepping up and down as the bitrate varies. Noisy sounds such as cymbal splashes get the most bandwidth, while smoother sounds allow a lower rate to be used.
The resulting files are larger, but you could tradeoff more quality to get the size down. With the parameters I use ("VBR0", no less than 96kb/s), the bit rates shoot up to 320kb/s at times, and the average compression ratio is only about 8:1. Still, I think the results are worth it...
With this in mind, I suggest reading Neal Stephenson'sThe Diamond Age", since the "primer" in the novel represents probably the ultimate teaching tool - one that takes Nell from first words to computer programming and martial arts without needing adult intervention!
I suppose you might get nitrogen oxides, but the nitrogen must come from somewhere. So, for example, a hydrogen-powered car in Los Angeles might produce more NO2 than the same car in Las Vegas. The point is, it won't be adding to the problem!
Any news on who's doing the soundtrack this time round?
The guitarist Robert Fripp (of King Crimson fame) reported a few years back how he started work on a soundtrack in the late eighties. (More info on Fripp and his contemporaries can be found at the web site for his company Discipline Global Mobile or at Elephant Talk - an enthusiast site.)
I jumped in to this one a while back, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it doesn't do any of the nasty things to your system that others like FreeServe do. All the parameters are standard, and on the PC it only installs a dial-up-connection option - no customized browsers etc.
Hell, people have been saying for years that M$ would _become_ IBM in all but name, so nbo surprises there.
Quote: "The line always was that nobody was ever fired for buying from IBM. Well, I know that's not true anymore, because I fired the guy!" -- Bill O'Neill, CTO @ Drexel Burnham Lambert, 1989 -- quoted in "Big Blues - the unmaking of IBM (1993)
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Maybe I'm not l33t then, since I can't figure out where the "word" comes from.
Is it short for "elite", and if so, why is everyone using it? You can't all be l33t, you know... sounds like another case of style versus substance! - friv010u5 / F|21\/010u5
Approaching the problem from the other side, I'm becoming increasingly swayed by the benefits of Variable Bit Rate as a way to improve the quality at the recording side. It only goes so far, of course, but I am hearing an audible difference.
I use (and heartily recommend) CDex as my CD-Ripper, and it is now supplied with the Lame encoder. The latest CDex supports VBR, where you can set a) the lowest bit rate you will accept, and b) a general quality tradeoff parameter, where "VBR0" is the least, and "VBR9" the most compromised in quality. I'm hearing better results with this setup than I did with Steinberg WaveLab 3's VBR system, and it's also allowing WinAMP to show the correct songlength, rather than fluctuating as the bitrate changes.
In effect, the VBR system analyses each audio block and makes a guess as to how much information it can drop. If you convert the resulting file back to WAV and examine in CoolEdit Spectral View, you can actually see the high-end cutoff stepping up and down as the bitrate varies. Noisy sounds such as cymbal splashes get the most bandwidth, while smoother sounds allow a lower rate to be used.
The resulting files are larger, but you could tradeoff more quality to get the size down. With the parameters I use ("VBR0", no less than 96kb/s), the bit rates shoot up to 320kb/s at times, and the average compression ratio is only about 8:1. Still, I think the results are worth it...
With this in mind, I suggest reading Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age", since the "primer" in the novel represents probably the ultimate teaching tool - one that takes Nell from first words to computer programming and martial arts without needing adult intervention!
Hang on a second... am I missing something here?
Doh! Nitrogen does make up 78% of the atmosphere, after all...
I suppose you might get nitrogen oxides, but the nitrogen must come from somewhere. So, for example, a hydrogen-powered car in Los Angeles might produce more NO2 than the same car in Las Vegas.
The point is, it won't be adding to the problem!
Actually, it's much more to do with VAX. One of DEC's head developers joined MS to work on OS/2 not long before M$ dropped it...
Any news on who's doing the soundtrack this time round?
The guitarist Robert Fripp (of King Crimson fame) reported a few years back how he started work on a soundtrack in the late eighties. (More info on Fripp and his contemporaries can be found at the web site for his company Discipline Global Mobile or at Elephant Talk - an enthusiast site.)
FYI...
I jumped in to this one a while back, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it doesn't do any of the nasty things to your system that others like FreeServe do. All the parameters are standard, and on the PC it only installs a dial-up-connection option - no customized browsers etc.
Protocol: PPP
Phone: 0845 6091352
UserID: Yahoo
Password: Yahoo
DNS: 194.72.6.57
DNS: 194.73.82.242
IP Header Compression
Default Gateway
DHCP
That's it - nothing PC-specific there!
Cheers,
frivolous
Hell, people have been saying for years that M$ would _become_ IBM in all but name, so nbo surprises there.
Quote: "The line always was that nobody was ever fired for buying from IBM. Well, I know that's not true anymore, because I fired the guy!"
-- Bill O'Neill, CTO @ Drexel Burnham Lambert, 1989
-- quoted in "Big Blues - the unmaking of IBM (1993)