To sum up: "we never went to the moon, hence there are no reflectors on the moon."
Moderators: Put down the crack pipe and the mouse. Step away from the keyboard. Take a DEEP BREATH and READ. This is not a troll. I repeat. This is not a troll.
No, I don't believe the "moon hoax" loonies. Anyone with an above-kindergarten education can easily refute the "moon hoax" loonies claims.
For your amusement, this is the gallery of the 'barking mad'...
And let me explain why.
(moderators: this is not a troll.)
The harder the BSA come down on companies like a ton of bricks, the more attractive open source alternatives will be.
The microsoft licensing schemes are so convoluted that even if you buy stuff from legit resellers bundled with your PCs, you still may be technically in violation of m$ licensing, depending on how your software is being used.
It's almost impossible for large corporations to be 100% sure of total compliance, even if all their software is purchased legitimately. And the BSA knows this. It's exactly like the mafia's "protection" racket.
Fortunately corporations now have a legit means of escape. Replace NT servers with Linux ones. The cost of switching to Linux might be high, but often the cost of having to "get compliant" is higher. And Linux is a one time cost, whereas you can be assured the BSA will be knocking on your door regularly if they think they can get away with it.
So I say bring on the BSA gestapo! They will be inadvertently helping promote open source alternatives, it's better promotion than Linux could ever buy (though we can exploit the situation if we choose:-)
I have yet to find a consumer device which
supports software control of IEC958 subcode
information. Vendors seem to think that
implementing "just enough" of the standard to
allow AC-3 output is sufficient.:-(
So stuff like track marking on your minidisc
recorder end up being miserable hacks "flashing"
the TOSLINK output to insert a track mark. This
breaks to various degrees on different minidisc
recorders, resulting in anything from missing the
first few seconds of the next track, missing the
last few seconds of the last track, and the
inability to do seamless run-on tracks where a
song (or dialogue) spans multiple tracks. Using
preroll doesn't always work either, some recorders
will happily record the preroll as silence.
I won't even go into the mangling most devices
do with locking the output at 48khz, thus forcing
44khz source material to be resampled on output.
Maybe the Extigy got it right this time, and
allows software control of subcode information
so REAL track marking can be done, and allows
real 44khz output without resampling.
Maybe the fact that Gracenote's suit had no merit whatsoever, and in order to save face, they licensed cddb to Roxio instead of being publically bitchslapped?
... send a singing telegram to various courtrooms, legislators offices, and legislative chambers. Make sure the telegram pitches some fraudulent get-rich-quick scheme or illegal pornography. Send the telegrams repeatedly and at the most inopportune times.
Eventually, the judges and legislators MIGHT get the point.
Legislator(browsing the internet): Crikey! What's with all these long words? I can't read em. This interweb thing is just too hard to unnerstand!
Aide: Oh, thats one of them intellectual pages. They're using words beyond your mental capacity.
Legislator: intel-what? These words is just too hard to read. Bloody hell!
Aide: I know, let's write laws making it illegal to put anything on the internet that's beyond your intellectual level. That would be... about 6 years old.
Legislator: Uh?
Aide: I said, let's make it illegal to make internet stuff you can't understand.
Legislator: Great!
Aide: Since such a bill would normally go over like a lead balloon, if we deceitfully attach "child protection" to the name of the bill, no one will dare oppose it.
Legislator: Huh?
Aide: Let's fuckin' lie through our teeth and say it's a bill to protect children.
They can't stop you from taking pictures, but they can order you off the premises for any reason, or even no reason at all.
!!However!! they cannot touch you in order to escort you off their premises, that would be criminal assault on their part. They can however call the police who will be more than happy to put a razor-sharp steel toed boot up your behind.
Taking pictures isn't a crime, but trespassing is.
Of course, they can only force you off the premises to the nearest public property. If that public property happens to be the sidewalk right in front of the door of the train station, tough noogies for them.
Companies like Intel who pursue such ill-advised prosecution should not be financially rewarded for their misbehaviour.
Buy AMD instead of Intel. Tell everyone you know to buy AMD instead of Intel. If you are in a position to influence purchasing decisions, make sure it is AMD.
The only message these companies are going to understand is one that hits them in the pocketbook.
Only people who have never dealt with microsoft support would ever call it "the best in the industry".
I've had experience with several vendors support, and here's how I would rate them:
1) HP - outstanding, even their most obscure legacy hardware and software has well documented support databases miles deep, and knowledgeable people are always available. No matter how arcane the problem was, I always got an answer, and it was always the correct one.
2) IBM - if you can stomach AIX;) their support is also excellent.
3) Sun - reasonably knowledgeable, even though they are incredibly arrogant at times.
...
995,109) Microsoft - utterly worthless. If you can't find the answer on their search engine, it's virtually guaranteed their support won't be able to help you either. Forget MSDN for developer support. The only thing it's good for is getting regular M$ software distributions. The developer tech support it gets you is utterly worthless. Case in point -- in NT3.1 days I wrote an win32 OCX which easily repeatably bluescreened the whole OS. Something which M$ said couldn't happen. M$ able to reproduce the crash on their end, but were unable to find a solution. In the end they dropped the issue without any resolution and refused to pursue the bug any further. For all I know, my win32 OCX probably still bluescreens NT. So much for MSDN developer support. You are better off with usenet newsgroups and web message boards, than microsoft's so-called developer support. Hell, you are better off getting calling miss cleo's psychic hotline -- you're more likely to get a usable answer from them than you will from M$.
There was a study (dont have the reference offhand, maybe a/. reader does) which indicated that it was not actual incidence of autism on the rise, but rather that the diagnosis of autism was on the rise due to much looser standards of what constitutes autism. Eg more children today being diagnosed with "autism" which might have been dismissed as other behavioural problems 15-30 years ago.
IIRC it was also mentioned that the "diagnosis" of autism experienced a spike shortly around the release of the movie "Rain Man". Probably as worried parents rushed their children to the doctor after seeing the movie, to be diagnosed with the latest fad.
"Things worked quite well at 32 and 44.1KHz, though 44.1 had a tendancy toward more artifacts from the mp3 encoder at a given bitrate."
To coin a phrase, "Well DUH!".
You won't hear as many artifacts for eg 32khz at 128kbps as 44.1khz at 128kbps, because at 32khz you're stuffing LESS BITS into the available bitrate thank 44.1khz.
I can make a 256kbps 44.1khz mpeg sound better than a 384kbps 32khz mpeg. There is a point where artifacts essentially disappear and then you'll hit the aliasing wall due to the inferior sampling rate. Then all the kbps in the world won't save you.
32khz is the *absolute minimum* for capturing 16khz according to Shannon/Nyquist. In reality you want a bit extra for breathing room, because analogue audio isn't algorithm-on-paper perfect.
Well, try capture at 32khz and 44.1khz. You *will* notice a difference.
I was suprised to discover that Tivo captures video at 352x480, with 32khz audio. That is disturbingly low.
This may not seem like much of a problem considering that NTSC broadcast maxxes out around 440 pixels. However at 352x480 the mpeg macroblocks are quite large, and any macroblock artifacts will be quite noticeable.
The "higher quality" capture options on Tivo only adjust the bitrate given to the mpeg, but the video resolution and audio rate remain the same.
It's a shame Tivo doesn't use higher resolutions for higher quality modes.
Expect me to give bogus information to these DRM systems.
Expect me to create multiple bogus identities on these DRM systems.
Expect MS to get worthless profile data as a result.
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Bravo!! A most excellent rebuttal.
You totally decimated dj28's ridiculous drivel.
I bask in your eloquent glory.
... according to Bart Sibrel :D
To sum up: "we never went to the moon, hence there are no reflectors on the moon."
Moderators: Put down the crack pipe and the mouse. Step away from the keyboard. Take a DEEP BREATH and READ. This is not a troll. I repeat. This is not a troll.
No, I don't believe the "moon hoax" loonies. Anyone with an above-kindergarten education can easily refute the "moon hoax" loonies claims.
For your amusement, this is the gallery of the 'barking mad'...
Some anonymous kook
Bill Kaysing
Ken Overstreet
"mpeeters"
And let me explain why.
:-)
(moderators: this is not a troll.)
The harder the BSA come down on companies like a ton of bricks, the more attractive open source alternatives will be.
The microsoft licensing schemes are so convoluted that even if you buy stuff from legit resellers bundled with your PCs, you still may be technically in violation of m$ licensing, depending on how your software is being used.
It's almost impossible for large corporations to be 100% sure of total compliance, even if all their software is purchased legitimately. And the BSA knows this. It's exactly like the mafia's "protection" racket.
Fortunately corporations now have a legit means of escape. Replace NT servers with Linux ones. The cost of switching to Linux might be high, but often the cost of having to "get compliant" is higher. And Linux is a one time cost, whereas you can be assured the BSA will be knocking on your door regularly if they think they can get away with it.
So I say bring on the BSA gestapo! They will be inadvertently helping promote open source alternatives, it's better promotion than Linux could ever buy (though we can exploit the situation if we choose
"Philips indicted for violating DMCA, initiated by complaint from RIAA and MPAA"
I have yet to find a consumer device which :-(
:-(
supports software control of IEC958 subcode
information. Vendors seem to think that
implementing "just enough" of the standard to
allow AC-3 output is sufficient.
So stuff like track marking on your minidisc
recorder end up being miserable hacks "flashing"
the TOSLINK output to insert a track mark. This
breaks to various degrees on different minidisc
recorders, resulting in anything from missing the
first few seconds of the next track, missing the
last few seconds of the last track, and the
inability to do seamless run-on tracks where a
song (or dialogue) spans multiple tracks. Using
preroll doesn't always work either, some recorders
will happily record the preroll as silence.
I won't even go into the mangling most devices
do with locking the output at 48khz, thus forcing
44khz source material to be resampled on output.
Maybe the Extigy got it right this time, and
allows software control of subcode information
so REAL track marking can be done, and allows
real 44khz output without resampling.
I'm not betting on it though
... what an unfortunate last name ...
Probably gets a lot of snickers behind his back, like people who work at Siemens get...
What are they hiding?
Maybe the fact that Gracenote's suit had no merit whatsoever, and in order to save face, they licensed cddb to Roxio instead of being publically bitchslapped?
... send a singing telegram to various courtrooms, legislators offices, and legislative chambers. Make sure the telegram pitches some fraudulent get-rich-quick scheme or illegal pornography. Send the telegrams repeatedly and at the most inopportune times.
Eventually, the judges and legislators MIGHT get the point.
Scene from australian legislator's office:
Legislator(browsing the internet): Crikey! What's with all these long words? I can't read em. This interweb thing is just too hard to unnerstand!
Aide: Oh, thats one of them intellectual pages. They're using words beyond your mental capacity.
Legislator: intel-what? These words is just too hard to read. Bloody hell!
Aide: I know, let's write laws making it illegal to put anything on the internet that's beyond your intellectual level. That would be... about 6 years old.
Legislator: Uh?
Aide: I said, let's make it illegal to make internet stuff you can't understand.
Legislator: Great!
Aide: Since such a bill would normally go over like a lead balloon, if we deceitfully attach "child protection" to the name of the bill, no one will dare oppose it.
Legislator: Huh?
Aide: Let's fuckin' lie through our teeth and say it's a bill to protect children.
Legislator: Wicked.
They can't stop you from taking pictures, but they can order you off the premises for any reason, or even no reason at all.
!!However!! they cannot touch you in order to escort you off their premises, that would be criminal assault on their part. They can however call the police who will be more than happy to put a razor-sharp steel toed boot up your behind.
Taking pictures isn't a crime, but trespassing is.
Of course, they can only force you off the premises to the nearest public property. If that public property happens to be the sidewalk right in front of the door of the train station, tough noogies for them.
On what charges? You can be detained, but not jailed, without being charged with a crime.
False arrest is a sure-fire way to a civil lawsuit and huge punitive damages.
Willson's essays on depleted uranium and "alternative" medicine are barking mad, and put a huge question mark above all his other essays.
The essays may be "interesting", but that doesn't mean there is any more truth to them than the X-Files.
Companies like Intel who pursue such ill-advised prosecution should not be financially rewarded for their misbehaviour.
Buy AMD instead of Intel. Tell everyone you know to buy AMD instead of Intel. If you are in a position to influence purchasing decisions, make sure it is AMD.
The only message these companies are going to understand is one that hits them in the pocketbook.
BTW, the same goes for Adobe.
Just raise a big stink, dig up a political scandal, and the news networks will run your ads FOR you, free.
Is a very good total conversion for unreal tournament. Check it out here.
My picks thus far:
1) Unreal Tournament
2) Tactical Ops
3) Return to Castle Wolfenstein
They really should release a playable demo for Tribes 2 linux...
Only people who have never dealt with microsoft support would ever call it "the best in the industry".
;) their support is also excellent.
I've had experience with several vendors support, and here's how I would rate them:
1) HP - outstanding, even their most obscure legacy hardware and software has well documented support databases miles deep, and knowledgeable people are always available. No matter how arcane the problem was, I always got an answer, and it was always the correct one.
2) IBM - if you can stomach AIX
3) Sun - reasonably knowledgeable, even though they are incredibly arrogant at times.
...
995,109) Microsoft - utterly worthless. If you can't find the answer on their search engine, it's virtually guaranteed their support won't be able to help you either. Forget MSDN for developer support. The only thing it's good for is getting regular M$ software distributions. The developer tech support it gets you is utterly worthless. Case in point -- in NT3.1 days I wrote an win32 OCX which easily repeatably bluescreened the whole OS. Something which M$ said couldn't happen. M$ able to reproduce the crash on their end, but were unable to find a solution. In the end they dropped the issue without any resolution and refused to pursue the bug any further. For all I know, my win32 OCX probably still bluescreens NT. So much for MSDN developer support. You are better off with usenet newsgroups and web message boards, than microsoft's so-called developer support. Hell, you are better off getting calling miss cleo's psychic hotline -- you're more likely to get a usable answer from them than you will from M$.
... less than 3 minutes after posting.
This has to be some sort of record.
Try other quality settings.
It's interesting if they raised the resolution for higher settings.
Still, 544x480 is a very strange setting. Does mplayer scale it properly?
There was a study (dont have the reference offhand, maybe a /. reader does) which indicated that it was not actual incidence of autism on the rise, but rather that the diagnosis of autism was on the rise due to much looser standards of what constitutes autism. Eg more children today being diagnosed with "autism" which might have been dismissed as other behavioural problems 15-30 years ago.
IIRC it was also mentioned that the "diagnosis" of autism experienced a spike shortly around the release of the movie "Rain Man". Probably as worried parents rushed their children to the doctor after seeing the movie, to be diagnosed with the latest fad.
"Things worked quite well at 32 and 44.1KHz, though 44.1 had a tendancy toward more artifacts from the mp3 encoder at a given bitrate."
To coin a phrase, "Well DUH!".
You won't hear as many artifacts for eg 32khz at 128kbps as 44.1khz at 128kbps, because at 32khz you're stuffing LESS BITS into the available bitrate thank 44.1khz.
I can make a 256kbps 44.1khz mpeg sound better than a 384kbps 32khz mpeg. There is a point where artifacts essentially disappear and then you'll hit the aliasing wall due to the inferior sampling rate. Then all the kbps in the world won't save you.
32khz is the *absolute minimum* for capturing 16khz according to Shannon/Nyquist. In reality you want a bit extra for breathing room, because analogue audio isn't algorithm-on-paper perfect.
Well, try capture at 32khz and 44.1khz. You *will* notice a difference.
Oops. Just noticed we were talking about DBS, not NTSC broadcast. ;P
Anyone know what resolutions the various DBS broadcasters use?
I was suprised to discover that Tivo captures video at 352x480, with 32khz audio. That is disturbingly low.
This may not seem like much of a problem considering that NTSC broadcast maxxes out around 440 pixels. However at 352x480 the mpeg macroblocks are quite large, and any macroblock artifacts will be quite noticeable.
The "higher quality" capture options on Tivo only adjust the bitrate given to the mpeg, but the video resolution and audio rate remain the same.
It's a shame Tivo doesn't use higher resolutions for higher quality modes.
... those were truly classic, groundbreaking posts ...
BTW has anyone ever positively identified b1ff?
Expect me to give bogus information to these DRM systems.
Expect me to create multiple bogus identities on these DRM systems.
Expect MS to get worthless profile data as a result.