My impression is that MPEGX stands for version X of the MPEG architecture, which contains several layers (audio, video, foo, bar). Layer 3 of MPEG1 happens to be an audio compression format typically using the extension MP3 (maybe it should be MPL3?).
MPEG4, for instance is their latest audio/video format suite. Hopefully MPEG4 audio will subsume MP3...MPEG4 audio is much better (MP3 has a lot of legacy junk in it).
"No, it's just annoying to see someone making obvious technical errors on a "news for nerds" site."
As the previous poster said, and perhaps you didn't get, he *probably* meant it FIGURATIVELY...like "let's MP3 'em", using the noun MP3 as a verb to indicate what MP3 is doing to audio recording..."let's Microsoft 'em" might mean "let's spew FUD and sell free copies of buggier products"
um, no? mp3 is MPEG1 Layer 3...not MPEG 3...as a matter of fact, I don't even think there IS an MPEG3. MPEG4 is maybe what you're thinking (audio/video good stuff).
"So, because the theatre won't let them in to see this great South Park movie, they should punish the creators of South Park financially. Am I missing something?"
No. You go see it at another theater. Or rent it. The offending theater just doesn't get any money. Anyway, most of their money comes from snack sales.
"If you're got the time and energy fight for a "cause", then PLEASE use that valuable initiative to do something USEFUL, instead of annoying minimum-wage employees while they're working. Go volunteer at a shelter, pick up litter, anything. This is the lamest rant I've ever seen. Did venting some frustration over silly policy at a theatre really require a two-part article on slashdot?"
What are you doing wasting your time posting on slashdot? Shouldn't you be volunteering at a shelter or taking in stray cats? The "cause" here is that civil liberties are chronically being erroded by a vocal minority. That is unacceptable. Fighting for this cause, and any other cause are not mutually exclusive. duh
Christianity was invented (or given to humans by God via his messiah Jesus, blah, blah) because people were being very stupid back then. The PROBLEM is that people NOW, use the rules of thumb set forth by a religion as CRUTCHES for common sense. Being spoiled, they refuse to ANALYSE things and REASON for THEMSELVES. It's so much easier to say "LYING IS BAD" than to actually have to think about things. No wonder they think they're all sinners.
"when there wasn't such a mad rush to quell Christian beliefs, this country wasn't so bad off; the worst thing common to schools was that the kids chewed gum in class or wouldn't stop talking or something."
Please describe this mad rush, and when it occurred.
You know, Germany under Hitler was also pretty nice. Hitler really did improve the economy and quality of life. And I bet people didn't chew gum or talk in class or do anything else non-Aryan either. (Oh, yeah, to add more fuel (albeit incidental) Hitler and Germany under Hitler was very Catholic)
"Many schools _do_ forbid such things, and their actions are being upheld in court. Moreover, they forbid religious meetings in public school buildings after school hours, while other groups are allowed to do so, denying those groups equal access to public resources."
I call your bluff. WHAT groups are allowed to hold RELIGIOUS meetings in PUBLIC school buildings, while Christians cannot? Name some.
"And teachers are forbidden to pray with students privately, even when the student expresses a wish for such activity."
Yes, this is called CONFLICT OF INTEREST. PUBLIC school teachers are agents of the state. The state is, by mandate of the Constitution, Areligious...religiously neutral. It would be a conflict of interest for a teacher to do so. If my company sold operation system FOO, but by night I pushed operating system BAR on my previous clients, that would be a CONFLICT OF INTEREST and my employer would have every right to review me and fire me if necessary. Now I don't think worshipping in private with a teacher (who happens also to be a human being) is all that bad, especially if the student asks for it. But that is !NOT! what happens in REALITY. In reality the line between student/person and teacher/person is not as well defined, and if the student is irresponsible he/she goes around (with the backing of a teacher) pushing their beliefs.
"I think you mean "public school policy"; you would do well to note that it is in public schools, specifically, that Christians are denied their faith in a matter as harmless as prayer."
Let me cry for the put upon Christians...recievers (not givers) of undeserved persecution throughout history. Wah. (sarcasm) Can Christians not pray at home at 7:30 AM before breakfast or something? What is it? How the hell do Muslims or Jews seem to survive? And why aren't they pushing for prayer in class?
"Is it illegal to spend "classroom time" on the spiritual teachings of Ghandi and Maya Angelou? Are the words of _Reverend_ Martin Luther King, Jr., in his _I Have A Dream_ speech, forbidden from the halls of public schools?"
No. I don't know where you were in high school, but we certainly did learn ancient history, and the pertinent info on the Bible. We weren't forced to pray or BELIEVE in its ideology. That is where your argument has a flaw. Nobody is saying you can't LEARN about the damn religion, they're saying you can't use state funds and resources to propigate it, and believe it or not, forcing people to pray and read the Bible is a propigation of religion. There is a little red book the Chinese had to keep with them once too.
"But you can't say that denying Christian freedoms once they walk into a public building is "fair treatment"."
Where those freedoms are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE with the freedoms of a United States citizen, a resounding YES YOU CAN!! Each United States citizen has the right of the pursuit of happiness and freedom of religious practice (which INCLUDES freedom FROM religious practice), and the RESPONSIBILITY to not infringe on that same rights of others. Where your Christian freedoms press you to convert others is where they end in this country bub.
> Want to hand out condoms or pamphlets on safe sex?
This is informational and state/government funded and mandated. This is not a set of moral values espoused and actively propigated by a special interest group.
> Want to make a gay/lesbian/bi/trans support > group in your local high school?
This might be questionable. Depends on where the funding comes from. Again, this is not the propigation of the idealogy of a special interest group. This might as well be a craft-makers support group. What's it to ya?
> Great!! How about Bible study? Uh....we wouldn't > want to offend the atheists, now would we?
Bible study is sort of different. It has nothing to do with offending atheists. In fact, many atheists study the Bible, and many Bible scholars are atheist. Maybe you cannot understand this? I'm sure no atheist would have a problem with the STUDY of the Bible. But that is not what happens. OPTIONAL STUDYING of the Bible is not what occurs (as in the other groups...you can OPTIONALLY join the support group, or OPTIONALLY accept pamphlets or condoms -- NOBODY IS FORCING YOU TO). What occurs, and what offends many people, is the FORCED institutionalization of the teaching of a special interest group's set of morals and idealogy. That is propaganda spreading. Now, if only these "Bible studiers" would actually just _study_ to their hearts' content (in some otherwise unused or occupied room), and NOT force others to do the same, everything would be fine. This is not what happens, and this is not what people are trying to force through Congress. Like the other poster, I am not offended by the concept of religion, I am offended by religious zealots who try to stuff their idealogy down my throat (the same goes for zealots of all sorts), and make it enter my classroom, and other facets of my life without my choosing, where it would otherwise not be present.
I don't give a damn WHAT religion you are. I will NOT be treated with such contempt by people who are actually trying to SELL me a product. I will NOT be monitored and restrained. I will not have somebody else's religious dogma stuffed down my throat. Leave me the hell alone. This is my country (and all of ours). Our forefathers supposedly fought for "pursuit of happiness", and religious freedom and tolerance, free of persecution. I will not be held captive in my own country (or movie theater for that matter). This is downright despicable. I'm an advocate of religious tolerance...think whatever you want as long as you keep your hands off my mind and the freedoms provided by the country I live in. For a person doing nothing wrong, and nothing illegal, to be treated like this is atrocious. I'd have some choice words to say to that theater manager. The ACLU should be all over this.
I suggest everybody watch The People vs. Larry Flynt again (if you are "allowed"!), and religious zealots and bigots can go hole up in a cave and be holy.
Damnit...emigrating is looking better every day...
The reason for the proliferation of poor system administration and administrators are because all the GOOD ones are burnt out and gone, or fired like the one above. Stupid administrators deserve the problems they cause, but good ones do not deserve to be put through the whims of upper management.
Great...it's bad enough that the DMV have your fingerprint, a unique id number, and travelling residence information, which is all available to the goverment AND mass marketers at any time.
I'm 20, and I, incidentally, don't have a license. This really isn't making feel like I want to get one soon.
Wait a minute. I don't WANT to be TOLD what I HAVE TO buy. And I'm not a lemming who is going to buy something just because it is in some vague way "exciting" (to whom? Steve Jobs? big whoop). I wasn't one of those who thought "Wow. Rolling Stones. Exciting. Buy Win95".
I really don't give a darn about how cool Steve thinks he or his products are to HIM. I want something relevant to ME. He always seems like he's giving the consumer the FAVOR of being let in on some hot-shit he came up with. That really turns me off.
I don't buy the Apple (Steve Jobs) Way. I prefer the Apple (Wozniak) Way.
I used to be an Apple basher. Apple and their products really rubbed me the wrong way. That was before I found out the truth about Woz. And how Jobs was basically just a master marketer who virtually stole the product from Woz and sold it. Really, the stuff Jobs did to Woz back then is intolerable. So now I don't mind the *idea* of Apple and the *vision* it once had. The Woz "cool geek" Apple. I really can't stand the Jobs "holier than thou" Apple. The snooty, look-at-me-I'm-such-a-hot-shit attitude. When Apple puts on a conference, you can clearly tell that it is about a business evangelizing their products to you..."oh, you'll LOVE this too", as opposed to other conferences, where they really make you feel like YOU'RE part of it, not that they're just selling you a marketing line. It just all seems very arrogant and disrespectful. Too much hype. Yeah Jobs, you're engineers are good, and make good stuff, but please don't try to candy it up with stupid marketing ploys (buy other people's technology and put it in shiny plastic...ooo so innovative). I might've respected the company.
The way I've heard it, it was more like NeXT purchased Apple. I've heard the NeXT people run the whole show there...one of the reasons that a decent up-to-date Mac MRJ isn't out is becuse NeXT doesn't give a damn. Shame...Java can ONLY HELP Apple.
is too...isn't it? IIRC, it started out independently, but then the government took in it to insure quality of service (i.e., so the postal company wouldn't just stuff and resell it or smash it up or something) Sort of like gambling...darn mafia was stealing all the citizen's money that *belonged* to the government, to the gov took over gambling...it's now called "the lottery", and makes the gov rich instead of the mafia...
call me a bigot...but I could do without mosquitors...damn bloodsuckers...take all those damn insects...except maybe lady bugs and spiders (which eat all the naturally-god-made-disgusting ones).
Umm...dolly is aging "faster" because here telomeres are shorter than normal (because she is a clone of a middle-aged animal). Wouldn't that suggest that clones of any species X would gradually see their lifespans decrease? And wouldn't this mean that human lifespans should be almost nil now? Or is the answer "No dummy, telomeres are restored to normal length upon sexual reproduction"...or something like that? I don't know...
Well, I actually haven't ever entered in that argument...so let me just say my piece here.
Yes, Seti is a slim, almost-zero, non-zero chance. Yet there is still the chance, and because the event would be so stupendous, the chance is weighted.
As far as I know cracking RC5 is no mystery. We learn nothing. We know it CAN be done. So we just do it. There is no point. It's like two children competing to count higher than each other. * The value of RC5 cracking is that the show of power keeps pressure on governments and other agencies, and the field cryptography in general. *
When we crack RC5 I get no return. Nothing. Yay. If we find an alien civilization however that is a tremendous return.
Yes, I accept that the cycles I put into SETI will *most probably* result in nothing. However I also KNOW that the cycles I put into RC5 WILL amount to nothing. It's just my choice. Looking for aliens makes me feel good. For some, cracking big strings of numbers does the same. If anything, we are at least giving scientists some work (I don't think they could possibly analyze all this junk themselves).
If RC5 was some big NP incomplete problem of great human significance, I'd throw all I have at it.
Right...like anybody is going to computer fast fouriers by hand and compare to the client output...who cares...they will know if they are getting bad data and then they will fix their own client
I must reiterate for those who are confused that the Java "client" is merely a frontend for the ACTUAL Seti command-line client. It does not crunching or sending of data. I would like to know where they pull the starmap from though.
Slashdot Mirror
go to mpeg.org for definitive info
My impression is that MPEGX stands for version X of the MPEG architecture, which contains several layers (audio, video, foo, bar). Layer 3 of MPEG1 happens to be an audio compression format typically using the extension MP3 (maybe it should be MPL3?).
MPEG4, for instance is their latest audio/video format suite. Hopefully MPEG4 audio will subsume MP3...MPEG4 audio is much better (MP3 has a lot of legacy junk in it).
"No, it's just annoying to see someone making obvious technical errors on a "news for nerds" site."
As the previous poster said, and perhaps you didn't get, he *probably* meant it FIGURATIVELY...like "let's MP3 'em", using the noun MP3 as a verb to indicate what MP3 is doing to audio recording..."let's Microsoft 'em" might mean "let's spew FUD and sell free copies of buggier products"
um, no? mp3 is MPEG1 Layer 3...not MPEG 3...as a matter of fact, I don't even think there IS an MPEG3. MPEG4 is maybe what you're thinking (audio/video good stuff).
"So, because the theatre won't let them in to see this great South Park movie, they should punish the creators of South Park financially. Am I missing something?"
No. You go see it at another theater. Or rent it. The offending theater just doesn't get any money. Anyway, most of their money comes from snack sales.
"If you're got the time and energy fight for a "cause", then PLEASE use that valuable initiative to do something USEFUL, instead of annoying minimum-wage employees while they're working. Go volunteer at a shelter, pick up litter, anything.
This is the lamest rant I've ever seen. Did venting some frustration over silly policy at a theatre really require a two-part article on slashdot?"
What are you doing wasting your time posting on slashdot? Shouldn't you be volunteering at a shelter or taking in stray cats? The "cause" here is that civil liberties are chronically being erroded by a vocal minority. That is unacceptable. Fighting for this cause, and any other cause are not mutually exclusive. duh
Christianity was invented (or given to humans by God via his messiah Jesus, blah, blah) because people were being very stupid back then. The PROBLEM is that people NOW, use the rules of thumb set forth by a religion as CRUTCHES for common sense. Being spoiled, they refuse to ANALYSE things and REASON for THEMSELVES. It's so much easier to say "LYING IS BAD" than to actually have to think about things. No wonder they think they're all sinners.
"when there wasn't such a mad rush to quell Christian beliefs, this country wasn't so bad off; the worst thing common to schools was that the kids chewed gum in class or wouldn't stop talking or something."
Please describe this mad rush, and when it occurred.
You know, Germany under Hitler was also pretty nice. Hitler really did improve the economy and quality of life. And I bet people didn't chew gum or talk in class or do anything else non-Aryan either. (Oh, yeah, to add more fuel (albeit incidental) Hitler and Germany under Hitler was very Catholic)
"Many schools _do_ forbid such things, and their actions are being upheld in court. Moreover, they forbid religious meetings in public school buildings after school hours, while other groups are allowed to do so, denying those groups equal access to public resources."
I call your bluff. WHAT groups are allowed to hold RELIGIOUS meetings in PUBLIC school buildings, while Christians cannot? Name some.
"And teachers are forbidden to pray with students privately, even when the student expresses a wish for such activity."
Yes, this is called CONFLICT OF INTEREST. PUBLIC school teachers are agents of the state. The state is, by mandate of the Constitution, Areligious...religiously neutral. It would be a conflict of interest for a teacher to do so. If my company sold operation system FOO, but by night I pushed operating system BAR on my previous clients, that would be a CONFLICT OF INTEREST and my employer would have every right to review me and fire me if necessary. Now I don't think worshipping in private with a teacher (who happens also to be a human being) is all that bad, especially if the student asks for it. But that is !NOT! what happens in REALITY. In reality the line between student/person and teacher/person is not as well defined, and if the student is irresponsible he/she goes around (with the backing of a teacher) pushing their beliefs.
"I think you mean "public school policy"; you would do well to note that it is in public schools, specifically, that Christians are denied their faith in a matter as harmless as prayer."
Let me cry for the put upon Christians...recievers (not givers) of undeserved persecution throughout history. Wah. (sarcasm)
Can Christians not pray at home at 7:30 AM before breakfast or something? What is it? How the hell do Muslims or Jews seem to survive? And why aren't they pushing for prayer in class?
"Is it illegal to spend "classroom time" on the spiritual teachings of Ghandi and Maya Angelou? Are the words of _Reverend_ Martin Luther King, Jr., in his _I Have A Dream_ speech, forbidden from the halls of public schools?"
No. I don't know where you were in high school, but we certainly did learn ancient history, and the pertinent info on the Bible. We weren't forced to pray or BELIEVE in its ideology. That is where your argument has a flaw. Nobody is saying you can't LEARN about the damn religion, they're saying you can't use state funds and resources to propigate it, and believe it or not, forcing people to pray and read the Bible is a propigation of religion. There is a little red book the Chinese had to keep with them once too.
"But you can't say that denying Christian freedoms once they walk into a public building is "fair treatment"."
Where those freedoms are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE with the freedoms of a United States citizen, a resounding YES YOU CAN!! Each United States citizen has the right of the pursuit of happiness and freedom of religious practice (which INCLUDES freedom FROM religious practice), and the RESPONSIBILITY to not infringe on that same rights of others. Where your Christian freedoms press you to convert others is where they end in this country bub.
> Want to hand out condoms or pamphlets on safe sex?
This is informational and state/government funded and mandated. This is not a set of moral values espoused and actively propigated by a special interest group.
> Want to make a gay/lesbian/bi/trans support
> group in your local high school?
This might be questionable. Depends on where the funding comes from. Again, this is not the propigation of the idealogy of a special interest group. This might as well be a craft-makers support group. What's it to ya?
> Great!! How about Bible study? Uh....we wouldn't
> want to offend the atheists, now would we?
Bible study is sort of different. It has nothing to do with offending atheists. In fact, many atheists study the Bible, and many Bible scholars are atheist. Maybe you cannot understand this? I'm sure no atheist would have a problem with the STUDY of the Bible. But that is not what happens. OPTIONAL STUDYING of the Bible is not what occurs (as in the other groups...you can OPTIONALLY join the support group, or OPTIONALLY accept pamphlets or condoms -- NOBODY IS FORCING YOU TO). What occurs, and what offends many people, is the FORCED institutionalization of the teaching of a special interest group's set of morals and idealogy. That is propaganda spreading. Now, if only these "Bible studiers" would actually just _study_ to their hearts' content (in some otherwise unused or occupied room), and NOT force others to do the same, everything would be fine. This is not what happens, and this is not what people are trying to force through Congress. Like the other poster, I am not offended by the concept of religion, I am offended by religious zealots who try to stuff their idealogy down my throat (the same goes for zealots of all sorts), and make it enter my classroom, and other facets of my life without my choosing, where it would otherwise not be present.
I agree (read my own rant)...but what is RHPS?
I don't give a damn WHAT religion you are. I will NOT be treated with such contempt by people who are actually trying to SELL me a product. I will NOT be monitored and restrained. I will not have somebody else's religious dogma stuffed down my throat. Leave me the hell alone. This is my country (and all of ours). Our forefathers supposedly fought for "pursuit of happiness", and religious freedom and tolerance, free of persecution. I will not be held captive in my own country (or movie theater for that matter). This is downright despicable. I'm an advocate of religious tolerance...think whatever you want as long as you keep your hands off my mind and the freedoms provided by the country I live in. For a person doing nothing wrong, and nothing illegal, to be treated like this is atrocious. I'd have some choice words to say to that theater manager. The ACLU should be all over this.
I suggest everybody watch The People vs. Larry Flynt again (if you are "allowed"!), and religious zealots and bigots can go hole up in a cave and be holy.
Damnit...emigrating is looking better every day...
The reason for the proliferation of poor system administration and administrators are because all the GOOD ones are burnt out and gone, or fired like the one above. Stupid administrators deserve the problems they cause, but good ones do not deserve to be put through the whims of upper management.
Great...it's bad enough that the DMV have your fingerprint, a unique id number, and travelling residence information, which is all available to the goverment AND mass marketers at any time.
I'm 20, and I, incidentally, don't have a license. This really isn't making feel like I want to get one soon.
Wait a minute. I don't WANT to be TOLD what I HAVE TO buy. And I'm not a lemming who is going to buy something just because it is in some vague way "exciting" (to whom? Steve Jobs? big whoop). I wasn't one of those who thought "Wow. Rolling Stones. Exciting. Buy Win95".
I really don't give a darn about how cool Steve thinks he or his products are to HIM. I want something relevant to ME. He always seems like he's giving the consumer the FAVOR of being let in on some hot-shit he came up with. That really turns me off.
I don't buy the Apple (Steve Jobs) Way. I prefer the Apple (Wozniak) Way.
AFAIK you CAN'T run Be on a G3 mac. Apple wouldn't let them have the specs. Nice.
I used to be an Apple basher. Apple and their products really rubbed me the wrong way. That was before I found out the truth about Woz. And how Jobs was basically just a master marketer who virtually stole the product from Woz and sold it. Really, the stuff Jobs did to Woz back then is intolerable. So now I don't mind the *idea* of Apple and the *vision* it once had. The Woz "cool geek" Apple. I really can't stand the Jobs "holier than thou" Apple. The snooty, look-at-me-I'm-such-a-hot-shit attitude. When Apple puts on a conference, you can clearly tell that it is about a business evangelizing their products to you..."oh, you'll LOVE this too", as opposed to other conferences, where they really make you feel like YOU'RE part of it, not that they're just selling you a marketing line. It just all seems very arrogant and disrespectful. Too much hype. Yeah Jobs, you're engineers are good, and make good stuff, but please don't try to candy it up with stupid marketing ploys (buy other people's technology and put it in shiny plastic...ooo so innovative). I might've respected the company.
The way I've heard it, it was more like NeXT purchased Apple. I've heard the NeXT people run the whole show there...one of the reasons that a decent up-to-date Mac MRJ isn't out is becuse NeXT doesn't give a damn. Shame...Java can ONLY HELP Apple.
is too...isn't it?
IIRC, it started out independently, but then the government took in it to insure quality of service (i.e., so the postal company wouldn't just stuff and resell it or smash it up or something)
Sort of like gambling...darn mafia was stealing all the citizen's money that *belonged* to the government, to the gov took over gambling...it's now called "the lottery", and makes the gov rich instead of the mafia...
call me a bigot...but I could do without mosquitors...damn bloodsuckers...take all those damn insects...except maybe lady bugs and spiders (which eat all the naturally-god-made-disgusting ones).
Umm...dolly is aging "faster" because here telomeres are shorter than normal (because she is a clone of a middle-aged animal). Wouldn't that suggest that clones of any species X would gradually see their lifespans decrease? And wouldn't this mean that human lifespans should be almost nil now? Or is the answer "No dummy, telomeres are restored to normal length upon sexual reproduction"...or something like that? I don't know...
I can just hear it..heh
give em a fighting chance!
Aren't Palm VII's out already? Who wants a Palm II?
add to that "post-modern"
Well, I actually haven't ever entered in that argument...so let me just say my piece here.
Yes, Seti is a slim, almost-zero, non-zero chance. Yet there is still the chance, and because the event would be so stupendous, the chance is weighted.
As far as I know cracking RC5 is no mystery. We learn nothing. We know it CAN be done. So we just do it. There is no point. It's like two children competing to count higher than each other. * The value of RC5 cracking is that the show of power keeps pressure on governments and other agencies, and the field cryptography in general. *
When we crack RC5 I get no return. Nothing. Yay. If we find an alien civilization however that is a tremendous return.
Yes, I accept that the cycles I put into SETI will *most probably* result in nothing. However I also KNOW that the cycles I put into RC5 WILL amount to nothing. It's just my choice. Looking for aliens makes me feel good. For some, cracking big strings of numbers does the same. If anything, we are at least giving scientists some work (I don't think they could possibly analyze all this junk themselves).
If RC5 was some big NP incomplete problem of great human significance, I'd throw all I have at it.
This is nice, but are there any plans to open-source it? I would really like to clean up that gui.
Also, somebody said "many other clients". Are there many other frontends, and does anybody have links?
Right...like anybody is going to computer fast fouriers by hand and compare to the client output...who cares...they will know if they are getting bad data and then they will fix their own client
I must reiterate for those who are confused that the Java "client" is merely a frontend for the ACTUAL Seti command-line client. It does not crunching or sending of data. I would like to know where they pull the starmap from though.