Re:extension? what do we need the extension for?
on
JPEG2000 Coming Soon
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· Score: 2
Heck, I don't see why there should be any more than one file type for still pictures (or audio, or video, or indeed any media in general), with an internal marker indicating what the file format and compression is.
Ever heard of TIFF? That's basically what TIFF is, a picture format that lets you specify compression type, and pretty much everything else, inside the file. Why don't people use TIFF much? A big part of the reason is that there's so many options nobody supports them all, so you have to be careful when exchanging TIFF files that all sides can read them. Also, whereas a PNG's data is always sorted in an order easy to display, a TIFF can be in arbitrary order.
That is, the main advantage PNG has over TIFF is that you know what's in the file and that it will be easy to display. Your format would have all the problems of TIFF, except that instead of writing one reader for TIFF's elegant internal format, you have to write an endless stream of readers for an endless stream of internal formats.
In short, it's not a bill, it's a resolution (so passing it wouldn't mean anything if it were passed), and the legislature didn't take it seriously. Don't you think there would be just a wee bit of a problem if Kentucky actually started sinking riverboats? (Think about stuff like Federal control over interstate commerce and due process of law before killing someone or destroying their property.)
knowing Klingon doesn't count as being multi-lingual
Why not? Klingon is a language distinct from any other. There are Klingon speakers, and you can communicate with them no matter what other languages they may or may not know.
I've looked at DICT previously. Too bad it's defunct.
Why do you think it's defunct? The dict protocol works fine, and there are many dictionaries out there for it. dict.org is up and working, if not terribly well maintained. Debian has many packages, mostly named dict-*, that are dictionaries for dict, including a full English dictionary, the Jargon file, a Biblical dictionary and a Russian dictionary. www.freedict.de has a wide variety of bilingual dictionaries for dict.
If you count [A-Za-z.?"'!;-]*. I'm not sure how much that helps.
Actually, English can't even be expressed through a context-free grammar (a superset of regexps), in part because it is inherantly ambigious. "The girl touches the boy with the flower" has two possible meanings.
Yes, it [the source] might be free to have, but no one at my job knows Linux or anything else about free software, therefore we'd have to hire a consultant at perhaps $80.00 an hour to analyze the code and solve the problem.
This is major $ compared to the price of licenses. Sometimes the "free software" argument is grasping at straws, since there is cost to maintaing software, no matter whose software it is.
That's a non sequiter. If you don't want to pay someone to maintain the software, or check it for backdoors, then don't. You're at the mercy of upstream, but you're always at the mercy of the upstream with proprietary software you can't get the source to. All free software (and other software that gives you the source and the right to modify it) does here is give you the ability do so if you chose, for example, if you need something the upstream isn't willing to supply.
Even comparing yourself to that shows an utter lack of understanding of the nature of addiction.
You're defining addiction as purely physical addiction, and mocking others because they don't chose to use your redefinition of the word. Addiction is an English word dating back at least to Shakespear, with a broader meaning than you try to give it.
I'd suggest that you (or anyone who feels that they are "addicted" to, or dependant on the Internet) start reading some books, or find other hobbies that you can use in lieu of Internet access to add some other kind of value to your life.
Good. Replace a social activity with one that's entirely passive and requires no contact with other humans. I'm sure that'll improve my life. Considering as I've packed several bookcases to overflowing and know the local library like the back of my hand, if it could supplement the Internet, it probably would have.
The difference is that you can stop your compulsion without any real ill effects. You don't get any withdrawal symptoms, psychological or physical. You might really want to play the game, but you don't have to play the game.
Right. I am an Internet addict. You take me off the Internet, and I get iritable, depressed and randomly hostile. Yes, there are real psychological symptoms that occur when some people lose Internet access, and I'm sure there are similar symptoms when some people get cut off from Everquest.
A minor nit: they haven't actually been punished yet, just hauled offstage as it were.
Hmm. Note: death not punishment; notice people lining up to be executed. end note.
But the big issue is that people do what they do largely because of what you believe.
But a perfectly moral Buddhist, who literaly would not hurt a fly, still gets to burn in hell, whereas a true believer, who occasionally kills people (like King David), gets to go to heaven.
No, it's been supposed by various people throughout history that the earth is either old or new, and facts bent to fit their agendas.
Then how do you know that the people bending the facts to your agenda have the right of it?
Mechanisms for each step of fossilisation have also been observed, and need not take long.
Except for the fact that most of the creatures seen fossillized haven't been seen in human history. Neither Egyptians or Chinese or cavemen thought to put them in the records. Also, Noah got all the animals for the ark, not some of them.
No, the `were you there?' argument. Eyewitness accounts surely amount to more than speculation does.
Eyewitness accounts mean little when there's only one eyewitness, and the integrity of that eyewitness can be called into question.
This is why the Big Seven studios haven't released much (if any) public domain content on DVDs, because in that case, somebody would be able to lawfully make or import a circumvention device designed specifically to decrypt public domain works
So why exactly hasn't the DVD production of "The Birth of a Nation" (1915, DVD distributed by Image Entertainment) changed anything?
If you count resurfacing the entire planet as `not practical', then I guess you could be onto something.
Punishing almost everyone does not count as effective enforcing. Why should I stop doing my wrong deeds if I will just get punished like the really evil guy next door?
you'd have to ignore an awful lot of physical geology.
I suggest you starting reading geology books written by people who actually study the rocks, instead of those who read other people's work to twist it to their agendas. It's been known for 200 years that the geological pattern does not fit a worldwide flood.
As to the `corrupt' - in whose opinion? Yours?
Of course. Some would point out that my ancestor ate of the fruit of good and evil. Others would point out that I have no option - ultimately, even if I am to rely soley on others, I must rely ultimately on myself to pick who I am to rely on.
Go read the book of Job
The "Look apon my works, ye mighty, and despair" argument, eh? Historically, neither knowledge or power has been evidence of morality. I see no reason why your god's claim that he is powerful and intelligent should lead me to believe he is moral; indeed the very fact that these arguments were put forth instead of arguments about morality seems to indicate that he could not answer the straightforward complaints.
Your mileage may vary, but thumbing your nose at 100 people, one of whom is running an organized crime syndicate, still qualifies as a cheap ticket out of the gene pool in my books. Are the cheap laughs from trolling the 99 trailer-park denizens really worth the risk?
Killing 100 people, one of whom is the grandson of a senator, qualifies as a cheap ticket out of the mobster business. Are the cheap laughs from killing the 99 trailer-park denizens really worth the risk?
All the deaths mentioned in your link were people stupid enough to fall for it and walk right into their hands. No criminal organization can afford to start killing too many people for the heck of it. Large scale random deaths of upright citizens tends to get the police on your trail, something to be minimized if possible.
The willingness to lie to get that yahoo mail account is part of the problem. It is indicitive of why minor's can not sign contracts (judgement, character, responsibility etc).
Right. Because adults never engage in little white lies. Nope, never-never.
Honestly, how many people do you know who wouldn't lie to get around an stupid (in their mind) arbitrary restriction that no one was ever to call them on? I know a few people who wouldn't, but most people I know, if it was needed to get a webmail account, would happily click away.
You had 10 Pentium class PC's, and all you could think of was to throw them away? Linux will run fine on them, as will Window95. I'd give you $20-40 for one, and I know a number of friends who probably would too. There are a number of charities that would take, and a lot of computer geeks that might like a new box to play with. Put up signs around the local college campus. Just don't fill our landfiles with stuff that still has life left!
You're 13. Enjoy your childhood; don't try to act like an adult,
People should act like who they are. A 13-year old should not be forced to be an adult, but that doesn't mean that he's better off trying to force himself (or being forced) into somebody's ideal of what childhood should be. Being forced to spend 6 hours a day ignoring teachers and students is probably not going to improve him; nor is ceasing to do serious programming.
Exactly WHAT is an agency of the US Gov going to crack that will allow it to gain exactly WHAT money to amortize it's $1B that won't be missed?
IIRC, each Stealth bomber costs about a billion dollars. Given the tradeoff between buying a new Stealth fighter, and knowing where to put my current Stealth fighters before my opponent has got a chance to move his armies, I'd pick the latter.
It may be argued that responsible cat owners not only neuter their cats, but also keep them strictly indoors or on a leash.
In more news, it's estimated that birds cause the death of more worms than any other animal. So cats are eating birds. They're probably replacing the other small mammals that no longer live near human populated areas.
either HTML is good for discussion groups (Slashdot OR Usenet) or it is not.
One huge difference between Slashdot and Usenet is that Slashdot only permits a subset of HTML tags in posts. If Usenet HTML would limit itself to a similar subset, then it would be much more platable.
Also, Slashdot has already limited itself to those who can handle HTML, so why not permit HTML in posts? Usenet is and always has been available by plain text, so HTML gets much more scrutiny.
Sheesh, some geeks are worse than PHBs on this issue.
You propose a method that many people can't read, and while it's supposed to look better if you can read it, it frequently just looks like over-elaborate crap.
Geeks believe in content over packaging, at least more than your average person. HTML offers very little in an email or newsgroup environment, where messages are quickly written, but often come with huge overdone packaging. Geeks also like to use their computers via text links, and HTML is not friendly to that. Somehow it should not be surprising that they aren't happy with HTML in those enviroments.
In fact, lets kill off mime altogether, and get this multimedia crap out of our inboxes. Email/Usenet is for plain text, period.
Yes, because everyone who doesn't speak English should just shut up. You did realize that MIME is the only standard on how to send non-ASCII plain text across email, didn't you.
Slashcode follows the open source coding and testing ethic of "it worked for me".
Guess what - the W3 validator pukes on www.hotmail.com, whereas www.debian.org works just fine. Maybe, just maybe, it has nothing to do with whether it's open source or not.
2. Perhaps Slashdot should consider switching to IIS 5.0 or.NET server and rewriting their code using a stable, reliable platform like Visual C++ or.NET. Perhaps only then will the browser compatbility issues will be resolved.
These are just suggestions. I am here to help.
Maybe it would help if you knew something about the subject. What programming language you write an HTML generator in is irrelevant, as is, for the most part, the server.
I would rather have a clean e-mail box and not bother with suing people.
It's easy to have a clean mailbox. Just never bother hooking it up to an email account. But the whole point of email is that people can put something in that mailbox. If you're going to go to extreme measures to not let anyone put anything in the mailbox, why bother having it?
don't complain about getting spam, because you could have prevented it.
So you would never complain about getting dumped or fired, because you could have chosen not to get involved in the first place? Your methods of prevention are completely unacceptable for anyone who actually wants to communicate via the net, similar to never going on a date for fear of being dumped.
Slashdot Mirror
Heck, I don't see why there should be any more than one file type for still pictures (or audio, or video, or indeed any media in general), with an internal marker indicating what the file format and compression is.
Ever heard of TIFF? That's basically what TIFF is, a picture format that lets you specify compression type, and pretty much everything else, inside the file. Why don't people use TIFF much? A big part of the reason is that there's so many options nobody supports them all, so you have to be careful when exchanging TIFF files that all sides can read them. Also, whereas a PNG's data is always sorted in an order easy to display, a TIFF can be in arbitrary order.
That is, the main advantage PNG has over TIFF is that you know what's in the file and that it will be easy to display. Your format would have all the problems of TIFF, except that instead of writing one reader for TIFF's elegant internal format, you have to write an endless stream of readers for an endless stream of internal formats.
That bill is dead serious.
See
http://www.snopes2.com/legal/kentucky.htm.
In short, it's not a bill, it's a resolution (so passing it wouldn't mean anything if it were passed), and the legislature didn't take it seriously. Don't you think there would be just a wee bit of a problem if Kentucky actually started sinking riverboats? (Think about stuff like Federal control over interstate commerce and due process of law before killing someone or destroying their property.)
knowing Klingon doesn't count as being multi-lingual
Why not? Klingon is a language distinct from any other. There are Klingon speakers, and you can communicate with them no matter what other languages they may or may not know.
I've looked at DICT previously. Too bad it's defunct.
Why do you think it's defunct? The dict protocol works fine, and there are many dictionaries out there for it. dict.org is up and working, if not terribly well maintained. Debian has many packages, mostly named dict-*, that are dictionaries for dict, including a full English dictionary, the Jargon file, a Biblical dictionary and a Russian dictionary. www.freedict.de has a wide variety of bilingual dictionaries for dict.
English can be expressed as a regexp.
If you count [A-Za-z.?"'!;-]*. I'm not sure how much that helps.
Actually, English can't even be expressed through a context-free grammar (a superset of regexps), in part because it is inherantly ambigious. "The girl touches the boy with the flower" has two possible meanings.
Yes, it [the source] might be free to have, but no one at my job knows Linux or anything else about free software, therefore we'd have to hire a consultant at perhaps $80.00 an hour to analyze the code and solve the problem.
This is major $ compared to the price of licenses. Sometimes the "free software" argument is grasping at straws, since there is cost to maintaing software, no matter whose software it is.
That's a non sequiter. If you don't want to pay someone to maintain the software, or check it for backdoors, then don't. You're at the mercy of upstream, but you're always at the mercy of the upstream with proprietary software you can't get the source to. All free software (and other software that gives you the source and the right to modify it) does here is give you the ability do so if you chose, for example, if you need something the upstream isn't willing to supply.
Even comparing yourself to that shows an utter lack of understanding of the nature of addiction.
You're defining addiction as purely physical addiction, and mocking others because they don't chose to use your redefinition of the word. Addiction is an English word dating back at least to Shakespear, with a broader meaning than you try to give it.
I'd suggest that you (or anyone who feels that they are "addicted" to, or dependant on the Internet) start reading some books, or find other hobbies that you can use in lieu of Internet access to add some other kind of value to your life.
Good. Replace a social activity with one that's entirely passive and requires no contact with other humans. I'm sure that'll improve my life. Considering as I've packed several bookcases to overflowing and know the local library like the back of my hand, if it could supplement the Internet, it probably would have.
The difference is that you can stop your compulsion without any real ill effects. You don't get any withdrawal symptoms, psychological or physical. You might really want to play the game, but you don't have to play the game.
Right. I am an Internet addict. You take me off the Internet, and I get iritable, depressed and randomly hostile. Yes, there are real psychological symptoms that occur when some people lose Internet access, and I'm sure there are similar symptoms when some people get cut off from Everquest.
A minor nit: they haven't actually been punished yet, just hauled offstage as it were.
Hmm. Note: death not punishment; notice people lining up to be executed. end note.
But the big issue is that people do what they do largely because of what you believe.
But a perfectly moral Buddhist, who literaly would not hurt a fly, still gets to burn in hell, whereas a true believer, who occasionally kills people (like King David), gets to go to heaven.
No, it's been supposed by various people throughout history that the earth is either old or new, and facts bent to fit their agendas.
Then how do you know that the people bending the facts to your agenda have the right of it?
Mechanisms for each step of fossilisation have also been observed, and need not take long.
Except for the fact that most of the creatures seen fossillized haven't been seen in human history. Neither Egyptians or Chinese or cavemen thought to put them in the records. Also, Noah got all the animals for the ark, not some of them.
No, the `were you there?' argument. Eyewitness accounts surely amount to more than speculation does.
Eyewitness accounts mean little when there's only one eyewitness, and the integrity of that eyewitness can be called into question.
If you actually read Slashdot, you would know that that interview was already the subject of a story. Slashdot has enough repeats without you helping.
This is why the Big Seven studios haven't released much (if any) public domain content on DVDs, because in that case, somebody would be able to lawfully make or import a circumvention device designed specifically to decrypt public domain works
So why exactly hasn't the DVD production of "The Birth of a Nation" (1915, DVD distributed by Image Entertainment) changed anything?
If you count resurfacing the entire planet as `not practical', then I guess you could be onto something.
Punishing almost everyone does not count as effective enforcing. Why should I stop doing my wrong deeds if I will just get punished like the really evil guy next door?
you'd have to ignore an awful lot of physical geology.
I suggest you starting reading geology books written by people who actually study the rocks, instead of those who read other people's work to twist it to their agendas. It's been known for 200 years that the geological pattern does not fit a worldwide flood.
As to the `corrupt' - in whose opinion? Yours?
Of course. Some would point out that my ancestor ate of the fruit of good and evil. Others would point out that I have no option - ultimately, even if I am to rely soley on others, I must rely ultimately on myself to pick who I am to rely on.
Go read the book of Job
The "Look apon my works, ye mighty, and despair" argument, eh? Historically, neither knowledge or power has been evidence of morality. I see no reason why your god's claim that he is powerful and intelligent should lead me to believe he is moral; indeed the very fact that these arguments were put forth instead of arguments about morality seems to indicate that he could not answer the straightforward complaints.
Your mileage may vary, but thumbing your nose at 100 people, one of whom is running an organized crime syndicate, still qualifies as a cheap ticket out of the gene pool in my books. Are the cheap laughs from trolling the 99 trailer-park denizens really worth the risk?
Killing 100 people, one of whom is the grandson of a senator, qualifies as a cheap ticket out of the mobster business. Are the cheap laughs from killing the 99 trailer-park denizens really worth the risk?
All the deaths mentioned in your link were people stupid enough to fall for it and walk right into their hands. No criminal organization can afford to start killing too many people for the heck of it. Large scale random deaths of upright citizens tends to get the police on your trail, something to be minimized if possible.
The willingness to lie to get that yahoo mail account is part of the problem. It is indicitive of why minor's can not sign contracts (judgement, character, responsibility etc).
Right. Because adults never engage in little white lies. Nope, never-never.
Honestly, how many people do you know who wouldn't lie to get around an stupid (in their mind) arbitrary restriction that no one was ever to call them on? I know a few people who wouldn't, but most people I know, if it was needed to get a webmail account, would happily click away.
You had 10 Pentium class PC's, and all you could think of was to throw them away? Linux will run fine on them, as will Window95. I'd give you $20-40 for one, and I know a number of friends who probably would too. There are a number of charities that would take, and a lot of computer geeks that might like a new box to play with. Put up signs around the local college campus. Just don't fill our landfiles with stuff that still has life left!
You're 13. Enjoy your childhood; don't try to act like an adult,
People should act like who they are. A 13-year old should not be forced to be an adult, but that doesn't mean that he's better off trying to force himself (or being forced) into somebody's ideal of what childhood should be. Being forced to spend 6 hours a day ignoring teachers and students is probably not going to improve him; nor is ceasing to do serious programming.
SUPPOSE there's a US Govt agency with $1B
The Department of Defense gets $303B a year.
See the official budget of the United States Government for 2003.
Exactly WHAT is an agency of the US Gov going to crack
that will allow it to gain exactly WHAT money
to amortize it's $1B
that won't be missed?
IIRC, each Stealth bomber costs about a billion dollars. Given the tradeoff between buying a new Stealth fighter, and knowing where to put my current Stealth fighters before my opponent has got a chance to move his armies, I'd pick the latter.
It may be argued that responsible cat owners not only neuter their cats, but also keep them strictly indoors or on a leash.
In more news, it's estimated that birds cause the death of more worms than any other animal. So cats are eating birds. They're probably replacing the other small mammals that no longer live near human populated areas.
either HTML is good for discussion groups (Slashdot OR Usenet) or it is not.
One huge difference between Slashdot and Usenet is that Slashdot only permits a subset of HTML tags in posts. If Usenet HTML would limit itself to a similar subset, then it would be much more platable.
Also, Slashdot has already limited itself to those who can handle HTML, so why not permit HTML in posts? Usenet is and always has been available by plain text, so HTML gets much more scrutiny.
Sheesh, some geeks are worse than PHBs on this issue.
You propose a method that many people can't read,
and while it's supposed to look better if you can read it, it frequently just looks like over-elaborate crap.
Geeks believe in content over packaging, at least more than your average person. HTML offers very little in an email or newsgroup environment, where messages are quickly written, but often come with huge overdone packaging. Geeks also like to use their computers via text links, and HTML is not friendly to that. Somehow it should not be surprising that they aren't happy with HTML in those enviroments.
In fact, lets kill off mime altogether, and get this multimedia crap out of our inboxes. Email/Usenet is for plain text, period.
Yes, because everyone who doesn't speak English should just shut up. You did realize that MIME is the only standard on how to send non-ASCII plain text across email, didn't you.
Slashcode follows the open source coding and testing ethic of "it worked for me".
.NET server and rewriting their code using a stable, reliable platform like Visual C++ or .NET. Perhaps only then will the browser compatbility issues will be resolved.
Guess what - the W3 validator pukes on www.hotmail.com, whereas www.debian.org works just fine. Maybe, just maybe, it has nothing to do with whether it's open source or not.
2. Perhaps Slashdot should consider switching to IIS 5.0 or
These are just suggestions. I am here to help.
Maybe it would help if you knew something about the subject. What programming language you write an HTML generator in is irrelevant, as is, for the most part, the server.
I would rather have a clean e-mail box and not bother with suing people.
It's easy to have a clean mailbox. Just never bother hooking it up to an email account. But the whole point of email is that people can put something in that mailbox. If you're going to go to extreme measures to not let anyone put anything in the mailbox, why bother having it?
don't complain about getting fired because you could have worked harder and not given them a reason to fire you
You can stop the boss's cousin from needing a job?
don't complain about getting spam, because you could have prevented it.
So you would never complain about getting dumped or fired, because you could have chosen not to get involved in the first place? Your methods of prevention are completely unacceptable for anyone who actually wants to communicate via the net, similar to never going on a date for fear of being dumped.