When I started with SpeakEasy, I was about two months into a year lease in a section of Boston that won't have broadband/cable for years to come. Since SpeakEasy locks you in for a year, I knew I was going to "burn" a couple of months when I moved out. When I moved out, I got in touch with them to tell them that I moved, and cancelled my telco service. My monthly was $90, with a $300 or so termination fee. My plan was to let the two months run out, paying only $180. Instead, they tried to charge me the termination fee! I got in touch with them to tell them that I didn't want my account cancelled, just that the DSL connection no longer exists. In the end they let me pay the $180, but I was *not* happy about that.. I then moved, and am in a cable modem area, giving me the same bandwidth at a much lower price-point..
Seriously though most of those SUVs out there cannot take a whole hell of a lot, they are designed for the road with the "look" of being able to do what they can't. Are they uses for SUVs? Sure, but they are a hell of a lot less then there are SUVs to justify.
Heh.. Just this weekend, there was a quick snow shower in western Massachusetts. Ahead of me, on a hilly back road, I saw an SUV struggling to make it up a slippery hill; it eventually made it up the hill, though it was crabbing at about 30 degrees all the way up... I simply dropped my (2WD) Passat into 2nd, and cruised straight up the hill with nary a slip. I always smile when I see a disabled SUV on the side of the road in the winter..
Yes. And I'm not buying a dedicated player until it plays ogg files. I bought a Zaurus 5500just for this purpose. I'd like to also buy a more purpose-built device for this, though, and I refuse to buy one that does not play Ogg Vorbis I files.
And what aboutthe floppy drive? Those things are rarely used these days, but can be terribly noisy.
Easy: take it out. Since last year, I've been building PCs sans floppy drives. IMO, floppies have very little use these days; files are regularly larger than 1.4 (or 2.8) MB, making floppies pretty useless. Most modern BIOSes can boot directly from CDROM. I've been using USB flash drives (a friend has a "pen" style, I like to use Compact Flash w/ a USB adapter), they're faster, and to the topic, make no noise whatsoever.
I remeber taking over the lab to download the 20+ floppies for Slackware back in '93...
This means that the trains can't pass one another if one gets bogged down, and there is no meaningful way to run express trains.
They could get around this by "expressing" trains on the lines. For example, every once in a while, you can get a Red Line from Park St. direct to Harvard (skipping three stops). I've also been on a Green Line D train that expressed from Fenway to Resivoir. I have no idea why they don't do this more often, particularly for Sox home games. The killer is when the driver has to deal with a rider in a wheelchair: the operator has to get out of the train, find a manually operated lift at the station (which looks like it was slapped together by the kids at the local vocational school), wheel the rider onto the thing, crank it up to car-height, let the rider wheel on, and then crank the thing down, fold it back up, and put it away. This operation takes at least five minutes, thereby delaying all of the cars behind it. Some stops have ramps that help this somewhat, but the operator has to pull the train to the exact location of the ramp, etc. I have nothing against the wheelchair people, but the T should be doing a better job expediting this process.. Many of these transfer process are manual: for example, when a train starts its journey from the Lechmere stop, the operator has to pull the train up, get out of the train, find The Crowbar, and manually switch the tracks. This operation has to be done at least once every ten minutes, if a train leaves from the alternate set of tracks.
But, if a train does die on the tracks, they typically have "crossovers" every couple hundred of feet.. (This may not be true of the B/C/E lines, which run down Comm./Beacon/Huntington though.)
Unlike New York, that does construction at night, all road construction is done during the day in Boston, including during Rush Hour.
That's not entirely true... They work at night, particularly on Rte. 128, but sometimes up on I-93, too.
if I take a wav -> 128 bit mp3 -> 192 bit mp3 is the result of the 192 bit any worse than the 128?
Almost certainly, yes. An encoder would use a different strategy to encode a 128 kbit MP3 and a 192 kbit MP3. If certain frequency ranges are discarded when encoding 128 kbit, and other frequency ranges when encoding 192kbit, if you encode to 128kbit, and decode/recode to 192kbit, you will lose both ranges of frequencies.
why wouldn't you be able to produce an ogg from an mp3 that is no worse than the mp3?
See above.
I just don't buy the blanket argument that lossy -> lossy has to produce even more lossy.
Depends on the nature of the lossiness, grasshopper.
You can hit turbulence at Mach 0.76 that's pretty rough. What would that same turbulence to do a large plane at Mach 7.6?
Planes fly Mach 0.76 at 30000ft. A plane flying Mach 7.6 would be much higher, upwards of 100000ft, where there is very little air to cause turbulence. Friction becomes an issue. When the X-15 flew Mach 6,
Air friction at speeds much above Mach 6.0 would weaken even the X-15's chrome-nickel Iconel X skin, so a special resin-and-glass-bead ablative coating was developed that would gradually sear away in flight, carrying with it the excess heat.
Just wondering, but wouldn't travelling at Mach 7.6 be a little tough on a human? I'm no physisct, but it seems like the G's would be something really painful for a human.
Mach is a measure of speed relative to the speed of sound at a given elevation, it is not a measure of acceleration. So, at sea level, Mach 7.6 is roughly 5800mph (~2600m/s), but at 25000ft, where the air is thinner, Mach 7.6 is about 5000mph (~2250m/s).
The gravitation of earth (ie, the amount of force we feel from gravity) is 9.8m/s^2. So, a constant 1G force (which the body won't find too uncomfortable) would accellerate a body to 2250m/s in about four minutes... If a genter push is desired, say.5G, that level of acceleration would need to be maintained for a bit over seven and a half minutes...
If you notice in Armageddon, the World Trade Center is hit by a meteoroid fragment, yet remains standing, albiet with a huge chunk of it taken out... Unfortunately, reality isn't so kind...
Fifty thousand dollars strapped to each thigh. A hundred thousand dollars, in 10 bricks of hundreds, taped across my upper back. Fifty thousand more Velcroed to my chest.
...I stroll through Logan International Airport....There's enough money hidden under my clothes to buy a two-bedroom condo.
Uh, not in Boston. You'll be lucky to get a converted basement in Roxbury with only 200 grand.
And I really doubt if you can get all of that through airport security; they've tightened up quite a bit at Logan... Then again, the article doesn't mention the risk of being "randomly" picked at the gate, either.. But then again, this story seems to have happened more than a year ago...
I'm assuming you're talking about java.awt.Robot. This, with BeanShell would allow test scripts for GUIs to be built.. A more sophisticated system would be able to capture AWT events, and store them in a file for later playback...
People pirate software because it is so expensive. "Back in the day" just about every program was 50$. Adobe Photoshop, which is a standard program that lots of people need costs $584 at www.buy.com. That's well over what most people can afford. It's half the price of an extremely decent computer!
"Back in the day", you didn't have Photoshop. As it's been said in the countless piracy threads on/., if you can't afford the software, don't use it; Adobe loses a sale (unless you pirate, of course). Software is like any other business: it's all about supply and demand. Photoshop is priced at $584 because people are willing to pay for it! If people didn't need all the whizbang functionality and support (including books) for Photoshop, they could use something like The GIMP legally, for free. If people didn't think Photoshop was worth $584, they would not buy it, and Adobe would be forced to lower the price (which may also mean fewer features in the next release: commerce software by its nature is not cheap to produce).
You suggest that by posting the source on SF, "and see if there's any freelance coders or other organizations who also want to help", that this guy's software problems will disappear.
But what if there are no freelance coders who want to help? Take a look at some of the more successful open source applications and tools out there: Linux, Samba, Apache, GIMP, all of the GNU libraries, etc. All of these are general purpose, and find their way in to all kinds of various projects. If I'm the only company manufacturing widgets, what benefit do I gain by posting my widget modelling software? If anything I'm lowering the barrier of entry into my market, so those blivet manufacturers can now gain an understanding of how we build our widgets. And by GPLing it, even if the blivet manufacturer takes and modifies the code to work with their blivet machines, they don't have to give that code back to me (unless they also want to distribute their code).
I'm expecting to bleed some karma off here by pointing out the realities of the GPL, but the GPL won't be able to solve their problem.
Tell them that by allow you to open-source it, they will no longer be dependent on you for maintenance; they can hire anybody to do any revisions.
No, since they have the source, they will provide it to the "anybody" you mention to fix/enhance/etc. I've been that "anybody" many, many times.
Remind them that without this move, the IP will still be yours and they will have to negotiate with you for improvements and further development, and that if they want the IP themselves, that will mean a cost increase for them.
This is just not true. They paid for your time, they own the source. You however, can go off and reimplement it at your next client... Remember, you didn't just get paid for some text files, you got paid to transform a set of requirements into a tested solution... This includes testing, debugging, looking on #dumbass for help, etc.
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When I started with SpeakEasy, I was about two months into a year lease in a section of Boston that won't have broadband/cable for years to come. Since SpeakEasy locks you in for a year, I knew I was going to "burn" a couple of months when I moved out. When I moved out, I got in touch with them to tell them that I moved, and cancelled my telco service. My monthly was $90, with a $300 or so termination fee. My plan was to let the two months run out, paying only $180. Instead, they tried to charge me the termination fee! I got in touch with them to tell them that I didn't want my account cancelled, just that the DSL connection no longer exists. In the end they let me pay the $180, but I was *not* happy about that.. I then moved, and am in a cable modem area, giving me the same bandwidth at a much lower price-point..
Unofficially, yes. My Tivo (Series2) has a USB port with a USB Ethernet adapter. On startup, it grabs a DHCP address, and does its thing.
Heh.. Just this weekend, there was a quick snow shower in western Massachusetts. Ahead of me, on a hilly back road, I saw an SUV struggling to make it up a slippery hill; it eventually made it up the hill, though it was crabbing at about 30 degrees all the way up... I simply dropped my (2WD) Passat into 2nd, and cruised straight up the hill with nary a slip. I always smile when I see a disabled SUV on the side of the road in the winter..
Yes.
And I'm not buying a dedicated player until it plays ogg files. I bought a Zaurus 5500 just for this purpose. I'd like to also buy a more purpose-built device for this, though, and I refuse to buy one that does not play Ogg Vorbis I files.
Same with the 6800 and 2100, too...
Easy: take it out. Since last year, I've been building PCs sans floppy drives. IMO, floppies have very little use these days; files are regularly larger than 1.4 (or 2.8) MB, making floppies pretty useless. Most modern BIOSes can boot directly from CDROM. I've been using USB flash drives (a friend has a "pen" style, I like to use Compact Flash w/ a USB adapter), they're faster, and to the topic, make no noise whatsoever.
I remeber taking over the lab to download the 20+ floppies for Slackware back in '93...
They could get around this by "expressing" trains on the lines. For example, every once in a while, you can get a Red Line from Park St. direct to Harvard (skipping three stops). I've also been on a Green Line D train that expressed from Fenway to Resivoir. I have no idea why they don't do this more often, particularly for Sox home games. The killer is when the driver has to deal with a rider in a wheelchair: the operator has to get out of the train, find a manually operated lift at the station (which looks like it was slapped together by the kids at the local vocational school), wheel the rider onto the thing, crank it up to car-height, let the rider wheel on, and then crank the thing down, fold it back up, and put it away. This operation takes at least five minutes, thereby delaying all of the cars behind it. Some stops have ramps that help this somewhat, but the operator has to pull the train to the exact location of the ramp, etc. I have nothing against the wheelchair people, but the T should be doing a better job expediting this process.. Many of these transfer process are manual: for example, when a train starts its journey from the Lechmere stop, the operator has to pull the train up, get out of the train, find The Crowbar, and manually switch the tracks. This operation has to be done at least once every ten minutes, if a train leaves from the alternate set of tracks.
But, if a train does die on the tracks, they typically have "crossovers" every couple hundred of feet.. (This may not be true of the B/C/E lines, which run down Comm./Beacon/Huntington though.)
Unlike New York, that does construction at night, all road construction is done during the day in Boston, including during Rush Hour.
That's not entirely true... They work at night, particularly on Rte. 128, but sometimes up on I-93, too.
Java3D actually uses OpenGL (or DirectX) as the underlying rendering layer on many platforms. See here...
Almost certainly, yes. An encoder would use a different strategy to encode a 128 kbit MP3 and a 192 kbit MP3. If certain frequency ranges are discarded when encoding 128 kbit, and other frequency ranges when encoding 192kbit, if you encode to 128kbit, and decode/recode to 192kbit, you will lose both ranges of frequencies.
why wouldn't you be able to produce an ogg from an mp3 that is no worse than the mp3?
See above.
I just don't buy the blanket argument that lossy -> lossy has to produce even more lossy.
Depends on the nature of the lossiness, grasshopper.
Planes fly Mach 0.76 at 30000ft. A plane flying Mach 7.6 would be much higher, upwards of 100000ft, where there is very little air to cause turbulence. Friction becomes an issue. When the X-15 flew Mach 6,
Let's hope they get that problem worked out...Mach is a measure of speed relative to the speed of sound at a given elevation, it is not a measure of acceleration. So, at sea level, Mach 7.6 is roughly 5800mph (~2600m/s), but at 25000ft, where the air is thinner, Mach 7.6 is about 5000mph (~2250m/s).
The gravitation of earth (ie, the amount of force we feel from gravity) is 9.8m/s^2. So, a constant 1G force (which the body won't find too uncomfortable) would accellerate a body to 2250m/s in about four minutes... If a genter push is desired, say .5G, that level of acceleration would need to be maintained for a bit over seven and a half minutes...
Unless, of course, my physics is rusty.. :^)
If you notice in Armageddon, the World Trade Center is hit by a meteoroid fragment, yet remains standing, albiet with a huge chunk of it taken out... Unfortunately, reality isn't so kind...
Uh, not in Boston. You'll be lucky to get a converted basement in Roxbury with only 200 grand.
And I really doubt if you can get all of that through airport security; they've tightened up quite a bit at Logan... Then again, the article doesn't mention the risk of being "randomly" picked at the gate, either.. But then again, this story seems to have happened more than a year ago...
I'm assuming you're talking about java.awt.Robot. This, with BeanShell would allow test scripts for GUIs to be built.. A more sophisticated system would be able to capture AWT events, and store them in a file for later playback...
I don't think Apple ever got sued by the Bicycle Playing Card company, or Phillip Morris...
I not spending my hard earned dollars on any digital audio hardware until it supports Ogg Vorbis...
Why would you assume it can be used ONLY for Steel Batallions? Of course it's going to support other games.
Damn.. Can't wait to play Tetris with this thing....
Are you sure you aren't confusing GTA3 (Grand Theft Auto 3) with GT3 (Gran Turismo 3)?
People pirate software because it is so expensive. "Back in the day" just about every program was 50$. Adobe Photoshop, which is a standard program that lots of people need costs $584 at www.buy.com. That's well over what most people can afford. It's half the price of an extremely decent computer!
/., if you can't afford the software, don't use it; Adobe loses a sale (unless you pirate, of course). Software is like any other business: it's all about supply and demand. Photoshop is priced at $584 because people are willing to pay for it! If people didn't need all the whizbang functionality and support (including books) for Photoshop, they could use something like The GIMP legally, for free. If people didn't think Photoshop was worth $584, they would not buy it, and Adobe would be forced to lower the price (which may also mean fewer features in the next release: commerce software by its nature is not cheap to produce).
"Back in the day", you didn't have Photoshop. As it's been said in the countless piracy threads on
If only they were using Open Source Software in the aviation industry.
Then they'd have to waste their time arguing the merits of gairport versus kairport...
Remember kids- "Open Source" apps have glitches, too...
Except what he did is not reverse engineering.
[ Let me don my flame-suit. ]
You suggest that by posting the source on SF, "and see if there's any freelance coders or other organizations who also want to help", that this guy's software problems will disappear.
But what if there are no freelance coders who want to help? Take a look at some of the more successful open source applications and tools out there: Linux, Samba, Apache, GIMP, all of the GNU libraries, etc. All of these are general purpose, and find their way in to all kinds of various projects. If I'm the only company manufacturing widgets, what benefit do I gain by posting my widget modelling software? If anything I'm lowering the barrier of entry into my market, so those blivet manufacturers can now gain an understanding of how we build our widgets. And by GPLing it, even if the blivet manufacturer takes and modifies the code to work with their blivet machines, they don't have to give that code back to me (unless they also want to distribute their code).
I'm expecting to bleed some karma off here by pointing out the realities of the GPL, but the GPL won't be able to solve their problem.
Rather than compare it to any of the previous movies, I will attempt to simply compare it to itself.
I think it will be just as good as itself, if not better!
Tell them that by allow you to open-source it, they will no longer be dependent on you for maintenance; they can hire anybody to do any revisions.
No, since they have the source, they will provide it to the "anybody" you mention to fix/enhance/etc. I've been that "anybody" many, many times.
Remind them that without this move, the IP will still be yours and they will have to negotiate with you for improvements and further development, and that if they want the IP themselves, that will mean a cost increase for them.
This is just not true. They paid for your time, they own the source. You however, can go off and reimplement it at your next client... Remember, you didn't just get paid for some text files, you got paid to transform a set of requirements into a tested solution... This includes testing, debugging, looking on #dumbass for help, etc.
I've never heard of a situation where a company hires a contractor to code, without that contractor also delivering the source.
ObM$: This probably includes even Microsoft's professional services organization.