Sixty bucks for a component video cable? I admit that I'm clueless about component video, but how can that price be correct? Sixty dollars just seems ridiculous for a cable. A quick search on Froogle turns up tons of results under $60. What am I missing?
If you get a capture card that does the encoding itself, recording the video doesn't really take any CPU. I use an Athlon 550MHz machine for my Myth box, and with a Hauppauge 250 capture card, it can easily display one show while recording another.
You may be able to write readable code, almost no-one actually does.
The programmers that I know who write Perl make it quite readable. Unfortunately, many of the people writing Perl are not programmers. Those people would write shit in any language, because they don't know what they're doing.
Perhaps you should not judge a language by its users, but by its uses.
IMDB does make most of their data available for download, though. With some time, you could slice that up and put it into your own local database and query it however you wanted.
Spelling/Grammar trolls are off-topic and do nothing to improve the discussion.
They are off-topic, but they do improve the discussion and future discussions if posters use them to improve their communication skills. Posts like yours do much more to derail the conversation than a small, helpful spelling tip. My post was two sentences. You're trying to start a completely worthless flamefest.
If you want to show everyone how smart you are, a more effective way of doing so is to post an insightful, thought-provoking response.
I don't feel the need to show everyone how smart I am or abuse others to feel superior. You're projecting your own attitude onto me.
at worst you're putting yourself on the same level as the juvenile trolls who post hot grits jokes and penis bird pictures.
As opposed to trolls like yours, where you use the pretense of defending the conversation to subvert it instead. Well done.
I wasn't trying to be an ass about it. I was just trying to give an easy way to remember the spelling. It's the mnemonic that I use myself when spelling "definitely."
Frankly, I don't understand why people get so offended when others try to help them communicate better. Are you so obstinate that you don't want any help to better yourself? Are you that attached to looking like a fool every time you write something down? Part of the reason published works go through an editing process is to correct spelling and grammar. Why do you think that is? Why do you think we have language rules in the first place? It aids communication.
So why get ruffled when someone tries to help you? If it was just the implied tone, I'll try to do better at conveying a nonconfrontal one in the future. If you're against the idea that maybe we could raise the bar here on Slashdot, let me know so I can mark you as a foe. Thanks for your help.
You can do siblings, but only immediately adjacent siblings, and the style can only affect the second. It would be tough to make this work with multiple levels, but may be possible depending on your layout.
Sure. Orgasms are the result of an electrochemical process in your brain, resulting from messages sent by your nerve endings. Just figure out a way to send the message without the nerve endings. The main problem with that is that if anyone could just press a button to give themselves an orgasm, society would crumble and we'd soon be extinct.
Yes, A List Apart took a couple pages, fixed the mark-up, and added CSS. A ten year old can do that. What A List Apart did not do was help rewrite the code that generates that mark-up. Rather a bigger task, that.
The HTML4.0 thing is bullshit, plain and simple. Authoring tools like Dreamweaver work better when working within XHTML spec
In case you weren't aware, they aren't using "authoring tools" to produce Slashdot's pages. It's generated by code on the webserver. They don't have any need for what benefits XHTML does offer, so why use it and risk the incompatibilities? I still don't understand why everyone is so up-in-arms about using HTML 4.1. It's not like browsers are going to suddenly stop rendering it correctly, so what difference could it possibly make to you?
What if he checked the "No Subscriber Bonus" box when he posted? Or maybe his current subscription has run out, but he's wishing for the money back that he had previously paid?
There's no point in GPLing something you never intend to distribute.
I guess you don't understand that you can distribute something without giving it away to everyone. The true philosophy behind the GPL, which unfortunately is almost universally forgotten or misunderstood, is that users should be able to modify the software they receive. If you intend to publicly distribute your software, you could consider the general public to be the users. However, the philosophy does not change simply because you wish to distribute the software to only a select few. In this case, the GPL ensures that if those select few redistribute it, their users are still protected, even if it is only another select few. You were claiming that the purpose of copyleft is to make something available to the public, when really it is only to make something available to the user.
The second is a swipe against BSD, using your own code, making a few changes, then making it non-Free.
Yes, I have heard that common complaint, and that is what I responded to in my previous comment. Your code can never be made non-Free because it is still available. Or are you claiming that once I take a piece of your code, all other copies are immediately destroyed so that no one can use them? No, your work is still available, Free as ever. There is a good rationale for using the GPL, but, like almost everyone else, you don't understand what it is. Read the first part of this post again, and you may find it.
The first, of course, is to make work available to the public.
This is not a purpose of any "copyleft" licenses with which I am familiar, but I admit I do not know them all. The GPL, for example, doesn't say anything about making something available to the public. It's about making something available to the receiver of the product. That may or may not be the public. Even the public domain makes no such promises (because it intentionally makes none). If you write some code, mark it as public domain, and then give it only to one company, they are under no obligation to release it generally. Neither are you.
The second is to protect the author from others using thier work against them (ie share and share alike).
This is so vague it can't really be argued. Even GPL'd code can be "used against" the author, for some definition of "used against." If you're implying the common argument that, "My code can be taken and used to subvert my own effort!" Your effort and work is still available for use.
Copyleft serves two major purposes, and one of them is not addressed by Public Domain.
Depending on your exact definition of "copyleft," it really only has one purpose: to make the source available to the receiver. But you're right that that is not addressed by the public domain.
Sure they could relicense it, but so could anyone, if it was released into the public domain. The work that was released into the public domain will still be available for everyone, though.
In case that isn't clear, here's what I mean. Say an author creates some work, W, and releases it into the public domain just before he dies. His offspring could make a copy, X, and relicense that to something else. But, as long as someone made another copy of W, it is still out there, licensed in the public domain, for anyone to use. It's like toothpaste: Once it's out, you can't pull it back. (Unless you find all public domain copies and destroy them, somehow.)
Copyleft only exists because present copyright laws do not properly protect the Public Domain.
Since the purpose of the public domain is to explicitly give up copyright protection, I'm not sure where you got this idea.
In an ideal world, it would be enforcible -- with exactly the same penalties as copyright infringement -- that every Derivative Work based upon a Work already in the Public Domain should be in the Public Domain.
In an ideal world, the public domain would serve the purpose that the author of a creative work can purposely give up copyright protection for that work. After they do that, they no longer have any legal claims on how the work is used. It can be used by anyone, for any purpose. And guess what? That's exactly what the public domain currently provides. So I guess we live in an ideal world, in this sense.
The GPL exists because people did not want to let others use their code in any possible way. It's kind of similar in some respects, but the original author wanted to maintain some measure of control. That's fine, since that's what copyright is for in the first place.
The problem with the BSD licence is that if I write a piece of software and release it under the standard three-clause BSD licence, somebody else could take that software -- the result of my hard work and the rightful property of all humanity
Whether it is the rightful property of all humanity is a matter of opinion. I happen to believe that code I write is not automatically and rightfully anyone else's property, but you're free to think so for your own code. If you do, you should release it to the public domain, since that is the express intention of the public domain's existence: to give something to humanity (ie, "the public").
-- add a feature which would make for one-way compatibility, make it closed-source but gratis, distribute it widely and effectively subvert my efforts.
How does it subvert your efforts, since your work is still available for anyone to use?
Even worse, they might later claim that my attempt to replicate their feature in a piece of software I originally wrote was somehow violating their IP.
Only if they have a patent on it (which I guess is not that unlikely these days), or can somehow prove that you are copying their implementation.
Even when you focus all of your energy on making your point, leaving your grammar and spelling to lie in utter squalor, you still fail to make a compelling argument. Yes, Nintendo uses their popular franchises quite a bit. Who doesn't? How many Halos do you think we're going to see? How many other XBox games will get their own version of Master Chief once Halo itself is considered old hat? How many Sonic games are there? How many Grand Theft Autos or Grand Turismos do we need? How many Maddens? Perpetuating a franchise is not, in itself, an argument against creative gaming. Games can use familiar characters and still be fun and even innovative.
On a side note, and I realize from your tone that you're a teenager and will almost certainly disregard this advice because you already know everything, communication skills do actually matter in the real world. You may think that because this is an online forum, you can dispense with all effort at effective writing, but it only serves to distract the reader from your point. If you want to make a point at all, being able to communicate it effectively is the first step to getting to across. You might as well practice here, where there are no real consequences. It might help when you finally land a job and need to convey ideas to your superiors without looking like a fool.
Would you really expect Intel to say "Oh, we're sorry that we're monopolists. Please punish us!"
Having a monopoly is not a crime. Using that monopoly unfairly to stamp out competition is the crime. Maybe you meant to write: Would you really expect Intel to say "Oh, we've employed anti-competitive business practices. Please punish us!"
Slashdot Mirror
So a special connector in order to charge more for the cable? Or is this something that DVD players are moving towards as well, for better quality?
Sixty bucks for a component video cable? I admit that I'm clueless about component video, but how can that price be correct? Sixty dollars just seems ridiculous for a cable. A quick search on Froogle turns up tons of results under $60. What am I missing?
(NB: The following does not apply to the XBox.)
If you get a capture card that does the encoding itself, recording the video doesn't really take any CPU. I use an Athlon 550MHz machine for my Myth box, and with a Hauppauge 250 capture card, it can easily display one show while recording another.
You may be able to write readable code, almost no-one actually does.
The programmers that I know who write Perl make it quite readable. Unfortunately, many of the people writing Perl are not programmers. Those people would write shit in any language, because they don't know what they're doing.
Perhaps you should not judge a language by its users, but by its uses.
IMDB does make most of their data available for download, though. With some time, you could slice that up and put it into your own local database and query it however you wanted.
Spelling/Grammar trolls are off-topic and do nothing to improve the discussion.
They are off-topic, but they do improve the discussion and future discussions if posters use them to improve their communication skills. Posts like yours do much more to derail the conversation than a small, helpful spelling tip. My post was two sentences. You're trying to start a completely worthless flamefest.
If you want to show everyone how smart you are, a more effective way of doing so is to post an insightful, thought-provoking response.
I don't feel the need to show everyone how smart I am or abuse others to feel superior. You're projecting your own attitude onto me.
at worst you're putting yourself on the same level as the juvenile trolls who post hot grits jokes and penis bird pictures.
As opposed to trolls like yours, where you use the pretense of defending the conversation to subvert it instead. Well done.
I wasn't trying to be an ass about it. I was just trying to give an easy way to remember the spelling. It's the mnemonic that I use myself when spelling "definitely."
Frankly, I don't understand why people get so offended when others try to help them communicate better. Are you so obstinate that you don't want any help to better yourself? Are you that attached to looking like a fool every time you write something down? Part of the reason published works go through an editing process is to correct spelling and grammar. Why do you think that is? Why do you think we have language rules in the first place? It aids communication.
So why get ruffled when someone tries to help you? If it was just the implied tone, I'll try to do better at conveying a nonconfrontal one in the future. If you're against the idea that maybe we could raise the bar here on Slashdot, let me know so I can mark you as a foe. Thanks for your help.
The word "definitely" is an adverb form of the word "definite" -- just add "ly" to the end. There's no "definat."
"Congratulations" has a "t" not "d." You can remember it easily through the shortened form: "Congrats!"
You can do siblings, but only immediately adjacent siblings, and the style can only affect the second. It would be tough to make this work with multiple levels, but may be possible depending on your layout.
.a {
.b { .b,
<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
border: 1px solid red;
}
display: none;
border: 1px solid green;
}
[class="a"]:hover +
[class="b"]:hover {
display: block;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="a">
One
</div>
<div class="b">
Two
</div>
</body>
</html>
I'm not sure what was so defiant about Zelda 2 and 3. Maybe that they weren't a sacrilege?
Sure. Orgasms are the result of an electrochemical process in your brain, resulting from messages sent by your nerve endings. Just figure out a way to send the message without the nerve endings. The main problem with that is that if anyone could just press a button to give themselves an orgasm, society would crumble and we'd soon be extinct.
Ouch. Next time try using the "Plain Old Text" option when submitting.
Yes, A List Apart took a couple pages, fixed the mark-up, and added CSS. A ten year old can do that. What A List Apart did not do was help rewrite the code that generates that mark-up. Rather a bigger task, that.
The HTML4.0 thing is bullshit, plain and simple. Authoring tools like Dreamweaver work better when working within XHTML spec
In case you weren't aware, they aren't using "authoring tools" to produce Slashdot's pages. It's generated by code on the webserver. They don't have any need for what benefits XHTML does offer, so why use it and risk the incompatibilities? I still don't understand why everyone is so up-in-arms about using HTML 4.1. It's not like browsers are going to suddenly stop rendering it correctly, so what difference could it possibly make to you?
I don't know of a way to make permanently expanded (or collapsed) divs, but you can do it on mouseover with :hover.
.b {
/* the key | .b {
<html>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
display: none;
border: 1px red solid;
}
V */
[class="a"]:hover
display: block;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="a">
Move mouse here for a surprise!
<div class="b">
Ta da!
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>
What if he checked the "No Subscriber Bonus" box when he posted? Or maybe his current subscription has run out, but he's wishing for the money back that he had previously paid?
you actually had to use ur brain.
Never played it, then?
There's no point in GPLing something you never intend to distribute.
I guess you don't understand that you can distribute something without giving it away to everyone. The true philosophy behind the GPL, which unfortunately is almost universally forgotten or misunderstood, is that users should be able to modify the software they receive. If you intend to publicly distribute your software, you could consider the general public to be the users. However, the philosophy does not change simply because you wish to distribute the software to only a select few. In this case, the GPL ensures that if those select few redistribute it, their users are still protected, even if it is only another select few. You were claiming that the purpose of copyleft is to make something available to the public, when really it is only to make something available to the user.
The second is a swipe against BSD, using your own code, making a few changes, then making it non-Free.
Yes, I have heard that common complaint, and that is what I responded to in my previous comment. Your code can never be made non-Free because it is still available. Or are you claiming that once I take a piece of your code, all other copies are immediately destroyed so that no one can use them? No, your work is still available, Free as ever. There is a good rationale for using the GPL, but, like almost everyone else, you don't understand what it is. Read the first part of this post again, and you may find it.
The first, of course, is to make work available to the public.
This is not a purpose of any "copyleft" licenses with which I am familiar, but I admit I do not know them all. The GPL, for example, doesn't say anything about making something available to the public. It's about making something available to the receiver of the product. That may or may not be the public. Even the public domain makes no such promises (because it intentionally makes none). If you write some code, mark it as public domain, and then give it only to one company, they are under no obligation to release it generally. Neither are you.
The second is to protect the author from others using thier work against them (ie share and share alike).
This is so vague it can't really be argued. Even GPL'd code can be "used against" the author, for some definition of "used against." If you're implying the common argument that, "My code can be taken and used to subvert my own effort!" Your effort and work is still available for use.
Copyleft serves two major purposes, and one of them is not addressed by Public Domain.
Depending on your exact definition of "copyleft," it really only has one purpose: to make the source available to the receiver. But you're right that that is not addressed by the public domain.
Sure they could relicense it, but so could anyone, if it was released into the public domain. The work that was released into the public domain will still be available for everyone, though.
In case that isn't clear, here's what I mean. Say an author creates some work, W, and releases it into the public domain just before he dies. His offspring could make a copy, X, and relicense that to something else. But, as long as someone made another copy of W, it is still out there, licensed in the public domain, for anyone to use. It's like toothpaste: Once it's out, you can't pull it back. (Unless you find all public domain copies and destroy them, somehow.)
Copyleft only exists because present copyright laws do not properly protect the Public Domain.
Since the purpose of the public domain is to explicitly give up copyright protection, I'm not sure where you got this idea.
In an ideal world, it would be enforcible -- with exactly the same penalties as copyright infringement -- that every Derivative Work based upon a Work already in the Public Domain should be in the Public Domain.
In an ideal world, the public domain would serve the purpose that the author of a creative work can purposely give up copyright protection for that work. After they do that, they no longer have any legal claims on how the work is used. It can be used by anyone, for any purpose. And guess what? That's exactly what the public domain currently provides. So I guess we live in an ideal world, in this sense.
The GPL exists because people did not want to let others use their code in any possible way. It's kind of similar in some respects, but the original author wanted to maintain some measure of control. That's fine, since that's what copyright is for in the first place.
The problem with the BSD licence is that if I write a piece of software and release it under the standard three-clause BSD licence, somebody else could take that software -- the result of my hard work and the rightful property of all humanity
Whether it is the rightful property of all humanity is a matter of opinion. I happen to believe that code I write is not automatically and rightfully anyone else's property, but you're free to think so for your own code. If you do, you should release it to the public domain, since that is the express intention of the public domain's existence: to give something to humanity (ie, "the public").
-- add a feature which would make for one-way compatibility, make it closed-source but gratis, distribute it widely and effectively subvert my efforts.
How does it subvert your efforts, since your work is still available for anyone to use?
Even worse, they might later claim that my attempt to replicate their feature in a piece of software I originally wrote was somehow violating their IP.
Only if they have a patent on it (which I guess is not that unlikely these days), or can somehow prove that you are copying their implementation.
Even when you focus all of your energy on making your point, leaving your grammar and spelling to lie in utter squalor, you still fail to make a compelling argument. Yes, Nintendo uses their popular franchises quite a bit. Who doesn't? How many Halos do you think we're going to see? How many other XBox games will get their own version of Master Chief once Halo itself is considered old hat? How many Sonic games are there? How many Grand Theft Autos or Grand Turismos do we need? How many Maddens? Perpetuating a franchise is not, in itself, an argument against creative gaming. Games can use familiar characters and still be fun and even innovative.
On a side note, and I realize from your tone that you're a teenager and will almost certainly disregard this advice because you already know everything, communication skills do actually matter in the real world. You may think that because this is an online forum, you can dispense with all effort at effective writing, but it only serves to distract the reader from your point. If you want to make a point at all, being able to communicate it effectively is the first step to getting to across. You might as well practice here, where there are no real consequences. It might help when you finally land a job and need to convey ideas to your superiors without looking like a fool.
Would you really expect Intel to say "Oh, we're sorry that we're monopolists. Please punish us!"
Having a monopoly is not a crime. Using that monopoly unfairly to stamp out competition is the crime. Maybe you meant to write: Would you really expect Intel to say "Oh, we've employed anti-competitive business practices. Please punish us!"
Maybe you didn't realize that infrared is made up of the same kind of electromagnetic waves as radio, just at a different frequency.