The Hitch Hiker's Guide is probably the most well-known, if not the only known radio drama to gen-Xrs in the US. Do you think that given the vast array of media available today the Radio Drama as an art form is dead? Or do you think it can survive as Internet based streaming audio because the audience can listen to it at a time and place that is convenient to them, and there is a revenue model that works for US listeners?
As a possible follow-up, H2G2 has been produced as radio, television, book and (soon) film. In your opinion which media is it best suited to (financial considerations aside), and having been involved with all these productions, which would you have chosen to produce it as first if you had the opportunity to start at the beginning (again, financial considerations aside)?
You can forget about finding one of these for $50 now that WIRED has picked up the story.
The story has some comments from the guy behind the hacks, it turns out that it hasn't really been very lucrative selling the kits. They also ask him what he plans to hack next, to which he says he may look at the MailStation, but has dismissed VIRGIN's i-apppliance since the service contract is unavoidable.
You would think that especially after the i-opener, and the MSN rebate debacles, the lawyers for WebSurfer would have taken a second look at their agreements with all their retailers to ensure the device would not be sold without a binding ISP contract.
With TerraServer you can construct VERY accurate maps, with GPS you can determine where you are on the map with VERY good accuracy.
Basically together they are the 21st Century equivalent of a compass and a hand drawn map. One without the other may be useful, but you really need both to get from point A to point B efficiently.
I think we should have Hubble to take a look at the source of the hottest signals.
OT: I wish the SETI site would provide a little more discussion of what these apparent hits mean. I think it just means there is a definite source of some sort of signal, but I don't know if it means there is any indication the source is other than a natural phenomenon or errata. The 3/29/00 Newsletter which was published after the latest strong Gaussians was processed says they haven't found any other than "be radio frequency interference, or test signals we inject into the data stream to monitor system, or improperly processed work units" so far. But if that is case, why do they leave them on the statistics page?
Considering the cost of local phone service, whcih requires you to pay by the minute connection charges, I think this will be proportionately a bargain in the UK.
If you then use your ADSL connected PC as your telephone with a free DialPad-like service, your total phone bill may go down.
Re:Now we just need The Sims for linux...
on
Sim Plague
·
· Score: 3
But then MSNBC would have to do a story with the headline LINUX IS VULNERABLE TO VIRUS
only to explain later in the body of the article that it was a virus that only characters in the SIM game were vulnerable to, and then only if you download the Guinea Pig patch.
Call the large public institutions in your area. Some of them require that they sell (or at least offer to sell) anything with potential value before it can be just thrown in the trash.
I know that the University of MD does this and even has a website, and I know an Army base that had them, plus I have heard some cities do it as well.
Wired has a short interview with the Marketing Director of MS France here.
MS seems to interpret the law as requiring that they open source Windows. He almost threatens to stop selling to the French government if the law through.
He says, 'If it was passed as it looks today it might make doing business with public authorities very difficult.'
Though they may be trying to exagerate the impact to build support against the bill.
REBEL.com's NetWinder (originally designed and formerly made by Corel's hardware division, which REBEL bought) runs an ARM port of Linux.
These are nice little boxen. They run off a 9v AC adapter, and supposedly will run off a 9v battery if necessary for a short period.
It looks like unix is OK but UNIX is not
on
UNIX.com On eBay?
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· Score: 3
The Open Group's Trademark Usage Guide seems to only consider UNIX written in all caps as the trademark. So perhaps as long as it is written as either unix, or Unix, or unix.com there is no infringement.
Also, I know some cybersqauters have been allowed to register trademarks that include the.com when the word used in the second level of the domain is already a registered tradmark not related to the internet.
Finally, SCO has trademarks on several terms with Unix (using an initial capital U) such as UnixWare, which may also indicate that the consistent use of unix.com wouldn't violate the Open Group's trademark.
IIRC lasers can send over fairly long distances, so shouldn't this be a great method to connect to satellites, or even to the moon or Mars?
I would assume that the atmosphere would cause distortion, but even then it could be used to pass signals between satellites or from a satellite to the moon or Mars.
The GREAT BOOKS INDEX at books.mirror.org mirrors many of the texts that were on Wiretap. I think it was their intention to at least mirror all of the literature on the site (as well as provide links to the original archive and the.txt and HTML versions on the net such as at Project Gutenberg ftp sites
There also was a Wiretap mirror at wiretap.spies.com, but I can't tell if it is still there since it seems to be SlashDotted.
Eventually, Microsoft is also free to publish a detailed and consistent documentation on its comunication standards so that they become open standards.
I would interpret this as requiring full open documentation of all the Windows/Office/IE/VB APIs. Therefore it should be possible to reverse engineer any of these.
We might never get to look at the source code itself, but it should do wonders for WINE.
Late round funding like this doesn't get you much in terms of equity in the company. So if you estimate that at most they 'sold' 10% of the company in this round, that means they have a projected market cap of close to a $1B which is an awful lot for a pre IPO company. Also, with the funding coming so close to an actual product launch, it might mean the float for an eventual IPO will be more like 5% of the company, which could drastically increase the pop in stock price following the IPO due to a limited number of shares in circulation.
In case people don't want to load the pdf file, here is the Glossary:
GLOSSARY OF DTV TERMINOLOGY
AC-3: Also known as Dolby Digital, a coding and compression method for surround audio capable of driving 5 speakers and a sub-woofer.
Chroma, Chrominance: The signal in an S-Video circuit that carries the color overlay information.
DBS - Direct Broadcast Satellite: The generic term for the small-dish digital systems in popular use today.
Downsampling: Reducing the information content (detail) in an image in order to allow rendering to a lower resolution display.
DTV - Digital Television: The generic term for broadcasting of any of the approved digital formats.
DVD - Digital Versatile Disk: A data encoding standard for CD-ROM-like disks, capable of storing data at the higher densities needed for recording movies.
HDTV - High Definition Television: The term which refers to those approved digital formats with resolution higher than SDTV, namely those with 720 or 1,080 vertical lines of resolution.
IEEE 1394: Also known as Firewire, a high-speed serial interconnect capable of transferring up to 400 Megabits per second.
Luma, Luminance: The signal in an S-Video circuit that carries the black-and-white detail information.
MPEG-2: A "compression" method for reducing the bit rate needed to transmit a series of images.
MSO: Multiple Services Operator - a cable TV company.
PSIP - Program and System Information Protocol: The data stream within a DTV broadcast that describes the various video, audio and data streams that are present.
QAM - Quadrature Amplitude Modulation: A method of encoding bits using multiple analog levels to represent bit patterns - often used by the cable industry.
SDTV - Standard Definition Television: The term which refers to those of the approved digital formats with resolution comparable to today' s DBS and DVD systems, namely those with 480 vertical lines of resolution.
Transcoding: Converting from one modulation method to another, for example, from VSB to QAM.
USB - Universal Serial Bus: A medium-speed (12 Megabit per second) local communication bus.
VSB - Vestigal Side-Band: A method of encoding bits used primarily by the television broadcast industry.
This paper (pdf format) gives some technical info on the WinTV-D card and also on DTV data casting in general.
BTW, the Slashdot and ABC headlines are only helping to increase the confusion of DTV and HDTV. The spectrum is reserved for DTV which can include HDTV. If it were for HDTV only, then there shouldn't so much left over spectrum when broadcasting 1080i.
You could try just using grey 080808 as a pivot point and using the hex value with same absolute value when subtracted from 080808.
For example, for 08FF08 use 080008 as: 080808-08FF08 = 000800 = 080808-080008
A MOD function should do this well.
The problem is color values close to 080808 since you could end up with an 090909 foreground on a 070707 background which wouldn't be very readable.
OT: I love HEX, it should be mandatory to take a semester in assembler to get a CS degree. Of course when I used to program in assembler, color hadn't been invented yet.
Here is another problem. The PM wants to ban all Internet gambling sites based in Australia.
Here is a pertinent quote from an executive of an ominously named Australian online gambling firm: "What it might do is encourage Australian players to move offshore because the Internet obviously does not have any geographical boundaries," Bill Forburn, chief executive of Goldens Caskets Interactive Gold, told reporters.
The Meta-Search site DOGPILE has a Usenet option. It sends your search to Deja's current database, Altavista/Remarq's database, and Deja's archive database.
Their sister site Metacrawler also provides an interface for Deja's database.
I agree, the argument that there is no good eBook format yet is only applicable to proprietary works. There is no shortage of formats that have open source reading software available.
If the book is being distributed without the intention of profiting from it, then any of the above formats should be fine.
Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot will have that thing DOS'd out of the sky by this evening, I'm sure.
Hmmmm....
Maybe that can explain this
The Hitch Hiker's Guide is probably the most well-known, if not the only known radio drama to gen-Xrs in the US. Do you think that given the vast array of media available today the Radio Drama as an art form is dead? Or do you think it can survive as Internet based streaming audio because the audience can listen to it at a time and place that is convenient to them, and there is a revenue model that works for US listeners?
As a possible follow-up, H2G2 has been produced as radio, television, book and (soon) film. In your opinion which media is it best suited to (financial considerations aside), and having been involved with all these productions, which would you have chosen to produce it as first if you had the opportunity to start at the beginning (again, financial considerations aside)?
You can forget about finding one of these for $50 now that WIRED has picked up the story.
The story has some comments from the guy behind the hacks, it turns out that it hasn't really been very lucrative selling the kits. They also ask him what he plans to hack next, to which he says he may look at the MailStation, but has dismissed VIRGIN's i-apppliance since the service contract is unavoidable.
You would think that especially after the i-opener, and the MSN rebate debacles, the lawyers for WebSurfer would have taken a second look at their agreements with all their retailers to ensure the device would not be sold without a binding ISP contract.
What is the connection?
With TerraServer you can construct VERY accurate maps, with GPS you can determine where you are on the map with VERY good accuracy.
Basically together they are the 21st Century equivalent of a compass and a hand drawn map. One without the other may be useful, but you really need both to get from point A to point B efficiently.
SETIatHome is getting some significant results.
I think we should have Hubble to take a look at the source of the hottest signals.
OT: I wish the SETI site would provide a little more discussion of what these apparent hits mean. I think it just means there is a definite source of some sort of signal, but I don't know if it means there is any indication the source is other than a natural phenomenon or errata. The 3/29/00 Newsletter which was published after the latest strong Gaussians was processed says they haven't found any other than "be radio frequency interference, or test signals we inject into the data stream to monitor system, or improperly processed work units" so far. But if that is case, why do they leave them on the statistics page?
Here is a link to BellAtlantic's InfoSpeed DSL FAQ.
" Can I connect multiple PCs or a LAN to my DSL service?
Bell Atlantic will only support one computer to one DSL subscription. "
Considering the cost of local phone service, whcih requires you to pay by the minute connection charges, I think this will be proportionately a bargain in the UK.
If you then use your ADSL connected PC as your telephone with a free DialPad-like service, your total phone bill may go down.
But then MSNBC would have to do a story with the headline
LINUX IS VULNERABLE TO VIRUS
only to explain later in the body of the article that it was a virus that only characters in the SIM game were vulnerable to, and then only if you download the Guinea Pig patch.
Call the large public institutions in your area. Some of them require that they sell (or at least offer to sell) anything with potential value before it can be just thrown in the trash.
I know that the University of MD does this and even has a website, and I know an Army base that had them, plus I have heard some cities do it as well.
Wired has a short interview with the Marketing Director of MS France here.
MS seems to interpret the law as requiring that they open source Windows. He almost threatens to stop selling to the French government if the law through.
He says, 'If it was passed as it looks today it might make doing business with public authorities very difficult.'
Though they may be trying to exagerate the impact to build support against the bill.
REBEL.com's NetWinder (originally designed and formerly made by Corel's hardware division, which REBEL bought) runs an ARM port of Linux.
These are nice little boxen. They run off a 9v AC adapter, and supposedly will run off a 9v battery if necessary for a short period.
The Open Group's Trademark Usage Guide seems to only consider UNIX written in all caps as the trademark. So perhaps as long as it is written as either unix, or Unix, or unix.com there is no infringement.
.com when the word used in the second level of the domain is already a registered tradmark not related to the internet.
Also, I know some cybersqauters have been allowed to register trademarks that include the
Finally, SCO has trademarks on several terms with Unix (using an initial capital U) such as UnixWare, which may also indicate that the consistent use of unix.com wouldn't violate the Open Group's trademark.
Registrant:
unix.com inc. (UNIX-DOM)
218 Cherokee Road
Hendersonville, TN 37075
Domain Name: unix.com
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Bass, Tim (TB7) bass@SILKROAD.COM
218 Cherokee Road
Hendersonville, TN 37075
(703) 222-4243
Record last updated on 04-Jan-1997.
Record expires on 19-Nov-2000.
Record created on 18-Nov-1993.
Database last updated on 23-Apr-2000 20:01:21 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS.SILKROAD.COM 198.133.151.18
IIRC lasers can send over fairly long distances, so shouldn't this be a great method to connect to satellites, or even to the moon or Mars?
I would assume that the atmosphere would cause distortion, but even then it could be used to pass signals between satellites or from a satellite to the moon or Mars.
The GREAT BOOKS INDEX at books.mirror.org mirrors many of the texts that were on Wiretap. I think it was their intention to at least mirror all of the literature on the site (as well as provide links to the original archive and the .txt and HTML versions on the net such as at Project Gutenberg ftp sites
There also was a Wiretap mirror at wiretap.spies.com, but I can't tell if it is still there since it seems to be SlashDotted.
Eventually, Microsoft is also free to publish a detailed and consistent documentation on its comunication standards so that they become open standards.
I would interpret this as requiring full open documentation of all the Windows/Office/IE/VB APIs. Therefore it should be possible to reverse engineer any of these.
We might never get to look at the source code itself, but it should do wonders for WINE.
It seems like a lot to me!
Late round funding like this doesn't get you much in terms of equity in the company. So if you estimate that at most they 'sold' 10% of the company in this round, that means they have a projected market cap of close to a $1B which is an awful lot for a pre IPO company. Also, with the funding coming so close to an actual product launch, it might mean the float for an eventual IPO will be more like 5% of the company, which could drastically increase the pop in stock price following the IPO due to a limited number of shares in circulation.
In case people don't want to load the pdf file, here is the Glossary:
GLOSSARY OF DTV TERMINOLOGY
AC-3: Also known as Dolby Digital, a coding and compression method for surround audio capable
of driving 5 speakers and a sub-woofer.
Chroma, Chrominance: The signal in an S-Video circuit that carries the color overlay information.
DBS - Direct Broadcast Satellite: The generic term for the small-dish digital systems in popular
use today.
Downsampling: Reducing the information content (detail) in an image in order to allow rendering
to a lower resolution display.
DTV - Digital Television: The generic term for broadcasting of any of the approved digital
formats.
DVD - Digital Versatile Disk: A data encoding standard for CD-ROM-like disks, capable of storing
data at the higher densities needed for recording movies.
HDTV - High Definition Television: The term which refers to those approved digital formats with
resolution higher than SDTV, namely those with 720 or 1,080 vertical lines of resolution.
IEEE 1394: Also known as Firewire, a high-speed serial interconnect capable of transferring up to
400 Megabits per second.
Luma, Luminance: The signal in an S-Video circuit that carries the black-and-white detail
information.
MPEG-2: A "compression" method for reducing the bit rate needed to transmit a series of images.
MSO: Multiple Services Operator - a cable TV company.
PSIP - Program and System Information Protocol: The data stream within a DTV broadcast that
describes the various video, audio and data streams that are present.
QAM - Quadrature Amplitude Modulation: A method of encoding bits using multiple analog levels
to represent bit patterns - often used by the cable industry.
SDTV - Standard Definition Television: The term which refers to those of the approved digital
formats with resolution comparable to today' s DBS and DVD systems, namely those with 480
vertical lines of resolution.
Transcoding: Converting from one modulation method to another, for example, from VSB to
QAM.
USB - Universal Serial Bus: A medium-speed (12 Megabit per second) local communication bus.
VSB - Vestigal Side-Band: A method of encoding bits used primarily by the television broadcast
industry.
This paper (pdf format) gives some technical info on the WinTV-D card and also on DTV data casting in general.
BTW, the Slashdot and ABC headlines are only helping to increase the confusion of DTV and HDTV. The spectrum is reserved for DTV which can include HDTV. If it were for HDTV only, then there shouldn't so much left over spectrum when broadcasting 1080i.
For example, for 88FF88 use 888888 as:
888888-88FF88 = 008800 = 888888-880088
You could try just using grey 080808 as a pivot point and using the hex value with same absolute value when subtracted from 080808.
For example, for 08FF08 use 080008 as:
080808-08FF08 = 000800 = 080808-080008
A MOD function should do this well.
The problem is color values close to 080808 since you could end up with an 090909 foreground on a 070707 background which wouldn't be very readable.
OT: I love HEX, it should be mandatory to take a semester in assembler to get a CS degree. Of course when I used to program in assembler, color hadn't been invented yet.
Here is another problem. The PM wants to ban all Internet gambling sites based in Australia.
Here is a pertinent quote from an executive of an ominously named Australian online gambling firm:
"What it might do is encourage Australian players to move offshore because the Internet obviously does not have any geographical boundaries," Bill Forburn, chief executive of Goldens Caskets Interactive Gold, told reporters.
The Meta-Search site DOGPILE has a Usenet option. It sends your search to Deja's current database, Altavista/Remarq's database, and Deja's archive database.
Their sister site Metacrawler also provides an interface for Deja's database.
I agree, the argument that there is no good eBook format yet is only applicable to proprietary works. There is no shortage of formats that have open source reading software available.
If the book is being distributed without the intention of profiting from it, then any of the above formats should be fine.
It's called the Scannor Scanz and it receives AND RECORDS MPEG2 video which are shown on its 4" color screen.
I think it uses some sort of wireless LAN protocal as the video has be broadcast locally, such as at a sports stadium.