In which case I'm big enough to apologise. I did indeed read it in an entirely different light to your intentions.
I think its great that any old fool can get $1000 of hardware and start producing CDs - and I have done so myself - the problem is when they stop there thinking they are the next George Martin...
The big 5 record companies DO NOT RUN ALL the Recording Services that artists use.
First point - most good musicians end up having a home studio anyway. A lot of people I listen to (Will Kimbrough, Ani DiFranco, Slaid Cleeves to name a few) are hard working live and session artists and have invested in thier own gear - they are craft workers that want to have control of the final product.
Second point - Each artist does not have to master thier own music - the same mastering services will be available as there are now that the record companies use. Mastering CD's is not a technically difficult job at all - but properly producing a good album is and needs a good team to do it. (I have done this for come college bands so they can send decent demos to promoters and such - I'm no proffesional but the tools available mean I can cut a pretty acceptable live album.) Most of those people are contractors of a kind either independant or attached to a studio like Abbey Road. These people right now are being requested by artists that care about thier music, and will still be if record companies disappear in the morning.
Point Three - you don't make squat from CD sales NOW because so many people take a cut. Yes artists give up 85% of sales, but many of them end up being charged for all the costs out of THIER 15%. If an artist can pay for the album to be produced and the CDs to be created once they have broken even everything is pure profit. Most of these guys make thier break in the live circuit and selling signed cds for 10 bucks at the end is a great way to meet fans, make money and spread the word of your music for those people who didnt make your gig. This is where I get most of my CDs now because its cheaper and the artist I respect gets a bigger cut of the money.
Point Four - Promoters hire and organise concerts, these people will also not disappear. The difference will be the artists will have to have a bit more financial backing to put the capital up, but will get more of the returns. Without a slush fund from the Record Companies in the future you will find promoters being more flexible becasue they themselves will want to evolve and adapt and stay in buisness. I can, and have, see the artists I mentioned above for 10UKP a time in the Borderline in London - that MUST be profitable otherwise it wouldn't happen and I can tell you for certain that no Record Company is involved. I've run band nights myself and we ALL made profits for far less outlay than you suggest.
Point 5 - Yamaha/Korg/Roland arent going to go out of buisness. Big News - artist have thier own instruments these days, even session musicians. Cubase and other such programs can generate very very reasonable sound on commodity PC hardware. Even college bands can afford good mid range equipment these days.
Point 6 - artists are willing to give up 85% of thier sales because if they want to break out of the niche live and touring circuit and bring thier music to a wider audience they need airplay. Try getting that in the US without playing ball with an A&R man. Thankfully in the UK we have more choice with guys like Bob Harris who actually care about the music they play and don't have a playlist and a script.
Point 7 - a lot of independant artists manage themselves or are managed RIGHT NOW by management groups without any affiliation with the Big 5.
Point 8 - the attitude of 'those poor dumb artists don't want to be bothered with buisness' is condescending and insulting. ALL of the craftspeople in the industry from writers to session musicians to producers to sound engineers generally take pride in thier work. Thats why so many of them set up thier own record labels and studios so they can keep control of thier work. A lot of 'real' unmanufactured music is pretty much only distributed by the Big 5, everything else is done by the people themselves. Its not economics, its an issue of control.
Point 9 - computers have brought cheap good quality synthesisation and sequenceing into the homes of college students and teenagers. This in turn has brought down the price of higher level kit. Good studios are now available for hire. We no longer need the massive outlay of money to set up a studio that required a Record Company to do it - indeed these days a large number of studios are set up by existing artist who hire them out to make it profitable. What computers have done is bring down the costs and made good music production available to many many more people. The internet has now offered a distribution channel that was previously only available to a large buisness. Thats the point.
Point 10 - nothing in your post is about supporting the artist. Its about supporting the status quo. I support artists by supporting efforts to limit the massive lobbying for control of thier livelhood that is going on, by going to thier gigs, by buying directly from them.
My hatred of the Recording Companies (NOT the recording industry itself) is not hatred, and nor is it blind. They are just as relevant to the task of getting music from the artist into my hifi as coal mining is to fueling railway trains - namely redundant as things have moved on.
Yeah it's a lot of wasted time, but still not as much time wasted than the many, many man years spent on developing a legal system.... But really though, anarchy isn't that bad. If people would just follow some simple guidelines it wouldn't be so bad. A) don't give out your personal address. If you wanna keep your property safe from theft, just use an alternate house and tell all your friends where your real house is B) There are some ways of getting guns out there, try using them and you will be surprised how it cuts down muggings to managable numbers... C) If you don't want laws, just don't live in a civilised society, easy as that. There are bad sides to everything, we just have to live through them.
When I first heard about PVRs as they are now known it was a time shifting device. I know that sounds simples, let me explain.
Now in the UK we have 5 analogue free to air broadcast channels.
What someone had done was to build a machine that could continually record the 5 channels to a disk array and play one back. There was enough disk space to cope with 24 hours of TV.
Now the big difference with this approach to the one that modern PVRs do is subtle - a modern PVR is just a smart disk based VCR - this monolithic apprach means you don't have to set schedules, pay for download guides, or have your viewing information passed back to your cable provider - it just means you can watch any TV that was broadcast in the last 24 hours.
Your favourite shows are on at the same time - no sweat watch one after the other - you may think you do this with any PVR but unless you have 2 recievers you can't timeshift both programs - you have to watch one live and record the other.
Three of your favourite shows overlap - no sweat.
Your mate tells you about a great program that was on the night before - no sweat its on the array.
You see how this is different to most PVRs now.
Spool forward to now (I saw this idea about 4 years ago) and its not practal to record everything from your STB - but I guess you may watch 16 channels most of the time - and these days you can probably keep 3 days worth on a reasonable disk array.
Oh - and I've thought of another. If you were making low budget films wouldn't it be cool to be able to hook up 5 camcorders and record the feed from them all in perfect sync for editing later?
Its not a modulation, but a false colour burst in the composite video signal.
This works by fooling the Automatic Gain Control systems in VCRs so the gain of the recorded signal wobbles - on playback this produces the effects you see.
Its also in DVD player chipsets to stop you recording DVDs.
But if you run the same code with a cross platform library its not the same thing at all.
Then you add in the factors such as - how well has the cross platform library been coded? - are all the features of the cross platform library done in code, or are they sometimes done by hardware support?
Only if none of the libraries implement any hardware acceleration is it a fair test - otherwise all you have done is written a benchmarking program for how well the cross platform library runs. Not surprisingly the machine with the best number crunching CPU wins.
To my mind one measure of how well code is written is how effecient it is - under your test the platforms with more power are more forgiving of ineffecient code.
You will always get better performance on any one platform by coding specifically for it.
With cross platform libraries even if you code as efficiently as you can to the libraries API, and the library writer does thier best to translate that as efficiently as possible into native code, you will still not be able to exploit every feature of the base hardware, and you have the overhead of the library to account for.
I'd be interested if anyone has actually done a cross platform test, I've not heard of any but then I've not actually looked because personally I'll make the choice by going and play testing the games I like.
In effect your comments prove my point - you bought the PS2 because it was the best deal for the games you want to play for the budget your willing to spend - not because it was the fastest.
In UK Magnox reactors for instance the control rods are actively held out of the core by electrical friction clutches - any failure will cause the rods to crash back into the core under gravity.
There is also a quench system, again actively held off, that will flood the reactor vessel.
However both methods are last ditch - the control rods will probably fracture and breakup in an uncontrolled descent - clearly quenching the reactor will cause massive internal damage to the reactor (but not the containment vessel) so it will never run again.
As a consequence neither have actually been tested in anger.
Stopping a running reactor such that it will restart, or such that it will not break containment, is a complex operation. Its not just the nuclear issues you have to worry about but the thermal shock that will occur with such a dramatic change.
I think my point is that chemical plants (United Carbide in Bohpal?) don't have such sophisticated mechanisms.
Apparently this is not worthy of mentioning this on/.
That would be because \. mission is to be a roughly US centric discussion site for technological news for people in the IT community.
I'm not discounting the seriousnes of what you report, but I can find that at CNN or BBC in my other browser window.
Maybe in the case of unique and major event, as happened on September 11th, then running as a secondary newsfeed because the main ones are swamped is a worthwhile thing to do. But this is an editors decision, not a reason to post an offtopic message.
I love them - yes they are funny, but they are of major use to our community.
Most of us on squishdot rage flamewars about code stability, scaleability, freedom of choice - but none of this matters to the execs - they don't read what we write.
But if someone like the FT mentions Linux and how good it is - this gets read in the board room, on the train, on the trading floor.
And then maybe, just maybe, someone will ask the head IT person just what its all about. Then we get a chance to explain it. Get a copy of these articles, save the link somewhere - and then next time you have to do a whitepaper or value proposal in your company where you know open source is the better choice you have some references that people will sit up and notice.
Treat these articles as sales leads to big buisness - marketing is what open source is not good at beacuse we don't press the right buttons - the FT does.
The money in streaming media is the server end, the clients are generally given away free or at very low cost - you want people to demand that companies install your server product so there is no point stiffing the consumer.
This was Real and Microsoft's approach - but of course Microsoft has a real adavantage [pun intended] because it can put a player on every desktop that it sells - so buisnesses in have to buy Microsoft streaming server software because of consumer demand.
But then people with Mac/*NIX/Set top boxes are cut out of the loop because MS doesn't do players for those platforms, and they won't release the codec details for others to use because then someone could code an alternative streaming server.
Real is fighting back by offering an open platform server - in this case anyone who wants to write support for thier player can look at the server code and write a plug in for it. The attraction for a buisness is they now potentially can install one streaming server and probably one set of master media files - they can stream media to any player on any platform.
This gives Real a commercial adavantage over MS becuase MS software needs to run on MS operating systems - and most big internet stuff is still the domain of various *NIX
Helix could be compiled for your particular choice of OS - thats a definate plus over the MS offering. Even if MS offered binaries for a number of OS's you still don't have as much choice.
Now what they want is everybody to install Helix as thier streaming server. They win by market penetration and you still have to license the codecs for thier RealPlayer series so they have a revenue stream.
Real are NOT going to release the codecs open source because that could allow anyone to write server software that works with thier free players and they are rapidly out of buisness - the only other option would be to charge for the players - but people would then use MS players anyway. Either route they are commercially dead.
So if you want to write TuxPlayerDeluxe then what you do is look at the Helix code and develop a plug in for your player - now you can get buisness to support you. You'll not get a commercial entity to install your homegrown server software on thier servers, but they may use your plug in if you get enough demand, so the success of Helix will help open source media player developers.
So the advantages are:
1) Real can offer an all in one solution and hopefully become the prefered solution to Microsoft
2) Real can continue to make money from licenseing codecs, rather than having to charge for the player.
3) Anyone can write support for thier favourite player/format
I mean to me this looks like a finely balanced mix of commercial sense and Open Source support such that Real can make money.
The good thing is if it works and big commercial streamers - for instance the BBC - switch to Helix then it actually will help the adoption of open source formats like Ogg Vorbis because it will so easy to support.
Alternatively if MS wins the server software war 90% of the net will not notice, but the rest of us will lose. Bare that in mind when worrying if the codecs are Open Source or not - they never will be - but kicking Real may just play into MS's hands.
I'm not a great fan of either companies buisness practises - but at least in this case Real is doing something that benefits our community - lets support them on this and maybe in a year or two's time they will do more to support open source.
The problem is the level of shielding needed to protect against low level radiation leaking out of a building is very different from that required to protect sensitive electronics from very high energy radiation.
The other problem becomes apparent when you think of what tactical targets this may be used against.
The first stage of any modern war is to blind your enemy and disrupt thier communications - this means they cannot effectively detect your invasion and coordinate a counter attack.
Currently this is done by an initial attack wave - use radar seaking missiles to destroy air surveilance equipment, cruise/smart bomb/iron bomb to take out communication centers like radio realays and phone exchanges. Maybe use special forces to ensure destruction or imparement of key facilities.
The problem with all of these is you have to physically destroy the equipment - and this means any person near it.
Now if you could use an EMP pulse to destroy electronics then you could argue that that presents a lower risk to humans in the target areas.
The reason that you can't shield this stuff is that radar needs its scanner unshielded to hear its return pulses, radios need unshielded antenna to work, telephone exchanges need miles of unshielded phone cable.
The way to defend against this is to have backup systems in shielded enclosures that are safe from the initial attack, and then connect and use them after it has passed. This is what was done for the civil defence bunkers in the UK - and I presume elsewhere. If it works anything running or connected at the time is toast.
So this is where tactically these weapons can be used - unmanned drones can sneak into the terrotary and destroy comms and survielence systems.
I don't think you could easily get this into a cruise missile - you are going to need a lot of power, probably stored in a capacitor bank to generate a high energy short duration pulse from a directional maser system. Something like the Golden Hawk may do as you have capacity and a large jet turbin to tap for power.
One thing I don't agree with is that these are 'safe' weapons - no weapon is 'safe' it depends on its tactical use. As outlined above it could be used very effecticely - and of course another attraction is that its multi use rather than trhowing away cruise missiles at half a million dollars a shot.
One thing I disagree with in the report (and I'm in the UK) is that it would be good for taking out chemical weapon facilities. No its not.
For a start small scale clandestine chemical weapon manufacture could be carried in small labs by hand - destroying a few PCs, telephones and multimeters doesn't win you anything.
If you target a large automated plant (if the chemical agents are being made in secret at some generally normal chemcial plant) then you had better hope the control systems are totally failsafe, other wise you are going to release those agents, and other noxious substances, in potentially massive quantities.
I mean, look at it this way - would you believe that a safe way of disabling a nuclear power station would be to instantly and simultaneously switch off every control system, every safety system, every hardwired multiple backup system - because that is what a weapon like this will do if it works.
The Russians tried something like that at Cherynobyl - and I think we learned something there.
This isn't really a surprise - what it is an example of is the popular misunderstanding of genetics and cloning.
DNA and genes are only the receipe for a cat - if you like the instruction set.
Its only if you think of a well ordered system that you would expect an identical end result - for instance most computer code is well ordered in this respect - every time you run the program and construct the classes you get the same result.
But not every system is like this - any system, and certainly most you find in nature, that is chaotic can produce different results. Sometimes these may reach the same exact stable state in the end - sometimes that approach a loci of similar states.
In terms of the cat each clone will approach a loci of very similar looking cats, but each cat will be different. They will all look very similar but they will not be identical.
In terms of a reciepe we all bake cakes using the same mix of ingredients and the same oven - but each week it does come out slightly differently.
This really shouldn't be a surprise - nature has for years provided its own genetically identical clones in the form of identical twins/triplets etc - and whilst they are indeed very similar they are not identical.
So even before you bring the nature/nurture argument in its clear if you stop and think that genetic clones will never be identical.
To give some level of encryption to the traffic from your webserver.
This is useful any time you don't want the data to be intercepted - not just for commercial reasons.
For instance I might use it to setup a web email reader on my home machine - using ssl nobody can in easily intercept my logon details, or the contents of my emails.
This is like buying a book - you decide what to do with the CD, lend it to your mates, play it in the car, your laptop whatever
2) Licensing - i.e. you buy a license to listen to an album, the CD is just a delivery medium
This is basically how most software is shipped.
But copy protecting CD's hurts the consumer in both ways.
If I own the CD outright then I'm entitled to my money back because you crippled it and it won't play in my laptop - the goods are faulty.
If I license the music then once I have the delivery medium I'm entitled to listen to the music anyway I want - but I can't because it won't play in my laptop.
Now try as I might I can't see another 'model' that the music industry can use.
Music wants to be made and the people involved must be compensated for thier skill and effort. I want to listen to a good range of music in a way that is convenient to me and I'm willing to provide that compensation.
I'm fed up of hearing that an album is deleated, or I can only get track X on this compilation. I want to listen to music that I've already heard or heard about and I'm willing to pay for it.
The challenge for the record industry is to build a buisness model on that, which sadly they show no inclination to do.
As one of my pasttimes I've run discos and compiled themed compilations for local pubs - all legal uses of downloaded MP3s as all the venues have paid thier PPL fees (This is in the UK) and yet I now can't find the one offs, the deleted tracks, the special mixes that I could on Napster.
Treat consumers like criminals 24/7 and they will start to act like criminals.
A court has ruled that they are legally bound to provide the information - if they do not provide it they will be acting illegally.
Whether Verizon choose to fight it from a consumer protection issue, or so that they were not open to a flood of court actions it is no longer in thier hands.
So they did stand up to it - and they lost.
It is not a customer service issue - its a matter of law - they have no choice.
If the bad law upsets you write your congresscritter - I can't because I'm not a US resident.
I'm serious - why is the be all and all of what a console can do always measured by speed?
And anyway what speed?
In a modern machine be it PS2/XBox/PC the graphics CPU is as important as the main CPU.
So do we measure in clock speed - polygons per second - frame rate - operations per second - memory bandwidth....
At the end of the day the big secret is IT DOESNT MATTER
What MATTERS
a) Do the games play fast enough to be responsive?
b) Are the graphics convincing enough without being obviously limited
All of these are down to how well the game is programmed - who cares how cool the graphics are if it runs at 10 frames per second and takes half a second to respond to a button press - who cares if the graphics don't have quite the same number of polygons in if the game is moving so fast you don't notice.
Before I get flamed by the console-kin I am aware this only holds within certain bounds - if the hardware is lacking badly then even good code-craft will not help - but the PS2/XBox/Dreamcast/PC game experience can all be equally as good with a good game, and equally bad with a sucky game.
What matters more to me would be the range of games - the XBox is great when you play Halo, but what then? - and the convenience of the hardware - PS2s don't have hard drives so are suprisingly shock resistant, PC controllers always feel clumsy when compared to console ones but boy can you get a range (the problem here of course is its easy for a PS2 developer to figure out a really good button arrangement because all the controllers are roughly the same - god help PC developers who generally resort to letting the user map the keyboard)
The 'best' console is relatively easy to spot - its the one doing well in the market - the problem is PC 'consoles' don't show up because they are so flexible. At the end of the day the 'best' console is like a car - whatever is the best package for the person that buys it - otherwise we'd all be driving Ferrais (and I am not having a flame war on cars BTW)
For the record my choice would still be the PS2, its got great games, is well engineered and is just a good package.
As it happens I don't own any consoles, nor a bleeding edge PC (well it is, but for DV editing not polygon count) because most of the time I'm watching DVDs....
And yes there will be a fair amount of scattering in the atmosphere, perhaps most significantly by water vapor.
The difficulty with the atmosphere is defining where it ends, the density just thins out. There is still enough drag at 200km to need occasional orbit corrections on polar orbiting satellites.
Slashdot Mirror
Amusingly the reference is wrong itself at one point.
"In English units, a kilogram equals roughly 2.2 pounds"
No - that should read Imperial units, because here in England our legal unit of measurement of mass is the kilogram. Although not everyone agrees
In which case I'm big enough to apologise. I did indeed read it in an entirely different light to your intentions.
I think its great that any old fool can get $1000 of hardware and start producing CDs - and I have done so myself - the problem is when they stop there thinking they are the next George Martin...
Sorry to have scored on own goal here!
That would be the slashdot username/nickname roblimo (one word) formed from an amalgum of Robin Miller (his name)
This comment is VERY misleading.
The big 5 record companies DO NOT RUN ALL the Recording Services that artists use.
First point - most good musicians end up having a home studio anyway. A lot of people I listen to (Will Kimbrough, Ani DiFranco, Slaid Cleeves to name a few) are hard working live and session artists and have invested in thier own gear - they are craft workers that want to have control of the final product.
Second point - Each artist does not have to master thier own music - the same mastering services will be available as there are now that the record companies use. Mastering CD's is not a technically difficult job at all - but properly producing a good album is and needs a good team to do it. (I have done this for come college bands so they can send decent demos to promoters and such - I'm no proffesional but the tools available mean I can cut a pretty acceptable live album.) Most of those people are contractors of a kind either independant or attached to a studio like Abbey Road. These people right now are being requested by artists that care about thier music, and will still be if record companies disappear in the morning.
Point Three - you don't make squat from CD sales NOW because so many people take a cut. Yes artists give up 85% of sales, but many of them end up being charged for all the costs out of THIER 15%. If an artist can pay for the album to be produced and the CDs to be created once they have broken even everything is pure profit. Most of these guys make thier break in the live circuit and selling signed cds for 10 bucks at the end is a great way to meet fans, make money and spread the word of your music for those people who didnt make your gig. This is where I get most of my CDs now because its cheaper and the artist I respect gets a bigger cut of the money.
Point Four - Promoters hire and organise concerts, these people will also not disappear. The difference will be the artists will have to have a bit more financial backing to put the capital up, but will get more of the returns. Without a slush fund from the Record Companies in the future you will find promoters being more flexible becasue they themselves will want to evolve and adapt and stay in buisness. I can, and have, see the artists I mentioned above for 10UKP a time in the Borderline in London - that MUST be profitable otherwise it wouldn't happen and I can tell you for certain that no Record Company is involved. I've run band nights myself and we ALL made profits for far less outlay than you suggest.
Point 5 - Yamaha/Korg/Roland arent going to go out of buisness. Big News - artist have thier own instruments these days, even session musicians. Cubase and other such programs can generate very very reasonable sound on commodity PC hardware. Even college bands can afford good mid range equipment these days.
Point 6 - artists are willing to give up 85% of thier sales because if they want to break out of the niche live and touring circuit and bring thier music to a wider audience they need airplay. Try getting that in the US without playing ball with an A&R man. Thankfully in the UK we have more choice with guys like Bob Harris who actually care about the music they play and don't have a playlist and a script.
Point 7 - a lot of independant artists manage themselves or are managed RIGHT NOW by management groups without any affiliation with the Big 5.
Point 8 - the attitude of 'those poor dumb artists don't want to be bothered with buisness' is condescending and insulting. ALL of the craftspeople in the industry from writers to session musicians to producers to sound engineers generally take pride in thier work. Thats why so many of them set up thier own record labels and studios so they can keep control of thier work. A lot of 'real' unmanufactured music is pretty much only distributed by the Big 5, everything else is done by the people themselves. Its not economics, its an issue of control.
Point 9 - computers have brought cheap good quality synthesisation and sequenceing into the homes of college students and teenagers. This in turn has brought down the price of higher level kit. Good studios are now available for hire. We no longer need the massive outlay of money to set up a studio that required a Record Company to do it - indeed these days a large number of studios are set up by existing artist who hire them out to make it profitable. What computers have done is bring down the costs and made good music production available to many many more people. The internet has now offered a distribution channel that was previously only available to a large buisness. Thats the point.
Point 10 - nothing in your post is about supporting the artist. Its about supporting the status quo. I support artists by supporting efforts to limit the massive lobbying for control of thier livelhood that is going on, by going to thier gigs, by buying directly from them.
My hatred of the Recording Companies (NOT the recording industry itself) is not hatred, and nor is it blind. They are just as relevant to the task of getting music from the artist into my hifi as coal mining is to fueling railway trains - namely redundant as things have moved on.
Yeah it's a lot of wasted time, but still not as much time wasted than the many, many man years spent on developing a legal system.... But really though, anarchy isn't that bad. If people would just follow some simple guidelines it wouldn't be so bad. A) don't give out your personal address. If you wanna keep your property safe from theft, just use an alternate house and tell all your friends where your real house is B) There are some ways of getting guns out there, try using them and you will be surprised how it cuts down muggings to managable numbers... C) If you don't want laws, just don't live in a civilised society, easy as that. There are bad sides to everything, we just have to live through them.
When I first heard about PVRs as they are now known it was a time shifting device. I know that sounds simples, let me explain.
Now in the UK we have 5 analogue free to air broadcast channels.
What someone had done was to build a machine that could continually record the 5 channels to a disk array and play one back. There was enough disk space to cope with 24 hours of TV.
Now the big difference with this approach to the one that modern PVRs do is subtle - a modern PVR is just a smart disk based VCR - this monolithic apprach means you don't have to set schedules, pay for download guides, or have your viewing information passed back to your cable provider - it just means you can watch any TV that was broadcast in the last 24 hours.
Your favourite shows are on at the same time - no sweat watch one after the other - you may think you do this with any PVR but unless you have 2 recievers you can't timeshift both programs - you have to watch one live and record the other.
Three of your favourite shows overlap - no sweat.
Your mate tells you about a great program that was on the night before - no sweat its on the array.
You see how this is different to most PVRs now.
Spool forward to now (I saw this idea about 4 years ago) and its not practal to record everything from your STB - but I guess you may watch 16 channels most of the time - and these days you can probably keep 3 days worth on a reasonable disk array.
Oh - and I've thought of another. If you were making low budget films wouldn't it be cool to be able to hook up 5 camcorders and record the feed from them all in perfect sync for editing later?
Your thinking of Macrovision.
Its not a modulation, but a false colour burst in the composite video signal.
This works by fooling the Automatic Gain Control systems in VCRs so the gain of the recorded signal wobbles - on playback this produces the effects you see.
Its also in DVD player chipsets to stop you recording DVDs.
But if you run the same code with a cross platform library its not the same thing at all.
Then you add in the factors such as
- how well has the cross platform library been coded?
- are all the features of the cross platform library done in code, or are they sometimes done by hardware support?
Only if none of the libraries implement any hardware acceleration is it a fair test - otherwise all you have done is written a benchmarking program for how well the cross platform library runs. Not surprisingly the machine with the best number crunching CPU wins.
To my mind one measure of how well code is written is how effecient it is - under your test the platforms with more power are more forgiving of ineffecient code.
You will always get better performance on any one platform by coding specifically for it.
With cross platform libraries even if you code as efficiently as you can to the libraries API, and the library writer does thier best to translate that as efficiently as possible into native code, you will still not be able to exploit every feature of the base hardware, and you have the overhead of the library to account for.
I'd be interested if anyone has actually done a cross platform test, I've not heard of any but then I've not actually looked because personally I'll make the choice by going and play testing the games I like.
In effect your comments prove my point - you bought the PS2 because it was the best deal for the games you want to play for the budget your willing to spend - not because it was the fastest.
So what about Free/Open/NetBSD, Linux, HP-UX, IRIX. Which versions of MacOS, Solaris, CE?
My point is not about what players are available, and qouting out of context hides that.
The point is that with open source anyone can compile and port to thier platform of choice, with binary the control is still with the manufacturer.
Real is looking at the big war about who gets money from the infrastructure, not the little war about specific codecs.
Agreed
In UK Magnox reactors for instance the control rods are actively held out of the core by electrical friction clutches - any failure will cause the rods to crash back into the core under gravity.
There is also a quench system, again actively held off, that will flood the reactor vessel.
However both methods are last ditch - the control rods will probably fracture and breakup in an uncontrolled descent - clearly quenching the reactor will cause massive internal damage to the reactor (but not the containment vessel) so it will never run again.
As a consequence neither have actually been tested in anger.
Stopping a running reactor such that it will restart, or such that it will not break containment, is a complex operation. Its not just the nuclear issues you have to worry about but the thermal shock that will occur with such a dramatic change.
I think my point is that chemical plants (United Carbide in Bohpal?) don't have such sophisticated mechanisms.
Agree whole heartedly.
Stage 1 is getting people to talk about it
Stage 2 is getting them to talk about it correctly.
To my mind an obvious but reasonably harmless error like some of those in the article is okay - we get a chance to correct them.
Deliberate FUD however is not and should be jumped on.
I guess I'd say don't shoot the messenger - so long as the messenger doesn't have an agenda!
Apparently this is not worthy of mentioning this on /.
That would be because \. mission is to be a roughly US centric discussion site for technological news for people in the IT community.
I'm not discounting the seriousnes of what you report, but I can find that at CNN or BBC in my other browser window.
Maybe in the case of unique and major event, as happened on September 11th, then running as a secondary newsfeed because the main ones are swamped is a worthwhile thing to do. But this is an editors decision, not a reason to post an offtopic message.
I love them - yes they are funny, but they are of major use to our community.
Most of us on squishdot rage flamewars about code stability, scaleability, freedom of choice - but none of this matters to the execs - they don't read what we write.
But if someone like the FT mentions Linux and how good it is - this gets read in the board room, on the train, on the trading floor.
And then maybe, just maybe, someone will ask the head IT person just what its all about. Then we get a chance to explain it. Get a copy of these articles, save the link somewhere - and then next time you have to do a whitepaper or value proposal in your company where you know open source is the better choice you have some references that people will sit up and notice.
Treat these articles as sales leads to big buisness - marketing is what open source is not good at beacuse we don't press the right buttons - the FT does.
Still - good for a chukle wasn't it.
Thats what it will do for you.
The money in streaming media is the server end, the clients are generally given away free or at very low cost - you want people to demand that companies install your server product so there is no point stiffing the consumer.
This was Real and Microsoft's approach - but of course Microsoft has a real adavantage [pun intended] because it can put a player on every desktop that it sells - so buisnesses in have to buy Microsoft streaming server software because of consumer demand.
But then people with Mac/*NIX/Set top boxes are cut out of the loop because MS doesn't do players for those platforms, and they won't release the codec details for others to use because then someone could code an alternative streaming server.
Real is fighting back by offering an open platform server - in this case anyone who wants to write support for thier player can look at the server code and write a plug in for it. The attraction for a buisness is they now potentially can install one streaming server and probably one set of master media files - they can stream media to any player on any platform.
This gives Real a commercial adavantage over MS becuase MS software needs to run on MS operating systems - and most big internet stuff is still the domain of various *NIX
Helix could be compiled for your particular choice of OS - thats a definate plus over the MS offering. Even if MS offered binaries for a number of OS's you still don't have as much choice.
Now what they want is everybody to install Helix as thier streaming server. They win by market penetration and you still have to license the codecs for thier RealPlayer series so they have a revenue stream.
Real are NOT going to release the codecs open source because that could allow anyone to write server software that works with thier free players and they are rapidly out of buisness - the only other option would be to charge for the players - but people would then use MS players anyway. Either route they are commercially dead.
So if you want to write TuxPlayerDeluxe then what you do is look at the Helix code and develop a plug in for your player - now you can get buisness to support you. You'll not get a commercial entity to install your homegrown server software on thier servers, but they may use your plug in if you get enough demand, so the success of Helix will help open source media player developers.
So the advantages are:
1) Real can offer an all in one solution and hopefully become the prefered solution to Microsoft
2) Real can continue to make money from licenseing codecs, rather than having to charge for the player.
3) Anyone can write support for thier favourite player/format
I mean to me this looks like a finely balanced mix of commercial sense and Open Source support such that Real can make money.
The good thing is if it works and big commercial streamers - for instance the BBC - switch to Helix then it actually will help the adoption of open source formats like Ogg Vorbis because it will so easy to support.
Alternatively if MS wins the server software war 90% of the net will not notice, but the rest of us will lose. Bare that in mind when worrying if the codecs are Open Source or not - they never will be - but kicking Real may just play into MS's hands.
I'm not a great fan of either companies buisness practises - but at least in this case Real is doing something that benefits our community - lets support them on this and maybe in a year or two's time they will do more to support open source.
The problem is the level of shielding needed to protect against low level radiation leaking out of a building is very different from that required to protect sensitive electronics from very high energy radiation.
The other problem becomes apparent when you think of what tactical targets this may be used against.
The first stage of any modern war is to blind your enemy and disrupt thier communications - this means they cannot effectively detect your invasion and coordinate a counter attack.
Currently this is done by an initial attack wave - use radar seaking missiles to destroy air surveilance equipment, cruise/smart bomb/iron bomb to take out communication centers like radio realays and phone exchanges. Maybe use special forces to ensure destruction or imparement of key facilities.
The problem with all of these is you have to physically destroy the equipment - and this means any person near it.
Now if you could use an EMP pulse to destroy electronics then you could argue that that presents a lower risk to humans in the target areas.
The reason that you can't shield this stuff is that radar needs its scanner unshielded to hear its return pulses, radios need unshielded antenna to work, telephone exchanges need miles of unshielded phone cable.
The way to defend against this is to have backup systems in shielded enclosures that are safe from the initial attack, and then connect and use them after it has passed. This is what was done for the civil defence bunkers in the UK - and I presume elsewhere. If it works anything running or connected at the time is toast.
So this is where tactically these weapons can be used - unmanned drones can sneak into the terrotary and destroy comms and survielence systems.
I don't think you could easily get this into a cruise missile - you are going to need a lot of power, probably stored in a capacitor bank to generate a high energy short duration pulse from a directional maser system. Something like the Golden Hawk may do as you have capacity and a large jet turbin to tap for power.
One thing I don't agree with is that these are 'safe' weapons - no weapon is 'safe' it depends on its tactical use. As outlined above it could be used very effecticely - and of course another attraction is that its multi use rather than trhowing away cruise missiles at half a million dollars a shot.
One thing I disagree with in the report (and I'm in the UK) is that it would be good for taking out chemical weapon facilities. No its not.
For a start small scale clandestine chemical weapon manufacture could be carried in small labs by hand - destroying a few PCs, telephones and multimeters doesn't win you anything.
If you target a large automated plant (if the chemical agents are being made in secret at some generally normal chemcial plant) then you had better hope the control systems are totally failsafe, other wise you are going to release those agents, and other noxious substances, in potentially massive quantities.
I mean, look at it this way - would you believe that a safe way of disabling a nuclear power station would be to instantly and simultaneously switch off every control system, every safety system, every hardwired multiple backup system - because that is what a weapon like this will do if it works.
The Russians tried something like that at Cherynobyl - and I think we learned something there.
This isn't really a surprise - what it is an example of is the popular misunderstanding of genetics and cloning.
DNA and genes are only the receipe for a cat - if you like the instruction set.
Its only if you think of a well ordered system that you would expect an identical end result - for instance most computer code is well ordered in this respect - every time you run the program and construct the classes you get the same result.
But not every system is like this - any system, and certainly most you find in nature, that is chaotic can produce different results. Sometimes these may reach the same exact stable state in the end - sometimes that approach a loci of similar states.
In terms of the cat each clone will approach a loci of very similar looking cats, but each cat will be different. They will all look very similar but they will not be identical.
In terms of a reciepe we all bake cakes using the same mix of ingredients and the same oven - but each week it does come out slightly differently.
This really shouldn't be a surprise - nature has for years provided its own genetically identical clones in the form of identical twins/triplets etc - and whilst they are indeed very similar they are not identical.
So even before you bring the nature/nurture argument in its clear if you stop and think that genetic clones will never be identical.
why would you need SSL otherwise
To give some level of encryption to the traffic from your webserver.
This is useful any time you don't want the data to be intercepted - not just for commercial reasons.
For instance I might use it to setup a web email reader on my home machine - using ssl nobody can in easily intercept my logon details, or the contents of my emails.
I got news for you: no one forces an artist to do business with the RIAA.
Really - so how do you suggest you get airplay on radio stations that are owned and run by the same companies?
Guess who is most valuable
I guess it depends on your definition of valuable. To me the designers are valuable, the organizers just expolit.
When push comes to shove I'd rather be lost in the woods with someone who knows what is edible than with someone who knows how to market salad.
Douglas Adams - Hitch Hikers Guide - Ark B
As I see it the music industry has two models:
1) Physical ownership - i.e. you own the music CD
This is like buying a book - you decide what to do with the CD, lend it to your mates, play it in the car, your laptop whatever
2) Licensing - i.e. you buy a license to listen to an album, the CD is just a delivery medium
This is basically how most software is shipped.
But copy protecting CD's hurts the consumer in both ways.
If I own the CD outright then I'm entitled to my money back because you crippled it and it won't play in my laptop - the goods are faulty.
If I license the music then once I have the delivery medium I'm entitled to listen to the music anyway I want - but I can't because it won't play in my laptop.
Now try as I might I can't see another 'model' that the music industry can use.
Music wants to be made and the people involved must be compensated for thier skill and effort. I want to listen to a good range of music in a way that is convenient to me and I'm willing to provide that compensation.
I'm fed up of hearing that an album is deleated, or I can only get track X on this compilation. I want to listen to music that I've already heard or heard about and I'm willing to pay for it.
The challenge for the record industry is to build a buisness model on that, which sadly they show no inclination to do.
As one of my pasttimes I've run discos and compiled themed compilations for local pubs - all legal uses of downloaded MP3s as all the venues have paid thier PPL fees (This is in the UK) and yet I now can't find the one offs, the deleted tracks, the special mixes that I could on Napster.
Treat consumers like criminals 24/7 and they will start to act like criminals.
Bahh - sorry off topic a bit.
So a question
If you are a member owned ISP then is the ISP a legally seperate entity - or are you jointly and severally responsible
Either way in the case under discussion RIAA will either get a court order against one of you, or the legal entity that is the ISP.
Cool that you don't have money going to shareholders, but it won't protect you against this ruling.
I'll say it again - it's not Verizon's Fault
A court has ruled that they are legally bound to provide the information - if they do not provide it they will be acting illegally.
Whether Verizon choose to fight it from a consumer protection issue, or so that they were not open to a flood of court actions it is no longer in thier hands.
So they did stand up to it - and they lost.
It is not a customer service issue - its a matter of law - they have no choice.
If the bad law upsets you write your congresscritter - I can't because I'm not a US resident.
I'm serious - why is the be all and all of what a console can do always measured by speed?
And anyway what speed?
In a modern machine be it PS2/XBox/PC the graphics CPU is as important as the main CPU.
So do we measure in clock speed - polygons per second - frame rate - operations per second - memory bandwidth....
At the end of the day the big secret is IT DOESNT MATTER
What MATTERS
a) Do the games play fast enough to be responsive?
b) Are the graphics convincing enough without being obviously limited
All of these are down to how well the game is programmed - who cares how cool the graphics are if it runs at 10 frames per second and takes half a second to respond to a button press - who cares if the graphics don't have quite the same number of polygons in if the game is moving so fast you don't notice.
Before I get flamed by the console-kin I am aware this only holds within certain bounds - if the hardware is lacking badly then even good code-craft will not help - but the PS2/XBox/Dreamcast/PC game experience can all be equally as good with a good game, and equally bad with a sucky game.
What matters more to me would be the range of games - the XBox is great when you play Halo, but what then? - and the convenience of the hardware - PS2s don't have hard drives so are suprisingly shock resistant, PC controllers always feel clumsy when compared to console ones but boy can you get a range (the problem here of course is its easy for a PS2 developer to figure out a really good button arrangement because all the controllers are roughly the same - god help PC developers who generally resort to letting the user map the keyboard)
The 'best' console is relatively easy to spot - its the one doing well in the market - the problem is PC 'consoles' don't show up because they are so flexible. At the end of the day the 'best' console is like a car - whatever is the best package for the person that buys it - otherwise we'd all be driving Ferrais (and I am not having a flame war on cars BTW)
For the record my choice would still be the PS2, its got great games, is well engineered and is just a good package.
As it happens I don't own any consoles, nor a bleeding edge PC (well it is, but for DV editing not polygon count) because most of the time I'm watching DVDs....
You know they say gun cultures don't effect the way you see the world.
I meant 'Legal Limit' in the context of 'They shouldn't be allowed to do it'
You read 'Legal Limit' in the context of 'There should be a limit to the amount you can cull'
Awww heck, now I don't know which is funnier and if I should give you my karma!
*grin*
There should be a legal limit on first posters...
Err yeah - you got me on that one.
:)
Can you guess at what point I ran out of coffee
And yes there will be a fair amount of scattering in the atmosphere, perhaps most significantly by water vapor.
The difficulty with the atmosphere is defining where it ends, the density just thins out. There is still enough drag at 200km to need occasional orbit corrections on polar orbiting satellites.