Ogg Vorbis might be free on your general purpose CPU in your PC, but it does not come free to implement on these portable devices that typically include hardware decoding.
Even if there is no license cost, there is a very real cost: silicium.
You have to develop the hardware and then produce it.
With off course: more transistors = higher cost
I have one of my own since yesterday (the DP-500). And regarding picture quality during DVD playback, I have no complaints at all. It's a lot better than the cheapo BlueSky I had before. On this one, even in fast-forward the image is nice, something the previous one didn't do at all. The DivX playback is better than what you'll get from an nVidia TV-Out, or from the Archos MultiMedia (and you don't have the Archos limitations, but then again, you can't take it in your pocket either). And regarding sound, using the stereo connection to my HiFi, it's just great. I can't wait to get it connected digitally. It supports both an optical as a coax connection and with the DTS support I don't see how you could approve on that.
There's just one bug that has been bugging me, and that's the fact that I haven't been able yet to let it play more than the first avi file on a disc. Maybe it's me, or maybe it's a bug. No way to get to the FAQ for the moment though, it's slashdotted:-P
Only in a politically correct going to the uncivilized country will this lead to someone getting fired. What's the problem with some extra comment ? Have a lot more trouble without comment.
Now picture the following:
- some developers are writing a scanner driver for a medical scanner - at some exotic combination of resolution, size and so on, the driver gives an embedded image instead of the real one - during development this is a bikini calendar - someone forgets to replace this image and put in the team foto - a hospital in Iran decides to use a front end to automatically calculate the scanning parameters and guess what ? It hits those specicific values and... there is the bikini, in Iran
Talk about an incident. This even stirred political comment.
Do you think people got fired ??? In PC world (like the USA) probably for sure. And today it might be a reason in Europe too. But 10 years ago the repercussions in the European firm concerned did not go that far.
So get a life, there's more than just code in code.
I think NASA should look more closely in the mirror first. Their own statement that they are delaying or canceling the CRV (Crew Return Vehicle) is what has put into question the whole viability of the ISS in the first place.
If it was not for the Soyuz that's attached there now, the ISS would not be inhabited at this time. What do they want now, have the Russians cough up a second Soyuz, so at least a crew of six could stay, because they are not up to their part of the CRV?
And by the way, this is no treat at all for the Russians, they were the first to suggest this, when NASA started complaining about the CRV.
The shuttles are fully booked, yes. But not really with commercial sattelites, no more room in the schedule for that. They are now finally used for what they were really designed, namely the ISS. There still is the occasional other flight and I'm thinking specificaly about Columbia that isn't equiped for docking (yet). That shuttle is being prepared for a scientific mission early next year.
I see the sattelite launches with the shuttles as a bridging the gap thing. It is only economicaly viable when you have nothing else to use them for.
That 75% is even an overly optimistic estimate. The only reason why there can be three people at the ISS, is cause the Russians provide the three man Soyuz lifeboat. And of course, tat earns them a nice chunk of the crew time. ESA has in fact calculated that the program they set out will take almost 24 years to complete with only a crew of 3. With a crew of 6 (which could be accomplished with a second Soyuz lifeboat on station), that would be reduced to 3.4 years. While the optimal programme with a full complement of 7 (for which the 4 person CRV crew return vehicle is needed, a co-development of NASA and ESA) could finish the same programme in 2.6 years. In short, the ISS is just a very expensive piece of advertising metal with a crew of three. Without a bigger crew, it's more efficient to just put it on ice.
Before ordering on of these MultiMedia players, my idea of the resolution was not that high either. Thought of the postage time stamp videos on the net. Having it for some time now, I must say that I am pleasantly surprised. The viewing quality is indeed at least the same as a VHS tape, even on a 70cm sceen TV. There is a requirement for that however, the DivX needs a sufficiently high bitrate (have been using round 1000 myself) and preferably encoded directly to the correct size. Transcoding or lower bitrates are indeed visible with the typical artifacts. It seems this little box has quite a nice analog out, which shows the same AVI a lot better on a TV than you can ever get on a PC, at least with the nVidia chips I've used so far.
In fact no, even when this thing would get built, you can not go back in time as far as you want. The furthest that would be possible, would be to the time it was built. To be exact, the time difference between the two end-points is fixed while they are static. Changing it, involves dragging one of them around. So no "Back to the future" or other time machines kind of dials to set the destination.
And there's another snag: to be able to go back to the time of construction you have to keep on dragging one of the end points at the speed of light. Anything slower and you will not be able to go that far back in time anymore. And it's a bit difficult to catch up with that, and even if you do, travelling at the speed of light yourself, your travelling in the future with respect to the other end point. So the end result is zip, no change.
Then again, it is not sure yet if this is even possible in theory. Let alone in practice. Plenty of physicists have been working on it, and it is very possible that only energy would be able to pass through a worm hole and that all information would be lost. At the entrance all of your matter gets converted to energy. That energy get's to the other side. But along the way all info of the original matter that it's coming from is lost. So at the other end, if the energy forms particles again, it's not even going to be the same particles. Let alone that they would be ordered the same way, with the same impuls (speed and direction) to form the same person again.
"
If they succeed the SKA will be so big and precise it will jump the world's current best, the American Very Large Array in New Mexico, by a factor of 100, both in sensitivity and resolution."
Fortunately it's only compared to the VLA in regards of resolution. Single radiotelescopes have no chance in hell to get to extreme resolutions. Resolution is all in the diameter, or baseline. Nothing you can do about, it's just basic physics. Fortunately you can have big holes in your telescope, or inversely just a few parts of the surface. Excactly the principle of the VLA and VLBI in radio frequencies and the VLTI for light. You can even find a simulation applet here
In fact the earth itself is getting too small to get more resolution. Going into space is indeed being looked into, but not in the sense of a satellite like the Hubble orbiting the earth. That would hardly be worth the effort where radio astronomy is concerned. Having a baseline as long as the distance between the earth and the moon, now that would be an improvement. Plus, if it's built on the side that's always turned away from the earth, the telescope will be shielded from all the annoying interference created by all the radiochatter on earth, while it's still possible to look at the same piece of sky as an earth based telescope.
In the visual spectrum, Darwin from ESA looks set to become the next record holder . A first technology demonstration/development flight in the form of SMART-2 is currently under development.
In out-lifting any rocket built, they must have really taken a subset of available rockets. It doesn't outperform the Ariane 5 either. The heaviest on the Atlas V list only takes 8,2 tonnes in geosynch transfer, while the Ariane 5 ECS-A that's already flown, is already well over 10 tonnes. And next year it will add quite a bit of extra tonnage capacity to that.
But all of the above off course neglects the third option.
Think about it, the only thing that is evolutionarily advantageous, are the things that have an impact on the offspring. And does the materialistic property of the woman have an impact on that ??
Sure, but a negative one. Namely: all the resources she gobbles up, aren't available for the offspring. Apart maybe from a grandson being able to use one of her rings again two generations later as an engagement ring.
Could it be that the savvy are on top in this ranking ? It looks like it at least. It looks like the materialisticly savvy are on top. Those that know when and for what to spend money. That don't waste it on silly extravaganzas, but that have the resources and know on what they should spend it.
I know plenty of people with a higher income that are investing a lot less in their offspring than people earning less than half of them.
Yup, they where indeed alerted. The guy was interviewed on Belgian radio this morning.
It has something of an Hercule Poirot story really : a little Belgian helping the big great old FBI catch the bad guys. And at the same time also some resembles with an Internet romance, cause it all started by E-mail. The seller sending an E-mail. A concerned mineralogist sending an E-mail to the FBI, who was then coached by the FBI to keep the E-mail conversation going, untill some FBI agents could catch them, posing as his brother and sister in law.
Nice anecdote is as well, that because the FBI did not trust people at NASA, he had to explain to the FBI how they would be able to distinguish a fake moonrock from a real one! Took some research but it must have been convincing enough:-)
And I suppose that since 911 I'm not supposed to close my envelopes shut anymore, because then I could be sending a letter with content that can not be read ? Encryption exists and is necessary (think of using your credit card on the net). Banning a technology doesn't avoid criminals to use it. I think they still have guns, terrorists make bombs,...
From the last movy I saw in Digital Cinema (Star Wars Episode II), I'd have to say it can still use improvement. The image quality is indeed good when the image is moving, but you can still see the pixels too much, for example in the titles and sub-titles. Those still show in a horrendous way the resolution limitation. Fortunately this is less noticable during regular movie play, but it is still there and could be a problem during certain movie showings
There's plenty to disagree in this. Let's start with you comment on Einstein. Not the greatest fan of this Zionist, but to say he didn't do much after the theory of relativity, and then sporting for Gravastars is already a contraction in terminis, as this last supposition refers to some of the work Einstein did later on. I'd also like to note that another concept he developed later on, namely the Gravitational Constant, has recently been fished up in the context of Unification Theory. It's just as much an understatement to bring back most of Hawkings work to black holes. A lot more was done on the study of the beginning of the Universe for example, whereby I think of inflationary concepts and so on. Nor do I think gravistars are in contradiction with black holes. A gravistar is just as much an extreme manifestion of gravity and if it looks like black hole, feels like one and maybe even taste like one, with not call it that. A lot of studies have been done in the context of 'what are black holes made of' if you can call it that, and BEC is for me just a proposal for that. And I'd have to agree with Hawking, an unlikely candidate.
Slashdot Mirror
Ogg Vorbis might be free on your general purpose CPU in your PC, but it does not come free to implement on these portable devices that typically include hardware decoding. Even if there is no license cost, there is a very real cost: silicium. You have to develop the hardware and then produce it. With off course: more transistors = higher cost
I have one of my own since yesterday (the DP-500).
:-P
And regarding picture quality during DVD playback, I have no complaints at all. It's a lot better than the cheapo BlueSky I had before.
On this one, even in fast-forward the image is nice, something the previous one didn't do at all.
The DivX playback is better than what you'll get from an nVidia TV-Out, or from the Archos MultiMedia (and you don't have the Archos limitations, but then again, you can't take it in your pocket either).
And regarding sound, using the stereo connection to my HiFi, it's just great. I can't wait to get it connected digitally. It supports both an optical as a coax connection and with the DTS support I don't see how you could approve on that.
There's just one bug that has been bugging me, and that's the fact that I haven't been able yet to let it play more than the first avi file on a disc. Maybe it's me, or maybe it's a bug. No way to get to the FAQ for the moment though, it's slashdotted
To increase the sensitivity ESA is building a flotilla of space craft that together form a network to measure gravitional waves.
The mission is called LISA and will be supported by a pre-cursor mission SMART-2 to develop the necessary measuring and flotilla operations.
Countries around the 'Axis of Evil' are not exactly known to be this tolerant
Only in a politically correct going to the uncivilized country will this lead to someone getting fired. What's the problem with some extra comment ?
... there is the bikini, in Iran
Have a lot more trouble without comment.
Now picture the following:
- some developers are writing a scanner driver for a medical scanner
- at some exotic combination of resolution, size and so on, the driver gives an embedded image instead of the real one
- during development this is a bikini calendar
- someone forgets to replace this image and put in the team foto
- a hospital in Iran decides to use a front end to automatically calculate the scanning parameters and guess what ? It hits those specicific values and
Talk about an incident. This even stirred political comment.
Do you think people got fired ???
In PC world (like the USA) probably for sure.
And today it might be a reason in Europe too.
But 10 years ago the repercussions in the European firm concerned did not go that far.
So get a life, there's more than just code in code.
If it was not for the Soyuz that's attached there now, the ISS would not be inhabited at this time. What do they want now, have the Russians cough up a second Soyuz, so at least a crew of six could stay, because they are not up to their part of the CRV?
And by the way, this is no treat at all for the Russians, they were the first to suggest this, when NASA started complaining about the CRV.
The shuttles are fully booked, yes.
But not really with commercial sattelites, no more room in the schedule for that. They are now finally used for what they were really designed, namely the ISS.
There still is the occasional other flight and I'm thinking specificaly about Columbia that isn't equiped for docking (yet). That shuttle is being prepared for a scientific mission early next year.
I see the sattelite launches with the shuttles as a bridging the gap thing. It is only economicaly viable when you have nothing else to use them for.
That 75% is even an overly optimistic estimate.
The only reason why there can be three people at the ISS, is cause the Russians provide the three man Soyuz lifeboat. And of course, tat earns them a nice chunk of the crew time.
ESA has in fact calculated that the program they set out will take almost 24 years to complete with only a crew of 3. With a crew of 6 (which could be accomplished with a second Soyuz lifeboat on station), that would be reduced to 3.4 years. While the optimal programme with a full complement of 7 (for which the 4 person CRV crew return vehicle is needed, a co-development of NASA and ESA) could finish the same programme in 2.6 years.
In short, the ISS is just a very expensive piece of advertising metal with a crew of three. Without a bigger crew, it's more efficient to just put it on ice.
Before ordering on of these MultiMedia players, my idea of the resolution was not that high either. Thought of the postage time stamp videos on the net.
Having it for some time now, I must say that I am pleasantly surprised. The viewing quality is indeed at least the same as a VHS tape, even on a 70cm sceen TV. There is a requirement for that however, the DivX needs a sufficiently high bitrate (have been using round 1000 myself) and preferably encoded directly to the correct size. Transcoding or lower bitrates are indeed visible with the typical artifacts.
It seems this little box has quite a nice analog out, which shows the same AVI a lot better on a TV than you can ever get on a PC, at least with the nVidia chips I've used so far.
And there's another snag: to be able to go back to the time of construction you have to keep on dragging one of the end points at the speed of light. Anything slower and you will not be able to go that far back in time anymore. And it's a bit difficult to catch up with that, and even if you do, travelling at the speed of light yourself, your travelling in the future with respect to the other end point. So the end result is zip, no change.
Then again, it is not sure yet if this is even possible in theory. Let alone in practice. Plenty of physicists have been working on it, and it is very possible that only energy would be able to pass through a worm hole and that all information would be lost.
At the entrance all of your matter gets converted to energy. That energy get's to the other side. But along the way all info of the original matter that it's coming from is lost. So at the other end, if the energy forms particles again, it's not even going to be the same particles. Let alone that they would be ordered the same way, with the same impuls (speed and direction) to form the same person again.
Fortunately it's only compared to the VLA in regards of resolution. Single radiotelescopes have no chance in hell to get to extreme resolutions. Resolution is all in the diameter, or baseline. Nothing you can do about, it's just basic physics. Fortunately you can have big holes in your telescope, or inversely just a few parts of the surface. Excactly the principle of the VLA and VLBI in radio frequencies and the VLTI for light. You can even find a simulation applet here
In fact the earth itself is getting too small to get more resolution. Going into space is indeed being looked into, but not in the sense of a satellite like the Hubble orbiting the earth. That would hardly be worth the effort where radio astronomy is concerned. Having a baseline as long as the distance between the earth and the moon, now that would be an improvement. Plus, if it's built on the side that's always turned away from the earth, the telescope will be shielded from all the annoying interference created by all the radiochatter on earth, while it's still possible to look at the same piece of sky as an earth based telescope.
In the visual spectrum, Darwin from ESA looks set to become the next record holder . A first technology demonstration/development flight in the form of SMART-2 is currently under development.
If i count in tens, why wouldn't I measure with them
In out-lifting any rocket built, they must have really taken a subset of available rockets. It doesn't outperform the Ariane 5 either.
The heaviest on the Atlas V list only takes 8,2 tonnes in geosynch transfer, while the Ariane 5 ECS-A that's already flown, is already well over 10 tonnes. And next year it will add quite a bit of extra tonnage capacity to that.
Think about it, the only thing that is evolutionarily advantageous, are the things that have an impact on the offspring. And does the materialistic property of the woman have an impact on that ??
Sure, but a negative one. Namely: all the resources she gobbles up, aren't available for the offspring. Apart maybe from a grandson being able to use one of her rings again two generations later as an engagement ring.
Could it be that the savvy are on top in this ranking ? It looks like it at least. It looks like the materialisticly savvy are on top. Those that know when and for what to spend money. That don't waste it on silly extravaganzas, but that have the resources and know on what they should spend it.
I know plenty of people with a higher income that are investing a lot less in their offspring than people earning less than half of them.
So, go for it evolution: Savvy on top !!
Yup, they where indeed alerted.
:-)
The guy was interviewed on Belgian radio this morning.
It has something of an Hercule Poirot story really : a little Belgian helping the big great old FBI catch the bad guys. And at the same time also some resembles with an Internet romance, cause it all started by E-mail. The seller sending an E-mail. A concerned mineralogist sending an E-mail to the FBI, who was then coached by the FBI to keep the E-mail conversation going, untill some FBI agents could catch them, posing as his brother and sister in law.
Nice anecdote is as well, that because the FBI did not trust people at NASA, he had to explain to the FBI how they would be able to distinguish a fake moonrock from a real one! Took some research but it must have been convincing enough
And I suppose that since 911 I'm not supposed to close my envelopes shut anymore, because then I could be sending a letter with content that can not be read ? ...
Encryption exists and is necessary (think of using your credit card on the net).
Banning a technology doesn't avoid criminals to use it. I think they still have guns, terrorists make bombs,
From the last movy I saw in Digital Cinema (Star Wars Episode II), I'd have to say it can still use improvement. The image quality is indeed good when the image is moving, but you can still see the pixels too much, for example in the titles and sub-titles. Those still show in a horrendous way the resolution limitation.
Fortunately this is less noticable during regular movie play, but it is still there and could be a problem during certain movie showings
There's plenty to disagree in this. Let's start with you comment on Einstein. Not the greatest fan of this Zionist, but to say he didn't do much after the theory of relativity, and then sporting for Gravastars is already a contraction in terminis, as this last supposition refers to some of the work Einstein did later on. I'd also like to note that another concept he developed later on, namely the Gravitational Constant, has recently been fished up in the context of Unification Theory.
It's just as much an understatement to bring back most of Hawkings work to black holes. A lot more was done on the study of the beginning of the Universe for example, whereby I think of inflationary concepts and so on.
Nor do I think gravistars are in contradiction with black holes. A gravistar is just as much an extreme manifestion of gravity and if it looks like black hole, feels like one and maybe even taste like one, with not call it that. A lot of studies have been done in the context of 'what are black holes made of' if you can call it that, and BEC is for me just a proposal for that. And I'd have to agree with Hawking, an unlikely candidate.