Video distributors wanting to support both Flash and HTML5 users will have to encode twice; once in H.264, for Flash users, and again in WebM, for HTML5 users. This doubles the computational cost, doubles the storage requirements, and as an added bonus will tend to hurt quality. This is inconvenient for a small site with one or two videos; for sites like SmugMug it's an enormous headache. They can either suffer the doubled costs and complexity, or ignore HTML5 altogether and stick with Flash (emphasis mine)
This is what the outcome will be - arguments for removing support for H.264 fall flat since Google knows this is what will eventually happen (especially now that Chrome has become much more popular). The end result will be that fewer web sites will be iOS-compatible thereby strengthening Android, since it does support Flash.
This is Google playing corporate BS games using "openness" as a guise, plain and simple... Guess they took some lessons from Apple.
The fact is that almost all other laptops within (and below) that price range have a firewire port (as well as 3 USB ports, card readers, etc.) - and for people like myself who are in the market to buy a new laptop and who would LOVE to own a Macbook (but don't have $2000), and who also like to use their computers, even occasionally, for audio recording, the new Macbook is completely unusable, since USB sucks for that.
If Apple's competitors can include firewire with a $1000 laptop, why should I be forced to pay $2000 for a comparable Apple product?
Have never used it but JIRA is an excellent issue tracker, and their integration with FishEye (Code repository browser) looks pretty snazzy. Not sure if it would fit your specific needs.
The fact is you are assuming things that no-one really knows, such as who is holding up progress on the de-DRM'ing of tracks, and that it must be Apple who wants more money. And your entire campaign rests on these (probably faulty) assumptions.
The logic that Apple has the ability to de-DRM tracks but wants "better" terms from the record labels is extremely suspect. Why the hell would Apple give up the chance to loudly proclaim that all tracks on iTunes have no DRM - that would be a positive marketing windfall, and there is NO way Jobs would let that go just to squeeze a little more out of labels.
You also assume that the silence from Apple regarding this indicates guilt - have you ever thought that maybe they don't want to piss of the labels by calling them out, thereby risking the very thing they (and the FSF, and everyone for that matter) want the labels to do? If Apple did call them out, I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that some would be angry over exposing their private (up till now) contract terms and negotiations, and may even defect completely from iTunes because of it.
You know how these labels work - and to COMPLETELY ignore the mere possibility that the record labels might (just might) have something to do with the lack of progress is baffling.
If anything, your protests should include the record labels, since we don't really know who is responsible for the continued DRM-ing on iTunes, so that if they are really innocent, they will defend themselves by giving up Apple's evil plot.
When they bought Macromedia and built Flex as an RIA platform, they had a chance to contribute (open source) a solid SVG implementation that could have re-invigorated SVG (and SMIL) as a web standard. Dynamic, scriptable vector images, fully interactive graphics, animation, etc., would be easily created, distributed, searchable, and compatible with all browsers. They could have led the effort to improve other web standards to include (in a more elegant way) asynchronous services to the browser.
Instead, they decided to have MXML (which is pretty darn close to the SVG format) compile to Flash binary to the browser via an <embed> tag. WTF?
Software companies who build their own models without standards face an uphill battle in getting people that are used to the expansive compatibility of the web to buy in to their binary browser plug-in model. Plug-ins are good and all, but they should not be depended upon for the majority of site content. That's why the web took off as much as it did - standards have enabled site authors to feel comfortable in investing time and effort in building web sites that are guaranteed to reach the maximum number of people.
MS and Adobe (and Apple to a certain degree) are shooting themselves in the collective foot by coming up with their own standards for new content. The web will not significantly improve until they come together and build a common framework that allows the content-creators to know that their stuff is able to be searched for and seen by everyone. They forget to quickly that the explosive success of the internet is owed to this fact.
Other than replacing XP's pathetic search feature, it's really alot of nothing.
Wait, Desktop Search 1's only feature was a search engine for your computer (that completely trounces Windows' search) . It's like saying of the transistor: "other than replacing the vacuum tube, it really has no purpose".
The selection criteria is based on the Zipf-Mandelbrot Law. Applied to music, it contends that more "pleasing/beautiful" music has a Zipf-like (logarithmic) distribution (counts of notes, note durations, etc.). Check out this paper:
We also envisioned a "composition tool" which allowed a composer to feed it particular sequences which the algorithm then manipulated to create a Zipf-distributed composition. Not sure what the status of this is, though.
I agree with you completely. It does seem a little selfish for Something Awful to "claim" these donations. Why not just post a link to the Red Cross on their web site, and tell people to give directly? I mean, it's going to go to them (or a similar agency) anyway, right?
The only point of Something Awful being the middle man (IMO) is to be able to say, "our members gave X dollars to hurricane relief". Am I wrong?
(no pun intended). If you go to an accredited 4 year computer science program, you learn computer science. That is, math, theory, algorithms, logic, etc. that applies to computers. However, the actual accreditation criteria:
states that the student must be exposed to a variety of systems and languages (and that they must become proficient in at least one programming language). Computer science isn't very interesting or beneficial if the "computer" (i.e., specific computer system running a real OS and applications) is not there.
If you attend a 4 year, accredited computer science program in the US, you get MUCH more than what a vocational school would give you.
I replied to your child's post, but the same applies:
Email entries don't count for downloads, but they are eligible to win.
After very 99,999th download, the next "entry" will win, whether that is a download or an email. So, technically, the 100,000th download will not win if someone emailed right before them.
Here's a java version (you have to manually fix "externa l_counter" by making it "external_counter" - Slashdot mucks it up). This just approximates the next time it will reach a multiple of 100000, not looking into the future too far (it would be pretty inaccurate after the first few, anyway):
//get current count/time info Integer currCount = new Integer(list.item(0).getFirstChild().getNodeValue( )); String currTimestamp = (String) list.item(0).getAttributes().getNamedItem("timesta mp").getNodeValue(); SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE, dd MMM yyyy H:mm:ss z"); Date currDate = sdf.parse(currTimestamp);
//get pre count/time info Integer preCount = new Integer(list.item(1).getFirstChild().getNodeValue( )); String preTimestamp = (String) list.item(1).getAttributes().getNamedItem("timesta mp").getNodeValue(); Date preDate = sdf.parse(preTimestamp);
Date nextDate = getNextWinningTime(preDate, preCount, currDate, currCount);
This actually happened to me a month ago for about 2 hours. I believed at the time that it was because of my ISP (Knology.net), because I didn't hear anyone else complaining about it. However, it happened again yesterday to me. Weird.
I don't know about you, but I always feel a sense of justice when someone's blog is flooded with comments when they do or say something stupid.
However, when I tried to post a message, it gave me some lame error message (I think related to an invalid SQL query). But I found that if you write the message in the Name field (the very top input field), and leave the message empty, it posts fine. You might also want to use a public proxy server, since you can only post one message per hour per IP address.
I just upgraded to iTunes 4.7.1 (after Apple released their "fix"), bought and downloaded a two tracks, and used j-hymn 0.7.5 to convert them. It worked flawlessly.
I worked in music retail for a good while, and I personally checked the back of the card every time. My take on credit cards w/o signatures is this: If it wasn't signed, and it is stolen, the thief would have signed it him/herself. The chances that it is a stolen, unsigned card is pretty low. In all probability, it is not stolen, and (judging on past experiences with customers), to ask the customer to 1) show ID, and 2) sign the card, is just too much of a hassle for many people (in their eyes). So, unless there was a written "CHECK ID" in the signature spot, I didn't check ID.
If you want to be ID'ed, write "CHECK I.D." on the back. Otherwise, you're giving would-be thieves an even easier way to use your card (by signing it themselves).
It truly is the WORST experience, if you happen to connect to someone in India. The last time I called for support (for Vonage), the phone call took probably twice as long as it would have if he knew what I was trying to say (and vice versa). Adding in the frustration of the whole experience (plus the 45 minute wait), and the bad word-of-mouth that I am going to generate for Vonage, I'd say this off-shoring trend will not last too much longer, if I am an example of an average (well... maybe above-average) consumer.
Slashdot Mirror
This is what the outcome will be - arguments for removing support for H.264 fall flat since Google knows this is what will eventually happen (especially now that Chrome has become much more popular). The end result will be that fewer web sites will be iOS-compatible thereby strengthening Android, since it does support Flash. This is Google playing corporate BS games using "openness" as a guise, plain and simple... Guess they took some lessons from Apple.
If using "Dynamic Index"
If using "Classic Index"
The fact is that almost all other laptops within (and below) that price range have a firewire port (as well as 3 USB ports, card readers, etc.) - and for people like myself who are in the market to buy a new laptop and who would LOVE to own a Macbook (but don't have $2000), and who also like to use their computers, even occasionally, for audio recording, the new Macbook is completely unusable, since USB sucks for that.
If Apple's competitors can include firewire with a $1000 laptop, why should I be forced to pay $2000 for a comparable Apple product?
Have never used it but JIRA is an excellent issue tracker, and their integration with FishEye (Code repository browser) looks pretty snazzy. Not sure if it would fit your specific needs.
http://www.atlassian.com/beyond/link_to_source.jsp
The fact is you are assuming things that no-one really knows, such as who is holding up progress on the de-DRM'ing of tracks, and that it must be Apple who wants more money. And your entire campaign rests on these (probably faulty) assumptions.
The logic that Apple has the ability to de-DRM tracks but wants "better" terms from the record labels is extremely suspect. Why the hell would Apple give up the chance to loudly proclaim that all tracks on iTunes have no DRM - that would be a positive marketing windfall, and there is NO way Jobs would let that go just to squeeze a little more out of labels.
You also assume that the silence from Apple regarding this indicates guilt - have you ever thought that maybe they don't want to piss of the labels by calling them out, thereby risking the very thing they (and the FSF, and everyone for that matter) want the labels to do? If Apple did call them out, I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that some would be angry over exposing their private (up till now) contract terms and negotiations, and may even defect completely from iTunes because of it.
You know how these labels work - and to COMPLETELY ignore the mere possibility that the record labels might (just might) have something to do with the lack of progress is baffling.
If anything, your protests should include the record labels, since we don't really know who is responsible for the continued DRM-ing on iTunes, so that if they are really innocent, they will defend themselves by giving up Apple's evil plot.
When they bought Macromedia and built Flex as an RIA platform, they had a chance to contribute (open source) a solid SVG implementation that could have re-invigorated SVG (and SMIL) as a web standard. Dynamic, scriptable vector images, fully interactive graphics, animation, etc., would be easily created, distributed, searchable, and compatible with all browsers. They could have led the effort to improve other web standards to include (in a more elegant way) asynchronous services to the browser.
Instead, they decided to have MXML (which is pretty darn close to the SVG format) compile to Flash binary to the browser via an <embed> tag. WTF? Software companies who build their own models without standards face an uphill battle in getting people that are used to the expansive compatibility of the web to buy in to their binary browser plug-in model. Plug-ins are good and all, but they should not be depended upon for the majority of site content. That's why the web took off as much as it did - standards have enabled site authors to feel comfortable in investing time and effort in building web sites that are guaranteed to reach the maximum number of people.
MS and Adobe (and Apple to a certain degree) are shooting themselves in the collective foot by coming up with their own standards for new content. The web will not significantly improve until they come together and build a common framework that allows the content-creators to know that their stuff is able to be searched for and seen by everyone. They forget to quickly that the explosive success of the internet is owed to this fact.
Hit F9.
Or perhaps allow users to "bury" it? Seems to work for a certain other tech-news site ;)
Other than replacing XP's pathetic search feature, it's really alot of nothing.
Wait, Desktop Search 1's only feature was a search engine for your computer (that completely trounces Windows' search) . It's like saying of the transistor: "other than replacing the vacuum tube, it really has no purpose".
(I know not technical MP3) player...
Technically, the iPod is an MP3 player, since it can play MP3s (as well as most other formats - besides OGG and WMA).
I helped on this project when I was a CS student:
o MUSART2003.final.pdf
http://www.cs.cofc.edu/~manaris/ZipfMIDI/
The selection criteria is based on the Zipf-Mandelbrot Law. Applied to music, it contends that more "pleasing/beautiful" music has a Zipf-like (logarithmic) distribution (counts of notes, note durations, etc.). Check out this paper:
http://stono.cs.cofc.edu/~manaris/publications/Ev
We also envisioned a "composition tool" which allowed a composer to feed it particular sequences which the algorithm then manipulated to create a Zipf-distributed composition. Not sure what the status of this is, though.
Window XP did fine. It redirected me to a google search page.
I agree with you completely. It does seem a little selfish for Something Awful to "claim" these donations. Why not just post a link to the Red Cross on their web site, and tell people to give directly? I mean, it's going to go to them (or a similar agency) anyway, right? The only point of Something Awful being the middle man (IMO) is to be able to say, "our members gave X dollars to hurricane relief". Am I wrong?
(no pun intended). If you go to an accredited 4 year computer science program, you learn computer science. That is, math, theory, algorithms, logic, etc. that applies to computers. However, the actual accreditation criteria:
i teria%20and%20PP/05-06-CAC%20Criteria.pdf) [PDF],
(http://www.abet.org/Linked%20Documents-UPDATE/Cr
states that the student must be exposed to a variety of systems and languages (and that they must become proficient in at least one programming language). Computer science isn't very interesting or beneficial if the "computer" (i.e., specific computer system running a real OS and applications) is not there. If you attend a 4 year, accredited computer science program in the US, you get MUCH more than what a vocational school would give you.
I wish I could delete it. :(
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/11/ 1750217&tid=217&tid=172&tid=6/
I replied to your child's post, but the same applies: Email entries don't count for downloads, but they are eligible to win. After very 99,999th download, the next "entry" will win, whether that is a download or an email. So, technically, the 100,000th download will not win if someone emailed right before them.
When the 499,999,999th song is purchased, the next "entry" will win, whether that is a download or an email. I believe that's how it works.
Here's a java version (you have to manually fix "externa l_counter" by making it "external_counter" - Slashdot mucks it up). This just approximates the next time it will reach a multiple of 100000, not looking into the future too far (it would be pretty inaccurate after the first few, anyway):
//get current count/time info
//get pre count/time info
//every 100,000 is a winner
//calculate count/time
//Date currentTime = new Date();
//double countPerTime = countDiff * 1.0 / timeDiff;
//get next 100,000 ;
//timeTillWinner = (timeDiff / countDiff) * countTillWinner
//add to current time
import org.w3c.dom.Document;
import org.w3c.dom.NodeList;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory;
import javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder;
import java.util.Date;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args){
DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
try {
DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
Document doc = builder.parse("http://www.apple.com/itunes/externa l_counter.xml");
NodeList list = doc.getElementsByTagName("count");
Integer currCount = new Integer(list.item(0).getFirstChild().getNodeValue( ));
String currTimestamp = (String) list.item(0).getAttributes().getNamedItem("timesta mp").getNodeValue();
SimpleDateFormat sdf = new SimpleDateFormat("EEE, dd MMM yyyy H:mm:ss z");
Date currDate = sdf.parse(currTimestamp);
Integer preCount = new Integer(list.item(1).getFirstChild().getNodeValue( ));
String preTimestamp = (String) list.item(1).getAttributes().getNamedItem("timesta mp").getNodeValue();
Date preDate = sdf.parse(preTimestamp);
Date nextDate = getNextWinningTime(preDate, preCount, currDate, currCount);
System.out.println(
"currCount: " + currCount + "\n" +
"preCount: " + preCount + "\n" +
"currDate: " + currDate + "\n" +
"preDate: " + preDate + "\n" +
"Next Winning Time: " + nextDate);
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
private static Date getNextWinningTime(Date date1, Integer count1, Date date2, Integer count2) {
int countDiff = count2.intValue() - count1.intValue();
long timeDiff = date2.getTime() - date1.getTime();
double timePerCount = timeDiff / countDiff;
int nextWinningCount = (int) (Math.ceil(count2.intValue() / 100000.0) * 100000)
int countTillWinner = nextWinningCount - count2.intValue();
long timeTillWinner = Math.round(timePerCount * countTillWinner);
Date nextWinningTime = new Date(date2.getTime() + timeTillWinner);
return nextWinningTime;
}
}
This actually happened to me a month ago for about 2 hours. I believed at the time that it was because of my ISP (Knology.net), because I didn't hear anyone else complaining about it. However, it happened again yesterday to me. Weird.
I don't know about you, but I always feel a sense of justice when someone's blog is flooded with comments when they do or say something stupid.
However, when I tried to post a message, it gave me some lame error message (I think related to an invalid SQL query). But I found that if you write the message in the Name field (the very top input field), and leave the message empty, it posts fine. You might also want to use a public proxy server, since you can only post one message per hour per IP address.
I just upgraded to iTunes 4.7.1 (after Apple released their "fix"), bought and downloaded a two tracks, and used j-hymn 0.7.5 to convert them. It worked flawlessly.
I worked in music retail for a good while, and I personally checked the back of the card every time. My take on credit cards w/o signatures is this: If it wasn't signed, and it is stolen, the thief would have signed it him/herself. The chances that it is a stolen, unsigned card is pretty low. In all probability, it is not stolen, and (judging on past experiences with customers), to ask the customer to 1) show ID, and 2) sign the card, is just too much of a hassle for many people (in their eyes). So, unless there was a written "CHECK ID" in the signature spot, I didn't check ID.
If you want to be ID'ed, write "CHECK I.D." on the back. Otherwise, you're giving would-be thieves an even easier way to use your card (by signing it themselves).
It truly is the WORST experience, if you happen to connect to someone in India. The last time I called for support (for Vonage), the phone call took probably twice as long as it would have if he knew what I was trying to say (and vice versa). Adding in the frustration of the whole experience (plus the 45 minute wait), and the bad word-of-mouth that I am going to generate for Vonage, I'd say this off-shoring trend will not last too much longer, if I am an example of an average (well... maybe above-average) consumer.