I've got tinnitus too, and you mentioned the cognitive adaptation, I've found it's possible to suppress the ringing by concentrating on it in a certain way (if you listen to it, it gets louder, if you concentrate on it, it seems to go away, wierd!).
Well, if you want any media that the BBC produce you need real player. In fact, no you don't. You can also use:
* Real Alternative (Media Player Classic with the Real codecs)
* The GPL Helix Player (yes, Real Networks GPL'd a lot of the source, plus give away the binary license for their codecs).
Granted, WMP files just look nicer(tm), but this isn't about technology and formats (or their relative merits), its about allowing manufacturers to choose what they want to include on computers they are building and selling. It shouldn't be up to Microsoft to dictate that. Microsoft simply provide the Operating System (at a decent OEM discount). They should not have the power to dictate what is done with that afterwards (as long as the said action is not illegal). Including another Media player is not illegal, it doesn't damage Microsoft in any way. Ergo, Microsoft, once again, are abusing their monopoly by using strong arm tactics to "keep OEM's in line".
That in under a minutes googling. Now crawl back under a rock troll.
And for people who STILL believe that Java is slow, download eclipse (the url is above, for those of you can't google for it, or even guess it) and have a play...it's written in Java and *GASP* is not only a)amazingly useful, but b)damn snappy, seriously, those people who said Java would never work on the desktop because its too slow, they can start eating their hats.
Plus, I just did a job search for c++ vs. Java on a uk job site and guess what, the number of results returned was nearly identical, so by the look of things, lots of people and companies use Java. IMHO, for enterprise n-tiered applications its the shiznitz.
The reason that Java can be faster is because you can do some really nifty optimisations during runtime with the latest JIT compilers that are impossible (or at least monumentally difficult) to do with compile c/c++ code.
In closing: Here is another benchmark...maybe because he has a domain name you'll trust him more?
...at the time, the only other options (real options, not unteseted on large installations) were IChat and Volano, which both cost lots.
So, I wrote one in Java. And I've kept updating it, it's pretty nice, fully skinnable Applet (to fit in with look and feel of website), uses the Non-Blocking java.nio classes (i.e., no more need for 1 thread per connection, so it scales VERY well, at least 10000 concurrent connections is what I've tested up to), has an SSL web server built in for the admininstration interface, and my company offers a hosted version for 120 setup and 7.50 per month after that:o)
As for the speed of Java, why do people still push around this piece of FUD? With dynamic optimisations Java is starting to rival the Speed of compiled code, sometimes even beating it. No, I don't have any benchmarks to hand, since benchmarks are the Root of all Evil(tm)
True, you cannot share the source code to the Java Platform. Welcome to the Real World(tm), not everything is free, some companies *gasp* actually want to keep some things proprietary, be thankful we have the source to play with/port to other systems at all.
I see you have been modded as a troll since I started writing this, I'm still going to post it, just so others who think along the same lines as you can get the facts.
Why should authors have to code for a commercial Unix offering that has a dwindling installed userbase? If SCO wants things like nmap, apache et al to run on their systems, they should do something similar to the FreeBSD ports system, i.e. user contributed patches to get it to compile and run properly.
ZoneAlarm has a free version (for non-commercial use), as does Kerio (Personal Firewall).
Requiring a firewall is *always* a sign that you are either using broken software or you have misconfigured your software.
No, it's a sign that you are a realist. Whatever patches you download for windows, theres still the RPC ports open, and when know the trouble they've caused recently.
In addition to this, what if the user opens an attachment that just happens to be a trojan that captures their every key-stroke (including their personal banking passwords and/or credit card no's), connects to the internet and sends this information to the nefarious script kiddie who mailed it out.
With something like ZoneAlarm in place the trojan would be detected as it tries to phone home.
I do not use firewalls on any of the systems I run. There is no reason to do so if the system is properly configured.
Sorry, but that's absolute bullshit. Operating systems are inherently complex pieces of software that will (despite developers best efforts) contain security vulnerabilities somewhere. Sure, once reported and fixed you can download a patch...but what about the black hats who do not report bugs like this, it gives them a nice window of opportunity.
They may have sought a license from Roland, but I think the reason you guys have been having problems is that your software needs the ROM file from an MT-32, whilst programs like REBirth and all of the Native Instruments ones are a complete simulation of the sound-making circuitry of these old synths...i.e. they use mathematical models of the way the old circuitry worked to emulate the sound.
It's basically pyshical modelling, albeit easier than doing it for a real instrument (i.e. Trumpet, Flute) because its not having to generate the nuances and harmonic distortion that real instruments have as part of their unique make-up.
For stuff that emulates real instruments look no further than some of the software that IRCAM, the amazing state-funded audio research institute located underground (how cool is that?!?) beneath the Centre Georges Pompidou (really ugly modern building) in Paris. My old Music Teacher came to Europe to study there under Pierre Boulez (all you musos know who he is) and said the place is amazing, loads of custom equipment in the studios, a huge performance space that can have its acoustics changed easily etc. They never got any much sleep though, teaching was 16 hours a day, and the rest of the time the students were allowed to use the studios free of charge!:o)
...the big suppliers of storage devices etc. (which seem to have banded together already) should go to the government and say...
"Sure...agree to a 20% hike in prices, none of which will go to us. Oh, by the way, you know all of the computer hardware you buy from us to run your government? Well, we're going to be slapping a 200% idiot charge on top".
Seriously, couldn't big business "lobby" the government (i.e. bend em over and take em from behind?!?).
...as you say, you chose to be vulnerable when you chose a Microsoft platform.
I dont understand why anybody trusts Microsoft anymore. All the time we hear the same old bullshit, how the next product is going to be great, fix all of the problems, be secure...HOW...ITS ALL BASED ON THE SAME CODE...and PHB's lap it up. How about, PHB's dont tell us how to do our jobs (what to spec) and we don't tell them how to do theirs (whoops! ok...starting........now!)
...seriously, how cool would that be? A live webcasted (or even televised) debate between these two men on the "relative merits of copyright, copyleft, GPL etc.", McBride would come out looking like a fool who doesn't know the first thing about what he was prattling on about (for a change), shareholders would panic, stock would plumit and maybe this whole debacle could start drawing to a close.
Of course, thats the very reason its not going to happen *sigh*.
I'm half expecting Gartner group or Microsoft or some such other party to now step forward and say..."SEE! They have to have their code holding servers open to the net so that their distributed developer base can update and add to the source, the open source model is inherently flawed, as these break ins have proven! When all of your developers are working on an internal network like at Microsoft this could never happen!".
Not to sound all tinfoil hat or anything, but this could be another prong in the whole anti OSS FUD campaign.
Because he's not talking about spamming, he's talking about people who get infected with these viruses that have their own SMTP transports. These can be used to send the worm/trojan/virus/backdoor to everyone on the persons buddy list, or be used as a smtp relay for spammers nefarious purposes, like a web of HTTP proxies but for mail.
They post private information about themselves, e-mail address, AIM username, that kind of thing. Somehow, it falls into the hands of a paedophile who uses the info to get a headstart on grooming the kid (they probably will already know about the kids hobbies etc. from reading the site).
They may post stuff that is defametory and/or libellous. They don't like/get bullied by a kid at school, so call him a poopyhead - parent of said child reads it, ISP gets notified and not only removes it but cuts off their internet access. Poopyheads parents sue for emotional trauma their son suffered.
They may post illegal content or software/music/movie clips. Most 7 year olds don't understand the ins and outs of copyright law, fair use etc. (by the sounds of things, neither to a lot of adults, but thats by the by). RIAA/MPAA/Scientologists contact ISP who remove content, cut off internet. Family and or child then gets sued for $Megabucks.00 and ends up on slashdot, as does the ISP, who promptly go bankrupt after the enevitable slashdotting. Ex CEO of said ISP comes after you after he curiously gets the notion that its your fault the parent poster let his 7 year old kid post stuff to the internet
Ok...maybe not the second half of the last one.
So theres a few off the top of my head, I'm sure you can come up with more.
...I work with my brother in our business, the main offices down in london are fully manned, but I'm running a sattelite office up in the midlands until we expand further up here and I'm working from my room. I love the freedom as you do but I do indeed feel starved for interaction!
Luckily I live with my girlfriend and so have someone else to talk to in the evenings, plus we go out with friends regularly.
Something fantastic happened at the weekend though, I got to man our stall at a trade fair...which is great...because you get to meet literally thousands of potential new customers face-to-face. So basically, what I'm suggesting is take every opportunity to get out and meet clients/potential clients. Instead of doing that spec via e-mail or phone, get your suit on and travel to the offices of the client in question and do it face-to-face. When you're working from home you have to take every opportunity to get out and meet people.
Actually, according to snopes (the link is in another post in this thread) the opening premise of the plot for good will hunting was based on the (true) incident described by the parent poster.
Thats a damn good point, didn't think of that! I assumed it would be a another problem with their dns servers (which are needed by the caches too) mucking things up. Oh well, it seems to be back up now which is all that matters! I always find it funny though that whenever stuffs not working with ntl you can almost always get nthellworld.co.uk up...just shows that lots of people on ntl think it sucks and visit that site to vent/find out whats wrong/find a solution ergo its almost always cached!
Thats strange...I seem to have the internet up just fine! However I was running into a lot of problems with NTL's borked transparent cache last night, so set up a proxy server on one of my dedicated servers over in germany and was able to browse. Ntl offer the worst service I've ever encountered. I've stopped using their dns servers and set up a caching nameserver on my FreeBSD router/firewall it's that bad.
...think about it for a moment. Some searches return mainly academic institutions and not commercial entities. So google might have gone...
"Hmm...if peoples businesses are no longer on the first page what are they going to do? Bingo...they are going to pay for sponsored matches to stay in the game!".
And lo and behold...we have finally found out what should replace ???????? !
Step 1)Create worlds largest and most popular search engine
Step 2)Shaft lots of commercial sites that use the most searched for keywords, causing lots more people to purchase sponsored matches
Step 3)Profit!!!
As the article said, it seems to be only the most popular search terms. Which means probably those that require the highest price per click on their sponsored matches. Now, more people will try for sponsored matches on those keywords, pushing the price up (artificially) high.
We are always warned about the dangers of a monopoly/monoculture, and this is precisely why.
Slashdot Mirror
I've got tinnitus too, and you mentioned the cognitive adaptation, I've found it's possible to suppress the ringing by concentrating on it in a certain way (if you listen to it, it gets louder, if you concentrate on it, it seems to go away, wierd!).
Well, if you want any media that the BBC produce you need real player. In fact, no you don't. You can also use:
* Real Alternative (Media Player Classic with the Real codecs)
* The GPL Helix Player (yes, Real Networks GPL'd a lot of the source, plus give away the binary license for their codecs).
Granted, WMP files just look nicer(tm), but this isn't about technology and formats (or their relative merits), its about allowing manufacturers to choose what they want to include on computers they are building and selling. It shouldn't be up to Microsoft to dictate that. Microsoft simply provide the Operating System (at a decent OEM discount). They should not have the power to dictate what is done with that afterwards (as long as the said action is not illegal). Including another Media player is not illegal, it doesn't damage Microsoft in any way. Ergo, Microsoft, once again, are abusing their monopoly by using strong arm tactics to "keep OEM's in line".
Oh look, these people are patently under 14</sarcasm>
That in under a minutes googling. Now crawl back under a rock troll.
And for people who STILL believe that Java is slow, download eclipse (the url is above, for those of you can't google for it, or even guess it) and have a play...it's written in Java and *GASP* is not only a)amazingly useful, but b)damn snappy, seriously, those people who said Java would never work on the desktop because its too slow, they can start eating their hats.
Plus, I just did a job search for c++ vs. Java on a uk job site and guess what, the number of results returned was nearly identical, so by the look of things, lots of people and companies use Java. IMHO, for enterprise n-tiered applications its the shiznitz.
The reason that Java can be faster is because you can do some really nifty optimisations during runtime with the latest JIT compilers that are impossible (or at least monumentally difficult) to do with compile c/c++ code.
In closing: Here is another benchmark...maybe because he has a domain name you'll trust him more?
http://members.lycos.co.uk/wjgoh/JavavsC.html
Hehe, thanks and all, but I should come clean, I actually just used the preview button. :o)
...at the time, the only other options (real options, not unteseted on large installations) were IChat and Volano, which both cost lots.
:o)
So, I wrote one in Java. And I've kept updating it, it's pretty nice, fully skinnable Applet (to fit in with look and feel of website), uses the Non-Blocking java.nio classes (i.e., no more need for 1 thread per connection, so it scales VERY well, at least 10000 concurrent connections is what I've tested up to), has an SSL web server built in for the admininstration interface, and my company offers a hosted version for 120 setup and 7.50 per month after that
Try doing your homework:
/ java2/download.html
The Java SDK source is indeed available and no, you don't have to pay for it! How else do you think the FreeBSD port of Java works? You can get it from http://wwws.sun.com/software/communitysource/j2se
As for the speed of Java, why do people still push around this piece of FUD? With dynamic optimisations Java is starting to rival the Speed of compiled code, sometimes even beating it. No, I don't have any benchmarks to hand, since benchmarks are the Root of all Evil(tm)
True, you cannot share the source code to the Java Platform. Welcome to the Real World(tm), not everything is free, some companies *gasp* actually want to keep some things proprietary, be thankful we have the source to play with/port to other systems at all.
I see you have been modded as a troll since I started writing this, I'm still going to post it, just so others who think along the same lines as you can get the facts.
Then your problem is sorted, there are SO many ports for FreeBSD that can do that sort of thing...hang on a minute:
/usr/ports/net/bandwidthd
:o)
[SSH's into FreeBSD gateway/firewall]
Here you go:
Try that out for size...behold the Power of FreeBSD ports!
Why should authors have to code for a commercial Unix offering that has a dwindling installed userbase? If SCO wants things like nmap, apache et al to run on their systems, they should do something similar to the FreeBSD ports system, i.e. user contributed patches to get it to compile and run properly.
They cost money.
ZoneAlarm has a free version (for non-commercial use), as does Kerio (Personal Firewall).
Requiring a firewall is *always* a sign that you are either using broken software or you have misconfigured your software.
No, it's a sign that you are a realist. Whatever patches you download for windows, theres still the RPC ports open, and when know the trouble they've caused recently.
In addition to this, what if the user opens an attachment that just happens to be a trojan that captures their every key-stroke (including their personal banking passwords and/or credit card no's), connects to the internet and sends this information to the nefarious script kiddie who mailed it out.
With something like ZoneAlarm in place the trojan would be detected as it tries to phone home.
I do not use firewalls on any of the systems I run. There is no reason to do so if the system is properly configured.
Sorry, but that's absolute bullshit. Operating systems are inherently complex pieces of software that will (despite developers best efforts) contain security vulnerabilities somewhere. Sure, once reported and fixed you can download a patch...but what about the black hats who do not report bugs like this, it gives them a nice window of opportunity.
...with all your commenting you've now put a ruthless dictator into the Slashdot hall of fame.
They may have sought a license from Roland, but I think the reason you guys have been having problems is that your software needs the ROM file from an MT-32, whilst programs like REBirth and all of the Native Instruments ones are a complete simulation of the sound-making circuitry of these old synths...i.e. they use mathematical models of the way the old circuitry worked to emulate the sound.
:o)
It's basically pyshical modelling, albeit easier than doing it for a real instrument (i.e. Trumpet, Flute) because its not having to generate the nuances and harmonic distortion that real instruments have as part of their unique make-up.
For stuff that emulates real instruments look no further than some of the software that IRCAM, the amazing state-funded audio research institute located underground (how cool is that?!?) beneath the Centre Georges Pompidou (really ugly modern building) in Paris. My old Music Teacher came to Europe to study there under Pierre Boulez (all you musos know who he is) and said the place is amazing, loads of custom equipment in the studios, a huge performance space that can have its acoustics changed easily etc. They never got any much sleep though, teaching was 16 hours a day, and the rest of the time the students were allowed to use the studios free of charge!
...the big suppliers of storage devices etc. (which seem to have banded together already) should go to the government and say...
"Sure...agree to a 20% hike in prices, none of which will go to us. Oh, by the way, you know all of the computer hardware you buy from us to run your government? Well, we're going to be slapping a 200% idiot charge on top".
Seriously, couldn't big business "lobby" the government (i.e. bend em over and take em from behind?!?).
...as you say, you chose to be vulnerable when you chose a Microsoft platform.
I dont understand why anybody trusts Microsoft anymore. All the time we hear the same old bullshit, how the next product is going to be great, fix all of the problems, be secure...HOW...ITS ALL BASED ON THE SAME CODE...and PHB's lap it up. How about, PHB's dont tell us how to do our jobs (what to spec) and we don't tell them how to do theirs (whoops! ok...starting........now!)
It may well be holding up, but I bet the bandwidth bills are a bitch.
...seriously, how cool would that be? A live webcasted (or even televised) debate between these two men on the "relative merits of copyright, copyleft, GPL etc.", McBride would come out looking like a fool who doesn't know the first thing about what he was prattling on about (for a change), shareholders would panic, stock would plumit and maybe this whole debacle could start drawing to a close.
Of course, thats the very reason its not going to happen *sigh*.
I'm half expecting Gartner group or Microsoft or some such other party to now step forward and say..."SEE! They have to have their code holding servers open to the net so that their distributed developer base can update and add to the source, the open source model is inherently flawed, as these break ins have proven! When all of your developers are working on an internal network like at Microsoft this could never happen!".
Not to sound all tinfoil hat or anything, but this could be another prong in the whole anti OSS FUD campaign.
Because he's not talking about spamming, he's talking about people who get infected with these viruses that have their own SMTP transports. These can be used to send the worm/trojan/virus/backdoor to everyone on the persons buddy list, or be used as a smtp relay for spammers nefarious purposes, like a web of HTTP proxies but for mail.
Here's a few reasons:
They post private information about themselves, e-mail address, AIM username, that kind of thing. Somehow, it falls into the hands of a paedophile who uses the info to get a headstart on grooming the kid (they probably will already know about the kids hobbies etc. from reading the site).
They may post stuff that is defametory and/or libellous. They don't like/get bullied by a kid at school, so call him a poopyhead - parent of said child reads it, ISP gets notified and not only removes it but cuts off their internet access. Poopyheads parents sue for emotional trauma their son suffered.
They may post illegal content or software/music/movie clips. Most 7 year olds don't understand the ins and outs of copyright law, fair use etc. (by the sounds of things, neither to a lot of adults, but thats by the by). RIAA/MPAA/Scientologists contact ISP who remove content, cut off internet. Family and or child then gets sued for $Megabucks.00 and ends up on slashdot, as does the ISP, who promptly go bankrupt after the enevitable slashdotting. Ex CEO of said ISP comes after you after he curiously gets the notion that its your fault the parent poster let his 7 year old kid post stuff to the internet
Ok...maybe not the second half of the last one.
So theres a few off the top of my head, I'm sure you can come up with more.
...I work with my brother in our business, the main offices down in london are fully manned, but I'm running a sattelite office up in the midlands until we expand further up here and I'm working from my room. I love the freedom as you do but I do indeed feel starved for interaction!
Luckily I live with my girlfriend and so have someone else to talk to in the evenings, plus we go out with friends regularly.
Something fantastic happened at the weekend though, I got to man our stall at a trade fair...which is great...because you get to meet literally thousands of potential new customers face-to-face. So basically, what I'm suggesting is take every opportunity to get out and meet clients/potential clients. Instead of doing that spec via e-mail or phone, get your suit on and travel to the offices of the client in question and do it face-to-face. When you're working from home you have to take every opportunity to get out and meet people.
Actually, according to snopes (the link is in another post in this thread) the opening premise of the plot for good will hunting was based on the (true) incident described by the parent poster.
Thats a damn good point, didn't think of that! I assumed it would be a another problem with their dns servers (which are needed by the caches too) mucking things up. Oh well, it seems to be back up now which is all that matters! I always find it funny though that whenever stuffs not working with ntl you can almost always get nthellworld.co.uk up...just shows that lots of people on ntl think it sucks and visit that site to vent/find out whats wrong/find a solution ergo its almost always cached!
Thats strange...I seem to have the internet up just fine! However I was running into a lot of problems with NTL's borked transparent cache last night, so set up a proxy server on one of my dedicated servers over in germany and was able to browse. Ntl offer the worst service I've ever encountered. I've stopped using their dns servers and set up a caching nameserver on my FreeBSD router/firewall it's that bad.
...think about it for a moment. Some searches return mainly academic institutions and not commercial entities. So google might have gone...
"Hmm...if peoples businesses are no longer on the first page what are they going to do? Bingo...they are going to pay for sponsored matches to stay in the game!".
And lo and behold...we have finally found out what should replace ???????? !
Step 1)Create worlds largest and most popular search engine
Step 2)Shaft lots of commercial sites that use the most searched for keywords, causing lots more people to purchase sponsored matches
Step 3)Profit!!!
As the article said, it seems to be only the most popular search terms. Which means probably those that require the highest price per click on their sponsored matches. Now, more people will try for sponsored matches on those keywords, pushing the price up (artificially) high.
We are always warned about the dangers of a monopoly/monoculture, and this is precisely why.
...it's mostly the mach microkernel with the BSD userland.