Like anything else in life, there needs to be balance. I honestly don't think a censoring DVD player is a major threat because it's not part of the international specifications for DVDs. If the DVD player was legislated, THEN it would be bad.
But before you go and blame fundamentalist Christians for this, look rationally for a moment. There's still choice in the store to buy a normal DVD player of international specifications. You can still watch R-rated movies in the theater with graphic depictions of sex and violence. There have been regimes that were officially atheist that have banned such films in the past in the name of information control, and those atheist regimes were very extreme (read: Communism).
Therefore, don't be so bold to blame something that is really a choice at this point on a religion. Until the government legislates this change, don't get your panties in such a bunch. Government isn't even involved in this decision yet.
After the "inconclusive evaluation" of the use of cameras last year in a particular area in Edmonton, the police in Edmonton are going to try and "evaluate" them again. What's sickening is that people aren't fighting back against this. Sure, there are crimes committed, but the cameras caught one car theft and one guy holding a gun. That's all for a cost of $46000.
Yes, you read correctly, $46000. That's roughly the cost of putting a cop on the streets for half a year.
Fight back against the use of cameras as much as possible. Otherwise, Big Brother may creep up on us without us realizing it.
I haven't been able to source a working copy of this game since 1995 - at least not one that will run under the later versions of Windows. Anyone know?
If you want very specialized fast floating point performance for certain scientific applications, Itanium is where it's at.
If you want business performance, a multi-processor Opteron trumps them all.
If you want super fast video and audio encoding, a dual Xeon with hyperthreading will probably kill all of these.
If you want the fastest mobile processor with good battery life, Centrino is the way to go.
If you want the fastest computing cluster, you'd probably have to go with UVA's Mac cluster.
All of the above are probably temporarily in those positions and subject to considerable debate. I hate these "fastest computer ever" statements. Computing is far too dynamic and varied to put all-encompassing labels on. No one platform is ideally suited for all tasks. You make compromises and go from there.
I hope you understand my real point in this headline instead of modding me down.
Instead of letting Life of Brian stand on its own, you just have to draw the the comparison between the Passion and proudly declare the the seasonal alternative. If I didn't know better, your end statement seems to imply you feel very threatened by Passion and comforted by Life of Brian.
Here's a small hint: live and let live. Nobody is forcing you to watch Passion. For a lot of geeks, the release of Passion would've been just as big a news item as this, but it has a snowball's chance on a blue star of having that happen. If you're not comfortable enough with your beliefs to let Life of Brian stand on its own, or feel that you need to try to counter or bring down the beliefs of others, then you need to address your own personal crisis without dragging all of Slashdot in with you.
No matter what I believe, I recognize your right to believe whatever else you want. You should do the same. Just don't use Slashdot as your religious indoctrination platform. You'd be smart to leave those comments to the comments and not risk losing a small segment of readers who see the comment for what it is and threaten your ad revenue. Most of us don't go around trumpeting our religious beliefs at work, so don't do it here.
A) it's the -R (as we've all come to know -R) equivilent of dual layer technology? What happened to Pioneer's -R DL effort? Does this moot it, add to it, or surpass it? Will Pioneer ALSO release a -R DL format?
Pioneer is still developing a dual layer -R format. The "dash" or "minus" format is the only one sanctioned by the DVD-Forum.
B) Or is this just a marketing name used by Sony for what is in fact the same DL technology used by the +R group, and the discs/drives will be basically interchangeable among the Sony/Philips standard?
It's not quite the same technology. In fact, IIRC, the Dual Layer moniker is apparently not allowed to be used by the DVD+R Alliance due to DVD Forum trademarks. Most modern DVD players should be able to play DVDs from both camps.
C) Will the -R DL discs be readable in set tops or computer drives that cannot read +R/RW media but can read existing dual-layer media?
This is the $64,000 question. They should be optically identical to the player, but whether the media itself is of good enough quality remains to be seen. Probably there should be fewer problems, but the compatibility issue is so small on modern players that it's not worth it. My main concern is long-term longevity, like layer delamination and DVD rot with any writeable dual-layer format.
There are only three recognized formats for audio on DVDs. On PAL DVDs, the compressed format is MPEG-1 Layer 2. On both PAL and NTSC DVDs, PCM (uncompressed digital audio) is used. On NTSC DVDs, the compressed format is Dolby Digital AC-3. The "AAC" you refer to is not the AAC that is sometimes referred to in the MPEG-2 specification; however, MPEG-2 for DVDs is a restricted subset of that specification. In fact, I get paid to show folks how to do this every day, since it's my work.
There's a great FAQ as to the formats for DVD audio.
This is the exact defense one individual I know used when he was accused of breaking into a rural school's computer system about ten years ago. Though this was a criminal charge (and the burden of proof substantially higher), he was easily acquitted because the prosecutor couldn't show that it was him specifically who was breaking into the computer systems.
In like manner, however, I suspect that the house of cards of the recording industry will just as easily fall apart with these civil suits in Canada. If I stupidly misconfigured my wireless or wired router to allow people to essentially walk in, they could easily breach computer security and use my computer to download all manner of goodies. Given what the AVERAGE computer user is (and you all know what the average user is like...), this is more than a plausible defense.
As reader Nekura2025 asks "Um, doesn't that apply to all digital cameras?"
Sure it does...but you need to pick the target with the most money first.
Isn't it time to shut down Son of Therac?
on
Can Software Kill?
·
· Score: 1
Really, between this current set of Theratronics accidents in Panama and the Therac-25 accidents, isn't it time that these monkeys got shut down? They have a history of irresponsible software development that leads to deaths and injuries. At the very least, they should be gutted for their technology and rebuilt from the ground up.
From the EBgames.com website:
If you would like to speak to a Customer Service representative for any reason , please call us at 1-877-432-9675. Hours of operation: Open 7 days a week, 8:00 am to midnight EST.
If enough of us call to let them know about what we think of their policies, they might understand the magnitude of their problem. The call's free folks, and so is 5 minutes of your time on a Sunday.
A summary of that decision is here. The basics of the case are that the defendant used the company name in conjunction with the term "sucks" and Bally sued because the site could "confuse" consumers. Of course, Bally thankfully lost.
Today, there are severalsites that warn about Bally Total Fitness' fraudulent and misrepresentative activities.
You do realize that DVDs today, utilizing only MPEG-2, require payment of royalties to the MPEG-2 Licensing Association. Furthermore, if you enable Macrovision, CSS, or Dolby Digital audio, you are also paying royalties to the respective organizations because they own patents regarding these technologies. See Section 6.1 of the DVD Demystified FAQ for details.
Neither MPEG-2 nor the other technologies that are part of the DVD standard are free (save for possibly PCM audio). Furthermore, the hardware royalties are quite nominal as shown by the proliferation of DVD players, on the order of less than a dollar as the FAQ shows clearly. MPEG-4 Part 10 (aka H.264) and MPEG-2 are still available for use in authoring DVDs. Nobody is forcing anyone to use WMV9 if they don't want to. Just because Microsoft's CODEC is included in the standard doesn't mean that they're taking over anything. It's not mandatory.
...is that Sun allows Java to wallow in limbo until its development becomes unsustainable and people start using other languages and development environments like.NET, and then make it open source because it became a black hole for them.
I mean, Sun could still have a vested interest in an open source Java and still derive revenue from custom design services and support while displacing the Beast. It isn't even like the implementation is a trade secret. Heck, the Beast has developed Java bytecode interpreters in the past. But the Beast would love to displace Java with.NET as a universal development language. You can bet diamonds to dollars that Microsoft will never open source their version though.
Hence, Sun has a great opportunity here. Will they see it?
Anyone can build inherent redundancy into data. In fact, CDs have inline Reed-Solomon encoding so that they can resist scratches as large as 4000 consecutive bits. The real question is how long the physical media itself will last. Given that CDs can degrade in as little as two years, how long will this last?
Again, you gave some very useful related information, but you're not really answering my question. These questions need to be answered by those developing the technology.
One of my primary concerns regarding media and my clients is the longevity of the media. Particularly with writable media, exposure to excessive heat, light, humidity, mechanical stress and other environmental factors can significantly impair the life of this media. The article makes no effort to address this issue, yet it is an issue of critical importance to users of all media.
I'm not trying to be cynical and cast undue doubt, but we need to have some type of affirmative response regarding this issue from the developers of what could be a very important technology in the future.
My high school physics teacher made us do this
on
Comic Book Physics
·
· Score: 1
Our term papers in Physics from Grades 10 to 12 required us to present information on a physics topic using a creative method. You weren't allowed to simply write your findings down on paper; you actually had to do it in the form of a skit, song, art, or whatever other creative form. The purpose of it was to see if we really understood what we were talking about and to be able to convey information in non-standard ways.
Between physics and high school calculus, that woman saved my ass when I went to university because I was so well prepared to deal with the realities of applied physics. A lot of other folks didn't make it through first year of engineering, and I figure that was part of the reason.
It's worse when you find CODE errors
on
Hack Your Car
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I knew a guy back at school in my undergrad who was insane. The biggest geek and hack you could meet, but a very genuine guy. His mom owned a Suzuki, and he pulled the engine control computer PROM and read it. He managed to reverse-engineer the code and actually found errors in it that would make the engine run non-optimally under certain idle conditions! He then modified the code to correct it and burned a new PROM. His mom actually said that the car ran a bit smoother from that point on.
When you have to fix a manufacturer's coding mistake, it's a pretty sad situation. For the privileged few, it's a very nice and interesting hobby.
My brother owns an Aspire 2002, and it's been a great little laptop. Excellent durability, excellent battery life, and a killer WUXGA screen. The biggest bonus is that it comes from the factory as a dual-boot system with an "instant-on" Linux so you can watch DVDs and listen to MP3s without booting into Windows.
I can see how most geeks would shun the Ferrari laptop, though. For most/.ers, I'd suspect their philosophy is function before form, both in computers and in style. More power to Acer if a Ferrari logo and an engine sound in the BIOS help it sell more laptops. After all, it is a business.
Slashdot Mirror
Like anything else in life, there needs to be balance. I honestly don't think a censoring DVD player is a major threat because it's not part of the international specifications for DVDs. If the DVD player was legislated, THEN it would be bad.
But before you go and blame fundamentalist Christians for this, look rationally for a moment. There's still choice in the store to buy a normal DVD player of international specifications. You can still watch R-rated movies in the theater with graphic depictions of sex and violence. There have been regimes that were officially atheist that have banned such films in the past in the name of information control, and those atheist regimes were very extreme (read: Communism).
Therefore, don't be so bold to blame something that is really a choice at this point on a religion. Until the government legislates this change, don't get your panties in such a bunch. Government isn't even involved in this decision yet.
After the "inconclusive evaluation" of the use of cameras last year in a particular area in Edmonton, the police in Edmonton are going to try and "evaluate" them again. What's sickening is that people aren't fighting back against this. Sure, there are crimes committed, but the cameras caught one car theft and one guy holding a gun. That's all for a cost of $46000.
Yes, you read correctly, $46000. That's roughly the cost of putting a cop on the streets for half a year.
Fight back against the use of cameras as much as possible. Otherwise, Big Brother may creep up on us without us realizing it.
...revenues are down because of "pirate" chips, yet there's a marked decline in originality and an increase in sequels?
This is almost starting to sound like the flailings of the RIAA.
I haven't been able to source a working copy of this game since 1995 - at least not one that will run under the later versions of Windows. Anyone know?
How many hours did it take Hatch and Leahy to scour a thesaurus for words to be able to spell a meaningful phrase with the letters PIRATE?
If you want very specialized fast floating point performance for certain scientific applications, Itanium is where it's at.
If you want business performance, a multi-processor Opteron trumps them all.
If you want super fast video and audio encoding, a dual Xeon with hyperthreading will probably kill all of these.
If you want the fastest mobile processor with good battery life, Centrino is the way to go.
If you want the fastest computing cluster, you'd probably have to go with UVA's Mac cluster.
All of the above are probably temporarily in those positions and subject to considerable debate. I hate these "fastest computer ever" statements. Computing is far too dynamic and varied to put all-encompassing labels on. No one platform is ideally suited for all tasks. You make compromises and go from there.
I hope you understand my real point in this headline instead of modding me down.
Instead of letting Life of Brian stand on its own, you just have to draw the the comparison between the Passion and proudly declare the the seasonal alternative. If I didn't know better, your end statement seems to imply you feel very threatened by Passion and comforted by Life of Brian.
Here's a small hint: live and let live. Nobody is forcing you to watch Passion. For a lot of geeks, the release of Passion would've been just as big a news item as this, but it has a snowball's chance on a blue star of having that happen. If you're not comfortable enough with your beliefs to let Life of Brian stand on its own, or feel that you need to try to counter or bring down the beliefs of others, then you need to address your own personal crisis without dragging all of Slashdot in with you.
No matter what I believe, I recognize your right to believe whatever else you want. You should do the same. Just don't use Slashdot as your religious indoctrination platform. You'd be smart to leave those comments to the comments and not risk losing a small segment of readers who see the comment for what it is and threaten your ad revenue. Most of us don't go around trumpeting our religious beliefs at work, so don't do it here.
The first one was, of course, Adobe Premiere Pro, which was probably a response to Apple's very strong Final Cut Pro experience.
I don't think that similar app on the Mac side that does this, but do many people really use FrameMaker more than other tools?
A) it's the -R (as we've all come to know -R) equivilent of dual layer technology? What happened to Pioneer's -R DL effort? Does this moot it, add to it, or surpass it? Will Pioneer ALSO release a -R DL format?
Pioneer is still developing a dual layer -R format. The "dash" or "minus" format is the only one sanctioned by the DVD-Forum.
B) Or is this just a marketing name used by Sony for what is in fact the same DL technology used by the +R group, and the discs/drives will be basically interchangeable among the Sony/Philips standard? It's not quite the same technology. In fact, IIRC, the Dual Layer moniker is apparently not allowed to be used by the DVD+R Alliance due to DVD Forum trademarks. Most modern DVD players should be able to play DVDs from both camps.
C) Will the -R DL discs be readable in set tops or computer drives that cannot read +R/RW media but can read existing dual-layer media?
This is the $64,000 question. They should be optically identical to the player, but whether the media itself is of good enough quality remains to be seen. Probably there should be fewer problems, but the compatibility issue is so small on modern players that it's not worth it. My main concern is long-term longevity, like layer delamination and DVD rot with any writeable dual-layer format.
There are only three recognized formats for audio on DVDs. On PAL DVDs, the compressed format is MPEG-1 Layer 2. On both PAL and NTSC DVDs, PCM (uncompressed digital audio) is used. On NTSC DVDs, the compressed format is Dolby Digital AC-3. The "AAC" you refer to is not the AAC that is sometimes referred to in the MPEG-2 specification; however, MPEG-2 for DVDs is a restricted subset of that specification. In fact, I get paid to show folks how to do this every day, since it's my work.
There's a great FAQ as to the formats for DVD audio.
However, the AAC standard referred to in the article is part of the MPEG-4 standard, and the MPEG-4 AAC does incorporate the formal MPEG-2 specification's AAC as one part of its capabilities.
That is all.
He probably deletes his Inbox on a regular basis.
This is the exact defense one individual I know used when he was accused of breaking into a rural school's computer system about ten years ago. Though this was a criminal charge (and the burden of proof substantially higher), he was easily acquitted because the prosecutor couldn't show that it was him specifically who was breaking into the computer systems.
In like manner, however, I suspect that the house of cards of the recording industry will just as easily fall apart with these civil suits in Canada. If I stupidly misconfigured my wireless or wired router to allow people to essentially walk in, they could easily breach computer security and use my computer to download all manner of goodies. Given what the AVERAGE computer user is (and you all know what the average user is like...), this is more than a plausible defense.
Alberta has more oil than Saudi Arabia, but most people don't know that, or the way to get at it conveniently since it is stuck in sand.
As reader Nekura2025 asks "Um, doesn't that apply to all digital cameras?" Sure it does...but you need to pick the target with the most money first.
Really, between this current set of Theratronics accidents in Panama and the Therac-25 accidents, isn't it time that these monkeys got shut down? They have a history of irresponsible software development that leads to deaths and injuries. At the very least, they should be gutted for their technology and rebuilt from the ground up.
From the EBgames.com website: If you would like to speak to a Customer Service representative for any reason , please call us at 1-877-432-9675. Hours of operation: Open 7 days a week, 8:00 am to midnight EST.
If enough of us call to let them know about what we think of their policies, they might understand the magnitude of their problem. The call's free folks, and so is 5 minutes of your time on a Sunday.
A summary of that decision is here. The basics of the case are that the defendant used the company name in conjunction with the term "sucks" and Bally sued because the site could "confuse" consumers. Of course, Bally thankfully lost.
Today, there are several sites that warn about Bally Total Fitness' fraudulent and misrepresentative activities.
You do realize that DVDs today, utilizing only MPEG-2, require payment of royalties to the MPEG-2 Licensing Association. Furthermore, if you enable Macrovision, CSS, or Dolby Digital audio, you are also paying royalties to the respective organizations because they own patents regarding these technologies. See Section 6.1 of the DVD Demystified FAQ for details.
Neither MPEG-2 nor the other technologies that are part of the DVD standard are free (save for possibly PCM audio). Furthermore, the hardware royalties are quite nominal as shown by the proliferation of DVD players, on the order of less than a dollar as the FAQ shows clearly. MPEG-4 Part 10 (aka H.264) and MPEG-2 are still available for use in authoring DVDs. Nobody is forcing anyone to use WMV9 if they don't want to. Just because Microsoft's CODEC is included in the standard doesn't mean that they're taking over anything. It's not mandatory.
...is that Sun allows Java to wallow in limbo until its development becomes unsustainable and people start using other languages and development environments like .NET, and then make it open source because it became a black hole for them.
.NET as a universal development language. You can bet diamonds to dollars that Microsoft will never open source their version though.
I mean, Sun could still have a vested interest in an open source Java and still derive revenue from custom design services and support while displacing the Beast. It isn't even like the implementation is a trade secret. Heck, the Beast has developed Java bytecode interpreters in the past. But the Beast would love to displace Java with
Hence, Sun has a great opportunity here. Will they see it?
Anyone can build inherent redundancy into data. In fact, CDs have inline Reed-Solomon encoding so that they can resist scratches as large as 4000 consecutive bits. The real question is how long the physical media itself will last. Given that CDs can degrade in as little as two years, how long will this last?
Again, you gave some very useful related information, but you're not really answering my question. These questions need to be answered by those developing the technology.
One of my primary concerns regarding media and my clients is the longevity of the media. Particularly with writable media, exposure to excessive heat, light, humidity, mechanical stress and other environmental factors can significantly impair the life of this media. The article makes no effort to address this issue, yet it is an issue of critical importance to users of all media.
I'm not trying to be cynical and cast undue doubt, but we need to have some type of affirmative response regarding this issue from the developers of what could be a very important technology in the future.
Our term papers in Physics from Grades 10 to 12 required us to present information on a physics topic using a creative method. You weren't allowed to simply write your findings down on paper; you actually had to do it in the form of a skit, song, art, or whatever other creative form. The purpose of it was to see if we really understood what we were talking about and to be able to convey information in non-standard ways.
Between physics and high school calculus, that woman saved my ass when I went to university because I was so well prepared to deal with the realities of applied physics. A lot of other folks didn't make it through first year of engineering, and I figure that was part of the reason.
I knew a guy back at school in my undergrad who was insane. The biggest geek and hack you could meet, but a very genuine guy. His mom owned a Suzuki, and he pulled the engine control computer PROM and read it. He managed to reverse-engineer the code and actually found errors in it that would make the engine run non-optimally under certain idle conditions! He then modified the code to correct it and burned a new PROM. His mom actually said that the car ran a bit smoother from that point on.
When you have to fix a manufacturer's coding mistake, it's a pretty sad situation. For the privileged few, it's a very nice and interesting hobby.
My brother owns an Aspire 2002, and it's been a great little laptop. Excellent durability, excellent battery life, and a killer WUXGA screen. The biggest bonus is that it comes from the factory as a dual-boot system with an "instant-on" Linux so you can watch DVDs and listen to MP3s without booting into Windows.
/.ers, I'd suspect their philosophy is function before form, both in computers and in style. More power to Acer if a Ferrari logo and an engine sound in the BIOS help it sell more laptops. After all, it is a business.
I can see how most geeks would shun the Ferrari laptop, though. For most