Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)
on
IT Crowd On-line
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· Score: 1
There are no free open video codecs.
You mean that Dirac and Ogg Theora aren't both free and open? Where is your evidence for this? Even MPEG-2 is both free and unpatentable in the EU (temporarily at least).
Rich.
Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)
on
IT Crowd On-line
·
· Score: 1
The irony is that I've been using Linux since 1993, so probably longer than the GP.
It should be possible to run the win32 codec in a 32-bit sub-process (of the 64-bit mplayer binary), but that's a lot of development work for me to do
just to watch the odd silly video from the internet. It'd be better to
encourage companies like C4 to use open codecs - after all it's not
like they appear to be using DRM to "protect" this video.
Rich.
Re:Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)
on
IT Crowd On-line
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· Score: 1
AMD64, not i386.
Rich.
Unplayable here (was: Re:dont wanna stream?)
on
IT Crowd On-line
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· Score: 1
Seems to be in "WMV3" format. Is there any player capable of playing
this on Linux / AMD64?
We use a wiki as our intranet, storing information about all the companies, competitors
and people that we come across and how they relate to each other. Also we have page(s)
for each project we're working on, and a central "tasks" page which lets everyone
know what they're (supposed to be) doing.
It doesn't matter who the dominant OS / company is, the biggest threat to security on anyones computers is the person sitting in front of it.
You can't win a fight against ignorance, misunderstanding or plain stupidity. Microsoft has made some pretty damaging blows and that is commendable.
That's complete nonsense. It's perfectly possible to
make an operating system which runs programs that people
download at random off the internet in a sandbox to
ensure that those programs cannot access or interfere
with other programs or data. The fact that Windows
(or Mac OS X or Linux) doesn't do this at present doesn't mean it can't
be done.
Every digital camera I've ever used (which is only about 5 or 6, so I may be wrong here) has only used short filenames. 'IMG_1234.JPG'. These aren't even covered by the patent. So why do they pay royalties?
The carbon tax causes costs which are currently externalised to be
carried by the people responsible. Energy consumers at the moment
don't pay directly for the costs of extra hurricanes, cancers caused
by pollution, unknown effects from loss of biodiversity, etc.
I really wanted to address your most ludicrous point though:
Personally, I'd like to see 50-75% of money in the US federal budget that we put into Medicaid and Medicare pulled out and spent on energy production. Sure, neglecting the poor and the old sucks, but if we fail to build a modern equivelant of the Hoover Dam(or several such production facilities, in fact), we'll effectively be pulling the plug on our entire country.
Now you won't believe me if I tell you that universal healthcare
like the NHS is actually a great thing to have, so let me tell you
instead why even the laughably tiny healthcare system you have
in the US won't go away any time soon. It's because old people
are more numerous and are much more likely to vote. Young people
are both becoming less common and are much more disinclined to vote.
Therefore policies favour the old.
mplayer on Linux. MPlayer OS X 2 on Mac OS X seems to be a fork and won't
play the same DVDs. The most recent DVD I had problems with was
Tom Hank's vehicle "From the Earth to the Moon". Another is "Onibaba"
Criterion Collection version. Legally purchased DVDs which I can't
play... I blame the stupid DVD consortium of course.
Better DVD playback software (for a UI centered company like Apple, "DVD Player" program blows donkey wang)
A DVD player which doesn't moan about regions and doesn't
prevent you from skipping would be a good start. I know
about VLC and MPlayer OS X, but they don't work well on
all DVDs. I have Region 1 DVDs which I can't even play on my
Mac, but which work fine on my Linux box. This isn't the
way it's supposed to be...
Rich.
Re:Distribution on Windows
on
Why Use GTK+?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Actually, I have many articles on my Wikipedia watchlist, but I tend
to avoid watching "high traffic" articles, because it's far too much
work to verify every edit. I wouldn't consider putting a frequently
vandalised article on my watchlist, because I don't have enough hours
in the day. If all Wikipedia editors are doing the
same, then perhaps some of those articles aren't ask widely
watched as you might think.
I think Wikipedia needs to consider a reputation system so
that editors can vote for good/bad edits and good/bad users and
IP addresses. It works for Slashdot, I can't see why it
wouldn't work for Wikipedia.
The single greatest danger to democracy is as you point out the unelected Council and Commission burocracy, which is a cancer in the EU system.
Our national politicians don't want to touch the problem because it reveals how powerless they are, instead they try to gloss it over and pass the directive as silently as possible.
Actually, I think they rather like it. Our UK government tried to get
the data retention laws
through our Parliament, but they were rejected. No problem!
Instead they laundered them through the European Commission, and when they
come back they "have to be" enacted because "it's an EU directive".
This is the reason why there's such urgency to this matter: the UK
needs to get them through while they hold the presidency of the
EU, but that ends early next year and moves on to (is it Austria or
Finland -- anyway they won't be so keen on these laws).
Well actually in Europe we do have universal taxation and
provision for some of these things, to at least some degree
(healthcare and food in particular), and the system works reasonably
well.
You're saying you never listen to any music at all, and never watch any TV or films at all, and never buy or read books?
Since any music listening / CD purchasing / radio listening / TV watching / film watching / book reading would likely be replaced by a much more efficient Internet model, you'd literally have to be doing none of those things to want to avoid the broadband tax.
Sorry I didn't make it clear in my original posting that compulsory licensing could apply to all forms of sharing.
You sign a restrictive agreement with a cartel that has absolute control over all marketting channels, or you wallow in obscurity forever.
I think you really hit on it there. The cartel has control
over all marketing channels, except one -- the Internet. But
they're desperately trying to gain control over that one.
Think how much better a situation we'd be in if we just had
compulsory licensing for Internet trading. In effect you'd
pay a small tax on your broadband connection, and share
files without limits. A rights collection organisation
would be responsible for periodically analysing the sharing
traffic and working out how to apportion the revenues of
the tax to the artists, in proportion to how many people are
listening or sharing their music.
Bands would actually compete to make better music and
try to get as many people to share and listen to it as freely as
possible.
Modern garbage collectors can either run a separate thread, or do small amounts of collection frequently.
It's also possible to schedule garbage collection in some circumstances - for example by carefully sizing the heap and scheduling garbage collection so it occurs when the machine is idle, these guys have apparently implemented a real time cutting machine on top of a single-threaded garbage collector. I wrote an OpenGL game in OCaml where I scheduled garbage collection to occur between frames, and the game doesn't hang (which would be really annoying in a game as you can probably imagine).
The real problem though is that after the 10th time you do it, implementing reference counting is really uninteresting. I'd rather be getting on with delivering applications.
No idea about Java. Last time I used it which was only 3 years ago, it was still slow, despite what everyone says, and anyway it's a horribly restricted language for real world use.
Slashdot Mirror
There are no free open video codecs.
You mean that Dirac and Ogg Theora aren't both free and open? Where is your evidence for this? Even MPEG-2 is both free and unpatentable in the EU (temporarily at least).Rich.
Rich.
Rich.
Rich.
Rich.
Rich.
It doesn't matter who the dominant OS / company is, the biggest threat to security on anyones computers is the person sitting in front of it.
You can't win a fight against ignorance, misunderstanding or plain stupidity. Microsoft has made some pretty damaging blows and that is commendable.
That's complete nonsense. It's perfectly possible to make an operating system which runs programs that people download at random off the internet in a sandbox to ensure that those programs cannot access or interfere with other programs or data. The fact that Windows (or Mac OS X or Linux) doesn't do this at present doesn't mean it can't be done.
Rich.
Rich.
I really wanted to address your most ludicrous point though:
Personally, I'd like to see 50-75% of money in the US federal budget that we put into Medicaid and Medicare pulled out and spent on energy production. Sure, neglecting the poor and the old sucks, but if we fail to build a modern equivelant of the Hoover Dam(or several such production facilities, in fact), we'll effectively be pulling the plug on our entire country.
Now you won't believe me if I tell you that universal healthcare like the NHS is actually a great thing to have, so let me tell you instead why even the laughably tiny healthcare system you have in the US won't go away any time soon. It's because old people are more numerous and are much more likely to vote. Young people are both becoming less common and are much more disinclined to vote. Therefore policies favour the old.
Rich.
Rich.
Rich.
A DVD player which doesn't moan about regions and doesn't prevent you from skipping would be a good start. I know about VLC and MPlayer OS X, but they don't work well on all DVDs. I have Region 1 DVDs which I can't even play on my Mac, but which work fine on my Linux box. This isn't the way it's supposed to be ...
Rich.
if it depends on 6-8 MB for GTK
Our cross-platform "hello world" program including Gtk is about 300K compressed in total on Windows.
Rich.
I think Wikipedia needs to consider a reputation system so that editors can vote for good/bad edits and good/bad users and IP addresses. It works for Slashdot, I can't see why it wouldn't work for Wikipedia.
Rich.
Rich.
The irony is that page looks terrible.
Rich.
Policy laundering in Europe
Policy laundering in general, and the push for global ID by the Bush administration
Rich.
The single greatest danger to democracy is as you point out the unelected Council and Commission burocracy, which is a cancer in the EU system. Our national politicians don't want to touch the problem because it reveals how powerless they are, instead they try to gloss it over and pass the directive as silently as possible.
Actually, I think they rather like it. Our UK government tried to get the data retention laws through our Parliament, but they were rejected. No problem! Instead they laundered them through the European Commission, and when they come back they "have to be" enacted because "it's an EU directive". This is the reason why there's such urgency to this matter: the UK needs to get them through while they hold the presidency of the EU, but that ends early next year and moves on to (is it Austria or Finland -- anyway they won't be so keen on these laws).
Rich.
http://www.shirky.com/writings/information_price.h tml
Rich.
Since any music listening / CD purchasing / radio listening / TV watching / film watching / book reading would likely be replaced by a much more efficient Internet model, you'd literally have to be doing none of those things to want to avoid the broadband tax.
Sorry I didn't make it clear in my original posting that compulsory licensing could apply to all forms of sharing.
Rich.
Someone parked just slightly outside of the lines is likely to get leeway.
You don't live in London obviously :-)
Rich.
You sign a restrictive agreement with a cartel that has absolute control over all marketting channels, or you wallow in obscurity forever.
I think you really hit on it there. The cartel has control over all marketing channels, except one -- the Internet. But they're desperately trying to gain control over that one.
Think how much better a situation we'd be in if we just had compulsory licensing for Internet trading. In effect you'd pay a small tax on your broadband connection, and share files without limits. A rights collection organisation would be responsible for periodically analysing the sharing traffic and working out how to apportion the revenues of the tax to the artists, in proportion to how many people are listening or sharing their music.
Bands would actually compete to make better music and try to get as many people to share and listen to it as freely as possible.
Rich.
Rich.
It's also possible to schedule garbage collection in some circumstances - for example by carefully sizing the heap and scheduling garbage collection so it occurs when the machine is idle, these guys have apparently implemented a real time cutting machine on top of a single-threaded garbage collector. I wrote an OpenGL game in OCaml where I scheduled garbage collection to occur between frames, and the game doesn't hang (which would be really annoying in a game as you can probably imagine).
The real problem though is that after the 10th time you do it, implementing reference counting is really uninteresting. I'd rather be getting on with delivering applications.
No idea about Java. Last time I used it which was only 3 years ago, it was still slow, despite what everyone says, and anyway it's a horribly restricted language for real world use.
Rich.