Traffic is also caused by one more thing: stupid drivers. Yes, Seattle drivers are probably the most curtious in the country (I live in Seattle, I know), but they are *stupid*. People drive in the left lane at 55mph, go 30 all the way up the freeway onramps... some actually stop on the onramp because they can't find a spot to merge, instead of keeping their speed up and using their signals.
... that it only had like 50.23% of the vote. At one point during the absantee balot counting, it trailed by 3 votes. It wasn't exactly a mandate from the people, or an amazing grassroots landslide of people who thought it would solve all our transportation issues.
I live in Seattle (I even live in West Seattle, so the monorail would benefit me), but I would have much rather had the state-wide transportation bill that failed. That bill would be paid for by a $.09 gas tax, while the monorail benefits only a small number of people and will cost me several hundred dollars a year on my car tabs.
It's possible to scratch, say, a PDA screen, but I've had my Palm m505 for almost a year and so far it's completely scratchless. When using the provided stylus, or even a finger or fingernail, you have to be pretty careless to actually scratch them. Or, you can just sit on them or leave then face down on top of a paperclip.
You took the words right out of my mouth! Yes, it's not that it's too much work, but that the work would be so tiresome that no sane person would do it unless they were getting paid.
Now, if someone wants to go and prove me wrong, then go for it! You will do the Open Source community a great service. Of course, there's more to the TTS than splicing recordings, so good luck with that too. Anyway, I hope I am wrong, but I'll believe it when I see it.
One addendum: the fact that the newest engines use real recordings is exactly the reason why it will be nearly impossible for Open Source engines to approach the quality of commercial versions. The amount of work involved in extracting the raw sounds from recordings is staggering, and it requires full-time commitment from trained experts over the course of many months (not to mention the cost of hiring voice talent). There is no way to avoid the costs involved, and so Open Source alternatives cannot become available without some sort of large grant. Unfortunate.
Another extremely strong competetor to Natural Voices is Speechwork's Speechify. Take the "Speechify Challenge" -- it's still possible to tell which is a real recording and which is the computer, but it is very difficult. Some say it's the best engine available, but I guess that's a matter of personal preference.
I don't know about Open Source TTS, but the commercial versions (AT&T, Speechworks, and others) are sitting on the threshold of truly natural speech. I work in the speech industry, so I follow progress and have seen some of the unreleased demos of upcoming versions. In the next couple years, we can expect amazing things. It won't be long before the Speechify Challenge will truly be impossible to beat.
By the way, for those of you who don't know, the newest and best-sounding engines don't use purely synthesized sounds as older and small-footprint engines do (Festival and Steven Hawking). The engines are built using actual recordings: a "voice actor" will sit in a studio and record dozens of hours of speech, and then, over the course of several months, the recordings are then cut and spliced into individual phonyms, which are reassembled by the engine. This means that the voices actually sound like real people, and the only unrealistic part is the inflection when generating complete sentences. You can order custom voices (for several tens of thousands of dollars) and get a voice that sounds identical to that of your celebrity of choice.
IANALEither, but your #4 argument would apply to trademarks, not copyrights. It's my understanding that with copyrights, they could choose to prosecute whomever they want -- nobody, everybody, or just some people (ie., only the pirates that aren't the CEO's daughter's nephew, or something). They don't lose the copyright if they don't prosecute everybody.
I'm no patent lawyer, but obviously neither are you. Basically, you have a year to file your patent after the first public demonstration.. That's not a calendar year, so a demonstration any time after October 1993 would make the whole thing kosher. Oh yeah, and you can file a provisional application to extend the filing deadline by yet another year.
Exactly. He's taking modular to the extreme, because the idea is to have a hundred different "modular" 1GB hard drives sitting in your mainframe from 1985.
Where does it end? What percentage of an OS's software has to come from a certain source that it must be included in all titles? Shall we call it RedHat Linux/GNU/XFree86/KDE ? Hey, the Gnu tools are replacable... XFree86 doesn't have any real competition, and so it more important than GNU.
I know this is just the same old flamewar being rehashed, but I really think you've made one of the clearest arguments I've heard so far.
they could setup a system to refresh the keys on any encrypted data, say every year or every quarter.
But there would be nothing preventing someone from continuing to hack at the "old" encrypted data. If someone already has the encrypted data, then re-encrypting it won't change that.
Why not just make it a SuperDrive, and get CDRW too?
And then let's add a processor, keyboard, and a couple of USB ports, and.... oh wait, they already have something that can do all that. These newfangled things called laptops:)
Well fine, but if I tell you something is 33 degrees Celcius, and I ask you, "Is it hot?", how do you answer? Yes, no, kind of, a little, pretty hot? If you're a computer, that would basically be from 0 to 1. Yes, some human would have to set a range of temperatures to map to that 0-1 scale (5 degrees is 0, 70 degrees is.9, etc.). But humans would never see the 0-1 value, only the "cold, warm, kind of, pretty hot, hot" value.
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Just because you re-order your phrases doesn't mean it isn't plagiarism (or redundant).
Traffic is also caused by one more thing: stupid drivers. Yes, Seattle drivers are probably the most curtious in the country (I live in Seattle, I know), but they are *stupid*. People drive in the left lane at 55mph, go 30 all the way up the freeway onramps... some actually stop on the onramp because they can't find a spot to merge, instead of keeping their speed up and using their signals.
... that it only had like 50.23% of the vote. At one point during the absantee balot counting, it trailed by 3 votes. It wasn't exactly a mandate from the people, or an amazing grassroots landslide of people who thought it would solve all our transportation issues.
I live in Seattle (I even live in West Seattle, so the monorail would benefit me), but I would have much rather had the state-wide transportation bill that failed. That bill would be paid for by a $.09 gas tax, while the monorail benefits only a small number of people and will cost me several hundred dollars a year on my car tabs.
The sad part is, that won't even be a joke once GWB gets his way...
I'd like to see a camera strapped on the side of one of the cruise missiles. Well, I guess they already have those. Never mind.
m=e/c^2 ... if it has energy, then it (effectively) has mass.
Do I smell a poll topic?
As a million other posts have pointed out, how come people can use Windows remote desktop over dialup with hardly any problems?
It's possible to scratch, say, a PDA screen, but I've had my Palm m505 for almost a year and so far it's completely scratchless. When using the provided stylus, or even a finger or fingernail, you have to be pretty careless to actually scratch them. Or, you can just sit on them or leave then face down on top of a paperclip.
Am I the only one here who absolutely despises the word "fsck"? Just say "fuck" like the rest of us, alright?!
Read my other replies to this thread. It's not that it's technically impossible, but that no one in their right mind would want to do it :)
If you want to prove me wrong, then more power to you!
You took the words right out of my mouth! Yes, it's not that it's too much work, but that the work would be so tiresome that no sane person would do it unless they were getting paid.
Now, if someone wants to go and prove me wrong, then go for it! You will do the Open Source community a great service. Of course, there's more to the TTS than splicing recordings, so good luck with that too. Anyway, I hope I am wrong, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Well, if you want to spend months of your life doing nothing but that... I like Open Source, but I don't know many people who are that dedicated.
One addendum: the fact that the newest engines use real recordings is exactly the reason why it will be nearly impossible for Open Source engines to approach the quality of commercial versions. The amount of work involved in extracting the raw sounds from recordings is staggering, and it requires full-time commitment from trained experts over the course of many months (not to mention the cost of hiring voice talent). There is no way to avoid the costs involved, and so Open Source alternatives cannot become available without some sort of large grant. Unfortunate.
Another extremely strong competetor to Natural Voices is Speechwork's Speechify. Take the "Speechify Challenge" -- it's still possible to tell which is a real recording and which is the computer, but it is very difficult. Some say it's the best engine available, but I guess that's a matter of personal preference.
I don't know about Open Source TTS, but the commercial versions (AT&T, Speechworks, and others) are sitting on the threshold of truly natural speech. I work in the speech industry, so I follow progress and have seen some of the unreleased demos of upcoming versions. In the next couple years, we can expect amazing things. It won't be long before the Speechify Challenge will truly be impossible to beat.
By the way, for those of you who don't know, the newest and best-sounding engines don't use purely synthesized sounds as older and small-footprint engines do (Festival and Steven Hawking). The engines are built using actual recordings: a "voice actor" will sit in a studio and record dozens of hours of speech, and then, over the course of several months, the recordings are then cut and spliced into individual phonyms, which are reassembled by the engine. This means that the voices actually sound like real people, and the only unrealistic part is the inflection when generating complete sentences. You can order custom voices (for several tens of thousands of dollars) and get a voice that sounds identical to that of your celebrity of choice.
I wonder, though, if most people with pace makers are far enough gone already that their doctors just didn't care? :P
IANALEither, but your #4 argument would apply to trademarks, not copyrights. It's my understanding that with copyrights, they could choose to prosecute whomever they want -- nobody, everybody, or just some people (ie., only the pirates that aren't the CEO's daughter's nephew, or something). They don't lose the copyright if they don't prosecute everybody.
I'm no patent lawyer, but obviously neither are you. Basically, you have a year to file your patent after the first public demonstration.. That's not a calendar year, so a demonstration any time after October 1993 would make the whole thing kosher. Oh yeah, and you can file a provisional application to extend the filing deadline by yet another year.
Exactly. He's taking modular to the extreme, because the idea is to have a hundred different "modular" 1GB hard drives sitting in your mainframe from 1985.
Where does it end? What percentage of an OS's software has to come from a certain source that it must be included in all titles? Shall we call it RedHat Linux/GNU/XFree86/KDE ? Hey, the Gnu tools are replacable... XFree86 doesn't have any real competition, and so it more important than GNU.
I know this is just the same old flamewar being rehashed, but I really think you've made one of the clearest arguments I've heard so far.
(I typed that in correctly, but sd seems to add a space before the last semi-colon)
Escaping a right-angle-bracket with > isn't necessary -- you're only required to escape left-angle-brackets.
they could setup a system to refresh the keys on any encrypted data, say every year or every quarter.
But there would be nothing preventing someone from continuing to hack at the "old" encrypted data. If someone already has the encrypted data, then re-encrypting it won't change that.
Why not just make it a SuperDrive, and get CDRW too?
:)
And then let's add a processor, keyboard, and a couple of USB ports, and.... oh wait, they already have something that can do all that. These newfangled things called laptops
Even in your PC, the drive is powered down unless it is actually spinning a disc, and all drives will stop spinning after some inactivity.
Well fine, but if I tell you something is 33 degrees Celcius, and I ask you, "Is it hot?", how do you answer? Yes, no, kind of, a little, pretty hot? If you're a computer, that would basically be from 0 to 1. Yes, some human would have to set a range of temperatures to map to that 0-1 scale (5 degrees is 0, 70 degrees is .9, etc.). But humans would never see the 0-1 value, only the "cold, warm, kind of, pretty hot, hot" value.
Actually, Palm released the first PalmOS 5 units (the Tungsten T/W)on Monday.
:)
Oops, I guess it's time to go get me a new Palm then!