Dot boom, Cisco acquires, dot bomb, Cisco dumps. Dot slump, interesting things start to happen.
I'm somewhat familiar with these folks. They are ex PixStream, who one time they were rumored to be about to "do big stuff in video" with Bell (telephone) Canada. PixStream got juicy and suffered "death by acquisition".
I can't help but wonder about the efficacy of trying to legislate/sue/prosecute/harass the file trading software developers and community out of existence. Sure it's good business for lawyers, but it strikes me that, long term, it will be a losing battle. It seems like a big game of whack-a-mole, with the added complexity that every time you hit one, 3 stealthier moles spring up. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a next-generation of far more surreptitious file trading applications/techniques nearing completion. In addition, the recording industry seems to be winning skirmishes at the expense of angering potential customers and the very artists that provide them with the raw material of their business.
To head off the flames, let me say as I have in past posts, that I am against the practice of violating copyright, but also despise the recording industry. I am a proponent of independent artists and independent record companies and alternative business models wherein the artist, consumer, and yes, record company all treat each other fairly and equitably.
Thanks to a momentary lapse of reason (the callous and thoughtless act of giving the 10th planet a ridiculous name), today's astronomers have doomed thousands of potential future astronomers to study business instead. This will be due to the fact that they failed their grade 4 science tests after having spelled the name of that damned planet incorrectly.
The trouble with subjects like this is that one has to write a book in order not to be misunderstood. The discrepancy about which I speak has to do with the fact that ITU-R-BT.601 (Studio Encoding Parameters of Digital Television for Standard 4:3 and Wide-Screen 16:9 Aspect Ratios), loosely referred to as the SDI standard, describes a digital active line time for 525-line television (which is not called NTSC in the digital domain), and 625-line television (not called PAL in the digital domain) that is different than that of the analog NTSC or PAL active line time.
To be more specific, the digital active (or unblanked) line time for both 525 and 625 (under the 601 standard) is 53.33 usec and the pixel time, based on a 13.5 MHz clock (under this standard) is 74.074nsec, yielding a horizontal pixel count of (53.33usec/74.074nsec) = 719.95572 pixels ~= 720 pixels/active line. In contrast, the NTSC standard specs an active line time of 52.7 usec. In the digital processing of analog television, the 74.074nsec pixel time is used again. So, doing the math, we have a pixel count of (52.7 usec/74.074nsec ) = 711.450711 pixels ~= 712 pixels/active line. PAL specs an active line time of 52 usec. Doing the math, we have a pixel count of (52 usec/74.074nsec ) = 702.000702 pixels ~= 702 pixels/active line. Yes, I erroneously gave the PAL number in my original post - my bad - I did it from memory and the last time I dealt with it was about 3 years ago.
There are other discrepancies explained in my original post that I can't locate, like why we say that NTSC is 30 frames/sec when it is in fact 29.97 frames/sec, why we say there a 2 fields in PAL, but a 4-field sequence, why we sometimes say that there are 486 and sometimes 487 active lines in NTSC (and 576/577 in PAL), but as I said, I can't find it and it's too far off-topic to write again.
I even tried Google but no luck... ntsc scanlines [google.com]
Not what I was talking about! I was trying to use google to find my AC post at Slashdot (where I gave a complete overview of the numbers, the math and the cause of the discrepancies) because the Slashdot search engine is so lame.
Ouch - you are absolutely correct -> it's 525! The other numbers I gave are OK, though.
I worked in broadcast video graphics (equipment) design (NTSC PAL and SECAM) for many years and know those and a lot of other numbers (that few would care about) in my sleep. But sometimes my fingers and brain have a disconnect. And yes, I most likely accidentally summoned the PAL visible number (since it's 576 + 2 half-lines = 577).
In my defense, I was simultaneously trying to use the Slashdot search engine (the lamest search engine I've ever used) to try to find a post from my AC days which details the why's and wherefore's of the numbers (like why the 720 vs. 702 discrepancy). I even tried Google but no luck - I give up.
NTSC (digital) is spec'd 720*577 (including vertical blanking) for a full frame (2 fields). The visible area is spec'd 720*487 for a full frame. In reality and for your purposes, it's ~702*486 for a full frame. Scan rate is 30 frames/sec or 60 (interlaced) fields/sec.
Yeah, yeah, I RTFA after I posted that. But on the plus side, I got it right. I should have put a bit more BS around my reply and then I could be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and get lots of pretty research money.
Don't you mean [porn] -> [PC], or do you work on the production side?
Also, I think that either way would be an indirect connection and that the rate of indirect connection would be inversely proportional to the rate of direct connection.
I'm certain that genetics will have a great deal more to do with the field of medicine in the future. I'm not sure why you bring up drugs, except as an inference (there is no reference to drugs in the item). Anyway the "article" is not about drugs nor is it about Genetics, the science. It is a thinly veiled advertisement for Venter's business; a press release and sales pitch disguised as news. It is designed to appeal to the egos of the rich, while suggesting to everyone that it is for the good of all humankind. Bah.
I for one, cannot conceive of a better way for some rich moron to spend a half-million dollars than on another monument an over-inflated ego: "Fuck all the starving people in the world, I've got me a CD of my DNA sequence". And this appears under CNN's Health section, to boot. Shouldn't it be under their "What Dumb Assholes with Too Much Money Do" (or Investment) section?
That's a reason why the US can't join the European Union.
I would have thought that the fact that a country is not in Europe would have some bearing on their eligibility. Or is this some sort of 'virtual' Europe of which you speak?
"The judge decided what was already known: The DMCA is unclear. Suddenly, not much happened. Then, nobody made a decision. Finally, nobody knows when somebody will."
Big frickin' deal. Please go back over yesterday's submissions editors. I gave you something much more interesting to post.
The following is highly subjective, but I do a great deal of searching.
Background: Among other things, I am always trying to discover music from independent (especially blues) artists that post mp3's of their stuff on the web. I have been boycotting the major record labels 100% for about 15 years (hooray for independents!) for several reasons: 1: CD prices have always been a rip-off, 2: most major label artists suck, 3: I have worked in music business (artist/bands/production) and detest the industry for the way that it exploits artists, 4: I have always loved discovering talented "unknowns" and turning other people on to them. I went through a new music dry spell until the web started to become a vehicle for independent artists to promote themselves.
It's amazing what's out there now - I've found great artists from all over the Americas, Europe, Australia, Russia and even a few from Asia. I have found a lot of crap, too. The mp3 search engines are essentially useless for this purpose (I don't want major label music) and I have never used Napster or any of the off-spring. Links pages are more often out of date than not and webrings have similar problems. I have contrived several search techniques that try to exploit the strengths of search engines and the likely information on an artist's site. One very simple one is to look for "mp3 +(insert name of a well-known blues standard) -(a lot of keywords to exclude the many sites that put "mp3" on every page that simply lists a song title just to pull in traffic) -(specific sites that pollute the searches)", to find artists that cover the song and also have their own tunes.
I have been a proponent of Google for many years. It came along just as I really started to dislike Altavista and I was an almost instant convert. But I am always on the lookout for a backup or something better. I have tried Teoma several times in the last year (as recently as last night), but I'm not terribly impressed. I find its interface and the way it presents results simplistic and dumbed down and it appears to have indexed far less of the web than Google. I got turned off Lycos years ago, when it seemed to want to become another portal/Yahoo (as if we need another one).
The one search engine that I do use as a regular alternative to Google is Alltheweb. For one thing, IMO, its advanced search is currently better than Google's (I swear that I have brought Google to its knees by entering too many keywords - it stops responding and is inaccessible for several minutes thereafter - this has happened several times). When I've done back to back comparisons with Google, Alltheweb seems to fare pretty well and seems to find more international pages than Google. The difference in top rankings can also be useful. Google has some nice features that Alltheweb does not, such as the elimination of duplicate pages.
For one-stop searching, I find Google best for me, but Alltheweb is a good alternative.
I refused to join any forum that would have me as a member.
For a couple of years I lived the occasional lurker/AC life here. But I got tired of existing below the surface (and it smells pretty bad down there). So I joined, and since then, my working efficiency has dropped 30%, my wife left me, and my company went under. WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?
Anyway, Happy 5th Birthday to one of the most stimulating, aggravating, interesting, annoying, informative, uninformed, thought-provoking, thoughtless, passionate, lame, exciting, dull, energetic, chaotic, useful, time-wasting, superior, inferior, thoughtful... sites on the 'net.
(Walks away and mutters to self "Must not waste time at Slashdot, must not waste time at Slashdot, must not waste time at Slashdot...")
P.S. - It turns out that Google considers Slashdot a news site. Two days ago, Google's News section listed the Slashdot item on the Dragon Chip on it's dynamically generated main Sci/Tech page . Amusingly, the People's Daily item, upon which the whole Slashdot discussion was based, appeared below the Slashdot item.
Wouldn't that be flauting the judgement, as the court case was over the flaunting of the fixing of retail prices?
I don't think that there was a judgement - this appears to be an out-of-court settlement. So all that happened here is that the two sides sat down and negotiated an agreement acceptable to both.
I would hope this would be $75.7mil worth of printed CD costs. In this case they could still rub a lot of noses in the dirt by printing $75mil worth of Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys.
I doubt that. They wouldn't want to dilute the retail value of their prized possessions.
I wonder if there's also going to be a clause on whether the product has to be of recent or popular music? Perhaps they will just use this as an opportunity to dump $75mil worth of inventory that didn't sell.
Call me a cynic, but my guess is that the record industry will find the cheapest, sleaziest way possible to fulfill their part of the agreement. After all, they have a reputation as dirtbags to maintain.
A cash refund in some form would be nicer, though I'm not sure how it would be dispersed ($5 return with all new CD's for the next X period?)
The $75.7 million in CDs is to go to public and non-profit groups. Unless you're one of those, you won't see any benefit from that. The only change that I suspect you might see from the overall settlement is a greater range in pricing at the retail level, since the record industry ostensibly agreed to stop price-fixing.
Sorry to reply to my own post, but I have made a serious error in my calculations - I forgot to include the artists' royalties that they'll have to pay. So, instead of $1,114,000.00 cost to the record industry, make that $1,114,003.65. My apologies for the oversight.
and distribute $75.7 million in CDs to public and non-profit groups
I don't see the words "for free" in that sentence, but we're not writing a contract, so let's assume that it is implied.
Want to bet that the $75.7 million is at RETAIL prices? Since it probably costs the record industry about $0.25 to manufacture and ship each CD, and assuming for argument's sake a retail price of $16.99, it's really more like a total cost to the record industry of [$75.7 million / $16.99 retail * $0.25] ~= $1.114 million ~= a single record company exec's annual entertainment budget. Furthermore, they'll probably use production overruns and be able to write some of the costs off.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry for the lack of clarity (party too long, night too short, coffee too weak). I was referring to VideoLocus
I'm somewhat familiar with these folks. They are ex PixStream, who one time they were rumored to be about to "do big stuff in video" with Bell (telephone) Canada. PixStream got juicy and suffered "death by acquisition".
To head off the flames, let me say as I have in past posts, that I am against the practice of violating copyright, but also despise the recording industry. I am a proponent of independent artists and independent record companies and alternative business models wherein the artist, consumer, and yes, record company all treat each other fairly and equitably.
It's probably not a good time to be a monkey with a typewriter either.
Thanks to a momentary lapse of reason (the callous and thoughtless act of giving the 10th planet a ridiculous name), today's astronomers have doomed thousands of potential future astronomers to study business instead. This will be due to the fact that they failed their grade 4 science tests after having spelled the name of that damned planet incorrectly.
The trouble with subjects like this is that one has to write a book in order not to be misunderstood. The discrepancy about which I speak has to do with the fact that ITU-R-BT.601 (Studio Encoding Parameters of Digital Television for Standard 4:3 and Wide-Screen 16:9 Aspect Ratios), loosely referred to as the SDI standard, describes a digital active line time for 525-line television (which is not called NTSC in the digital domain), and 625-line television (not called PAL in the digital domain) that is different than that of the analog NTSC or PAL active line time.
To be more specific, the digital active (or unblanked) line time for both 525 and 625 (under the 601 standard) is 53.33 usec and the pixel time, based on a 13.5 MHz clock (under this standard) is 74.074nsec, yielding a horizontal pixel count of (53.33usec/74.074nsec) = 719.95572 pixels ~= 720 pixels/active line. In contrast, the NTSC standard specs an active line time of 52.7 usec. In the digital processing of analog television, the 74.074nsec pixel time is used again. So, doing the math, we have a pixel count of (52.7 usec/74.074nsec ) = 711.450711 pixels ~= 712 pixels/active line. PAL specs an active line time of 52 usec. Doing the math, we have a pixel count of (52 usec/74.074nsec ) = 702.000702 pixels ~= 702 pixels/active line. Yes, I erroneously gave the PAL number in my original post - my bad - I did it from memory and the last time I dealt with it was about 3 years ago.
There are other discrepancies explained in my original post that I can't locate, like why we say that NTSC is 30 frames/sec when it is in fact 29.97 frames/sec, why we say there a 2 fields in PAL, but a 4-field sequence, why we sometimes say that there are 486 and sometimes 487 active lines in NTSC (and 576/577 in PAL), but as I said, I can't find it and it's too far off-topic to write again.
I even tried Google but no luck ... ntsc scanlines [google.com]
Not what I was talking about! I was trying to use google to find my AC post at Slashdot (where I gave a complete overview of the numbers, the math and the cause of the discrepancies) because the Slashdot search engine is so lame.
That's all and good night.
I worked in broadcast video graphics (equipment) design (NTSC PAL and SECAM) for many years and know those and a lot of other numbers (that few would care about) in my sleep. But sometimes my fingers and brain have a disconnect. And yes, I most likely accidentally summoned the PAL visible number (since it's 576 + 2 half-lines = 577).
In my defense, I was simultaneously trying to use the Slashdot search engine (the lamest search engine I've ever used) to try to find a post from my AC days which details the why's and wherefore's of the numbers (like why the 720 vs. 702 discrepancy). I even tried Google but no luck - I give up.
Thanks for the backup.
NTSC (digital) is spec'd 720*577 (including vertical blanking) for a full frame (2 fields). The visible area is spec'd 720*487 for a full frame. In reality and for your purposes, it's ~702*486 for a full frame. Scan rate is 30 frames/sec or 60 (interlaced) fields/sec.
Yeah, yeah, I RTFA after I posted that. But on the plus side, I got it right. I should have put a bit more BS around my reply and then I could be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and get lots of pretty research money.
Don't you mean [porn] -> [PC], or do you work on the production side?
Also, I think that either way would be an indirect connection and that the rate of indirect connection would be inversely proportional to the rate of direct connection.
Lots of nice research money.
Both are good ways to spread a virus.
I'm certain that genetics will have a great deal more to do with the field of medicine in the future. I'm not sure why you bring up drugs, except as an inference (there is no reference to drugs in the item). Anyway the "article" is not about drugs nor is it about Genetics, the science. It is a thinly veiled advertisement for Venter's business; a press release and sales pitch disguised as news. It is designed to appeal to the egos of the rich, while suggesting to everyone that it is for the good of all humankind. Bah.
I for one, cannot conceive of a better way for some rich moron to spend a half-million dollars than on another monument an over-inflated ego: "Fuck all the starving people in the world, I've got me a CD of my DNA sequence". And this appears under CNN's Health section, to boot. Shouldn't it be under their "What Dumb Assholes with Too Much Money Do" (or Investment) section?
I would have thought that the fact that a country is not in Europe would have some bearing on their eligibility. Or is this some sort of 'virtual' Europe of which you speak?
I have that problem,too, but taking a couple of Tums usually does the trick.
I meant "...submissions, editors..."
"The judge decided what was already known: The DMCA is unclear. Suddenly, not much happened. Then, nobody made a decision. Finally, nobody knows when somebody will."
Big frickin' deal. Please go back over yesterday's submissions editors. I gave you something much more interesting to post.
Background: Among other things, I am always trying to discover music from independent (especially blues) artists that post mp3's of their stuff on the web. I have been boycotting the major record labels 100% for about 15 years (hooray for independents!) for several reasons: 1: CD prices have always been a rip-off, 2: most major label artists suck, 3: I have worked in music business (artist/bands/production) and detest the industry for the way that it exploits artists, 4: I have always loved discovering talented "unknowns" and turning other people on to them. I went through a new music dry spell until the web started to become a vehicle for independent artists to promote themselves.
It's amazing what's out there now - I've found great artists from all over the Americas, Europe, Australia, Russia and even a few from Asia. I have found a lot of crap, too. The mp3 search engines are essentially useless for this purpose (I don't want major label music) and I have never used Napster or any of the off-spring. Links pages are more often out of date than not and webrings have similar problems. I have contrived several search techniques that try to exploit the strengths of search engines and the likely information on an artist's site. One very simple one is to look for "mp3 +(insert name of a well-known blues standard) -(a lot of keywords to exclude the many sites that put "mp3" on every page that simply lists a song title just to pull in traffic) -(specific sites that pollute the searches)", to find artists that cover the song and also have their own tunes.
I have been a proponent of Google for many years. It came along just as I really started to dislike Altavista and I was an almost instant convert. But I am always on the lookout for a backup or something better. I have tried Teoma several times in the last year (as recently as last night), but I'm not terribly impressed. I find its interface and the way it presents results simplistic and dumbed down and it appears to have indexed far less of the web than Google. I got turned off Lycos years ago, when it seemed to want to become another portal/Yahoo (as if we need another one).
The one search engine that I do use as a regular alternative to Google is Alltheweb. For one thing, IMO, its advanced search is currently better than Google's (I swear that I have brought Google to its knees by entering too many keywords - it stops responding and is inaccessible for several minutes thereafter - this has happened several times). When I've done back to back comparisons with Google, Alltheweb seems to fare pretty well and seems to find more international pages than Google. The difference in top rankings can also be useful. Google has some nice features that Alltheweb does not, such as the elimination of duplicate pages.
For one-stop searching, I find Google best for me, but Alltheweb is a good alternative.
"Disraeli was pretty close: actually, there are Lies, Damn lies, Statistics, Benchmarks, and Delivery dates"
I propose that it be amended to :
Disraeli was pretty close: actually, there are Lies, Damn lies, Statistics, Benchmarks, Delivery dates, and anything that the RIAA or MPAA says.
Any seconds?
For a couple of years I lived the occasional lurker/AC life here. But I got tired of existing below the surface (and it smells pretty bad down there). So I joined, and since then, my working efficiency has dropped 30%, my wife left me, and my company went under. WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?
Anyway, Happy 5th Birthday to one of the most stimulating, aggravating, interesting, annoying, informative, uninformed, thought-provoking, thoughtless, passionate, lame, exciting, dull, energetic, chaotic, useful, time-wasting, superior, inferior, thoughtful ... sites on the 'net.
(Walks away and mutters to self "Must not waste time at Slashdot, must not waste time at Slashdot, must not waste time at Slashdot ...")
P.S. - It turns out that Google considers Slashdot a news site. Two days ago, Google's News section listed the Slashdot item on the Dragon Chip on it's dynamically generated main Sci/Tech page . Amusingly, the People's Daily item, upon which the whole Slashdot discussion was based, appeared below the Slashdot item.
I don't think that there was a judgement - this appears to be an out-of-court settlement. So all that happened here is that the two sides sat down and negotiated an agreement acceptable to both.
I would hope this would be $75.7mil worth of printed CD costs. In this case they could still rub a lot of noses in the dirt by printing $75mil worth of Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys.
I doubt that. They wouldn't want to dilute the retail value of their prized possessions.
I wonder if there's also going to be a clause on whether the product has to be of recent or popular music? Perhaps they will just use this as an opportunity to dump $75mil worth of inventory that didn't sell.
Call me a cynic, but my guess is that the record industry will find the cheapest, sleaziest way possible to fulfill their part of the agreement. After all, they have a reputation as dirtbags to maintain.
A cash refund in some form would be nicer, though I'm not sure how it would be dispersed ($5 return with all new CD's for the next X period?)
The $75.7 million in CDs is to go to public and non-profit groups. Unless you're one of those, you won't see any benefit from that. The only change that I suspect you might see from the overall settlement is a greater range in pricing at the retail level, since the record industry ostensibly agreed to stop price-fixing.
Sorry to reply to my own post, but I have made a serious error in my calculations - I forgot to include the artists' royalties that they'll have to pay. So, instead of $1,114,000.00 cost to the record industry, make that $1,114,003.65. My apologies for the oversight.
I don't see the words "for free" in that sentence, but we're not writing a contract, so let's assume that it is implied.
Want to bet that the $75.7 million is at RETAIL prices? Since it probably costs the record industry about $0.25 to manufacture and ship each CD, and assuming for argument's sake a retail price of $16.99, it's really more like a total cost to the record industry of [$75.7 million / $16.99 retail * $0.25] ~= $1.114 million ~= a single record company exec's annual entertainment budget. Furthermore, they'll probably use production overruns and be able to write some of the costs off.
Maybe it's a REALLY BIG spring. I'd just like to know how he attached the spring to the e-mail.