I thought the same thing. This 10,000 Days album is just WAY too hyped. By the way, it comes out in May, and the alleged track listing is as follows:
1. Vicarious
2. Jambi
3. Wings For Marie (Pt 1)
4. 10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)
5. The Pot
6. Lipan Conjuring
7. Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann)
8. Rosetta Stoned
9. Intension
10. Right In Two
11. Viginti Tres
A good site for the latest and rumors about it is http://www.fourtheye.net/ . He's got an RSS Feed up as well.
Using the orbit diagram, it looks like May 3, 2032 is a hit as well, and as for 2104, Nov looks more likely, but, it says on the page itself not to trust the diagram's accuracy for far-off projections. We should trust those rocket scientists more than the diagram programmers...right?;)
Yeah, you are right, it slipped, and thanks for correcting me. I wouldn't want to incite an AC troll's temper with any more insightful, but accidentally misspelled comments, so I'll compliment you: Thanks for reading my post. Your grammar skills are better than mine.
Great post on the problems you ran into. I have lately been examining my own inter-personal skills and find that I fit your description to a tee. Besides your mentioning of, "To understand the common man, you have to walk in their shoes for several miles.." you don't mention any other practical incite or solutions you have used to overcome these issues. I have found that "walking in their shoes" (similar situations) along with placing myself in situations with others as much as possible (putting yourself out there) has been a great way to improve these skills. In other words, learning to be more sociable through experience.
However, there are other ways of improving sociability, to complement "putting oneself out there", like books on the topic, and discussions. Could you elaborate on any other tips you have on the issue and/or mention any good books you have read on the topic?
Regardless of the bad argument that only 18% of games are M rated, a parent still DOES define what is inappropriate, but that does not mean that we shouldn't have a rating system.
A parent should treat the rating system as a means to good parenting, not an end. A parent cannot know about every single game in the video game industry and about all of what it contains. So, the parent makes use of the rating system, for what it is, and then the parent supervises and takes part in the child's gaming to see if there is STILL something in it that is questionable.
To summarize, it is not the parent who makes use of the rating system that is lazy, but the parent who ONLY makes use of it.
Go here for a lot of Raw pics. There are at least 500 images here, I'd say. A lot of the images are very similar, and a lot are not very pretty to the eyes (hazy and blurry). I did notice some slight differences between the "at first glance identical" pics as I went through them in a slideshow viewer.
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~kholso/jpeg/
One thing that Sony had going for them with the PS2 was that it played DVDs as well. A lot of people at the time bought a PS2 because they also didn't have a DVD player. A problem I see with the PSP is that it is too similar in price to a home console, but it doesn't have that "DVD feature" that the PS2 had to get it into the homes of the mass public, for the price. How is Sony going to get people to buy a PSP AND a PS2 or PS3, or if they already have one, buy a PSP and afford the games for BOTH the handheld and the home system? They aren't seriously banking on people making a choice between one or the other, are they? Is there a large enough niche in the gaming market for buyers of JUST a handheld?
I don't know if anyone has ever researched any on the topic, but how many people DO own a Gameboy, but don't own a home console? In other words, do handhelds have a seperate viable market, or is the marketing scheme for the handheld still to piggyback their way in by way of home console owners?
So, say they market the PSP as an alternative to the home console. What does the PSP have as far as TV connectivity? If you can hook it up easily to a television, and there is some kind of multiplayer capability, they might actually have found their niche there, as the quality will be good enough for people to put the money down for one. Kind of like a "console replacement". (The laptop equivalent of a "desktop replacement"). An improved Sega Nomad. Well, kind of like that.
I would bet that the vast majority of potential PSP buyers will be PS2 owners. Will the non-hardcore gamer (Average Joe) be able to afford games for both their PS2, PSP, and eventually their PS3?
It seems like Sony, with their pricing, will be forcing people to go one way or the other with their money, cutting into their own profits, because younger kids are still going to be getting GBAs and DSs. (Younger kids are going to want a home console too, and won't want to make that sarcrifice choosing one or the other. Most parents won't buy BOTH a PSP and a PS2 or PS3 AND games for both.)
Twenty and thirty year olds might be the ones that are a possible market for the PSP; they have the money to afford one and the games, and still have a home console. Maybe there is an untapped handheld market in that age bracket. Realistically, you start competing with the iPod market bracket if that is your primary target! If Sony would built good wireless internet browsing into it, a stylus, and the digital jukebox capacity for music into it, for the same price (to compete with the iPod and Palms) they might REALLY have something.
So, maybe I jumped the gun a little on my judgements and accusations. Regardless, I'd still like to see how it does versus Circle Surround, and hopefully my previous posts were informative. That test I linked to isn't the end all be all, but I commend them for at least putting it out there.
Sorry to reply to my own post, but let me quote their FAQ:
How is the sound quality of MP3 Surround compared to other surround formats?
MP3 Surround provides a multi-channel audio quality that is substantially better than the well-known matrixed multi-channel formats commonly used in today's consumer equipment, if the overall bit rate is chosen high enough (i.e., 160 kbit/s).
Given that this is from the same people that told us that 128kbps is CD Quality, and all we can get out of them is that this is "substantially better", I would be very skeptical.
Besides, they say themselves that there is no hardware out there that can currently decode this, so they are really going to have to convince people with more than it is "substantially better than the well-know matrixed" formats before they can even expect to gain any market share.
All you people keep talking about other formats supporting more channels and such, but you are missing what this technology actually does.
With formats that simply allow more channels, the size of the file increases linearly compared to the number of channels. With this type of surround encoding, which is probably similar to Dolby Pro Logic II and SRS Circle Surround (matrix surround technologies), you do not have more physical individual channels, but instead, the amount of channels and surround information is encoded into a set of LESS physical channels. For instance, you can get 5.1 channels out of a physically stereo signal. This way, you can also take even advantage of the redundancies of the separate channels and compress the audio even more.
I don't know HOW similar this is to Dolby or SRS's technologies, but, with those, you can pass their encodings through ANY lossy encoder, and still retain a good semblance of the original surround integrity. What also tips me off into thinking this is their mentioning of backwards compatibility. This isn't anything new. MP3s encoded with Circle or with Pro Logic will ALSO playback fine in regular mp3 players, obviously also without the surround part.
So, my question then is, "What does MP3 Surround do (or do better) that Circle or Pro Logic doesn't do?"
If this is basically just Fraunhofer and Thomson's own version of Circle Surround or Pro Logic II is it enough of an increase in quality to make people go and buy a new receiver that supports it over their "old" one that already supports Pro Logic II or Circle Surround?
Wishful thinking here, but maybe on the content creator side, the MP3 Surround CODEC will be cheaper than the Pro Logic II or Circle Surround codecs?
Given all this, I really don't see this catching on.
The aoTuV tunings have been found to be a large improvement. You can now use the standard Vorbis encoder again for top quality.
Most people in the scene have been using third party tunings and tweaks for a while, and this integration of the best 3rd party tuning results into the standard release after some intensive listening tests has been long awaited.
Here is the changelog:
libvorbis 1.1.0 (2004-09-22) -- "Xiph.Org libVorbis I 20040629"
* merges tuning improvements from Aoyumi's aoTuV with fixups * new managed bitrate (CBR) mode support * new vorbis_encoder_ctl() interface * extensive documentation updates * application/ogg mimetype is now official * autotools cleanup from Thomas Vander Stichele * SymbianOS build support from Colin Ward at CSIRO * various bugfixes * various packaging improvements
Yeah right, tamper resistant? And I'm sure they'll call the tamper protection technology NRM. I can see it now. Some developing country "cracks" the safety measures and starts sharing the materials to terrorists. Nuclear sharing programs, wouldn't THOSE just be nifty?
Theoretically, vinyl CAN have greater resolution than CD, but once you have played it enough, the wear on the vinyl destroys this. CDs may scratch and rot, but they don't wear.
In practice, you will obtain much better results on CDs, if it isn't the digitally compressed mess of today, unless you are say, SPECIFICALLY trying to record a 23 kHz sine wave onto a medium. Yes, it is possible to do this on vinyl, and not possible on a CD, but that is beside the point.
As for "quality", that is all opinion, but you state it as "In fact...". It is not a FACT at all that vinyl is higher quality than CD, or vice versa. Quality is all up to your perception. If you hear vinyl better, go for it dude. More correctly though, what you COULD have said is that, "In fact, my opinion is that CD is of significantly less quality than vinyl", but you didn't.
I remember the original Delta Force game from NovaLogic to be extremely sluggish on the current hardware of it's day; iirc, it's engine wasn't fully 3D accelerated. I'd like to know how it would manage on the latest and greatest hardware today.
I'm sure there are other games similar to this that were resource hogs during their day that would be interesting to hear about how they fare on hardware now.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought the same thing. This 10,000 Days album is just WAY too hyped. By the way, it comes out in May, and the alleged track listing is as follows:
1. Vicarious
2. Jambi
3. Wings For Marie (Pt 1)
4. 10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)
5. The Pot
6. Lipan Conjuring
7. Lost Keys (Blame Hofmann)
8. Rosetta Stoned
9. Intension
10. Right In Two
11. Viginti Tres
A good site for the latest and rumors about it is http://www.fourtheye.net/ . He's got an RSS Feed up as well.
Using the orbit diagram, it looks like May 3, 2032 is a hit as well, and as for 2104, Nov looks more likely, but, it says on the page itself not to trust the diagram's accuracy for far-off projections. We should trust those rocket scientists more than the diagram programmers...right? ;)
"If you're caught in a fatal car accident, there's a pretty big chance you'll die too."
If you're caught in a fatal car accident, there's a 100% chance that you'll die.
yep, it's a golf course: http://africa.traveleurope.com/ing/egypt/cairo/hil ton-pyramids-golf-resort/
Yeah, you are right, it slipped, and thanks for correcting me. I wouldn't want to incite an AC troll's temper with any more insightful, but accidentally misspelled comments, so I'll compliment you: Thanks for reading my post. Your grammar skills are better than mine.
Great post on the problems you ran into. I have lately been examining my own inter-personal skills and find that I fit your description to a tee. Besides your mentioning of, "To understand the common man, you have to walk in their shoes for several miles.." you don't mention any other practical incite or solutions you have used to overcome these issues. I have found that "walking in their shoes" (similar situations) along with placing myself in situations with others as much as possible (putting yourself out there) has been a great way to improve these skills. In other words, learning to be more sociable through experience.
However, there are other ways of improving sociability, to complement "putting oneself out there", like books on the topic, and discussions. Could you elaborate on any other tips you have on the issue and/or mention any good books you have read on the topic?
Thanks
Actually, that would be Jor-El that you were thinking of.
Kal-El is Superman, Jor-El is his father.
...because these April Fools articles are making people want to do exactly what the said vaccine cures.
Check out http://www.stonerrock.com/ , and also, speaking of specific bands, check out Nebula, Unida, and Spirit Caravan.
Besides Kyuss, those are some of my favorites.
Regardless of the bad argument that only 18% of games are M rated, a parent still DOES define what is inappropriate, but that does not mean that we shouldn't have a rating system.
A parent should treat the rating system as a means to good parenting, not an end. A parent cannot know about every single game in the video game industry and about all of what it contains. So, the parent makes use of the rating system, for what it is, and then the parent supervises and takes part in the child's gaming to see if there is STILL something in it that is questionable.
To summarize, it is not the parent who makes use of the rating system that is lazy, but the parent who ONLY makes use of it.
Go here for a lot of Raw pics. There are at least 500 images here, I'd say. A lot of the images are very similar, and a lot are not very pretty to the eyes (hazy and blurry). I did notice some slight differences between the "at first glance identical" pics as I went through them in a slideshow viewer. http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~kholso/jpeg/
One thing that Sony had going for them with the PS2 was that it played DVDs as well. A lot of people at the time bought a PS2 because they also didn't have a DVD player. A problem I see with the PSP is that it is too similar in price to a home console, but it doesn't have that "DVD feature" that the PS2 had to get it into the homes of the mass public, for the price. How is Sony going to get people to buy a PSP AND a PS2 or PS3, or if they already have one, buy a PSP and afford the games for BOTH the handheld and the home system? They aren't seriously banking on people making a choice between one or the other, are they? Is there a large enough niche in the gaming market for buyers of JUST a handheld?
I don't know if anyone has ever researched any on the topic, but how many people DO own a Gameboy, but don't own a home console? In other words, do handhelds have a seperate viable market, or is the marketing scheme for the handheld still to piggyback their way in by way of home console owners?
So, say they market the PSP as an alternative to the home console. What does the PSP have as far as TV connectivity? If you can hook it up easily to a television, and there is some kind of multiplayer capability, they might actually have found their niche there, as the quality will be good enough for people to put the money down for one. Kind of like a "console replacement". (The laptop equivalent of a "desktop replacement"). An improved Sega Nomad. Well, kind of like that.
I would bet that the vast majority of potential PSP buyers will be PS2 owners. Will the non-hardcore gamer (Average Joe) be able to afford games for both their PS2, PSP, and eventually their PS3?
It seems like Sony, with their pricing, will be forcing people to go one way or the other with their money, cutting into their own profits, because younger kids are still going to be getting GBAs and DSs. (Younger kids are going to want a home console too, and won't want to make that sarcrifice choosing one or the other. Most parents won't buy BOTH a PSP and a PS2 or PS3 AND games for both.)
Twenty and thirty year olds might be the ones that are a possible market for the PSP; they have the money to afford one and the games, and still have a home console. Maybe there is an untapped handheld market in that age bracket. Realistically, you start competing with the iPod market bracket if that is your primary target! If Sony would built good wireless internet browsing into it, a stylus, and the digital jukebox capacity for music into it, for the same price (to compete with the iPod and Palms) they might REALLY have something.
The ability to reverse aging or the ability to colonize other planets?
It seems to me that if we figure out how to reverse aging first, we will have a lot less time to spare before we need to colonize other planets.
Here is a link to the subjective listening test that they performed, showing that it beat out Pro Logic II fairly convincingly. http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/amm/download/mp3surro und/technology/introduction_to_mp3surround.PDF
So, maybe I jumped the gun a little on my judgements and accusations. Regardless, I'd still like to see how it does versus Circle Surround, and hopefully my previous posts were informative. That test I linked to isn't the end all be all, but I commend them for at least putting it out there.
All you people keep talking about other formats supporting more channels and such, but you are missing what this technology actually does.
With formats that simply allow more channels, the size of the file increases linearly compared to the number of channels. With this type of surround encoding, which is probably similar to Dolby Pro Logic II and SRS Circle Surround (matrix surround technologies), you do not have more physical individual channels, but instead, the amount of channels and surround information is encoded into a set of LESS physical channels. For instance, you can get 5.1 channels out of a physically stereo signal. This way, you can also take even advantage of the redundancies of the separate channels and compress the audio even more.
I don't know HOW similar this is to Dolby or SRS's technologies, but, with those, you can pass their encodings through ANY lossy encoder, and still retain a good semblance of the original surround integrity. What also tips me off into thinking this is their mentioning of backwards compatibility. This isn't anything new. MP3s encoded with Circle or with Pro Logic will ALSO playback fine in regular mp3 players, obviously also without the surround part.
So, my question then is, "What does MP3 Surround do (or do better) that Circle or Pro Logic doesn't do?"
If this is basically just Fraunhofer and Thomson's own version of Circle Surround or Pro Logic II is it enough of an increase in quality to make people go and buy a new receiver that supports it over their "old" one that already supports Pro Logic II or Circle Surround?
Wishful thinking here, but maybe on the content creator side, the MP3 Surround CODEC will be cheaper than the Pro Logic II or Circle Surround codecs?
Given all this, I really don't see this catching on.
From what I've heard, everything is more evil than God.
Report: Americans growing taller and wider
The aoTuV tunings have been found to be a large improvement. You can now use the standard Vorbis encoder again for top quality.
Most people in the scene have been using third party tunings and tweaks for a while, and this integration of the best 3rd party tuning results into the standard release after some intensive listening tests has been long awaited.
Here is the changelog:
libvorbis 1.1.0 (2004-09-22) -- "Xiph.Org libVorbis I 20040629"
* merges tuning improvements from Aoyumi's aoTuV with fixups
* new managed bitrate (CBR) mode support
* new vorbis_encoder_ctl() interface
* extensive documentation updates
* application/ogg mimetype is now official
* autotools cleanup from Thomas Vander Stichele
* SymbianOS build support from Colin Ward at CSIRO
* various bugfixes
* various packaging improvements
There is a feature request filed for this at Bugzilla, however: RFE: "Open a JavaScript link in a new window"
go here: Sasem OnAir USB HDTV Receiver
Yeah right, tamper resistant? And I'm sure they'll call the tamper protection technology NRM. I can see it now. Some developing country "cracks" the safety measures and starts sharing the materials to terrorists. Nuclear sharing programs, wouldn't THOSE just be nifty?
Theoretically, vinyl CAN have greater resolution than CD, but once you have played it enough, the wear on the vinyl destroys this. CDs may scratch and rot, but they don't wear.
In practice, you will obtain much better results on CDs, if it isn't the digitally compressed mess of today, unless you are say, SPECIFICALLY trying to record a 23 kHz sine wave onto a medium. Yes, it is possible to do this on vinyl, and not possible on a CD, but that is beside the point.
As for "quality", that is all opinion, but you state it as "In fact...". It is not a FACT at all that vinyl is higher quality than CD, or vice versa. Quality is all up to your perception. If you hear vinyl better, go for it dude. More correctly though, what you COULD have said is that, "In fact, my opinion is that CD is of significantly less quality than vinyl", but you didn't.
Sources: Source 1 Source 2
I remember the original Delta Force game from NovaLogic to be extremely sluggish on the current hardware of it's day; iirc, it's engine wasn't fully 3D accelerated. I'd like to know how it would manage on the latest and greatest hardware today.
I'm sure there are other games similar to this that were resource hogs during their day that would be interesting to hear about how they fare on hardware now.
that bittorrent is as popular as ever!
More probable is that the geeks had no plans afterwards and went and saw it again.
I still say bittorrent would have been more economical...