The "cut and paste the whole post but use S&R to make it say the exact opposite or talk about a different person/thing than the original" troll methodology was (slightly) amusing....
... the first few times... a YEAR AND A HALF AGO when the trolls started posting them in excessive numbers.
Now, it's just and old, tired, and boring.
For the love of Bob... can't the trolls come up with anything original? Or at *LEAST* something non-obvious?
The existence of trolls on Slashdot is bad enough in the first place. Are we now condenmed to infinite repeats of the same old, worn out crap?
>In case you hadn't heard, the Bible has been >translated into English; you no longer have to >learn Latin in order to read it.
Yes it has. But if you've read any history, you know full well that the christian church fought tooth and nail to PERVENT this. They did *NOT* want thost dirty commoners to be able to read scripture without the "helpful intrepretation" of the clergy. Hell, they weren't even so fond of the nobility having their own copies in Latin! Gutenberg was NOT a popular guy in Rome. To say nothing of all the other science and technology (Gallileo anyone?) they've tried to supress over the years. But that would be too far offtopic for this thread.
>If you don't trust people, go read it yourself;
Okay... soon as I learn aramic, ancient hebrew and latin I will. Oh... wait you meant I should read the translated works didn't you?
Here's a little exercise. Take a relatively simple phrase: "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy red dog". Go over to the babelfish at altivista and run it through a few generations of translations. How rapidly does it become obfuscated? Now, these are MODERN languages, in everyday useage in the world. Where's the babelfish that includes aramic and hebrew?
Remember, too, that the babelfish is an OBJECTIVE program that gives computer generated translations WITHOUT the "helpful corrections of obfuscated meanings" that were *SO* thoughtfully provided during the church's translations of the bible throughout the few thousand years the bible has been kicking around.
Oh... one LAST point. No perfect digital duplication of the bible till the last decade or so. And the VAST majority of it's existence was BEFORE Gutenburg. Guess how it was duplicated... by hand. Even if the church was above making a few "adjustments" to christian dogma that would make it easier for them to control the masses (not bloody likely), such a stupid, inefficent duplication process is BEGGING for errors (even unintentional ones).
You think your COMPUTER has a case of bit rot??? It's not likely to be more than five years old... wanna go for five thousand?
>Ok. Here's a better analogy for you: I have a >10 dollar bill. Should you or should you not >be allowed to make a copy of it?
It *IS*, in fact, perfectly legal to copy US currency. You see it all the time in novelty stores... Sometimes it is play money for kids. Some times it is turned into notepads. Some artists have sold HAND PAINTED (and *VERY* real looking) reproductions as art.
Fair use, apparantly, applies, at least in principle, even to currency.
What it is *NOT* legal to do is attempt to pass that $10 as genuine currency. To that end, there are laws governing the accuracy of the reproduction. I forget the exact details, but they generally run along the lines of:
Photocopies must be blown up X% bigger or they must be shrunk Y% smaller or they must be copied onto a different color paper.
Ever noticed that the "funny money" sold for kids to play with is always reproduced bigger or smaller than the real deal? That's why.
>(Assuming that you have access to the technology >to make an undetectable duplicate)
Which is where *your* analogy REALLY breaks down.
I defy you to find me ANY set of MP3 tools that will: rip a red book track to AIFF (that's WAV for you windoze users), compress it to MP3, expand it back to AIFF, and then be able to pass a diff with the previously ripped AIFF file, to say nothing about the original red book track.
I don't think you'll find one. To be fair, you don't have to use a single toolset. Choose the BEST ripper, the BEST compresser, and the BEST expander you can find.
It ain't gonna happen. Because as anyone who ever bothered to read the MP3 spec knows, it is a (very) lossy compression scheme. The algorythm discards data (all too often the wrong data) in favor of a smaller file size.
(if you want an example of non-lossy compression, go have a look at etree)
And far from being detectable only via diff, it's easily detectable with the good ol' eardrum version 1.0. If you play MP3s on a real stereo with good speakers (the $2 headphones on your discman or rio don't count. Neither do the $100 el cheepo POS speakers on your computer), you *DO* notice an extreme degredation of quality compared to a red book CD. And the same, of course, applies to CDR's burned from expanded MP3s.
You might try googleing for the company that it *claims* to work for: "NPO Technologies".
Just like st-st-st-steve w-w-w-woston's so-called employer "jjjjulius games", there's no such entity, not in.uk where it claims to be, nor anywhere else.
I dunno who's lying. But it doesn't matter. It does NOT matter if the contract doesn't let Sorenson license the codec to whoever.
The issue here is NOT about licensing. It's about COPYRIGHT.
Simply put, the Sorenson code is *NOT* Apple's to open. Sorenson has *NOT* GPLed (or insert your favorite license, Im not gonna get in a GPL/BSD/whatever flamewar) their codec.
ergo... no Quicktime for Linux.
It's hard to beleive that people STILL can't tell licensing and copyright apart (to say nothing about the confusion that comes up when you throw in trademark and patents). But there's furbyboy up there chanting "la la la im right you're wrong apple sux if you disagree with me youre a troll".
Slashdot needs a better FAQ. As often as license / copyright / trademark / patent comes up... it'd be damn nice to just be able to say RTFFAQ.
>so your anti-Open Source rant is completely bull.
If I had a rant AT ALL, It wasn't against open source, it was against the "everything MUST be open-source or it is completely evil and unworthy of any praise whatsoever" zealots like RMS and tofu the wonder furby, or whatever he calls himself.
There're plenty of good open source products. I use a number of them... when they are the best choice.
There're ALSO plenty of prefectly good closed source products. I also use a number of them... when they are the best choice.
I simply don't shun closed source products for that reason alone.
>>So you think that if Sorenson didn't have an >>exclusive agreement with Apple, they would just >>... open their code?
>Okay, so people point out you are dead wrong, >and suddenly your old argument disappears!
Uh... no, that's the whole point. The codecs are NOT Apple's to give away... NOT without the permission of the owner.
So let's look at the options Apple has if they want to GPL (or BSD or Artistic or whatever) Quicktime:
1) They open source ALL of Quicktime, WITHOUT the permission of the owners of the 3rd party codecs. Apple promptly gets sued into oblivion. Conclusion? Not gonna happen.
2) They open source all of Quicktime, EXCEPT the parts they license from 3rd parties. This results in a stripped down player that A) will NOT play many of the more recent.mov files (forget those Star Wars trailers that had half the net in a frenzy last year) and B) is missing a number of features that those codecs make possible (forget streaming Quicktime too).
Now... knowing Steve Jobs' characteristic attention to detail, obsession with quality products, and desire for a good appearance, at the very least, do you think he will allow this theoretical half-assed player to leave 1 Infinite Loop? I didn't think so. Conclusion? Not gonna happen.
3) The 3rd party owners of the appropiate codecs (Sorenson, etc.) decide, out of the goodness of their hearts to open their own code. And they do so under such a license that allows Apple to release them in a commercial product. NOW Apple has the option of opening Quicktime. Conclusion? Convince Sorenson, et al... THEN talk to Apple about opening Quicktime.
So you think that if Sorenson didn't have an exclusive agreement with Apple, they would just be jolly nice guys, open their code and say to the whole world: "Come and get it!!" ???
If they did this, just HOW, prey tell, mister open source guru that you are, would Sorenson stay in business?
It's a video codec for crying out loud, NOT a big, complex operating system! Either it works, or it doesn't. It's not like they can build a business model on support contracts for the thing like Red Hat/VA/etc. have for Linux.
Now, mabye, someday, someone will build a completely new codec of the equivelent quality as Sorenson, and give it away under a license that would please people like you and RMS. And just MABYE this hypothetical new codec will be adopted to the extent that Quicktime is now.... but it hasn't happened yet.
Oh... and BTW, there are more codecs in Quicktime that Apple has licensed from others than just Sorenson.
You wanna be rude and condescending on/.? Accept that not EVERYONE in the world (hell, not even ESR (have you ever actually READ "The Cathedral and the Bazzar"???)) marches in lockstep with Richard M. Stallman.
>Isn't it still impossible to view QuickTime 4 >in Linux, or has that changed?
What part of "Apple does not *OWN* all of the codecs" do you people not understand???
Almost EVERY time Apple is mentioned here, some fool will bitch about "no Quicktime on Linux".
Well guess what. It's not Apple's call, Were Apple to open source Quicktime (even just the movieplayer... ignoring, for now, everything else that constitutes Quicktime), they would immediately expose themselves to heap big lawsuitage. They're *NOT* gonna do that. Steve Jobs may be many things, but he's not stupid.
You wanna bitch to someone? Go talk to Sorenson, et al.
You left out "Vampire Hunter D", and the "Dirty Pair". Both of which should be in everyone's collection.
2)
You included F-ing pokemon?!?!? Gag... gasp... hrraanng... as if the populace doesn't *already* include enough mindless, per-pubescent drones screaming "PIKA!!" at the top of their lungs at any store that does the public disservice of carrying that crap.
And the pokemon movie.... that flying turd provokes the worst animation (pokemon is, IMO, not WORTHY of being called anime) *SHUDDER*, I've ever had.
Everything pokemon related should be gathered up and launched into the sun... along with the vile persons responsible for its creation.
But other than the two glareing omissions, and that one HORRID inclusion... great list.
... that all the people who have recently been bashing Apple for "stealing" these ideas (Aqua's dock from m$ windoze taksbar... now, G4 Cube from cobalt)...
... They so *EASILY* forget where the so-called "victims" of Apple's "theft" stole those very ideas in the first place!!!
Hint: It's a little company started by Steve Jobs after he was forced out of Apple by john sculley in 1985.
Hint#2: Apple BOUGHT that very company a few short years ago.
Hint#3: Most of the people in important positions at Apple NOW (Steve Jobs and Avie Tevenian especially) came to Apple FROM that other company.
In short, the company Apple is so commonly "stealing" from recently is.... ITSELF!!!
Come on... The keynote starts at what... 8am??? 9am??? New York time tomorrow?
That's either five or six AM in San Francisco/Valley time. By the time we're all awake tomorrow, we'll know, once and for all, if this whole "Mac cube" thing is true, or if ryan meader and mosr.com are the lieing, idiotoc gasbag that he is held to be by most of the Mac community.
By the time everyone's awake, the truth'll already be up out all the news sites, Slashdot, and, probably, apple.com itself.
(unless anyone's REALLY planning on getting up that early (I pity the fool)... Well, if you just stay up all night, I guess that's okay... but only if you're codeing something *REALLY* cool:-P)
So hows about we give it a rest, and just see where the chips fall in the morning?
Googled on "Insight crash test" and got to Edmunds, which shows "good" rates for two of the six, but nothing on the other four:
http://www.edmunds.com/edweb/crashtest/honda.htm l
Obviously, "rear occupant" does not apply, but that leaves three to go still.
Not to mention that frontal offset crashes tend to be harsher on occupants than "pure" head on collisions.
Since this is a passanger car, and not a truck, or box-on-a-truck SUV, I assume that it MUST have crashtested above some decent standards...
... but that ultra-light construction gives me the willies... and a PLASTIC gas tank *shudder*. I certianly don't care for those ford/chevy monsterstrousities like suburbans and excursions that plague the roads. But I fell better having a LITTLE more mass between me and the world. I think my Subaru is a very good compromise (if they ever make a hybrid Forester, I'll be in line on day one).
Thoughts?
Links to more extensive info in insight crash tests?
>Yes! Since Microsoft has scripting >support in their OS, that means they're to blame >for script viruses! How dare they have scripts >that run under Windows! Wait a minute...doesn't >Linux also support scripts? Never mind that -- >more MS bashing!
>But seriously (read before moderating this as >Troll of Flamebait), the reason that the e-mail >script viruses we've seen all attack MS Outlook >isn't because of how terrible Windows is.
Yes, windows *IS* terrible (ESPECIALLY from a security context). Or have you simply not been paying attention for the last year and a half?
The DEFAULT configuration of the DEFAULT mail client will run a script with the windoze equivelent of root permissions when you open it. It is ridiculously STUPID to allow a user-space email client to run amok in system space. Absolutely poor design, and worse implimentation.
And worse, they have known about this for a good YEAR AND A HALF! Ever since Melissia, this has been a known flaw... but gates REFUSES to fix it!!!
Now, since you complain that Linux includes scripting as well as windoze, let's look at the equivelent sequence of events that would have to happen for a malicious script to be a problem:
Say that someone sends me a malicious perl script as an attachment to an email. Well, when I open up that attachment, pine DISPLAYS it as a TEXT file. It is NOT run by default when I open it. I have a chance to examine it BEFORE I let it run, if I run it at all (not bloody likely unless I'm about to switch distros and am already backed up). Now, in order for it to be run in such a way that it could trash my system, I would have to:
1) Save it as virus.pl, or whatever 2) su to root 3) Run it by typeing "perl virus.pl"
Or, if I am doubtful as to wether it is harmful or not, I could run it in user space with NO CHANCE of it trashing anything important.
Now... which security paradigm is better?
Not that Linux (or any given xBSD or Unix) is PERFECT... but it is by all means hella-better than anything that hath spewed forth from redmond.
>MAPS is in California, the order is from a >court in Illinois,
Okay... this is something that's bugged me in in a number of other stories here on/.
By what streach of the law, imagination, or simple arrogant presumption does an Illinois judge claim jurisdiction over people in California?!?!?!? Or vice versa, for that matter (MPAA's restraining order on 500 john does, many of which most certianly live outside CA comes to mind)?
Is this a *FEDERAL* judge, whose bench just happens to be in Illinois? Or does any old state judge have carte blanche to order around people outside their jurisdictions? Seems like MANY states would STRENOUSLY object to such a violation of what little sovereignity the states have left (Texas and Mass come to mind, for starters) And if the latter *IS* the case, why do we bother with jurisdictions at all?
Of course, it *IS* a common arrogance for our legal system to presume that it has domain outside its jurisdiction (certian OTHER DeCSS-related actions, in Norway, for example, come to mind).
I'm *SURE* that there are at least a FEW bona fide lawyers who read Slashdot. Could one of you PLEASE shed some enlightenment here?
I live in San Francisco and do about the same thing... for my *commute* that is.
I live a short walk to the BART station, take that to Embarcadero, and transfer to the N MUNI line to get to work... works great for *ME*.
But at the same time, this isn't NYC, London, Boston, or Tokyo. The subway/rail system is nowhere NEAR as extensive as in those larger cities... and it's virturally non-existent in some MAJOR parts of the city (everywhere north of Market Street to be more precise (with the notable (but too infested by tourists to use to get to/from work) exception of the cable cars, and the F-line that runs up the Embarcadero to Fisherman's Wharf).
So public transit works great for *ME*... $35 for the fast pass and I save HEAPS on gas and parking (it's also faster than fighting through traffic). My car sits unused the entire work week, and most weekends. But a LOT of people are SOL so far as transit is concerned (especially those people north of Market). And when none of the (only) five (six if you count the touristy F-line) is near you (and neither is BART, which is parallel w/ MUNI throught most of SF), guess how you have to get around... Yup, they gas up the 'ol car, and DRIVE to their destination.
So it's NOT the solution for everyone.
Oh, and did I mention that this applies only to the CITY itself? If I want to head down into the Valley (there is regretably (and stupidly) no Fry's in the city (yet(hopefully)), or north into Marin, or east to Mt Diablo, Tahoe, Fresno, or Reno... guess how *I* have to do it... internal combustion engine all the way.
I drive a Subaru. Not exactly a gas-sipper like a Honda, but it's no SUV (well, it's marketed as such, but is technically classified as a "small station wagon" by the EPA and (more importantly) my insurance company). Perhaps by the time it wears out to the point of being undrivable, the hybrid/alternative fuel/etc. techs will be more developed. But as it is... the vehicles are not USEFUL to me. I like to go camping, hiking, and mountain biking. All my geat fits in, or on an external rack of, my Subaru... and I get pretty good mileage when I remember to lighten the lead foot...
... but I've DRIVEN a Honda Insight before. As it is right NOW... hybrids don't offer the utility of an ICE powered car... Go ahead, TRY to get a weekends worth of camping, hikeing, and bikeing gear into an insight... I DOUBLE DARE you! Oops... having some difficulty? Now try to get a second person in there as well. See what I mean?
Oh, and when I moved here to SF, I rented a U-Haul trailer and towed all of my stuff myself. I'd like to see an Insight make it to SF from Florida with that kind of load.
Some have taken issue that timothy has implied that/. might benefit from "virtural restraning orders", as it appears eBay is seeking.
I dunno. It's clear that SOMETHING must be done to raise the signal to noise ratio back to what it used to be. After all, Slashdot's trolls are not simply J. Random Idiot crossposting as much crap as they can across usenet.
Have a look at the multiple incarnations of the "inchfan" hidden forums for instance. The trolls here have mounted a deliberate, organised, campaign of attack and disruption against slashdot. These aren't your standard usenet idiots, these are a much more insidious form of troll.
Perhaps the answer is to have the community itself do the policing. Rather than have a fiat handed down from Taco, Hemos, or any of the other editors (or in the case of eBay, whoever's in nominal control), the community could easily decide for ITSELF who is unredeemingly disruptive.
Consider, we already have a karma system (and eBay has feedback) set up to filter the good posts to the top, and allow readers to bypass the trolls, astroturfers, first posters, "goatse.cx"'ers, gritsers, portmans, "steve woston"s and other miscelaneous crap. It should be relatively simple to establish a final, negative threshold beyond which it can be safely assumed that the troll in question has no redemming value. The script could automatically generate a notice to Andover's (or eBay's) legal team to lay down the restraning order on Slashdot's attackers.
(Before anyone mentions the ability to post as anonymous coward, let me remind you that ACs are anonymous because/. ALLOWS them to be so. If you connect to/.'s server, they have an IP address... which could be easily logged... OR displayed with the post, as SOME message boards do. It would be no large effort to associate a karma score with any given IP address, just as well as with login names.)
The community itself would, therefore, be making the decision, rathar than having it handed down by fiat. All Andover (or eBay) would have to do with the process would be to file the restraning order paperwork itself... no policing of their own.
Odd, because, while she has that one throwaway "I'm on lars' side" soundbyte there...
... she spends the entirety of the rest of the article refuting the arguements of him and his RIAA puppetmasters, affirming many of the pro-MP3 arguements, and does a fair bit of villification (of the anti-MP3 / geeks suck / napster must die cadre) of her own.
Nowhere does she demonise geeks as lars does... instead she takes issue (on the pro-MP3 side) with beancounter types, venture capitalists specifically (does *anyone* REALLY *like* dealing these guys?), calling them "sucka VCs". In fact, she later claims that "As a user, I love Napster", and she even goes so far as to quote Snow Crash. Sure sounds like the *bulk* of the article is geek-friendy to me.
As for that ONE instance (out of SIX pages) where she claims allegiance with metallica/RIAA... well, your guess is as good as mine. But that's ONE inconsistency in an overwhealming pro-MP3/geek article.
Perhaps YOU need to reread the article.
I hardly think that one soundbyte quote equates to 'commending lars throughout the article'. And the only (pro MP3) people she calls anything close to a moron are venture capitalists, who she calls "suckers" (which might not be far from the truth, given the so-called dot-com-collapse of late).
And it's cute how you completely skirted my original point on how Love was articulate and well reasoned; while uh, lars was, well uh, totally, like, disjointed, er... inarticulate, and um... disjointed.. oops, did I uh, repeat myself?
>so they throw it away. who owns the CD? If >someone were to stroll by, could they pick it >up and keep it?
Once it's in the trash, it's fair game for anyone who wants to grab it and do whatever they like. There was a court case, quite awhile back, (I dunno if it went all the way to the supremes tho), that affirmed this.
This was established back in the AT&T monopoly phone phreaking days, when ma bell tried to sue people who took discarded copies of phoneCo manuals.
They simply received new marching orders from their bosses over at the RIAA. Surely you've used both nice AND renice? Simple enough to give the opposite instruction to a process during runtime.
<BAD PUN>
Just goes to show, that metallica are the PUPPETS, and *not* the MASTERS.
She put forth a well reasoned arguement on why the RIAA sucks, and why she supports MP3s. She even included a run down on the economics of CD sales, confirming what many people here who know a little about 'the biz' have been saying all along. The artist is *DAMN LUCKY* if she sees a whole 50 cents from a CD sale... the rest disappears into the RIAA void.
No go back through the Slashdot archives and find that pile of disjointed, inarticulate, sometimes incoherent, pile of drivel that finally spewed forth when lars denigned to address/.
It can be boiled down to:
Napster BAD! I wish you people would die. Um... Uh.... Eh... Um... Er...
>What is a libertarian supposed to think >about it?
You aren't *supposed* to think anything about it.
Go ahead... think any damn thing you please. No one'll burn you at the stake. Form an opinion for yourself, and don't wait for the libertarian gurus to form one for you. Just because you belong to a particular political party/religion/group does NOT mean you MUST adjust your entire thought processes to fit it's doctrine.
OTOH, some of those same entities *DO* beleive that everyone MUST think alike. And will go to great lengths to silence/excommunicate their critics. Which is why I will never support groups like the republican or democrat parties, the christian church, peta, cult of scientology, micro$oft, etc.
But, the last I checked, there was nothing in the libertarian philosophy that said you MUST accept, beleive in, and think in line with, EVERY aspect of the philosophy.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, my apologies if you weren't actually trolling.
Your point is taken, but I'd rathar see both GUIs AND CLIs fully developed, rathar than mastering one and discarding the other.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Wow... I'm *SO* awed by your 31337ness.
The "cut and paste the whole post but use S&R to make it say the exact opposite or talk about a different person/thing than the original" troll methodology was (slightly) amusing....
... the first few times... a YEAR AND A HALF AGO when the trolls started posting them in excessive numbers.
Now, it's just and old, tired, and boring.
For the love of Bob... can't the trolls come up with anything original? Or at *LEAST* something non-obvious?
The existence of trolls on Slashdot is bad enough in the first place. Are we now condenmed to infinite repeats of the same old, worn out crap?
Oh, but for a killfile...
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
>translated into English; you no longer have to
>learn Latin in order to read it.
Yes it has. But if you've read any history, you know full well that the christian church fought tooth and nail to PERVENT this. They did *NOT* want thost dirty commoners to be able to read scripture without the "helpful intrepretation" of the clergy. Hell, they weren't even so fond of the nobility having their own copies in Latin! Gutenberg was NOT a popular guy in Rome. To say nothing of all the other science and technology (Gallileo anyone?) they've tried to supress over the years. But that would be too far offtopic for this thread.
>If you don't trust people, go read it yourself;
Okay... soon as I learn aramic, ancient hebrew and latin I will. Oh... wait you meant I should read the translated works didn't you?
Here's a little exercise. Take a relatively simple phrase: "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy red dog". Go over to the babelfish at altivista and run it through a few generations of translations. How rapidly does it become obfuscated? Now, these are MODERN languages, in everyday useage in the world. Where's the babelfish that includes aramic and hebrew?
Remember, too, that the babelfish is an OBJECTIVE program that gives computer generated translations WITHOUT the "helpful corrections of obfuscated meanings" that were *SO* thoughtfully provided during the church's translations of the bible throughout the few thousand years the bible has been kicking around.
Oh... one LAST point. No perfect digital duplication of the bible till the last decade or so. And the VAST majority of it's existence was BEFORE Gutenburg. Guess how it was duplicated... by hand. Even if the church was above making a few "adjustments" to christian dogma that would make it easier for them to control the masses (not bloody likely), such a stupid, inefficent duplication process is BEGGING for errors (even unintentional ones).
You think your COMPUTER has a case of bit rot??? It's not likely to be more than five years old... wanna go for five thousand?
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
>10 dollar bill. Should you or should you not
>be allowed to make a copy of it?
It *IS*, in fact, perfectly legal to copy US currency. You see it all the time in novelty stores... Sometimes it is play money for kids. Some times it is turned into notepads. Some artists have sold HAND PAINTED (and *VERY* real looking) reproductions as art.
Fair use, apparantly, applies, at least in principle, even to currency.
What it is *NOT* legal to do is attempt to pass that $10 as genuine currency. To that end, there are laws governing the accuracy of the reproduction. I forget the exact details, but they generally run along the lines of:
Photocopies must be blown up X% bigger
or they must be shrunk Y% smaller
or they must be copied onto a different color paper.
Ever noticed that the "funny money" sold for kids to play with is always reproduced bigger or smaller than the real deal? That's why.
>(Assuming that you have access to the technology
>to make an undetectable duplicate)
Which is where *your* analogy REALLY breaks down.
I defy you to find me ANY set of MP3 tools that will: rip a red book track to AIFF (that's WAV for you windoze users), compress it to MP3, expand it back to AIFF, and then be able to pass a diff with the previously ripped AIFF file, to say nothing about the original red book track.
I don't think you'll find one. To be fair, you don't have to use a single toolset. Choose the BEST ripper, the BEST compresser, and the BEST expander you can find.
It ain't gonna happen. Because as anyone who ever bothered to read the MP3 spec knows, it is a (very) lossy compression scheme. The algorythm discards data (all too often the wrong data) in favor of a smaller file size.
(if you want an example of non-lossy compression, go have a look at etree)
And far from being detectable only via diff, it's easily detectable with the good ol' eardrum version 1.0. If you play MP3s on a real stereo with good speakers (the $2 headphones on your discman or rio don't count. Neither do the $100 el cheepo POS speakers on your computer), you *DO* notice an extreme degredation of quality compared to a red book CD. And the same, of course, applies to CDR's burned from expanded MP3s.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
You might try googleing for the company that it *claims* to work for: "NPO Technologies".
Just like st-st-st-steve w-w-w-woston's so-called employer "jjjjulius games", there's no such entity, not in
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
I dunno who's lying. But it doesn't matter. It does NOT matter if the contract doesn't let Sorenson license the codec to whoever.
The issue here is NOT about licensing. It's about COPYRIGHT.
Simply put, the Sorenson code is *NOT* Apple's to open. Sorenson has *NOT* GPLed (or insert your favorite license, Im not gonna get in a GPL/BSD/whatever flamewar) their codec.
ergo... no Quicktime for Linux.
It's hard to beleive that people STILL can't tell licensing and copyright apart (to say nothing about the confusion that comes up when you throw in trademark and patents). But there's furbyboy up there chanting "la la la im right you're wrong apple sux if you disagree with me youre a troll".
Slashdot needs a better FAQ. As often as license / copyright / trademark / patent comes up... it'd be damn nice to just be able to say RTFFAQ.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
If I had a rant AT ALL, It wasn't against open source, it was against the "everything MUST be open-source or it is completely evil and unworthy of any praise whatsoever" zealots like RMS and tofu the wonder furby, or whatever he calls himself.
There're plenty of good open source products. I use a number of them... when they are the best choice.
There're ALSO plenty of prefectly good closed source products. I also use a number of them... when they are the best choice.
I simply don't shun closed source products for that reason alone.
>>So you think that if Sorenson didn't have an
>>exclusive agreement with Apple, they would just
>>... open their code?
>Okay, so people point out you are dead wrong,
>and suddenly your old argument disappears!
Uh... no, that's the whole point. The codecs are NOT Apple's to give away... NOT without the permission of the owner.
So let's look at the options Apple has if they want to GPL (or BSD or Artistic or whatever) Quicktime:
1)
They open source ALL of Quicktime, WITHOUT the permission of the owners of the 3rd party codecs. Apple promptly gets sued into oblivion. Conclusion? Not gonna happen.
2)
They open source all of Quicktime, EXCEPT the parts they license from 3rd parties. This results in a stripped down player that A) will NOT play many of the more recent
Now... knowing Steve Jobs' characteristic attention to detail, obsession with quality products, and desire for a good appearance, at the very least, do you think he will allow this theoretical half-assed player to leave 1 Infinite Loop? I didn't think so. Conclusion? Not gonna happen.
3)
The 3rd party owners of the appropiate codecs (Sorenson, etc.) decide, out of the goodness of their hearts to open their own code. And they do so under such a license that allows Apple to release them in a commercial product. NOW Apple has the option of opening Quicktime. Conclusion? Convince Sorenson, et al... THEN talk to Apple about opening Quicktime.
john
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If they did this, just HOW, prey tell, mister open source guru that you are, would Sorenson stay in business?
It's a video codec for crying out loud, NOT a big, complex operating system! Either it works, or it doesn't. It's not like they can build a business model on support contracts for the thing like Red Hat/VA/etc. have for Linux.
Now, mabye, someday, someone will build a completely new codec of the equivelent quality as Sorenson, and give it away under a license that would please people like you and RMS. And just MABYE this hypothetical new codec will be adopted to the extent that Quicktime is now.... but it hasn't happened yet.
Oh... and BTW, there are more codecs in Quicktime that Apple has licensed from others than just Sorenson.
You wanna be rude and condescending on
john
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>in Linux, or has that changed?
What part of "Apple does not *OWN* all of the codecs" do you people not understand???
Almost EVERY time Apple is mentioned here, some fool will bitch about "no Quicktime on Linux".
Well guess what. It's not Apple's call, Were Apple to open source Quicktime (even just the movieplayer... ignoring, for now, everything else that constitutes Quicktime), they would immediately expose themselves to heap big lawsuitage. They're *NOT* gonna do that. Steve Jobs may be many things, but he's not stupid.
You wanna bitch to someone? Go talk to Sorenson, et al.
john
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Look up its posting history for the calculated, inflamatory nonsence it's posted before.
Google for its supposed employer: "NPO Technologies"... just like "steve woston"'s "jjjjulius games", there's no such company.
For the love of Bob, don't feed it anymore.
john
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You left out "Vampire Hunter D", and the "Dirty Pair". Both of which should be in everyone's collection.
2)
You included F-ing pokemon?!?!? Gag... gasp... hrraanng... as if the populace doesn't *already* include enough mindless, per-pubescent drones screaming "PIKA!!" at the top of their lungs at any store that does the public disservice of carrying that crap.
And the pokemon movie.... that flying turd provokes the worst animation (pokemon is, IMO, not WORTHY of being called anime) *SHUDDER*, I've ever had.
Everything pokemon related should be gathered up and launched into the sun... along with the vile persons responsible for its creation.
But other than the two glareing omissions, and that one HORRID inclusion... great list.
john
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... They so *EASILY* forget where the so-called "victims" of Apple's "theft" stole those very ideas in the first place!!!
Hint:
It's a little company started by Steve Jobs after he was forced out of Apple by john sculley in 1985.
Hint#2:
Apple BOUGHT that very company a few short years ago.
Hint#3:
Most of the people in important positions at Apple NOW (Steve Jobs and Avie Tevenian especially) came to Apple FROM that other company.
In short, the company Apple is so commonly "stealing" from recently is.... ITSELF!!!
john
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Come on... The keynote starts at what... 8am??? 9am??? New York time tomorrow?
That's either five or six AM in San Francisco/Valley time. By the time we're all awake tomorrow, we'll know, once and for all, if this whole "Mac cube" thing is true, or if ryan meader and mosr.com are the lieing, idiotoc gasbag that he is held to be by most of the Mac community.
By the time everyone's awake, the truth'll already be up out all the news sites, Slashdot, and, probably, apple.com itself.
(unless anyone's REALLY planning on getting up that early (I pity the fool)... Well, if you just stay up all night, I guess that's okay... but only if you're codeing something *REALLY* cool
So hows about we give it a rest, and just see where the chips fall in the morning?
john
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looking at the rest of your posts on the thread...
>they're usually just zealots..
pot... kettle... black.
You know the rest.
john
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Googled on "Insight crash test" and got to Edmunds, which shows "good" rates for two of the six, but nothing on the other four:
http://www.edmunds.com/edweb/crashtest/honda.ht
Obviously, "rear occupant" does not apply, but that leaves three to go still.
Not to mention that frontal offset crashes tend to be harsher on occupants than "pure" head on collisions.
Since this is a passanger car, and not a truck, or box-on-a-truck SUV, I assume that it MUST have crashtested above some decent standards...
... but that ultra-light construction gives me the willies... and a PLASTIC gas tank *shudder*. I certianly don't care for those ford/chevy monsterstrousities like suburbans and excursions that plague the roads. But I fell better having a LITTLE more mass between me and the world. I think my Subaru is a very good compromise (if they ever make a hybrid Forester, I'll be in line on day one).
Thoughts?
Links to more extensive info in insight crash tests?
john
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>support in their OS, that means they're to blame
>for script viruses! How dare they have scripts
>that run under Windows! Wait a minute...doesn't
>Linux also support scripts? Never mind that --
>more MS bashing!
>But seriously (read before moderating this as
>Troll of Flamebait), the reason that the e-mail
>script viruses we've seen all attack MS Outlook
>isn't because of how terrible Windows is.
Yes, windows *IS* terrible (ESPECIALLY from a security context). Or have you simply not been paying attention for the last year and a half?
The DEFAULT configuration of the DEFAULT mail client will run a script with the windoze equivelent of root permissions when you open it. It is ridiculously STUPID to allow a user-space email client to run amok in system space. Absolutely poor design, and worse implimentation.
And worse, they have known about this for a good YEAR AND A HALF! Ever since Melissia, this has been a known flaw... but gates REFUSES to fix it!!!
Now, since you complain that Linux includes scripting as well as windoze, let's look at the equivelent sequence of events that would have to happen for a malicious script to be a problem:
Say that someone sends me a malicious perl script as an attachment to an email. Well, when I open up that attachment, pine DISPLAYS it as a TEXT file. It is NOT run by default when I open it. I have a chance to examine it BEFORE I let it run, if I run it at all (not bloody likely unless I'm about to switch distros and am already backed up). Now, in order for it to be run in such a way that it could trash my system, I would have to:
1) Save it as virus.pl, or whatever
2) su to root
3) Run it by typeing "perl virus.pl"
Or, if I am doubtful as to wether it is harmful or not, I could run it in user space with NO CHANCE of it trashing anything important.
Now... which security paradigm is better?
Not that Linux (or any given xBSD or Unix) is PERFECT... but it is by all means hella-better than anything that hath spewed forth from redmond.
john
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>court in Illinois,
Okay... this is something that's bugged me in in a number of other stories here on
By what streach of the law, imagination, or simple arrogant presumption does an Illinois judge claim jurisdiction over people in California?!?!?!? Or vice versa, for that matter (MPAA's restraining order on 500 john does, many of which most certianly live outside CA comes to mind)?
Is this a *FEDERAL* judge, whose bench just happens to be in Illinois? Or does any old state judge have carte blanche to order around people outside their jurisdictions? Seems like MANY states would STRENOUSLY object to such a violation of what little sovereignity the states have left (Texas and Mass come to mind, for starters) And if the latter *IS* the case, why do we bother with jurisdictions at all?
Of course, it *IS* a common arrogance for our legal system to presume that it has domain outside its jurisdiction (certian OTHER DeCSS-related actions, in Norway, for example, come to mind).
I'm *SURE* that there are at least a FEW bona fide lawyers who read Slashdot. Could one of you PLEASE shed some enlightenment here?
john
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I live a short walk to the BART station, take that to Embarcadero, and transfer to the N MUNI line to get to work... works great for *ME*.
But at the same time, this isn't NYC, London, Boston, or Tokyo. The subway/rail system is nowhere NEAR as extensive as in those larger cities... and it's virturally non-existent in some MAJOR parts of the city (everywhere north of Market Street to be more precise (with the notable (but too infested by tourists to use to get to/from work) exception of the cable cars, and the F-line that runs up the Embarcadero to Fisherman's Wharf).
So public transit works great for *ME*... $35 for the fast pass and I save HEAPS on gas and parking (it's also faster than fighting through traffic). My car sits unused the entire work week, and most weekends. But a LOT of people are SOL so far as transit is concerned (especially those people north of Market). And when none of the (only) five (six if you count the touristy F-line) is near you (and neither is BART, which is parallel w/ MUNI throught most of SF), guess how you have to get around... Yup, they gas up the 'ol car, and DRIVE to their destination.
So it's NOT the solution for everyone.
Oh, and did I mention that this applies only to the CITY itself? If I want to head down into the Valley (there is regretably (and stupidly) no Fry's in the city (yet(hopefully)), or north into Marin, or east to Mt Diablo, Tahoe, Fresno, or Reno... guess how *I* have to do it... internal combustion engine all the way.
I drive a Subaru. Not exactly a gas-sipper like a Honda, but it's no SUV (well, it's marketed as such, but is technically classified as a "small station wagon" by the EPA and (more importantly) my insurance company). Perhaps by the time it wears out to the point of being undrivable, the hybrid/alternative fuel/etc. techs will be more developed. But as it is... the vehicles are not USEFUL to me. I like to go camping, hiking, and mountain biking. All my geat fits in, or on an external rack of, my Subaru... and I get pretty good mileage when I remember to lighten the lead foot...
... but I've DRIVEN a Honda Insight before. As it is right NOW... hybrids don't offer the utility of an ICE powered car... Go ahead, TRY to get a weekends worth of camping, hikeing, and bikeing gear into an insight... I DOUBLE DARE you! Oops... having some difficulty? Now try to get a second person in there as well. See what I mean?
Oh, and when I moved here to SF, I rented a U-Haul trailer and towed all of my stuff myself. I'd like to see an Insight make it to SF from Florida with that kind of load.
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I dunno. It's clear that SOMETHING must be done to raise the signal to noise ratio back to what it used to be. After all, Slashdot's trolls are not simply J. Random Idiot crossposting as much crap as they can across usenet.
Have a look at the multiple incarnations of the "inchfan" hidden forums for instance. The trolls here have mounted a deliberate, organised, campaign of attack and disruption against slashdot. These aren't your standard usenet idiots, these are a much more insidious form of troll.
Perhaps the answer is to have the community itself do the policing. Rather than have a fiat handed down from Taco, Hemos, or any of the other editors (or in the case of eBay, whoever's in nominal control), the community could easily decide for ITSELF who is unredeemingly disruptive.
Consider, we already have a karma system (and eBay has feedback) set up to filter the good posts to the top, and allow readers to bypass the trolls, astroturfers, first posters, "goatse.cx"'ers, gritsers, portmans, "steve woston"s and other miscelaneous crap. It should be relatively simple to establish a final, negative threshold beyond which it can be safely assumed that the troll in question has no redemming value. The script could automatically generate a notice to Andover's (or eBay's) legal team to lay down the restraning order on Slashdot's attackers.
(Before anyone mentions the ability to post as anonymous coward, let me remind you that ACs are anonymous because
The community itself would, therefore, be making the decision, rathar than having it handed down by fiat. All Andover (or eBay) would have to do with the process would be to file the restraning order paperwork itself... no policing of their own.
john
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... she spends the entirety of the rest of the article refuting the arguements of him and his RIAA puppetmasters, affirming many of the pro-MP3 arguements, and does a fair bit of villification (of the anti-MP3 / geeks suck / napster must die cadre) of her own.
Nowhere does she demonise geeks as lars does... instead she takes issue (on the pro-MP3 side) with beancounter types, venture capitalists specifically (does *anyone* REALLY *like* dealing these guys?), calling them "sucka VCs". In fact, she later claims that "As a user, I love Napster", and she even goes so far as to quote Snow Crash. Sure sounds like the *bulk* of the article is geek-friendy to me.
As for that ONE instance (out of SIX pages) where she claims allegiance with metallica/RIAA... well, your guess is as good as mine. But that's ONE inconsistency in an overwhealming pro-MP3/geek article.
Perhaps YOU need to reread the article.
I hardly think that one soundbyte quote equates to 'commending lars throughout the article'. And the only (pro MP3) people she calls anything close to a moron are venture capitalists, who she calls "suckers" (which might not be far from the truth, given the so-called dot-com-collapse of late).
And it's cute how you completely skirted my original point on how Love was articulate and well reasoned; while uh, lars was, well uh, totally, like, disjointed, er... inarticulate, and um... disjointed.. oops, did I uh, repeat myself?
john
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>so they throw it away. who owns the CD? If
>someone were to stroll by, could they pick it
>up and keep it?
Once it's in the trash, it's fair game for anyone who wants to grab it and do whatever they like. There was a court case, quite awhile back, (I dunno if it went all the way to the supremes tho), that affirmed this.
This was established back in the AT&T monopoly phone phreaking days, when ma bell tried to sue people who took discarded copies of phoneCo manuals.
john
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<BAD PUN>
Just goes to show, that metallica are the PUPPETS, and *not* the MASTERS.
</BAD PUN>
john
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>level-headed people in this whole debate, and
>certainly have a lot to add.
Look, for a moment, at which artitsts argue their cases more articulately... the ones who side WITH the geeks, or the ones that hate the geeks...
First, look at Courtney Love's suprisingly articulate, well thought out, reasoned piece in salon @:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/lo
She put forth a well reasoned arguement on why the RIAA sucks, and why she supports MP3s. She even included a run down on the economics of CD sales, confirming what many people here who know a little about 'the biz' have been saying all along. The artist is *DAMN LUCKY* if she sees a whole 50 cents from a CD sale... the rest disappears into the RIAA void.
No go back through the Slashdot archives and find that pile of disjointed, inarticulate, sometimes incoherent, pile of drivel that finally spewed forth when lars denigned to address
It can be boiled down to:
Napster BAD!
I wish you people would die.
Um... Uh.... Eh... Um... Er...
john
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So whaddya think... start a betting pool...
Is he:
An "anti GPL RMS is a dirty hippie commie BSD license is "more free"" type?
A Berkeley student/alum who is disgruntled that Linux gets so much mindshare?
A hipocrite, plain and simple?
john
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>about it?
You aren't *supposed* to think anything about it.
Go ahead... think any damn thing you please. No one'll burn you at the stake. Form an opinion for yourself, and don't wait for the libertarian gurus to form one for you. Just because you belong to a particular political party/religion/group does NOT mean you MUST adjust your entire thought processes to fit it's doctrine.
OTOH, some of those same entities *DO* beleive that everyone MUST think alike. And will go to great lengths to silence/excommunicate their critics. Which is why I will never support groups like the republican or democrat parties, the christian church, peta, cult of scientology, micro$oft, etc.
But, the last I checked, there was nothing in the libertarian philosophy that said you MUST accept, beleive in, and think in line with, EVERY aspect of the philosophy.
john
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