Other than View Askew, Pixar, and Lucasfilm, I don't know one studio from another so I can't speak for miramax in aprticular...
But given the quality (or actually, the lack therof) of the absolute crap that's been dished out into the theaters this year, it *IS* the literal truth that I'd enjoy trying to hack the encryption more than watching the movies themselves.
Really! What movies have been worth seeing this year? The only one I've seen and enjoyed was High Fidelity. I might give Road Trip a try, just cause I'm a big Tom Green fan. But what else???
Battfield earth? gag... I only regret that I didn't fall asleep earlier. Actually I regret going at all, but I'm too bloody-minded not to stay for my whole $8.50s worth of 2 hours.
U571? The bastard stepchild of Das Boot and The Hunt for Red October, but with neither the direction of Wolfgang Peterson, nor the acting talent of Sean Connery.
Rules of Engagement? Knockoff of "A Few Good Men" but without Jack Nicholson.
Gag, gasp and more gag...
I'd *MUCH* rathar spend two hours hacking at whatever encryption mirimax has put in place (Hell, or even just playing CivIII) than subject myself to any of the tripe that has been released THIS year again.
Seriously? WTF is up? Last year we had some aweosme movies...
Dogma Being John Malkovich American Pie Enemy of the State Toy Story 2 South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut Austin Powers 2
And hell, even the oft maligned Star Ware Episode I, The Phantom Menace easily beats the snot out of anything I've been subjected to THIS year.
Have the powers to be decreed that 2000 will be the year that the movies suck?
> They're not obligated to nail everybody. All >they need to do is nail enough in order to create >an atmosphere of fear
Nicely put. Rule through fear. Now where have I heard that before???
Ah there it is... the Tarkin doctrine...
"I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently... Regional governors will now have direct control over their systems. Fear will keep the local systems in line... fear of this battlestation"
Honestly, the number of slashdotters posting recently who are so willing to supplicate themselves to RIAA and its merry band of metallica/lawyers stormtroopers just baffles me. After all the work and struggle to bring down ONE evil empire, people are now anxious to submit to another?!?!?
>That's the power a monopoly gives you. It removes >choice and allows for price fixing.
And indeed, the FTC recently found that the music industry *HAS*, in fact, been engaging in illegial price fixing over the last ten years, gouging the public out of something like a billion dollars or so.
>BTW this is the Internet: why should I care >especially about American deaths?
Canadian? There's this little thing called fallout.
English? We don't know WHO got those hard drives. What if it was the Irish and not the chineese?
Israeli? You're SURROUNDED by nice guys whose biggist wish is the chance to finish what the nazis started.
Get my point? Rogue nations with nukes is a BAD THING(tm).
Not to mention that if anyone starts throwing nukes at the US, or any of the other legitimate nuclear powers, such as the UK, France, or Russia, they're gonna get a handful right back in their faces... MORE fallout, MORE environmental damage.
And that's not EVEN considering economic consequences. Imagine the effects of a 25 Megaton airburst over, say, Sunnyvale.
(Or better yet, go see for yourself: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/sfeature/mapabla st.html)
The date and time trick takes less than a minute, and the interface patches are not in any necessary for FUNCTION, only if the GUI doesn't weet your PREFERENCE would you want to bother with them.
As for the bugs you claim to have found... once again, unduplicatible outside of your little Mac-bashing microview...
Just for kicks, I've downloaded a M$ mediaplayer file, and dragged it to my Quicktime Movieplayer icon... Popup dialog box saying that the CODEC is unavailabile. No "mystery bar" seen.
Now... playing a Quicktime movie, stop playback, drag a new Quicktime file onto the icon... Nope... no "garbage in the first frame from whatever was previously in the video buffer" visible here.
Why is it that I can never seem to reproduce these problems that supposedly make Quicktime this horrible POS myself? Bust be the kryptonite I keep on my keychain.
>What genius decided to have the player "silently >fail" if you launch a.mov that it doesn't know >how to play? (it just brings up a bar -- and >waits). But if you do a File->Open, then it will >say that it doesn't have the CODEC.
Dunno what you're smokin. I've NEVER had this happen. When I try to launch a movie for which QT doesn't have the CODEC, it just tells me. No "bar" ever appears.
>Probably the same geniuses that have it scream at >me to upgrade "now or later" everytime I run it.
1) Open your "Date & Time" control panel. 2) Set the date ahead a few years. 3) Close control panel 4) Launch Quicktime Movie Player 5) Click on "Register Later" 6) Go back to "Date & Time" and reset the year. 7) Now you won't see the banner for a few years at least.
>Or possibly the same Einsteins that make wacky >controls that are totally different from every >other Windows application. Isn't it in the Apple >style guide that, above all, everything should >work consistently?
1) Go to Raul's GUI goodies @: http://www.teamdraw.com/raul/stuff/stuff.html 2) Download and install the fix 3) do the same for Sherlock II as well, if you don't like the new look.
OR
1) Grab a copy of the Quicktime Movie Player ver. 3 2) Replace Movie Player ver. 4, with ver. 3 3) The Movieplayer 3 has access to all of Quicktime 4's APIs and CODECs, but has the look and feel of the original.
For crying out loud! These have been common knowledge forever!!! I think it took all of a week of outrage over the new look (admittedly bad) before people started figuring out the first workarounds.
>I really like how it dumps garbage in the first >frame from whatever was previously in the video >buffer. Hmmm; no other application does that, why >does Quicktime player?
Once again, never had that happen to me.
>the icons that make absolutely no >intuitive sense,
Hm... considering that the "Play" button on Movieplayer looks just like the "Play" button on my VCR.....
>jerks who get their fancy new cablemodem and then >download 800 gigabytes of porn in one evening, >starving off the entire feed for everyone else on >that part of the network - or the xDSL guys who >do the same thing.
I *PAY* for for 640K/640K bandwidth on my DSL line. And short of illegial activities such as spamming or DOSing, what I do with the dedicated bandwidth I *PAY* for is my own bloody business. Even if all I do is send 640Kbps of random noise back and forth to a friend who *PAYS* for the same rate and dump it all to/dev/null.
Now, if you want broadband on the cheap and want to go with a shared service like a cable modem, that's your own affair. You get to save some $$$, but, in exchange for that savings, you take your chances of being on a shared net. Got a problem with your performance? Reread your service agreement and see if you have a valid complaint. And, if so, take it up with your provider.
As for myself, I *PAY* for 640Kbps, both ways, no limit. And if I want to use the bandwidth I *PAY* for, that's MY own business, and I'm both legally and morally in the clear. If an ISP can't deliver the bandwidth it guarantees, then they SHOULD NOT SELL THAT BANDWIDTH!!!
My dad's a retired chief who did his twenty in the sonar shack; all the way from GUPPY boats to 688s before he retired (ie. forget about bringing a girl into the house, cause he *WILL* hear you... and be able to give a frequency count too).
Proposals like this thing, AND the acoustic email thing in the main topic would make him laugh his ass of... about two seconds before he reached out and twisted your head off for sugessting such a damn stupid idea.
Simple fact is: sound BAD... quiet GOOD.
These survallance ships would be sitting ducks just screaming to ivan : PLEASE KILL ME PLEASE KILL ME.
Active sonar announces your position to a passive listener LONG BEFORE you get enough of a return to track your target. On subs, the ONLY time they're used is to perfect your solution right before you fire on your target... and usually it's not even necessary even then, passive sonar is so good it's SCARY.
Ditto w/ skimmers. The only time skimmers use active sonar is when the whole world knows where you are already, such guarding a CVBG from subs. And even then, a CVBG can go silent and "dissappear" for a distrubingly long time.
I dont think you need to worry about this thing bothering the whales.
A number of people have pointed out that it's illegal to use cellphones on aircraft anyway. And then there're the similar restrictions about discmans, gameboys, laptops, etc.
"RF frequency can disrupt navigation / autoland / whatever, so let's ban electronics either completely or just during takeoff / landing." Yeah... Grrreat idea!!!
What people who say "it's illegal anyway" overlook, is the fact that there is just about always some yahoo who thinks that the rules don't apply to him.
They'll use those tiny headphones and keep the discman in their pocket. Or they'll use a headset with their cellphone (till the plane climbs out of cell tower range). Or they'll hide the game boy whenever a stewardess gets near. Or they'll say they're using a Palm III when it's really a Palm VII. Or mabye even, they don't mean to break the rules at all, but they just leave the cellphone ON during the flight (those suckers *DO* transmit even when you're not in a call, ya know).
You know it'll happen, no matter what laws or rules or regulations you impose, and whatever safety guidelines you publish, and no matter how many times you tell someone. It WILL happen.
And that's why the FAA needs to dump those "RF on an airplane" rules, and mandate a technological solution.
>>Producing CDs costs them pennies yet the CD >>prices have stayed at $14-18 for the past few >>years.
>This is, simply put, a load of cr*p.
Well, it would take about $3-4K worth of consumer grade hardware & software (the most expensive part being the special printer to duplicate the artwork on the CD itself).
You'd buy the raw materials (blank CD-Rs, jewel cases, glossy paper for the liner notes, etc) in bulk.
Once everything was scanned in and set up properly, I'd be able to duplicate a copy, that the average joe couldn't easily tell from an original, every fifteen minutes at a cost of a $1 per.
Bump my equipment budget up to $10K and I could do about 20/hour still at a cost of $1 per.
And that's with CONSUMER equipment you can find advretised all over Computer Shopper, Macworld, or the like.
The record companies have CD fab machinery that cost millions, and can spit out thousands of CDs an hour. Plus, they buy the raw materials in much greater bulk than is possible for me.
I don't find it implausable AT ALL that the RIAA minions could produce CDs cheaper than myself by AT LEAST a factor of ten.
I know it runs on an 11 year cycle, I'm just not sure where we are in that cycle right about now. But I could have sworn I read an article not too long ago about how we are almost due for another eruption of gobs of particle crud from the sun...
... with, of course, all of the requisite effects:
Northern lights at low latitudes. Lots o' stuff in orbit getting fried (and a corresponding hiatus in shuttle flights). And a total thrashing of worldwide radio communications.
Of course, this G4 could be planned to go up AFTER flare season. But isn't it still a valid concern?
It was from the Simpsons; I beleive from the episode when Mr. Burns briefly makes Bart his heir.
Homer was at Burns' house trying to get Bart back and was speculating in Mr. Burns' security measures (remember, he is fond of releasing the hounds upon unwelcome visitors). I think, tho, that the weapon used against Homer this time was the robotic Richard Simmons.
Also of note, a recent episode of Malcom in the Middle featured his dad constructing a war robot with a "laser guided bee cannon".
(90% of my TV viewing consists of Fox' 7-10pm sunday night lineup starting with Futurama and lasting through the X-Files)
>Yeah, but your house does 250 amps, I bet.. the >building I'm sitting in right now I betcha does >over 2000. That, umm, kinda makes a difference.
Yeah, but the building I work in is n SF's SOMA district and was renovated two years ago specifficly for the purpose of housing technology companies. Plus, my home circuit is all ME. At home I prolly use more amp/person than the office does w/ one refridgerator split between 40 people, etc.
Plus, I live in an OLD house. You'd be supprised how old some of these homes in SF are. I don't even want to imagine what kind of spec my home electric wiring is up to, or how old it is.
Some big streaches of SF are in need of some MAJOR urban renewal. But the city planning board makes it INCREDIBLY difficult to demolish and redevelop ANYTHING.
>When I read a Katz article, I feel like I am >wading through a sea of molasses, waves of thick >prose washing over me, while I try to make out >that faint searchlight of the point.
Damn. We've finally pegged Katz' writing style.
You know... I used to write like that; but not even as a college freshman, try a high school freshman/sopohmore.
Know why???
Word count requirements!
Surely, you remember having to toss in fluff to pad a point you could've made in 75-100 words into a 500 word minimum forced upon you by a sadistic english teacher who would take off a point from your grade for every word under the minimum or over the maximum??? So I'd make my point and start padding my paper with crap to get it up to the length requirement. Throw in definitions, broad generalisations, "insightful" quotations... and ya know what? It worked every time!
Do ya think that in one of his other gigs, Katz gets payed by the word?
Everything you said plus more bakes this a *BAD* idea for HOME networking as well as office networking.
Flouescent lights, refridgerator, space heaters, air conditioner, microwave oven... got em all.
I'd bet good money that the power signal in my HOME is just as "dirty" as at the office. Moreso I'd bet, actually. And yep, everything important is on a power strip/surge supressor, and the cpu boxen are all on UPSs. And I don't string my cat5 anywhere NEAR my power cables (actually, it's not even IN the walls, it's duct taped to the ceilings, walls, and floor OUTSIDE the walls).
>most new buildings these days have cat5 and >coax drops just per default.
Most new HOMES have this too, at least according to an article in the Mercury News a while back. And this is EXACTLY why this is a horribly *BAD* idea for home networking as well.
What happens when real estate developers and builders find out about something like this? They'll think, "well, we can still sell a 'network ready' house, but skimp on all that cat5/coax cost". We'll have inferior bandwidth at home, subject to all the power line noise you described. And don't expect the house to be sold/built any cheaper for the lack of a real cat5 network either.
john
City hostility? or stupid old people hostility???
on
The Leased Life?
·
· Score: 2
>and your cities seem strangely hostile to you >doing anything other than working, sleeping, or >spending.
Hell, I recently moven to San Francisco for a new programming job, and if you were to read the editorial sections of certian bay area pubications, you's think that the city doesn't even want you doing that much.
According to these old geezer editors, computer geeks are this rapacious horde descending upon the city to rape, pillage, and plunder the innocent natives. We'll destroy the city. We'll bring TOO MUCH muney into the local economy?!?!? Hyperinflation will, of course, follow, causing a loaf of bread to cost >$20. No one except computer geeks will be able to afford to eat, drive, and rent an apartment. The neighborhoods will be homogenous. We're here ONLY because of the good jobs that MIGHT make us rich (hmmm... anyone else here remember how the football team got it's name???). There're NO other reasons that we choose to live in San Francisco instead of the valley or any of the MANY other places we could work. We're here ONLY because we want to rape the city...
Or at least that's what these old codgers would have you beleive. I dunno what it really is. Methinks it's another variant on the old "the newcomer is always evil" syndrome so prevelant in any area facing an influx of immigrants. Either that or they never grew out of their high school "lets beat up on the computer nerds" cliqueishness.
But now that I've actually got to know some real people, as opposed to reading the insanely leftist, exclusionary, luddite infested press, I've found none of the hostility you would guess exists, were you to judge from their writings. People are, if anything, MORE friendly here than in my former home, Orlando, FL. No one seems particularly concerned that I'm a computer geek, assuming the topic of work comes up at all. Far from seeing a homogenous wasteland of subrubanite geekiness, SanFran has maintained its diversity. There's plenty of fun stuff to do outside of Quake. Plenty of live bands, plenty of everything (including my job) that I cane to the city for.
And except for those newspapers, I've found the city to be quite welcomeing.
That's twice now in the same topic where you bash Toy Story 2 and flame people for being impressed by it.
What's the story? Do you have REASONS for hating Toy Story 2 so intensely? Or are you just another one of those "I hate Apple/everything Steve Jobs has ever done sucks" types?
>The biggest problem with MaxiVision, as far as I >can tell, is that anything digital is >automatically *better* in most peoples eyes,
Well, I can't speak as to the quality of maxivision, having never seen it myself. What I *CAN* say for certian is that the digital projections we have NOW are far superior to analog celluloid NOW.
The problem with Maxivision, though, is dreadfully sluggish development. Maxivision is a relatively recent innovation in the analog film industry. But just HOW LONG has celluloid stagnated at the same old 35mm, 24fps, jittery, easily out of focus, rapidly detiorating film stock, tech level??? Seventy YEARS? LONGER?
Meanwhile digital projection can be expected to advance according to some variant of Moore's Law (ie, improvement will be exponential, but the interval might not necessarily be 18 months).
So assume that Maxivision is twice as good as digital NOW (and therefore at least four times as good as standard celluloid NOW). Epidode 2 is due in summer 2002 IIRC. By then, Moore's law will have gone through one and a half iterations. The digital print will, by that time be only marginally better than a Maxivision print.
So, to make the math easier, lets assume that Maxivision actually offers a little better than 2x digital NOW, so that digital will just have caught up by Episode 2. Episode 3 is due in 2005. That's time enough for TWO FULL ITERATIONS of Moore's Law. That makes a digital projection of Episode 3 FOUR TIMES BETTER than the equivelent Maxivision print!
Now, I KNOW that Moore's law doesn't necessarily correspond directly to a doubling of actual *performance*. And video processing and decoding might not keep the same 18 month interval of microprocessors. But the point still stands. Digital image technology advances on a (very steep) exponential curve, while analog film technology has advanced only linearly (and with a VERY SHALLOW slope as well).
For whatever advantages Maxivision might have NOW, it just can't keep up.
Slashdot Mirror
But given the quality (or actually, the lack therof) of the absolute crap that's been dished out into the theaters this year, it *IS* the literal truth that I'd enjoy trying to hack the encryption more than watching the movies themselves.
Really! What movies have been worth seeing this year? The only one I've seen and enjoyed was High Fidelity. I might give Road Trip a try, just cause I'm a big Tom Green fan. But what else???
Battfield earth? gag... I only regret that I didn't fall asleep earlier. Actually I regret going at all, but I'm too bloody-minded not to stay for my whole $8.50s worth of 2 hours.
U571? The bastard stepchild of Das Boot and The Hunt for Red October, but with neither the direction of Wolfgang Peterson, nor the acting talent of Sean Connery.
Rules of Engagement? Knockoff of "A Few Good Men" but without Jack Nicholson.
Gag, gasp and more gag...
I'd *MUCH* rathar spend two hours hacking at whatever encryption mirimax has put in place (Hell, or even just playing CivIII) than subject myself to any of the tripe that has been released THIS year again.
Seriously? WTF is up? Last year we had some aweosme movies...
Dogma
Being John Malkovich
American Pie
Enemy of the State
Toy Story 2
South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut
Austin Powers 2
And hell, even the oft maligned Star Ware Episode I, The Phantom Menace easily beats the snot out of anything I've been subjected to THIS year.
Have the powers to be decreed that 2000 will be the year that the movies suck?
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Chexk it out:
http://pbs.vicinity.com/pbs/blast.hm?SEC=25pres
I get a warm and fuzzy feeling every time I look at it.
Hmmm... perhaps custom Lego bricks made out of U235?
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
>they need to do is nail enough in order to create
>an atmosphere of fear
Nicely put. Rule through fear. Now where have I heard that before???
Ah there it is... the Tarkin doctrine...
"I've just received word that the Emperor has
dissolved the council permanently...
Regional governors will now have direct
control over their systems. Fear will keep
the local systems in line... fear of this
battlestation"
Honestly, the number of slashdotters posting recently who are so willing to supplicate themselves to RIAA and its merry band of metallica/lawyers stormtroopers just baffles me. After all the work and struggle to bring down ONE evil empire, people are now anxious to submit to another?!?!?
Sad.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
>The supervolcano under Yellowstone park
I'd never heard of such a thing before. I'd thought you were kidding at first, but google has turned up a couple of nifty sites I've been looking at.
Is there anyplace in particular for lots of GOOD detail on this supervolcano and others (if any( like it?
Links would be greatly appreciated.
thanx
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
>That's the power a monopoly gives you. It removes
>choice and allows for price fixing.
And indeed, the FTC recently found that the music industry *HAS*, in fact, been engaging in illegial price fixing over the last ten years, gouging the public out of something like a billion dollars or so.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Anyone else type differently on each?
Lessee...
At work I have one of those nifty ergonomic jobs on the pc, and a generic extended board on the Linux rack.
At home, one of those little iMac boards on my G3 tower, and an IBM 101key (better tactile/audio feedback than other brands) on the Linux box.
Plus, I have an old beater of a Thinkpad, with keyboard oddities of its own, I use for email on the road.
And by the end of the summer, I plan to have a new Powerbook.
Five keyboards (now... six in a couple months), all with different feel and feedback, and almost certianly, all with different typing habits.
I don't think it'll work.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
>especially about American deaths?
Canadian? There's this little thing called fallout.
English? We don't know WHO got those hard drives. What if it was the Irish and not the chineese?
Israeli? You're SURROUNDED by nice guys whose biggist wish is the chance to finish what the nazis started.
Get my point? Rogue nations with nukes is a BAD THING(tm).
Not to mention that if anyone starts throwing nukes at the US, or any of the other legitimate nuclear powers, such as the UK, France, or Russia, they're gonna get a handful right back in their faces... MORE fallout, MORE environmental damage.
And that's not EVEN considering economic consequences. Imagine the effects of a 25 Megaton airburst over, say, Sunnyvale.
(Or better yet, go see for yourself: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/sfeature/mapabl
Looks to me like you'd better START careing.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
The date and time trick takes less than a minute, and the interface patches are not in any necessary for FUNCTION, only if the GUI doesn't weet your PREFERENCE would you want to bother with them.
As for the bugs you claim to have found... once again, unduplicatible outside of your little Mac-bashing microview...
Just for kicks, I've downloaded a M$ mediaplayer file, and dragged it to my Quicktime Movieplayer icon... Popup dialog box saying that the CODEC is unavailabile. No "mystery bar" seen.
Now... playing a Quicktime movie, stop playback, drag a new Quicktime file onto the icon... Nope... no "garbage in the first frame from whatever was previously in the video buffer" visible here.
Keep slingin the FUD, microdrone.
john
Why is it that I can never seem to reproduce these problems that supposedly make Quicktime this horrible POS myself? Bust be the kryptonite I keep on my keychain.
.mov that it doesn't know
>What genius decided to have the player "silently
>fail" if you launch a
>how to play? (it just brings up a bar -- and
>waits). But if you do a File->Open, then it will
>say that it doesn't have the CODEC.
Dunno what you're smokin. I've NEVER had this happen. When I try to launch a movie for which QT doesn't have the CODEC, it just tells me. No "bar" ever appears.
>Probably the same geniuses that have it scream at
>me to upgrade "now or later" everytime I run it.
1) Open your "Date & Time" control panel.
2) Set the date ahead a few years.
3) Close control panel
4) Launch Quicktime Movie Player
5) Click on "Register Later"
6) Go back to "Date & Time" and reset the year.
7) Now you won't see the banner for a few years at least.
>Or possibly the same Einsteins that make wacky
>controls that are totally different from every
>other Windows application. Isn't it in the Apple
>style guide that, above all, everything should
>work consistently?
1) Go to Raul's GUI goodies @:
http://www.teamdraw.com/raul/stuff/stuff.html
2) Download and install the fix
3) do the same for Sherlock II as well, if you don't like the new look.
OR
1) Grab a copy of the Quicktime Movie Player ver. 3
2) Replace Movie Player ver. 4, with ver. 3
3) The Movieplayer 3 has access to all of Quicktime 4's APIs and CODECs, but has the look and feel of the original.
For crying out loud! These have been common knowledge forever!!! I think it took all of a week of outrage over the new look (admittedly bad) before people started figuring out the first workarounds.
>I really like how it dumps garbage in the first
>frame from whatever was previously in the video
>buffer. Hmmm; no other application does that, why
>does Quicktime player?
Once again, never had that happen to me.
>the icons that make absolutely no
>intuitive sense,
Hm... considering that the "Play" button on Movieplayer looks just like the "Play" button on my VCR.....
john
>jerks who get their fancy new cablemodem and then
/dev/null.
>download 800 gigabytes of porn in one evening,
>starving off the entire feed for everyone else on
>that part of the network - or the xDSL guys who
>do the same thing.
I *PAY* for for 640K/640K bandwidth on my DSL line. And short of illegial activities such as spamming or DOSing, what I do with the dedicated bandwidth I *PAY* for is my own bloody business. Even if all I do is send 640Kbps of random noise back and forth to a friend who *PAYS* for the same rate and dump it all to
Now, if you want broadband on the cheap and want to go with a shared service like a cable modem, that's your own affair. You get to save some $$$, but, in exchange for that savings, you take your chances of being on a shared net. Got a problem with your performance? Reread your service agreement and see if you have a valid complaint. And, if so, take it up with your provider.
As for myself, I *PAY* for 640Kbps, both ways, no limit. And if I want to use the bandwidth I *PAY* for, that's MY own business, and I'm both legally and morally in the clear. If an ISP can't deliver the bandwidth it guarantees, then they SHOULD NOT SELL THAT BANDWIDTH!!!
john
My dad's a retired chief who did his twenty in the sonar shack; all the way from GUPPY boats to 688s before he retired (ie. forget about bringing a girl into the house, cause he *WILL* hear you... and be able to give a frequency count too).
Proposals like this thing, AND the acoustic email thing in the main topic would make him laugh his ass of... about two seconds before he reached out and twisted your head off for sugessting such a damn stupid idea.
Simple fact is: sound BAD... quiet GOOD.
These survallance ships would be sitting ducks just screaming to ivan : PLEASE KILL ME PLEASE KILL ME.
Active sonar announces your position to a passive listener LONG BEFORE you get enough of a return to track your target. On subs, the ONLY time they're used is to perfect your solution right before you fire on your target... and usually it's not even necessary even then, passive sonar is so good it's SCARY.
Ditto w/ skimmers. The only time skimmers use active sonar is when the whole world knows where you are already, such guarding a CVBG from subs. And even then, a CVBG can go silent and "dissappear" for a distrubingly long time.
I dont think you need to worry about this thing bothering the whales.
john
... and *NOT* a legal one.
A number of people have pointed out that it's illegal to use cellphones on aircraft anyway. And then there're the similar restrictions about discmans, gameboys, laptops, etc.
"RF frequency can disrupt navigation / autoland / whatever, so let's ban electronics either completely or just during takeoff / landing." Yeah... Grrreat idea!!!
What people who say "it's illegal anyway" overlook, is the fact that there is just about always some yahoo who thinks that the rules don't apply to him.
They'll use those tiny headphones and keep the discman in their pocket. Or they'll use a headset with their cellphone (till the plane climbs out of cell tower range). Or they'll hide the game boy whenever a stewardess gets near. Or they'll say they're using a Palm III when it's really a Palm VII. Or mabye even, they don't mean to break the rules at all, but they just leave the cellphone ON during the flight (those suckers *DO* transmit even when you're not in a call, ya know).
You know it'll happen, no matter what laws or rules or regulations you impose, and whatever safety guidelines you publish, and no matter how many times you tell someone. It WILL happen.
And that's why the FAA needs to dump those "RF on an airplane" rules, and mandate a technological solution.
john
>>Producing CDs costs them pennies yet the CD
>>prices have stayed at $14-18 for the past few
>>years.
>This is, simply put, a load of cr*p.
Well, it would take about $3-4K worth of consumer grade hardware & software (the most expensive part being the special printer to duplicate the artwork on the CD itself).
You'd buy the raw materials (blank CD-Rs, jewel cases, glossy paper for the liner notes, etc) in bulk.
Once everything was scanned in and set up properly, I'd be able to duplicate a copy, that the average joe couldn't easily tell from an original, every fifteen minutes at a cost of a $1 per.
Bump my equipment budget up to $10K and I could do about 20/hour still at a cost of $1 per.
And that's with CONSUMER equipment you can find advretised all over Computer Shopper, Macworld, or the like.
The record companies have CD fab machinery that cost millions, and can spit out thousands of CDs an hour. Plus, they buy the raw materials in much greater bulk than is possible for me.
I don't find it implausable AT ALL that the RIAA minions could produce CDs cheaper than myself by AT LEAST a factor of ten.
john
>AirPort encrypts the information sent
>over the network
Yeah, but remember it was designed for export BEFORE crypto laws were loosened.
I don't remember exactly what key length it uses, but it was something revoltingly small.... like 48 bit or 56 bit... something like that.
Not exactly your average 4096bit PGP key, is it?
john
>(except for solar flares)
But isn't it just about solar flare season?
I know it runs on an 11 year cycle, I'm just not sure where we are in that cycle right about now. But I could have sworn I read an article not too long ago about how we are almost due for another eruption of gobs of particle crud from the sun...
... with, of course, all of the requisite effects:
Northern lights at low latitudes.
Lots o' stuff in orbit getting fried (and a corresponding hiatus in shuttle flights).
And a total thrashing of worldwide radio communications.
Of course, this G4 could be planned to go up AFTER flare season. But isn't it still a valid concern?
john
Because every generation needs it's own "Plan 9 from Outer Space".
john
>Microsoft is made up of people
It's not a person dammit, it's a Borg!
-- With apologies to Patrick Stewart
john
Guess how Thomas Penfeild Jackson got his job...
He was appointed by gool ol' Ronnie "The bombing starts in five minutes...half the worlds's in the grip of an evil empire" Reagan.
Somehow, I doubt that he'd appoint a communist to a federal bench.
john
It was from the Simpsons; I beleive from the episode when Mr. Burns briefly makes Bart his heir.
Homer was at Burns' house trying to get Bart back and was speculating in Mr. Burns' security measures (remember, he is fond of releasing the hounds upon unwelcome visitors). I think, tho, that the weapon used against Homer this time was the robotic Richard Simmons.
Also of note, a recent episode of Malcom in the Middle featured his dad constructing a war robot with a "laser guided bee cannon".
(90% of my TV viewing consists of Fox' 7-10pm sunday night lineup starting with Futurama and lasting through the X-Files)
john
>Yeah, but your house does 250 amps, I bet.. the
>building I'm sitting in right now I betcha does
>over 2000. That, umm, kinda makes a difference.
Yeah, but the building I work in is n SF's SOMA district and was renovated two years ago specifficly for the purpose of housing technology companies. Plus, my home circuit is all ME. At home I prolly use more amp/person than the office does w/ one refridgerator split between 40 people, etc.
Plus, I live in an OLD house. You'd be supprised how old some of these homes in SF are. I don't even want to imagine what kind of spec my home electric wiring is up to, or how old it is.
Some big streaches of SF are in need of some MAJOR urban renewal. But the city planning board makes it INCREDIBLY difficult to demolish and redevelop ANYTHING.
john
>When I read a Katz article, I feel like I am
>wading through a sea of molasses, waves of thick
>prose washing over me, while I try to make out
>that faint searchlight of the point.
Damn. We've finally pegged Katz' writing style.
You know... I used to write like that; but not even as a college freshman, try a high school freshman/sopohmore.
Know why???
Word count requirements!
Surely, you remember having to toss in fluff to pad a point you could've made in 75-100 words into a 500 word minimum forced upon you by a sadistic english teacher who would take off a point from your grade for every word under the minimum or over the maximum??? So I'd make my point and start padding my paper with crap to get it up to the length requirement. Throw in definitions, broad generalisations, "insightful" quotations... and ya know what? It worked every time!
Do ya think that in one of his other gigs, Katz gets payed by the word?
john
Everything you said plus more bakes this a *BAD* idea for HOME networking as well as office networking.
Flouescent lights, refridgerator, space heaters, air conditioner, microwave oven... got em all.
I'd bet good money that the power signal in my HOME is just as "dirty" as at the office. Moreso I'd bet, actually. And yep, everything important is on a power strip/surge supressor, and the cpu boxen are all on UPSs. And I don't string my cat5 anywhere NEAR my power cables (actually, it's not even IN the walls, it's duct taped to the ceilings, walls, and floor OUTSIDE the walls).
>most new buildings these days have cat5 and
>coax drops just per default.
Most new HOMES have this too, at least according to an article in the Mercury News a while back. And this is EXACTLY why this is a horribly *BAD* idea for home networking as well.
What happens when real estate developers and builders find out about something like this? They'll think, "well, we can still sell a 'network ready' house, but skimp on all that cat5/coax cost". We'll have inferior bandwidth at home, subject to all the power line noise you described. And don't expect the house to be sold/built any cheaper for the lack of a real cat5 network either.
john
>and your cities seem strangely hostile to you
>doing anything other than working, sleeping, or
>spending.
Hell, I recently moven to San Francisco for a new programming job, and if you were to read the editorial sections of certian bay area pubications, you's think that the city doesn't even want you doing that much.
According to these old geezer editors, computer geeks are this rapacious horde descending upon the city to rape, pillage, and plunder the innocent natives. We'll destroy the city. We'll bring TOO MUCH muney into the local economy?!?!? Hyperinflation will, of course, follow, causing a loaf of bread to cost >$20. No one except computer geeks will be able to afford to eat, drive, and rent an apartment. The neighborhoods will be homogenous. We're here ONLY because of the good jobs that MIGHT make us rich (hmmm... anyone else here remember how the football team got it's name???). There're NO other reasons that we choose to live in San Francisco instead of the valley or any of the MANY other places we could work. We're here ONLY because we want to rape the city...
Or at least that's what these old codgers would have you beleive. I dunno what it really is. Methinks it's another variant on the old "the newcomer is always evil" syndrome so prevelant in any area facing an influx of immigrants. Either that or they never grew out of their high school "lets beat up on the computer nerds" cliqueishness.
But now that I've actually got to know some real people, as opposed to reading the insanely leftist, exclusionary, luddite infested press, I've found none of the hostility you would guess exists, were you to judge from their writings. People are, if anything, MORE friendly here than in my former home, Orlando, FL. No one seems particularly concerned that I'm a computer geek, assuming the topic of work comes up at all. Far from seeing a homogenous wasteland of subrubanite geekiness, SanFran has maintained its diversity. There's plenty of fun stuff to do outside of Quake. Plenty of live bands, plenty of everything (including my job) that I cane to the city for.
And except for those newspapers, I've found the city to be quite welcomeing.
john
That's twice now in the same topic where you bash Toy Story 2 and flame people for being impressed by it.
What's the story? Do you have REASONS for hating Toy Story 2 so intensely? Or are you just another one of those "I hate Apple/everything Steve Jobs has ever done sucks" types?
john
>The biggest problem with MaxiVision, as far as I
>can tell, is that anything digital is
>automatically *better* in most peoples eyes,
Well, I can't speak as to the quality of maxivision, having never seen it myself. What I *CAN* say for certian is that the digital projections we have NOW are far superior to analog celluloid NOW.
The problem with Maxivision, though, is dreadfully sluggish development. Maxivision is a relatively recent innovation in the analog film industry. But just HOW LONG has celluloid stagnated at the same old 35mm, 24fps, jittery, easily out of focus, rapidly detiorating film stock, tech level??? Seventy YEARS? LONGER?
Meanwhile digital projection can be expected to advance according to some variant of Moore's Law (ie, improvement will be exponential, but the interval might not necessarily be 18 months).
So assume that Maxivision is twice as good as digital NOW (and therefore at least four times as good as standard celluloid NOW). Epidode 2 is due in summer 2002 IIRC. By then, Moore's law will have gone through one and a half iterations. The digital print will, by that time be only marginally better than a Maxivision print.
So, to make the math easier, lets assume that Maxivision actually offers a little better than 2x digital NOW, so that digital will just have caught up by Episode 2. Episode 3 is due in 2005. That's time enough for TWO FULL ITERATIONS of Moore's Law. That makes a digital projection of Episode 3 FOUR TIMES BETTER than the equivelent Maxivision print!
Now, I KNOW that Moore's law doesn't necessarily correspond directly to a doubling of actual *performance*. And video processing and decoding might not keep the same 18 month interval of microprocessors. But the point still stands. Digital image technology advances on a (very steep) exponential curve, while analog film technology has advanced only linearly (and with a VERY SHALLOW slope as well).
For whatever advantages Maxivision might have NOW, it just can't keep up.
john