Real Player used to be a simple piece of audio (then later video) playing software. Now its becomeiwng one of those applications that wants to dominate your system and do everything from playing media to making eggs.
Your best bet is to download Real Alternative. It bundles the Realplayer Codecs (the newest 10.0 version) with the simple Media Player Classic UI, so you can watch and listen to Realplayer content without the annoying popups and spyware.
Looks like Linus's trip "down under" inspired this kernel release... the Dunnart is a type of Australian marsupial. The Tasmanian Devil is probably the best known example.
Actually, to correct myself, the Tasmanian Devil is not a type of Dunnart, although they both belong to the genus "Sminthopsis".
Looks like Linus's trip "down under" inspired this kernel release... the Dunnart is a type of Australian marsupial. The Tasmanian Devil is probably the best known example.
From what I've read about LaRouche, the idea of him as president is almost as scary as [Charles] Manson as president. The guy is completely apeshit.
I have a LaRouche cultist living a few doors down from me, she keeps trying to give me her newsletters about how the Jews control the world economy from their secret lair under the Pyramids, and how the Queen is in charge of the international drug trade.
When she's not doing that, she's rambling about how the international economy is about to collapse, and shoving petitions for a "New Bretton Woods" in my face.
She runs in all the local elections, and loses every time, despite having the largest budget (I guess being part of a well-funded cult has some advantages).
Basically, she's a total wackjob who spends all her time and money trying to convince the neighbours to join her crazy cult, and her young children are already brainwashed to spout out LaRouche propaganda.
It's all very unfortunate. I really don't think that comparing LaRouche to Charles Manson is all that unwarranted. He's ruined just as many lives.
Hey... i read wen is uber doctor who marathon started on ABC dat it would last untill May this year. I haven't checked yet but we're 4 and a 1/2 months in and still on the first doc. Does this mean they aren't talking about may this year at all??!
Well, I think I've managed to decipher what you were saying (I used Babelfish's "Ali-G to English" translator).
The ABC said that they will "hopefully be doing a full repeat of all available Dr Who stories" back in November, and I certainly haven't heard anything about it finishing in May.
If Nielsen's net ratings work anything like their TV ratings, then lucky families get paid to put a spybox between the cable modem and the home router, with full knowledge and consent of what's going on.
So that explains the numbers. Since most people only use their web browser for accessing pr0n, the number of web browser connections drops dramatically when they know someone is spying on them.
In Australia, we have a Government-sponsored national youth radio station called TripleJ. This is how almost all "alternative" artists find an audience.
TripleJ is extremely influential, and is one of the largest radio stations in the country despite (or perhaps because of) it's focus on alternative music. Imagine college radio, but on a national scale (i.e. a bigger budget, more professionalism, much higher profile).
Once an artist gets a significant airplay on TripleJ, they often make the transition to commercial radio, and end up on top of the national album charts.
Perhaps college radio stations need to link up to form something similar in the USA. Getting alternative music on the radio, and into the public consciousness, is the first step to making a profit from it.
I say we issue anti-patents. If the patent you are filing is found to be dim, ridiculous, or utterly moronic, not only shouldn't you get the patent, but you should be denied access to the very "technology" you sought to control.
Wow! What a great idea.
Tell me when it's implemented, and I'll make sure I file a patent on paying income tax straight away.
Gnome - 'Guh-nome' or 'nome'? GNU - 'Guh-new' or 'new'? Gnutella - 'Guh-new-tella' or 'new-tella'
They're all sounded out - but I tend to drop the Gnome one, since it sounds silly.
Basically, GNU is guh-new (the name of the animal), Gnome is guh-nome because it is an oficial GNU project, and Gnutella is guh-newtella, despite having nothing to do with GNU or the FSF.
RMS created the name GNU so that when people said the old joke "What's gnu?", he could say "Actually, it's a free operating system I'm building". Yes, he really likes his puns.
Take pure "adventure" spirit, not connected to commerce for a moment... A Brit and a Tibetan were the first to conquer the world's tallest mountain. Where were the Americans?
Probably at home like the Brits, when Sir Edmund Hillary, a New Zealander climbed Everest with Tenzin Norgay, his Tibetan Sherpa guide.
Brits and Norwegians were the first to race to reach the south pole. Where were the Americans? This was adventure, at all costs, at its finest.
Yes, Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was the first person to reach the South Pole (beating Robert Falcon Scott by a month), but the American adventurer, Robert E. Peary, was the first person to reach the Arctic pole in April 1909 - two years earlier.
Ironically the same issue has an example of a modern day civic scientist, a profile of Richard Meserve, a physicist who became a lawyer.
I don't think this is irony (or even a coincidence), I think it was planned, magazines generally have two or three themes for each issue, and this one had the theme of "civic scientists".
And no, it's not ironic that the poster used the word "ironically" incorrectly either.
I really can't fathom how you could defend Williams for the actions in my post above. I'll respond, even though I have a feeling you are just trolling.
trying to destroy the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
The first step to having equal rights is non discrimination, being a certain race in Australia can make your life easier, dont belive me, go to your local "dole" queue, and tick the box -i do not wish to disclose my race
The HREOC is in charge of stopping people from being sacked because a boss does not agree with their political views or sexual preference. It is responsible for stopping sexual harassment in the workplace. Most importantly, it is in charge of protecting free speech.
Being the force behind Australia's equivalent of the Patriot Act
Well, we do have to catch up on 1984, but seriously, who watches the watches.. lets wake up.
So, you support a totalitarian state, do you? The ASIO Bill gives unparallelled rights to Australia's spy agency to detain anyone for questioning without having to lay charges (and with no right to having a lawyer present). I hope it isn't abused - but it is certainly a worrying prospect.
Refusing to defend a homosexual judge, despite being bound by his position as Attorney General to act as an advocate and protector for the judiciary
If you wathced the news, you would see that there is more to this, than i can explain here.
What happened is that Justice Kirby was accused of picking up male prostitutes in his Government-supplied car. It was Darryl Williams' job to stand up for him in his duty as Attorney General. He did not. Darryl Williams was criticised on all sides for this. People are now calling for the role of Attorney General to be redefined, since Williams let politics get in the way of his duty. Justice Kirby is still practicing.
Refusing to accept UN reports on racism in Australia
Yes, the UN over sensationalised the reports. Dont believe me, live here for 10 years, read it, then make your decision
I've lived in Australia for 24 years, read the report, and decided that it made some good points. The Australian Government has breached several international agreements in their detention of asylum seekers. Williams refused to answer these specific allegations, instead he dismissed the report entirely.
Lobbying for increased intellectual property rights
I think that was his party decision, and not just his.
No, it was his. If you read the link I point to, it contains a speech by Darryl Williams stating how he feels intellectual property laws have to be tightened.
Lobbying for laws allowing Australia's spy agency, ASIO, to read domestic emails
No, what he lobbied for was access to eschelon.
He attempted to get ASIO's powers increased to allow them to "read unopened domestic emails". Civil liberties groups were up in arms about this at the time.
Supporting the increase in the rate of phone tapping
I agree with this one, AU has the best phone network in the world, and yet we dont use it for high tech crime fighting, what gives ?
What gives is that the rate of phone tapping has been dramatically increasing under Williams' reign as Attorney General. While it would be nice to think that this is all for crime-fighting, the past actions of Australia's surveillance organisations make this seem a little fanciful.
Not everything is as simple as it seems
No, it never is. Your unwavering trust that the Government will only ever use it's increased powers to fight crime and help others is truly simple indeed. Personally, whenever I see any government get increased powers of surveillance, or the ability to detain people without charges, I get a chill up my spine. It would be simple to think that these laws are there to protect us, but what happens when they are abused? If Williams had his way, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (or the UN) would not be there to stand up for us.
I agree with hist[sic] stance on broadband, and I think you've misrepresented it. What he said was that for the public to fund broadband to every home was stupid. And it is. If people want broadband they should do what I have to do, and hand over the cash for it.
No, what Senator Alston said was that it was wrong for the government to subsidise the rollout of cable to every home in Australia. The ALP's policy statement (part of Knowledge Nation) said that this should be a goal to be achieved before 2006.
This doesn't mean that all homes have free government-supplied broadband. What it *does* mean is that all homes have the opportunity to get cable broadband if they wish to do so.
While it might be hard for those of you living in the major cities to believe, many of us living in regional areas currently do not have access to any form of broadband (other than over-priced, high-latency satellite). The ALP's policy was to make cable broadband available to *all* Australians, not just those that are forunate enough to live in one of the capitals.
I have been told by Telstra and other ISPs that xDSL or cable are not options for me in the near future, despite living on the edge a major regional population centre. I have resorted to ordering overpriced 128K ISDN. It's not as good as cable or DSL - but standard 56K modem connections are getting outdated fast.
So, this is not about "skewing the market", it is about allowing everyone with *access* to the market. What Alston said was there was no need for people to have access to this market because it was only used for deranged perverts who download pornography and play violent games (I'm paraphrasing there, but that was the gist of his argument).
Personally, I'm tired of waiting for telecommunications in regional areas to regain the reasonable level of service we had 10 years ago. It takes over a week to get a broken phone line fixed here, so I'm not holding my breath for decent broadband access.
The divide between telecommunications services in the major cities and regional areas is quickly widening, and Richard Alston isn't improving matters one bit.
As far as I can see, here are the amendments that will have the most impact:
(13a) However, the mere implementation of an otherwise unpatentable method on an apparatus such as a computer is not in itself sufficient to warrant a finding that a technical contribution is present. Accordingly, a computer-implemented business method or other method in which the only contribution to the state of the art is non-technical cannot constitute a patentable invention.
(13b) If the contribution to the state of the art relates solely to unpatentable matter, there can be no patentable invention irrespective of how the matter is presented in the claims. For example, the requirement for technical contribution cannot be circumvented merely by specifying technical means in the patent claims.
Article 4a - Exclusions from patentability: A computer-implemented invention shall not be regarded as making a technical contribution merely because it involves the use of a computer, network or other programmable apparatus. Accordingly, inventions involving computer programs which implement business, mathematical or other methods and do not produce any technical effects beyond the normal physical interactions between a program and the computer, network or other programmable apparatus in which it is run shall not be patentable.
Article 6a Member States shall ensure that wherever the use of a patented technique is needed for the sole purpose of ensuring conversion of the conventions used in two different computer systems or network so as to allow communication and exchange of data content between them, such use is not considered to be a patent infringement.
So, business methods and algorithms are not patentable, and normally unpatentable inventions cannot be patented just because they are implemented in a novel way.
Also, an exemption has been added whereby you can't be charged with patent infringement if you are simply attempting to achieve interoperability with another program.
Quite a few of the major issues with the legislation have been fixed. I am surprised... politicians have actually listened to the complaints, and not just made token changes.
Since it doesn't take most people very long to notice that I am not in fact crazy, this maneuver has the effect of discrediting the idiots. -- ESR
ESR is, in fact, as mad as a hatter, and I'm not just talking about his love of guns or inflexible political views.
If you go to his site, you will find this article hidden away in a list of his writings. It details how he learned to channel the ancient gods Pan and Thor, and formed his own Wiccan cult. ESR actually believes this stuff, it is not a work of fiction.
Here's an extract from this article:
That day I was reborn; from a skinny lame kid with a flute into a shaman and a vessel of the Goat-Foot God, the Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the Horned Lord. And the music was my first power, but not my last.
...
I knew I wasn't crazy, even by my own rather strict definition of sanity. I was coping pretty well -- in fact, I was becoming a whole human being for the first time in my life. Opening up emotionally. Playing beautiful music. And... um... getting laid. (Well, what do you think happens when you start channelling the freaking God of Sex Himself?:-))
Um, hello. Go to MS, download powertoys, right click on the taskbar, go to toolbars, check desktop manager, and viola, msvdm with support for 4 desktops you can toggle between or view all 4 at once. How much simpler can that be?
It could be simpler if the virtual desktops didn't screw up every 5 minutes. Having a snapshot snapshot of the windows on each desktop in the toolbar would also be nice, rather than the useless full-screen pager.
I used the multiple desktop powertoy for a month, and kept getting stuck on a desktop (because a program "wasn't responding fast enough"). Windows and dialog boxes would also randomly disappear. MSVDM is a totally flawed dektop manager.
I don't think they would revert back to charity donations. The only reason most people donated to charity was to "get in good with God". Now religion is becoming obsolete, charities aren't doing as well.
Most people would choose to spend the money on an overseas holiday before they gave it to charity. The only reason charities are even surviving these days is because of tax-deductions. If people don't receive something directly back in return, they won't donate.
Seriously, what beer do Ausies drink? In the US, Fosters is promoted as being the Aussie beer. In the UK, XXXX was touted as being the beer. Which is it really?
It depends on what state you are in.
Queensland: XXXX
New South Wales: Tooheys
Victoria: Victoria Bitter
I wouldn't have a clue about the other states, but I assume they all have their own beers. Nobody drinks Fosters though. Not even a Tasmanian would be stupid enough to drink it.
Slashdot Mirror
Real Player used to be a simple piece of audio (then later video) playing software. Now its becomeiwng one of those applications that wants to dominate your system and do everything from playing media to making eggs.
Your best bet is to download Real Alternative. It bundles the Realplayer Codecs (the newest 10.0 version) with the simple Media Player Classic UI, so you can watch and listen to Realplayer content without the annoying popups and spyware.
Looks like Linus's trip "down under" inspired this kernel release... the Dunnart is a type of Australian marsupial. The Tasmanian Devil is probably the best known example.
Actually, to correct myself, the Tasmanian Devil is not a type of Dunnart, although they both belong to the genus "Sminthopsis".
Looks like Linus's trip "down under" inspired this kernel release... the Dunnart is a type of Australian marsupial. The Tasmanian Devil is probably the best known example.
From what I've read about LaRouche, the idea of him as president is almost as scary as [Charles] Manson as president. The guy is completely apeshit.
I have a LaRouche cultist living a few doors down from me, she keeps trying to give me her newsletters about how the Jews control the world economy from their secret lair under the Pyramids, and how the Queen is in charge of the international drug trade.
When she's not doing that, she's rambling about how the international economy is about to collapse, and shoving petitions for a "New Bretton Woods" in my face.
She runs in all the local elections, and loses every time, despite having the largest budget (I guess being part of a well-funded cult has some advantages).
Basically, she's a total wackjob who spends all her time and money trying to convince the neighbours to join her crazy cult, and her young children are already brainwashed to spout out LaRouche propaganda.
It's all very unfortunate. I really don't think that comparing LaRouche to Charles Manson is all that unwarranted. He's ruined just as many lives.
Hey... i read wen is uber doctor who marathon started on ABC dat it would last untill May this year. I haven't checked yet but we're 4 and a 1/2 months in and still on the first doc. Does this mean they aren't talking about may this year at all??!
Well, I think I've managed to decipher what you were saying (I used Babelfish's "Ali-G to English" translator).
The ABC said that they will "hopefully be doing a full repeat of all available Dr Who stories" back in November, and I certainly haven't heard anything about it finishing in May.
If Nielsen's net ratings work anything like their TV ratings, then lucky families get paid to put a spybox between the cable modem and the home router, with full knowledge and consent of what's going on.
So that explains the numbers. Since most people only use their web browser for accessing pr0n, the number of web browser connections drops dramatically when they know someone is spying on them.
However, I do agree with you that the best advertisement is a non-existent one, but I doubt that will ever come to pass.
And that's why I rarely watch commercial TV.
I live in Australia, so I primarily watch the ABC (similar to Britain's BBC). Advertising is banned by the ABC charter.
In Australia, we have a Government-sponsored national youth radio station called TripleJ. This is how almost all "alternative" artists find an audience.
TripleJ is extremely influential, and is one of the largest radio stations in the country despite (or perhaps because of) it's focus on alternative music. Imagine college radio, but on a national scale (i.e. a bigger budget, more professionalism, much higher profile).
Once an artist gets a significant airplay on TripleJ, they often make the transition to commercial radio, and end up on top of the national album charts.
Perhaps college radio stations need to link up to form something similar in the USA. Getting alternative music on the radio, and into the public consciousness, is the first step to making a profit from it.
I say we issue anti-patents. If the patent you are filing is found to be dim, ridiculous, or utterly moronic, not only shouldn't you get the patent, but you should be denied access to the very "technology" you sought to control.
Wow! What a great idea.
Tell me when it's implemented, and I'll make sure I file a patent on paying income tax straight away.
Gnome - 'Guh-nome' or 'nome'?
GNU - 'Guh-new' or 'new'?
Gnutella - 'Guh-new-tella' or 'new-tella'
They're all sounded out - but I tend to drop the Gnome one, since it sounds silly.
Basically, GNU is guh-new (the name of the animal), Gnome is guh-nome because it is an oficial GNU project, and Gnutella is guh-newtella, despite having nothing to do with GNU or the FSF.
RMS created the name GNU so that when people said the old joke "What's gnu?", he could say "Actually, it's a free operating system I'm building". Yes, he really likes his puns.
Then there's this ego-trip.
Read it, it really says a lot about ESR, but I'm not sure whether it's in a good way, or a bad way.
Take pure "adventure" spirit, not connected to commerce for a moment... A Brit and a Tibetan were the first to conquer the world's tallest mountain. Where were the Americans?
Probably at home like the Brits, when Sir Edmund Hillary, a New Zealander climbed Everest with Tenzin Norgay, his Tibetan Sherpa guide.
Brits and Norwegians were the first to race to reach the south pole. Where were the Americans? This was adventure, at all costs, at its finest.
Yes, Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was the first person to reach the South Pole (beating Robert Falcon Scott by a month), but the American adventurer, Robert E. Peary, was the first person to reach the Arctic pole in April 1909 - two years earlier.
This comes as no surprise to me, I've always thought that key looked a little "shifty".
Ironically the same issue has an example of a modern day civic scientist, a profile of Richard Meserve, a physicist who became a lawyer.
I don't think this is irony (or even a coincidence), I think it was planned, magazines generally have two or three themes for each issue, and this one had the theme of "civic scientists".
And no, it's not ironic that the poster used the word "ironically" incorrectly either.
The HREOC is in charge of stopping people from being sacked because a boss does not agree with their political views or sexual preference. It is responsible for stopping sexual harassment in the workplace. Most importantly, it is in charge of protecting free speech. So, you support a totalitarian state, do you? The ASIO Bill gives unparallelled rights to Australia's spy agency to detain anyone for questioning without having to lay charges (and with no right to having a lawyer present). I hope it isn't abused - but it is certainly a worrying prospect. What happened is that Justice Kirby was accused of picking up male prostitutes in his Government-supplied car. It was Darryl Williams' job to stand up for him in his duty as Attorney General. He did not. Darryl Williams was criticised on all sides for this. People are now calling for the role of Attorney General to be redefined, since Williams let politics get in the way of his duty. Justice Kirby is still practicing. I've lived in Australia for 24 years, read the report, and decided that it made some good points. The Australian Government has breached several international agreements in their detention of asylum seekers. Williams refused to answer these specific allegations, instead he dismissed the report entirely. No, it was his. If you read the link I point to, it contains a speech by Darryl Williams stating how he feels intellectual property laws have to be tightened. He attempted to get ASIO's powers increased to allow them to "read unopened domestic emails". Civil liberties groups were up in arms about this at the time. What gives is that the rate of phone tapping has been dramatically increasing under Williams' reign as Attorney General. While it would be nice to think that this is all for crime-fighting, the past actions of Australia's surveillance organisations make this seem a little fanciful. No, it never is. Your unwavering trust that the Government will only ever use it's increased powers to fight crime and help others is truly simple indeed. Personally, whenever I see any government get increased powers of surveillance, or the ability to detain people without charges, I get a chill up my spine. It would be simple to think that these laws are there to protect us, but what happens when they are abused? If Williams had his way, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (or the UN) would not be there to stand up for us.
The worst thing you could say about Richard Alston is that he is an incompetent luddite.
Darryl Williams is much worse. He is cunning and intelligent, but with some truly awful political views.
He is well-known for:
trying to destroy the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
Being the force behind Australia's equivalent of the Patriot Act
Refusing to defend a homosexual judge, despite being bound by his position as Attorney General to act as an advocate and protector for the judiciary
Refusing to accept UN reports on racism in Australia
Lobbying for increased intellectual property rights
Lobbying for laws allowing Australia's spy agency, ASIO, to read domestic emails
Supporting the increase in the rate of phone tapping
And generally trampling on human rights and civil liberties wherever possible.
This is definately not good news.
I agree with hist[sic] stance on broadband, and I think you've misrepresented it. What he said was that for the public to fund broadband to every home was stupid. And it is. If people want broadband they should do what I have to do, and hand over the cash for it.
No, what Senator Alston said was that it was wrong for the government to subsidise the rollout of cable to every home in Australia. The ALP's policy statement (part of Knowledge Nation) said that this should be a goal to be achieved before 2006.
This doesn't mean that all homes have free government-supplied broadband. What it *does* mean is that all homes have the opportunity to get cable broadband if they wish to do so.
While it might be hard for those of you living in the major cities to believe, many of us living in regional areas currently do not have access to any form of broadband (other than over-priced, high-latency satellite). The ALP's policy was to make cable broadband available to *all* Australians, not just those that are forunate enough to live in one of the capitals.
I have been told by Telstra and other ISPs that xDSL or cable are not options for me in the near future, despite living on the edge a major regional population centre. I have resorted to ordering overpriced 128K ISDN. It's not as good as cable or DSL - but standard 56K modem connections are getting outdated fast.
So, this is not about "skewing the market", it is about allowing everyone with *access* to the market. What Alston said was there was no need for people to have access to this market because it was only used for deranged perverts who download pornography and play violent games (I'm paraphrasing there, but that was the gist of his argument).
Personally, I'm tired of waiting for telecommunications in regional areas to regain the reasonable level of service we had 10 years ago. It takes over a week to get a broken phone line fixed here, so I'm not holding my breath for decent broadband access.
The divide between telecommunications services in the major cities and regional areas is quickly widening, and Richard Alston isn't improving matters one bit.
So, business methods and algorithms are not patentable, and normally unpatentable inventions cannot be patented just because they are implemented in a novel way.
Also, an exemption has been added whereby you can't be charged with patent infringement if you are simply attempting to achieve interoperability with another program.
Quite a few of the major issues with the legislation have been fixed. I am surprised... politicians have actually listened to the complaints, and not just made token changes.
> What strikes me even more is the difference in size between Win95 (500MB) and XP(3,5 GB).
Win95 was 500MB?!?
I remember installing it on my 486, which only had a 120MB hard drive, and still having enough space left for several games and applications.
It was closer to 70MB... maybe the bloat came with OSR2.
Since it doesn't take most people very long to notice that I am not in fact crazy, this maneuver has the effect of discrediting the idiots. -- ESR
ESR is, in fact, as mad as a hatter, and I'm not just talking about his love of guns or inflexible political views.
If you go to his site, you will find this article hidden away in a list of his writings. It details how he learned to channel the ancient gods Pan and Thor, and formed his own Wiccan cult. ESR actually believes this stuff, it is not a work of fiction.
Here's an extract from this article:
George Orwell (most famous for being the author of Animal Farm and 1984) also wrote an article about brewing the perfect cup of tea.
Um, hello. Go to MS, download powertoys, right click on the taskbar, go to toolbars, check desktop manager, and viola, msvdm with support for 4 desktops you can toggle between or view all 4 at once. How much simpler can that be?
It could be simpler if the virtual desktops didn't screw up every 5 minutes. Having a snapshot snapshot of the windows on each desktop in the toolbar would also be nice, rather than the useless full-screen pager.
I used the multiple desktop powertoy for a month, and kept getting stuck on a desktop (because a program "wasn't responding fast enough"). Windows and dialog boxes would also randomly disappear. MSVDM is a totally flawed dektop manager.
I don't think they would revert back to charity donations. The only reason most people donated to charity was to "get in good with God". Now religion is becoming obsolete, charities aren't doing as well.
Most people would choose to spend the money on an overseas holiday before they gave it to charity. The only reason charities are even surviving these days is because of tax-deductions. If people don't receive something directly back in return, they won't donate.
what the hell does Austria have, except apparently good hackers?
Kommissar Rex!
Seriously, what beer do Ausies drink? In the US, Fosters is promoted as being the Aussie beer. In the UK, XXXX was touted as being the beer. Which is it really?
It depends on what state you are in.
Queensland: XXXX
New South Wales: Tooheys
Victoria: Victoria Bitter
I wouldn't have a clue about the other states, but I assume they all have their own beers. Nobody drinks Fosters though. Not even a Tasmanian would be stupid enough to drink it.