I have a friend from the PRC who was quite older than 35 when she came from China and there was no question of Agism in her hiring 6 years later even. She is MANY years out of University yet sharp as a pin and always makes sure she is up to date with the latest tech. It's not about the younger generation passing you by guys -- clearly not all IT imports are wet-behind-the-years easy-to-manipulate fresh-out-of-college 20-somethings and experience DOES count even in Soft Eng. It's about keeping up with todays technolegy and if you're looking for a cobal job Y2K is over and there's no more work for you! Sure there are some companies who follow agist practices, but clearly if companies are sponsering immigrants in their late 30s and early 40s it must be that they cannot find people in the united states even at THAT age group to fill the proper IT positions. I do feel that we need to be weary of cheep overseas labour just as much as we need to watch out for companies like Micro$oft and Oracle shipping all their development to virtual sweat shops in India and the PRC where due to the shear number of folks prove that even if the percentage of the population with IT training is small, there are a LOT of them produced. So face it, we can be as protectionist as we feel like crying our sour milk sea of tears, but until we as a nation can broach the REAL problem of educating our population as well as other nations do and realise that we need to WORK for our goals and not just believe them our God-given right, we will get nowhere with this H1-B debate. Let's just remember, this ain't communism, there's no Constitutional Guarentee of Employment (much as I'd wish it) and just like goods and services, so too are we, the IT labouror, a capitolistic commodity. The free market will and must dictate how we are hired and for what compensation. If it can be done cheeper, it will. And if we're REALLY up in arms about cheep labour taking all the IT jobs, rather than taking up the Luddite practice of blaming all the more skilled, better valued overseas workers, let's not forget that the world of Collective Barganing can work FOR us as well as against us. Let's hope it doesn't come to that, but I believe that the global market is best for IT and if the best talent comes from elsewhere so that is where we must recruit. After all, if you come over here to work, you're NOT going to live on $30k a year -- if a company tried to pay anyone on a Visa here that amount, they'd look for a new job before even filing the Labour Certificate or at most after the I140 if he or she plans on staying. This is a country of immigrants and we should not form racist protectionist barriers to keep the 'Middle Kingdomers' and 'Andrapradeshis' out, for we can build a better country together, as we did with the Irish, Italians and Jews in the last century (this statement will be true in 2 1/2 months). An eductated population makes us stronger, especially when the eductation is provided 'free' from another nation. We must work together, as a team! Only then can we be happy.:)
And finally, need I remind people that you need to speek English to get any kind of work in the country? Most companies will, all else being equal, hire the person who can better communicate in the English language every time, believe me!:)
Man, I could have used such advice when I lived in Montréal. I miss Canada so much here in the United States but as a U.S. Citizen, it's just as hard, if not harder, for me to get a job in Canada / Québec (and trust me when you speak French Québec IS easier to get into than Canada) that it is with all those H1Bs my government gives out. I did have a work permit in Canada but because of full-time employment restrictions I was unable to secure a job that would also sponser me. Alas, so Washington D.C. ain't all THAT bad.:)
Niintendo has always had a bad rep when it comes to the distribution of >BACKUP< ROMs of their older games. I agree with copyright law that if you never paid for the game cartridge you don't deserve the ROM but if you did, then by law you're allowed a digital '.BIN' format copy for your own personal use. This is especially important for the NES as most of those crappy machines have all broken down years ago but still the Nintendo Nazis are killing any ROM distribution sites out there. Mind you, I still keep my Sega Master System in tip-top shape for Phantasy Star I but it's nice to play the thing in the PC when my Fiancée wants to watch a film or something and no need to worry about only 5 backup slots. Now to hear Sega following suit, it is tragic. I have visited the off-shore www.emux.com for years to keep my cartridges up to date with the ROMs and to look for new emulators and they have always respected Nintendo's no-ROM rule, but with Sega now pulling the same old trick, I fear Emulation Excitement may be a shell of its former self, alas.
<speculation>But I'm not surprised in a way. After all, Sega is claiming the Dreamcast is the last of their console machines and they are going exclusively to PC-games. What better way to fight the proliferation of old, obsolete, non-profitable ROMs and expanding Emulation than to come out with your own, official Emulator and re-introduce all your old games in Digital form. Simply by the ROMs from Sega in lieu of the Cartridge and bamn, Sega could make some pretty good money on the nostalgia factor. But to do that, they need to dry up the other 'free'/'pirated' [or 'backup' for those of us following the copyright laws] ROM sites out there to return to being the monopoly producer, as I feel is their right. To misquote 'Field of Dreams', if you sell it, they will buy.</speculation>
See if your state / Province / Country does at www.spamlaws.com. Specifically for us in the Old Dominion, the law can be found at http://www.spamlaws.com/state/va.html. The pertainent info is section 18.2-152.12 of the bill regarding Civil relief and damages, at the end.
I suggested before that we set up a legal fund to handle this kind of criminal violation and penalties such that all proceeds of the cases would go to a legal fund to help foster more cases. However, I think this may be difficult to organise as IANAL.:) Perhpas a Class Action as suggested above is the best approach, but again IANAL.:)
Right, as they're sick of being harvested since they can photosynthesise (sp?) and thus need not humans or any animal life for nutrition (sp?) where as animals, lacking the ability to directly harvest the sun, ultimately are using plants, either directly by consumpsion or indirectly by consuming that which consumes plants and so on down the food chain, the base of which is always plants. I suppose a similar argument in favour of fungus could be made as plants would have a hard time digesting nutrients from the soil if fungi weren't there to break it up. In fact, since we and all animals lack chloroplasts I'd say we are somewhat inferior to plants, and as that's the same conclusion the Vervoids drew, they decided there was no need for continued animal existence (probably since they had legs the didn't need insects like flowering plants). So these Verviods were pretty much what you'd get if you mixed Animals with chloroplasts and the result would be considered plant as it had this important celular difference. So of course, you've got plants with brains and they ain't to happy about being eaten all the time, let me tell you. They are not nearly as friendly as Xan from 'Farscape'.:) In the end, the Doctor is convicted of Genocide for killing off the entire Vervoid species. The story is called, appropriately enough, 'Terror of the Vervoids', or more generally 'The Trial of a Time Lord' episodes 9 - 12, and features Colin Baker as the Doctor and Bonnie Langford as Melany Bush, a computer programmer who doesn't even know what a Megabyte Modem is.:) The production code is 7C (though that also refers to the following 2 episodes of that season). And in the end, that's MORE THAN YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VERVOIDS!:)
Look, NASA has been dead in the water since 1986 apart from little sucess on Mars. Mir was great but that's the last the Russians could muster without help. The Russians got to be the first in space, the First Dog, Man and Woman, and the first Orbit IIRC, as well as the first to land on the Moon unmanned. The Yanks walked on the moon for 2 1/2 years up until 6 months after I was born and so I don't remember it and could care less and really get annoyed with people telling me how great an accomplishment it was when it's so distantly removed from my own life experience -- kind of like the Kennedy and McKinly assassinations. Anyway, so the Americans explored the Sun and Murcury, the Russians landed on Venus and the Yanks got lots of orbitals, Viking and Mars belonged to the Americans, as well as the 4 gas giants and the Voyager series (so when are we going to build Voyager 6 anyway?!?); we have even vised a comet with the Europeans.
But what have there Chinese got in their space exploration history besides very accurate charts and the famous gunpowder-powered flying emperor -- did he go *boom*! Now they want to go to the moon, and that's all well and good for Chinese pride and at least something for my generation to enjoy, but here is the opportunity to finally be the FIRST, the COUNTRY that claims the TITLE! China-Pluto 2004. After all, no country has a greater concentration of Physicists and what better way to make your mark. PLEASE STOP writting NASA and send your letters to the Chinese Space Angency. You can't get water from a stone and until NASA starts using Metric they're not getting anywhere. We NEED to urge the Chinese government to put its resources into this project and get to this last King of the Kuipers! It's the only way, otherwise given the declining style of life around the world, I could be dead before the Americans get there!:(
I thought Mbuto Sasisako died years ago, in less Laurant Cabila decided to let Angola and Zimbabwe have a huge chunk of his People's Republic and give it back it's old name...:)
As I recall, the Tau-Neutrino would be the most massive of the Triplet Electron-Neutrino and Muon-Neutrino. If they didn't directly observe mass on this particle, I'd hate to think how low the mass was on the others. Personally I think Muons and Tao particles ROCK with their Neutrino pairs, not like those LAMER Electrons which like to hang out with those blasted up-n-down quarks in their trinary configurations of 2-1 no matter how strong those gluons are!:)
And FYI for those interested, the DVR-S201 is the latest DVD-R model and is only about $5000 as opposed to the $16k for the DVR-S101. More info can be found here:
1. First of all, to write an actual DVD Video Disc you'd need an MPEG-2 encoder and some kind of converter (like Adaptec's Video Toast or whatever it's called) to store that MPEG-2 in the correct format which I forget at the moment. Now I suppose with one of the DeCSS code hacks you COULD write a linux programme to do the MPEG-2 to DVD-MPEG-2 yourself, but given all the legal battles, I don't know how safe it would be, May be an interesting GNU/OS project though. Anyway, EVEN if you did this, the media format itself is not the same so some firmware changes WOULD be necessary for your Discs to play back on your settop device, though not as much as for the DVD-RAM. If your player is made by Sony or Philips or one of the other DVD+RW proponents, I would suspect they would update the frimware for free at your local dealer just to make up for the lost ground in Market Share they have lost to DVD-RAM (rumours say that they are planning to do just this).
2. I suspect the Justice Department should be seriously looking into HP's claims last year of releasing the i3100 or whatever it was called which they claimed was the worlds first DVD+RW player, but has yet to appear on anybody's shelves. In fact, the story of DVD+RW is the story of 6 months from now. I have heard so many times from the industry the mantra of 'next quarter' that I have ceased to believe it. Recently, Sony announced their own DVD+RW player but that to may be another case of Vapourware.
3. I beleive the DVD consortium will allow you to have access to the spec for a SMALL (read, likely a few thousands of dollars) fee.
4. The DVD+RW folks plan to target the same market so current estimates of DVD+RW media are on par with DVD-RAM, $20 or so for Single Sided, $50 or so for Double Sided.
5. Initially they hope to have writing at DVD 1x, again similar to RAM. Down the road higher speeds may be possible but it is unlikely to go much higher for at least a year or 2 after initial release.
6. Well, Mr. Jackson, you need not fear folks pirating your new film when it comes out on optical disc, let me re-assure you.:) Seriously, what has happened is the DVD-Consortium had four proposals for writable DVD. The first as Pioneer's DVD-R. This was followed by proposals from Panisonic/Toshiba for DVD-RAM and by Sony/Philips/HP for DVD+RW. Finally, seeing the need for a rewritable format, Pioneer came up with the DVD-RW extension to DVD-R. The reason for the split is pretty obvious: they players just couldn't agree. Thus, rather than letting the bickering over details continue, the consortium decided to approve ALL FOUR formats for writable DVD. So Technically, DVD-RAM IS a true Writable DVD Format, even if it isn't backwards-compatable with legacy equipment. Since all four are officially sanctioned, it is clear the companies involved wish to let the market decide, as they did with Beta and VHS. I seems clear to me if the DVD+RW camp can get their act together and actually come out with product they have a distinct advantage over all other products. OTOH, if DVD-RAM can evolve into a Caddy-less system (against the "users are stupid" viewpoint of the DVD-RAM proponents) and they can provide the same ease of firmware upgrade to players, it would almost certainly lead to the early grave of DVD+RW. After all, DVD-RAM has been on the market for a while now, it's hard to beat that product base.
Thanks. Yes, I went over my notes after posting the article and realised my mistake but didn't have time to correct it. Thanks again for making that clearer.
It seems the article and the/. summary may be a bit confused here about DVD standards and formats. In fact, there are 4 DVD formatting types and they should not be confused:
DVD-R developed by Pioneer sells for about $16,000 and produces near-perfect DVDs compatible with 95%+ of the current DVD players out there. I am unclear whether this can only write 9.4 GB HD/DS Discs or also supports DD/DS 17 GB discs as well. Lord knows my DVD-ROM drive doesn't so I can't imagine who would be using those mega Double-Density Discs.
DVD-RAM developed by Panisonic, Toshiba used to store 2.6 GB (LD/SS) and 5.2 GB (LD/DS) but the article is now reporting the development of middle-tier DVD-RAM discs of 4.7 GB (HD/SS) and 9.4 GB (HD/DS) by Panisonic. These discs use a Magneto-Optical system similar to the PD devices of old, not a pure optical system like DVD-ROM. Thus, compatibility would require a major firmware change in all DVD players to support the cartrages. Also note that the DVD-RAM drives are Cartrage-based and the 5.2 GB discs at least cannot be removed from their casing, or at least so I've read. Remember those bloody caddies you had to use for CDs way back when? Well it seems Panisonic and Toshiba liked them so much they wouldn't let them die. They walked out of the DVD consortium for development of writable DVD and came to market with the YEARS before the other players. MSR (as in the article) is about $500 - $600.
DVD-RW developed by Pioneer is the logical follow up to their DVD-R technology and follows exactly analagous to the difference between CD-R and CD-RW. Although it is not clear whether current drives would support this format, it is the most similar of the rewritables to current hardware and the easiest to upgrade Firmware for. Status unknown, MSR expected to be $2000 - $6000.
DVD+RW developed by Philips, Sony [VAPOURWARE!?!!] is another optical disc which does not require a caddy. The first generation should have something like 3.7 GB LD/SS discs, but they expect to have 4.7 GM discs a year after launch. However, they have been saying this for almost 2 years and still I have seen no firm product schedule. I am in fact dubious as to whether these guys can get their act together and put the DVD+RW out. On the plus side [no pun intended], as the DVD+RW discs are optical, it is likely only a minor firmware change would be required to make them compatible with current DVD players. MSR is suggested at $500 - $600 and they are intended to compete directly for the DVD-RAM market.
There used to be a great page explaining all this stuff in great detail, but it's gone so perhaps I should write a new one...
Simply put, I don't want a lot of towers screwing up the Yellowstone natural landscape. You'd either have to do without in our national parks or go back to you low-freq, high-watt counterparts. We have a big hubub here in Washington D.C. when they put those ugly Celular Towers in Rock Creek Park and Congress allowed it because it DOES protect people from muggings and rape, but the idea of placing thousands of towers all over Yellowstone National or the Grand Canyon or Yosemite or Glacier Park or, well, the entire state/territories of Alaska, Yukon, NWT and Nunavut -- it ain't gonna happen my friend. The long and the short of it is, for my sake the fewer towers the better.
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
(One is reminded of the 'Mr. Neutron' episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus -- 'This cell TOWer, is the new cell TOWer for Alviston Road. We hope that this new TOWer will serve Barnsworth, Grenville and Smithe St. in an area of 5 square kilometers. The TOWer will transmit and receive singals for frequencies in the range...')
Since only 3 cities remain I hope all those who didn't know the Nudge-Nudge Rap was coming to town live in those few areas who have yet to be visited. How did you like it TO? From what I heard the Chicago and Washington, D.C. (the one I attended) performances were by far the best, the former because his family and kids were in attendence and the latter because we were filmed and got to watch the pickups. BTW, were any other cities filmed? Anyway if you haven't, go see it! It rocks!!!
As It Happens hour 1 brought to you by MPR -- That's Minnesota Public Radio.:) The rest, as someone else pointed out, like 'The Diane Reahm Show' and 'Public Interest' originate out of Washington D.C. Bob Edwards lives in Arlington, Virginia even, though he's from Kentecky. WHYY produces 'Fresh Air', MFWDYK? is Wisconsin Public Radio, PHC is MPR again, Car Talk is WGBH Boston IIRC, and I think ToTN and TAL are both produced in Chicago, as well as WWDTM AFAICT. Not sure what's west of here but I'm sure you Left-coast fellows got some cool stuff out there too.:)
You missed the point but try tuning into www.wamu.org on a Sunday Night EST and you could be pleasantly surprised, even if their repetoire doesn't go past 1960.:)
Exactly! The nice fellow with score 4 who wanted to know why he wouldn't novelise Eric Seward's scrips would have been a perfect question had he not got the titles wrong and even I wanted a very similar question to be asked just not his because it would have been totally wasted as I pointed out the scripts referred to were mis-typed (the author knew what he was talking about but his hands were not obeying his head:) and one knows TPTB over hear at/. couldn't give a rat's ass about Doctor Who and just think it's some cheesy PBS series about scarf knitting. And yet, what few mods who do think a Doctor Who question was worth broaching wasted all their karma points on this guy even though the question was phrased incorrectly and would have again got a one-line 'I didn't write those scripts.' Thus no other Doctor Who related questions made ANY progress in the Karma department when I must say at least 10% of his career derives from thos humble beginnings on The Pirate Planet.</voice style="Sour Grapes">
This year's RoShamBo competation is funded in part with thanks to The Movellan Society for the Total Eradication of the Dalek Scourge from the Entire Universe (MSTEDSEU).
Slashdot Mirror
I have a friend from the PRC who was quite older than 35 when she came from China and there was no question of Agism in her hiring 6 years later even. She is MANY years out of University yet sharp as a pin and always makes sure she is up to date with the latest tech. It's not about the younger generation passing you by guys -- clearly not all IT imports are wet-behind-the-years easy-to-manipulate fresh-out-of-college 20-somethings and experience DOES count even in Soft Eng. It's about keeping up with todays technolegy and if you're looking for a cobal job Y2K is over and there's no more work for you! Sure there are some companies who follow agist practices, but clearly if companies are sponsering immigrants in their late 30s and early 40s it must be that they cannot find people in the united states even at THAT age group to fill the proper IT positions. I do feel that we need to be weary of cheep overseas labour just as much as we need to watch out for companies like Micro$oft and Oracle shipping all their development to virtual sweat shops in India and the PRC where due to the shear number of folks prove that even if the percentage of the population with IT training is small, there are a LOT of them produced. So face it, we can be as protectionist as we feel like crying our sour milk sea of tears, but until we as a nation can broach the REAL problem of educating our population as well as other nations do and realise that we need to WORK for our goals and not just believe them our God-given right, we will get nowhere with this H1-B debate. Let's just remember, this ain't communism, there's no Constitutional Guarentee of Employment (much as I'd wish it) and just like goods and services, so too are we, the IT labouror, a capitolistic commodity. The free market will and must dictate how we are hired and for what compensation. If it can be done cheeper, it will. And if we're REALLY up in arms about cheep labour taking all the IT jobs, rather than taking up the Luddite practice of blaming all the more skilled, better valued overseas workers, let's not forget that the world of Collective Barganing can work FOR us as well as against us. Let's hope it doesn't come to that, but I believe that the global market is best for IT and if the best talent comes from elsewhere so that is where we must recruit. After all, if you come over here to work, you're NOT going to live on $30k a year -- if a company tried to pay anyone on a Visa here that amount, they'd look for a new job before even filing the Labour Certificate or at most after the I140 if he or she plans on staying. This is a country of immigrants and we should not form racist protectionist barriers to keep the 'Middle Kingdomers' and 'Andrapradeshis' out, for we can build a better country together, as we did with the Irish, Italians and Jews in the last century (this statement will be true in 2 1/2 months). An eductated population makes us stronger, especially when the eductation is provided 'free' from another nation. We must work together, as a team! Only then can we be happy. :)
:)
And finally, need I remind people that you need to speek English to get any kind of work in the country? Most companies will, all else being equal, hire the person who can better communicate in the English language every time, believe me!
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
Man, I could have used such advice when I lived in Montréal. I miss Canada so much here in the United States but as a U.S. Citizen, it's just as hard, if not harder, for me to get a job in Canada / Québec (and trust me when you speak French Québec IS easier to get into than Canada) that it is with all those H1Bs my government gives out. I did have a work permit in Canada but because of full-time employment restrictions I was unable to secure a job that would also sponser me. Alas, so Washington D.C. ain't all THAT bad. :)
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
Niintendo has always had a bad rep when it comes to the distribution of >BACKUP< ROMs of their older games. I agree with copyright law that if you never paid for the game cartridge you don't deserve the ROM but if you did, then by law you're allowed a digital '.BIN' format copy for your own personal use. This is especially important for the NES as most of those crappy machines have all broken down years ago but still the Nintendo Nazis are killing any ROM distribution sites out there. Mind you, I still keep my Sega Master System in tip-top shape for Phantasy Star I but it's nice to play the thing in the PC when my Fiancée wants to watch a film or something and no need to worry about only 5 backup slots. Now to hear Sega following suit, it is tragic. I have visited the off-shore www.emux.com for years to keep my cartridges up to date with the ROMs and to look for new emulators and they have always respected Nintendo's no-ROM rule, but with Sega now pulling the same old trick, I fear Emulation Excitement may be a shell of its former self, alas.
<speculation>But I'm not surprised in a way. After all, Sega is claiming the Dreamcast is the last of their console machines and they are going exclusively to PC-games. What better way to fight the proliferation of old, obsolete, non-profitable ROMs and expanding Emulation than to come out with your own, official Emulator and re-introduce all your old games in Digital form. Simply by the ROMs from Sega in lieu of the Cartridge and bamn, Sega could make some pretty good money on the nostalgia factor. But to do that, they need to dry up the other 'free'/'pirated' [or 'backup' for those of us following the copyright laws] ROM sites out there to return to being the monopoly producer, as I feel is their right. To misquote 'Field of Dreams', if you sell it, they will buy.</speculation>
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
See if your state / Province / Country does at www.spamlaws.com. Specifically for us in the Old Dominion, the law can be found at http://www.spamlaws.com/state/va.html. The pertainent info is section 18.2-152.12 of the bill regarding Civil relief and damages, at the end.
I suggested before that we set up a legal fund to handle this kind of criminal violation and penalties such that all proceeds of the cases would go to a legal fund to help foster more cases. However, I think this may be difficult to organise as IANAL. :) Perhpas a Class Action as suggested above is the best approach, but again IANAL. :)
Right, as they're sick of being harvested since they can photosynthesise (sp?) and thus need not humans or any animal life for nutrition (sp?) where as animals, lacking the ability to directly harvest the sun, ultimately are using plants, either directly by consumpsion or indirectly by consuming that which consumes plants and so on down the food chain, the base of which is always plants. I suppose a similar argument in favour of fungus could be made as plants would have a hard time digesting nutrients from the soil if fungi weren't there to break it up. In fact, since we and all animals lack chloroplasts I'd say we are somewhat inferior to plants, and as that's the same conclusion the Vervoids drew, they decided there was no need for continued animal existence (probably since they had legs the didn't need insects like flowering plants). So these Verviods were pretty much what you'd get if you mixed Animals with chloroplasts and the result would be considered plant as it had this important celular difference. So of course, you've got plants with brains and they ain't to happy about being eaten all the time, let me tell you. They are not nearly as friendly as Xan from 'Farscape'. :) In the end, the Doctor is convicted of Genocide for killing off the entire Vervoid species. The story is called, appropriately enough, 'Terror of the Vervoids', or more generally 'The Trial of a Time Lord' episodes 9 - 12, and features Colin Baker as the Doctor and Bonnie Langford as Melany Bush, a computer programmer who doesn't even know what a Megabyte Modem is. :) The production code is 7C (though that also refers to the following 2 episodes of that season). And in the end, that's MORE THAN YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VERVOIDS! :)
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey 'The Krynoid' Jacobs...
Look, NASA has been dead in the water since 1986 apart from little sucess on Mars. Mir was great but that's the last the Russians could muster without help. The Russians got to be the first in space, the First Dog, Man and Woman, and the first Orbit IIRC, as well as the first to land on the Moon unmanned. The Yanks walked on the moon for 2 1/2 years up until 6 months after I was born and so I don't remember it and could care less and really get annoyed with people telling me how great an accomplishment it was when it's so distantly removed from my own life experience -- kind of like the Kennedy and McKinly assassinations. Anyway, so the Americans explored the Sun and Murcury, the Russians landed on Venus and the Yanks got lots of orbitals, Viking and Mars belonged to the Americans, as well as the 4 gas giants and the Voyager series (so when are we going to build Voyager 6 anyway?!?); we have even vised a comet with the Europeans.
:(
But what have there Chinese got in their space exploration history besides very accurate charts and the famous gunpowder-powered flying emperor -- did he go *boom*! Now they want to go to the moon, and that's all well and good for Chinese pride and at least something for my generation to enjoy, but here is the opportunity to finally be the FIRST, the COUNTRY that claims the TITLE! China-Pluto 2004. After all, no country has a greater concentration of Physicists and what better way to make your mark. PLEASE STOP writting NASA and send your letters to the Chinese Space Angency. You can't get water from a stone and until NASA starts using Metric they're not getting anywhere. We NEED to urge the Chinese government to put its resources into this project and get to this last King of the Kuipers! It's the only way, otherwise given the declining style of life around the world, I could be dead before the Americans get there!
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey
<Activate Flame-Retardant Long-johns/>
GoVegan may get this joke: Up with Vervoids!!! :)
I thought Mbuto Sasisako died years ago, in less Laurant Cabila decided to let Angola and Zimbabwe have a huge chunk of his People's Republic and give it back it's old name... :)
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
As I recall, the Tau-Neutrino would be the most massive of the Triplet Electron-Neutrino and Muon-Neutrino. If they didn't directly observe mass on this particle, I'd hate to think how low the mass was on the others. Personally I think Muons and Tao particles ROCK with their Neutrino pairs, not like those LAMER Electrons which like to hang out with those blasted up-n-down quarks in their trinary configurations of 2-1 no matter how strong those gluons are! :)
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
And FYI for those interested, the DVR-S201 is the latest DVD-R model and is only about $5000 as opposed to the $16k for the DVR-S101. More info can be found here:
http://www.pioneerusa.com/rd_dvd.html
1. First of all, to write an actual DVD Video Disc you'd need an MPEG-2 encoder and some kind of converter (like Adaptec's Video Toast or whatever it's called) to store that MPEG-2 in the correct format which I forget at the moment. Now I suppose with one of the DeCSS code hacks you COULD write a linux programme to do the MPEG-2 to DVD-MPEG-2 yourself, but given all the legal battles, I don't know how safe it would be, May be an interesting GNU/OS project though. Anyway, EVEN if you did this, the media format itself is not the same so some firmware changes WOULD be necessary for your Discs to play back on your settop device, though not as much as for the DVD-RAM. If your player is made by Sony or Philips or one of the other DVD+RW proponents, I would suspect they would update the frimware for free at your local dealer just to make up for the lost ground in Market Share they have lost to DVD-RAM (rumours say that they are planning to do just this).
:) Seriously, what has happened is the DVD-Consortium had four proposals for writable DVD. The first as Pioneer's DVD-R. This was followed by proposals from Panisonic/Toshiba for DVD-RAM and by Sony/Philips/HP for DVD+RW. Finally, seeing the need for a rewritable format, Pioneer came up with the DVD-RW extension to DVD-R. The reason for the split is pretty obvious: they players just couldn't agree. Thus, rather than letting the bickering over details continue, the consortium decided to approve ALL FOUR formats for writable DVD. So Technically, DVD-RAM IS a true Writable DVD Format, even if it isn't backwards-compatable with legacy equipment. Since all four are officially sanctioned, it is clear the companies involved wish to let the market decide, as they did with Beta and VHS. I seems clear to me if the DVD+RW camp can get their act together and actually come out with product they have a distinct advantage over all other products. OTOH, if DVD-RAM can evolve into a Caddy-less system (against the "users are stupid" viewpoint of the DVD-RAM proponents) and they can provide the same ease of firmware upgrade to players, it would almost certainly lead to the early grave of DVD+RW. After all, DVD-RAM has been on the market for a while now, it's hard to beat that product base.
:)
2. I suspect the Justice Department should be seriously looking into HP's claims last year of releasing the i3100 or whatever it was called which they claimed was the worlds first DVD+RW player, but has yet to appear on anybody's shelves. In fact, the story of DVD+RW is the story of 6 months from now. I have heard so many times from the industry the mantra of 'next quarter' that I have ceased to believe it. Recently, Sony announced their own DVD+RW player but that to may be another case of Vapourware.
3. I beleive the DVD consortium will allow you to have access to the spec for a SMALL (read, likely a few thousands of dollars) fee.
4. The DVD+RW folks plan to target the same market so current estimates of DVD+RW media are on par with DVD-RAM, $20 or so for Single Sided, $50 or so for Double Sided.
5. Initially they hope to have writing at DVD 1x, again similar to RAM. Down the road higher speeds may be possible but it is unlikely to go much higher for at least a year or 2 after initial release.
6. Well, Mr. Jackson, you need not fear folks pirating your new film when it comes out on optical disc, let me re-assure you.
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
P.S. Grrrr. Overrated my #$%.
Thanks. Yes, I went over my notes after posting the article and realised my mistake but didn't have time to correct it. Thanks again for making that clearer.
It seems the article and the /. summary may be a bit confused here about DVD standards and formats. In fact, there are 4 DVD formatting types and they should not be confused:
DVD-R developed by Pioneer sells for about $16,000 and produces near-perfect DVDs compatible with 95%+ of the current DVD players out there. I am unclear whether this can only write 9.4 GB HD/DS Discs or also supports DD/DS 17 GB discs as well. Lord knows my DVD-ROM drive doesn't so I can't imagine who would be using those mega Double-Density Discs.
DVD-RAM developed by Panisonic, Toshiba used to store 2.6 GB (LD/SS) and 5.2 GB (LD/DS) but the article is now reporting the development of middle-tier DVD-RAM discs of 4.7 GB (HD/SS) and 9.4 GB (HD/DS) by Panisonic. These discs use a Magneto-Optical system similar to the PD devices of old, not a pure optical system like DVD-ROM. Thus, compatibility would require a major firmware change in all DVD players to support the cartrages. Also note that the DVD-RAM drives are Cartrage-based and the 5.2 GB discs at least cannot be removed from their casing, or at least so I've read. Remember those bloody caddies you had to use for CDs way back when? Well it seems Panisonic and Toshiba liked them so much they wouldn't let them die. They walked out of the DVD consortium for development of writable DVD and came to market with the YEARS before the other players. MSR (as in the article) is about $500 - $600.
DVD-RW developed by Pioneer is the logical follow up to their DVD-R technology and follows exactly analagous to the difference between CD-R and CD-RW. Although it is not clear whether current drives would support this format, it is the most similar of the rewritables to current hardware and the easiest to upgrade Firmware for. Status unknown, MSR expected to be $2000 - $6000.
DVD+RW developed by Philips, Sony [VAPOURWARE!?!!] is another optical disc which does not require a caddy. The first generation should have something like 3.7 GB LD/SS discs, but they expect to have 4.7 GM discs a year after launch. However, they have been saying this for almost 2 years and still I have seen no firm product schedule. I am in fact dubious as to whether these guys can get their act together and put the DVD+RW out. On the plus side [no pun intended], as the DVD+RW discs are optical, it is likely only a minor firmware change would be required to make them compatible with current DVD players. MSR is suggested at $500 - $600 and they are intended to compete directly for the DVD-RAM market.
There used to be a great page explaining all this stuff in great detail, but it's gone so perhaps I should write a new one...
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
Simply put, I don't want a lot of towers screwing up the Yellowstone natural landscape. You'd either have to do without in our national parks or go back to you low-freq, high-watt counterparts. We have a big hubub here in Washington D.C. when they put those ugly Celular Towers in Rock Creek Park and Congress allowed it because it DOES protect people from muggings and rape, but the idea of placing thousands of towers all over Yellowstone National or the Grand Canyon or Yosemite or Glacier Park or, well, the entire state/territories of Alaska, Yukon, NWT and Nunavut -- it ain't gonna happen my friend. The long and the short of it is, for my sake the fewer towers the better.
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
(One is reminded of the 'Mr. Neutron' episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus -- 'This cell TOWer, is the new cell TOWer for Alviston Road. We hope that this new TOWer will serve Barnsworth, Grenville and Smithe St. in an area of 5 square kilometers. The TOWer will transmit and receive singals for frequencies in the range...')
Since only 3 cities remain I hope all those who didn't know the Nudge-Nudge Rap was coming to town live in those few areas who have yet to be visited. How did you like it TO? From what I heard the Chicago and Washington, D.C. (the one I attended) performances were by far the best, the former because his family and kids were in attendence and the latter because we were filmed and got to watch the pickups. BTW, were any other cities filmed? Anyway if you haven't, go see it! It rocks!!!
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
Specifically I am referring to The Big Broadcast which can be heard on their live RealAudio feed 7pm - 11pm ET; 4pm - 8pm PT for the left-coasties. :)
Be Seeing You,Jeffrey.
As It Happens hour 1 brought to you by MPR -- That's Minnesota Public Radio. :) The rest, as someone else pointed out, like 'The Diane Reahm Show' and 'Public Interest' originate out of Washington D.C. Bob Edwards lives in Arlington, Virginia even, though he's from Kentecky. WHYY produces 'Fresh Air', MFWDYK? is Wisconsin Public Radio, PHC is MPR again, Car Talk is WGBH Boston IIRC, and I think ToTN and TAL are both produced in Chicago, as well as WWDTM AFAICT. Not sure what's west of here but I'm sure you Left-coast fellows got some cool stuff out there too. :)
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
You missed the point but try tuning into www.wamu.org on a Sunday Night EST and you could be pleasantly surprised, even if their repetoire doesn't go past 1960. :)
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
Exactly! The nice fellow with score 4 who wanted to know why he wouldn't novelise Eric Seward's scrips would have been a perfect question had he not got the titles wrong and even I wanted a very similar question to be asked just not his because it would have been totally wasted as I pointed out the scripts referred to were mis-typed (the author knew what he was talking about but his hands were not obeying his head :) and one knows TPTB over hear at /. couldn't give a rat's ass about Doctor Who and just think it's some cheesy PBS series about scarf knitting. And yet, what few mods who do think a Doctor Who question was worth broaching wasted all their karma points on this guy even though the question was phrased incorrectly and would have again got a one-line 'I didn't write those scripts.' Thus no other Doctor Who related questions made ANY progress in the Karma department when I must say at least 10% of his career derives from thos humble beginnings on The Pirate Planet.</voice style="Sour Grapes">
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
This year's RoShamBo competation is funded in part with thanks to The Movellan Society for the Total Eradication of the Dalek Scourge from the Entire Universe (MSTEDSEU).
WHAT! This isn't a 5 by now!?!! This is one of the funniest things I've read on /. ever so mod this guy up man but please! :(
Be Seeing You,
Jeffrey.
And for the Ladies, I'll be Paul McGann...
And of course I'll have to do Sylvester McCoy...
For a change I'll try Colin Baker...
Then I think I'll try Peter Davison...