Right..... so what you're saying is, modern camcorders are significantly better than the clunky old one I inherited, no surprise there -- but "camcordings" of movies are still crap. No surprise there either.
Why would you bother anyway, when you can get review copies from the studios' press departments -- which have to have the complete movie in watchable quality, otherwise the journalists wouldn't be able to heap praise upon the film? {And no, one-time play -- whether it be a DVD with a coating that changes from transparent to opaque in air, or a cassette with a small ceramic magnet just upstream of the take-up spool -- doesn't prevent anyone making a copy on the first playing.} I only ever saw one review copy of a film, and that had a timecode in the corner, but I would have paid the going rate for a bootleg copy anyway.
What really sticks in my craw is the way we're expected to pay over the odds to watch a film in the cinema, in order to fund attempts on the impossible. If the films were cheaper in the first place, there would be no "piracy" problem.
Every penny spent on a copy-prevention scheme -- which includes substantial R&D and riduculous licencing fees -- becomes wasted, the exact moment someone successfully bypasses the copy-prevention. {Well, not all the R&D is wasted: you know one more fact than when you set out, i.e. the scheme you came up with is duff}. The truth is that copy prevention is impossible -- and that is not a limitation of present technology, but rather a limitation of the universe.
The kind of person who buys camcorder copies of feature films isn't going to be too bothered by the odd artefact..... OTOH, the kind of person who goes to a picture house to watch a film may well be severely pissed off by the presence of a watermark visible enough to show up on a video recording.
The last time I checked, the longest tape you could get for a camcorder was 90', but battery life was the great limiting factor {not counting full-size VHS shoulder mount camcorders with lead-acid battery packs; but I rather suspect such could be detected using less sophisticated equipment than night vision goggles}. A VCR mechanism still draws up to an ampere of current..... it's got a necessarily heavy head drum to spin against heavy friction from the tape, plus the capstan drive and the spool tensioners. Oh, and the lacing mechanism, which also works against heavy friction and has to move fast in case you miss any of the action. If I didn't know it had ever been done, I'd say it was next to impossible to film a movie with a camcorder; at least, not doing it properly. And that's before I mention the frame rate is different {24fps for cine film, 25fps for PAL video. TV stations just speed the film up and run with it. It's 2'24" shorter per hour and the music is about half a semitone higher, is all. Your camcorder will just have to interpolate; bear in mind there are usually actually 48 flashes of light per second, each frame being shown twice}. Does anyone know if, when you buy one of these "camcorder" copies, you get gaps where someone was changing the tape and/or battery pack?
The concept of "abstraction layers" is associated with Windows, but don't forget, non-toy operating systems also have their own forms of abstraction layer, just as a result of their own modularity. For instance, in Linux, the entire file system is effectively abstracted. You can write a kernel module for a new file system type and drop it in seamlessly. The same probably holds true for other OSes, maybe even in Windows if you can get the sources; but I'll concentrate on Linux for now because it's what I know.
If you used such a kernel module to give you an encrypted file system, and used that fs type to mount your/var partition, then you would have encryption for your database -- independent of whatever kind of database you were using. And it's stuff-all use to anyone who steals the drive (unless the decryption key is on the same drive; but it's not, is it. You're smarter than that).
If you want encryption between client and server, you can use OpenSSL. Of course, if you are accessing the database through a web-based app, then just use an SSL-aware version of Apache. It'll be unencrypted on the client-end PC, but presumably that's inside a locked office building.
But women are more likely to smoke, and you should never, ever trust a smoker with an important password.
Strap someone in a chair, and place an opened box of Bensons and a lighter just out of their reach. Every so often, light one up, inhale deeply, and blow a little smoke towards the victim {but not enough for them to get any nicotine out of it -- most of it should go away from the victim in order to add to their general sense of helplessness}.
A typical smoker will, if deprived of nicotine for long enough, confess to eating their own grandmother just to get a puff on a fag..... giving away a computer password is nothing to a desperate drug addict.
No, MySQL does not have subqueries. But in its defence, subqueries are not "simple". If databases were bikes, MySQL would be a budget racer, built for speed and low price; not a luxury tourer, built for comfort.
The chances are that you aren't going to be talking to MySQL directly through the command line client; instead, you will have some bit of a script or compiled programme for that. And therefore, there's really no need for MySQL to be able to overlap that much functionality with the scripting. All MySQL has to do is store stuff in files and be able to retrieve it; and preferably better in some way {faster, better integrated with files, multiple indexes} than any of the usual array handling functions in your chosen scripting language. For argument's sake we'll say your script is in Perl, but it could be anything. You do your first query and populate a %hash, choosing the keys carefully so you can simulate your subquery just by pulling out elements with the right keys.
It means the scripting has to do more work, for sure; but it keeps the database engine simple and quick, and that is more in keeping with the Unix way of doing things: one programme for one task. If you want more features, and don't mind waiting longer between issuing a query and a result being returned, try postgres.
Ah, yes. Dropping your inhibitions without chemical assistance..... I used to be able to do that, once. A long time ago..... but if you can get past that, it's actually quite fun.
I've half a mind actually to get myself a dance pad controller..... hell, the CD stores in my home town already think I have a whole tribe of kids by different people anyway {well, I needed some sort of story as to why I was taking back a disc I bought a few days earlier..... } so it's no embarrassment buying one. Then I might even try it with chemical assistance!
And why do "Friends of the Earth" groups seem to deliberately misunderstand the purposes of things so often? Are they just colossally stupid, or incredibly untrusting? It seems like this is the kind of thing they would want, if they actually understood what it was for. That's the kind of BS that gives environmentalism such a bad name.
I don't know. I tried explaining the science to the local FoE "leader" and she just didn't get it. Anyone with any understanding of the First LKaw of Thermodynamics should be able to see that energy from waste is worthwhile. Her argument was based on the idea that someone has applied the label "incinerator" to it, therefore it must suffer from exactly the same problems as any other type of incinerator. The fact that dioxin production depends on incomplete combustion -- which is a problem in traditional incinerators because of the open flueway, notably absent from this type of plant -- was lost on her, as was the fact that any energy expended in performing the gasification would all be recovered when the gas was burned. Whether this is related to her science education not extending beyond GCSE is left as an exercise for the reader.
Her group were obsessed with composting. Only thing is, anybody who has an allotment or vegetable garden probably is already making their own compost, and anybody who doesn't know about compost making is liable to end up ruining the whole batch -- for instance, using too much cooked food, meat, fish and dairy tends to attract rather larger organisms than bacteria. Despite what some environmentalists would have you believe, it's neither feasible nor desirable to expect a wholesale shift to a raw vegan diet {think: nut allergies, coeliac disease}. Paper is sort of OK, but it's slow to decompose unless shredded finely. Liquid inks vary from benign to mildly toxic, solid toner is probably benign {the associated dangers arise mainly from the fine particle size of unused toner}. Plus, compost made from rotting chemically-grown food waste and paper containing chemical-based inks is not considered "organic". Her answer was anaerobic digestion, which involves putting the raw heterogeneous mix into an airtight vessel for the really hard-core bacteria to turn it into methane and carbon dioxide. Not a lot different than using heat to do the job, except now your energy yield is lower because some of the energy in the feedstuff has gone into the reaction instead of coming from outside. If you are using a heat-operated gasifier to turn the engine, you can get at least some of the heat of gasification from the engine's waste heat {remember, you get all the heat of gasification back anyway when the gas is burned; what is left over is equal to what you would theoretically get if you burned the fuel as a solid, assuming you could get it to burn completely in that state}. It's a balancing act..... start out assuming that the engine is 25% efficient {it should be better in practice, since it's doing a constant speed -- 50 cycles a second is 3000rpm -- and probably would have a turbocharger, so the exhaust gases are carrying away less K.E., and an intercooler, so they are carrying away less heat} and the gasification is apparently >100% efficient {due to energy already in there..... i.e. if you put in 9 units of energy, you might get out 10 units' worth of engine fuel -- note, though, the calorific value of the feedstuff is by its very nature highly variable} and chuck some figures at it. To prove there is no cheating, I'll let you use your own figures:)
But IMHO the stupidest thing that FoE were saying was that if we built such a plant, it would actually encourage people to throw more stuff away! For crying out loud, as long as it's going to be recycled, that's not so bad..... it just means that there won't be a "guilt stick" with which consumers can be beaten about the head. Thanks to "Friends of
Hah! Try telling that to the people of Derby. There was a bit of land where there used to have been a tannery {so the soil is chemically contaminated} and a company was planning to build an energy-from-waste plant that would have diverted a lot of waste from landfill and also would have included central segregation {i.e. both rubbish and recyclables would be collected in one bin, and separated at the plant -- no potential for abuse}. This plant would have first purified the organic matter into an explosive gas {mainly methane, CO and hydrogen} and then used this to fuel an engine which would drive an alternator. Unfortunately the local "Friends of the Earth" group {read that as "Enemies of the Advancement of Science"} misunderstood the word "incinerator" {the well-known problems with traditional incinerators are related to the fact that incomplete pyrolysis of heterogeneous fuels is exacerbated by a continuous open path from intake to exhaust -- in the gasifying design, pyrolysis is accomplished separately and allowed to proceed to completion}, thought the thing was a smelly bonfire, and successfully campaigned against it.
So now in Derby, when some idiot puts a recyclable can in their rubbish, not only does the council not get the scrap value from recycling the can, but ratepayers have to pay extra for it to be landfilled, and more metal ore has to be mined and smelted. If they put something organic in their rubbish, it decomposes in landfill into methane -- which is more persistent than CO2 and therefore a "worse" greenhouse gas. All the while, electricity is being manufactured from coal, pumping out CO2 into the atmosphere that was not there before. And meanwhile some residents are even actually opposing the installation of bottle banks &c.!
I have no doubt in my mind that a lot of people deserve to see the consequences of pollution shoved right in their faces just for long enough that they can't ignore it. And while we're on the theme, using disposable nappies {diapers} should be held to constitute child abuse. Does anyone know where I can get a picture of one child's full quota of used Pampers, from birth to toilet-training, festering in landfill? Might make people think getting a bit of shit on their fingers is not quite so gross after all.
Waste combustion produces CO2, but some of that CO2 comes from plants, so won't actually make any difference {where do you think the carbon in plants comes from?}; and the fact of the waste plant putting out energy means that fossil fuel power plants don't have to put out so much energy {i.e. less CO2 is made elsewhere}.
Nuclear has had a bad press, but realistically, it's about the one sane option. And bear in mind that the radioactive material kicking around the place is getting less so at a known rate. So while it's no more renewable than fossil fuels, at least we can leave say ten years' worth of oil and coal just in case -- because nuclear is running out even if we aren't using it.
Even if that was applicable outside the USA, it still could not be used to prevent you decrypting a message you have the right to view. It's in either the fourth or fifth amendment to the US Constitution, something like that. Anyway, if a message is meant for you, then nobody -- not anybody -- has the right to stop you reading it. The DMCA, being a Federal law, is only applicable so far as it does not conflict with the Constitution.
Back in the DOS days there was a programme called "DEBUG" which took a binary file as its input and displayed the corresponding assembly language source. You had to do a lot of guesswork; but when you had written Spectrum machine code using no programming aid more sophisticated than the character chart in the back of the manual, that wasn't as bad as it sounds. Surely a binary-only codec could be probed with something similar?
Extended disclaimer, for the paranoid: Pentium assembly language isn't a secret, reverse engineering for the purpose of creating interoperable products is explicitly permitted, and it's never illegal to decrypt something if you can prove you are the intended recipient.
This thing is snake oil. No, really. Every penny being spent on it is a penny wasted.
The ultimate example of built-in "No eXecute" would be a Harvard architecture machine (e.g. PIC series), where the executable instructions and non-executable data are placed in electrically separate memory.
But such a machine can still make a decision based upon the contents of a non-executable memory location -- otherwise a Harvard architecture machine would never be able to emulate a Neumann architecture machine (ever played old ZX Spectrum games on a mobile telephone?) And the consequences of that decision might affect the contents of executable memory locations, otherwise you could never load any software into executable memory.
You can effectively disable the NX functionality by running a little "emulator" to read non-executable memory and treat its contents as instructions. If you were really, really evil, you'd just set it as the default exception handler for attempted execution of NX'ed code and forget the rest. Getting the emulator into place in the first place is just a matter of persuading a clueless user to let you do it {e.g. by disguising it as a kewl new game, or pr0n, or a utility to block adverts / fill in passwords / do single-click web searches / download free music files / share your contact information with friends, &c}. My inbox is a testament to the fact that some people will click on anything.
Furthermore, once a "hardware solution" is in place, programmers will invariably get sloppy, assuming it will actually work, expecting it to do their job for them, &c.
not just anyone can make say "Rolling Stones" CDs - I can't go anywhere and choose between different vendors of a particular Rolling Sones CD - there's no competition on price, quality, etc etc because there is a monopoly at the label/distribution level.
Exactly! You have hit the nail squarely on the head. For instance, Epic Records -- and (legally) only Epic -- sell CDs of Shakira's "Laundry Service". {Though, for a while, it was available on the mysterious CFD label for three quid -- a right bargain basement outfit: unbranded CD-R; artist's name handwritten on it with an indelible marker; plain white paper insert with tracks listing and the curious message 'Made without God in the Free State of Mercia'. CFD sold CDs so cheaply because they didn't have the same overheads as record companies, i.e. fat-cat executives}.
So what if copyright was not transferrable, and any kind of discriminatory or exclusive licencing was banned? It would mean the artist would control their destiny, not the record labels. Artists would be free to use the services of any record label they liked, but the royalty payment they asked for use of their copyright material would have to be the same across the board -- so, you couldn't charge Epic more to sell your CDs than you were charging WSM. That is important to make it fair. The labels would be free to charge an up-front fee for CDs, artwork and sundry expenses, but whatever they get from the sale of those CDs -- minus what the artist wants in royalties -- is their profit. The laws of supply and demand would mostly take care of things. You and I would be free to miss out the middleman {= record label} by burning our own CDs and paying the royalty fees direct to the artist (which CFD almost certainly did not do).
Figuring out what 1/5 is in 32nds just means solving. 1/5 = x/32. Crossmultiplying and solving gives x = 32/5 or 6.4 (six and two fifths.) So, you go 6 tic marks and just shy of half of another.
A slight bit more math is involved than with metric, but really not that much.
And, over time, all those slight bits add up. Ting! Next, please.
The metric system was designed around the decimal notation from the word go. When you naturally think of a quarter as being "point two five", it just sort of makes sense.
Metric measurements make sense when you express fractions in decimal rather than ratiometric notation. (In Britain and Europe, pocket calculators invariably display fractions in decimal notation; I don't know about American ones). So for example, if I have a space that is 1m. wide and I want to divide it into three equal spaces, each one needs to be 0.333333..... m. wide. Now my tape measure is accurate to 0.001m and (unlike most British ones) has centimetre and millimetre marks the full width, so it can be used from either end of the wood. All I need do, then, is to measure 0,333m. in from either end, and the cumulative error -- which, by simple mathematics, will be no bigger than 0.001m. -- will all be applied to the middle space. Thus preserving the symmetry.
If you want to, say, divide a space which is 4 feet 9 inches wide into 5 compartments, then you cannot do this so easily, because the fractional part (if written ratiometrically) will be in fifths; 4/5 feet, 1 4/5 inches. But inch rulers are invariably divided by 32nds, 16ths, 8ths and so forth. You cannot readily convert 1/5 into 32nds; it's about 3/16, but there is a 1/16in error {which is bigger than the 1mm. I had using the metric ruler and pocket calculator}.
Do US pocket calculators use ratiometric fractions? That might be a kind of cool feature..... How many digits usually in the numerator and the denominator? How do you handle varying size numbers? Dot matrix display, mega-wide display so as to fit in 8+(8/8), or mode-switching for the integer, numerator and denominator? I'm curious.
Re:Ugh...
on
A Worm's Worm
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
You should try my personal favourite software licence:
Copyright (c) yyyy, The Author and Contributors. All rights reserved until yyyy when this work will enter the Public Domain.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. Any redistribution of the software or derived work in binary form must be accompanied by an offer of the source code, to be valid until the lapse of copyright on the work in question. In case of default on this offer, any affected party may use reasonable force to obtain the source code.
The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
Modifications on such a scale that they are deemed by applicable local laws to constitute a whole new work are exempt from this licence.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
I am sick of hearing how some company that used to give away software for "free" suddenly starts charging money or imposing adverts or whatever.
My software procurement policy is "no source, no sale" and I have never had cause to complain. I don't get spyware. I don't get adware. I don't get browser hijacks. I don't get banner adverts {they are blocked at the proxy}. I don't get viruses. I don't have to reboot my computer for unexplained reasons {I have had to do so for explained reasons..... like when I was trying my hand at a bit of C programming in a spare 15 minutes, got a bit adventurous, and forgot I was logged in as root. That's not a mistake you make twice}.
Purveyors of closed-source software are really just after something they can get from you -- whether it be money, or information about you that they can sell to other people for money. You get what you deserve for using it.
This sounds a lot like an old, old experiment described by Simeon Poisson with the intention to prove that light travelled as particles, and not as waves. The idea being that if light travelled as waves according to Huygens' theory, then there would be a tiny bright spot in the shadow cast by a pin-head in a narrow beam of monochromatic light. Poisson wrote a paper ridiculing this. Dominique Arago set up an experiment to show once and for all how the absence of a bright spot would disprove the wave theory -- and there, indeed, right in the centre of the shadow, was a bright spot.....
Outputs SPDIF? Hmm..... That sounds kewl. But does it take its timing from lines engraved on the flywheel in order to correct against the inherently jerky motion of a DC brushless motor? Or is the motor PWM signal synchronous with the SPDIF clock, so the power pulses are synchronous with the sampling, having the same effect?
You don't need to be able to run the turntable at 78rpm. Just play the record at 45rpm and correct the speed digitally. sox is your friend. However, you really need a special stylus to track the fatter grooves of 78rpm records properly; the ones designed for microgroove {45 / 33 rpm} records do not touch both walls, but instead tend to dance about in the bottom of the groove and produce extra noise. On the other hand, the bottom of the groove is more likely to be undamaged {fat needles ride high}, so try it first and see what works.
You will require a sound card with a line input, and a preamplifier with the appropriate equalisation characteristic {for a magnetic pick-up cartridge} or a very high input impedance {for a ceramic cartridge}. Don't even think about using the mic input, even though in this case it doesn't matter about being mono: the equalisation is wrong for magnetic, and the impedance is too low for ceramic. To go from 45 to 78rpm use sox song_at_45.wav song_at_78.wav speed 1.733. Alternatively, if you have a very good sound card which lets you set the sample rate precisely, recording at 25442Hz will give the correct speed when played back at 44100Hz. The cut-off frequency will only be about 12.5kHz this way, but in practice this isn't such a problem as the old recording equipment had less bandwidth anyway.
Note you will almost certainly have to perform some additional low-pass filtering. Read the sox manpage and experiment. A spectrum analyser {hardware or software} will enable you to determine the bandwidth of the signal; anything outside there should be discarded.
Gotta admit, it's hard to have any sympathy for this guy.
I download software from the Internet without paying for it all the time. Of course, I make sure to take the proper precautions..... I start with my favourite distribution's website first {they nearly always have exactly what I'm looking for}, then the package's home page, and I check things like the MD5 sum and the compilation output {if it's a.tar.gz file as opposed to a.deb}.
If there was anything I really did not trust, I would first create a new, non-privileged user and then install it in their private bin directory where it could not overwrite anything important.
And if you think that's all too much like hard work, well, just remember -- the alternative is to pay for your software, but that way you forego the benefits.
I really don't have a problem with people looking at pictures. If some sicko is going to get his filthy rocks off, better from my point of view that he* does so into a box of Kleenex than into any kid of mine. If the picture was made in such a way that involved causing harm to a child, then yes, it's absolutely fair to go after the creator; and if the person who looks at it actually goes on to harm a child, again, it's fair to go after the abuser. But just looking at a picture does not alter the amount of harm done. In fact, if looking at pictures is enough to satisfy a person's urges, so he doesn't actually need to go out and abuse a child, then it's doing good.
But, it's easier to get a result by going after the people looking at the pictures than by going after the actual abusers. And when policemen are on a "points make prizes" system, simple economics take over.
I also think many people are afraid even to look at a child porn picture in case it awakens any latent paedophile tendency lurking in them. The subject is so emotionally charged, that it sets up a kind of positive feedback loop: anybody who questions the hanging, drawing and quartering of anyone remotely suspected of being a paedophile, risks being called one themself.
* I said "he", but women paedophiles do exist, and I wouldn't be surprised by a lesbian serial rapist..... but that's another story for another time.
In order to make any sense of this, we need to understand a bit about psychology. Men today are basically -- and with good reason -- shit-scared of being accused of any sexual offence, but especially paedophilia. You only have to look at the news reports on TV and in the papers.
So we live in denial. We try to pretend there is no such thing. But as soon as a real, live person is discovered who is suspected of being a paedophile, then a defensive mechanism which dates back to cave-man times kicks in. We are so desperate not to be that suspect, because we are doubly afraid -- revulsion at the thought that we might be capable of doing that, plus fear of the punishment we are conditioned to expect. All the time, we are exposed through the media to a gamut of images such as Britney Spears dancing erotically in clothing reminiscent of school uniform. And children -- especially girls {Western society has pretty much abandoned boys altogether, but that's another story} -- are adopting what would traditionally have been seen as the trappings of adulthood at a much younger age. These conditions are an ideal breeding ground for irrational behaviour.
People attack suspected paedophiles because they don't want to be suspected of paedophilia themselves; and if you are in a vigilante mob, baying for blood with the rest of them, then obviously nobody else in that mob thinks you would make a good next victim.
If the software is Open Source, and it creates a standard, then that is, by definition, an Open Standard. And the BBC's decision to use the GPL is a very wise one IMHO, as it effectively prevents anyone from developing a closed-source variant -- which is always the first step in holding content to ransom.
Don't forget that the BBC -- and the content it creates -- belongs to every Briton with a TV licence {which is most of us}.
The UK government could just as easily mandate that all codecs had to be open source {authorising the use of reasonable force in case of vendor non-co-operation}, but that would only work in the UK. For the BBC to work on a GPL'ed codec -- and such an advanced one, too -- makes me feel immensely proud, because it proves that I live in a country which recognises that some things are just more important than money.
Slashdot Mirror
Right ..... so what you're saying is, modern camcorders are significantly better than the clunky old one I inherited, no surprise there -- but "camcordings" of movies are still crap. No surprise there either.
Why would you bother anyway, when you can get review copies from the studios' press departments -- which have to have the complete movie in watchable quality, otherwise the journalists wouldn't be able to heap praise upon the film? {And no, one-time play -- whether it be a DVD with a coating that changes from transparent to opaque in air, or a cassette with a small ceramic magnet just upstream of the take-up spool -- doesn't prevent anyone making a copy on the first playing.} I only ever saw one review copy of a film, and that had a timecode in the corner, but I would have paid the going rate for a bootleg copy anyway.
What really sticks in my craw is the way we're expected to pay over the odds to watch a film in the cinema, in order to fund attempts on the impossible. If the films were cheaper in the first place, there would be no "piracy" problem.
This is what I have never understood.
..... OTOH, the kind of person who goes to a picture house to watch a film may well be severely pissed off by the presence of a watermark visible enough to show up on a video recording.
..... it's got a necessarily heavy head drum to spin against heavy friction from the tape, plus the capstan drive and the spool tensioners. Oh, and the lacing mechanism, which also works against heavy friction and has to move fast in case you miss any of the action. If I didn't know it had ever been done, I'd say it was next to impossible to film a movie with a camcorder; at least, not doing it properly. And that's before I mention the frame rate is different {24fps for cine film, 25fps for PAL video. TV stations just speed the film up and run with it. It's 2'24" shorter per hour and the music is about half a semitone higher, is all. Your camcorder will just have to interpolate; bear in mind there are usually actually 48 flashes of light per second, each frame being shown twice}. Does anyone know if, when you buy one of these "camcorder" copies, you get gaps where someone was changing the tape and/or battery pack?
Every penny spent on a copy-prevention scheme -- which includes substantial R&D and riduculous licencing fees -- becomes wasted, the exact moment someone successfully bypasses the copy-prevention. {Well, not all the R&D is wasted: you know one more fact than when you set out, i.e. the scheme you came up with is duff}. The truth is that copy prevention is impossible -- and that is not a limitation of present technology, but rather a limitation of the universe.
The kind of person who buys camcorder copies of feature films isn't going to be too bothered by the odd artefact
The last time I checked, the longest tape you could get for a camcorder was 90', but battery life was the great limiting factor {not counting full-size VHS shoulder mount camcorders with lead-acid battery packs; but I rather suspect such could be detected using less sophisticated equipment than night vision goggles}. A VCR mechanism still draws up to an ampere of current
The concept of "abstraction layers" is associated with Windows, but don't forget, non-toy operating systems also have their own forms of abstraction layer, just as a result of their own modularity. For instance, in Linux, the entire file system is effectively abstracted. You can write a kernel module for a new file system type and drop it in seamlessly. The same probably holds true for other OSes, maybe even in Windows if you can get the sources; but I'll concentrate on Linux for now because it's what I know.
/var partition, then you would have encryption for your database -- independent of whatever kind of database you were using. And it's stuff-all use to anyone who steals the drive (unless the decryption key is on the same drive; but it's not, is it. You're smarter than that).
If you used such a kernel module to give you an encrypted file system, and used that fs type to mount your
If you want encryption between client and server, you can use OpenSSL. Of course, if you are accessing the database through a web-based app, then just use an SSL-aware version of Apache. It'll be unencrypted on the client-end PC, but presumably that's inside a locked office building.
But women are more likely to smoke, and you should never, ever trust a smoker with an important password.
..... giving away a computer password is nothing to a desperate drug addict.
Strap someone in a chair, and place an opened box of Bensons and a lighter just out of their reach. Every so often, light one up, inhale deeply, and blow a little smoke towards the victim {but not enough for them to get any nicotine out of it -- most of it should go away from the victim in order to add to their general sense of helplessness}.
A typical smoker will, if deprived of nicotine for long enough, confess to eating their own grandmother just to get a puff on a fag
No, MySQL does not have subqueries. But in its defence, subqueries are not "simple". If databases were bikes, MySQL would be a budget racer, built for speed and low price; not a luxury tourer, built for comfort.
The chances are that you aren't going to be talking to MySQL directly through the command line client; instead, you will have some bit of a script or compiled programme for that. And therefore, there's really no need for MySQL to be able to overlap that much functionality with the scripting. All MySQL has to do is store stuff in files and be able to retrieve it; and preferably better in some way {faster, better integrated with files, multiple indexes} than any of the usual array handling functions in your chosen scripting language. For argument's sake we'll say your script is in Perl, but it could be anything. You do your first query and populate a %hash, choosing the keys carefully so you can simulate your subquery just by pulling out elements with the right keys.
It means the scripting has to do more work, for sure; but it keeps the database engine simple and quick, and that is more in keeping with the Unix way of doing things: one programme for one task. If you want more features, and don't mind waiting longer between issuing a query and a result being returned, try postgres.
Ah, yes. Dropping your inhibitions without chemical assistance ..... I used to be able to do that, once. A long time ago ..... but if you can get past that, it's actually quite fun.
..... hell, the CD stores in my home town already think I have a whole tribe of kids by different people anyway {well, I needed some sort of story as to why I was taking back a disc I bought a few days earlier ..... } so it's no embarrassment buying one. Then I might even try it with chemical assistance!
I've half a mind actually to get myself a dance pad controller
I don't know. I tried explaining the science to the local FoE "leader" and she just didn't get it. Anyone with any understanding of the First LKaw of Thermodynamics should be able to see that energy from waste is worthwhile. Her argument was based on the idea that someone has applied the label "incinerator" to it, therefore it must suffer from exactly the same problems as any other type of incinerator. The fact that dioxin production depends on incomplete combustion -- which is a problem in traditional incinerators because of the open flueway, notably absent from this type of plant -- was lost on her, as was the fact that any energy expended in performing the gasification would all be recovered when the gas was burned. Whether this is related to her science education not extending beyond GCSE is left as an exercise for the reader.
..... start out assuming that the engine is 25% efficient {it should be better in practice, since it's doing a constant speed -- 50 cycles a second is 3000rpm -- and probably would have a turbocharger, so the exhaust gases are carrying away less K.E., and an intercooler, so they are carrying away less heat} and the gasification is apparently >100% efficient {due to energy already in there ..... i.e. if you put in 9 units of energy, you might get out 10 units' worth of engine fuel -- note, though, the calorific value of the feedstuff is by its very nature highly variable} and chuck some figures at it. To prove there is no cheating, I'll let you use your own figures :)
..... it just means that there won't be a "guilt stick" with which consumers can be beaten about the head. Thanks to "Friends of
Her group were obsessed with composting. Only thing is, anybody who has an allotment or vegetable garden probably is already making their own compost, and anybody who doesn't know about compost making is liable to end up ruining the whole batch -- for instance, using too much cooked food, meat, fish and dairy tends to attract rather larger organisms than bacteria. Despite what some environmentalists would have you believe, it's neither feasible nor desirable to expect a wholesale shift to a raw vegan diet {think: nut allergies, coeliac disease}. Paper is sort of OK, but it's slow to decompose unless shredded finely. Liquid inks vary from benign to mildly toxic, solid toner is probably benign {the associated dangers arise mainly from the fine particle size of unused toner}. Plus, compost made from rotting chemically-grown food waste and paper containing chemical-based inks is not considered "organic". Her answer was anaerobic digestion, which involves putting the raw heterogeneous mix into an airtight vessel for the really hard-core bacteria to turn it into methane and carbon dioxide. Not a lot different than using heat to do the job, except now your energy yield is lower because some of the energy in the feedstuff has gone into the reaction instead of coming from outside. If you are using a heat-operated gasifier to turn the engine, you can get at least some of the heat of gasification from the engine's waste heat {remember, you get all the heat of gasification back anyway when the gas is burned; what is left over is equal to what you would theoretically get if you burned the fuel as a solid, assuming you could get it to burn completely in that state}. It's a balancing act
But IMHO the stupidest thing that FoE were saying was that if we built such a plant, it would actually encourage people to throw more stuff away! For crying out loud, as long as it's going to be recycled, that's not so bad
Hah! Try telling that to the people of Derby. There was a bit of land where there used to have been a tannery {so the soil is chemically contaminated} and a company was planning to build an energy-from-waste plant that would have diverted a lot of waste from landfill and also would have included central segregation {i.e. both rubbish and recyclables would be collected in one bin, and separated at the plant -- no potential for abuse}. This plant would have first purified the organic matter into an explosive gas {mainly methane, CO and hydrogen} and then used this to fuel an engine which would drive an alternator. Unfortunately the local "Friends of the Earth" group {read that as "Enemies of the Advancement of Science"} misunderstood the word "incinerator" {the well-known problems with traditional incinerators are related to the fact that incomplete pyrolysis of heterogeneous fuels is exacerbated by a continuous open path from intake to exhaust -- in the gasifying design, pyrolysis is accomplished separately and allowed to proceed to completion}, thought the thing was a smelly bonfire, and successfully campaigned against it.
So now in Derby, when some idiot puts a recyclable can in their rubbish, not only does the council not get the scrap value from recycling the can, but ratepayers have to pay extra for it to be landfilled, and more metal ore has to be mined and smelted. If they put something organic in their rubbish, it decomposes in landfill into methane -- which is more persistent than CO2 and therefore a "worse" greenhouse gas. All the while, electricity is being manufactured from coal, pumping out CO2 into the atmosphere that was not there before. And meanwhile some residents are even actually opposing the installation of bottle banks &c.!
I have no doubt in my mind that a lot of people deserve to see the consequences of pollution shoved right in their faces just for long enough that they can't ignore it. And while we're on the theme, using disposable nappies {diapers} should be held to constitute child abuse. Does anyone know where I can get a picture of one child's full quota of used Pampers, from birth to toilet-training, festering in landfill? Might make people think getting a bit of shit on their fingers is not quite so gross after all.
Waste combustion produces CO2, but some of that CO2 comes from plants, so won't actually make any difference {where do you think the carbon in plants comes from?}; and the fact of the waste plant putting out energy means that fossil fuel power plants don't have to put out so much energy {i.e. less CO2 is made elsewhere}.
Nuclear has had a bad press, but realistically, it's about the one sane option. And bear in mind that the radioactive material kicking around the place is getting less so at a known rate. So while it's no more renewable than fossil fuels, at least we can leave say ten years' worth of oil and coal just in case -- because nuclear is running out even if we aren't using it.
Even if that was applicable outside the USA, it still could not be used to prevent you decrypting a message you have the right to view. It's in either the fourth or fifth amendment to the US Constitution, something like that. Anyway, if a message is meant for you, then nobody -- not anybody -- has the right to stop you reading it. The DMCA, being a Federal law, is only applicable so far as it does not conflict with the Constitution.
Back in the DOS days there was a programme called "DEBUG" which took a binary file as its input and displayed the corresponding assembly language source. You had to do a lot of guesswork; but when you had written Spectrum machine code using no programming aid more sophisticated than the character chart in the back of the manual, that wasn't as bad as it sounds. Surely a binary-only codec could be probed with something similar?
Extended disclaimer, for the paranoid: Pentium assembly language isn't a secret, reverse engineering for the purpose of creating interoperable products is explicitly permitted, and it's never illegal to decrypt something if you can prove you are the intended recipient.
This thing is snake oil. No, really. Every penny being spent on it is a penny wasted.
The ultimate example of built-in "No eXecute" would be a Harvard architecture machine (e.g. PIC series), where the executable instructions and non-executable data are placed in electrically separate memory.
But such a machine can still make a decision based upon the contents of a non-executable memory location -- otherwise a Harvard architecture machine would never be able to emulate a Neumann architecture machine (ever played old ZX Spectrum games on a mobile telephone?) And the consequences of that decision might affect the contents of executable memory locations, otherwise you could never load any software into executable memory.
You can effectively disable the NX functionality by running a little "emulator" to read non-executable memory and treat its contents as instructions. If you were really, really evil, you'd just set it as the default exception handler for attempted execution of NX'ed code and forget the rest. Getting the emulator into place in the first place is just a matter of persuading a clueless user to let you do it {e.g. by disguising it as a kewl new game, or pr0n, or a utility to block adverts / fill in passwords / do single-click web searches / download free music files / share your contact information with friends, &c}. My inbox is a testament to the fact that some people will click on anything.
Furthermore, once a "hardware solution" is in place, programmers will invariably get sloppy, assuming it will actually work, expecting it to do their job for them, &c.
So what if copyright was not transferrable, and any kind of discriminatory or exclusive licencing was banned? It would mean the artist would control their destiny, not the record labels. Artists would be free to use the services of any record label they liked, but the royalty payment they asked for use of their copyright material would have to be the same across the board -- so, you couldn't charge Epic more to sell your CDs than you were charging WSM. That is important to make it fair. The labels would be free to charge an up-front fee for CDs, artwork and sundry expenses, but whatever they get from the sale of those CDs -- minus what the artist wants in royalties -- is their profit. The laws of supply and demand would mostly take care of things. You and I would be free to miss out the middleman {= record label} by burning our own CDs and paying the royalty fees direct to the artist (which CFD almost certainly did not do).
The metric system was designed around the decimal notation from the word go. When you naturally think of a quarter as being "point two five", it just sort of makes sense.
Metric measurements make sense when you express fractions in decimal rather than ratiometric notation. (In Britain and Europe, pocket calculators invariably display fractions in decimal notation; I don't know about American ones). So for example, if I have a space that is 1m. wide and I want to divide it into three equal spaces, each one needs to be 0.333333..... m. wide. Now my tape measure is accurate to 0.001m and (unlike most British ones) has centimetre and millimetre marks the full width, so it can be used from either end of the wood. All I need do, then, is to measure 0,333m. in from either end, and the cumulative error -- which, by simple mathematics, will be no bigger than 0.001m. -- will all be applied to the middle space. Thus preserving the symmetry.
..... How many digits usually in the numerator and the denominator? How do you handle varying size numbers? Dot matrix display, mega-wide display so as to fit in 8+(8/8), or mode-switching for the integer, numerator and denominator? I'm curious.
If you want to, say, divide a space which is 4 feet 9 inches wide into 5 compartments, then you cannot do this so easily, because the fractional part (if written ratiometrically) will be in fifths; 4/5 feet, 1 4/5 inches. But inch rulers are invariably divided by 32nds, 16ths, 8ths and so forth. You cannot readily convert 1/5 into 32nds; it's about 3/16, but there is a 1/16in error {which is bigger than the 1mm. I had using the metric ruler and pocket calculator}.
Do US pocket calculators use ratiometric fractions? That might be a kind of cool feature
Copyright (c) yyyy, The Author and Contributors. All rights reserved until yyyy when this work will enter the Public Domain.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
- Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
- Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. Any redistribution of the software or derived work in binary form must be accompanied by an offer of the source code, to be valid until the lapse of copyright on the work in question. In case of default on this offer, any affected party may use reasonable force to obtain the source code.
- The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
- Modifications on such a scale that they are deemed by applicable local laws to constitute a whole new work are exempt from this licence.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.So you get the source, but it's not Free? Talk about the worst of both worlds!
I am sick of hearing how some company that used to give away software for "free" suddenly starts charging money or imposing adverts or whatever.
..... like when I was trying my hand at a bit of C programming in a spare 15 minutes, got a bit adventurous, and forgot I was logged in as root. That's not a mistake you make twice}.
My software procurement policy is "no source, no sale" and I have never had cause to complain. I don't get spyware. I don't get adware. I don't get browser hijacks. I don't get banner adverts {they are blocked at the proxy}. I don't get viruses. I don't have to reboot my computer for unexplained reasons {I have had to do so for explained reasons
Purveyors of closed-source software are really just after something they can get from you -- whether it be money, or information about you that they can sell to other people for money. You get what you deserve for using it.
This sounds a lot like an old, old experiment described by Simeon Poisson with the intention to prove that light travelled as particles, and not as waves. The idea being that if light travelled as waves according to Huygens' theory, then there would be a tiny bright spot in the shadow cast by a pin-head in a narrow beam of monochromatic light. Poisson wrote a paper ridiculing this. Dominique Arago set up an experiment to show once and for all how the absence of a bright spot would disprove the wave theory -- and there, indeed, right in the centre of the shadow, was a bright spot .....
Outputs SPDIF? Hmm ..... That sounds kewl. But does it take its timing from lines engraved on the flywheel in order to correct against the inherently jerky motion of a DC brushless motor? Or is the motor PWM signal synchronous with the SPDIF clock, so the power pulses are synchronous with the sampling, having the same effect?
You don't need to be able to run the turntable at 78rpm. Just play the record at 45rpm and correct the speed digitally. sox is your friend. However, you really need a special stylus to track the fatter grooves of 78rpm records properly; the ones designed for microgroove {45 / 33 rpm} records do not touch both walls, but instead tend to dance about in the bottom of the groove and produce extra noise. On the other hand, the bottom of the groove is more likely to be undamaged {fat needles ride high}, so try it first and see what works.
You will require a sound card with a line input, and a preamplifier with the appropriate equalisation characteristic {for a magnetic pick-up cartridge} or a very high input impedance {for a ceramic cartridge}. Don't even think about using the mic input, even though in this case it doesn't matter about being mono: the equalisation is wrong for magnetic, and the impedance is too low for ceramic. To go from 45 to 78rpm use sox song_at_45.wav song_at_78.wav speed 1.733. Alternatively, if you have a very good sound card which lets you set the sample rate precisely, recording at 25442Hz will give the correct speed when played back at 44100Hz. The cut-off frequency will only be about 12.5kHz this way, but in practice this isn't such a problem as the old recording equipment had less bandwidth anyway.
Note you will almost certainly have to perform some additional low-pass filtering. Read the sox manpage and experiment. A spectrum analyser {hardware or software} will enable you to determine the bandwidth of the signal; anything outside there should be discarded.
Gotta admit, it's hard to have any sympathy for this guy.
..... I start with my favourite distribution's website first {they nearly always have exactly what I'm looking for}, then the package's home page, and I check things like the MD5 sum and the compilation output {if it's a .tar.gz file as opposed to a .deb}.
I download software from the Internet without paying for it all the time. Of course, I make sure to take the proper precautions
If there was anything I really did not trust, I would first create a new, non-privileged user and then install it in their private bin directory where it could not overwrite anything important.
And if you think that's all too much like hard work, well, just remember -- the alternative is to pay for your software, but that way you forego the benefits.
I really don't have a problem with people looking at pictures. If some sicko is going to get his filthy rocks off, better from my point of view that he* does so into a box of Kleenex than into any kid of mine. If the picture was made in such a way that involved causing harm to a child, then yes, it's absolutely fair to go after the creator; and if the person who looks at it actually goes on to harm a child, again, it's fair to go after the abuser. But just looking at a picture does not alter the amount of harm done. In fact, if looking at pictures is enough to satisfy a person's urges, so he doesn't actually need to go out and abuse a child, then it's doing good.
..... but that's another story for another time.
But, it's easier to get a result by going after the people looking at the pictures than by going after the actual abusers. And when policemen are on a "points make prizes" system, simple economics take over.
I also think many people are afraid even to look at a child porn picture in case it awakens any latent paedophile tendency lurking in them. The subject is so emotionally charged, that it sets up a kind of positive feedback loop: anybody who questions the hanging, drawing and quartering of anyone remotely suspected of being a paedophile, risks being called one themself.
* I said "he", but women paedophiles do exist, and I wouldn't be surprised by a lesbian serial rapist
In order to make any sense of this, we need to understand a bit about psychology. Men today are basically -- and with good reason -- shit-scared of being accused of any sexual offence, but especially paedophilia. You only have to look at the news reports on TV and in the papers.
So we live in denial. We try to pretend there is no such thing. But as soon as a real, live person is discovered who is suspected of being a paedophile, then a defensive mechanism which dates back to cave-man times kicks in. We are so desperate not to be that suspect, because we are doubly afraid -- revulsion at the thought that we might be capable of doing that, plus fear of the punishment we are conditioned to expect. All the time, we are exposed through the media to a gamut of images such as Britney Spears dancing erotically in clothing reminiscent of school uniform. And children -- especially girls {Western society has pretty much abandoned boys altogether, but that's another story} -- are adopting what would traditionally have been seen as the trappings of adulthood at a much younger age. These conditions are an ideal breeding ground for irrational behaviour.
People attack suspected paedophiles because they don't want to be suspected of paedophilia themselves; and if you are in a vigilante mob, baying for blood with the rest of them, then obviously nobody else in that mob thinks you would make a good next victim.
If the software is Open Source, and it creates a standard, then that is, by definition, an Open Standard. And the BBC's decision to use the GPL is a very wise one IMHO, as it effectively prevents anyone from developing a closed-source variant -- which is always the first step in holding content to ransom.
Don't forget that the BBC -- and the content it creates -- belongs to every Briton with a TV licence {which is most of us}.
The UK government could just as easily mandate that all codecs had to be open source {authorising the use of reasonable force in case of vendor non-co-operation}, but that would only work in the UK. For the BBC to work on a GPL'ed codec -- and such an advanced one, too -- makes me feel immensely proud, because it proves that I live in a country which recognises that some things are just more important than money.