DivX is based on Microsoft's implementation. From what I've heard in my research, Microsoft's implementation is flawed. They had the cash to be on the MPEG board and so they took a preliminary version of the standard and began development on it. Since then, MPEG 4 has changed, but Microsoft's version didn't follow the changes. Call me crazy, but I don't have a hard time believing this... It's a good implementation, don't get me wrong, but I would rather stick with the real thing.
But I don't think the solution is to constantly cry out for privacy. The solution is to work towards a place where none of this stuff goes on. It seems that if people put as much effort into combatting the system of cookie cutter ideals as they put into grasping privacy, much good could come from it. Crying out for privacy is like patching holes in the dam with duct tape. It is a constant fight that will never be won. Stopping those who repress others based on things like religion and sexual preferances is fixing the dam, and is actually a positive step. Complaining about privacy is only moving sideways.
I know most everyone in the computer world are big privacy buffs, but I just don't see the point. This is a discussion I have with my father all the time, and he just doesn't see it either. I think the world would be a better place if people weren't as uptight about privacy.
I remember an article posted to Slashdot something like two years ago. It was a commentary on the future of privacy and painted a really good picture of a world where cameras were just a part of daily life. It provided people with a way to look after each other and after each others' properties. Imagine how low the crime rate would be if there was most likely an active camera in every house.
On the more abstract side, privacy concerns block the flow of data. This is fundamentally contrary to the geek mindset, and I have never understood why so many geeks believe in it. Consider if someone did have records of your every move. You could never be falsely accused of a crime, you could be found easily in case of emergency, and the statistical information could be very good for society. Remember how the vaccine for small pox was discovered by noticing that milk maids previously infected with cow pox never contracted the disease? With huge databases of statistical data, I have to wonder how many other cures could be discovered like that. But the collection of much of this information would run against the privacy concerns of many of you.
On another angle, it is coming. Survaleance technology will soon be to the point where the cameras and microphones are completely undetectable, at which point no law can really help anything. So we have a choice, either we embrace it and have access to the vast amount of data, or we kick and scream and only the Orwellian police type people will. As long as the people have access to the data, we can even monitor the police. By kicking and screaming about it all, we actually increase the chances of the future that people say they're trying to protect.
Finally is the arguement that I have been avoiding: if you're not doing anything wrong, what do you have to fear? I say let them (websites, police, men in black, my neighbor) monitor me all they want. I'm not doing anything wrong. If that's how they'd get their kicks, let them go for it. If they want to put forth the effort to watch me going about a normal life, let them. It doesn't cost me anything.
I think complaining about privacy is the wrong way to go. Instead, complain about how the data is used. Pass laws making it illegal to modify data without making it clear that the data was modified (Times Square on New Year's Eve). Make sure all of the data is public so that no entity can horde it and use it for nefarious purposes. Knowledge is power, and that power needs to be in the hands of the people, not any secret police. Laws would have a much greater success rate when dealing with how the data is used, not how it is collected. It's just too tough to police every organization and person who *might* have a camera, while it is comparitively easy to monitor how the data is used. As soon as someone gets hurt, they can sue, and a harsh penalty will warn organizations against such practice in the future.
Don't get me wrong, I don't advocate forcing a webcam in every home. But I do wish people would stop raising such a fuss about every little thing that they see as an invasion of privacy. It seems to represent an inconsistancy in the mindsets of many geeks, and is swimming against a strong current instead of being carried to a place downstream that's better anyway.
Like a food buff swimming up the Mississippi River doing his best to get away from New Orleans (food capitol of the world, for those of you who don't know).
But anyway, I've found mtv to be a very good player. Install mtv and it comes with another program called mtvp that doesn't have the timeout (or the gui) of mtv.
Complex plots and nifty gadgets have always been the hallmarks of Mission Impossible. Unfortunately, this movie had neither.
This movie seems to have simply stolen the title Mission Impossible and the theme song to apply to a movie that was in no way related to the feeling of the origional show. They didn't even bother with characterizations of the team members.
I was extremely disappointed with this movie. It was explosions without content.
Actually, college tuition costs have increased all over the US. I know I for one have had to really pull in the reigns of my spending over the years to deal with this, and buying fewer CDs is just one simple solution.
I mean, cut back on the CDs or cut back on food..... hmmmm....
Not so sure... Alternate DNS registries have been around forever encouraging users to add lines to their lookup tables. Some even made nice user friendly GUIs to help the user do it.
Perhaps it will finally catch on someday. I for one don't like the idea of having a single centralized naming system. I would rather have a whole bunch of systems. Points of failure and too much control to too few and all that.
This is going to sound really cliched:) so be warned.
The Internet is about transfering power to the people. You can put up any content you want and pull any you want. There is no central authority. Except for DNS, that is.
We are so attached to DNS that if for some reason the entire name server system (in cluding all caches and all) went down for an hour, the Internet would be considered effectively dead to the vast majority of users. Thus, the standard DNS is a single point of failure and a single point of control, otherwise lawsuits over who's registered where wouldn't matter at all.
Frankly, I don't like this situation at all. I think administrators at individual ISPs (as well as end users themselves) should have the power to pick and choose which name servers they'll get their lookups from, and so they can pick and choose alternate sets of domains. Granted this has potential to bring forth a bit of chaos, but that can be solved by selectively picking servers from which to get resolutions, right?
I've always applauded efforts such as Alternic's to form an alternate DNS and cheered others who have tried to educate people about the advantages of having multiple systems for allowing new TLDs and such.
But oh well, it will probaly never get off the groud. I just hope judges won't prosecute people who start their own name systems under the charges of subverting the Internet when they are really saving it.
I think alternate DNS installations are something that the Internet really needs more of. I don't like to see so much power on the net being with one system like it is now.
There was never anything saying that there had to be just one system, and I for one would like to see alternate systems. It would create more redundancy, and probably would make it too difficult to bring stupid lawsuits against people who "have your trademarked domain" like the whole toys.com deal a while back. Making multiple systems would increase choice and impartial organizations for end users.
And no, multiple registration authorities will not be the same. It's just not seperate enough. Everyone is still limited by the same TLDs and the same general system.
Publish now! Ignore all of these whiny hypocrites; a huge disservice is being done by sitting on this book.
I don't understand why everyone is raising a fuss, and meanwhile a book is being held up by all of this squabbling. They are inside their legal and moral rights, so let's not let politics hold back progress. That is not the geek way. We're supposed to be better than that.
This is exactly the same thing as the space station being held back while the government makes sure noone gets their feelings hurt by being left out. The plans just sit and sit and nothing actually gets done.
Reminds me of the thing with movie standards where the whole industry is touting moving to expensive digital theaters when there is no real improvement, while a new analog format has been created that provides MUCH improvement at relatively no cost.
Digital is one of the biggest buzzwords in the world in both computer circles and pop culture. I wish people would think more rationally about it, because in the end it is probably hurting us all.
The problem is obviously the press. Don't stop the poliece from releaseing information, stop the press from doing crap like this! Don't avoid the problem and at the same time loose all those advantages, fix the problem!
The press has way too much power that they use for its own goals.... fix that! But I want to be able to review every little thing the poliece force did if I so desire. Locking up information is NEVER a good thing.
Why would you want to limit your own functionality? I mean wanting to have the option of downloading only a simple browser is very understandable, but not even wanting to give yourself the option of downloading anything else?
I found this article to be pretty biased in it's language. For instance where they were quoting the pro-DeCSS side they said the arguement is that DMCA "gives copyright holders 'sweeping legal protection' to restrict access to their property" where the arguement really is over weather it is still their property. By saying it this way, it seems to say that the commie Linux users don't want any more private ownership.
Also, check out the links. Link to MPAA website, but no link to an pro-DeCSS website, only a link to tux.org that was thrown in there halfheartedly.
I have to say, though, that the part where they say there are no authorized Linux players was only citing what their interviewee said, so I wouldn't call that a scandal like the Slashdot headline said... it was just unbalanced reporting.
One of WMF's strengths is a flawed implementation of MPEG-4. With it they are able to get pretty good compression to quality ratios, as this was what MPEG-4 was targeted at.
What we need is a Free project that encodes and decodes MPEG-4, but oddly enough there doesn't seem to even be one in the works. That is why we're stuck with this flawed implimentation.
Does anyone know of any OS MPEG-4 projects out there? The MS asf format is usually nothing more than a bad implementatino of MPEG-4, and so it gets terrific compression to quality ratios... but there don't seem to be any true MPEG-4 software available.
MPEG-4 was designed for streaming media, and looks great from what I have seen. We need more of the standards based development to compete with RealPlayer. I wish I could do it myself, but I have other ongoing projects.
Here at Texas A&M we thankfully have a rather unrestriced network. We are *officially* allowed to run servers of any kind on our computers. Most students have their drives shared through SMB, and so the flow of information is excellant. The one problem is that the firewall around ResNet is rather prohibitive. It allows any ports in but only 80 (web) out. Because of this I have to initiate Netmeeting (Openh323) calls and I can't receive audio from them, but that is the only problem I have had. They say they may soon be setting up a proxy to take care of this too.
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing inherently wrong with communism.
Asimov... Whoop! :)
DivX is based on Microsoft's implementation. From what I've heard in my research, Microsoft's implementation is flawed. They had the cash to be on the MPEG board and so they took a preliminary version of the standard and began development on it. Since then, MPEG 4 has changed, but Microsoft's version didn't follow the changes. Call me crazy, but I don't have a hard time believing this... It's a good implementation, don't get me wrong, but I would rather stick with the real thing.
But I don't think the solution is to constantly cry out for privacy. The solution is to work towards a place where none of this stuff goes on.
It seems that if people put as much effort into combatting the system of cookie cutter ideals as they put into grasping privacy, much good could come from it. Crying out for privacy is like patching holes in the dam with duct tape. It is a constant fight that will never be won. Stopping those who repress others based on things like religion and sexual preferances is fixing the dam, and is actually a positive step. Complaining about privacy is only moving sideways.
I know most everyone in the computer world are big privacy buffs, but I just don't see the point. This is a discussion I have with my father all the time, and he just doesn't see it either. I think the world would be a better place if people weren't as uptight about privacy.
I remember an article posted to Slashdot something like two years ago. It was a commentary on the future of privacy and painted a really good picture of a world where cameras were just a part of daily life. It provided people with a way to look after each other and after each others' properties. Imagine how low the crime rate would be if there was most likely an active camera in every house.
On the more abstract side, privacy concerns block the flow of data. This is fundamentally contrary to the geek mindset, and I have never understood why so many geeks believe in it. Consider if someone did have records of your every move. You could never be falsely accused of a crime, you could be found easily in case of emergency, and the statistical information could be very good for society. Remember how the vaccine for small pox was discovered by noticing that milk maids previously infected with cow pox never contracted the disease? With huge databases of statistical data, I have to wonder how many other cures could be discovered like that. But the collection of much of this information would run against the privacy concerns of many of you.
On another angle, it is coming. Survaleance technology will soon be to the point where the cameras and microphones are completely undetectable, at which point no law can really help anything. So we have a choice, either we embrace it and have access to the vast amount of data, or we kick and scream and only the Orwellian police type people will. As long as the people have access to the data, we can even monitor the police. By kicking and screaming about it all, we actually increase the chances of the future that people say they're trying to protect.
Finally is the arguement that I have been avoiding: if you're not doing anything wrong, what do you have to fear? I say let them (websites, police, men in black, my neighbor) monitor me all they want. I'm not doing anything wrong. If that's how they'd get their kicks, let them go for it. If they want to put forth the effort to watch me going about a normal life, let them. It doesn't cost me anything.
I think complaining about privacy is the wrong way to go. Instead, complain about how the data is used. Pass laws making it illegal to modify data without making it clear that the data was modified (Times Square on New Year's Eve). Make sure all of the data is public so that no entity can horde it and use it for nefarious purposes. Knowledge is power, and that power needs to be in the hands of the people, not any secret police. Laws would have a much greater success rate when dealing with how the data is used, not how it is collected. It's just too tough to police every organization and person who *might* have a camera, while it is comparitively easy to monitor how the data is used. As soon as someone gets hurt, they can sue, and a harsh penalty will warn organizations against such practice in the future.
Don't get me wrong, I don't advocate forcing a webcam in every home. But I do wish people would stop raising such a fuss about every little thing that they see as an invasion of privacy. It seems to represent an inconsistancy in the mindsets of many geeks, and is swimming against a strong current instead of being carried to a place downstream that's better anyway.
Like a food buff swimming up the Mississippi River doing his best to get away from New Orleans (food capitol of the world, for those of you who don't know).
Not really a new solution...
But anyway, I've found mtv to be a very good player. Install mtv and it comes with another program called mtvp that doesn't have the timeout (or the gui) of mtv.
Full screen mode is very good and all of that.
~Chris
Complex plots and nifty gadgets have always been the hallmarks of Mission Impossible. Unfortunately, this movie had neither.
This movie seems to have simply stolen the title Mission Impossible and the theme song to apply to a movie that was in no way related to the feeling of the origional show. They didn't even bother with characterizations of the team members.
I was extremely disappointed with this movie. It was explosions without content.
Actually, college tuition costs have increased all over the US. I know I for one have had to really pull in the reigns of my spending over the years to deal with this, and buying fewer CDs is just one simple solution.
I mean, cut back on the CDs or cut back on food..... hmmmm....
~Chris
Not so sure...
Alternate DNS registries have been around forever encouraging users to add lines to their lookup tables. Some even made nice user friendly GUIs to help the user do it.
Perhaps it will finally catch on someday. I for one don't like the idea of having a single centralized naming system. I would rather have a whole bunch of systems. Points of failure and too much control to too few and all that.
But anyway, just my two cents.
This is going to sound really cliched :) so be warned.
The Internet is about transfering power to the people. You can put up any content you want and pull any you want. There is no central authority. Except for DNS, that is.
We are so attached to DNS that if for some reason the entire name server system (in cluding all caches and all) went down for an hour, the Internet would be considered effectively dead to the vast majority of users. Thus, the standard DNS is a single point of failure and a single point of control, otherwise lawsuits over who's registered where wouldn't matter at all.
Frankly, I don't like this situation at all. I think administrators at individual ISPs (as well as end users themselves) should have the power to pick and choose which name servers they'll get their lookups from, and so they can pick and choose alternate sets of domains. Granted this has potential to bring forth a bit of chaos, but that can be solved by selectively picking servers from which to get resolutions, right?
I've always applauded efforts such as Alternic's to form an alternate DNS and cheered others who have tried to educate people about the advantages of having multiple systems for allowing new TLDs and such.
But oh well, it will probaly never get off the groud. I just hope judges won't prosecute people who start their own name systems under the charges of subverting the Internet when they are really saving it.
~Chris Carlin
I think alternate DNS installations are something that the Internet really needs more of. I don't like to see so much power on the net being with one system like it is now.
There was never anything saying that there had to be just one system, and I for one would like to see alternate systems. It would create more redundancy, and probably would make it too difficult to bring stupid lawsuits against people who "have your trademarked domain" like the whole toys.com deal a while back. Making multiple systems would increase choice and impartial organizations for end users.
And no, multiple registration authorities will not be the same. It's just not seperate enough. Everyone is still limited by the same TLDs and the same general system.
Just my two cents.
I doubt consumers will see any benefit to this, though. They will only have the warm glow in their hearts from knowing that the theater is digital :)
Ignore all of these whiny hypocrites; a huge disservice is being done by sitting on this book.
I don't understand why everyone is raising a fuss, and meanwhile a book is being held up by all of this squabbling. They are inside their legal and moral rights, so let's not let politics hold back progress. That is not the geek way. We're supposed to be better than that.
This is exactly the same thing as the space station being held back while the government makes sure noone gets their feelings hurt by being left out. The plans just sit and sit and nothing actually gets done.
Reminds me of the thing with movie standards where the whole industry is touting moving to expensive digital theaters when there is no real improvement, while a new analog format has been created that provides MUCH improvement at relatively no cost.
Digital is one of the biggest buzzwords in the world in both computer circles and pop culture. I wish people would think more rationally about it, because in the end it is probably hurting us all.
I think I saw this on Slashdot a while back.
Can you post a link to the ISO demo? I've been looking for this program for months, and still can't find it on that website.
~Chris Carlin
Agreed completely...
The Hellmouth outcry made me loose a lot of respect for the Slashdot readers as a whole. A sad sad day....
But they did seperate to an extent in features and all.
PC DOS... Made by IBM, right?
Installation worked perfectly for me.
No bugs or snags at all.
~Chris
The problem is obviously the press.
Don't stop the poliece from releaseing information, stop the press from doing crap like this! Don't avoid the problem and at the same time loose all those advantages, fix the problem!
The press has way too much power that they use for its own goals.... fix that! But I want to be able to review every little thing the poliece force did if I so desire. Locking up information is NEVER a good thing.
~Chris
Why would you want to limit your own functionality? I mean wanting to have the option of downloading only a simple browser is very understandable, but not even wanting to give yourself the option of downloading anything else?
That's just silly.
~Chris
Also, check out the links. Link to MPAA website, but no link to an pro-DeCSS website, only a link to tux.org that was thrown in there halfheartedly.
I have to say, though, that the part where they say there are no authorized Linux players was only citing what their interviewee said, so I wouldn't call that a scandal like the Slashdot headline said... it was just unbalanced reporting.
~Chris
One of WMF's strengths is a flawed implementation of MPEG-4. With it they are able to get pretty good compression to quality ratios, as this was what MPEG-4 was targeted at.
What we need is a Free project that encodes and decodes MPEG-4, but oddly enough there doesn't seem to even be one in the works. That is why we're stuck with this flawed implimentation.
Does anyone know of any OS MPEG-4 projects out there? The MS asf format is usually nothing more than a bad implementatino of MPEG-4, and so it gets terrific compression to quality ratios... but there don't seem to be any true MPEG-4 software available.
MPEG-4 was designed for streaming media, and looks great from what I have seen. We need more of the standards based development to compete with RealPlayer. I wish I could do it myself, but I have other ongoing projects.
Here at Texas A&M we thankfully have a rather unrestriced network.
We are *officially* allowed to run servers of any kind on our computers. Most students have their drives shared through SMB, and so the flow of information is excellant.
The one problem is that the firewall around ResNet is rather prohibitive. It allows any ports in but only 80 (web) out. Because of this I have to initiate Netmeeting (Openh323) calls and I can't receive audio from them, but that is the only problem I have had. They say they may soon be setting up a proxy to take care of this too.
So that's how it is here. Gig'em.