Apart from the fact Theora's a terrible codec, comparable to H.261 (which was created 17 years ago in 1990). It's out-classed by its competitors, which are already offer far superior quality.
Maybe he was lulled into thinking Ogg would be a big player in audio formats because of all the positive press Ogg regularly receives, which rarely, if ever, manifests itself in products everyone knows about and can afford? Is that his fault? Nope. He took the plunge into using an improved technology, and the market let him down. Who's at fault is not important, as it doesn't change the fact that his large Ogg library has to stay where it is. Had he chosen, say, MP3, that wouldn't have been an issue. Don't think he's got ulterior motives simply because he did something you wouldn't. Otherwise this discussion is completely bunk, as we can all say that you're a pro-Ogg troll, that we can't believe someone can think like you do.
How are they better? Firewire is faster, and doesn't rely on the CPU to push data back and forth. A Firewire adaptor costs a few bucks and out-performs USB 2 easily. On paper USB 2 is faster than Firewire (480mbit/s vs. 400), but in the real world Firewire blows USB 2 away.
So what should they have formatted it as? FAT32? Linux can read/write NTFS, and OS X can read it. Considering about 90% of desktop users run Windows, which can read/write NTFS, it makes perfect sense for them to pre-format the drive as NTFS. They're not pushing Windows as the only OS, they're just trying to help 90% of their customers. They shouldn't bow before the 10% of users and release a FAT32 drive which *everyone* has to reformat, either to their preferred Linux/OS X/Windows filesystem (which, on all platforms, won't be FAT32). I'm not having a go here, I just don't see the problem with making it easier for the vast, vast majority of their customers to use their product.
This flaw has nothing to do with the webserver or the language the pages are written in, but by an idiotic developer. And believe me, there are idiotic developers in every camp.
Actually, the difference between those server packages is the support you get with it. It might not be actual phone support, but developmental support (hotfixes, improvements, etc.) which is happening all the time. Looking at a server OS, in this day and age, as just a CD with 0s and 1s on it is a bit short-sighted. There is a whole host of work going on behind the scenes to get you updates for your software, and that's what you pay for. The cheaper versions exist to save people having to fund the support of software they have no intention of using.
Well, that's not technically true. If the only people using dodgy copies of Windows were those who've not bought them, then yes - it could (and should) be argued that this is effectively a great disservice to their customers. However, these features are there not for downloaders, but from counterfeiters. These people have sold Windows illegally, and the people who've bought it have no idea. They've paid for support and service, and they're getting neither. This piece of software is primarily there for those people. We don't see a lot of this in more developed countries, but elsewhere it's a massive problem. Agree with it or not, but their motivation is not directed against pirates - they're just included in this because their versions of Windows look awfully similar to those selling illegal copies. It would be like being angry with your bank for them asking you to sign something before they took money from your account. If they didn't, you could be getting screwed, and not even know until it's too late to do anything about it.
Gutsy Gibbon is not an option for some people, due to its lack of some key software (games, 100% MS Office-compatible suite, driver support). That's not saying anything bad about GG, just that it's not a panacea for those wishing to ditch The Beast
OS X is not as stable as you think. Sure, it's BSD underneath, but on top it's still an operating system. It still has drivers that are not 100% fantastic. It still crashes. On some peoples' machines, frequently. You also ignore the cost of the hardware, which is greater than for those wishing to run either GG or Vista.
Vista Ultimate (which is not $700 but about $200, depending on the dealer) offers a lot more than just a waterfall background. I can't believe I have to go into this, but I will anyway. It has a 3D-accelerated desktop, which means it can move a lot of the processing of windows and redrawing into the GPU, which would otherwise just be sat there, doing nothing, thereby increasing performance of your CPU (which also allows the "waterfall background" to not eat lots of resources). It has far more aggressive memory-handling techniques, which load apps into and out of memory at certain times to increase their loading times. It can use the hybrid HDDs, external flash memory for improved performance, etc. It has support for Volume Shadow Copy (think: time machine), either locally or for network shares. It has major improvements with its audio architecture, allowing for per-application sound management, support for arrayed sound devices. It has full tablet features, speech recognition, text synthesis, fantastic handwriting support. There are a bunch of extra features, which you can read about here, if you want
It's really easy. I even called up and got a non-legit copy properly validated. You can do it automatically, or via an operator. I was installing a downloaded English copy of it on a friend's German notebook. It's Vista was in German, and he preferred it in English. I installed Vista, typed in the code on the box, and it told me to call them (as the code is for a re-install of the OEM version, not the off-the-shelf English one). I called, entered the code, and they gave me an activation number. I typed it in, and it was done. The whole experience took me two minutes, and they didn't even have to do it.
How is that desperate? Vista is already beating XP's sales figures at the same point in XP's release. They're just listening to their customers, and you seem to think it's a sign of desperation? Weird.
You!=Everyone else:) You have to remember that every bad story about Vista isn't representing the whole truth - that there are thousands of folks out there who are using Vista on a day-to-day basis, and are not having problems.
We're not. Baghdad is just as messed up as it was before - the Green Zone is being rebuilt, sure, but that's not technically Iraq but a fortified US base in the capital. Construction crews can't operate, because they get targetted. Any progress is quickly destroyed. The only news agency that are purporting progress is Fox.
As for insulting my intelligence, might it occur to you that you don't know everything about Iraq? The only way you could honestly say I don't understand the situation is if you think you honestly know everything about Iraq. I certainly wouldn't think I know everything about Iraq, even if I'd been over there since the beginning of this war, yet you do, and because of that, are seemingly unwilling to enter into a rational, adult debate about it.
I take it you've never been proven wrong about anything?
You should see how many copies had to be sold for a gold or platinum disc. The numbers are constantly decreasing. It seems "idiot baubles" are not just for fans of a certain fruit-based computing company, but record executives as well. The position of the record lable isn't viable at the moment. Of course they can keep devalued platinum discs flying through the post, but the bottom-line of the industry is getting whacked, because of their desire for platinum discs. "If we take these 5 decent tracks from this artist, put 1 of each on 5 albums, fill the rest with crap, we'll sell 5x the records!" is only going to hurt the industry, as soon as the people can either download all the crap for free, or buy only the 5 decent tracks, leaving the rest. Suddenly $100 (5x$20) at best becomes $5, and at worst, $0. Tell your buddy to save up and steal those records before he gets shit-canned, as they might just be paying his rent in a few months time;)
Nice try! The Iraqi army wasn't defeated - they're still fighting, just out of uniform. If you think the war was won a long time ago, why aren't we rebuilding the country yet? Why are our troops being attacked on a daily basis? Iraq wanted peace - they had peace (as uneasy as it was, anyone could go to the shops to buy food without being blown up - a luxury by comparison to today's Iraq). We took it away from them and opened up a pandora's box of a shitstorm which we simply can't close. If that's winning a war, well, I'd hate to think how one could be fucked up.
The best way to fight a war like this, for the global audience, is to value the civilians more than your own soldiers, which will obviously cost far more of "our" lives than "theirs". The opposite way is best for the domestic audience, but does fantastic damage to the cause, the aggressor, and their actions.
To sum up - if a fight is worth fighting, fight like you mean it. Otherwise, don't even bother, as you're just making things worse.
They didn't take control of a full country in less than a month. If that was the case, the rebuilding would have started one month after we went in. What actually happened was the coalition's military strength made the Iraqis think "fuck it - we can't fight them at their own game, so let's do whatever we can just to get them out", and the Iraqi army took off their uniforms so they'd survive for more than 30 minutes, slinked back into their houses, and launched a guerilla war against our troops, who seem hopelessly ill-equipped and untrained to deal with it.
The war failed because diplomacy didn't even start. Minds were made up, plans were drawn up which only focussed on the main, obvious targets ("get saddam off TV", "get some US flags flying over his palaces", "walk about on an aircraft carrier showing off your package", etc.), instead of actually reconstructing the country into something we'd be proud to have ourselves, let alone hand over to a country we really could use as an ally. The plans for after the war were non-existant. One British guy who was working to rebuild the oil and economic infrastructure was handed a copy of a document from the US outlining what would happen after the occupation started, and he found mention of Reichsmarks - it turned out the document was lifted verbatim from the plans for post-WW2 Germany. The only thing that planned was failure. And to that end it was highly successful.
Efficient killing machine == Good when there are bad guys trying to kill you, bad when they're surrounded by the people you're trying to help.
Shooting DU around isn't going to make any friends, especially when the cancer rates soar. As for your last point, I'm not going to argue it directly, just ask you what you'd do if the roles were reversed, and you had an Iraqi tank sat outside your house, and Iraqis were on slashdot.iq talking gung-ho about shooting DU down your street. Would you give them the benefit of the doubt and wait for them to do whatever it is they say they want to do?
Clearly you didn't read the article. There is no evidence for the disturbance of an ice sheet. Slick surface + wind is the only theory so far that isn't contradicted by any evidence present at the scene.
I'd suggest a system of concentric rings makes the most sense, with the rings being faster roads than the spoke roads that travel to the centre. Redundancy is useful, but if it's created in such a fashion to be slower than not having it (which grid systems are, as you say), then it's not going to help out much.
Slashdot Mirror
Dear Dark_Gravity:
:)
Ogg *is* proprietary. It was developed by a single company, not compatible with any existing standard, and is owned by a single company.
Proprietary has nothing what-so-ever to do with being free.
Apart from the fact Theora's a terrible codec, comparable to H.261 (which was created 17 years ago in 1990). It's out-classed by its competitors, which are already offer far superior quality.
It's not as common as you think.
Their first full stop?
Maybe he was lulled into thinking Ogg would be a big player in audio formats because of all the positive press Ogg regularly receives, which rarely, if ever, manifests itself in products everyone knows about and can afford? Is that his fault? Nope. He took the plunge into using an improved technology, and the market let him down. Who's at fault is not important, as it doesn't change the fact that his large Ogg library has to stay where it is. Had he chosen, say, MP3, that wouldn't have been an issue. Don't think he's got ulterior motives simply because he did something you wouldn't. Otherwise this discussion is completely bunk, as we can all say that you're a pro-Ogg troll, that we can't believe someone can think like you do.
How are they better? Firewire is faster, and doesn't rely on the CPU to push data back and forth. A Firewire adaptor costs a few bucks and out-performs USB 2 easily. On paper USB 2 is faster than Firewire (480mbit/s vs. 400), but in the real world Firewire blows USB 2 away.
So what should they have formatted it as? FAT32? Linux can read/write NTFS, and OS X can read it. Considering about 90% of desktop users run Windows, which can read/write NTFS, it makes perfect sense for them to pre-format the drive as NTFS. They're not pushing Windows as the only OS, they're just trying to help 90% of their customers. They shouldn't bow before the 10% of users and release a FAT32 drive which *everyone* has to reformat, either to their preferred Linux/OS X/Windows filesystem (which, on all platforms, won't be FAT32). I'm not having a go here, I just don't see the problem with making it easier for the vast, vast majority of their customers to use their product.
Because it's saying Microsoft is going to go out of business because of Linux. That's usually enough to get on Slashdot :)
This flaw has nothing to do with the webserver or the language the pages are written in, but by an idiotic developer. And believe me, there are idiotic developers in every camp.
Actually, the difference between those server packages is the support you get with it. It might not be actual phone support, but developmental support (hotfixes, improvements, etc.) which is happening all the time. Looking at a server OS, in this day and age, as just a CD with 0s and 1s on it is a bit short-sighted. There is a whole host of work going on behind the scenes to get you updates for your software, and that's what you pay for. The cheaper versions exist to save people having to fund the support of software they have no intention of using.
Well, that's not technically true. If the only people using dodgy copies of Windows were those who've not bought them, then yes - it could (and should) be argued that this is effectively a great disservice to their customers. However, these features are there not for downloaders, but from counterfeiters. These people have sold Windows illegally, and the people who've bought it have no idea. They've paid for support and service, and they're getting neither. This piece of software is primarily there for those people. We don't see a lot of this in more developed countries, but elsewhere it's a massive problem. Agree with it or not, but their motivation is not directed against pirates - they're just included in this because their versions of Windows look awfully similar to those selling illegal copies. It would be like being angry with your bank for them asking you to sign something before they took money from your account. If they didn't, you could be getting screwed, and not even know until it's too late to do anything about it.
Oooh where to begin.
It's really easy. I even called up and got a non-legit copy properly validated. You can do it automatically, or via an operator. I was installing a downloaded English copy of it on a friend's German notebook. It's Vista was in German, and he preferred it in English. I installed Vista, typed in the code on the box, and it told me to call them (as the code is for a re-install of the OEM version, not the off-the-shelf English one). I called, entered the code, and they gave me an activation number. I typed it in, and it was done. The whole experience took me two minutes, and they didn't even have to do it.
How is that desperate? Vista is already beating XP's sales figures at the same point in XP's release. They're just listening to their customers, and you seem to think it's a sign of desperation? Weird.
You!=Everyone else :) You have to remember that every bad story about Vista isn't representing the whole truth - that there are thousands of folks out there who are using Vista on a day-to-day basis, and are not having problems.
"Well, you get what you pay for" - did you mean to write that?
We're not. Baghdad is just as messed up as it was before - the Green Zone is being rebuilt, sure, but that's not technically Iraq but a fortified US base in the capital. Construction crews can't operate, because they get targetted. Any progress is quickly destroyed. The only news agency that are purporting progress is Fox.
As for insulting my intelligence, might it occur to you that you don't know everything about Iraq? The only way you could honestly say I don't understand the situation is if you think you honestly know everything about Iraq. I certainly wouldn't think I know everything about Iraq, even if I'd been over there since the beginning of this war, yet you do, and because of that, are seemingly unwilling to enter into a rational, adult debate about it.
I take it you've never been proven wrong about anything?
You should see how many copies had to be sold for a gold or platinum disc. The numbers are constantly decreasing. It seems "idiot baubles" are not just for fans of a certain fruit-based computing company, but record executives as well. The position of the record lable isn't viable at the moment. Of course they can keep devalued platinum discs flying through the post, but the bottom-line of the industry is getting whacked, because of their desire for platinum discs. "If we take these 5 decent tracks from this artist, put 1 of each on 5 albums, fill the rest with crap, we'll sell 5x the records!" is only going to hurt the industry, as soon as the people can either download all the crap for free, or buy only the 5 decent tracks, leaving the rest. Suddenly $100 (5x$20) at best becomes $5, and at worst, $0. Tell your buddy to save up and steal those records before he gets shit-canned, as they might just be paying his rent in a few months time ;)
That's not going to happen, so it would be far more prudent to come up with a workable solution than something that can never, ever happen.
Nice try! The Iraqi army wasn't defeated - they're still fighting, just out of uniform. If you think the war was won a long time ago, why aren't we rebuilding the country yet? Why are our troops being attacked on a daily basis? Iraq wanted peace - they had peace (as uneasy as it was, anyone could go to the shops to buy food without being blown up - a luxury by comparison to today's Iraq). We took it away from them and opened up a pandora's box of a shitstorm which we simply can't close. If that's winning a war, well, I'd hate to think how one could be fucked up.
The best way to fight a war like this, for the global audience, is to value the civilians more than your own soldiers, which will obviously cost far more of "our" lives than "theirs". The opposite way is best for the domestic audience, but does fantastic damage to the cause, the aggressor, and their actions.
To sum up - if a fight is worth fighting, fight like you mean it. Otherwise, don't even bother, as you're just making things worse.
They didn't take control of a full country in less than a month. If that was the case, the rebuilding would have started one month after we went in. What actually happened was the coalition's military strength made the Iraqis think "fuck it - we can't fight them at their own game, so let's do whatever we can just to get them out", and the Iraqi army took off their uniforms so they'd survive for more than 30 minutes, slinked back into their houses, and launched a guerilla war against our troops, who seem hopelessly ill-equipped and untrained to deal with it.
The war failed because diplomacy didn't even start. Minds were made up, plans were drawn up which only focussed on the main, obvious targets ("get saddam off TV", "get some US flags flying over his palaces", "walk about on an aircraft carrier showing off your package", etc.), instead of actually reconstructing the country into something we'd be proud to have ourselves, let alone hand over to a country we really could use as an ally. The plans for after the war were non-existant. One British guy who was working to rebuild the oil and economic infrastructure was handed a copy of a document from the US outlining what would happen after the occupation started, and he found mention of Reichsmarks - it turned out the document was lifted verbatim from the plans for post-WW2 Germany. The only thing that planned was failure. And to that end it was highly successful.
Efficient killing machine == Good when there are bad guys trying to kill you, bad when they're surrounded by the people you're trying to help.
Shooting DU around isn't going to make any friends, especially when the cancer rates soar. As for your last point, I'm not going to argue it directly, just ask you what you'd do if the roles were reversed, and you had an Iraqi tank sat outside your house, and Iraqis were on slashdot.iq talking gung-ho about shooting DU down your street. Would you give them the benefit of the doubt and wait for them to do whatever it is they say they want to do?
Clearly you didn't read the article. There is no evidence for the disturbance of an ice sheet. Slick surface + wind is the only theory so far that isn't contradicted by any evidence present at the scene.
I'd suggest a system of concentric rings makes the most sense, with the rings being faster roads than the spoke roads that travel to the centre. Redundancy is useful, but if it's created in such a fashion to be slower than not having it (which grid systems are, as you say), then it's not going to help out much.