It has to do with the quality of the playback of the system. For example, speakers can be designed for a certain level of sound output. If the input is less than this level, the speaker does not resonate properly causing noise and distortion to be added in, making the output sound poor, and possibly causing permanent damage to the speaker itself.
personal preference is personal preference. There is not standard.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Granted i have not tried alsa yet... But I didn't see any reason too.
Last month I shelled out $30 for the OSS license and driver (20 for the base licencse, 10 for each card...)
I ran their install program, it autodetected both my ISA and PCI soundcards. Quite possibly the most(least?) painless of my linux experiences.
As a DJ, I have found their code to be solid and robust when it comes to running and mixing 4+ audio players for over 6 hours at a time. No problems whatsoever.
I look at it this way. Sound support for *nix is what these guys do for a living, nearly every day, of every week, of every year. They were the ones to release Linux sound support years before alsa was a twinkle in someone's eye.
They might not be open source, but they do support a free version of their Intellectual Property, and also monetarially support opensource projects. There's a lot of talk about how to get funding for beneficial opensource projects, and how to get people working on opensource full time. I did my part by sending these boys a check. Monetarially, there's more invested in the rotting leftovers in my fridge.
Honestly, what's $30 compared to the amount you'll spend on computer parts/upgrades/etc over the next two years? You can't get a good game for that amount of money. I found the cost negligable.
As a developer, their API is simple and cross platform. I wrote my own wrappers for it in under an hour, and haven't had need to change them since. Personally, reading the ALSA api makes my eyes hurt.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Why, plugins of course... Personally I like gqmpeg as well. But xmms plugins allow the ability to add functinality without rewrite the central code base. XMMS has greater inpur format support, and also has greater visualization capabilities. Check out the xmms plugin page for a full list of its capabilities... There are many more than gqmpeg. www.xmms.org
But, hey, if you don't need/want the extra functionality there's no reason to bother. GQmpeg will still take care of you.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
But to learn how to *use* the structures requires deciphering somebody elses code. Multiple Hours of coding vs. an hour of doc reading. "You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
So to sum up what hundereds of poor would be plugin writers have asked in the past...
Where's the docs? How about a plugin tutorial/guide? (in xmms's defense I just checked out winamp's page where it states: "COMING SOON: Plug-in tutorial")
I would bet that there are a number of people out there excited about the contest, but are missing the basic information to give their learning curve a swift kick in the @$$.
There is limited time for this contest when you toss in school and work, and that time is much shorter still if we have to go decipher the xmms code base... The plugin.h file linked from the contest page won't cut it. An architecture doc would be excellent.
For example allow me explain a problem I had the other week. (begin whining...)
Say I want to run multiple xmms sessions that are outputing to a software pcm mixer (esound, dbfsd, whichever you choose), and you want each xmms session to control its own output volume. The math is easy. As the input cojmes into the plugin, adjust the sample amplitude by some percentage. But, due to output buffering etc, the volume change becomes audible after a 3-4 second delay. Ideally the change should be immeadiate. Going through someone elses code to derive the architecture behind what is occuring is painful and time consuming...
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
So DJ'ing with Mp3's is something that I do, and write code to support. I have also spun in the "old school" fashion using a 4+ channel mixer with 2 cd players and 2 technics turntables...
Here are my thoughts on the problem with "professional" dj'ing using mp3's: 1) vinyl does sound better. Really. The crowd doesn't usually notice though.
2) Beat matching: 2a) According to an old TA of mine (who could teach signals and systems to a brick... which I was.) true software beat tracking is rough. It's one of those things which is simplistic in analog, but comparably a pain in the ass to do digitially. 2b) pitch control. professional dj equipment allows you to adjust the speed of the track by +/- 10%. This way you can seamlessly fade directly from one song into another, or overlay a track over a background track. Once the first track is faded out, you are free to readjust the playback speed. To the best of my knowledge, the software to do this requires fast interpolation/decimation code and some really funky polyphase low pass filters. I've done it with Matlab/Mathematica but not in real time. According to my calcualtions it is really memory intensive... (I'm still learning about the math side of all this, so if i'm wrong please enlighten me)
3) User interface. Ever use a mixer? a real one with sliders and a crossfader? It is *so* much easier to use the old reliable sliding controlers instaed of a mouse and keyboard. Your multitasking (pardon the lingo...) is only limited by the dexterity of the 10 digits on your hands. With one hand you can control the volume on 2 or 3 channels, run the crossfader with your thumb, and adjust the equalizer with the other hand. Current "free" mp3 UI's are based around a single input source.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
PC + Linux + xmms + multiple soundcards = DJ's dream. Toss in the scratching software from TerminatorX.
One box (celeron, 256 Ram), with direct output to the amp (SB PCI128), and a second output so you can cue/mix/listen to other tracks (old reliable ISA soundblaster 16).
One of these days I'll release the software I wrote for all this. I'm waiting until I get a rock solid optimized version with all the fixens first.
To bad the movers "lost" the cd collection I recorded all my mp3's from...
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
OK. So. Lemme try to phrase this properly without rehashing 100's of other comment posts...
Truthfully, this legal action affects this community in a much more personnel way than it does the rest of the world. Everyone else already has their DVD players (settop and otherwise), and are happy with them. The ones that are upset are those who want one for Linux, and this segment is definitely the minority of DVD users.
There are hundreds of legally licensed companies who provide DVD equipment/software. As such, there is not a monopoly on the resources needed to use DVD's. The consummer benefits from healthy competition, in lower costs and research into new technology.
Now, a minority is upset because they could not have it Their Way. In the efforts to get What We Want, the dvd security system has been cracked, and the media is now open to pirating. This could negatively effect the DVD system.
Is this not also greed?
If the situation in question *prevented* this minority from receiving the benefits of DVD technology I would agree with you. But it does not.
The horse may be out of the barn, but in this case the law does try to protect the 100's of providers of DVD technology who have invested time and money to produce technology to benefit their customers.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
For example, did it come about during the huge anti-trust time period of the late 1800's and early 1900's? During that time period it might have been used to circumvent the massive amount of corruption and influence the Trusts had created in the government.
Or maybe it was made becuase someone realized that a Trust/Monopoly has the $$ to make the legal process take decades to execute. Which adds additional cost to the consumer (since the monopoly could conceivably continue operating for that time period... correct me if I am wrong) and also the taxpayer as well. Politics aside, remember how pissed everyone was when we found out how much the Starr investigation was costing? (flamers: chill. It's just an example, albeit a weak one. No need to jump into a political disussion...)
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
(2) The person issuing the copies to the public has the same rights against a person who, knowing or having reason to believe that it will be used to make infringing copies- (a) makes, imports, sells or lets for hire, offers or exposes for sale or hire, or advertises for sale or hire, any device or means specifically designed or adapted to circumvent the form of copy-protection employed, or
(b) publishes information intended to enable or assist persons to circumvent that form of copy-protection, as a copyright owner has in respect of an infringement of copyright.
It's not that they did it. It's that they distributed it. Apparently you missed this post.
I apologize fot not making my statements clear enough for you.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Why are people complaining? The whole thing can be summed up like this:
They broke the law. =(
Bad bad hackers!!! Shame on you!!!;)
Clear enough? So stop whining about it and start finding other solutions. Kudos to the posts that have so far offered solutions.
Here's another one: 1) Find a group of knowledgable linux coders. 2) Approach a dvd player company and offer your services to them with the purpose of writing a Linux SoftDVD player. 3) Sign the necessary Non Disclosure Agreements 4) If necessary, distribute binary only versions of the codecs etc. Like what the xanim guy does.
It may not be open source, but at least it gets the process moving. And gives us something to use. Until all DVD players switch over to using the nuon chip for their interfaces.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
So a hundred people have pointed out already that the finding of fact doesn't mean anything, so I'll leave it alone.
First, regardless of your current opinion of Microsoft, you've got to give them props. They may have pushed their little bundling/packaged deals for $profit$, but they did force the computing world to a new plane. How many years after the mac came out, did it take for intel boxes to get a decent user friendly interface? What about the concept of the office suite? OLE? (Hey, i'm talking 'bout mainstream stuff here, things my mom uses. Me? I use Xemacs for like, everything.) A lot of tech has come out of microsoft that people praise everday.
Second, out of conflict comes change. Better yet, out of conflict comes evolution. And because of this, we are living in very exciting times. Microsoft has done a lot to create the current computing industry, and built up a large control in the process. Now is the time when the next phase comes along, where the next batch of little organisms come along and start to grow and evolve as well. Linux is now widely known becuase it is the young scrapper OS. The place where new and exciting things happen daily. Netscape, AOL, ASP's. The growth of application service providers will be very interesting to watch.
Because of the microsoft conflict, there has also been a return to standards based architectures. This is a good thing.
Think of it as a classic fairy tale story. The good king comes into power, build some roads, passes some good laws, but over time he is corrupted. Then along comes the Hero(s) to end his rule and bring back happiness and prosperity to the kingdom. The trick is going to be figuring out who the heros are.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
It should. I really don't know. I don't have the sack to run the snapshots. I do know that the major pint is that you can have a single desktop accross multiple screens. I have seen screenshots from rasterman where Elightenment does this. "You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Sorry. The lyrics have been stuck in my head for days now...
Ok. So. the article is rather inflammatory, and there is some debate on this whole browser war issue. But the points that come out of it are very valid. The key one is this:
I am making a personal committment to get involved with the Mozilla project. It is the project with the most potential to become this Free Web Browser that we so desperately need. Netscape is NOT going to save us this time. Netscape has failed us, and it's time to take matters into our own hands.
To sum up: GET INVOLVED
Somehow, somewhere you have some free time. Use that time to find a project that interests you, and help out. If nothing else do it to make you r life easier in the long run.
And if you do go searching for a project, pick one of some significance. We really do not need *another* gtk ICQ program, or *another* mp3 player. We do need a better netscape. An earllier post talked about developing a competitor to Exchange. We do need better UI's.
What would happen if all the little developers hacking away on exactly the same thing, dropped those and decended in a massive horde of mad programmin' skillz upon the big projects? Mozilla would be done in no time. The desktop argument would fall by the wayside.
Is there a central website of some sort for project posting? Show up, stick your project idea on the board and get interested people? If so, why haven't I heard anything about it? The apps repositories don't count. Sticking a sentence in a slashdot comment doesn't count either. I talkin' a purely administrative site. www.lets-code.org or something.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
In a couple of months XFree 4 will be out with its neato multihead support. Then plunk down 12 G's for three of Apple's Cinerama flatscreens. 22" diagonal at 1600x1024 resolution each. More sceen real estate, at half the cost.
Or get a couple of the regular flatscreens. Then do one of the following with the savings:
- pay off *all* of your student loans - hire a maid service - feed and clothe orphans - eBay eBay eBay. - Pay some guy to wait in line for you for Matrix 2 tickets - Build a school in some third world country - Pay some guy to reload/.'d web sites for you - buy a car - Strippers. Strippers. Strippers.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
So it's just been reveiled that the government can know any aspect of any communication you have. Where'd all the Privacy Phreaks go?
A month ago they were screaming from the rafters about the FBI's desire for network snooping abilities being a viloation of privacy, but from the lack of posts here apparently Echelon (or whatever it is) is OK.
Jeez. Guess its Ok for the NSA to know everything about us, but not the FBI. Good ole NSA. Obviously the rumors about them are unfounded. Just last week I was at the supermarket, and there was a whole bunch of NSA agents helping little old ladies carry their groceries to their cars. Not to mention last month when they worked the food line at a homeless shelter. And don't forget the Smoke Off they had in the NSA parking lot last year.
Or maybe all the privacy phreaks realize that there's nothing they can do about it, and maybe, just maybe, it is actually keeps their little lives all nice and cozy happy. Like a kitten sleeping in a sunbeam.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
I once had an intense argument with a fellow CS dork friend of mine, and the conversation was about this point: UI development is all about *text*. Regardless of how fancy multimedia gets, and how good are computers are at actually speaking to us, when it comes down to straight hard work, text is the way to go.
Remember Snow Crash? What happened when the main character did real work? He brought up a straght 2D environment, did his coding, and then went back to 3d funland. From the screen shots, the tech looks cool, but it just makes everything harder to read.
3D is cool, and I could see some uses to "folding" or "pushing" away apps that you are not using, but when it comes to text, we all want it nice and flat right in front of our eyes.
Do you read books sideways? Why does everyone drool over trinitron flat screen monitors?
So I fail to see how a full 3D window manager actually makes X better for us. I understand the argument that 3Dwm is designed for this Cave thing, but the 3D aspects of the Cave have much to do with the structure of the Cave itself, and how a person interacts with it.
Regardless of how I feel about its uses, 3D UI's definitely need research. Only from total knowledge on a subject can you truly determine what will work, and what will not.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
RISC's still take three instructions to load, alter, and store memory alterations, CISC load and store does it in one instruction
True.
But keep in mind that RISC is designed to ideally execute one instruction per clock cycle. CISC doesn't care. it may take one instruction for the memory op, but it still takes multiple clock cycles for the op to complete.
Otherwise there wouldn't be so much effort put into math tricks to get around division. One instruction. approximately 6-12 (or more) clock cycles to complete depending on your system. (if its faster since I took my computer architecture class, someone gimme a link...) Division is notoriously slow.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Ok, so this seems like a viable option. Some modification is needed, but it is a work in progress.
Wasn't there a question in the Ask Carmack post about appllying quake code to cyberspace uses?
My question is, how does this translate into the security arena? Can the program be modified to detect/track users as well as processes?
Myabe each room defines a user's space. The user is a boss monster of some sort (depends on their user privledges), and all of their processes are soldiers in the room with them. The more privledges, the more access cards you have, and the bigger your avatar.
So, you would be able to track whatever users are on your system, and know if they should be there or not. Pretty much instantly you would know if an intruder is in your system. Becuase suddenly there's another root avatar running around. Much easier than looking through logs and other traces. And you can literally blow the guy away.
And maybe you could use the system to visually playback the actions taken by a user over the course of their login?
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Knowing MTv like I do, they will be rebroadcasting the show 10 or 20 times in the next month. Does anyone know when this will be?
I understand that it's a poor show, but I would like to know what they did wrong so that I can enlighten my mis-educated friends that actaully did see it. Can't really do that, if I don't know what went down...
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Sorry, this got posted by mistake during editing. Ignore this one and read the other "take a number" which was posted by me. "You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2 "It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Slashdot Mirror
It has to do with the quality of the playback of the system. For example, speakers can be designed for a certain level of sound output. If the input is less than this level, the speaker does not resonate properly causing noise and distortion to be added in, making the output sound poor, and possibly causing permanent damage to the speaker itself.
personal preference is personal preference. There is not standard.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Granted i have not tried alsa yet... But I didn't see any reason too.
Last month I shelled out $30 for the OSS license and driver (20 for the base licencse, 10 for each card...)
I ran their install program, it autodetected both my ISA and PCI soundcards. Quite possibly the most(least?) painless of my linux experiences.
As a DJ, I have found their code to be solid and robust when it comes to running and mixing 4+ audio players for over 6 hours at a time. No problems whatsoever.
I look at it this way. Sound support for *nix is what these guys do for a living, nearly every day, of every week, of every year. They were the ones to release Linux sound support years before alsa was a twinkle in someone's eye.
They might not be open source, but they do support a free version of their Intellectual Property, and also monetarially support opensource projects. There's a lot of talk about how to get funding for beneficial opensource projects, and how to get people working on opensource full time. I did my part by sending these boys a check. Monetarially, there's more invested in the rotting leftovers in my fridge.
Honestly, what's $30 compared to the amount you'll spend on computer parts/upgrades/etc over the next two years? You can't get a good game for that amount of money. I found the cost negligable.
As a developer, their API is simple and cross platform. I wrote my own wrappers for it in under an hour, and haven't had need to change them since. Personally, reading the ALSA api makes my eyes hurt.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Why, plugins of course... Personally I like gqmpeg as well. But xmms plugins allow the ability to add functinality without rewrite the central code base. XMMS has greater inpur format support, and also has greater visualization capabilities. Check out the xmms plugin page for a full list of its capabilities... There are many more than gqmpeg. www.xmms.org
But, hey, if you don't need/want the extra functionality there's no reason to bother. GQmpeg will still take care of you.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
defining the structures is all well and good...
But to learn how to *use* the structures requires deciphering somebody elses code. Multiple Hours of coding vs. an hour of doc reading.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
So to sum up what hundereds of poor would be plugin writers have asked in the past...
Where's the docs? How about a plugin tutorial/guide? (in xmms's defense I just checked out winamp's page where it states: "COMING SOON: Plug-in tutorial")
I would bet that there are a number of people out there excited about the contest, but are missing the basic information to give their learning curve a swift kick in the @$$.
There is limited time for this contest when you toss in school and work, and that time is much shorter still if we have to go decipher the xmms code base... The plugin.h file linked from the contest page won't cut it. An architecture doc would be excellent.
For example allow me explain a problem I had the other week. (begin whining...)
Say I want to run multiple xmms sessions that are outputing to a software pcm mixer (esound, dbfsd, whichever you choose), and you want each xmms session to control its own output volume. The math is easy. As the input cojmes into the plugin, adjust the sample amplitude by some percentage. But, due to output buffering etc, the volume change becomes audible after a 3-4 second delay. Ideally the change should be immeadiate. Going through someone elses code to derive the architecture behind what is occuring is painful and time consuming...
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
So DJ'ing with Mp3's is something that I do, and write code to support. I have also spun in the "old school" fashion using a 4+ channel mixer with 2 cd players and 2 technics turntables...
Here are my thoughts on the problem with "professional" dj'ing using mp3's:
1) vinyl does sound better. Really. The crowd doesn't usually notice though.
2) Beat matching:
2a) According to an old TA of mine (who could teach signals and systems to a brick... which I was.) true software beat tracking is rough. It's one of those things which is simplistic in analog, but comparably a pain in the ass to do digitially.
2b) pitch control. professional dj equipment allows you to adjust the speed of the track by +/- 10%. This way you can seamlessly fade directly from one song into another, or overlay a track over a background track. Once the first track is faded out, you are free to readjust the playback speed. To the best of my knowledge, the software to do this requires fast interpolation/decimation code and some really funky polyphase low pass filters. I've done it with Matlab/Mathematica but not in real time. According to my calcualtions it is really memory intensive... (I'm still learning about the math side of all this, so if i'm wrong please enlighten me)
3) User interface. Ever use a mixer? a real one with sliders and a crossfader? It is *so* much easier to use the old reliable sliding controlers instaed of a mouse and keyboard. Your multitasking (pardon the lingo...) is only limited by the dexterity of the 10 digits on your hands. With one hand you can control the volume on 2 or 3 channels, run the crossfader with your thumb, and adjust the equalizer with the other hand. Current "free" mp3 UI's are based around a single input source.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Some of it is closer than you think...
PC + Linux + xmms + multiple soundcards = DJ's dream. Toss in the scratching software from TerminatorX.
One box (celeron, 256 Ram), with direct output to the amp (SB PCI128), and a second output so you can cue/mix/listen to other tracks (old reliable ISA soundblaster 16).
One of these days I'll release the software I wrote for all this. I'm waiting until I get a rock solid optimized version with all the fixens first.
To bad the movers "lost" the cd collection I recorded all my mp3's from...
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
OK. So. Lemme try to phrase this properly without rehashing 100's of other comment posts...
Truthfully, this legal action affects this community in a much more personnel way than it does the rest of the world. Everyone else already has their DVD players (settop and otherwise), and are happy with them. The ones that are upset are those who want one for Linux, and this segment is definitely the minority of DVD users.
There are hundreds of legally licensed companies who provide DVD equipment/software. As such, there is not a monopoly on the resources needed to use DVD's. The consummer benefits from healthy competition, in lower costs and research into new technology.
Now, a minority is upset because they could not have it Their Way. In the efforts to get What We Want, the dvd security system has been cracked, and the media is now open to pirating. This could negatively effect the DVD system.
Is this not also greed?
If the situation in question *prevented* this minority from receiving the benefits of DVD technology I would agree with you. But it does not.
The horse may be out of the barn, but in this case the law does try to protect the 100's of providers of DVD technology who have invested time and money to produce technology to benefit their customers.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
I wonder what the history for this law is?
For example, did it come about during the huge anti-trust time period of the late 1800's and early 1900's? During that time period it might have been used to circumvent the massive amount of corruption and influence the Trusts had created in the government.
Or maybe it was made becuase someone realized that a Trust/Monopoly has the $$ to make the legal process take decades to execute. Which adds additional cost to the consumer (since the monopoly could conceivably continue operating for that time period... correct me if I am wrong) and also the taxpayer as well. Politics aside, remember how pissed everyone was when we found out how much the Starr investigation was costing? (flamers: chill. It's just an example, albeit a weak one. No need to jump into a political disussion...)
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Full description is available here breach of copyright.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
hosted the servers on their own machines
And made the data freely available and therefore not requiring a warrant to collect any proof.
... which are run off the CMU network.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
... and what would your opinion be if it hadn't been poor little Derek, linux hacker, but had instead been microsoft?
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
(2) The person issuing the copies to the public has the same rights against a person who, knowing or having reason to believe that it will be used to make infringing copies-
(a) makes, imports, sells or lets for hire, offers or exposes for sale or hire, or advertises for sale or hire, any device or means specifically designed or adapted to circumvent the form of copy-protection employed, or
(b) publishes information intended to enable or assist persons to circumvent that form of copy-protection, as a copyright owner has in respect of an infringement of copyright.
It's not that they did it. It's that they distributed it. Apparently you missed this post.
I apologize fot not making my statements clear enough for you.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Why are people complaining? The whole thing can be summed up like this:
;)
They broke the law. =(
Bad bad hackers!!! Shame on you!!!
Clear enough? So stop whining about it and start finding other solutions. Kudos to the posts that have so far offered solutions.
Here's another one:
1) Find a group of knowledgable linux coders.
2) Approach a dvd player company and offer your services to them with the purpose of writing a Linux SoftDVD player.
3) Sign the necessary Non Disclosure Agreements
4) If necessary, distribute binary only versions of the codecs etc. Like what the xanim guy does.
It may not be open source, but at least it gets the process moving. And gives us something to use. Until all DVD players switch over to using the nuon chip for their interfaces.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
So a hundred people have pointed out already that the finding of fact doesn't mean anything, so I'll leave it alone.
First, regardless of your current opinion of Microsoft, you've got to give them props. They may have pushed their little bundling/packaged deals for $profit$, but they did force the computing world to a new plane. How many years after the mac came out, did it take for intel boxes to get a decent user friendly interface? What about the concept of the office suite? OLE? (Hey, i'm talking 'bout mainstream stuff here, things my mom uses. Me? I use Xemacs for like, everything.) A lot of tech has come out of microsoft that people praise everday.
Second, out of conflict comes change. Better yet, out of conflict comes evolution. And because of this, we are living in very exciting times. Microsoft has done a lot to create the current computing industry, and built up a large control in the process. Now is the time when the next phase comes along, where the next batch of little organisms come along and start to grow and evolve as well. Linux is now widely known becuase it is the young scrapper OS. The place where new and exciting things happen daily. Netscape, AOL, ASP's. The growth of application service providers will be very interesting to watch.
Because of the microsoft conflict, there has also been a return to standards based architectures. This is a good thing.
Think of it as a classic fairy tale story. The good king comes into power, build some roads, passes some good laws, but over time he is corrupted. Then along comes the Hero(s) to end his rule and bring back happiness and prosperity to the kingdom. The trick is going to be figuring out who the heros are.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
It should. I really don't know. I don't have the sack to run the snapshots. I do know that the major pint is that you can have a single desktop accross multiple screens. I have seen screenshots from rasterman where Elightenment does this.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Sorry. The lyrics have been stuck in my head for days now...
Ok. So. the article is rather inflammatory, and there is some debate on this whole browser war issue. But the points that come out of it are very valid. The key one is this:
I am making a personal committment to get involved with the Mozilla project. It is the project with the most potential to become this Free Web Browser that we so desperately need. Netscape is NOT going to save us this time. Netscape has failed us, and it's time to take matters into our own hands.
To sum up: GET INVOLVED
Somehow, somewhere you have some free time. Use that time to find a project that interests you, and help out. If nothing else do it to make you r life easier in the long run.
And if you do go searching for a project, pick one of some significance. We really do not need *another* gtk ICQ program, or *another* mp3 player. We do need a better netscape. An earllier post talked about developing a competitor to Exchange. We do need better UI's.
What would happen if all the little developers hacking away on exactly the same thing, dropped those and decended in a massive horde of mad programmin' skillz upon the big projects? Mozilla would be done in no time. The desktop argument would fall by the wayside.
Is there a central website of some sort for project posting? Show up, stick your project idea on the board and get interested people? If so, why haven't I heard anything about it? The apps repositories don't count. Sticking a sentence in a slashdot comment doesn't count either. I talkin' a purely administrative site. www.lets-code.org or something.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Honestly.
/.'d web sites for you
In a couple of months XFree 4 will be out with its neato multihead support. Then plunk down 12 G's for three of Apple's Cinerama flatscreens. 22" diagonal at 1600x1024 resolution each. More sceen real estate, at half the cost.
Or get a couple of the regular flatscreens. Then do one of the following with the savings:
- pay off *all* of your student loans
- hire a maid service
- feed and clothe orphans
- eBay eBay eBay.
- Pay some guy to wait in line for you for Matrix 2 tickets
- Build a school in some third world country
- Pay some guy to reload
- buy a car
- Strippers. Strippers. Strippers.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
begin sarcasm...
So it's just been reveiled that the government can know any aspect of any communication you have. Where'd all the Privacy Phreaks go?
A month ago they were screaming from the rafters about the FBI's desire for network snooping abilities being a viloation of privacy, but from the lack of posts here apparently Echelon (or whatever it is) is OK.
Jeez. Guess its Ok for the NSA to know everything about us, but not the FBI. Good ole NSA. Obviously the rumors about them are unfounded. Just last week I was at the supermarket, and there was a whole bunch of NSA agents helping little old ladies carry their groceries to their cars. Not to mention last month when they worked the food line at a homeless shelter. And don't forget the Smoke Off they had in the NSA parking lot last year.
Or maybe all the privacy phreaks realize that there's nothing they can do about it, and maybe, just maybe, it is actually keeps their little lives all nice and cozy happy. Like a kitten sleeping in a sunbeam.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
I once had an intense argument with a fellow CS dork friend of mine, and the conversation was about this point: UI development is all about *text*. Regardless of how fancy multimedia gets, and how good are computers are at actually speaking to us, when it comes down to straight hard work, text is the way to go.
Remember Snow Crash? What happened when the main character did real work? He brought up a straght 2D environment, did his coding, and then went back to 3d funland. From the screen shots, the tech looks cool, but it just makes everything harder to read.
3D is cool, and I could see some uses to "folding" or "pushing" away apps that you are not using, but when it comes to text, we all want it nice and flat right in front of our eyes.
Do you read books sideways? Why does everyone drool over trinitron flat screen monitors?
So I fail to see how a full 3D window manager actually makes X better for us. I understand the argument that 3Dwm is designed for this Cave thing, but the 3D aspects of the Cave have much to do with the structure of the Cave itself, and how a person interacts with it.
Regardless of how I feel about its uses, 3D UI's definitely need research. Only from total knowledge on a subject can you truly determine what will work, and what will not.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
RISC's still take three instructions to load, alter, and store memory alterations, CISC load and store does it in one instruction
True.
But keep in mind that RISC is designed to ideally execute one instruction per clock cycle. CISC doesn't care. it may take one instruction for the memory op, but it still takes multiple clock cycles for the op to complete.
Otherwise there wouldn't be so much effort put into math tricks to get around division. One instruction. approximately 6-12 (or more) clock cycles to complete depending on your system. (if its faster since I took my computer architecture class, someone gimme a link...) Division is notoriously slow.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
yes. automap is dfinitely key.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Ok, so this seems like a viable option. Some modification is needed, but it is a work in progress.
Wasn't there a question in the Ask Carmack post about appllying quake code to cyberspace uses?
My question is, how does this translate into the security arena? Can the program be modified to detect/track users as well as processes?
Myabe each room defines a user's space. The user is a boss monster of some sort (depends on their user privledges), and all of their processes are soldiers in the room with them. The more privledges, the more access cards you have, and the bigger your avatar.
So, you would be able to track whatever users are on your system, and know if they should be there or not. Pretty much instantly you would know if an intruder is in your system. Becuase suddenly there's another root avatar running around. Much easier than looking through logs and other traces. And you can literally blow the guy away.
And maybe you could use the system to visually playback the actions taken by a user over the course of their login?
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Knowing MTv like I do, they will be rebroadcasting the show 10 or 20 times in the next month. Does anyone know when this will be?
I understand that it's a poor show, but I would like to know what they did wrong so that I can enlighten my mis-educated friends that actaully did see it. Can't really do that, if I don't know what went down...
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Sorry, this got posted by mistake during editing.
Ignore this one and read the other "take a number" which was posted by me.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein