When we considered them for video output 10 years ago, we decided to use Amiga with some specific video card instead. Much better picture quality for a tenth of the price. The nostalgic route is Amiga...
the ability to quickly change from one foreground full-screen video window to another without any glitching
You need a video switch for that, but they are not terribly expensive. They come with RS-232 or RS-422 interfaces (I can't remember), which makes it easy to switch them from a computer. I actually once wrote a tiny Perl CGI that allowed me to switch it remotely over the web. (It was a Kramer switch, if I remember correctly)
The switching seems to be the easy part to me.
you need a player that can start pretty much instantaneously and without glitch in the middle of a program
Or you can use a Pre-roll-like approach. With the correct player, it must be possible to have it open the file and find your IN timecode in advance, and "wait there" paused until given the Play command. Can VLC do that?
But doing an application that manages it all is not a small task.
- It needs a good interface for the people who will program the shows, and make changes (move everything 5 minutes later, replace this show with this one, after this switch to channel x, allow repeatable events, etc.)
- It needs to be reliable and foolproof (preview of the file to make sure it's the right one, does it have the correct length, what happens if the file has vanished when it's time to play it, etc.)
- You probably still need the ability to also schedule tapes. These need pre-roll, and code to control the player(s) (over RS-422).
It is hard to do that part right, and I doubt there is already Linux or other OSS software for such a specialized task. On the other hand, with a competent team of 2 or 3 people, it can probably be done in a couple of weeks or months, and it can be fun. Just don't underestimate it.
(For the slashdotters who may think it's just about managing a playlist: you don't have a clue!)
Isn't it unfortunate that all these Google Gadgets, Yahoo or Opera Widgets, and whatnot have to be coded in that so-boring javascript?
I wish I could replace the Yahoo widget engine by some new Perl widget engine, which would take care of displaying the stuff in the GUI from simple and elegant Perl code and XML. That would be cool.
(No, TK doesn't count. Nor does wxPerl. It needs to be much simpler)
You must be referring to pictures with Atomium in it Obviously, yes, and the lawyers were convincing enough for him to remove the picture on his site.
But then, it was not a vacation picture on his family blog as I had first thought, but a picture of the Atomium for a site about architecture.
Anyway, these European copyright laws which apply to public buildings are completely insane...
On the other hand, just before clicking on submit, I see that there is also a shop connected to that site. Now this is getting sort of different, and I could understand that the architect of that Lippo Centre on the mug feels that he is entitled to some share on the profits. But still, I'm not convinced he should be granted such rights; how does one stop on that slippery slope before you really cannot publish your vacation photographs on your family blog because someone has some right on something which happens to be in the picture.
I must say, I'm really not unhappy with that. In fact, I would dislike it very much if any of my open source contributions would be used by the military (of any country). I even once considered blocking access to my web site from.mil domains. I didn't because it would be completely silly, and there is no reason to block only.mil and let all the other military through. And after all, "open" is "open", and anyway, I have neither the time nor the moral authority to decide who is "good" and who is "bad".
But nevertheless, if the military would rather not use any of my "open" code, it makes me feel better, even if it is not rational.
I did just that the other day. Wanted a printout of "3x3=9", "3x4=12", etc. (how is that called in English?) for one of the kids. So I showed the other kid how to do it in perl. It allowed me to show the command line ("normal" people don't know what that is anymore!), and a very first step in basic programming: a loop and a print. Then we added more variables, tried giving an argument, and then put the loop into another one, so it printed all tables at once.
The nice thing with perl is that all the syntactic sugar it has makes it really easy for kids.
"foreach $i (1..12) {}" is much more readable for a kid than "for ($i = 0; $i =12; $i++) {}".
And not having to pre-declare stuff is also much better for an introduction, where you want to see only meaningful lines of code to make the logic clear.
The disadvantage is that it has no (easy) GUI. But when the problem is suitable for pure text and shell scripting, Perl is certainly the best introduction because it is so easy and fast to get results.
I thought there was something in the US constitution about "freedom of speech". Is it still possible to ban a book? And a book which happens to be one of the best books by one of the best authors of the 20th century...
What about the beautiful Kubrick film with Peter Sellers?
I don't understand why we still have banding effects.
HD video cameras record at 8 or 10 bit. And that is the bit depth at which color correction equipment works. So it is very easy to fuck up during color correction and get artifacts.
Why is "drink the Kool-Aid" such a popular expression for "leap of faith"? Isn't anybody put off the orgin of the phrase?
I didn't know the connection betwen "Kool-Aid" and that massacre. For me, it always reminds me of the much older "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". Definitely NOT something that would put me off.
I agree with your points, but just for the leasure of nitpicking:
But what if I want to watch a 60fps 1080p movie?
There is no such thing as 60fps progressive in finished movies. It exists in theory, but not in practice. HD movies are shot in 24/25 p or sometimes 50/60 interlaced.
I'm a big fan of TextMaker, which is SoftMaker's word processor. (I don't know the rest of the "suite").
But even though it is a really good word processor, it is hardly "ODF-compliant". In fact, this is my main problem with the program. By default, it stores documents in it's own proprietary format. It can save as MS-Word, which is what I do as a "lesser evil": it's also proprietary, but at least it is so widely used that I can expect to find converters for a long time. There is an.odt importer, but the exporter is still "in the works".
I don't want import/export filters. I want my word processor to use an open document format natively, by default. So I hope they will eventually completely switch to ODF.
Then of course, if the ODF is such a monstruosity as OpenOffice, I can understand why SoftMaker doesn't jump on the bandwagon... (yes, that's flamebait, but I mean it...:-)
An alternative would be to comletely open up the specification to their own format.
Sounds like Cringely may have been right in his last column:
"So IF THEY DO IT THE RIGHT WAY, [...]look for several dozen of his closest and oldest associates to leave the company in the next four to six weeks, and look for Steve Ballmer to leave, too, within a year."
What should one watch out for in IM clients like MSN? My daughter started using that, but I never have.
I warned her about fake links in emails and fake email senders, and showed her how easy it is to send a mail
From: Saddam Hussein <president@whitehouse.gov>
(After which we played a while sending fake emails to her friends, seeming to come from other friends, teachers, etc. so for email, I think she and her friends got the message... Next exercise will be to spoof the school web site)
But having no experience with IM, I don't know against what to warn her, much less how to demonstrate it.
As always with laptops of any brand, the most important thing which also happens to be the one which is different in every model - the keyboard layout - is unknown, and it seems impossible to find a straight picture of it.
What are you suposed to do with a laptop? Well, type on the keyboard, no? So the accessibility and position of cursor keys, Home/End, Page-Up/Down, Backspace/Delete etc. are important. I want to know where they are and make sure there are 8 cursor keys, not 4. Even if the laptop is only $100 or $130.
And does it have an Alt-Gr key, or are you expected to only ever write in English on it?
[...]you'd probably be able to afford fewer toys, but I am pretty sure you would not starve to death.
Even though this woudld seem the only reasonable long-term possibility, I'm afraid we are already too many to achieve decent living for all, even without any toys.
It is well-known that if everyone were to live like Americans and Europeans, we would need around 3 planets.
How much does the standard need to be lowered to fairly feed and provide energy to 6.5 billion people? Is it even still possible?
Slashdot Mirror
SGI?
When we considered them for video output 10 years ago, we decided to use Amiga with some specific video card instead. Much better picture quality for a tenth of the price. The nostalgic route is Amiga...
the ability to quickly change from one foreground full-screen video window to another without any glitching
You need a video switch for that, but they are not terribly expensive. They come with RS-232 or RS-422 interfaces (I can't remember), which makes it easy to switch them from a computer. I actually once wrote a tiny Perl CGI that allowed me to switch it remotely over the web. (It was a Kramer switch, if I remember correctly)
The switching seems to be the easy part to me.
you need a player that can start pretty much instantaneously and without glitch in the middle of a program
Or you can use a Pre-roll-like approach. With the correct player, it must be possible to have it open the file and find your IN timecode in advance, and "wait there" paused until given the Play command. Can VLC do that?
But doing an application that manages it all is not a small task.
- It needs a good interface for the people who will program the shows, and make changes (move everything 5 minutes later, replace this show with this one, after this switch to channel x, allow repeatable events, etc.)
- It needs to be reliable and foolproof (preview of the file to make sure it's the right one, does it have the correct length, what happens if the file has vanished when it's time to play it, etc.)
- You probably still need the ability to also schedule tapes. These need pre-roll, and code to control the player(s) (over RS-422).
It is hard to do that part right, and I doubt there is already Linux or other OSS software for such a specialized task. On the other hand, with a competent team of 2 or 3 people, it can probably be done in a couple of weeks or months, and it can be fun. Just don't underestimate it.
(For the slashdotters who may think it's just about managing a playlist: you don't have a clue!)
Isn't it unfortunate that all these Google Gadgets, Yahoo or Opera Widgets, and whatnot have to be coded in that so-boring javascript?
I wish I could replace the Yahoo widget engine by some new Perl widget engine, which would take care of displaying the stuff in the GUI from simple and elegant Perl code and XML. That would be cool.
(No, TK doesn't count. Nor does wxPerl. It needs to be much simpler)
Exactly what I was about to write. The Pirated Vista will be the ideal system for the kids...
And here is the draft cover of the Perl 6 book
You must be referring to pictures with Atomium in it
Obviously, yes, and the lawyers were convincing enough for him to remove the picture on his site.
But then, it was not a vacation picture on his family blog as I had first thought, but a picture of the Atomium for a site about architecture.
Anyway, these European copyright laws which apply to public buildings are completely insane...
On the other hand, just before clicking on submit, I see that there is also a shop connected to that site. Now this is getting sort of different, and I could understand that the architect of that Lippo Centre on the mug feels that he is entitled to some share on the profits. But still, I'm not convinced he should be granted such rights; how does one stop on that slippery slope before you really cannot publish your vacation photographs on your family blog because someone has some right on something which happens to be in the picture.
I must say, I'm really not unhappy with that. In fact, I would dislike it very much if any of my open source contributions would be used by the military (of any country). I even once considered blocking access to my web site from .mil domains. I didn't because it would be completely silly, and there is no reason to block only .mil and let all the other military through. And after all, "open" is "open", and anyway, I have neither the time nor the moral authority to decide who is "good" and who is "bad".
But nevertheless, if the military would rather not use any of my "open" code, it makes me feel better, even if it is not rational.
I did just that the other day. Wanted a printout of "3x3=9", "3x4=12", etc. (how is that called in English?) for one of the kids. So I showed the other kid how to do it in perl. It allowed me to show the command line ("normal" people don't know what that is anymore!), and a very first step in basic programming: a loop and a print. Then we added more variables, tried giving an argument, and then put the loop into another one, so it printed all tables at once.
The nice thing with perl is that all the syntactic sugar it has makes it really easy for kids.
"foreach $i (1..12) {}" is much more readable for a kid than "for ($i = 0; $i =12; $i++) {}".
And not having to pre-declare stuff is also much better for an introduction, where you want to see only meaningful lines of code to make the logic clear.
The disadvantage is that it has no (easy) GUI. But when the problem is suitable for pure text and shell scripting, Perl is certainly the best introduction because it is so easy and fast to get results.
Has Lolita really been banned? In the US?
I thought there was something in the US constitution about "freedom of speech". Is it still possible to ban a book? And a book which happens to be one of the best books by one of the best authors of the 20th century...
What about the beautiful Kubrick film with Peter Sellers?
on Windows at least, é is alt gr-e
No it isn't. I may be on your keyboard layout (English UK or English US-International?), but not "on Windows" in general.
On most European keyboards, Alt-Gr-E is the Euro sign.
I don't understand why we still have banding effects.
HD video cameras record at 8 or 10 bit. And that is the bit depth at which color correction equipment works. So it is very easy to fuck up during color correction and get artifacts.
Why is "drink the Kool-Aid" such a popular expression for "leap of faith"? Isn't anybody put off the orgin of the phrase?
I didn't know the connection betwen "Kool-Aid" and that massacre. For me, it always reminds me of the much older "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". Definitely NOT something that would put me off.
I agree with your points, but just for the leasure of nitpicking:
But what if I want to watch a 60fps 1080p movie?
There is no such thing as 60fps progressive in finished movies. It exists in theory, but not in practice. HD movies are shot in 24/25 p or sometimes 50/60 interlaced.
Couldn't resist quoting that Mac guy who switched to Linux and now uses Thunderbird instead of Evolution:
A very misleading article and submission.
.odt importer, but the exporter is still "in the works".
I'm a big fan of TextMaker, which is SoftMaker's word processor. (I don't know the rest of the "suite").
But even though it is a really good word processor, it is hardly "ODF-compliant". In fact, this is my main problem with the program. By default, it stores documents in it's own proprietary format. It can save as MS-Word, which is what I do as a "lesser evil": it's also proprietary, but at least it is so widely used that I can expect to find converters for a long time. There is an
I don't want import/export filters. I want my word processor to use an open document format natively, by default. So I hope they will eventually completely switch to ODF.
Then of course, if the ODF is such a monstruosity as OpenOffice, I can understand why SoftMaker doesn't jump on the bandwagon... (yes, that's flamebait, but I mean it...:-)
An alternative would be to comletely open up the specification to their own format.
Oops. You are right of course, and the [] need to be replaced by {}.
And yes, if you use strict, you have to quote the strings, but that is optional (and PHP doesn't have "use strict" anyway).
The point is: you can do the same in Perl, and it's not more difficult.(/. doesn't let me post the output)
WTF perl are you using?
He used Perl on Windows, where you need double quotes around the argument, and OS variables do not start with $.
On linux, it would be:
$ perl -e '$x[a][b][c] = "foo"; print $x[a][b][c];'
foo
(basically the same as in PHP, except that you can omit a few quotes in this case.)
Why does Thunderbird look like a native Windows application?
Because it uses these childish mushy icons?
What should one watch out for in IM clients like MSN? My daughter started using that, but I never have.
I warned her about fake links in emails and fake email senders, and showed her how easy it is to send a mail
From: Saddam Hussein <president@whitehouse.gov>
(After which we played a while sending fake emails to her friends, seeming to come from other friends, teachers, etc. so for email, I think she and her friends got the message... Next exercise will be to spoof the school web site)
But having no experience with IM, I don't know against what to warn her, much less how to demonstrate it.
As always with laptops of any brand, the most important thing which also happens to be the one which is different in every model - the keyboard layout - is unknown, and it seems impossible to find a straight picture of it.
What are you suposed to do with a laptop? Well, type on the keyboard, no? So the accessibility and position of cursor keys, Home/End, Page-Up/Down, Backspace/Delete etc. are important. I want to know where they are and make sure there are 8 cursor keys, not 4. Even if the laptop is only $100 or $130.
And does it have an Alt-Gr key, or are you expected to only ever write in English on it?
[...]you'd probably be able to afford fewer toys, but I am pretty sure you would not starve to death.
Even though this woudld seem the only reasonable long-term possibility, I'm afraid we are already too many to achieve decent living for all, even without any toys.
It is well-known that if everyone were to live like Americans and Europeans, we would need around 3 planets.
How much does the standard need to be lowered to fairly feed and provide energy to 6.5 billion people? Is it even still possible?
I must be new here, because I read the article. What a disappointment.
Gonzo journalism isn't what it used to be anymore, now that HST has left.
You're not alone
Looks like you cannot use their javascript code in Blogger:
:-)
Your HTML cannot be accepted: Tag is not allowed:
I guess the forbidden javascript will also be cut out of this Blogger error message quote.
Talk about censorship...
But in fact, if you click the check box to ignore HTML errors, it posts alright.