At 18 million months per CD, I am not surprised that they needed to shut it down.
But then, I don't expect much in ways of actual submission quality by someone spamming slashdot with his personal blog so he can make money: http://slashdot.org/~coondoggie/submissions
Back when I still had enough time to play games, I used to play FPS on hardest mode, tried to use as little ammo as possible and re-started from the latest save game when I lost a single health point. That one time in Half Life where you walk along a pipe which crumbles and you fall onto a table cost me a week to master.
That poison gas in Doom 3 had me running around for ages, trying to find a hazmat suit before I resorted to running through it as fast as possible.
Weird? Yes. Rewarding as a hobby for me personally? Also yes.
> Or, people can just use the hardware and software they already paid for which supports H.264.
How long will it take for hardware vendors to include a Free codec when they see market demand for it? Other than the natural life-cycle it takes to introduce new silicon. And yes, I am aware that those vendors might need to shell out for the VHDL/similar. But that's still less than with H.264.
> The maximum bite for an encoder/decoder is 20 cents a unit. > MPEG LA is geared for licensing production and distribution of H.264 video on a commercial scale. They don't give a damn about your wedding videos until you become a national franchise.
So? It's still not a Free codec which makes it impossible/highly undesirable to support. The fact that you are too small to bother them today does not mean that they can't/won't change the rules tomorrow. How hard can it possibly be to grasp this concept?
It's customary to mark titles specifically, but at least you were kind enough to qualify your own statements.
Mozilla would not solve anything, it would just shift the problem. And what if the underlying OS does not have any way to decode H.264 for exactly the reasons GP pointed out?
So yes, "horse shit" is the correct description for your statement.
> Then there's the part where the HTML5 spec forbids allowing JavaScript to fullscreen the video.
Which is a Good Thing (tm). I for one don't want a "video" emulating my browser and grabbing passwords and the like. Sure, I would figure it out sooner or later. You might, as well. Will your mom?
Thankfully, _some_ people care more about security than about bling.
This might be futuristic talk as of right now, but I can see a scenario where automagic interactive full screen video can be abused to show you a fully functional browser window. Especially nasty with a Chrome notebook or the rumored MacBook (light).
We have a custom-patched ssh daemon on the really important systems that will log, and play back, _everything_ that is done over them. Those logs are, in turn, kept in a safe place.
And yet I agree: you can not guard against any and all threats. And you have to trust _someone_. For example, I have full access to all of those logs. Yes, that includes deleting them.
I need Vim. And with it, I can still do pretty much everything, like spawn a shell. Your Vim is patched to not allow that? Then who installed that version of Vim? Can run a different executable? Like my custom Vim?
Long story short, in a reasonably complex system (complex enough to do actual work) it's next to impossible to guard against a root user who wants to do damage, just any kind of damage. And reinstalling from backups does not count as I will still have done some damage.
It boils down to: "I can access the email of anyone in my company. I can access the email of 99% of our customers as we are an ISP. But why would I?" Work and personal ethics. Find people you can trust and work with them.
While I can drive a car without anything in ways of extra security, ABS and ESC are pretty damn awesome.
> Radar assisted cruise control helps avoid driver frustration because their speed doesn't match the speed of the car ahead of them.
Not being able to adapt your speed to the car in front of you for prolonged periods of time arguably makes you unfit as a driver in the first place.
> Blind spot systems that watch the corners of your vehicle you can't see out the windows and in the mirrors.
Barring trucks, I can not imagine any circumstances under which this is not laughable. Unless a child or dog is sneaking up on you. And trucks are required, by law, to have extra convex mirrors that show the ground, at least in Germany.
> Backup cameras to avoid running over your children in the driveway.
Driving carefully does the same.
> Collision avoidance warning indicators flash a simple red light bar and sound a tone to startle the driver in the event of an impending collision.
Arguably a good thing, but if you are that inattentive, that makes you unfit as a driver in the first place.
> Head up displays help to keep eyes on the road.
Good thing.
> Traction control helps avoids spinouts. Stability control helps avoid rollovers. Antilock brakes help stop shorter and quicker. Pre-charged brakes help stop suddenly if the driver isn't assertive enough when attempting to avoid a collision.
Aye.
> Voice control to operate the technology without removing your hands from the wheel or eyes from the road.
My steering wheel has buttons for that. Still, makes sense for some people, I guess.
Long story short, things that increase safety at the cost of making people pay less attention are Not A Good Thing, imo.
Disturbing? They are using the tools that are available to them. And, presumably, they do not have the same weird concept of hidden and bad sexuality as humans.
How are profits relevant when we are talking about the lack of lock-in on Android devices? Fanboy much?
And yes, Android as shipped today is far from truly open in several regards. Still, it's a lot better than iOS. Here's to hoping Meego will heat up the battle even more.
I have been to.au. Your "beer" is the same horse piss as the USA's, Canada's, Asia's, and yes, Belgium's[1] and anything other large[2] brewery that is farther than 100 km from Munich. Other than that, your country is pretty nice. But claiming that your beer is anything other than flavoured, bitter water is a joke.
[1] Oh no, he didn't! Yes he did. [2] There are nice micro-breweries in many places. I still fondly remember a honey-wheat-beer from British Columbia.
> That seems pretty silly. At some point the effort of maintaining all those drivers themselves will be greater than the effort of maintaining a stable ABI.
If we reach that point, people might reconsider. That is _very_ far in the future, though.
And you are conveniently forgetting that maintaining a stable ABI would be a _lot_ more effort than the odd update, or throwing out, of legacy stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
At 18 million months per CD, I am not surprised that they needed to shut it down.
But then, I don't expect much in ways of actual submission quality by someone spamming slashdot with his personal blog so he can make money: http://slashdot.org/~coondoggie/submissions
They can whistle, though.
Back when I still had enough time to play games, I used to play FPS on hardest mode, tried to use as little ammo as possible and re-started from the latest save game when I lost a single health point. That one time in Half Life where you walk along a pipe which crumbles and you fall onto a table cost me a week to master.
That poison gas in Doom 3 had me running around for ages, trying to find a hazmat suit before I resorted to running through it as fast as possible.
Weird? Yes. Rewarding as a hobby for me personally? Also yes.
> Or, people can just use the hardware and software they already paid for which supports H.264.
How long will it take for hardware vendors to include a Free codec when they see market demand for it? Other than the natural life-cycle it takes to introduce new silicon. And yes, I am aware that those vendors might need to shell out for the VHDL/similar. But that's still less than with H.264.
> The maximum bite for an encoder/decoder is 20 cents a unit.
> MPEG LA is geared for licensing production and distribution of H.264 video on a commercial scale. They don't give a damn about your wedding videos until you become a national franchise.
So? It's still not a Free codec which makes it impossible/highly undesirable to support.
The fact that you are too small to bother them today does not mean that they can't/won't change the rules tomorrow. How hard can it possibly be to grasp this concept?
> Horse shit.
It's customary to mark titles specifically, but at least you were kind enough to qualify your own statements.
Mozilla would not solve anything, it would just shift the problem. And what if the underlying OS does not have any way to decode H.264 for exactly the reasons GP pointed out?
So yes, "horse shit" is the correct description for your statement.
> Then there's the part where the HTML5 spec forbids allowing JavaScript to fullscreen the video.
Which is a Good Thing (tm). I for one don't want a "video" emulating my browser and grabbing passwords and the like. Sure, I would figure it out sooner or later. You might, as well. Will your mom?
Thankfully, _some_ people care more about security than about bling.
> if judgements are consistent
I know you were joking, but you still made me laugh.
This might be futuristic talk as of right now, but I can see a scenario where automagic interactive full screen video can be abused to show you a fully functional browser window. Especially nasty with a Chrome notebook or the rumored MacBook (light).
As of today, copyright is, in effect, a perpetual property right. We can debate that this is wrong (and it is), but that does not change the facts.
sudo vim
Then have at it. Seems you missed something in your defense setup.
We have a custom-patched ssh daemon on the really important systems that will log, and play back, _everything_ that is done over them. Those logs are, in turn, kept in a safe place.
And yet I agree: you can not guard against any and all threats. And you have to trust _someone_. For example, I have full access to all of those logs. Yes, that includes deleting them.
But to quote myself: "Why would I?"
sudo vim
I need Vim. And with it, I can still do pretty much everything, like spawn a shell. Your Vim is patched to not allow that? Then who installed that version of Vim? Can run a different executable? Like my custom Vim?
Long story short, in a reasonably complex system (complex enough to do actual work) it's next to impossible to guard against a root user who wants to do damage, just any kind of damage. And reinstalling from backups does not count as I will still have done some damage.
It boils down to: "I can access the email of anyone in my company. I can access the email of 99% of our customers as we are an ISP. But why would I?" Work and personal ethics. Find people you can trust and work with them.
How can it not be obvious that GP was being sarcastic?
Along with your independence, you seem to have given up any and all capability of detecting sarcasm that's so thick, it drips of.
While I can drive a car without anything in ways of extra security, ABS and ESC are pretty damn awesome.
> Radar assisted cruise control helps avoid driver frustration because their speed doesn't match the speed of the car ahead of them.
Not being able to adapt your speed to the car in front of you for prolonged periods of time arguably makes you unfit as a driver in the first place.
> Blind spot systems that watch the corners of your vehicle you can't see out the windows and in the mirrors.
Barring trucks, I can not imagine any circumstances under which this is not laughable. Unless a child or dog is sneaking up on you. And trucks are required, by law, to have extra convex mirrors that show the ground, at least in Germany.
> Backup cameras to avoid running over your children in the driveway.
Driving carefully does the same.
> Collision avoidance warning indicators flash a simple red light bar and sound a tone to startle the driver in the event of an impending collision.
Arguably a good thing, but if you are that inattentive, that makes you unfit as a driver in the first place.
> Head up displays help to keep eyes on the road.
Good thing.
> Traction control helps avoids spinouts. Stability control helps avoid rollovers. Antilock brakes help stop shorter and quicker. Pre-charged brakes help stop suddenly if the driver isn't assertive enough when attempting to avoid a collision.
Aye.
> Voice control to operate the technology without removing your hands from the wheel or eyes from the road.
My steering wheel has buttons for that. Still, makes sense for some people, I guess.
Long story short, things that increase safety at the cost of making people pay less attention are Not A Good Thing, imo.
Disturbing? They are using the tools that are available to them. And, presumably, they do not have the same weird concept of hidden and bad sexuality as humans.
I don't think he has much in ways of standards, or ethics.
No, one platform outsold another. It's not the world's fault that Apple decided not to sell their OS to other manufacturers.
How are profits relevant when we are talking about the lack of lock-in on Android devices? Fanboy much?
And yes, Android as shipped today is far from truly open in several regards. Still, it's a lot better than iOS. Here's to hoping Meego will heat up the battle even more.
> 'drinking light beer'
> prosecutable here.
I have been to .au. Your "beer" is the same horse piss as the USA's, Canada's, Asia's, and yes, Belgium's[1] and anything other large[2] brewery that is farther than 100 km from Munich. Other than that, your country is pretty nice. But claiming that your beer is anything other than flavoured, bitter water is a joke.
[1] Oh no, he didn't! Yes he did.
[2] There are nice micro-breweries in many places. I still fondly remember a honey-wheat-beer from British Columbia.
Modding _and_ posting? A miracle!
I don't do web. I know how to use href and that's all I aspire to do.
Still, age-old standards and conventions never stopped anyone from doing something stupid.
> That seems pretty silly. At some point the effort of maintaining all those drivers themselves will be greater than the effort of maintaining a stable ABI.
If we reach that point, people might reconsider. That is _very_ far in the future, though.
And you are conveniently forgetting that maintaining a stable ABI would be a _lot_ more effort than the odd update, or throwing out, of legacy stuff.
> What if I make a device that only I have? Will they accept a driver that is only useful for me?
That's the beauty of it: Yes.
But it needs to follow established coding style, play nice with other parts, not duplicate functionality etc pp.